Hey guys,

Thought i'd share the aftermath of my 4th gen Y pipe installation with you all. First off, the y pipe i chose was one from Budget. Overall I was happy with the looks of the y pipe when it came in, the flex wasn't too big or too small, just right. But i gotta say if any of u plan to order from budget, BEWARE of some of the worst customer service i have ever seen, and I work in customer service so i know when bad is bad! Not only did it take them 3 weeks till i received the damn thing, and i'm in Montreal and they're in Toronto so it's a fairly local delivery, but the worst part is I even specified over the phone that they include the damn gaskets, and when i opened the box, they weren't there. (This problem has been reported by other people who have delt with budget on the .org as well so beware!). Nevertheless to say that they never returned ANY of my 3 phone calls, so people watch out, good product, horrible service.

Now as far as the Y Pipe install went, it went fairly well although my mechanic at Midas had a lot of trouble removing the Stock one due to very little room to access the 3 bolts on the back and remove the oxygen sensor. The stock bolts were very rusted so we replaced all of the them with new ones. Now as far as disconnecting the oxygen sensor, for all you "I wanna install this myself" people, we ended up having to disconnect it from the top of the engine bay as it was impossible to "yank" out from underneath the car. The gaskets we used were custom aluminum gaskets that we trimmed a bit from bigger ones,but I've included the REAL part number(s) for the proper gaskets below: These are the "ROL #'s" for the gaskets so you can basically find them at Carquest or any part shop. Part #1) 24594 (You need 2 of these) and Part #2) 24095 (you need one of these). The rest of the install was fairly straight forward, screw and bolt, screw and bolt....Overall time to install : 1 hour and 15 minutes.

The first thing i noticed after the install was when i started my car, you can hear the muffler growl at least 2-3 times louder than before. So yes it made my car substancially louder, I am NOT on my stock Muffler, i'm using a 5th zigen muffler and an AUTOMATIC transmission, i'm gonna take a sound clip and put it on my site shortly. My car has the same growl as a mustang now so it's quite interesting. As far as visible horsepower gains, there is definately a power gain however it is only felt starting at 4000 RPM and especially in the 4500 RPM range. I do not feel any gain under 4000 RPM but it is well worth it for the added noise. Gas consumption has gone up substancially, but that is expected since I'm spending as much time as possible above 4000 RPM . Consumption under "normal" driving should not increase.

Conclusion: All in all, I think it's well worth the 250$ (Canadian) and 60$(avg) install, especially if paired with a Muffler. It can fairly easily be done by someone with little experience on jack stands but 60$ isn't too steep of a price for an install anyways. The added power is definately felt at high RPM's and well the noise is always present from startup to shutdown.

Hope this helps all you starters out there considering a y pipe and is music for all you Veteran's ears!

Joe

 

I was coming to this forum today so I could start a thread asking for tips on finishing my y-pipe install (it's too dark out now), but since your thread is here and I doubt there are any tips for it except "Be patient," I'll reply to your thread and complain.

I, too, ordered a Budget Y-pipe, and it looks good. They sent me the gaskets, so that isn't an issue for me. Since I'm a student working this summer at a temp agency (and the temp agency sucks at finding work), I did not feel like paying to have this installed when plenty of other people said it was easy.

Thus far, I have removed all of the nuts from headers to cat (except for the two near the 2nd cat that are holding my stock pipe up) and unclipped most of the clips on the O2 sensor going into the first precat, but the clips belonging to the O2 sensor on the second precat are really aggrevating. The space is too small for my hand to get in there, and even if my hand does get in there, the release on this first clip is in a ridiculously hard place to reach. And when I try to hit the release with a screw driver, the black plastic ring that the clip is anchored onto... moves away! After fiddling for 20 minutes in the dark with what little light one of those extension-cord lights gives off, I cursed several times and gave up.

Injuries so far: pride... and the hang nails on two fingers were scraped off when I was madly yanking on the breaker bar which was twisting at a 5-inch socket extension, a universal swivel joint, and a 14mm deep socket. I wore gloves after that.

So right now, after about an hour and a half of slithering around on a cart underneath my car, the Max is mocking me like the toilet mocks the babies in Look Who's Talking, Too. It has won the battle, but I will win the war...

Oh yeah, anyone have any tips for putting my Budget y-pipe ON (since I'm 2 O2 sensors and a couple bolts away from having my stock pipe off) ?

 

lol more information, thanx for the writeup im sure most of this new this, but it may help out a n00b or 2

 

My Budget should be here soon..Post that sound clip!

 

I ordered my Budget pipe over the phone and had it 4 days later.
Bad customer service????

 

for the stuck bolts use liquid wrench they will sell some form of it at any autoparts store.

sorry to hear about your troubles, im also one of the lucky ones although mine took 3 weeks but im in nashville tn.

as for the sound, my gf just bought a 5gen and her stock exhaust is noticably louder than mine when stock. in fact id go so far as to say when my car has warmed up it is still quieter with a ypipe and stock exhaust than my gf 5gen stock.

the power gain is 4k and up so you really wont feel much below that, youll need an intake for that. if you think the y pipe is loud, dont get an intake.

modding comes with its ups and downs, right now im having problems with my valve body and tranny.

KEEP IN MIND NO MATTER WHAT MOD SOMETHING WILL ALWAYS GO WRONG DURING THE INSTALL.
hope it all works out for you

 

Definitely NOT true!!!

 

 

if you don't like the sound, put your stock 4th gen back on...we all know that 5th gen mufflers are louder on 4th gen cars. This is not the hardest project to do. I do all my own work...cause I am tired of people from Midas, and Minekee (worthless) complaining about the parts, and ending up screwing it up, ...then I have to go back and fix their crappy work.
As far as the gaskets..mine were mixed in with the bubble wrap that came with the pipe. I almost missed em untill I started popping the bubble wrap

 

youve never had a stuck bolt, something that didnt fit quite right, not have a tool you needed, a piece you couldnt figure out, missing a piece, something not working quite right?

your my hero

 

I think araffiro holds his own in custom install work. What I think was meant is that not every (ie..all) time you work on your car does something go wrong.

 

I agree there is some stuff that will go wrong but not every single mod like BadKarma99-4spd said. I installed my springs and struts with no problems at all. I also install my HIDs with no problems. as far as Y pipe goes I know there will be some problems with old rusted bolts.

 

I managed to almost ruin my Frankencar midpipe when I installed it. I was trying really hard to fit it into that rubber coupler on the TB, and you know that really skinny pipe welted onto it? Yeah I broke that off at the weld. We just got some metal epoxy and stuck the sucker back on. That was embarassing. In fact I haven't told anyone who knows about cars that I did that.

 

lol..well u jsut told 16k's worth of maxima owners.. its ku man.. i have run into a probelm with everthing i have ever done to my car.. except changing the to a 3z filter and tb cleaning. but it alwasy goes smooth if you ever need to do it again.. suspension redo went smooth as silk.

 

Ok, this morning I got out of bed at 9:15. I'm a lazy college bum enjoying the summer off, so that was kind of early for me, but I thought that I was gonna visit some friends in another city today, so I would finish the y-pipe in the morning and get an early start.

I unclip the cable that is going to the O2 sensor on the second precat, I felt like I was tearing the thing up as I was doing it, and it looked pretty bad when it was out, but it clipped right back in when I installed the Budget Y. Then I realized that I didn't have a 22mm open wrench, just one of those adjustable ones. But they're too fat to get in there b/c of all that heatshielding, so my father, who spent all of yesterday insisting that we could use the standard near-equivalent of a 14mm socket, said that we might as well try a 7/8" wrench. I figured that since these O2 sensors wouldn't be stuck in there as hard, I would be able to use that without a problem. And it's true.

So I laid underneath the car on my creeper and unbolted the two bolts holding the pipe up. I catch the flex on a stool and the rest i just leave on my chest while I'm undoing the sensors. Once those are gone I push it out the side of the car and prepare to affix the Budget Y.

It did not want to connect to the catback. The stock Y had kind of an s-shaped pipe going from the flex to the cat, whereas the Budget has a straight pipe. I think the weld around where the budget touches the gasket got in the way of that U-shaped brace held on by the rubber brackets, which angled the brace and that put made it really hard to tighten those nuts down, so I'm a little worried that it isn't sealed like it should be and it will start sounding funny later.

The sound. Slightly deeper, very slightly. Not like a civic's drone, just a little deeper, more manly. Normal driving is no louder, just a lower tone, my father who complains that my intake is ricey said he prefers this exhaust note. At WOT, it's still deeper. Nice.

The performance. Doesn't hit until 4k, like everyone says. But the high-end is so much better, my car really likes to go to 80 now.

All-in-all, this is what I should have done before I got my intake. Better for the money. It really gives the car a sporty exhaust note. It isn't ricey or annoying, just sporty, like a mild 350Z. I wonder what the 2k1 Muffler sounds like on this...

 

I went with a warpspeed y-pipe