TerryD's 2007 Xterra S "Pepper" *NOW WITH TITAN SWAP!*

TerryD

Total Tease
Supporting Member
Location
Covington, Va
I'm chasing fractions of an inch of travel here. But here we are.

Starting out, I was running my Extended length Radflos with 650lb/in coils set at 2" of lift. They were dramatically better than the 5100s with 600lb/in coils and the ToyTec/Nisstec/FBG adjuster conversion but still jerked the Xterra to the side when the tires dropped into a hole.

Next I added a 0.5" thick (1" lift) spacer to them and the bumper/winch combo leveled it back out. Even with that spacer, my UCAs were still contacting my fender liners at full compression so I had to add longer bump stops which left me nearly an inch of my shock stroke unused.

That was an improvement in ride quality and it got me thinking; if we can run a 1.25" thick (2" lift) spacer on top of OE coil over assemblies then why can't we run them with Rads/ect to relocate the shock travel window down and improve the up/down travel balance?

So I searched around and thought about it and decided to try it. I have a pair of the PRG 1.25" thick (2" lift) spacers in the shop so the last time I had the X on stands, I pulled the coilovers and swapped to the taller spacers and dropped my coilovers back to the same ride height I was at.

You can see the difference in full extension here.

0.5" thick (1" lift) spacers
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1.25" thick (2" lift) spacers
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That was a big improvement in ride quality. Places I had been topping out my shocks around town were now buttery smooth. But, I was at the limit of my suspension joint travel. I'm pretty sure it is my lower ball joints that are the bottleneck but the shocks just barely went into place with the 1.25" thick spacers.

I didn't expect this to be permanent since I was obviously stressing the joints and the last thing I want is to start killing them so I picked up a pair of PRG's 7/8" thick (1.5" lift) spacers for it. You can see here that my upper ball joint was making contact with the top of the coil over at full extension as well, so it was just too much.

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With the 7/8" thick (1.5" lift) spacers installed, I'm roughly 3/8" from the suspension joint down limit now. That should help keep everything happy and healthy. It also gives me the maximum amount of down travel I feel like an OE width setup can run with OE LCAs. The added benefit is that I now have use of all of my shock travel too!
 
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TerryD

Total Tease
Supporting Member
Location
Covington, Va
Through chance circumstance, I have been in contact with a tech at Nisstec. It looks like my supposed extended Rads are not fully extended Rads. There seems to be some variability in how long "extended" Radflo shocks actually are.

This is frustrating but by the measurements he gave me, I'm 1/16 away from the maximum "safe" droop they recommend.

I did raise my static ride height back up to what it was and install my gas tank skid this evening so it's good to go for the weekend.
 

TerryD

Total Tease
Supporting Member
Location
Covington, Va
It's been a long day at work followed by dealing with kids, working on the X and a failed brake job on a quad plus several beers. My social cues are toast.
 

TerryD

Total Tease
Supporting Member
Location
Covington, Va
I did some Googling last night and it seems like that's a common failure point for these lockers. Found several threads across the Nissan realm with the exact same thing. Spider splits and wipes out the splines.
 

TerryD

Total Tease
Supporting Member
Location
Covington, Va
Squashed the spider.....

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You can see here, the shaft doesn't even fully engage the spider. It just goes in far enough that it doesn't make it in to the meaty part.

That's a stupid design.

It's like they wanted it to fail.
 

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TerryD

Total Tease
Supporting Member
Location
Covington, Va
Crawling up an obstacle. I don't think it spun a tire, at least not a high speed tire spin with a sudden grab. It was locked up hard and climbing nicely at steady low throttle, then boom.

It was in a hard left hand turn but it's really sandy there with a little ledge on the driver's side. Usually crawl up to it and a little bump when the driver's rear approaches the ledge spins the nose around the pulls you right up. About 1/2 way up the ledge it exploded. I wasn't full throttle or bouncing or anything I would normally expect to cause something like this.
 
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