Got an excellent deal on ART pipes from FBparts; not sure how they beat even Motordyne's promo price !!!

Anyways I had ERZ HFC's before the ART pipes, which were good but you can definitely see gains in low-mid range. The only downside is the exhaust smell is strong, its a matter of time before I get pulled over for that.

And had the stock pulley replaced with the Stillen lightweight underdrive pulley, really felt a difference in revving the engine, the steering felt more easy to steer, definitely felt a gain with this. Not sure why there's a mixed reviews on this mod, maybe it was the installation. I got mine done at a dealership to avoid any warranty issues and the price was reasonable. And also had crankshaft seal replaced at the same time, the only comment from the dealership was that it was missing the damper, so there might be vibrations but I didn't notice any.

Have to get a tune and a dyno pull now.

 

You probably won't notice the vibration from the pulley but your engine certainly will over time. And good luck if you ever need to take that thing off. Did you not see the videos GTM posted of what they had to do to remove those things? If your engine is damaged your warranty is still void even if a dealership put it on for you.

How bad is the exhaust smell from the ART pipes?

 

did do some homework before doing this mod. Number of 370z owners have run this setup for thousands of miles with no issues at all; some of them have used it, removed it and sold them with no hassles taking them out. I've looked at GTM's post and must be an isolated case, not sure who did the initial install.


There are some cases with engine issues which have the lightweight pulley but dealerships are replacing engines with warranty despite this as its seems hard to prove the mod causing this. Even the Infiniti dealership who did the installation mentioned that most likely the warranty won't be covered if the pulley was the direct cause of the problem.
G35 owners who have had issues because of this mod seems to boil down to two things, installation was not to specs and crankshaft seal broken. thats why I had it done at a Infiniti dealership to get the pulley bolt tightened to specs and had the $12 crankshaft seal replaced at the same time.

 

Good luck.

 

Your comment on the ART odor concerns me. That is one of the things that I'm hesitant about with those pipes.

 

Give us more info on the Art Pipes, please! Other than the smell, how do they sound? Does your butt-dyno like them?

 

16,000km+ and counting on my stillen UD pulley , good stuff!

 

its not just these pipes its all test pipes you will get an odor. im pretty sure HFC will give out a slight odor as well just not as noticeable like test pipes

 

Thanks Betty.

I had exhaust smell even with HFCs; its probably about 10% more with ARTs and its going to be there with any test pipes.
Definitely saw gains with the butt dyno, more pull in the 3k+ range. Had 298 whp on a dynojet tuned with Uprev before these two mods. I do want to get another tune, that should fix the smell a bit.

Exhaust sounds better than with HFCs, less drone, no rasp, no hiss at all. My whole exhaust is vibrating against something, it is noticeable in the mid range rpm and it was there even with HFC, but it comes and goes. Tony's instructions on installing the ART pipes does mention about cutting one of the bolts of the heat shield but there is atleast an inch clearance and don't think its hitting against that.

 

good to know legz. how do you feel about the power gain on this? I definitely felt it, it revs lot easier now. The stock pulley is heavy, definitely more than 10 lbs.

 

I thought the stock pulley was 5lbs. How's your engine holding up since the addition of the pulley?