I went to Don In Texas's site and he made headers and they gave the car nothing. The torque was .1 and the hp wasn't any better. So can anyone tell me who to trust?
Don-Been on the org for awhile, tested his own pipes, trustworthy
New Zealand Guy-Claims to get 20 hp with his pipes, lives in NZ (The Mecca of modified Maximas), wants to make an easy buck off Dumb Americans.

 

dame you.. hehe, i didnt know.. k~ haha L@@K back and laugh

 

headers do work.. the guy was right that don was boring scraches on the header. I have a gas Remote control car and tried boring it, and barely worked.. when i bought an 80 dollar header kit for the toy car, MAN it hauled A$$. When it was a straight pipe, it was ripping the street to pieces. I might bring the turbo hehe celica to the meet on sunday!! WEst COaSt RULE!!

 

Dons a buisness man now too. BTW, Don "hogged" put the "factory" exhaust manifolds, he did not make true heades.

 

I guessed you missed this post?

"Sorry, I got my Kg to Lbs conversion backwards...

Shipping would be $400 NZD = $160 USD (assuming a 20lb package)

So, to recap:

headers $820 NZD = $328 USD
shipping $400 NZD = $160 USD

Total = $488 USD

Damn, now that's a much better deal..."

 

Are 4th gen manifolds tubular or cast? I know for a fact on my VE they are tubular.....

 

Okay, prove me wrong! One dollar says that the figures are closer to 1 hp than it is to 20.

 

A gentelmans bet, I like it! Lets keep it in perspective though. 1hp is 0.55% of 180hp, they claim 13%. So 6.25% and under you win, 6.26% and over I win. The comparisson must be done on a car with the factory Y pipe, not a high flow "y" pipe car. Deal?

Ps: What are we going to do about Winthorp and Valentine?

 

Yeah, good luck finding somebody who's willing to replace the headers but has no other mods... Y-Pipe is almost always the first thing people do. It took Don 15 hours to replace the headers, you think somebody driving a stocker will put in that much time to solve your bet?

 

I'm definitely down for headers. Do they fit an aftermarket y-pipe though? Such as the Cattman, or Stillen? I do have an aftermarket y-pipe, full exhaust, etc. Headers would be the final piece to my exhaust system...muhhahahah

 

If they were designed right, and what the guy said is true, they should fit the stock Y, which logically would mean they'll fit an aftermarket one too.

 

I got a nice electric with direct drive and a 9 turn motor for those gas rides. I want gas tho.

 

Ok, some people seem to be on the wrong track. This is not "some guy" trying to get a new product out to the latest round of suckers. This place is an established performance company in NZ. They's been making and selling these for a while. I do hope they can get us some dyno plots though.

Also, as far as fittment. They will certainly fit in the car, as I said, these are not new untested parts. The question has to do with regional equipment. I am almost certain the the OEM Y-pipe on an NZ car is different than a US car. They probably dont have all the pre-cats and stuff. But, the manifolds are probably the same. So if these headers are a direct replacement for the manifolds, then they should fit our OEM or aftermarket Y-pipes. However, if these are a long tube design, they might replace all or part of the OEM Y-pipe, we'll have to wait for some pics.

Also, as some have mentioned, this is not the same thing that Don did. There is a big difference between boring out the OEM manifolds and developing a set of tubular headers.

So, I'll keep in touch with this guy via Email and see what kind of further info we can get. I would discourage everyone from writing him though. IF you guys dont have a problem with it, I can just be the one contact and keep all the info I get posted here for the rest of you. I'm not trying to be selfish, but I just want to keep the confusion level to a minimum and avoid the "well, what he told me was..." type of posts.

 

Ok, I just sent him some more Email asking the main questions that we have...

 

Well, in case you're interested, I have no mods yet, though I am interested in them, and I would be willing to try this out, even though it involves a great deal of anguish.
I have questions about a few things though. For instance, are the pipes a 3 into 1 design, equal length, or a tri-y? Are they anti inversion? What are they made of (mild steel, stainless, and what gauge?) What diameter are they? What about flanges and the thickness....will it be enough to handle a blown engine, etc. Well, just a few things running around in my mind that are very important when weighing the benefits and costs, and they would also, at least theoretically, help answer some of our questions about the gains which could be had from such an undertaking.

If you have any more questions about my Max, just let me know.

Lee DeVine

 

Stay tuned! Mzmtg is getting the info.

 

For that price itd be worth it to try them out .. (im not NA) and sell on egay if no boost .. you can sell anything on egay, its just a matter of trying..

we'll see i guess. As long as it fits

 

Do they have anything for VE 3rd gens. How differant is the headers on a VE 3rd gen then 4th. There has to be some simalirity or chilton and Haynes manuals would not have included 92-99 in the same manual.

 

This is very interesting, if this was a few months back I whould have all ready ordered them, lol. No more mods for my max though .

The thing that comes to my mind is do we have any NZ members here? We have got to have a member near by this place who can check the parts out and maybe even dyno them for us North Americans. Someone should make a post asking for the attention of NZ members.

 

Alright, got some more ifo from Prestige in NZ.

Ben
Thankyou for your interest in our Maxima performance range and in particular our extractors / headers.

I have attacheed our brochure with some photo's for you to look at. I do not have any dyno figures loaded on our computer, but our gains on the dyno with our extractors were 13% increase. Our extractors do have provisions built in for EGR and front & rear O2 sensors. They take about
6-7 hours to fit. The kit complete with both extractor banks and the connecting "Y" pipe (see photos) sell for $1150.00 NZ. Freight etc is your resonsiblity or we can organise at an additional charge. I think that you will agree that it is a good looking & well made system.

If I can help further then please contact me.

Regards

PETER VAN BREUGEL


Prestige Automotive Services
565 Great South Rd
Manukau City
Auckland
New Zealand

Phone: +64 9 277 9700
Facsimile: +64 9 277 6010
Website: www.prestigeautomotive.co.nz
Email: info@prestigeautomotive.co.nz




The file he attatched is called A32 EXTRACTOR COMPLIATION.mix

I have no idea how to open a *.mix file. So as soon as someone can help me open it, I'll post it.

 

YA he sent me the same .mix file and also a .pub file. But it was made with a different version so i can't open it!! 1150.00NZ for headers and Y, what's that in US???

 

Isn't that a MAC file?

 

To convert NZD to USD divide by 2.5.


$1150 NZD / 2.5 = $460 USD


As for the pic, I can see a tiny preview of it in windows explorer, but that's all.

 

Using the same ratio as Mardigrasmax, 1150.00NZ comes out to 460.00US. According to Mardigras' previous post, the exchange rate looks to be 2.5. Just divide the NZ number by 2.5 and you will get the US equivalent.

 

Am I reading this wrong, or does it sound like their "system" includes the y-pipe. If that is the case, wouldn't the Y alone almost account for the hp increase?

 

Well 13% of 160HP@Wheels is 20.8. You get ~10hp@wheels from a common Y-pipe or 6.25%. I'm willing to buy after I see the picture, any one wana go in for a test fit set like I discribed in my earlier post? My deadline to get them is Friday 8/2 because thats the weekend I do the motor swap. UPS will only ship it 2 day international freight. So Id like to order No later than Thursday 7/26.

Plus I dunnu what kinda customs problems we'll have? Has any one here imported parts before, did you have any customs problems?

 

AHA!

 

Can you attach the file and we down load it and try to open it?

 

Please post both the MIX and the PUB files, I'm sure I've got something that will open atleast one of them.

 

I hope there isn't miscommunication between parties concerning these "headers". I have a slight hunch that this guys headers is just a Y-pipe. I also think headers won't do much for the VQ. Most of the restriction lies in the precats. As Don proved, the stock manifolds work quite well. I know that true headers will increase power over manifolds, but I'd say the gain above the Y-pipe will be about 4-5fwhp if you are lucky. The SVT Contour guys have both headers and Y-pipes. The headers themselves are worth about 4fwhp, but when teamed with the y-pipe, the power goes up to 12fwhp. With just the y-pipe, the power goes up 7fwhp.

Another thing to consider is the labor of putting the headers on. How many of you guys are comfortable with pulling your intake manifold off? That's what it takes to get the rear manifold off. If you get an exhaust leak between the head and manifold (most do on first install), you'll have to pull everything off again. Every set of headers I've helped install requires you to retorque the bolts after a few hundred miles. How do you go about doing this on the VQ without pulling the intake manifold?


Dave

 

I uploaded the *.mix file. You can see the little windows preview. This is definitely headers and not just a y-pipe. As soon as someone can get this open and converted...please post it.

 

The file doesn't work.

 

Sorry, you have to copy and paste the link.

 

To view the file you will need MS Photodraw Version 2... Which has been discontinued...

.mix is the native file format for this program...


If someone would put up a link of the .pub (MS Publisher file) someone here will open it up and such...

 

Aahhhhhh, this post is still here? The reason I opened up the OEM cast manifolds is to determine whether or not building a set of headers from steel (tube) would gain. They didn't (1hp gain). So the project was dropped for now. These guys may be able to build a set, but increasing the hp on a NA car is probably not going to happen. Its a big, big project to get these bastards out (believe me), get 'em to do some before and after dyno runs on the same car, and see what the gains are.

We increased flow over 200%, and it didn't gain anything, so these tubes won't be any better, but I hope I'm wrong...

Don

 

Since we cant open up the picture yet we cant tell for sure, but if they are long primary type headers they should help the top end power levels. The shorty style stock parts are low end power parts.

 

yes! more lack of low end, just what my auto needs. it's not bad enough with a intake and y. i love having nothing until 3k!!!

 

Here is a jpeg finally of the things...

Your all welcome.. Looks like a nice peace.

here is what they said... Oh and I just asked for a jpeg...


DaEnigma


Thank you for your interest in our Maxima performance range and in particular our extractors / headers.


I have attached our brochure with some photo's for you to look at. I do not have any dyno figures loaded on our computer, but our gains on the dyno with our extractors were 13% increase. Our extractors do have provisions built in for EGR and front & rear O2 sensors. They take about 6-7 hours to fit. The kit complete with both extractor banks and the connecting "Y" pipe (see photos) sell for $1150.00 New Zealand Dollars = 468.4525 United States Dollars.(from http://ekit.lycos.com/ekit/Currency ) Freight etc is your responsibility or we can organize at an additional charge. I think that you will agree that it is a good looking & well made system.


If I can help further then please contact me.


Regards


PETER VAN BREUGEL

Prestige Automotive Services
565 Great South Rd
Manukau City
Auckland
New Zealand

Phone: +64 9 277 9700
Facsimile: +64 9 277 6010
Website: www.prestigeautomotive.co.nz
info@prestigeautomotive.co.nz


Keep in mind shipping may be quite a large amount but like stated above if it is 400 New Zealand Dollars = 162.94 United States Dollars for ~20LBS. Which may not seem to bad considering where and what you are purchasing. Also like stated above it will be a very large job to install them. But hey if you are able and willing go for it.

 

From the pic, it looks like it includes the Ypipe. Still.. thats CHEAP. Other than its a B!TCH to get in, if you havent bought a ypipe yet, why not buy this? The hell, buy this, and sell yer Y for 200? A cattman ss y costs almost that amount anyways.

[depending on import fees & taxes, of coz]

 

I dunno I don't like that big hoop like thing in the ypipe piece. That looks like it would cause a restriction.