Alright well I have a midterm in 4 hours so I have no daylight to work with today, called up Armory Nissan, having it towed there tomorrow, appointment made for recall and diag

distributor

I have a spare new one of those too.
It was used for maybe a month.
Lifetime warranty through Auto Barn.

Let me know if you want it.
That is currently disconnected and sitting in the trunk of my X waiting for sale.

Ah, already had it replaced, couldn't really avoid it at that point.. too bad it wasn't the right thing, stalled pulling into my driveway showing the same bucking symptoms, bring it back there and raising hell

Oh Man, Nick
This is F%#k'n Crazy aready...
I feel for you Man.. Good luck.

I'm still betting on the vacuum leak. Xterra's do not run well with any leak at all and they take time to trace, but not hard if you can keep it running.

I can keep it running, I left it at the stealership though, flying to Florida tomorrow night, the receptionist at Armory seems to be the only one there who cares hah. They know not to do anything until they talk to me so at the very least I've got parking on pavement for a week and at least it starts and runs now

Just a curious, is there a how to you'd recommend for finding the vacuum leak?

Thanks for all your help everyone, I'll keep you updated.

I use a couple ways that are fairly easy but you need to use Caution!!

First is have a Fire Extingusher ready at all times.!!!!

One is to monitor the short fuel trims with a scan tool
and use either a propane torch (not lit) and run just the gas over the lines and hoses and watching for the fuel trims to change.
the other is the same but using carb cleaner as the inrichment.

Or just spraying small amounts around the hoses and looking for the Idle to smooth out or incease then that is the area of your leak if it does smooth out or increase.

If you try these Please use Caution!!!

you have to use VERY LITTLE of either at a time then allow it to desapate
for a couple minutes....
before doing any more spraying also be careful around any hot exaust pipes because either fuel could flash fire on you.

Nick ,If you or someone there.
have never done this before I do not reccomend doing them.

That's funny, Erine...I've done that and the older, even less safe method of using starting fluid (ether) to find vacuum leaks. I have done this on sleds recently, but never on a truck anymore. Ether is not good for any engine...lots of fire, no lubricating properties. You can do damage to an engine quickly.

The propane method is a much safer, albiet unsafe, method of doing it.

Another, less effective option is to pull the hoses one at a time and cinching them off. Best to start at the engine side and plug the hole. If you are lucky you will find it quickly. Start with the lines you may suspect. If you don't find it quickly, it can be very frustrating.

Guess I'll just spend some time with hoses, Nissan dealership wants to replace the brake booster even though I know that won't do anything because it was acting weird when I had it just sitting there not even on the brake, and am I wrong in thinking that a leak in the brake booster vacuum will NOT lead back to the engine?

If I remember correctly, I removed the vacuum line from the brake booster in order to add the Seafoam to my Xterra.
It ran fine.

Unless there is a major vacuum leak somewhere else that you aren't seeing.

Did they touch the distributor?

Mine will stall out in no time. I have to hurry to get the hose in the Seafoam and plug it back in.

Ah so maybe that's the problem, yes, they replaced the distributor.

Nick pinch of the line to the booster and see if the engine changes any.
and Yes a booster can leak internaly leaving and it that way tooo long can damage the rear seal in the master cyl. onless it is leaking on the pedal side of the diaphram.

Replaced the brake booster thanks to Ken, no more hissing when I hit the brakes but still have a stutter when I'm idle. Got an SES light and read codes P0441, 0455 & 0328. Two days later 441 & 455 are gone??