New Solid Axle Conversion Kit

[Guest camouflage_squirrel]

I'm from a small company in Southern California working on breaking into the Nissan market with a Solid Axle conversion for the WD21 Pathfinders and Hardbody pickups. We have a truck with the prototype suspension - radius arms with panhard bar, and coil-over shocks. It rides great on the road, no bumpsteer and tight handling, and can flex with the best of them off road. You can run the shocks and springs of your choice, pick your lift height, and use a Dana 30, 44, or 60. We're trying to get a sense of how many people want a solid axle on their Nissan - check out http://the-compound.com/nissan-sas-info for details if you're interested.

 

[aries247]

whats the cost going to be????

[Casey.T]

^^^???^^^

 

Also your pic's dont have the front axle in?????

Edited November 3, 2006 by Casey.T

[FLApathy]

Ive been following this on AC, which you would probably get a much better response on N4W because as soon as a mod sees it on AC its going to come down. Anyway, on to my questions and comments...

 

1) Id rather not have the stock Nissan knuckles etc., becuase you wouldnt be able to run Hi-steer. Not to mention the more custom stuff you have the more spares ya gotta carry.

 

 

2) Coil overs are spendy, you may look into to just coils and regular shocks, much like an Early Bronco.

 

3) In the pics of the HB there is no driveshaft, most people that run a radius arm set up have made a custom transmission crossmember that is notched to provide driveshaft clearence.

 

4) The radius arms are mounted to the stock torsion bar cross member, cleary the arms are much longer than the typical EB set up, again, most radius arm set ups ive seen have another custom crossmember for those too.

 

5) Hats off to you guys for trying to do this, it looks very nice but the aforementioned comments and questions were just things I wanted to clear up for personal knowledge.

Edited November 3, 2006 by FLApathy

[sammyb33]

^^^^^^

 

i agree with all the FLA has to say about it....

[Slick]

all of the above......... -bounce-

[yozsi]

that hb is way too clean underneath.

[Guest camouflage_squirrel]

First off, everyone wants to know the price, which we intentionally did not give. We're finishing the prototype, and the next stage will be manufacturing, when we'll find out how much it costs in volume. So the final price will be dependent on that. My sense is that it'll be comparable to Calmini, but a much better quality conversion.

 

To answer FLApathy:

 

1. Yes, many people don't want the Nissan knuckles. The advantage is retaining stock parts. The axle shafts would be the only custom part that you might have to replace on the trail.

 

2. We're considering regular coils, but the way coil-overs let you control ride height and spring rate independently is critical for people who want to keep the center of gravity low while keeping lots of articulation.

 

3. Yes, the driveshaft crossmember isn't done yet. We're still finishing our prototype.

 

4. Because the arms mount right next to the frame on the crossmember, the crossmember bears hardly any force, so it should be a durable setup.

 

5. Thanks - we've been wheeling Nissans for a long time, and got frustrated with the lack of suspension modifications that really perform, instead of just lifting the truck so you can fit bigger tires. We're trying to take solid axle Nissans from a fabricator's rarity to a regular sight on the trail.

[unccpathfinder]

hats off to you for the design...hope you patented it before leaking the pix out everywhere...if not some1 will steal it from u and u will end up screwed and owing them $...

 

i would be interested to see some duribility testing ...and that would bring me to another topic...having the calcs for all of that to prove that its road worthy FMVSS might have some standards for selling something like that but i dont know for sure...if the price was right and all of the documentation was presented i would possibly give it a try but i dont see the cost being less than about $2k-3k

Edited November 4, 2006 by unccpathfinder

[FLApathy]

Thanks for clearing all that up Camo!!

 

And unccpathfinder, something like this isnt direct bolt it, as you know, id figure it would be just buy the kit and use what you think you can and make it work the way you want it to, taking most of the guess work out of it.

[solid snake]

I'm actually really considering loosing the freaking ifs and going solid axle. I would be interested in this kit, but like it has been mentioned before, I would need more durability testing to be done first before purchase. I was planning on buying the trailmaster suspension lift, but if I can get 5" of lift from a sas, then I would go with that.

[sammyb33]

hey if you are looking for people to test it (thinks of prado and all the guys gettin their lifts cheap as dirt) then i would be more than happy to be a tester!!!

 

 

-sam

 

 

and being totally serious....PM me