I don't remember seeing too many leaf spring sas's for xterras and I was wondering why? Now I don't have an xterra, but I just finished up my SAS on my 4runner and it was relatively easy. There's more welding than the calmini coil kit, but it's all pretty simple.

Leaf spring SAS's just seem sooo much cheaper than the coil SAS's. I'm sure a lot of the toyota sas kits can be adapted to xterras without too much trouble.

The beauty of the Calmini kit is that everything on the truck side of things can be bolted directly on without welding anything.

Because of this it allows for more people to do the kit themself without having to have a welder.

Because the majority of Nissan "wheeler" would rather spend $4,000 for a bolt-on setup than $1500 for a DIY setup. Mainly because they don't know any better.

I thought there's a little welding with the calmini kit, like tabs on the axle or something.

It seems like there just needs to be a couple pioneers who take off the shelf toyota SAS parts and adapts them to an xterra. Then the masses will follow.

i would say the reason why I'm going to use the calmini sas kit versus "force fabbing" some shit that wasn't made for my vehicle would be that my xterra is still my daily driver. a kit that was meant for the xterra will tend to cause much less of a problem, since that is the vehicle it was meant for. calmini has taken all the guess work out of everything, making the SAS pretty much straight foward.

i guess if i had an older vehicle (10+ yrs) and it wasnt my daily driver, i wouldnt care if something went wrong or didnt work out the way i planned. then i could just let it sit in the driveway or backyard rotting away.

there is, very little welding.

i would imagine that once the xterra has been around for a lot longer, and the cost of the older models come down a lot more, you will see more people willing to experiment with it, most people are still paying for their xterras.

Yes, I'd agree if it's a DD then quicker the better. If my 4runner were my only vehicle, I definately never would have done a SAS.

On the other hand, I would encourage anybody who's xterra could be down for a while to piece it together. There will be more tinkering needed to get it right, but once that's all done it could become just as cookie cutter as the toyotas.

Really, it comes down to this: Would you rather spend the time or the money? Most of us wheel in our spare time and doing a SAS would also use up the spare time. Less spare time used doing SAS = more spare time for wheelin'.

That said, I'm not doing the Calmini kit either.

Bullsh!t.

No kit is required for a leaf spring kit, Einstein. Just find the right springs, weld hangers and fab the shafts an hardware. Any shop can do it cheaper than a coil setup.

The leaf setup is fine, but most people will prefer a coilover setup. The performance is better.

I've read this over and over, and have yet to figure out what part of my post you're calling Bullshit on. Especially when you go on to essentially validate what I said with the rest of the post... I'm confused, as always, by your dribble.

No, a shop isn't going to cost less than the Calmini SAS kit. Not any good one, anyways. Maybe you don't realize it, but having a shop do a 1-off custom setup for you is going to cost as much, or MORE than Calmini's SAS kit, becuase frankly, they make their money in Labor costs, not part costs, and labor isn't cheap!!

We're not comparing custom shop fab with Calmini fab, though. The question is why more people don't do a leaf spring setup. I still stand by my first response. Most Nissan owners that are doing SAS's (not those that dream about it like you, Jeff) would rather pay the money for a setup that's already been worked out, than try to figure it out on their own. Even if you're doing leaf springs, you're still figuring it out on your own.

Also, there's a misconception about leaf springs that they 1)don't flex as well, or 2)give a harsher ride. Both of which can be handled if you know what you're doing. Unfortunately, a lot of wheelers think like JeffW, and just slap some shiite on their rig and go, and end up with a leaf spring setup that doesn't flex worth a darn, and rides like crap. So the misconception lives on based on bad fabbers with bad setups, not the setup itsself.

Don't get me wrong, though. A coil setup is awfully nice, but good design can make a leaf spring flex as well as a coil. Just takes effort.

That being said, my truck is getting a coil setup this winter. But no, there is no "kit" involved.

It comes down to time and engineering for me.

1. Its still my DD.
2. I Dont have the time to rip it down and figure out the engineering and angles for the leafs.

So basically I am willing to pay someone else to figure it out and then work of the directions. I need my X for work and literally time is money.

Can it be done cheaper? Sure.
Is it any better? That all comes down to the design and components used.

Before my SAS I would have agreed with you, but now that I see how it all works it's pretty easy. A lot of the engineering is already done, like spring hangers and such. Just do the research on what springs people are using, buy the hangers and weld them on. It may seem like it's hacking it together and it's not "designed for the xterra and therefore wrong" but really there's not a lot of engineering that goes into it. I know because I'm a mechanical engineer.

But again, I agree that if it's a dd then a kit is best for minimal down time. I mean, I went with a full kit for the same reason. But if I had a garage and the tools I would have pieced it together.

Anyway, I just trying to encourage others to experiment.

Oh, and as for the coils vs leafs...95% of the people don't need coils. The average leaf sprung solid axle is going to take you pretty much anywhere a full bodied xterra would want to go.