stiff pedal is a warning sign, cable starting to fray I believe. Years ago happened in my 92 sentra se-r too
Seen a few mitsu trucks with chewed up firewall around cable passthru. That got me a $150 truck
Owner took box out and apart looking for the problem - lol
I bolted up a starion box to the 2.4 just to hear it run - it purrs. Needs to mod oe crossmember and shifter sits a few inches back.
Gathered the starion master cyl/hard line/salve, but hadn't got around to modifying it, because.....
I put the truck on the back burner once I noticed the steering box leaked bad too, so no quick road use as intended
Prolly convert to some steering rack, and swap in my starion 2.0L(non usa) one time... make a project out of the pos