Nefarious

good to know ill check build dates

im gunna pull the deck out of my pathy, i have the same year 1993 pathy as well so im hoping the wiring is all the same colours. my truck is canadian and hers is american but i dont think it should matter on the stock wiring harness. i wired in my trucks stereo just fine and my lights still work lol so maybe ill get lucky and see a wire that needs to be connected but isnt...blah really didn't want to pull my pathy apart. oh well..

well i didnt attach any wires from the trucks harnesses other than acc and +12v lines to the deck, the deck itself works fine, all the lights on it are perfect, the stereo works great. its the dash gauges speedo/tach etc that arent lighting up anymore...wondering if theres any associated wiring that would power the dash lights but down in the stereo wiring area...and that picture you posted of the mess of wiring ALMOST looks as bad as what I was just dealing with. lol. also been tearing out all the factory stuff....that factory alarm is horrible it has to go too. went off in the middle of the night 4 times now for no reason at all! I'm gunna smash her pathy with a baseball bat if it does it again lol. Sometimes i really love my simple no option XE....her fully loaded SE has some electrical gremlins...not for long though. all that crap is coming out! lol

Grahhh I wish the previous owner didn't make such a mess of the wiring so I wouldn't have given myself this headache to fix! lol

Hey everyone. I'm just in the process of getting a sound system installed in my girlfriends 1993 pathy se. The truck has just an empty hole for the deck when we bought it, all the wires had been cut and were just hanging in the back and a whole bunch of wires were going every which way in that area, it was a huge mess. I tried to clean up all the wires, tape off the unused ones, find the ones that were not going to anything and remove them, there was a lot of chaos in that area lol. So I got everything all neat and tidy, wrapped, removed, taped, organized the harnesses to get it back to harnesses not just a tangle of wires everywhere and got the deck hooked up all right. Everything for the stereo works perfectly... but now the bloody instrument panel lights wont come on, as in the back lights for the gauges etc...the dummy lights all work fine but the backlight doesnt so now my gf cant see the gauges at night. The back light for the clock is on when the key is in or the truck is running and the lights are OFF, as soon as you click the dash lights(first click) or the dash/headlights (second click) the clock light backlight goes out and the instrument cluster backlight just stays off. The gauges themselves all still work fine, they just won't light up at all. All the rest of the lights on the truck are fine, all the fuses are good. I know everything worked before I started tearing out and cleaning it all up. I do remember there was a few wires all tied to one main chassis ground wire that is attached to some metal in the area, it looked weird. It was messy, some wires coming off the tie point were cut going no where(i removed those completely), one or two were coming from the harnesses and just going to the main chassis ground wire (thinking back I should have left these but they were ugly and were definitely not stock, i thought they were just a source for a short). I removed them all and just connected the head units ground to the ground wire to chassis and removed and taped off the rest. I'm thinking one of those wires that were tied to that ground were for the instrument panel back lights but I'm not 100% sure as I removed so many useless cut off ends of wires. Is there some sort of ground for the instrument panel back light down in that area that I just removed from ground? If so what colour is it? Any other wire colours I should be aware of that have to do with the back light system? I see the power wire for illum to the gauges is pink/black stripe and it goes to the dimmer roller switch as well as the ill+ terminal on the back of the gauge cluster, but i don't see that one anywhere down near the stereo. theres 4 pink wires, 2 with black stripe but they also have the silver markings down them as well and i think they are the stock speaker wires, not the same as the clean pink/black stripe going to the ill+ and dimmer switch. What other colours am I looking for? I know I have the proper +12v and acc wires to the stereo as I tested them with a multimeter and the colours matched a guide I found online (cant remember the colours right now) Other than a ground for the guages what else could it be? I don't think theres a short as all I did was remove wires, I only joined the 2 power wires to the stereo to run it and all the other lights/fuses are good including tail lights. This is really starting to annoy me and if I can't figure this out soon I'm just going to run a new damn wire to the battery to the system lol. Any electrical gurus welcome to chime in!

dcass72, that kit you listed from amazon is for a wd21 pathfinder, 86-1995. i just bought the same kit for my 93 and while this is a great kit for a wd21, it will not fit your r50 at all. these are bushings for the front upper and lower control arms on the double wishbone of the wd21/d21 suspension. don't order them if you have an r50!

Why not adapt the rear of a new pathfinder in. They are IRS, its still nissan pathfinder!, its meant for rwd, the driveshaft may work, its wayyyyyyyyy stronger than some pos Ford escape. Those escape lower control arms are thinner than the ones in my 240sx......the pathy IRS would probably have closer gear ratios and.......its body on frame. That's probably where I would look first...

how does a vac gauge help you to save fuel? just curious..i'm always down for saving fuel!! anyways i finally went out and cranked up my drivers torsion bar...driver side is not liking being cranked up over 3", might need some new bars soon.. ill be building a custom front steel bumper soon so I could use some stiffer t-bars anyways.. did a driveway alignment. also moved an exhaust clamp that wasnt sealing and tightened my drivers side exhaust header.. no more exhaust leaks!! also set the timing, it was just eyeballed when i put the distributor back in recently. purring like a kitten now! just need to find an EGR to put on my truck to pass emissions (then promptly take it back off once i pass) and the beast is ready to rock! almost there!

Looks great man, I love the shape of the pathy head lights more but the light definitely looks better.

Yeah I have a z32 1990 hard top in black n/a 5 speed 3150 lbs lightest z32 ever made. I love that car, its my next project.. anyways yeah I had no doubt about Mr510s skills, just an assumption! I believe its 10.5;1 at that!

Ah I Gotcha, okay that makes sense. Smaller than vg30e dishes eh, yikes don't mess up a timing belt job hey? Lol

yeah that would be amazing. im still confused why project pathfinders detailed build listed the compression increase as .5 over stock, maybe they were wrong who knows. i am definitely planning more than 200 hp on my vg33e swap so larger injectors/maf are a must. i am just saying i personally wouldnt run stock injectors on a high compression 200+ hp build. i would feel much better with running larger injectors on a lower duty cycle, and making not only more but smoother power when coupled with the larger maf and a rom tune. makes a lot more sense to me to do it right and have everything working together in harmony than just let the stock tune try and keep up with the massively increased air flow

I thought q45 piston in a vg33e made 9.6;1 compression, up from the stock 9.1;1? I'm pretty sure that's what project pathfinder had reported anyways. The stock fuel system could adapt to that easily. Where is the 10.4;1 from?

Really? Well then I guess I'm wrong. I don't think I would want 180cc injectors on a high comp vg34 build but I'm sure if u crank up the duty cycle on them it shouldn't run lean Running larger injectors at a moderate duty cycle is better than running smaller injectors at a high duty cycle, I would also upgrade the maf as the tiny stock maf would be a huge limitation with that much potential air flow!

Keep in mind the stock ecu and fuel system won't support a high compression build. U will need at least injectors and a tune

Look up project pathfinder in the search. They build a vg34 with higher compression using vg33e block and machining it out to fit q45 pistons

I wonder if theres a way to add consult to the pathy ecu, would sure be a lot cheaper and easier than swapping to the m30 ecu. I know the 240 crowd has done it with the ka24e 8 bit ecu. Adding consult to their existing ecu rather than swapping in the ka24e stanza ecu which has consult built in.

I plan to use the n60 maf (found in maxima and m30), m30 (or possibly maxima) ecu, and a combination of consult and eeprom tuning. Right now my maf and the factory tune are by far the biggest restrictions on the motor right now as well as the stock tiny little 180cc injectors, also looking into larger injector options, I have 4 good 260cc 240sx injectors I may try to fit as I would only need to find 2 more and an extra 80cc per injector would be more than enough flow for an n/a tune. I will definitely keep updated with the progress. I think I read somewhere that the maximas consult is not as functional and more limited than the m30. I def want to be able to Rom dump so a full consult is necessary. I'll have to do some more research. From what I found the maxima and m30 maf are the same n60 p/n though so they are interchangeable. Not sure if maxima uses the titania o2 or not..

Well I am kind of thinking of just Rom tuning the m30 ecu, if I can find an 8 bit consult supporting vg30e ecu then I can tune very cheap. I am in electronics tech school right now so wiring/soldering is a non issue. For just 40$ for a chip burner and pennies for the 8 bit eeproms and eeproms sockets which I already have I can be up and running but without a consult it makes it way harder to Rom dump my factory tune to work with. I also want to run full time onboard datalogging and engine diagnostics and stats which I can do very cheap with ecutalk. The capabilities of the consult alone are huge in my books. I wish Nistune wasn't so spendy!! I already run Nismotronic in my 240sx and don't really want to shell out another 600 for tuning my pathy. Plus I really want to learn to rom tune. Hmm, must weigh the options...

Yes I run headers with the vg33e, obx stainless mandrel bent tig welded 2" exits, got them on eBay for 100$ shipped to canada on eBay. When I pulled my vg30 it had a cracked stock manifold and a really bad exhaust setup the p.o. made. When I swapped in the vg33 I also installed the headers and made a custom 2.5" exhaust. So the power difference was huge. When it still had stock tires, and the vg30 is a 10, the vg33 with headers and exhaust would be a 16. It was significant. Now I'm running 33x12.5 tires it brought the power closer to stock but with much taller effective gear ratio. Even with my large tires and 15x10 steel wheels which are over 40 lbs each in just metal weight it still has more power than it did stock with 28.8 tires. This is an auto truck too and it definitely doesn't lack power. My highway rpms at cruise sit at about 1750-1800 rpm at 65 mph with the TC locked in OD and rarely has to drop a gear for hills. The difference is even bigger now with these new plugs! This is all on the factory ecu/tune. I think with a tune and larger maf and injectors I can get even more power out of it. I think I may be next in the M30 ecu club! I really want consult AND tune-ability! As well as the monster maf and better o2. I have a bag of chip sockets, all I need are eeproms and a chip burner, I can steal the wideband from my 240sx for a bit to get a tune setup.

well next time speak up! haha thanks for the opinions everyone

having a really hard time finding any information on swapping a maxima ecu into a pathfinder, I may just have to do it and figure it out myself. From what i have read they use a 80 mm maf as well! That alone would be a huge bonus with all the increase in air flow i have.

Ok so I put in the VG33E NGK V-power plugs, they are BKR5E-11 gapped to 1.12 mm or .044 inches and got rid of the factory V-power BKR6EY which were gapped to .034 (VG30E plugs). The truck runs WAY nicer. Immediate difference in the way it fires up, idles, has more power, smoother acceleration. I should have done this when I first did the motor swap!! Keep in mind the plugs I took out only have about 10K-15K Kilometers (6k to 12k miles) on them, they were in good shape when they came out so the differences are not just from old plugs. I also noticed the truck has considerably cleaner exhaust now, and less of a smell (no egr, high flow cat). Hoping for a slight fuel mileage improvement now as well. So for anyone who goes the VG33E swap route, definitely run the plugs for the 3.3! The engine runs way better with them! Thanks for the advice precise1.

hmm... that's good to know about the z31 ecu problems...i definitely won't use one of those then.. im going to do some research and see if the m30 ecu is 8 bit or 16 bit...the maxima ecu is also good too hey? does it come with consult like the m30? i could get a maxima ecu for dirt cheap around here.