Slartibartfast

Again... loads of work to swap in a much smaller motor.

+1 on the boot. I tried driving it without any boot at all... once... cold day and I still nearly burned the hair off my leg. I got mine from factorynissanparts. Edit: the part # is 74965-80G00 INSULATOR, TRANS HOLE

Now that you've got one that's how it should be, you can check your red one against it... so you'll have one to drive when the trans eats it. But yeah, sounds like the linkage isn't adjusted right... how hard can it be?

I remember from Mr. 510's VG34 thread that he'd advanced the timing on his VG30 pretty far to get a little more power out of it. Combustion doesn't happen instantly... all engines (at least that I've seen/read about) fire before top dead center. This gives the fuel time to really get burning before it has to push the piston down. (Advance too far, though, and you get knocking.) With a lousy fuel mix, maybe there's more room for improvement. And again, maybe there's something wrong with the dizzy. The engine's supposed to run a little rich during open loop, right?

Yikes. So can you see yet what went wrong? Sorry, second picture didn't load! Wow.

If you've gone through three sensors and two clusters and still have the problem, I suspect neither of them is at fault. Sounds to me like either the wiring is making intermittent connection or there's something wrong with the gear in the transmission that the speed sensor engages. If the sensor gear looked chewed up, this may be the case. Also I think the blue speedo gear and the red speedo gear are about two teeth apart... which to use depends on what tires etc you're running.

And just to throw this in... extreme cam jobs tend to make engines idle rough.

Think you're talking about #27? Strut rod bushings. Or tension rod bushings, or compression rod bushings. Same thing.

Pulled out my cargo area light to see if I could make it come on when the hatch opened... doesn't look like it ever had a sensor, it's got a wire though. Just gotta trace the FSM wiring guides now. I added a piece of reflective metal to the back of the light housing while I was at it... seems a little brighter now that it's not illuminating above the headliner.

Hmm... you say you crank it but the timing belt doesn't move? All I can think of in that case is that it's chunked out the belt teeth around the crank, which is now spinning on its own. Or, the key for the crankshaft sprocket failed/escaped.

^^My concern is that he doesn't have the VG, he's got the KA. Are the alternators the same between the VG and the KA?

Tore the windshield washer pumps apart, cleaned 'em out, got the squirties working again. For the record, if you're testing the rear window pump on the bench, it'll bind up if it doesn't have fluid in it. Also, if you test a pump on the bench, and it has fluid in it, that fluid is going all over your pantleg.

Does the Maxi alt fit the 2.4?

Mine doesn't have that sensor (not helpful lol) but it does have one in the tire carrier, which recently started acting up. I pulled it out, pulled the rubber cover off, and stuffed a little circle of rubber into it as a shim. Been working great since.

I don't care if you overhaul a Rascal scooter, I'd read the build thread.

I honestly don't know. Kingman's got a good point, it might be a different beast altogether.

This might help, sort of: The manual TPS is simpler than the auto TPS. Basically it's just a set of contacts that open up when your foot's off the gas. The auto one's got a little potentiometer in it, which talks to the trans computer and tells it when you're getting on the gas so it can kick down. (At least, I assume that's what it's for.) I looked up the fast idle cam in the FSM. It says the KA has one, but the VG30 does not. I imagine the VG33 doesn't, either. The Idle Air Control Valve probably replaced the Fast Idle Cam in terms of function. I see no reason why you couldn't push the thing around while the vehicle's idling. Then again, I've never tried it.

PCV failure is more likely to cause sludge or oil consumption (at least from what I've read) which doesn't sound like your issue. The smell of fuel is interesting... have you checked the fuel pressure regulator? Also, mine smelled like fuel for a while (no issues from it) and it turned out to be a loose hose to the passenger's side injector rail. Easy fix (bugger to get to though) and definitely peace of mind!

Have you reset the computer since getting the exhaust done? Now that it's got proper numbers to go with, it might do some good. Now I think about it, though, the dizzy being a tooth out doesn't jive with the onset symptoms. According to your first post in this thread, it started doing this while driving, after having throttle fluctuations when cold. If it was just a case of the distributor being set wrong, it wouldn't have run right to begin with. If advancing the dizzy by a tooth makes things better (and your cam timing truly is correct), I suspect that the dizzy itself has failed internally, like how Adamzan suggested. (I've forgotten if you've ruled that one out already.) If it is shot, you might be able to find one at a junkyard. (I'd probably pull it apart and see if there was something obviously broken that I could JB back together, but that's probably a waste of time.) At the very least, checking it with a timing light will tell you if you're advancing it too far or not. It looks like you're closing in on the problem at least. Look at it this way: if you figure it out, nothing will ever go wrong with it again... because you've already replaced everything else.

Loose bearings would rock up and down as well as side to side. Mine had similar symptoms. It was actually a little disconcerting at highway speed. I ended up doing upper and lower ball joints, TREs, centerlink, and idler, all of which were probably original. It's not perfect now but it's a whole lot better! If you want to try things one at a time, the centerlink's probably a good first guess.

The Euro-spec lights may be designed for driving on the right side of the road. IIRC the sealed beams in a Jag my uncle did were like that. The US LHD ones would probably be a lot easier to aim.

... and make sure that the new manifolds are flat, or those gaskets won't last long.

Crawl underneath and look for dangling wires/ground straps? Follow any wire you see, and make sure it's still attached?

Also see if you've got mud in the backs of the rims... that'll throw them out of balance.

All hail!