88pathoffroad

Or try using a paperclip or other appropriately sized wire with the tip bent slightly and cut at an angle (kinda like a fishhook, but REAL small/slight) to slip in above or below the broken off key, then hook into the tumbler cuts on the key and pull it out. That's what locksmiths do.

Yeah but 5.13 ring and pinions are $400 a set...two sets required, plus professional setup. Owie. T-case gears are what, $600? OW!

You're welcome. Good to hear you love your Pathy and want to make it better at what it was built to do!

Exactly. I used MAPP gas on a trigger torch and a small pipe over the end of the spring to bend it in quite a few different places. Looks good afterwards.

Nah, just new engine and transmission. You can get an adapter to mate a Chevy tranny to the Nissan t-case, but it'd be better to use a Chevy t-case also, just for match-up and power handling ability. The diffs should be OK to a degree. I wouldn't go neutral-dropping a built 350 on the stock Nissan diffs, but they'll handle some real abuse before dying.

lol

I eyeball engineered the steering alignment. *nodnod* Hehe

Here are the specs for 4WD: Camber 0.563-2.063 degrees positive. Preferred: 1.313 degrees positive. Caster 0.0625 degrees negative to 1.4375 degrees positive. Preferred: 0.6875 degrees positive. Toe is for total toe in at 0.08-0.24.

Cutting off the pigtail reduces the height of the spring. Heating it up and bending it out keeps the full length/height of the spring and doesn't cause any adverse problems.

It basically all amounts to a bunch of expensive items that only add 1 or 2 horsepower each, which isn't much bang for your buck. Cheapest easiest way to add power is to add nitrous, but then you gotta refill the bottle if you get trigger-happy with it...

So you're saying that a 10 inch wide tire will have the same amount of contact surface area on the ground as a 13.5 inch wide tire at the same PSI exactly? Doesn't sound right to me, but I'm not here to debate the properties of tire contact patches and pressurization theory. Oh well.

Hehehe Keep us posted, then! We'd love to see it.

You're right. There aren't many options unless you want to go one step at a time slowly, or just plain pull the stock engine and do a full, custom, performance rebuild of it. There are plenty of Nissan or NISMO performance parts out there, they just aren't cheap. Or you could pull the stock engine and stuff a Chevy 350 in there...hehehe. 1. Intake: K&N drop-in air cleaner. Nobody makes a cold air intake or conical filter adapter for Pathfinders from 87-89. The TBI unit is oval-shaped at the top and no other car I've seen has that particular shape. 1a. Throttle body injection unit porting and polishing: Lee from L&P Performance can port and polish your TBI for an additional 10 HP or so gain. You will have to sacrifice some cold running performance and idling issues with this option, but if it's not your daily driver, I wouldn't worry about it. After warmed up, it runs awesome. Again, not a cheap option, but a viable one nonetheless. Lee's website is: http://lpperformance.com . 2. Exhaust: Pacesetter and Thorley companies both make headers for Pathfinders, but the automatic transmission equipped vehicles will need the crossover pipe modified so it fits properly. The auto trans pan gets in the way of the exhaust. A nice high-flow catalytic converter and aftermarket high-flow muffler will also free up some horsepower. I have no reccommendations on muffler choice, that's up to you. Exhaust piping should be about 2" or 2 1/4" diameter. Don't use 3" because you'll lose low end power due to too little backpressure. 3. Computer: You can get your engine computer reprogrammed for more power and a higher RPM limit. Costs an arm and a leg. Adds about 10% more horsepower, maybe 15 total. Can anyone else think of anything for this subject? I'm open to suggestions.

There's no such thing as a Nissan computer-controlled manual transmission in a Pathfinder. Your problem lies elsewhere...but I really don't think it's anything like air in the lines or a blown seal cause then it wouldn't shift at all, all the time. Something physically interfering with your shifter lever and the linkage underneath would do that (like a stick or tree limb stuck under your Pathy), or just plain something inside the tranny coming to a state of exact alignment just so you couldn't shift it that one time...dunno. Be careful in case it does it again, I'd say. We don't want to see your Pathy wrecked or anything happen to you!

I wrote up a whole page on how to do that. It's at the top of the Garage section as a sticky post. Go look.

So, just say that the front differential is covered/protected instead of using the broad term "IFS". I fully understand what the term involves and what a solid front axle consists of.

More like 2 degrees at a time. 5 degrees is a LOT, considering 12 degrees BTDC is reccommended. I second the exhaust shield notion, go shake all of your shielding and see if anything's slightly loose. Mine were. I removed them all.

That's what I did too, only I left the top coil a lot flatter than you did. That way the end of the coil doesn't try to poke a hole into the upper spring perch and coil spacer.

I've SEEN a Pathfinder with 38's on it and it was not pretty. The tires were so close to everything it was insane. All it was was for looks. It couldn't go anywhere because the tires rubbed horribly everywhere underneath. Unless it's JUST a trail rig, I'd advise against it. The biggest you should go is 35's on the stock Pathfinder drivetrain, and that's an absolute limit. It'll be terrible on gas mileage, terrible on offroading because of lack of gearing to turn the huge-arse tires, and terrible on-road due to the ride height and small turning radius. There's just no power there to run that large of a tire, man. That and the lifts available won't give you enough room to run those tires. With the 4+3 lift combo you can run 33's comfortably, or trim the crap outta your fenders and run 35's. And I don't mean a little, I mean, break out the SawZall and cut the finders OUT, cut parts of the firewall out near the front rear sides, etc. I sincerely doubt you'll get anything bigger to fit with any amount of real useability out of it. Oh, that and your steering components will tweak into paperclips after every offroad run. You'll be replacing centerlinks, idler arms and tie rods like they're candy. I'm not kidding.

Quit running 91 octane in it. It's completely unnecessary and doesn't do anything for power or mileage. All it does is suck money out of your pocket. Using premuim gasoline only applies to cars that REQUIRE it. Your Pathy requires 87 octane fuel, was built to run on it, and runs best with it. Power gains, gas mileage and running smoother are all just myths. Look it up yourself if you don't believe me. One thing I've seen is that the EGR system likes to gum up with carbon and crap after a while. This means that the passage from the EGR valve itself through the lower intake manifold is almost completely or partially blocked and therefore not performing as needed to pass emissions. Cleaning out the valve itself will make that work properly, but if the intake passage is blocked it won't much matter, because it'll still be only allowing a small amount of recirc gas to be run through for idle emissions purposes...which is how your vehicle is tested... Another thing to check is the vaccuum system for cracked, loose or missing hoses. I'm no expert on emissions testing and how that works, but if any vaccuum lines are old and cracked (sucking partial vaccuum instead of full like they should be), it's going to run incorrectly, even if it is only by a few degrees or hydrocarbons or nitrous oxides. I'm not talking about big obvious cracks onm the outside of the hoses either, I'm talking about cracks that start at the ENDS of the hoses and go inside at the point of attachment. I've seen it happen on almost every car I've owned, and I think I'm up to about 15 by now...

You can get poly spacers that do the same thing for $50 or so on Ebay. Also, there are already holes in the upper spring seat, if I remember correctly.

Exactly. I got stuck once when I broke an auto hub from going forward to reverse too many times. The aftermarket manual hubs are tons stronger and STAY LOCKED when you want them to. When you go from forward to reverse with auto hubs, they unlock, then re-lock in the opposite direction before any power is transferred to the front axles. Makes it real hard to go places sometimes. With manual hubs, they stay locked period. No direction change delay or pause.

I dunno. Two days or so. Full weekend. I like to take my time, not do it fast and just do whatever's needed. I always end up cleaning, trimming, modifying, moving, etc... Of course, my Pathy isn't my daily driver usually...I can drive my van if the Pathy's OOC.

http://www.lpperformance.com

The ECU has to be from the same year, engine and transmission-equipped Pathfinder as yours. That is to say, it needs to be from a 1994 V6 with an auto as opposed to being from a '94 V6 with a manual tranny, if that's what you have. That being said, bathing the ECU while the engine and ignition is on is a good way to fry it and make the vehicle not run afterwards, yes.