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Part of my stopping was that it was getting late for me.
As to changes: I am not sure of any that would have resulted in a Japanese victory. There may have been some that resulted in the continued existance of Imperial Japan. Quite simply, the kind of tension building between the United States and Japan over what was going on in China as well as other feeling pretty much made the war inevitable.
There were some that did not want war with the US. Admiral Osami Nagano wanted to avoid war with the Americans while still invading the Dutch and British colonies in Southeast Asia. Basically go around the Philippines and take Indonesia, Burma and then head for India and Australia to get the British out of the fight. The problem with this is that it leaves the Philippines alone. The Americans were already pretty friendly with the British by 1941 and it wouldn't take too much to cause an incident within the Japanese supply lines to and from Indonesia. The Japanese could not afford having a potentally hostile America right along their major oil route.
Another possible solution would be to officially declare war before attacking US interests (including Pearl Harbor). It would depend on how long the declaration was given to when the attacks start though. "Dastardly Sneak Attack" was one of the major sticking points to Pearl Harbor. The Ultimatum, even if given on time, would not have changed the American reaction as the time between the delivery of the message and the attack would have been at most an hour. Since it takes a considerable amount of time to get from Japan to Hawaii, the news media would still have classified it as a sneak attack and the "Remember Pearl Harbor" would have remained. If it had been a day earlier or so, I can imagine the media not being able to spin it as much as the base should have been able to at least be on a war footing even if they still made all the mistakes that were made that day historically. They might have paid attention to the radar operators at least when a warning about aircraft from the northeast arrived.
Other thinks would be changing their codes more often so the US couldn't read their mail. Might have allowed for several operations to succeed in 1942 where in history the Americans were able to send ships to intercept the Japanese forces in the Coral Sea and at Midway while also correctly guessing that the attack on Dutch Harbor was a diversion. Also helped the Americans recognise the sigificance of Guadalcanal to the Japanese efforts to invade Australia. It was there that the Allies broke the Japanese military and turned them back.
In terms of equipment, the Japanese might have done well to make a more standardized carrier earlier on so they could produce more of them faster. I do not consider the battlehips Yamato and Musashi to be a waste of materials. Only a waste of potental due to Japanse not using them often or effectively (though there has been some recent evidance that Yamato might hold the record for longest ship to ship shell hit at something like 31,000 yards, beating out Warspite and Scharnhorst by about 3,000 yards). Their use of their battleships was not very good since they kept expecting to meetup and engage the Americans in a Jutland style fight near the Home Islands and thus kept them in reserve. The Kongo-class Battlecruisers would receive most of the ship to ship action in the war against the Americans. The other battleship action would more rightly called a suicide run of two old Japanese battleships verses six old American battleships and a crapload of destroyers and torpedo boats.
If the Japanese had integrated German submarines tactics they could have made efforts to cut the American and British supply lines. If they had instituted Allied style convoy systems and spent some effort on ASW they might have kept their own supply lines intact and not had as many oil and other shortages that prevented several operations and especially prevented proper training of pilots.
With well trained pilots flying upgraded aircraft, the Japanse could match the Americans in the air if the two sides brought roughly equal numbers of carriers. Again the Japanese would have the problem of numbers, but losses in 1942 were high for both sides. The Japanse lost four fleet carriers at Miday and a few light carriers in other engagements. However they also lost a lot of aircraft and pilots in those other engagements where their other two main fleet carriers survived each time. The Americans lost four fleet carriers as well that year, but did not suffer as high aircraft and pilot attrition outside the torpedo bomber squadrons at Midway. The Americans had the manpower and industrial capacity to replace all of it. Japan did not.
The Americans would only lose one more light carrier during the war along with some escort carriers. No other fleet carriers were sunk by the Japanese, though a few were badly beat up at the time (Franklin and Bunker Hill would never see action again), but most of the Japanese carriers were sunk during the remainder of the war. American task groups started running around with two fleet carriers and one light carrier to raid Japanese bases. The light carrier providing the fleet's air cover to allow the two fleet carriers to focus on attack missions.
The Japanese had another problem that could have been solved. A ridged structure of how things are done on a ship. No deviation reguardless of situation. This following of standard procedures is what is usually pointed as the reason their carriers at Midway were lost. The American bombers did not hit all of them that hard...but with armed aircraft in the hangers (two stacked hangers in some cases) the fires and explosions were too much for their damage control teams to handle. That is another things that tends to be criticized...Japanese damage control. There procedures did not seem to be up to the task of saving their ships. However there were very good at keeping records (of those that were not lose with the ships or burned by the government at the end of the war). The old traditional report is that the Battlecruiser Kirishima was hit by nine 16" shells and 40 5" shells from one American battleship after firing at it for a while at night. Kirishima was lost the next day due to scuttling. However the damage control teams report on Kirishima tells a different story. In their report, Kirishima was hit by 22 16" inch shells and several 5" shells. The flooding caused by the 16" shell made the ship list badly. This was counter flooded during the night as they tried to escape from the Americans. This counter flooding leaned the ship over too much and exposed the ship to flooding from other holes put in the ship by the Americans. More counter flooding lead enventually to the ship sinking as it became filled with more water exposing more holes to the sea. This can be seen as a failure on the part of the damage control teams. Better training might have saved the ship...for a day or so...until the American airplanes found it.
I can think up ways for the Japanese to win small engagements and score some victories, but I can't come up with some way for them to win the war. Their best bet is to get the Americans to the peace talk in 1942 after taking Midway and possibly making Hawaii a very dangerous place to be. But the US Navy is there around as the Japanese were having a had time finding the American carriers that were not called Yorktown. Plus in a few days the USS Saratoga would arrive in the area to resupply the other carriers and provide another large flight deck. USS Wasp was also on her way out. Thus even if the Japanese carriers were not as badly damaged and Yorktown was still sunk...the US has a replacement there by I think the 8th of June with aircraft and pilots enough to resupply Hornet and Enterprise. The Japanese don't have such a luxury even with the rest of the fleet arriving with Yamato as flagship. The only carrier they have with them is a training carrier (Hosho).
That is probably enough to ponder for now.
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