Bounty of 100.00 on my Nismo equipped Titan

[Papa_D]

I am issuing a simple challenge to all the racers out there in an effort to help the Titan community as a whole go faster on the street as well as the strip. I am challenging any NA Titan equipped with the same rear tires I run and no weight reduction to a race at Speedworld. If you beat me, in a best of three race series you take my 100.00, no hard feelings. If I win you can consider it a lesson in physics and I’ll buy the beer afterward and get you drunk enough you will forget you lost anything other than maybe your bladder control, lol.

I realize a lot of the Titans that are running the quarter are set up to run quick times with drag tires and weight reduction and I respect as well as appreciate that. I enjoy all the videos that are posted very much and cheer for every one of you when you run. I just don’t believe some of the people understand what I am trying to do and question my choice of performance parts based on track times, which is not fair to the parts themselves.

Trust me, if I wanted to run a 13 second ¼ mile badly enough, it would have already happened and all it would take is a little wt reduction and some smaller wheels skinned with drag tires and a decent DA.

A lot of the folks who have been around a while understand the disadvantage that lack of traction poses at the track for our torque happy trucks as evidenced by how popular sticky tires or drag radials are and they also realize what a big difference weather and track conditions play.

The new Titan owners however, inexperienced at modding and unfamiliar with the products available are being swayed toward certain brands of parts and have a daunting task at best because of the conflicting opinions about performance parts. Do they buy the unproven parts, or the parts “all the fastest” Titans are running. I am therefore offering a 100.00 reward to anyone that runs my tire setup with full street trim and beats me in a best of three competition in the 1/4 mile at Speedworld.

Some might say this is silly and sight that the fastest Titans aren’t set up to run on skinny all terrain tires and that is part of the point I’m making. My Titan IS set up to do exactly what I’ve been doing, run consistently on snow tires in full street trim with as little stress on the drive train as possible while still making respectable time through the quarter.

The reason I am doing this is to prove my point that there are a lot of parts to consider as well as different ways to go fast and more suitable street setups available that need due consideration when modding the Titan. I don't blame anyone for sticking by the brands of parts that have served a lot of people well in regards to fast track times and everyone is certainly justified in their support of parts that continually perform well on some fine trucks.

All I’m trying to do here is make people aware that there are other brands of performance parts out there other than “The Big Three” and although it could cost me some cash to prove this point, I am betting 100.00 it won’t. I am putting my money where my mouth is and all are welcome to try. I will let everyone keep there electric fans, hot tunes, throttle body intercoolers and the like, which I don’t have and all you have to do is put the weight back on the truck and put on some skinny AT’s


Anyone around in the in the late 70’s and early 80’s saw the beginning of the end for some of the “The Big Three’s ” stranglehold on the truck market. We all drive Titans and although I can get a Ford very cheap on any given Sunday, I in fact traded up to the Titan once it hit a price I could afford. The same can be said of some performance parts of late, competition is heating up and I don’t want anybody to miss the boat on what could well be the new standard to measure others against.

One of the reasons I am writing this lengthy thread is in reply to a post in the review I had written about the Nismo exhaust and although it hasn’t been track tested yet, I feel it performs well enough to warrant serious consideration even before the final performance review.

Look in my signature and it’s easy to see that Nismo is the predominant brand of choice where my performance parts are concerned. I didn’t pick them because they said Nismo on them and I have no brand loyalty because if I did, I would still be driving one of “The Big Three” brands of vehicles. I believed they offered me the best bang for the buck and were as close to a factory performance part as I was likely to find and the Nismo exhaust is no exception.

All exhaust systems are measured against the JBA at this point and rightly so, they have performed very well on a lot of great trucks. I believe however like my Zoomers which I love, the addition of an Xpipe to the Nimso exhaust would make a fine addition to a performance truck as well and will likely keep this system on my truck after testing.

I have issue with any muffler, cat back system, header or any performance part other than the cams being looked upon as the holy grail of performance. The only reason the cams are an exception is because JWT is the sole manufacturer of them and even though they have a monopoly, they produce a very nice set of cams indeed.

I just keep hearing the same thing over and over about other parts and I just don’t believe it’s justified. I perform very well at the track and on the dyno and I don't believe the parts on my truck, as well as some other trucks out there are getting reasonable consideration when performance parts are being discussed.

Part of this is my fault because I choose to run in full street trim on skinny AT tires and not push my tranny too hard in the first 60 ft of the quarter. I also run the same safe tune on the street as I do at the track and don't even remember how to switch maps. My truck is a daily driver and I want to keep it that way but I can’t drive it if it’s in the shop.

I realize some of what I do skews opinions toward certain brands of parts and that is to be expected to a certain degree but we need to keep our options open by supporting more than a brand or two when it comes to the most common performance parts. It seems as though it took 2 Dyno awards at OT and consistent track times along with no defeats before a lot of people even knew Nismo was making performance parts for our trucks.

Give me one of the top 4 or 5 intakes, a good set of headers, the right sized Bpipes with some decent flowing cats, the right sized exhaust pipes, a good X or Y pipe along with a flow through muffler, some VVT or cams, UpRev tune and presto, my truck performs and I bet I could set it up to run with the best of them.

I’m not trying to pick on any particular brand or part here but let’s focus on the exhaust because that’s where my attention is of late. Mufflers don't create HP in and of themselves and all they can offer to the system, as a whole is proper evacuation of the exhaust gases at the highest speed possible along with noise reduction. The same can be said of the pipes. With high enough velocity through the pipes and an X or Y merge to utilize negative sound pulses from one side of the engine to help scavenge exhaust and pull fresh charge into the cylinders on the other side, presto, more power.

When proper flow velocity is maintained and an X or Y pipe is employed to aid scavenging, No matter the brand, it will perform with the best of them. When the engine is no longer trying to burn spent exhaust gases and has more air and fuel in the cylinder to burn due to scavenging, it will produce more power because you are burning more fuel and air.

It's simple physics and nobody should believe any one brand has the patent on exhaust physics. Some do a better job with it than others to be sure, and as great a job as JBA has done with getting a performance catback system to the market at an affordable price, I believe the system to be imperfect and designed to hit a price point as much as a performance level and that goes for all the exhaust systems. They can all be improved upon, except maybe the Burns stuff but I don't have 2000.00 for a set of custom headers to find out, lol.

There is more than any one brand right now that will make this truck perform and we should all be grateful for that and support all the brands if they make good parts. The last thing I want to see are a bunch of discontinued labels adorning photos of performance parts on web sites and that's what will happen if everyone buys the same parts just because they heard they were the best.

Rest assured, if you ever hear me say that I think something is the best, what I really meant to say was, the best that day that I could afford. Performance advancements are being made and we are getting some manufactures competing with one another for our business so let's all take advantage of that and support them.

This post is not intended to anger or aggravate anyone so please don’t take it personally as I have been addressing all the long time modders on all the forums as a whole and nobody in particular. I almost deleted this post twice because I am not trying to cause trouble but rather make a point and felt this needed to be posted in the interest of overall performance of our trucks and not just at the strip.

I just don’t want people walking around like sheep and ignoring what may be really tasty grass because the Shepherd chooses to have them graze in the same field day after day. Who knows, one of the sheep could find a really tasty patch of Kentucky blue grass to graze and like the Zoomers exhaust, the Nismo duals with the addition of an Xpipe may be a fine pasture to have lunch in.

By the way, I am leaving that 100.00 bounty offer open for now but if someone gets an Intake manifold for the Titan that I can’t afford, all bets are off, lol

[Nissan Mike]

Papa,I want to run you,now let me get this straight,if I win you give me $100,if you win you take me drinking? Is there a downside in this?
Seriously,Great Challenge,I like the respect your gaining for the Titan community.
I know for a fact you spent the other night with that new Nismo Exhaust,too bad you're not enjoying your truck LOL

[RB's Titan]

Ummm I like that but damn was it long....Geez I had to stop and piss twice. Now I'll take that 100 from on my 20's in my frankstien truck BUT it'll cost me more than that in fuel to get there....LOL

Great CHallenge!

[Papa_D]

Originally Posted by Nissan Mike

Papa,I want to run you,now let me get this straight,if I win you give me $100,if you win you take me drinking? Is there a downside in this?
Seriously,Great Challenge,I like the respect your gaining for the Titan community.
I know for a fact you spent the other night with that new Nismo Exhaust,too bad you're not enjoying your truck LOL

No real downside for anyone because at the very least, we would both have beers and get to race, hopefully not in that order, lol.

[Papa_D]

Originally Posted by RB's Titan

Ummm I like that but damn was it long....Geez I had to stop and piss twice. Now I'll take that 100 from on my 20's in my frankstien truck BUT it'll cost me more than that in fuel to get there....LOL

Great CHallenge!

Yeah it's a shame we don't all live closer, you should feel fortunate you don't though because i would get you drunk before the race and your RT would be about 2 seconds, lol.

[roy365]

Don't really know what you got going on on the DL bro......but if i were close enough i would take your challenge. Keep the thread going to all...i wanna see what papa d has up his sleeves. you got some issues with the new exhaust or what?

[Papa_D]

Originally Posted by roy365

Don't really know what you got going on on the DL bro......but if i were close enough i would take your challenge. Keep the thread going to all...i wanna see what papa d has up his sleeves. you got some issues with the new exhaust or what?

Nothing secret going on, I'm just trying to make everyone aware that some fine parts are available to us and are being overlooked.

It's not really anything different than what I did with the Zoomers exhaust, Dr Gas Y and the Nismo headers but I felt like a wanted dead or alive bounty would get the point across a little better, lol.

I realize there are cheaper parts out there than some of the stuff I use and I spent 300.00 just getting a custom Y pipe made for my Zoomers which is almost as much as some people paid for there entire JBA system.

I just don't want everyone stuck in some blind quest for performance to the point that nothing but the "tried and true" performance parts are getting any consideration.

By the way, the new Nismo exhaust passed it's road rage challenge with flying colors, look for film at 11. If you ever get down this way we can have some beers on me and I'll even where Mickey ears if you like, I would have to do it for Dbolemiss' kids so I guess I could accommodate you as well, lol

[anmut]

Should've posted this in General Discussion - I'm sure someone would take you up on that. That's a win-win deal! Good luck!

[Papa_D]

Originally Posted by anmut

Should've posted this in General Discussion - I'm sure someone would take you up on that. That's a win-win deal! Good luck!

Thanks man, I just didn't want to get slammed with all challengers because beer and track time can add up quick, lol. I'm mainly looking for other sub 14.5 Titans to race against. I guess I should have clarified but most of the guys with trucks that quick watch the IRC VK56 Sub Forum.

[anmut]

I just can't wait to take my girl to the track this year and run her. First time for both of us! I'm hoping to hit in 14's with just my CAI and Exhaust. Hopefully UpRev will be available by then too.