VQpwrdSE-R's 2005 Altima SE-R mod thread.

[VQpwrdSE-R]

Ok first a little history. I picked up this car in march 2009 from a hyundai dealer in hackettstown NJ with 30,000 miles. Now four years later I am finally creating a thread for it. I never knew where I would take the car with mods when I first purchased it. I find myself saying I'm done and then a few months later I'm looking at another mod.

Here's my list of mods:

Racingline Y- Pipe
Racingline lowering springs
Racingline Strut tower brace
Red lion Racing nylatron mmi
RTP braided stainless steel brake lines
Centric cryo treated rotors
Stop tech performance street pads
NWP block off plate
NWP 5 piece phenolic spacer kit
VIAS canister delete
AEM CAI and modified short Ram intake
VMS oil catch can
KYB shocks and struts
Continental DWS on stock forged rims
18in maxima rims wrapped with hankook ventus tires
CMOD badgeless grille
Nismo oil and rad cap
M3 style roof spoiler
3000k yellow fogs
Vinyled chin spoiler
Dipped rear emblems
Pioneer double DIN AVH-3300BT with bypass mod.
Genuine Nismo floormats
BT designs LED trunk light
BT designs engine bay LED kit
Full interior SMD LED swap.
LED license plate bulbs.
Compustar super pro het remote start.
Yakima roof rack with fairing.
Yakima Copperhead fork mount x2 with Thule wheel holder.
Sickspeed supertone twin horns

Now for some pics

The early years


The car never came with the stock forged rims, oddly enough there were two identical code reds for sale when I bought mine. One 15 miles away with 17in ASA's and mine in jersey with the same rims was a few grand cheaper than the local one so I drove 3 hours to pick it up.

I have autocrossed my SER with the Susquehanna SCCA quite a bit and am looking to get back into it. It's a large car and some "miata" designed courses are a little difficult. It has held its own against cars in the ST and STX class.

Gobs of body roll on stock suspension and the meaty 55 series sidewalls


Never truly being satisfied with my wheels I was on the search.

I ended up snagging a great deal on a set of maxima 18's on Craigslist and made them my summer setup with hankook ventus v12


Dedicated the heavy ASAs as winter wheels. Wrapped them in Bridgestone Blizzacks and refinished them with a graphite metalflake. The offsets on these were great and fit very flush. I have since sold them to a guy on CL with an Acura TL.


drewH gave me a lead on some slightly curbed forged 18's in Maryland. The guy was asking $350 for all four. I negotiated $250 for a steal.


This was the worst one
Wrapped them in Continential DWS. Man I love these tires.

How she currently sits with the drop


The first day of not having 4x4 status


If you guys want any pics or info on mods just ask I'll post them up.

[06SE-R]

very nice. definitely keep the stock rims I have yet to see aftermarket rims on a SE-R that I like. Mind sharing more info on how you touched up the rims?

[VQpwrdSE-R]

Yeah I'm Definately not giving up the rims. I haven't finished the rims proper. Just used Nissan titanium paint code wv2 its the closest color. I used the brush and touched it up. The other 3 aren't bad so I haven't gone about a full refinishing.

[audtatious]

Wrapped them in Continential DWS. Man I love these tires.

If you have to have all-season tires then they do an OK job but have issues with hydroplaning in the rain. I just replaced them on my coupe with Pilot Super Sports (summer) and, dayum, bring on the RAIN!!

[VQpwrdSE-R]

Matt, I've never had any hydroplaning issues, I know there's a tire for every condition or style of driver. I have had Extreme performance summer tires, blizzacks and several all seasons. My ventus v12 were pretty much gone after 13,0000 miles due to the low 280 treadwear. Getting sick of all the tires I bought in the time I've owned this car and the fact I put on 20,000 a year I needed something that had some performance but also would hold up long term. If I remember correctly didn't you have DW at one time? We're you not impressed? That's another thing DWS' do good enough in the snow I didn't need the blizzacks anymore.

[audtatious]

Don't get me wrong, I liked the DWS's and will give them a positive writeup at some point soon. I actually still have a set on my sedan and I have a set in the garage on my factory 19's which I will use next year for winter tires. Compared to the first all-season tires I tried (Hankook V4's) they rocked. But, being an all-season, they don't do anything great. 540/AA means they are should give better life than a performance summer tire. It also means they will have less grip and while in normal driving that's not an issue when hitting something like The Dragon it meant I was actually sliding sideways a bit, even with the 245/285 combo on the coupe. Granted, not a huge deal as long as I knew when to expect it but it definitely slowed me down. My expectations out drove them.

From a rain perspective there were plenty of white knuckle experiences with them, more than with the factory RE050A and Hankook V12's I have had on the car. IMO the tread pattern with wider tires had more of a tendency to trap water when doing highway speeds. I experienced it more with my coupe than with the sedan that has a 245/245 combo. In heavy rain I would drive in the slow lane. Completely night and day comparison to the Michelin Pilot Super Sports I'm now running.

Realize I'm in a state that gets little snow, I work out of my house so I can adjust my travel schedule based on snow as well. I also have the sedan to drive on bad days if I'm still running summer tires. My main goal with this current set of tires was something that would be comfortable, last at least 1.5 years (assuming I took them off in the winter), and would ensure I had NO issues in the rain. While I don't know about longevity I do know these tires are FAR superior to the DWS in the rain and they are very comfortable to drive other than the tread pattern will occasionally cause them to follow truckers ruts more than others I've had on the car.

[VQpwrdSE-R]

Yeah I'm always up for learning about new tires. I know you have had quite a few types over the years . My experience at this time is limited to only 8 different types. I ran the DWS on the dragon this year and didn't have too many complaints. This past years run wasn't as fun as last due to a passenger (wife) and the fact that my rotors were warped. She wasn't screaming at me I just drove more conservitely The tires seemed to hold their own and never heard a chirp on any turn. I did hear a "growl" as Drew describes it. Now I have SS lines better brakes, a RL drop on fresh struts and will have my NWP spacers and a tuneup. This should be my best experience driving down there in 2013.

[audtatious]

I kept trying to find the perfect all-season tire and they simply don't exist. On the 2k2 Maxima I had Sumitomo HTR+, Yoko DB S2's, and finally Kumho ASX. Of those I loved the Sumitomo when they were new as they had great wet/dry traction and werethe ONLY tire I had on the Maxima that I could play around with in 4"+ of snow and be in full control; but after 10k they lost grip and I had 2 blowouts. Yoko's almost killed me in ice/snow. ASX did "ok" and were comfortable, did better than the DWS in the rain but worse in snow. For the G's I've had Hankook V4's (sucked in about everything), Hankook V12's (good summer tire, not great), DWS and now the Pilot SS's which I will have a good opinion on in a few months.

I have Powerslot rotors, SS lines and new hawk pads on order.

[DrewH]

Nice thread Justin and I'm happy to see your mod list continuing to grow. I typically have a to each their own attitude towards people and their wheel choices but boy am I glad I never saw those Konigs haha.

As far as the DWS's go it must be a matter of tread width because I always welcomed the rain when I had them and their predecessor. That includes a few surprise instances where I expected to hydroplane but they just plowed on. Also for an A/S tire was always impressed by their capability in the white stuff but I always believed that their rain and snow prowess disproportionately outshone their dry surface performance. Not to say that I thought they were poor dry performers cause they weren't but I just thought it was kind of funny that that would be their weak spot.

[VQpwrdSE-R]

I was messing around today working on installing my VMS oil catch can. There's really only one spot to mount it and that's on the passenger side near the fuse box. As you can see I don't have it have it hooked up yet but it will be ready to go when I pull the IM to do my plugs, spacers, and PCV valve.

[VQpwrdSE-R]

Nice thread Justin and I'm happy to see your mod list continuing to grow.

Thanks man, yeah I actually have some mods now. I didn't want to call this a build thread. Especially since no severe motor work is going to be done.

boy am I glad I never saw those Konigs haha.

I know I didn't have them for long. If you need a picture to force vomiting Ive got one from autocrossing them and its taken from the offloaded side while cornering. Fender gap city

[VQpwrdSE-R]

I figured I would dump some more photos into here from meets and the Tail of the dragon

TOTD 2012 Cherohala skyway




2011 TOTD highway 129




2012 Nicofest Carlisle


All of these are at stock ride height since my drop only happened in Dec.


This is one of my favorites from a local meet. 400 some cars and I was one of maybe 40 Nissans. I live in Honda country :/

[VQpwrdSE-R]

Got a smoking deal on a pioneer double DIN DVD navi unit with Bluetooth. I traded my stock unit +some cash and shipped it to Newark NJ. New unit should arrive on Monday. I will be rolling around my DD listening to the notes of the VQ until then.

[06SE-R]

Keep it coming! The color of the catch can isn't bad IMO. Have you decided if you're going to re-paint it? good call on the pioneer as well

[VQpwrdSE-R]

The anodized purple is actually growing on me. I have a feeling I'm getting some parts from my wife next week

[VQpwrdSE-R]

Some more pics from my photoshoot spot.









The only shot I have of it with the Yakima rack, I'm going to pick up 2 Yakima copperhead fork mount rails today for the bikes. Sold the POS trunk mount carrier that scratched up my bumper. Spring hopefully is on its way and I'll be able to get out and ride some.

[VQpwrdSE-R]

I got around to installing the double DIN. It's a pioneer AVH-3300BT. Still have to read the manual on some things. I uploaded my contacts and synced my phone. Unfourtunately it won't stream music through Bluetooth and I must use the USB for that.

Removed the "A" pillar and tucked the microphone in with the corner. You can also see my alarm antenna in this pic


I installed the bypass and switch and now have a fully functioning DVD player when parking brake is disengaged

[VQpwrdSE-R]

I set up the tripod and took some night shots of the LEDs I installed the other day. Man they are bright. Nice light, even the dome casts noticeable light in the cabin during the daylight.

[VQpwrdSE-R]

After looking at the NWP phenolic spacers I finally got around to installing them. I had wanted to put them on before going to Carlisle. It wasn't terribly difficult just time consuming. Some busted knuckles here and there. While having the IM torn off I took advantage and changed the spark plugs for NGK iridium, new PCV valve and hooked up my catch can.




The iPad with FSM came in handy.

[VQpwrdSE-R]

Just a few small updates

Decreased and cleaned up the engine bay ended up painting and clear coating it.

Went to nicofest at Carlisle and had a good time as always. Autocrossed the SE-R and had decent times for a fwd family sedan.


http://youtu.be/0K-jAbjDLjI

Road tripped with the wife up to NYC to see "The Killers" are the Barclay center and met up with a bunch of SER guys at Floyd Bennett memorial airfield.



http://youtu.be/WtShfRkSBrg