Sway_NV

iTrader: (3)

***WARNING: First Post Is A Novel*** - Sorry, I'm an info buff!

Hello all!
I've only had my G for about 2 almost 3 months, but I already have a spare bedroom full of secrets (No! that's not dirty! ... or is it? ) Anywho, I figured I'd start a build thread to keep track of my progress, get feedback, opinions and suggestions etc... First Post will be a small book, then I'll start with the good stuff... But read on if you want to know how much trouble I went through to get the car/buying experience, and about me. But i'll still put it in a nutshell. Plus I'll include current mod list as well as future plans.


*******


Background on the Car:

I was looking at Nismo 370's and G37s Coupes but couldn't decide which I really wanted... I was very picky in my search, so when I found out I wanted to go with the G it took me 6 months to find "the one." ... it had to be a black ext. black int. Sport coupe with a 6spd manual... preferably a stock spoiler. After the long search I found her just outside of Houston. The guy who helped me was extremely nice! In fact, he was Santa Claus... Not just looked like Santa, but was actually a professional Santa. Lol! ... He even had here comes Santa Claus as his ringtone. So after I called Santa, I went the next weekend to check her out! She was perfect, one previous owner, older male with all infinity dealership maintenance paper work, 55.5k miles with exterior and interior both at about 9/10. Completely stock, Every factory option, Navigation, Back-up Camera, Heated Seats, Cargo Net, Premium Mats/Trunk Mat, even the illuminated kick plates! Also already had darkest legal Ceramic tint in TX, and Michelin Supersport tires, so a few pluses there.... And the beloved stock spoiler!


The Buying Experience:

The Dealership let me test drive it with just me and my girlfriend, which I thought was odd, but no complaints there! Took it easy at first, trying to get used to the clutch, as you all know it takes some getting used to. First impression was great... felt odd, so new... so nice. Only thing I don't like is the arm rest on the door is a little low, and the seatbelt buckle comes up a little high and bugs me... Halfway through tried a little spirited driving... I was surprised at the amount of torque! Couldn't keep the wheels from spinning! lol Headed back to the dealer and negotiated. They were asking $24,900. Ended up paying $23k out the door after tax, title, and license. About $2.2k under KBB value so no complaints there either! .... then the bad news, Capital One was who my loan was through, 2 weeks after I had the car, and taken it home... they rejected cashing the check for that dealer because the dealer wasn't on "their list"! Called the dealer, turns out they wanted the dealer to pay fees up front, plus yearly to be on their acceptance list... Mind you Capital One previously asked for the dealership info, which I provided and they said it cleared and was fine. Luckily Santa Claus was really cool about it and gave me a few days to find a different loan. Ended up with a local credit union and got an extra $500 for mods plus .25% lower interest, so ended up being a win/win.


A Little About Me:

I live about an hour or so southwest of Houston. I was a retail manager for many years, did some IT work for a year or two, Spent time as an EMT and now I'm a Welder/Fabricator for Caterpillar. I'm a nerd, I love Spider-Man and Venom. Video games, old & new school. Amateur Photographer, I have done a few professional gigs, Comicon 1 year, Texas Mile, a Wedding, Carshows, Family portraits, and a few Model shoots! (most pics in here are way old, or with my iPhone lol) I practice Kung Fu and Wushu. Have been for years, won local competitions as well as internationals in Houston. I mainly practice Traditional Southern styles. Though I do also practice a little Savate french kickboxing and Muay Thai! My girlfriend is actually Chinese, she had been here from Tianjin for about a year when I met her. I speak English, Mandarin Chinese, and some Spanish, Korean, German, and Japanese. You might say I like Languages and cultures.


Auto History:

My first car was a black 93 GMC sierra single cab my Grandfather generously gave me when I got my license at 15... after finding out it wasn't a good drift car in the muddy rain after 2 years I ended up with my first car I picked out myself and modded and loved. A 00 Honda Prelude 5spd. Had the car for 5 years and loved it! Ended up with performance wise: an N1 Apex'i catback, Randomtech Highflow cat, AEM v2 Intake, DCsport Header with a modded 2.5" collector, S2k throttle body, port n polish, Type S cams and Cam gear, pullies, short throw shifter, CF hood, and Stage 2 clutch with 9 lbs flywheel and a few other small things... Dropped on koni yellow shocks and a an Eibach pro-kit. Fastest run at a 14.1 with it and was a fun little car to drive!





Then I moved on to my Championship White 02 Acura RSX 6spd with DC5 Type R motor/tranny... Had a custom straight pipe exhaust no cat into a Greddy muffler, intake manifold, intake, clutch and 12 lbs flywheel, dropped on Tein street flex coilovers.







I was stopped at a redlight a small town outside of San Antonio, where a guy was going 70 in a 35 on his phone and didn't even hit the brakes. Smashed me between him and the truck infront of me.... needless to say, my Type R was totaled. Thank God we survived... here is the aftermath.





Last car before the G, my Pearl White 00 Lexus GS300. Dropped on Megan Coilovers and Work Euroline DH's, huge sound system, etc... more of a cruiser. The stupid camber/toe needed to run those wheels eats tires in 6-8k miles... No thank you.








So there's my and the cars history so far, sorry for the long book, but I guess it gives you a little insight on me as a person, what I'm into etc... Glad to be a part of the forum, and thank all of you for the insane amount of information I've learned lurking here. Hope I can help and provide useful info for other members too!

Anywho! - End Post 1 -

Updates to come!

Edit: Sorry! Didn't know those pics would be so big!

Sway_NV

iTrader: (3)

And now, pics of my Black G37 Sport Coupe 6MT



Here she sits at the Dealership when I picked her up:







On the way home:



And finally in my driveway when she parked in her new home!
(until the corvette is put back together, then she gets the garage lol)







Sittin pretty outside the kungfu school lol



*******


~CURRENT MOD LIST~ (in order they were applied to the car)
- Plasti-dipped Front Grille (I know I know, I'll buy the midnight grille eventually)
- Full exterior/interior Diode Dynamics Stage 2 LED conversion
- Diode Dynamics 6000k
- Plasti-dipped rear trunk release button
- GT Haus Meisterschaft Axle back with 102mm Round tips
- GT Haus Meisterschaft Mid-pipe
- GT Haus Meisterschaft Y-pipe
- JSolo clutch spring
- Adam's Rotors AR Street Black zinc Drilled & Slotted rotors
- Akebono Premium performance brake pads
- Toyo T1 Sports 245/35/20 & 285/30/20
- Vossen Cv5 20x9/20x10.5 in Silver
- KW V3 Coilovers
- SPC Rear Camber Kit
- Project kics R40 Neochrome Lug nuts
- Nokya 2500k hyper yellow foglights
- IPL Sideskirts
- TS-P front lip
- 4.08 rear gears
- Whiteline differential bushings
- Stillen Gen 3 long tube intakes
- M370 intake manifold (Ported after purchased)

~Bought But Not Installed~
- OEM rear splash guards
- TWM Short Throw Shifter
- Z1 poly Transmisson mount
- ???????

~Future Plans~
( If you have any input on these please comment! )
- FI Resonated Highflow Cats
- GTSpec Strut bar
- Clutch/lightweight flywheel
- RMJ clutch assembly
- Port/Polished Throttle Bodies
- Port/Polished Lower manifold
- Hotchkis Sway bars
- ECUTEK Tune
- Autokits V1 rear valence
- MAYBE eventually Headers


*******
Goal is good style, nice ride, and being able to take out newer 5.0's! lol


Most current photo:

Sway_NV

iTrader: (3)

First thing I did was get her a good wash and detail, and removed the SEWELL badging... might remove the infiniti down the line, not sure yet.







G37 *** looks so good!!!





I'll be posting pics of my diode dynamics conversion, as well as a review and videos of my stock vs meisterschaft exhaust tomorrow, so stay tuned!

KEG97

iTrader: (2)

Welcome and congrats on the new ride. It looks great! Can't wait to see what you do for it.

When I met my wife, she had a brand new '98 Prelude. We loved cruising in that car. I still think it's a beautiful design today.

monytx

iTrader: (2)

Congratulations man, good post. Lookin forward to seeing you around town.

Nothin2Somethin

Nice intro sway. Congrats on the new ride.

blnewt

iTrader: (13)

Awesome start!
Looking forward to this one, those GTHaus are beastly. Looking forward to your impressions of the new mods that are waiting to install.

Sway_NV

iTrader: (3)

*******

~GT Haus Meisterschaft Full Cat Back Exhaust Review~

*******

So I'm unable to review each piece seperately, because I installed all 3
pieces simultaneously. This is the only actual mod on the car right now, so
all impressions will be on the exhaust, and the exhaust only.



First off was the packaging, larger than I expected! So if you think you're
going to fold your back seat down and slip it in through the trunk... think
again. Luckily I had a friend with a truck who said to give him a call if I
needed him. Pics for reference.


Ignore the birdpoop on the bumper -_-"



It was taped well and each piece was wrapped in lots and lots of bubble
wrap individually, then filled with millions of peanuts. It's definitely not
heavy though! I was honestly surprised at how light it was... Build quality is
excellent. Being a welder that was honestly the first thing I looked at, and
the quality of this exhaust it truly topnotch!









^^^ On the way to my friends shop for install! If you look you can see the painted trunk release button.

Install was pretty straightforward. All hardware was included except for
where the exhaust meets the cats, in which the OEM gaskets and bolts can
easily be reused. The tips do have adjust-ability, up and down but not back
and forth (towards the front and rear of the car.) The muffler actually is a
little higher than stock, but the pipes right before it I feel like hang a little
lower, but not much at all... definitely has decent ground clearance. Tips are
larger than stock, but not crazy big. If someone doesn't know anything about
cars, or G's, they probably wouldn't know you had an exhaust until they
heard it, or gave it a serious look. (The splits in the tips give it away when
you actually and look at it.)




^^^ cars a little dirty, just rained, those aren't scuffs or scratches...


And last but not least, sound & performance! I've had the exhaust on the
car for about 500 miles now, and I can say I have never ever had an exhaust
so quiet and so loud at the same time! My first impression I had my friend
start it inside his shop with me standing right behind the car, and when he
revved it, it hurt my ears! I was not expecting that... he did have it in first
and revved it to about 7k ... but we did let it warm up first so that's
good. It does have a decently loud cold start, a deep low rumble for about 30
or so seconds before it calms down. After that inside the car you can't hear it
at idle. Outside the car it's not loud, but you can tell it definitely has a
deeper tone and a little more rumble.
Under normal acceleration you can definitely hear it, still a nice low
rumble, and gets a little loud at about 2.5k (where I usually shift) but once
you reach speed and throw it in 5th or 6th, the noise almost completely
disappears. There is literally ZERO drone on this exhaust at cruising speeds.
But it wakes up instantly when you lay anything into the throttle. I
swore it would have drone at highway speeds from my impressions driving it
around town, but last week I took it out on the highway just to see, and sure
enough, once you start cruising at about 75, it quiets down and just cruises...
it's a little louder than stock, but will not interrupt your conversation or radio
whatsoever.
Under WOT however, it. is. Loud! You would never believe it was the same
car. If I was doing a hard pull down the street (which I would never! ) and
a cop heard it and came to find me, if I dropped it into a normal gear by the
time he got there, he wouldn't even think to look at my car. It's that much of
a night and day difference. I will say it's not as loud inside the cabin
actually... all windows closed, it's decently loud and has a mean mean growl
to it. But open the windows and/or sunroof, and you'll find yourself asking is
that really me?? I love it! Just what I wanted, quiet under
normal driving but with some growl and umph, but loud throaty and
aggressive under WOT, with 0 drone.
Even though my friend actually owns a dyno and is a professional tuner,
he's been extremely busy lately as he just got hired at D3 performance
engineering in Houston! (they also do most of the tuning for Hennessy) so I
haven't been able to put her on the dyno... As for the butt-dyno... It seems a
little more responsive and torquey... Seems like a little more pull in the mid
range too. But it could be just from the extra noise, but I do know it has an
extra kick when you initially push on the gas.

And here, for your hearing pleasure, is stock start-up, idle, and revs, vs
the GT Haus Meisterschaft start-up, idle, and revs... Sorry about the finger in
the stock video, it wasn't me!! lol... Also first time using photobucket for
videos, so idk how the quality and size will be... but we're about to find out
together!


^Quick Stock Video^ http://vid6.photobucket.com/albums/y...o132/Video.mp4

Video%201.mp4
^GT Haus Meisterschaft Full Cat Back Exhaust^ http://vid6.photobucket.com/albums/y.../Video%201.mp4

I will say it sounds much better in person than on crappy iPhone video...
BUT as much as I love the exhaust, and it's not really high pitched at all, I
do wish it was a little deeper. But I read on the forum somewhere that FI
Resonated Highflow Cats will actually deepen the tone while adding hp and
not adding any rasp... so that's the plan for now.

I plan on taking some in-car videos with normal driving, and under wot, as
well as fly-bys... hopefully I can do that tomorrow and get them up here.
Hope you liked the review/found it helpful! Feel free to ask any questions.

Sway_NV

iTrader: (3)

Thanks! Yeah agreed, I still love the 5th gen preludes today! Great looking car.

Thanks! Hopefully soon mine will be more unique and easy to spot.

Thanks!

Appreciate it! Especially the help you gave me with the tires! Can't wait to put them on, especially since what they're going on are sitting in my spare bedroom! It's a secret! Though Diego and Zydan already know what they are... haha

blnewt

iTrader: (13)

You're really setting the bar high w/ your details and the added suspense for your future pieces, well done!

Look forward to seeing what wheels Diego has up his sleeve for your build, should be a great match. I think Diego is really a fan of those T1 Sports too.

Those tails would really look nice w/ this DIY or a 180 customs job
https://www.myg37.com/forums/picture...per-gloss.html

And yes, those 5th gen Preludes have stood the test of time, much like the 2 door Integras and first IS 300s.

Nice set of rides you've had for sure!

dtea54

Congratz on the new ride. Nice exhaust btw.

Lt8Che

iTrader: (6)

Great start to a build. If you're still in San Antonio or close by join "San Antonio Infiniti Club" and "San Antonio Zs and Gs" on Facebook. We hang out pretty often and go to meets/track/cruises.

Sway_NV

iTrader: (3)

Uh oh! I hope I'm not setting the bar too high! Haha... The rims are nothing new or special, but an old favorite. I like them... Almost went with the SSR cv01s in sbc... But I ended up going with my original choice... Ugh I hope it was the right choice lol. My gf liked the ones I got better and I couldn't decide lol. And yeah, Diego was rockin those Toyo's and liked them pretty well I think.

Yes, I've seen the 180 tails and I like them a lot, but I'm not sure if I want to go that route or not yet... I'm still pondering lol and thanks for the compliments! I still miss the Acura at times... It was literally showroom flawless... :'(

Thanks a bunch!

I live about an hour and a half away from SA, I don't go there too often. But if there's a nice meet I might show up cause it would probably be fun! I'll keep an eye out for it, thanks!




*******

UPDATE!:

Sorry I didn't get the fly by or in car videos today... I was a little busy, sorry!!



Oh yeah! By the way... Speaking of being busy, didn't I say my friend owns a dyno?

Oh hai guise!





2 5th gear pulls and 2 4th gear pulls, here's a video of the first 4th gear pull.

VIDEO:


http://vid6.photobucket.com/albums/y...F2A0450DF2.mp4

Final numbers:

301.1 hp @ 7100 rpm & 251.6 ft-lbs tq @ 4550 rpm
Temperature - 73F - Humidity - 48%
Only mod is the full GTHaus cat-back exhaust.
Stock Tune


Here's the sheet of the 2 4th gear pulls.
Is it just me or is the A/F a little off? Our cars like to be a little closer to 13 don't they? I guess because it's a different exhaust with no tune?

alfredo24pr

iTrader: (1)

If that's a dynocom, then it explains the high reading.
What is truly important is to always use the same dyno to compare gains.

Sway_NV

iTrader: (3)

*** ~ Small Update ~ ***

So I installed my clutch helper spring from Jsolo a few days ago. The stock helper spring was measured at 330 something lbs of force, while the one from Jsolo measures in at only 52 lbs of force.

It took me only 7 minutes to install, was very easy. Hardest part was lining the pin back up after installing it. I would recommend putting a towel or something down, as if you're not super careful it will spring out a few pieces pretty quickly. Anyone that can work a pair of pliers can do this mod, and at only $20, really anyone with a 6mt should do this.

It took me only 5 minutes max to get used to the new spring, though I could instantly tell the difference. It does create small bit stiffer clutch pedal feel, while vastly increasing the communication and feel of the engagement point to the driver. It does keep the pedal all the way up when you're not using it, but the first half inch or so does feel as if it has the tiniest bit of play. So I feel an 80 lb spring would be perfect! But I'm really nitpicking at this point.

Highly recommend this mod to any 6mt drivers of the G or Z. Great bang for the buck, and it feels amazing! My clutch actually feels like a clutch now!

https://www.myg37.com/forums/group-b...g-for-6mt.html

^^^ Link for anyone interested.