I went to the Z store to pick up my Berk High Flow cats today which was a lovely drive through gridlocked traffic on the 405. I knew that most if not all G37/370Z owners have painful stories to tell about removing the stock cats and trust me, I was second guessing myself about halfway through. First, you have to remove the Y pipe which was easy enough and I had that out in 30 minutes. Next, I undid the clips holding the O2 sensors to their wiring loom on the body. Now, the truely fun (or dreaded) part: getting extensions, and a 30 inch breaker bar and accessing the top stud on the cat through the engine bay. Now, I am a noob to mechanical work so I was very nervous about going any further (no mechanic in CA will touch non CARB stuff).
I have the tendency to confuse which way to pull or push to undo bolts when I am under the car so I caused myself a little more grief but mother of god, those bolts were unbelievable for a car with 200 miles on it (see picture). After breaking a stud, I was scared that if I couldn't get the rest, I was screwed. But I found a few tricks online about gaining leverage with a wrench daisy chained to the bottom of another and finally got the stockers out:
Eat my shorts nasty stud:
Stock versus Berks (in middle):
Next on my list is to ditch this puny Y pipe with a full cat-back or a Tanabe:
Thankfully the Berks use new hardware with nuts and bolts versus studs which will make future work on it much easier (and without a Nissan gorilla tightening the bolts). I have to say I am not very mechanically inclined but I feel very accomplished for successfully completing an install that a lot of people would have brought to a mechanic. Bottom line is if I can install these, anyone can!
On Road Impressions:
Even with my limited time with the car (I am also adhering to the break in procedure), I can feel that there is more power in all areas of the power band. The most noticeable change was in how much harder the midrange comes in which feels like a surge. And the sound: I am extremely happy with this part. It now has the type of exhaust note it should have come from the factory with. It sounds almost stock under 3k rpm but once you give it some throttle, it growls and the signature Z exhaust note emerges. I would say it is double to triple the volume of the full oem exhaust, but it does not add rasp. Rather, it sounds deep and smooth which is something I was not sure what to expect after reading alot of reviews saying it sounded raspy.
Up Next: Stillen intakes that will be powder coated texture black to look more OEM+.
