Hi Everyone,

I have a 1999 Pathfinder SE. I bought it in July 2012 for $700. It had a blown engine. The body and interior were perfect. I found it on Craigslist, I was looking for a summer project (I'm a teacher so I'm off during the summer months). I've never owned an import vehicle, I've always been an Oldsmobile man! It looked nice so I went for it.

My 18 year old son wanted to learn how to swap an engine so we dove into this project. I bought a salvage engine with 54K miles for $725. We put it on the stand, changed out gaskets, new timing belt/water pump/tensioner and dropped her in. We replaced all the hoses and belts and hooked everything up. While I had the front axle out, we replaced both half shafts since all the boots were bad while we were at it. My son was excited so I let him hit the key first, and she fired right up! Unfortunately, we had a check engine code, and the knock sensor was bad. So off came the intake and we replaced it with a new Nissan unit.

I was going to flip this vehicle, but my 21 year old daughter fell in love with it so I gave it to her. She put 13k trouble free miles on it so far. She and my wife just swapped vehicles because she's a college student and the gas mileage is killing her and we can afford to drive it.

I just returned from a 200 mile interstate trip (I live in New Mexico, so there's some canyons on I-25) and averaged 18.6 MPG. I love how it drives, but I'm looking to see what people's ideas are for improving mileage. I see I'm getting what most people get on these vehicles.

I've thought about a K&N drop-in (I assume they are available), opening the exhaust up by sawing off the restrictive muffler/resonator and installing true duals with something fairly quiet like turbo mufflers. This also has what everyone here calls "flotation tires" on it, I think they are 31/10.5/15"s and I have been told a regular truck tire will run on these rims and improve mileage a bit. I need to replace the tires before winter flies here so that's an immediate issue.

Thanks for the "add" and I look forward to learning from the collective wisdom of this group.

Mike

welcome!!

lets see some pics!

welcome

How easy was the swap for you? I bought a 1998 with a rod knock for $500 and am in the process of pulling the motor.

mlhayes wrote:Hi Everyone,

I have a 1999 Pathfinder SE. I bought it in July 2012 for $700. It had a blown engine. The body and interior were perfect. I found it on Craigslist, I was looking for a summer project (I'm a teacher so I'm off during the summer months). I've never owned an import vehicle, I've always been an Oldsmobile man! It looked nice so I went for it.

My 18 year old son wanted to learn how to swap an engine so we dove into this project. I bought a salvage engine with 54K miles for $725. We put it on the stand, changed out gaskets, new timing belt/water pump/tensioner and dropped her in. We replaced all the hoses and belts and hooked everything up. While I had the front axle out, we replaced both half shafts since all the boots were bad while we were at it. My son was excited so I let him hit the key first, and she fired right up! Unfortunately, we had a check engine code, and the knock sensor was bad. So off came the intake and we replaced it with a new Nissan unit.

I was going to flip this vehicle, but my 21 year old daughter fell in love with it so I gave it to her. She put 13k trouble free miles on it so far. She and my wife just swapped vehicles because she's a college student and the gas mileage is killing her and we can afford to drive it.

I just returned from a 200 mile interstate trip (I live in New Mexico, so there's some canyons on I-25) and averaged 18.6 MPG. I love how it drives, but I'm looking to see what people's ideas are for improving mileage. I see I'm getting what most people get on these vehicles.

I've thought about a K&N drop-in (I assume they are available), opening the exhaust up by sawing off the restrictive muffler/resonator and installing true duals with something fairly quiet like turbo mufflers. This also has what everyone here calls "flotation tires" on it, I think they are 31/10.5/15"s and I have been told a regular truck tire will run on these rims and improve mileage a bit. I need to replace the tires before winter flies here so that's an immediate issue.

Thanks for the "add" and I look forward to learning from the collective wisdom of this group.

Mike