R2C Intake Review, V36

[Alkatraz]

Thought that I would write a VERY quick review of the R2C duel short ram intakes that I posted about previously. I don't have any pictures of them installed but funnily enough they look EXACTLY the same as the pictures from the R2C website.....I did take before and after videos on my phone to see if you could pick up any difference in the sound, but unfortunately the sound recording on the phone is shite (as expected), so all you can hear is my VERY happy expletives in the background.

Just in case anyone doesn't know what I am talking about, I bought these (http://www.r2cperformance.com/-infiniti-g37-cold-air-intake.aspx) from the states about 2 weeks ago through one of the sellers on the myg37.com forum and they arrived last Friday. List price for the Black Nickel pipes is US$549, as you can see on the link above, the deal I got was US$515, including delivery, which would normally be another US$80 or so. With the exchange rate at the time, they cost $492 to my door. Took just over one week to get here, which I was impressed with.

They were packaged VERY well, with copious amounts of bubble wrap and extra paper thrown in the box for padding. Opened the box, unwrapped the first pipe and was blown away by how awesome the Black Nickel piping looks and how clean all of the welds are. They truly are sexy and, in my opinion, compliment the engine bay better than any silver piping ever could.

I was a little hung over on Saturday morning so waited until early arvo to begin the install. To be honest the instructions are shit, a couple of pictures that vaguely match up with the written areas, the only useful part was a diagram at the back showing all of the parts and how it all goes together, but to be honest, if you cant figure out how to put them together you should DEFINITELY not be touching anything on your car apart from the steering wheel.

Pulling the old intake out of the car was a piece of piss, undo a couple of mounting bolts and a couple of house clamps and out they pop. You do need to give a little yank on the filter housing, as it pushes into two plastic mounts underneath quite firmly. The reinstall is just as easy, the only issue I had, which probably cost me about 30mins of wasted time, was that they did supply one long hose to replace the existing hoses, but it was actually easier to simply reuse the existing hoses and just reroute them a little differently. All up it took me just over 2 hours, from start to finish, and I am no mechanic so anyone should be able to do it.

Once everything was in I started it up and gave a little rev and could instantly hear a slightly deeper growl which was satisfying. I had really expected that to be about it and was quite happy but then I went for a drive..........the difference is like night and day. The slightly deeper growl whilst idle, turns into a seriously loud, jeans tenting, roar when under load. I had not expected the intake to be as loud as it is, but it really sounds like a totally different engine. It begins at around 4000rpm and once I got up to 6000 - 7500rpm, my pants were definitely feeling too small for me. What was once a very civil, almost boring sounding engine, now sounds the way that something with this level of performance should do (like it is coming to eat you alive).

I know that I probably sound like I am exaggerating, but I took a few friends/colleagues for drives over the weekend, including a colleague who has just bought a 2012 G37 Convertible in the states, and none of them could believe the difference. The guy with the convertible was very jealous.

As for an actual performance increase, I haven't really noticed a hell of a lot, at times I get the feeling that it is more responsive and possibly a little quicker but it could just be the placebo affect. I have managed to spin the wheels a little when taking off on a slight bend, which was impossible in the past (and should still be now with the computer controlling everything), not sure if this is any indication. Even if it had freed up a few KW, I wouldn't expect it to be enough to actually notice on anything but a DYNO.

Overall, I cant convey in words how happy I am with these intakes, I enjoyed driving the car immensely in the past, but now it feels like a completely different beast.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

[Tunerz_Store]

Glad to see you are enjoying the intakes, Alistair!

[V35_Paul]

If it's anything like the V35, you might have to drive it around a while so the ecu can learn the new mod before you get some power gain.

[Alkatraz]

Possibly, but I wont be holding my breath.