JamesRich

Hey guys! I haven't been here in a while but I'm still rolling the pathfinder! Anyone have a lockright installed for a while? I've had one in my truck for almost 6 years now and I think it's causing me some problems. I say "it's" causing me problems but not by fault of the locker itself. Let me start by saying this thing does a great job off road! Still after 6 years and 37K miles it still locks great off road and clicks while unlocking on turns in town. for the last 3 years I've had a problem with a vibration when I'd go over 65 mph, but I rarely did because I'd always take back roads to my hunting camp so I never worried about it. Now, after 25 years of marriage my X decided to get on antidepressants and become a whore and finally left. So now I’m divorced and dating a lady I met online that lives 85 miles from my home. Since the pathfinder gets better fuel mileage than my titan I put some A/Ts on it and roll the hell out of it! The vibration has been driving me crazy! My rear tires have only a .050 difference in tread depth and I just replaced all the swing arm bushings. The thing is it vibrates sometimes and other times its smooth. When I shift gears I feel the rear kick over, which is why I replaced the swing arm bushings but they didn’t make a difference. The original bushings didn’t appear bad. It's also really squirrely to drive! It's all over the road. That got worse with the new bushing! My thinking is the slight difference in the tires is causing the problems. I think it’s only pushing the truck with the taller tire which is causing the squirrely problem. I guess I should never rotate tires with this locker in there. I pulled all the wheel weights and put a pound of lead shot in each tire. I have two sets of tires and have the same vibration with either set so I don’t think it’s a balance problem. If it was it wouldn’t go away some times. Has anyone else had similar problems running an auto locker? I'd kind of like to hear someone confirm this before I pull it. I will try to find a differential in the pick a part with the same ratio and just swap it. I should really just buy a small car to roll back and forth but I’m never getting rid of the pathfinder and a single guy doesn’t need a full size truck, hunting truck, motorcycle, and a small highway car! My insurance likes me enough already! James

My 87 had an open differential too. James

Yes that's just a spacer and my truck has no body lift. I don't think KMA had ever built one of these for a pathfinder with no body lift because without the spacers the bumper was pushing up on the grill. The brackets didn't clear the radiator support either, I had to knock small dents in it. For a body lift they use longer mounting brackets. James

Vector who? Lol! Gone made it all complicated! You don't need measurements if your building your own, just make it look like the pictures. I found the pics I had taken of mine a few years back. The KMA bumper is made in two pieces, the bumper and the mounting brackets. I'm sure they build a generic bumper and then mounts for a specific vehicle. The two curved mounting brackets bolt where the tow hook bolted up and the bumper sits on top and is bolted to the brackets with four half inch bolts. The curved mounting brackets that bolt to the tow hook locations Where the brackets bolt to the bumper. View from on top, you can see the tabs going to where the stock bumper brackets were bolted and you can see the two 3/8" bolts connecting the bumper to the factory brackets. View from underneath of the factory bumper brackets bolted to the bumper. I drilled a 2" hole through the middle of this one to pass the leads for the winch. Hope these help. James

I don't think they are strong enough to hold most of the pull of the winch. Just think of them as a support bracket not a mount. I have a video somewhere here where I drug the whole truck with the winch, the bumper didn't flex at all. I think without the original bumper brackets bolted to the top of the bumper it would have wanted to flex down a little. James

I used the stock bumper brackets. As B said most of the support comes from where it bolts to the tow hook location but I figured without some support up higher in line with the winch it would act as a lever and pull down on the frame. The KMA bumper comes with just blank tabs where the factory bumper mounts go, so I bolted the factory brackets in place and drilled a couple of holes through each bracket into the blank tabs on the bumper. I had a picture somewhere but can't find it. James

My experience with KMA wasn't to bad. They took almost twice as long as they originally told me to deliver but I really like the bumper. It's very strong too. James

Does a 95 have an air bag? That is usually why the manufacturer will claim it won't fit. They can't tell you it's ok to remove a safety function. As for yanking the wheel off without a puller, we are not all 6 foot 10 and built like the monster under our bed! James

That sounds like a rock caught behind one of your rotors. It started after you got stuck in the mud? It only makes the noise when your rolling? Jack it up and turn each front wheel one at a time. If it's only when it's rolling it has to be one of the wheels. James

I'll try to get one when I get a chance. It might not be 200 rpms, I'm looking at the factory tac, but its pretty low. I'll hook up my timing light to get a true rpm reading and fire it up cold and see what I get. James

Yes it does. It has a slight vibration but I can hardly tell it's running. It sounds really strange too. My little motor is still in very good shape, only has 120K. It has 180 PSI of compression per cylinder and It holds 21 in of vacuum at an idle when it warm, no vacuum leaks. James

This distributor will only work if you are putting a carburetor. It won't work with the fuel injection. Remember this is considered for off road only, it won't make it passed any visual emissions check if you have that in your state. Also won't be good for rock crawling. We don't have any big rocks down here in Louisiana just mud! I've been driving this around for a good while now, around 2000 miles, so I'll give y'all my take on it. So far it's still running great! The Holley carb floods a little when it sits hot for about an hour and I have to spin it a couple of seconds to start it and then I get a fuel smell. Sitting over night or 10 or 15 minutes I just bump the key and its running. I never put a choke on it, I just pinned the manual choke open. When winter gets here I'll see if I need one and might just add a cable for the manual setup. When I start it in the morning with no choke it fires right up and will idle on its own around 200 rpms. I swear you cant even tell it's running. I do rev it up a little for a few seconds to get the oil flowing though. I let it idle for a couple of minutes then hit the road. I have to go easy on the clutch for the first take off because it wants to stall but after that it runs normal. I could avoid the stalling if I put a choke on it but I've found I really don't need one yet. So far I'm happy with the conversion! I would have a lot more miles on it but it's been hot as hell down here and my A/C doesn't work too well. I need to change the header panel before I fix the A/C so I put the project off for a while and I've just been rolling the Titan. It's cooling off now so I will put off the repair again till next year! James

When trying to lift it out of the knuckle it hits the axle. Ball joints don't last on my truck either! I put some cheap ones when I first got it that lasted 6k miles. Changed them out for the $80 moog problem solvers and they have slack after only 3k miles. I'm sure if they were easy to replace they would last forever! James

you must not have gotten the springs from a jeep with the V8. The V8 springs are usually .6 diameter wire. most of the stock pathfinder coils I measured were from .5 to .52.

Your planning to mount the carb sideways? I think something like that might work but won't flow too well. With atomized fuel you want to get it into the cylinders as quick as you can before it condensates. Doesn't look like you will be able to close the hood either! James

They never found a source for factory distributor gears so they are having a machine shop make some. If you search the web for carbureted VG you will find a few ways others handled their distributor issues. This is just the easiest most dependable option. Just stab it in the motor and run a power wire thats it. I'd like to see a blow through turbo setup, they did it years ago and it worked. James

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/compatibility-chart/B000LG1OH6/ref=au_pf_dp_chart?ie=UTF8&Make=Nissan|67&Model=Titan|2440&Year=2006|2006&carId=003 This is what I put on my truck. $320 with free shipping from amazon. I had to use a converter from a 94 because my truck had a longer one. Your right they don't list it on their site anymore. They must be discontinuing them. James

The government prefers sheeple but they don't mind chickens that remain quiet! James

I like magnaflow too but gibson makes a cat back setup for our trucks. I prefer to bolt stuff on myself than having to bring it to a shop. James

I was running a base timing of 15 on the TBI system. I'm running a 350 cfm holley which should be more than enough for a 3L motor. I'm not sure about the cost of the distributor, I didn't pay for this one. I have a MPI system ready to put on, modified wiring harness and all. With all the wiring I was concerned about it not being dependable and I have very little time to work on it. I use this truck for hunting and would not be happy if it left me 5 miles back in the woods! You can't beat the dependability of an old school carb and one wire distributor. I know it will always start. That Jim Connor racing setup was a VG30S intake, I have one of them too. It originally came from a car in saudi arabia that had a two stage two barrel carburetor. That's why the carb opening is lengthwise and you must mount a two barrel holley sideways. I didn't think the carb would have worked right sideways but if Jim Connor sold them for racing I guess they did. I'd be concerned about all the gas rushing to one side of the bowl when I'd step on it. I plan to try and make a four barrel adapter for it later and run a 390 cfm holley. I'm afraid it will end up with the carb sitting too high though. James

Yes this has been in the works since october last year. The gear on this distributor is from a used one I sent them. They were having trouble finding gears, did David find them a source for new gears? The VG loves timing! I'm running a base of 25 and it maxes just a little over 50. James

The power is much better but the fuel mileage is almost the same. 12 mpg in town and 17 mpg on the highway. I still have the crappy Y pipe with the experimental engineering headers. The pipe steps down from the 2 1/4 collector to the factory Y pipe really screwing up the flow. This crap was the best I could get done locally to get the truck rolling back when I put the headers on. I've finally located a guy that makes Y pipes for titans with mandrel bends and factory located flanges. I haven't called him yet to ask him to make one for the pathfinder but I don't see why he wouldn't. The only problem is he is a 4 hour drive one way from my home. We don't have any good muffler shops around here. I'm sure once I get the exhaust right it will really open up the potential of this setup. I don't know if it's the first mr510 intake on a pathfinder but it's definitely the first chevy HEI running on a nissan! I wish I could share this with David but he must still be pissed at me for not being happy about him selling me a pair of headers without the Y pipe like we discussed. I wasn't joking when I said I couldn't get a decent Y pipe made locally. I'm sure anyone in my situation would have been pissed but I didn't hold any grudges against him. By the way he won't talk to me now I guess he does hold a grudge. Anyway, I sent him an email with pics. Weather he reply's or not I just hope he has some intakes ready for in case other people want to buy some now. As for why, the fuel injection was shot! The motor ran smooth but hardly had enough power to get out of it's own way and the fuel mileage sucked too. I didn't see spending the money for fuel injection parts when the TBI setup wasn't that efficient to start with. I still have the cat on the truck and I bought a wide band setup that I will mount on the dash. First to tune the carb to where its burning it's cleanest then to monitor it after. Also guys like cool gauges in their vehicles! So don't worry B I'm probably polluting less now than with the old fuel injection system. Another good reason is it's almost EMP proof now! If we get a big pulse I should only need a new distributor module. A fuel injected vehilce will be a chicken coup after a large EMP pulse. Every good BOV needs to be EMP proof! James

http://www.nissanpathfinders.net/forum/topic/36016-carburetor-on-a-vg30/ I'm finished the test mileage on it and it's still perfect! You can't get any easier than a chevy HEI! James

The carburetor vs fuel injection discussion has always been an argument. Some people prefer fuel injection and some people like the simplicity of a carburetor. If you want to run a carburetor you can get a modified intake from vg30.com but you needed a saudi distributor to be able to keep it simple and have a vacuum advance. Well not anymore thanks to Performance Distributors! http://www.performancedistributors.com/ They built a chevy HEI distributor to fit a Nissan VG30 or VG33. I’ve been testing it for them and have close to 1K miles on it with no problems at all. There isn’t a more simple distributor to hook up, if you give it 12 volts and a ground it will spark while turning it in your hand. I’m also using a set of their live wires which look strong enough to use as a tow strap! They haven’t listed it on their web site yet but give them a call to let them know you want one! It is just a little bigger diameter than a factory distributor for port injection but it fits perfect with a driver side valve cover from a port injected vg30. I used a VG30.com intake and made a spacer with a tail to mount the throttle linkage on. I used a modified throttle bracket and cable from a chevy TBI engine. For fuel I bought a fuel pressure regulator made for the high pressure of fuel injection that has a return line to dump the extra pressure. I just connected the factory fuel lines to it and ran a hose to the carb. James

Yes I lubed them but my truck is always in water so it keeps washing the lube off I guess. I can spray them with some penetrating oil and keep them from squeaking for about a week then it comes back. Next time I'm going back with rubber. With the M/T tires it handles sloppy anyways. Poly bushing won't get that out! James