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turning point: s***finder


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Almost a year ago, I was driving home . About 4 blocks away at a red light, I notice a tick feeling in my shifter . It grew while sitting there, to audible tumbling rock in can and bigger feeling in shifter. Limped her home. Just doing a rush job on my clutch a month before I figured , it was a bolt loose or something dumb. Pushed her in the garage. Fast forward to yesterday, moving day . Pushed her out to load her on a trailer. Went to crank it to help load it up the ramps. There is loud clanking like something is hitting the inside of the oil pan. I knew it was a matter of time for the engine to go.

It's time to cut my loses and let go of a good friend... nah, I just need to figure what the next phase looks like. Straight rebuild vg30et? 1uz?

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It's time to cut my loses and let go of a good friend...

Personally, I chose to give my good friend a newer more powerful heart... 😷

 

nah, I just need to figure what the next phase looks like. Straight rebuild

This! Its worth it!

 

vg30et? 1uz?

Plan it out, whatever you decide. Is it a daily driver? How long can you park it for while working on it? And what are your longterm goals for it (street/wheeler/combination)?

 

In my case, I chose to do a simple vg33e swap (currently underway) because of increased displacement and availability of engines/parts (its also a relatively easy and inexpensive swap... "relatively"). But your reasons may differ for what you are intending for your pathy, and depending on funds/time/facilities... I guess the question is what is most important to you? There are a lot of V8 swap threads, vg33 swap threads, and a few vg34 build threads.

 

My advice (for what its worth) is that if you are looking to do any kind of turbo vg, might as well go for a vg33et... I read it somewhere that "anything you can do to a vg30, you can do to a vg33" i forget where i read that, but it's interesting.

 

Im sure someone who knows a lot more about vg's, turbos, and cam swaps (etc.) as well as engines in general can tell you a lot more. But you have a lot of options!

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Considering how a complete 96-99 pathfinder with a failing autotrans on craigslist Would run ya less than $750, I would go find one of those, and do the swap. Then you can scrap the remaining 3000lbs of scrap and get some of your money back. That way you can also get an extra set of rims, a nice R50 center console, and any other goodies you can find on it.

 

Dollar for dollar I think it's the most financially sound way to get your rig back on the road.

 

Food for thought anyway...

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Considering how a complete 96-99 pathfinder with a failing autotrans on craigslist Would run ya less than $750, I would go find one of those, and do the swap. Then you can scrap the remaining 3000lbs of scrap and get some of your money back. That way you can also get an extra set of rims, a nice R50 center console, and any other goodies you can find on it.

 

I agree, I grabbed a 1998 the other day for $300, runs like a top but unfortunately the rust got it. Now I have a spare motor and trans if mine blow, and I can get a lot of the cash back with scrap/selling parts

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  • 2 weeks later...

Decision made, looks like a vg30e rebuild is in order. I would love to do a "cool" swap , but i will save it something ... faster. I want to keep the personality of the truck.

On the other hand, it is going to be open, apart, on the bench, a pair of cams may just fall in the heads,a die grind stumble in opening up some openings, bigger values might... ok ok ok I'm drop some old school hot rodding skill on the Asian beast. This will also be time fix more problems she has.

 

This is going to be a slow build , this has forced my hand to start a daily driven project (because I can't have a "normal"DD and I can't settle for a running stock car.) I just move out to the less urban area, so a backroad blaster is in order.

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