Nissan 370Z Forum - View Single Post - Fast Intentions Long Tube Headers Install/Review

JLarson · 12-12-2017, 09:57 AM

Review and commentary (longish post) - A few weeks ago, I picked up a used pair of Long Tube Headers from a guy going TT. They were in good shape, but had obviously been used for a little while. I did a bit of reading and settled on ceramic coating them through Jet-Hot.

I had planned on doing the install myself, taking a weekend on jackstands and hoping for the best, but an acquaintance of mine from a local VQ enthusiast group (henceforth referred to as 'Craig', 'The Great Craig', 'Blessed be the Craig' or 'Craigster') was kind enough to volunteer his work space, complete with a lift. This made a huge difference.

Craig and I had this on the lift probably just after 8:30 am Sunday morning. If you have any interest in installing these and have read any of the DIY guides, you know the basics - remove intakes up top, remove undershroud below, disconnect cats at exhaust, mark your steering knuckle and disconnect, remove existing setup, replace with new setup, profit! This was the basic plan we followed, with none of the usual headaches, and all of the unusual ones.

Our first complication came in removing the intakes, specifically the hoses connected to the valve covers. I'm running Z1 intakes with the Z1 hoses and I will say that Z1 makes an excellent hose; it absolutely seals strongly and we actually broke the plastic connector that mates with the valve cover trying to get the hose off to remove the drivers side intake. Not good. More on this later.

From there, the header removal was pretty straight forward, and by 11:30 we'd removed the heat shields and the bolts/studs fastening the headers on both sides (pour one out for the Craigsters arm hair, destroyed in the line of duty by carefully sharpened AC line brackets and other random clips in the Japanese torture tunnels). Passenger side was relatively easy.

Lunch break and beer!

Steering knuckle was marked and disconnected around 1 and headers were off a couple minutes after that. We took the headers and cats out as a single unit, saving any struggles with the demon bolts. We really had no issue pulling out the drivers side heat shield either, once we were ready to move it as a unit.

Complications 2, 3, and 4 all occurred shortly thereafter, and they were the real time wasters. Complication 2: Fast Intentions requires you to shift some of the studs for the headers, and unfortunately one of the tapped holes on the engine block appears to have been tapped incorrectly. I destroyed a stud trying to thread it back into the block, had to use the double bolt trick to remove it. We were able to use a much shorter bolt in place, and that appears to have done the trick (no exhaust leaks yet - fingers crossed)!

Complication 3: O2 sensor on the passenger side cat did not want to come out. Fine. It was a stupid O2 sensor anyway and it shall be replaced by a better one. Plugged the O2 bung on that side after wasting more time trying to extract it.

Complication 4: The 2012+ 370zs have a factory oil cooler that's not terribly effective. The Fast Intentions kit has a plate to block off the oil cooler line from one side; but either I missed something in the instructions, or they simply don't provide a solution for the other side where it continues to drain forever. I don't blame them, I probably missed something, but I needed a solution. Autozone was closed (WHY?! WHY ARE YOU NOT OPEN PAST 5 ON SUNDAYS, AUTOZONE?! THIS IS WHEN PEOPLE NEED YOU!) but once again Craig came to the rescue with a rubber cap that we were able to creatively resize with a knife to the appropriate inside diameter. Coolant leak solved, we continued on.

We had new headers on the car relatively quickly, maybe 45 minutes for the reinstall plus the slow time consuming process of tightening all the bolts. Great, finished!

Back to complication 1... the solution for the broken plastic tube was a plastic epoxy. This involved me holding the component in place for about 30 minutes while we waited for it to harden. The good news is it worked. After all of this, started the car!

Annnddd no exhaust leaks!

Sound: I've always dreamed of piloting a fighter jet. Since I was too lazy to join the air force, instead I'll drive a car that sounds like a fighter jet. Sound on this is massive, huge low end rumble. Do not install these headers if you are weak of will, lacking in testicular fortitude, pregnant, lactating, or low in iron. There is definite drone from 2k - 2.5k, the VQ hiss is audible on deceleration, and you will definitely discover whatever pieces of your cabin are loose. Solutions: Gut your cabin for weight reduction (and The Great Craig says to clip those pesky AC lines that make installation of the drivers side headers so annoying while I'm at it), drive at 3k rpms, and never decelerate! It's actually less drone from 2.6k rpms onwards than I had with just the Fast Intentions catback. I'm enjoying it.

Performance: There is a definite boost in low end torque, but since I'm running fairly lean at this point, I'll wait to really test this until I'm tuned.

Attached a couple pictures for your viewing pleasure! Note the nice red for the ceramic coating - matches my engine bay quite well.