Berk Exhaust Production with X-Pipe
 

I'm not sure if I'm suppose to let the cat out of the bag just yet, but I just wanted to share this with the other members.
NOTE: This is the 1st production piece with X-pipe for the final test and fitment. Berk will be announcing the release and sale of these very shortly.
My car will be at the Fontana meet (Fontana Nissan - Dec 12th 9-1pm) in the Berk booth if you want to come by and check it out. Ok, so on to the review.

This is a fairly aggressive sounding exhaust with the HFC's installed. In the 4500 rpm range it kind of sounds like a baby Ferrari, 1/2 a V12 :icon17: LOL.
I think the X-pipe has given it a more exotic sound, it is quite a bit louder then the Nismo unit that I had on previously. At WOT, it's a monster!! The cool thing is that if you shift below 3500 it can be pretty tame, but does not sound stock. Freeway driving in 6th gear 70-80mph, absolutely no drone, carry a conversation or listen to your stereo with ease :tup: 5th gear at the same speeds ads some tone, but still no problem carrying on a conversation. I don't have any dyno numbers yet, but I can surely feel that the throttle response has quickened and rolling on in 3rd gear feels much stronger at lower rpm range 3500-4500rpm. An improvement over the previous system. I wouldn't consider this an aggressive race sounding exhaust, but with the HFC's installed it can lean toward that end of the spectrum. For those looking for a mellower tone, sticking with the stock cats might be a better choice. On a scale of 1-10 (mellow to loud) I'd give it an 8 with the HFC's. Where the Nismo would have been a 6 with HFC's & a 4 without. Not sure if that makes any sense, anyway here is a short video so you can decide for yourself. :tup:

I first reved to about 5K, then a mild launch into WOT through 3rd gear.
2nd pass by is shifting to about 4500rpm to simulate standard driving. The smoke you see at the very end is burn off from the packing, since this was just installed the night before.
This was done in a deserted industrial area with no cross streets, for whatever that's worth. :tiphat:

All in all I think this is a really great sounding exhaust, very unique, now the Z sounds like it looks! nice job Berk!!!



UPDATE: 1-4-10

A few people wanted to hear the exhaust from inside the cabin, so here you go. I apologize for the poor video quality, it's just a point and shoot mounted on a gorillapod flex mount. It's a bit shaky, but I think it will give you an idea.
This is just some mild street driving, until the end about 1:35, when I open it up a bit to chase down an M5, thought it was an M3 in the clip :icon17:
I've got a few clips, I'll link them up once they are done processing on youtube. Here is the first one, enjoy :tup:



This next one is on the freeway, to show that there is no drone at cruising speeds, mostly all the noise that you hear in the video is road and wind noise. This set-up is barely any louder then stock while cruising steady.



Ok, last in-car clip, some mild cruising on streets in 3rd & 4th gear, WOT at end.

it sounds nice, are their any numbers on loss or gain with this setup yet?

There was another thread where Mike from DDM had done some dyno testing on a prototype, but I'm not sure if that was with the H-pipe or X-pipe.

We will be running dyno testing on this one very shortly. I'll I can say is that it feels like it has better throttle response and more power in the lower RPM's then the Nismo that I took off the night before, plus it sounds more like an exotic sports car, so much fun to drive now :tup:

Sounds fantastic! subscribed for more info. So, that's the sound WITH HFC, correct? Sounds really good. :tup:

P.S. Time to update your sig with new CBE ;)


That's great to hear.

yes, HFC + Berk CBE in the video :tup:

I went to the L.A Auto show today, and there is this short tunnel going under the convention center, it sounds amazing through tunnels, like an F1 car :icon17: I had a guy in an Audi R8 do a double take and then give me the thumbs up. :tup:

:icon17: that's AWESOME!

Do you have aftermarket intake (i.e. gen 3) or still stock intakes? How big is the piping?

Will listen when I get into work, Berk needs to start shipping this. :D

Oh man, I knew I wanted this before when I heard the first prototype. Something to swap to down the road to revitalize my car in a few years :).

Sounds nice!

Sounds great, and I know what you mean with the rating scale versus the other pipes. I am in the 6 rating dreaming of someday upgrading to the 8 rating. :tup:

Wow, this CBE sounds really good. I already decided to go with the Berk HFC's. Unfortunately I had to rule out the F.I. CBE because of ground clearance. The streets in my country are not suitable for an exhaust like that and I'm planning to lower the car at some point.

I've seen and listened to all the other options out there and I'm down to either Stillen or Berk for the CBE.

Let's wait on pricing and dyno numbers to make a decision.

Nice! I really like that.

wow that sounds damn good, did they release an msrp yet?

Sounds pornographic!!

Great clearance AND a sound like that with HFC? Looks like a new competitor entered the ring.. Pricing and dyno needed asap!

Any way to hear it without HFC?

I will have just Stillen Intake & Berk Exhaust when I get mine in (whenever that is), HFC will be bought in the spring.

Sounds great! I'd jump on this in a minute but since I plan on going with a TT setup 2.5" isn't wide enough

I was regretting my choice in this because of the wait but not anymore! Now they just need to get these shipping!! I will be running this CBE and Berk HFC's.

Same. I can't wait.

It's going to be a good christmas. Even if mine shows up before then I'm going to wrap it up anyway. haha :roflpuke2:

anyone know about the cost?

I'm not in perfect financial shape right now, as I'm purchasing a 2nd new vehicle for the fiance, but this is the "last" upgrade I really want, so the bright side is I'll get reward points for the credit card purchase, haha!

I'm pretty sure I know what it costs, but I don't want to put it out there before Berk does. Just know that it is very competitively priced against Stillen/FI and should be well below some of the more elite exhaust systems out there like HKS.

Hey I understand. Thanks for the ballpark thats exactly what I needed to know

Wow that sounds really good

Thanks for helping with the test fit! Production has officially started on these! Group buy customers, I will be contacting you as soon as I get a better estimate of shipping dates!

FYI, I had my username changed from DDMotorsports to M.Bonanni for those who are wondering who the hell I am lol. :)

Group buy
 

Is there any way to get dyno numbers prior to committing to the group buy? I'm very interested in this exhaust based on the vid...Thanks for any info you can provide.

The group buy is over unfortunately. The dyno results are here...

http://www.the370z.com/exhaust-intak...k-exhaust.html

Basically the Berk Technology HFCs made 19whp and their cat-back exhaust made another 14whp on top of that. On this car, the first exhaust mod you do is going to free up the most horsepower so to have the Berk exhaust make 14whp in addition to the cats is awesome. I wouldn't be surprised if it made 20+whp on a completely stock 370Z.

Sounds great and the fitment looks really good too! I like how the tips are perfectly tucked under the rear bumper just like the Stock exhaust.

So the Berk HFC are making 19 hp and the cbe is making 14? I don't wanna sound stupid but this is the first time I've seen the hfc making more than the cbe.

The first exhaust mod you do on this car is going to make the most gains whether its HFCs or a CBE. I dynoed the Berk HFCs with a completely stock exhaust system and made 19whp. If I had already had the cat-back on the car the gains wouldn't have been so high. On the flip side, if I dynoed the CBE with stock cats instead of the Berk HFCs, those gains would have been more than 14whp. Am I making sense?

Yea I get what you're saying. So you're saying that dyno chart in the other thread was roughly 19 hp less than the 280ish number before you put the HFC's on?

I did a baseline dyno of the 370Z 100% stock back in February. Then a few days later dynoed the Berk HFCs while the rest of the car was still 100% stock and the car made 19whp over the baseline.

Fast forward to August. Since Vegas in February vs. Vegas in August is a massive temperature difference, I did another baseline dyno of the car, 100% stock with the exception of the Berk HFCs. Then I did another dyno with the Berk CBE on and made 14whp over that baseline.

gotcha, so you're saying you saw a decent change in the baseline as well do to the temperature change. I don't mean to be a pain in the *** I'm just trying to get everything straight for myself.

You have to just look at it as two separate independent tests. The temperature made a huge difference since it was probably 50 degrees in Feb. and 112 in August. I tried to make it as accurate as possible by doing a new baseline dyno before adding the exhaust so we have something to compare to and measure actual gains in similar conditions. So as far as gains go, the numbers should be pretty accurate. As far as overall peak horsepower numbers go, the temperature difference had a big impact. My peak numbers with the Berk HFCs back in February was 299whp. Power wise, nothing on the car changed between that dyno and the baseline I did in August, but the baseline in August was only 282whp average. So basically the only thing the temperature effected was the peak numbers, not the gains since both tests were done back to back with baseline numbers.

:tup: Awesome! Puts those gains into perspective.

someone needs to setup another group buy on this

I'll call Berk tomorrow. 12-08-09

Thanks for the information, sorry didn't search for previous...

Just when I thought I was set on the FI...

This really does sound fantastic. If those gains are accurate, this might be a real contender.

Yeah, but I'm not sure on it, I just emailed Bryan at Berk, asked him to chime in on that. :tup: hopefully we can get another group buy going.