Why

[dylanaguon]

why is it so hard to find decent priced performance parts for these beautiful trucks... if anyone knows a good site or sites please drop a link. I’m mainly looking for an exhaust system and a cold air intake. i have a 91 ka24e

[VOTS95]

I did a Google and an Amazon search for both the parts you mentioned and got quite a few options. I'm not sure what you want to pay for them but there seemed to be a variety of prices. What do you think they should cost?

From what I know the best way to get any real performance out of these trucks is to replace the fuel injection system with a carburetor or even more extreme would be an LS conversion.

VOTS

[david29]

Originally Posted by dylanaguon

why is it so hard to find decent priced performance parts for these beautiful trucks... if anyone knows a good site or sites please drop a link. I’m mainly looking for an exhaust system and a cold air intake. i have a 91 ka24e

These trucks werent built to be performance speed demons. I say go buy a sports car if you are looking for high performance.
Their are very few options for these trucks.
Header/headers on V-6
CAI(rare to find since they arent being offerend anymore)
Bigger Exhaust system, custom built
89-90 240SX intake manifold and cam swap(can only swap to the 1990-1995 models)
Front brake upgrade(using 2wd V-6 truck dual piston calipers and mount brackets) along with performance pads and drilled and cross slotted rotors.
Or find a donor truck and swap the whole wiring harness an driveline to the V-6 option.
Other options include other motors from other Nissan Vehicles or other brand vehicles as well. Tried and true Small Block Chevy 350 motors, Chevy LS motors, Ford Motors, etc.

[jp2code]

Originally Posted by dylanaguon

why is it so hard to find decent priced performance parts for these beautiful trucks... if anyone knows a good site or sites please drop a link. I’m mainly looking for an exhaust system and a cold air intake. i have a 91 ka24e

2 reasons

1. These trucks were not meant for speed
2. These trucks were made many years ago

[LugNut1990]

3. They were designed/built to be used to do work, albeit light duty. And, if 4x4, to have fun in deep snow, if we could get any ...

[XoXSciFiGuy]

Everything starts with the PLATFORM you are working with.

Nissan hardbodies, although sure....you can make almost anything on four wheels into almost anything you want...aren't really the right platform for high performance, heavy-duty vehicles. They weren't designed for that, or built for that.

This also means trying to do this with a D-21 or a 720 would take a boatload of money and a lot of effort.

Plus...there isn't much room to work with anyway. If you are of the mindset of "Let's drop a 427 into this bitch with a big Holley carb and make it GO!" You should get yourself a classic Chevy or something.

Sure, you can do a little zoom-zoom on them but you'll never get them into doing the quarter-mile in a few seconds unless you have a boatload of money towing a big barge with even MORE money on it.

The main reason there are limited options for turning a D21 into Road Rage Monsters is because the market isn't there. Even if a manufacturer suddenly started offering parts to do that, not many people would buy them. There is no money in it for these manufacturers, so for the most part this stuff isn't available. All of that said, the LS swap has been done successfully, but brother it's LOT of work, a LOT of time, and yes...a lot of money. The reason the Flaming Marshmallow is so famous among Nissan owners is because he was The Extreme. Everyone respects that guy because the effort he put out was nothing less than miraculous. But most of us would not try that one. Not sure how long it took him to convert that truck into a V8 with a big auto tranny and do those other things he did, but it must have been expensive and he was at it for a long time before it was finished. His build posts go on for mucho, mucho pages. Almost endless.

Speaking of the Flaming Marshmallow...my favorite thing he said was when people would try to pass him on the highway and he's packing that camper on the back...and he would floor it and just leave them in the dust. Now that was funny. All hail the FM. "We're not worthy." etc. One in five thousand Nissan D21 hardbody owners would not try what he did. The guy is a natural-born engineer with the skills, though. That's for sure.

[EF2]

geez i guess we’re not allowed to do anything with the truck besides what it was specifically built for? lol an exhaust is gonna be pricey depending on what you want, and i’m sure you’d have to get a custom intake setup. i priced an exhaust thru a local import shop and they quoted me at a grand. but his work is really good and he would make it look similar to oem and tucked up the way i asked for it. be prepared to spend some money is your biggest thing.

[dvdswan]

O&J Performance

[Deerhurst]

You guys are over looking the most important things.



These trucks were nicer and more expensive than their competition back in the day which means less were purchased. Likely due to this they never got the aftermarket support their top competitor did which is why Toyota has crazy support and Nissan does not.



An exhaust will be inexpensive depending on where you get materials and who does the work.



An aftermarket intake really isn't worth the effort. Almost every aftermarket intake, outside of stuff like snorkles, takes hot air from the engine bay which decreases performance.







You can do anything with any vehicle if you throw enough time and money at it!

[XoXSciFiGuy]

My personal opinion on 'what to do with a D-21,' especially a King Cab, is maybe this list. It's the one I would want to do, anyway:

1) Do this or that to add another 15-20 horsepower.

2) Keep it mostly stock, but upgrade some stuff to modern, like seats, lighting, stereo, better shocks, etc.

3) Set it up so you can go camping almost anywhere with it. Maybe even raise it two inches, (an easy thing) whether it is 4WD or not.

You would not believe what these trucks cost when they were new. Now I don't know about the older ones, but your typical 95-97 was running around $13,000 or more, and back in the 90's you could buy some pretty nice cars for 13K. Nissan sold a fair number of them, but not like Toyotas, which were more popular. Even today, Toyota still outdoes Nissan on prices for the restored trucks. The exception is when a dealer does their 'thing' on a late-model hardbody and brings it up to 99% new with low mileage. Then they sell for close to what they were when they were new. And that's actually a bargain, because dollars are worth less today.

One weakness I see with Nissan trucks is the ones made prior to the 1990 model year, when they were using the TBI (throttle body injection) system. No one thought anyone would be driving those trucks thirty years later, and now no one much makes any parts for a TBI. Even if you get a complete TBI setup used, it's still 30+ years old, and so are all of the parts it has on it. And that is a bummer. I think if they're going to do better aftermarket support on those older rigs, that would be a good place to start...selling a complete and NEW throttle body injection system.