Project Infiniti G37S: Part 2: Stillen Generation 3 Cold Air Intake and Performance Brakes
My first interaction with Steve Millen Sport Parts or Stillen was way back in June of 1994. I had recently purchased a slightly used 93 Sentra SE-R with only 6k miles on the clock. My first purchase from Stillen wasn’t a modification at all but a custom fit Kimberly Clark car cover. In later years I would purchase various Stillen upgrades including their wonderful strut tower brace, ECU through Jim Wolf Technology and their prototype short throw shifter they built for the B13 that was passed on to me from a friend.
These might look like just another set of polished pipes but Stillen dyno tested 50 variations before they settled on what they dubbed their Generation 3 Ultra Long Tube Intake.
Later, in the early 2000’s my friends and I would attend Stillen open house dyno days. By then my Sentra was turbocharged and overly horse-powered thanks in part to Mike Kojima’s often used persuasion of “Do you want to go fast or suck!?” With tanks full of C16 my friends and I would see who could throw down the best power figure for the day. I considered it a great complement to observe the legend himself Steve Millen check out the work of art stainless tubular manifold I had built for that car. At no real surprise it was Mike Kojima’s radical Z32 300zx that put down the biggest horsepower of the day.
Many years passed and the Sentra was sold to a happy new owner and I really got out of modifying cars all together. Life’s priorities changed when I became a homeowner and Father. Mike chimed in with a bit of advice stating that he got out of modifying cars too for a 10 year period which is sort of hard to believe knowing his string of cars dating back to the mid-eighties. Like him I’ve worked hard over the years to turn my hobby of the automotive aftermarket into a method of financing my love for modifying cars. So here we are twenty two years later full circle with our first modification on a new car partnering with Stillen on their cold air intake and brake upgrade for our G37s project.
No stranger to the automotive aftermarket, K&N filters are used for their quality and longevity. K&N sells a separate washable cleaning kit to return these filters to good as new condition.
A lot has changed in the world of performance in those twenty two years. Back then it was pretty easy to make horsepower with all the low hanging fruit mods that made great bang for your buck gains. Compared to factory components that were built for mass production and deemed good enough, all the horsepower tricks that worked for hot rods in the 50’s and 60’s were reintroduced for the sport compact market in the 90’s. Since that resurgence, automotive manufacturers have eked almost every bit of power and efficiency available leaving little room for improvement to the automotive aftermarket. In an effort to make solid repeatable dyno proven power Stillen tried over 50 variations before settling on what they call their Generation 3 intake for the G37. Topped off with two large K&N filters this intake system passes through the core support to pull in big gulps of fresh air from the front of the car.
With the need to get a before and after dyno on the car it was necessary to find a shop that not only had a dyno but would also be willing to install the parts. I contacted UpRev who will be supplying the ECU tuning down the road and in a very surprising and generous offer they asked if they could transport our project out to their shop in Austin, Tx and told me not to forget my BBQ bib!
Knowing where we start with a baseline dyno pull at UpRev James hooks up to the tachometer signal wire. First pull. Lots of timing on the first run over 30 degrees timing which UpRev’s master tuner Omar says is higher than normal. First run was 283hp. On the second run the timing started dropping and the knock sensor doubled the count. 285 was the figure we saw on the 2nd and 3rd runs. On their Dynojet our Infiniti puts down a respectable 285.55/hp and 246.58/tq.
