M45 y-pipe choking power

I took a good look at the M45 y-pipe and I have to tell you it's as bad as the mid-pipe. It's choking the rest of the exhaust. I'm now looking for a shop to just change the piping on the y-pipe for me.

To get or release maximum power a custom y-pipe and a set of test-pipes would be best as so many like 350z, 370z, G35 & G37 owners have been doing for some time now.


But after talking to a fabricator in order to keep the rasp & smell to a minimum and not have to deal with dash lights (cel lights) it's best for me to keep my oem cats.

I would have to cut at the rear of both oem cats / add 2.5" pipe to the end of the oem cats all the way to the Megan Racing mid-pipe.

In other words replace the oem y-piping with 2.5" piping while keeping the oem cat's & sensor's in there same location as mounted from the factory.

This my not give me full power like running test pipes but replacing just the y-piping will help alot and will avoid having the rest of the problems (dash light, really bad smell & loud rasp sound). It will allow me to have 2.5" from the rear of the oem cat's to tail-pipe. It will make my M45 run & sound better and I should be able to pass NJ emission testing.

For those that already replaced the oem exhaust system with an aftermarket system please take a minute and look at your y-pipe it's hard to believe that it has section that are less than 2"

WHAT WAS NISSAN THINKING????
 
Well I was able to find a shop today to make me a new y-pipe. Now I have 2.5" piping from the cat's to the mufflers. :wink:

This is a pic of the crappy M45 oem y-pipe:

ei5v2p.jpg


as you can see the oem y-pipe has at least 6 spots that's pinched, each spot has less than 2" piping
 
i wanna see the new pipe!!

and how well does it sound/perform?

and how much was it?? i'm finally piecing together my full exhaust...
 
The pic on top shows a y-pipe from a 2006 M45, I haven't seen what the y-pipe on a 2004 M45 looks like. If at any point you see a spot on the pipe that's less than 2" it needs to be replace. If the y-pipe is a full 2" with no indentations I wouldn't change it.

As for pricing not too many shops do this kind of work up here in north Jersey but I found a few. Now I was given prices from $450 to $700. Some shops charge $100 an hour plus parts & piping. I didn't want to spend that kind of money no matter how good it was.

I went to my local muffler shop and they made me the y-pipe for $300, this included all parts.

Sound is just a tad louder but it's a deep sound

as for performance you can feel the difference, hands down.

As soon as I started the car up while on the lift the sound was deeper and somewhat meaner as others at the shop said.

I took the car of the lift and the 1st thing I felt while backing up off the lift was the gas pedal, it felt different. I shifted into park I started to rev the engine and to my surprise it was reving much faster (easier). I wasn't expecting to feel a difference without driving the car but I did.

Driving on the way home (city streets) I was only able to get up to about 50mph on 2 different streets (25mph limit), just too much traffic. The car just runs better. I enjoyed on how the car drove and even more so when I was pushed back into my seat as the rpms climbed. Can't wait to take her on the highway to see how she acts while at higher rpms.

I only drove the car from the shop to my house (maybe 5mls) yesterday and I'm looking foward on getting my Uprev done very soon, it's a 35- 40 mins ride on the NJ turnpike to get to the shop :-)
 
I was told by the tuner that our biggest power robber is our trans and 2nd would be the exhaust.

It also doesn't help that the M's are all set up to run very lean, not good.
 
That's interesting that they all run lean though. Mine certainly doesn't seem like it. I think the tweaks between the Y34 and Y50 made big difference

Sent from my GT-P3113 2
 
My car was running fine too with no problems at all until it was hooked up to the laptop and strapped to the dyno.

Just knowing that the car is tuned to run at it's best is a great feeling.
 
Back
Top