Tungsten

Where is the air filter? You need to put that top on there because it does not run right without one.

Shimming with a hook...

You should be able to do a tune-up with dealer parts for about that much.

They are removable. I painted mine black for no reason. Just did not like the fact that it wasn't painted from factory.

The bigger the tip, the more aggressive the sound will be. Be careful with them as they can significantly amplify any droning too. Another thing you can do is angle the exhaust down or get a turn-down tip. The waves will reflect against the ground and the sound will ricochet everywhere. I used to have a 3 inch tip on mine but decided to take it off as it was building up rust inside. Since I have a 2.50" pipe anyway, it sounds pretty good even without a tip.

To get a quicker burp, park the vehicle on an incline. They burp best when the front is as high as it can be.

It looks like a U shape. Look by the firewall on the driver's side, you can't miss it.

Drag racers are not set up for low end performance. A road car will have the most torque around a middle rpm range (for fuel conservation and cruising efficiency reasons) while a dragster makes the most torque near or at the redline. On a road car, it is pointless to mash the gas pedal since all you will get is more noise after the torque band peaks. You are still spot on about the throttle. The engine should be able to accelerate no matter where the throttle position is. Yeah disregard my previous post, there was something wrong that caused hesitation at full throttle. Every WD21 I drove did that so I thought it was normal but apparently not. I guess they all had cracked vacuum hoses. Found a vacuum leak here and replaced it with a crappy hose just for testing purposes. Doing that solved all my funky problems I had before when the engine was cold. It will no longer hesitate at full throttle either. However, there is still not much difference between going all the way down and half way down as there is a limited amount of airflow to the engine. Every road car is designed like this and there isn't much you can do about that unless you plan to convert it into a race car. Check all your vacuum hoses for cracks and tightness on the fittings. If you have a leak somewhere, the MAF sensor will get a wrong reading and you will have fun issues. You can check for any major leaks by squeezing the blow-by hose near the IACV. If the engine speed goes up, you have a big leak somewhere.

A badge engineered Frontier. I remember seeing a few of these at a Suzuki dealer. I think the Nissan front end looks much better though.

Maybe there is a similar strut assembly with a smaller spring diameter? Just a thought...

The problem with that is on my center link the boots are not attached like they would be attached traditionally. They are actually pressed in as part of the assembly. It's not going to be easy to replace that one on the driver's side properly.

Don't stomp the pedal! When you stomp the pedal, you flood the engine with too much air. That's completely normal on these trucks (at least with my experience). You accelerate better with 1/2 throttle than with WOT. Although somehow you will accelerate better with WOT when the engine is cold. Most likely an ECU fuel management issue as it is tuned to save you gas. I lied. Keep reading...

If there is no gasket then you will have a vacuum leak. Any air flowing past the MAF sensor will cause funny ECU operation and screw up your fuel maps. Get a gasket in there and you should notice the difference right away!

Capping them is a good idea! If crap gets in there it can corrode the tank and maybe even cause the coolant to leak out.

Yeah probably but it did look sealed with that foam ring around. If anything I will just replace the center link. It's actually very easy to change it. I don't even have to worry about alignment.

I don't know about waste heat and exhaust. The exhaust needs to be hot for the catalytic converter to work properly and for the exhaust gasses to exit faster and scavenge better. Internal combustion engines are just very inefficient in general. If you want to start recovering waste heat, try starting with the radiator first. A good amount of energy is always lost through the radiator.

I find it really weird how they only changed the pitman taper but not the idler.

Do you have a proper gasket on the intake collar? To adjust the TPS, you loosen those screws and turn the sensor the other way. There is a procedure in the FSM on doing this the right way.

Found the problem. A wrong taper on the pitman arm was causing the joint on the center link to fall in putting the center link at a slight angle. Changing the pitman arm fixed the problem.

Yep, that's it. RockAuto.com has different part numbers for newer 4WD center links.

Yes. You can even use a newer 2WD center link and the taper still works.

Did you adjust the TPS?

It's all good, I had a few of these building this.

No, it is parallel to the center link but perpendicular to the frame rails.