Nissan Frontier engine swap?

[EldoradoFJ60]

My old man has my old 1998 Nissan Frontier. It has the KA24DE 2.4L 4 banger. It produces a whopping 148HP and 153 ft/lbs of torque. My parents also bought my 16' travel trailer last year. The 4 banger barely pulls the trailer, one of the reasons I sold it to them and got a Tacoma with the 3.6L 5VZFE.

Of course I recommend just selling the little truck and getting a Tacoma. But the old man likes it. He wants to do an engine swap. Is it possible to toss in the 3.3L V6 VG33E? Not really much of a power gain since it's only 168HP and 196 ft/lbs. How about the Nissan 4.0 V6?

[Brody]

Not much knowledge on Nissan swaps. Best bet would be to contact Advanced Adapters to see what they have on hand. If anyone has anything, these guys will.

http://www.advanceadapters.com/

[Java]

I agree with you about selling it, engine swaps get pricey fast, but that thought aside... the GM 4.3 is always (relatively) inexpensive and would be a nice bump in power, a Vortec is (relatively) simple to wire / plumb and would be smogable (is that a word?). You'd probably have to swap in the tranny and maybe t-case as well, but that might even make it easier. I'd probably start by browsing painless wiring and maybe howell or whoever else makes them, and seeing what is available for plug and play harnesses, that is generally the biggest pain of a swap. It might narrow down your options too.

[Hypoid]

Keep the Nissan for tooling around town, buy a V-8 powered truck for dragging the trailer.

[Andrew]

Believe it or not, my 2004 has a KA24DE option (why I have no clue) - so it may not be that hard - however that was the only engine option in 1998 for the Frontier. Don't know of anyone who has done that though.