Nismo Cat Back

Jessobear

There is no compelling evidence that any of the aftermarket exhausts out there give you much more than a few HP over the Nismo. In other words, if you had a car with intake, exhaust and tuning, you most likely will only see a few hp from one of the louder aftermarket exhausts.

It really boils down to whether or not you like the sound of the 370Z uncorked. The only aftermarket exhaust I've heard is the GReddy Ti-C (without the silencers) on stock cats and I thought it sounded terrible and ricey. This was when I was buying my OEM Nismo, which I paid $450 for from the guy who put the Ti-C on his car.

The OEM Nismo is barely louder than stock, at least from inside the car. I later added Fast Intentions resonated HFC's and the sound level barely increased. Not too sure what the car sounds like from outside, although from inside my underground parking garage, it is definitely noticeably deeper and louder when I start the car up. Were I to do it again, I'd probably go for resonated test pipes (resonator gets rid of a bad exhaust rasp at ~2700 rpm, right where you cruise a lot).

Bang for the buck, you absolutely can't go wrong with a take-off OEM Nismo. Add the resonated test pipes and a Stillen Gen 3 intake and you'd probably have a really nice sound under throttle. The nice thing about getting your sound from an intake is that it only makes a bunch of noise at WOT, so the car is still very quiet for cruising.