Yeah I've had a bunch of people PM me and they have the same exact problem.

 

I think some of it depends on how you drive. If you are used to going around town with a heavy foot then you probably not going to notice lag. It's more like when you're driving on the freeway or commuting and driving uphill. Basically what Infiniti told me is that the car is almost like a 14 speed, it tries to kick in the VVT-I to meet power demand before it shifts gears. This time when the car is in VVT mode without full throttle is when there's lag and the drone is horrible. I've arrived at the conclusion that basically if you have a six speed it's fine, 7AT, not so much.

By the way, I'm not just a Stillen hater. Horrible customer support aside, I think the gen 3 intake is pretty good. It's got a nice sound, but not nearly as loud as the R2C I had. The install was a massive pain in the a$$ though, and I didn't like hacking up my car to install it.

That being said, I will never buy a Stillen product again because of how I was treated.

 

pg37, I'm sorry to read about your troubles. Quick question: did you ever try putting the car in manual mode to deal with the drone? I have a Fast Intentions exhaust with 18" resonators, and it does have a little drone when the engine is under load at low rpms. But if I put the car in manual mode and downshift, the drone goes away. I usually drive around in manual mode anyways, so I rarely experience drone. For example, I'll drive around town in 4th gear (zero drone), but if I put the car back in automatic mode, the transmission shifts up to 7th gear (drone city).

Edit: I just re-read your original post, and I see that you'd prefer not to drive around in manual mode all the time. You may want to look into some of the alternatives that others have suggested. Or you could just stick with the stock sport exhaust that you've reinstalled (which still sounds pretty darn good as well).