Slartibartfast

If you want to 'roll your own' without going through all the bending and measuring and whatnot you might try what Nissan Nut did and hack a cheap set of 300ZX headers to fit. And yeah, from what I've heard the VG30 firing order is all wrong to run true duals.

Yikes! Looks like it only got the fender, though, find a black fender in a junkyard and you should be good to go. For anyone who hasn't heard Ron White's bit yet... (if you're easily offended by language don't bother) My dad had something similar happen, he took an Audi in for CV joints and somebody forgot to tighten the bolts properly. My dad drove all the way from Washington to California, then went out the next morning for groceries and saw one of the axles bouncing down the road behind him. The mechanic made it right though.

Are you sure it's getting fuel and spark? Maybe you pulled/unplugged something (coil?) and forgot to plug it back in. A dead starter's no help though.

There are more Jeeps than Pathfinders around here. I do see them around, but I haven't seen one lifted... I think there's one lifted Jeep in town (I live in a small town LOL) and a few lifted late-model Dodge pickups. I think I saw a lifted Xterra once. There isn't a huge offroad scene where I am, so the trucks I see are probably used more for snow and ice than for wheeling.

Does it feel like pressing the brake with the engine off, or is it just legit jammed up? I don't see anything about a mechanical pedal stopper in the FSM, and IMO Nissan would've been on drugs to install something like that. You might be able to rule ABS in or out by pulling its fuse and then testing it. If a valve or something is jamming closed, that could be what's locking up the pedal.

Like Inyourface said you might measure the R51 Pathfinder IRS and see if it would fit. The lug pattern is different (dunno why but Nissan went from one 5-lug spacing to another, point is WD21 and R51 wheels won't interchange) and Wikipedia says it's six inches wider (the whole car, dunno about wheel to wheel). You might check out some of the 90s Nissan Z cars, IIRC they used R200 diffs (like your front diff) in the back so gear matching at least would be easy. The R200A probably isn't as strong as the H233B but then this isn't a towing capability build... pretty sure the Z cars are unibody though so you're right back at needing some kind of jig. I dunno what to tell you, except that you won't find a 'direct drop in' arrangement.

Sounds a lot like something mine pulled a while back. I left the lights on in a parking lot, killed the battery, and then when I got a jump it ran fine... until it warmed up and I took my foot off the gas, at which point it stalled. It ran fine cold, but I had to drive two footed once it warmed up. Then it cleared up. My dad and I had been messing with the MAF and TPS wiring, and he swore he'd done something with the airbox that had done the trick... I packed the MAF and TPS connectors with dielectric and haven't had a problem since. All I know is that it wasn't a problem with the fluid. Maybe the trans computer got confused by the battery dying? Anyway it couldn't hurt to check the plugs for the engine sensors and the transmission, make sure they're still making good contact. Maybe it's just a bad connection somewhere.

I understand why you'd want to weld in a complete rear end. The trouble will lie in finding a body-on-frame car with IRS, a compatible gear ratio, and the proper lug pattern. The Escape is unibody, so I suspect you'd have a hell of a time moving its components over to the body-on-frame Pathy without an alignment jig, even if you can match the diffs. The 180 mph makes me I had mine up to about 75 once on the highway, and that was enough. The higher gear ratios are really more for fuel economy than for speed.

Holy thread necro! I wonder how many of these Nissan actually made.

I like the stock lights too but that actually looks pretty good, red into chrome into black. So it was all bolt on except the plugs?

What's the gear ratio in the Escape? Before you commit to it, make sure you can match it to the front end.

I searched around a bit, looks like the restriction is only for how many lights are turned on. (You can only have two fog lamps, but you can also have two spots and two 'passing lights,' whatever those are.) So if the truck in the pic had the high beams (all four lights) and the fogs on, while driving on a public road, that would be considered illegal. Also apparently you can only use fogs with the low beams. Then again this is the state that outlawed flicking the high beams... doesn't stop anyone from doing it.

Good to know! Fog isn't really a thing that happens around here.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure WA is one of those states, but I've never been hassled for it. I hardly ever use my factory fogs... in fact I think the last time I turned them on was for my profile pic. I'm always afraid I'll miss the switch and hit the hatch popper instead. Thanks for the heads up though.

Maybe look into how the consult went into the KA ecu and see if there's anything in common with the VG30. If it's a matter of tapping into pins on something, you could look up datasheets and maybe figure out where to hook in. If the eproms (I sort of know what that means LOL) chip in the ECU is removable/reprogrammable, what're the chances the same chip is used in some other ECU, and would therefore plug right into a chip burner made for something else?

I mounted my driving lights (Hella 500FF) to my bumper. Didn't do a whole lot of measuring, just got the marks pretty much even, drilled, and bolted them up. Bolting it up through the turn signal holes and putting the factory fogs back in was a PITA so you might consider removing the bumper first. And thanks for the writeup, I need to do mine one of these days. edit: jesus this new image posting system is useless

My1path put an M30 ecu in his Pathfinder. It's supposedly easier to hack that in than to hack in a z31 computer, a little smoother, and compatible with nistune. ^^from my1path's thread, I can't vouch for the info as I only sort of understand it!

Power mode on my 95 is a switch on the far left of the dash. Do you have the owner's manual to check where (or if) it is on yours? Flooring it should put it into power mode, so maybe try that, see if it shifts right with your foot to the floor. Not a solution obviously but it might shed light on something else.

I run OEM bulbs... and a set of 55W driving lights with the high beams.

It would be interesting to see how the guy in the vid did it... if the firewall's different enough for it the Z31 engine to drop in, perhaps part of the firewall could be transplanted from a JY HB to a Pathy? That, a fake cowl hood for top end clearance, and a body lift, and the z31 engine wouldn't know the difference, right? Sounds like a fair bit of work but still less than trying to move the engine forwards. Or, yeah, use a stock intake and forget the whole issue. Speaking of that fake cowl hood... seems like you could cut a hole in the hood and mount a real cowl to it, and then mount an intercooler on top of the intake (so it would stick up through the hole into the cowl). It could save a whole lot of tubing vs hanging it out the front while still (probably, I don't know jack about intercoolers) having enough air blowing past it to make it worthwhile. If you custom built the intercooler or had it done you could position the inlets as close to the turbos as possible to further limit the amount of tubing you'd have to work around. I'm getting all kinds of ideas I can't begin to afford.

Yeah, mine's got a middle belt too. My clips busted off because my friends couldn't figure out how to grab a belt buckle and lift. I tried putting wire hanger things in their place but they sort of met the same fate... lol one of these days I'll redneck rig something more durable. And what are those hinge covers even for?!?

Hopefully the right fluid will make it work right. Mine's stalled out on me on cold starts a few times, but I didn't think much of it except that the engine needed to warm up.

I ghetto tested the EGR on mine by sucking on one of the tubes, pinching it off, and then seeing if it made the valve open up. Some kind of vacuum pump would be good for this because, as I quickly discovered, EGR components don't taste very nice.

Cool that it outperformed a humvee! Better tires might take care of the understeer. IIRC Mr. 510 blew out his his strut rod bushings with a front LSD in a WD21. Maybe the R50 front end is better suited to handle the force, or maybe Mr. 510's bushings were about shot already and wheeling with LSD just finished them off.

Same place mine did it!