T Montague's 2zr swap - '08 m/t sedan some extra info

[tmontague]

Welp, I installed my Mishimoto magnetic transmission plug this weekend (went in without any issues into the fill hole), and while in there I inspected my engine bay to make sure everything was Kosher. Sure enough, I find some greenish yellow a/c die around my low pressure discharge hose that goes into the compressor. My first thought "well its a darn good thing I added dye into the system as it makes diagnosis much easier". My second thought was "damn, my a/c system is now toast" - I haven't actually confirmed 100% but it appears my 11 year old low pressure hose has blown all the refrigerant out at the metal/rubber crimp. A common place of failures, especially on Nissan's and it appears this just happened to be due to age.

No hoses were rubbing and everything looked sound. Now I'm faced with the dilemma, do I spend around $100 CAD for an aftermarket hose, plus r134 (which I already have) and the hour or so repairing the leak for just one more summer of DDing the car, or do I pocket the cash and strip out all my a/c components now and put my car on a 30-40ish pound diet?

For me it is an easy answer but keep in mind I will be picking up my son occasionally from day care this summer and it is nice to have a/c for him as well as anytime I am dressed nicely and heading to a dinner or something and don't want to sweat my through my clothes. At this point I have convinced my wife to just leave the a/c system no functioning for the rare occasion I am picking up the kids in my car and it happens to be 35 degrees C out. When I stripped my interior, I kept the window switches connected and zip tied so I still have full control of the windows on those hot days.

It looks like my car will become a bit lighter over the next couple months, albeit a whole lot hotter this summer...

I also loosely test fitted the 1st gen radiator and it appears that the upper rad hose will clear the 2zr without issue. The problem point will actually be the DC sports CAI as the throttle body on the 2zr is at an upward angle compared to the mose straight 1nz TB. I am either going to have to find a comparable 30mm upper hose form another car or just put some sort of rubber material between the hose and the intake tube as they will likely be rubbing. The problem is I will not actually know how well it will or won't work until the new rad and shroud are in their actual places. This will likely have to be saved until the spring when I drain my winter coolant for the summer stuff ansd then I can mix and match the rads without making a mess