Fast Intentions resonated HFC's installed
 

Just installed a set of Fast Intentions resonated HFC's this morning. Quality of the parts was really nice and Tony was great to work with. I had previously installed a Nismo OEM CBE and at idle and slight revving (no load), there was only a very small increase in sound. Unfortunately it started snowing in the middle of the install and just getting the car home was a nightmare, so I couldn't get a really full review of these compared to the stock parts. I will say that at regular cruising speeds of under 3000 rpm, these are really seamless. You basically can't tell there's anything different, so they make for a good daily driver mod.

Here are some pros and cons of these. Other than one thing, which I'll expand on below, the cons are really more of small suggestions.

Pros:

- Extremely good fitment with nice welds and flat flanges.
- Excellent packaging.
- Detailed instructions come included.
- Great customer service.
- Very little sound increase at idle and cruising speeds.

Suggestions:

- I did not need to remove the steering rack to do the install. A proper swivel socket and a LONG extension was all that was needed to get the upper outboard bolt loose.
- The instructions say to reuse the copper 3-bolt gasket between the manifold and the catalytic converter. My car did not have a gasket there at all. I'm not sure if this is a difference between '09 and '10?
- OEM copper crush washer should have been included with the hardware.

Cons:

- The way that the HFC seals to the manifold.

The stock design for this is very good and I can't understand why it wasn't duplicated? Basically, the stock piece has a small bit of vertical pipe that sticks up above the flange. Around that is a conical copper crush gasket. The inside of the manifold has a reverse cone and the pipe extension/crush gasket fits nicely inside of that. Not only does that align things properly, it makes for a very good seal.

The Fast Intentions part simply has a flat flange and attempts to seal the whole works with high temp silicone. This is not a great solution. The high temp silicone is rated only to go intermittently to 650F, a temperature that we know exhaust manifolds will exceed.

Having missed the part about needing new crush gaskets, I was forced to reuse them. We basically used the high temp silicone to stick them in place before bolting up the HFC's. Everything seems to be sealing for now, but I'd be a lot more confident if I weren't depending on silicone to prevent an exhaust leak.


I don't want to dwell on that complaint because overall I'm extremely happy with these. If I were in the market for an exhaust, I would definitely look to Fast Intentions. I just feel that honest feedback is good and if it can lead to an improved product, all the better.

Once I get some decent weather, I'll get some videos of the setup in action.

Sounds good :tup:

Do those come with the extended bung? If not you might need to try the steel wool filter trick to prevent a CEL.

I reused the gaskets for my test pipes -- no evidence of leaks.

The extention is definitely needed for those bolts -- I think only the airboxes had to come out to get to them with the long extender.

Yes, these come with the extended O2 bung. I forgot to list that in the pros.

We didn't even remove the airboxes, just the intake pipes.

I'm guessing it was written up a certain way because they assumed the use of everyday hand tools. Not everyone has swivel sockets or really long extensions. They probably also assumed that anyone with those tools would be smart enough to shortcut the install like you did.


This would increase the cost of the product and not everyone needs it. If you really needed one, you could order one thru your local dealership.


I'm guessing the OEM type flanges aren't readily available. When installing the a custom exhaust on my Pathfinder, my local installer was forced to cutoff and reuse the OEM flanges. Many customers are running their cars per FI instructions without incident. FI seems to be a great company with awesome products and an even better reputation among the 370Z crowd. I'm sure they feel confident that their product will last if installed as per instructions.

The instructions say specifically not to reuse the crush gaskets. So as far as Fast Intentions is concerned, everybody needs it. I reused mine because this wasn't until the very end of the instructions and I missed it when I initially read them over. My car was on a lift half apart and I had no choice but to reuse the parts.

So they should be included in the package, regardless of price increase. What difference does it make if I have to spend the money anyways? Not to mention, FI should be able to get a good price buying these in bulk. People buying these themselves could get wildly different prices and would almost certainly pay more, especially if they paid to have these shipped to them. There's also the fact that my time is worth money and me having to track down extra parts is a pain in my ***. I also wasn't provided the part numbers.

I'm not bashing Fast Intentions. I think their product is great, I just think they could make it even better.

any videos of the resonated HFC's under load??

Please re-read my post. I wasn't commenting on the crush gasket.

I agree with all your points on the effects high flow cats have on sound, it retains near stock sound below 3,000rpm but once you go above, it really opens up and amplifies the exhaust nicely. Best of all worlds in my opinion!

Hmm, you quoted two different things. If you're not talking about the crush washers, then you're talking about the copper 3-hole gasket.

My only point was that my car didn't have one at all:confused:

I'm wondering if Nissan dropped this in 2010? FI's instructions may have been written for a 2009 car? All I was saying was that the instructions talked about using a part that was not actually on my car. Seems like something they'd want to clarify.

According to the Nissan parts diagram, there should be some kind of gasket there.

208 Catalyst Converter :: Exhaust & Cooling :: Genuine Nissan Parts :: 370Z Parts (Z34) 2009-2010 :: Nissan Parts, NISMO and Nissan Accessories - Courtesyparts.com


And about the quotes. Normally, people break it up in order to prevent confusion on what's being commented on. For example:

specific quote
then comment on that quote

new quote
then comment on that quote

The second comment has nothing to do with the first quote and vice versa.