KiwiTerrano

Unfortunately the zd30 is one of the worst diesels Nissan ever made, a far cry from the earlier TD series diesels. I deliberately bought an earlier qd32 powered terrano not a zd30 for that reason. The zd30 is known for melting piston 3 and blowing turbos. It's regarded as a matter of when, not if, it will give you major grief, usually around 170,000 kms or so. Unfortunately this is not a cheap fix and I have seen several NZ Terranos with blown zd30 diesels that have been retrofitted with a qd32 or td27 diesel. If your boost pressure is fluctuating I'd be worried about the turbo. Could be worth taking the intake side to pieces and checking nothings loose. Does it blow any smoke? Also try offroadexpress.kiwi for more info.

Go on trademe.co.nz and find one off a grey import jdm terrano. They're on every other r50 in New Zealand.

Yes you have to have a third party site and insert the link. I use tinypic.url

My diff whines and has done since I purchased the vehicle. Hasn't gotten any worse in 35000 km. I've changed the oil twice in it. My flatmates terrano also has a slight diff whine.

JDM HID lights are fantastic. The low beam HID are extremely good, especially when paired with good aftermarket bulbs. I'm running Osram Nightbreaker D2S in mine and the light output is unbelievable. Better than any other vehicle I've ever been in. The high beams on the JDM lights are also great, they're shaped like driving lamps and output a good amount of light even with factory bulbs. Am contemplating getting a set of nightbreakers for them too in halogen form. My light output is on a par with all my mates with massive light bars haha

I deleted the second airbox, and used a flexi hose from supercheap auto and a 3" PVC elbow from Bunnings to connect the snorkel to the standard airbox. Plus lots of silicone to seal it all up. I also run the snorkel head backwards now, as I found that the ram was introducing too much crap into my airbox. Opened it up and found that one side of my filter was coated in "mud" (from where water had wet the dust) and insects and the bottom of the airbox was full of water. Looked like the ram head hadn't been ejecting water properly. Runs much cleaner backwards, I'm only getting dust now & no water. Also check your air filter fits the airbox, the previous owner had fitted a filter that was 3 cm too short and so heaps of crap was getting sucked straight past it onto my MAF... I had to replace that as it wasn't running right. Luckily the turbo seems OK.

Nice work! Love those lights.

Removing the glow plugs would do it for two reasons. One, it will be difficult as hell to start with no glow. Two, there will be no compression at all, and so it won't fire. I'd also recommend removing the fuse for the fuel pump and unplugging the output hose from the fuel filter in the engine bay to avoid spraying diesel everywhere. Although you will then have to re-prime the fuel system. Probably a good idea to change the fuel filter anyway if it's been sitting (or at least after running it for a little bit). Good luck, the TD is a great engine.

Surely in a high speed collision however, the force of the impact would be sufficient to shear one or both bolts holding the link in place?

Yes, to me it makes no sense why Nissan never put a link there. From looking at the design of the suspension the rear of the crossmember is under huge stress. A missing link should make no difference to your CVs.

Yes. From looking at the photo, it appears that on the compressed side, the shock is fully compressed but the axle is not sitting on the bumpstop, meaning you definitely need to extend the bumpstop. It also looks like you're about to get coil bind on the compressed side, again meaning you need to extend the bumpstop. Looks good overall though

I would agree, I trawled through a lot of shock options to try & find a better one & couldn't.

Yes, when fitting longer shocks you need to measure the length of your spring and then use trigonometry to calculate if your shocks are too long. Personally I would recommend either the Bilstein 33-185552, which works on pre or post-facelift, or the Procomp ES326500 (cheaper, but only compatible with post-facelift, as you can't mount them inverted and the body interferes with the panhard rod on pre-facelift). Both shocks have the same mounting design. The above shocks give the maximum downtravel without having to lower the bumpstops (to avoid damaging the shock under full compression), and work with 400 mm long springs or longer. Here's a table of shocks I have compiled. Shocks.xlsx

Yes, on my prefacelift r50 the shocks make the hypotenuse of a right angled triangle, which allowed me to use trigonometry to calculate the maximum shock length for my springs.

That all sounds fine, so long as the springs are long enough to remain captive at full droop.

Should consider a diesel swap if you're concerned about fuel economy. My QD32 powered factory diesel R50 does about 10 L/100km on the open road and around 12 L/100 km around town. Great truck.

Throwback to just after I had the front end rebuilt and fitted my custom recovery points

Nah, the springs in my R50 with 220,000km were bottoming out going over speed bumps. Have since replaced with Ironman springs. World of difference. I'm interested to see someone use a different spring to the 9446. Am considering going to a 50+ mm lift myself, and am thinking about getting a set of NRC2119 springs. I prefer a longer softer rate spring for maximising travel. http://www.red90.ca/rovers/springinfo.html Link to the table of rover springs. You have to use "front" springs as rear are wrong diameter. If you're carrying that much weight the 9446 is a good match I'd say. Although using a longer spring also allows you to use longer rear shocks without retention issues.

Yes. I'm running Ironman 35 mm lift springs which are 400 mm in length (rear). I have procomp ES326500 shocks which are 15.94" compressed and 27.07" extended for travel of 11.13" This is basically the longest shock you can run for several reasons. Firstly, the compressed length is barely short enough for the bumpstops to work properly & avoid ruining the shocks at full compression. Secondly, if the extended length were any longer the springs would drop out. I did some trigonometry to calculate the max shock length before purchasing. For a 400 mm long rear spring, maximum length from the centre of the bolts on either end of the shock is 27". Otherwise you will have problems with spring retention, and the compressed length of the shock cannot be greater than 405 mm or so (16"). Preferably <400 or <15.9". I am pushing the limits on both compression and extension with these shocks, but the results are worth it. If people are running a front subframe drop and are prepared to extend the rear bumpstops to allow for a shock with a longer compressed length then of course you can run a 29" extended shock. I have built my truck to flex as well as possible with minimal lift. I have attached a list of various rear shock options, OEM replacement and various aftermarket. Shocks.xlsx

A 2" spring lift, when used with standard shocks, will reduce your downtravel by 2". This may not sound like much, but when you consider the standard shocks have only 8" of travel, and are usually setup for 4" uptravel & 4" downtravel, you are essentially reducing your downtravel to 2"... Therefore, if you want to actually use the vehicle offroad, I dare say it would be an issue. Fitting longer shocks absolutely transformed the capability of my vehicle offroad, as did removing the RSB. Maximising wheel travel is critical when one does not have lockers or traction control.

KYB struts for the front. Rear use something other than KYB as they're too short if you're lifting it - you won't get good travel as you will be limiting the downtravel severely. I'm running 11" travel Procomp rear shocks with no RSB and the flex is ungodly.

Watch the mighty car mods episode on plugin tuning chips. If you want a real difference you have to spend real $ eg unichip

See this thread Also, I love my JDM projectors... Also the rest of my JDM diesel R50 haha

Onroad manners are fine without the swaybar. Marginally more prone to understeer but nothing drastic. Removing the front sway bar is what causes dangerous changes in handling. Many vehicles do not have a factory rear sway bar but very few have no front sway bar. I'm also running polyurethane bushes front and rear which really helped roadholding too. Not cheap though.

It's generally accepted that the correct way to mount a shock is with the body down -- ergo, upside-down is with the body at the top. Only do this with monotubes.