‘How Big A Tire Can I Fit?’ CrimeDog’s Trail-Prepped Pathfinder: Members’ Rides

Last time on Members’ Rides, we looked at Fuzzy Weis’ Ranger EV, which really reinforced my desire to get my hands on a little EV truck when (if) the Slate comes out. Today, we are going to look at another awesome truck, as well as a heavily customized off-road beast!

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Some people buy a car and never change a thing on it. Everything from the wheels to the body to the interior stays exactly as it was when it rolled out of the factory. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, of course, but some people are wired differently. Meet Gregory (CrimeDog to you commentors). He definitely falls into that latter category, and has built one of the most impressive off-road Nissans I have ever seen!

How did you get into cars?

I started my bug with my mom’s ’87 Nissan Van.  That is what it was called.  It had a cooling issue, so Nissan recalled them all and cut them in half.  My mom kept hers.  It was a manual cab-over (if you don’t remember them) with a refrigerator in the center console.  The rear benches could be reconfigured however you wanted, even to lay flat enough to make a bed.  I learned to shift on that car.

What’s in the garage currently?

• 2021 Nissan Titan
• 2012 Nissan Pathfinder

How did you come by the Titan?

I bought it in the spring of ’23, so two years ago. It was at a dealership just under two hours away. These were never high volume, and I searched only for red and blue exterior since I can’t stand the monochromatic landscape of the automotive world today. Hence, hitting the road with a buddy to buy it.

What made you want a Titan specifically?

I have a soft spot in my heart for Nissans. I have owned, in approximately this order, an ’87 manual Sentra, an ’87 manual Pathfinder, an ’89 auto Stanza, an ’87 manual Nissan Van, a ’96 manual Pathfinder, a manual ’96 200SX SE-R, an ’05 auto Sentra. Then via my wife, a ’15 CVT Pathfinder, and a ’15 Xterra. I loved them all except the Stanza and the ’15 Pathfinder, and I can’t say I hated those; they just didn’t stir my soul.

Did you try out anything else?

Yes, I tried on a few vehicles. I could not get comfortable in an F-series, the RAM is… well.. made by Stellantis. As for GM, the dealers had either stripper models or Bentleys-with-a-tailgate. So, when I looked at my requirements, it was Nissan. I needed to tow once or twice a month, anywhere from 2-5k. I know there are a lot of smaller trucks that can do that. Heck, my Pathfinder can do that. BUT, I am wired for excess. I needed it to fit the family of 4, since my Pathfinder was, shall we say, less comfortable than it had once been. I needed some form of CarPlay that wasn’t obtrusive.

’21 became my ‘floor year’ in my search due to the 7-speed transmission becoming a 9-speed and the 7th cylinder tap being mostly handled.  So, when I found this one up at a small GM dealership in the mountains of Virginia for 42k, I went and got it.  At that point, I still had 97,394 miles and 41 months of warranty left, which is more than most new trucks.

What is the best thing about this?

The ‘best’ thing about it is highly subjective. I could argue that its existence in my family is the best thing about it. I have helped my mother, both my sisters, and several friends move stuff around. Trips to the dump don’t suck any more, since I don’t have to worry about anything leaking into the interior. I tow the trailer for my daughter’s scout trips. Somewhere along the way (and it happened without me consciously thinking about it), I became one of those “Hang on, I have one in the truck” guys. Rope, side cutters, 3-lb sledge, gloves, duct tape, tow strap, tie-downs … whatever. That is a far cry from the only other truck I owned, an ’86 F-150, which had a piece of insulated copper wire, a straw, a rag, a Sprite bottle with gas in it, and a 5-gallon can in the bed. IYKYK.

From a driving perspective, the best thing would be stompy-stomp make vroom-vroom and big noise. My Rule of 65 (65 degrees, 65% RH, 65 MPH) gets me 21-22 MPG. The transmission makes all the difference on big V8s. I haven’t felt the need to modify anything, so that is pretty awesome. I wanted to put the airlift bags in there, because the aforementioned scout trailer isn’t really set up to be loaded quite right, and it has more tongue weight than I would like. The only other mod it might get is a truck cap. I haven’t yet loaded over the height of the cab, and if I need to, I will just rent a trailer.

Any issues with it?

There are only two things I don’t like. The transmission sometimes hunts for how low you want to go when you do stompy-stomp. I just pretend it is old school turbo lag and deal with it. The second part is a little heartbreaking to me…. You know how you get some <thing> that YOU want and YOU are excited about, even though the forums say “this <thing> happens to some of them”, but YOURS is special, so it can’t possibly happen to YOU? Yeah, well, it happened to me.

The rain channels on both sides of the roof have a little bit of rust. It is going to be handled under warranty, but I am still a bit upset. If I am honest, it is because I KNOW I let my emotions make a decision that wasn’t 100% sound (though I would have bought it anyway), and I wanted to be special. I am only special to my mom, I guess.

How did you end up with the Pathfinder?

I bought the Pathfinder in December 2019. It wasn’t perfect at the time. They weren’t perfect from the factory, anyway! The rear was underdamped and had a lot of wallowing from side to side. The pre-delivery inspection failed to uncover a blown-out rear shock, but whatever; I loved it. Heck, it even had the rear cup holder. Most of these get kicked out of existence at some point by kids getting in and out. So from here, I had a new family hauler. I do, however, have a bug for modding, so the descent into madness began. I knew two things: One, I didn’t want to spend X money for marginal gains in function when X + (a bit more) would make it ridiculous.  Two, it needed to still be relatively safe.

What all have you done to it?

I can’t really give a ‘mod list’ without giving an order, a thought process, and a ‘purpose section.’ That said, the first three things were wheels/tires, suspension, and brakes. I knew I was going to be making this thing heavier, so I went into Nissan’s parts bin for F-Alpha platform. Putting Titan calipers and rotors gives about 40% more swept area (or, at least, that’s the math I remember at the time). That was very doable with RockAuto and Z1 Offroad, and they fit under stock 17s. Then came the question that I researched with math and specs rather than on a forum. Everyone who has read this far already knows what it is: “How big a tire can I fit?” Ugh.

There are a few things to consider before throwing on tires, though, and chief amongst them is “How high can I lift it?” Well, the R51 generation Pathfinder has independent suspension front and rear, so doing a suspension lift over 2.5 inches makes rear camber irrecoverable. It would need a sub-frame drop kit, as I didn’t like the tradeoffs of ride and stability with a body lift. The biggest drop kit was from Calmini. My brother bought it for me for Christmas, and it took a bit of time for it to come in. It was the 5″ version.

So how big of tire did you cram in there?

The goal was 35×12.50R17. I mean, stock is about 32 inches. Why spend money to go to 33? If you are going to do it, then do it all the way! My research took me to Black Rhino Stadiums with the right offset and width for a 12.50. They were reasonably light, strong, and I could stand to look at them. Perfect. Loyalty Nissan did the Calmini install. Incidentally, the tech who did it, Derek has been recognized as Nissan’s best tech in the nation during their yearly contest.

Initially, I had Falken MTs 35×12.50R17. They were quiet when new. They were quiet at 10k. Then they, like almost any other MT, were obnoxious. I have since changed them out for 35×11.50 ATs, because the reality is that I have to drive at least an hour and a half before I can get to a reasonable off-road destination.

What came after the suspension, wheels, and tires?

Gearing. Stock diff gearing is 3.36. The easy math is this: Having 10% more circumference means I have 10% less effective gearing and, therefore, 10% less torque. That isn’t a great idea when your tires now weigh 40 or 50 pounds more than they did, you are aerodynamic as a brick, and you haven’t done any power adders yet. It turns out that non-VLSD 07 and 08 Infiniti G37s had the same rear diff, but with 3.69 gearing. How convenient! Lop the nose off and it drops right in. The front diff in a manual Frontier is the same as mine, but geared at 3.69. It also drops right in. 3.69 is roughly 10% more than 3.32, so I was back in business; I had all my torque back!

From a driving perspective, I now have ~200 pounds additional unsprung weight. I knew I could handle that with more power. Coming from the Fast and Furious scene in another lifetime, I wanted a little more juice from the VQ40DE. Enter Z1 and their catalog. 22mm plenum spacer, AIS CAI for normies), and heavy-duty coil packs handle the breathing and the bang. The exhaust is pretty simple. Pathfinders have a Y-connection at the mid-resonator where the two banks meet. From the factory, these two pipes crimp into ‘D’ shaped pipes just as they enter the resonator. I replaced that with a dual-in single-out straight flow resonator. First restriction solved. Under the third row seat, the pipe that runs to the muffler gets that same treatment for a few feet where it passes over the subframe; it crimps down to a ‘D’. Now that the subframe was dropped, I could replace that with a full-diameter pipe. Now it exhales as well as it inhales.

And what followed after that?

The rest of the modifications are safety- and/or resiliency-based. The front bumper is ARB Safari. It weighs the same as a church, but can fearlessly ram buffalo and small buildings. I tried to install it, but after three days, my wife made me go down the street and have the boys at Independent 4×4 in Ashland, VA finish it. When they called me to pick it up, they came out and said, “We made a mistake.” While dropping the hood, the prop rod wasn’t in the right place, and it punched a dent in the hood, enough to break paint. They offered to either have insurance take care of it or to knock a few hours labor off. I opted for the labor. When I went to get it fixed myself, it turns out that the hood was already mostly bondo. So I got a new hood. Since the hood needed painting, I asked for blaze orange because, why not?

Said bumper now holds a 12k winch and two ARB lights (one spot, one flood). The lights are convenient if you want to spot a kangaroo at a mile or signal Mars. I noticed that the factory tow hook in the front had two bolts that passed through the bumper and into the frame. Not liking the hook, I had Independent fab up 2 D-ring holder thingies and a bash plate. Down each side of the body are rock rails that serve as small step rails.

Anything else?

The remaining part of the ‘build’ is just recovery gear. “Never go alone; prepare to self-rescue” So, tree strap, tow strap, kinetic rope, snatch blocks, hi-lift jack, tire patch kit, fire extinguisher, inner and outer tie rods, CV axle, tools, crank and cam position sensors, recovery boards, Morrflate quad (that just makes life easier), water, shovel, saw, extra shackles (both soft and D-ring) and tarp. I may be forgetting a few things. Oh, and a billet 2″ tow bar for a D-ring on the rear.

The last modification is unashamed wilderness pinstriping. My paint is more scratch than clear at this point. It isn’t like I am ‘saving it for resale value’ so, I take the mind over matter approach. If I don’t mind, it doesn’t matter!

Did you always intend to do so much to it?

No! In fact, if I hadn’t casually mentioned it to my brother, I would have never gotten past buying the suspension/drop kit from Calmini. Once it started though, I couldn’t really stop. If this hadn’t started life as a family hauler, I would have built an Xterra, which starts with a Solid Rear Axle, but I am too deep into this to start over. If I were to do anything else, it would be either to install a solid rear from a manual Frontier or go full Titan Swap. The next realistic thing is to go get a dyno tune to really wake up the power mods I have.

Has all the recovery equipment gotten good use?

I got to recover a motorcycle and a man from an accident off a mountain!

There is a great group of people that run Backroads of Appalachia. One of their events last year was “24 Hours of Appalachia: Miners and Loggers Delight.” People had 24 hours to complete 400+ miles of West Virginia roads, starting and ending in Hinton. It was open to adventure bikes, SxSs, and full-sixed rigs. Having a medical condition called “oldfatboyitis.” I am relegated to a support role, which was perfect for me. Drivers donated to two charities, N.O.A.H. and Harmony’s Breath. They raised $21k for the two of them to split. I volunteered to work it.

I shared a check-in on top of Kate’s Mountain with another volunteer, verifying who came by, what time they came by, and if they were retiring. The adventure bikes came by first, all armored up and rolling. After a bit, though, one of them came back up the wrong direction to get one of us because, in his words, “My buddy drove off the mountain.” To the Pathfinder I go! The point of exit was a few hundred yards away. The guy was okay, somehow. If any of you know the road over Kate’s mountain, you know the guardrails are really just trees further down the mountain. He somehow did not hit any of them on the way down. With all but about 4 turns left on the winch and the kinetic rope, we were just able to reach his bike, which I winched up with the help of everyone who was now blocked behind me.

That’s awesome! Have you caused yourself any issues while off-road?

Of course! My second worst stuck was when a buddy and I were driving around Davis, Thomas, and Parsons. I went to check out a Federal Experimental Forest, because I had no idea what that was. The map did not indicate a gate at the far end, so we did have to turn around. On the way in, though, there was a cutoff and a drop down to the bank of the river. My buddy said, “Hey, can you get down there?”. I said, “Yeah, but I am not sure about getting back up.” Who knew how prophetic I would be?  It turns out that having the right equipment makes a big difference, because I failed at a cardinal rule: “If you don’t know how deep the water is, don’t go in it.” I went half in, and that was still too much. I was in the water at a good angle. When I opened my door, it splashed into the water at the end, and my rock rail was partly submerged. Keep in mind, this thing is on 35s. I was able to use my recovery equipment to extract the vehicle and get back.

That’s only the second worst?! What was the worst?

The worst one happened early in the build. My brother drove in from Colorado and we did a tour of West Virginia. Our first stop was Twin Mountain Offroad Park. The owner had built a new obstacle. I got a little stuck. He recommended that I hold the brake and give it some gas to sort of ‘shoot’ me out. I should have known better, but now I do. Too much torque will snap an axle right at the front diff. I now have a named obstacle at that park, “Gregory’s Gear Oil Gulley.” Fun fact!  You can use duct tape and Glad Press-n-Seal to fill the gaping hole on the side of your diff!

This pathfinder is my toy, and it could only become that once I had the Titan.

Thanks CrimeDog!

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