What a roller coaster ride it has been trying to get this car ready for my trip to Shawano. I’ve done a terrible job at taking photos of my recent progress, so this post will primarily be made up of words. I’ll try to throw a couple of random pictures from my phone in here to keep it at least somewhat interesting though.

Last Friday night was the only time I had set aside for the car all weekend as we had plans with the kiddos. I ended up driving to meet my friend Tim half way from his house to pick up my S14 control arms. The correct Whiteline bushings finally arrived the night prior, so my hope was that I could press those quickly and get the front suspension back together. As fate would have it, I wasn’t able to press them completely in my garage without a press. I was bummed about this, but with only one week to go until the event I ultimately decided to reassemble the front suspension to get the car one the road.

With the front suspension and brakes back in place, I moved to the back of the car. I installed my NISMO 2 way, replacement axle, catalytic converter, and Trust DD catback exhaust. I really like how the car sounds with a cat in place. It’s really odd for the car to be so quiet, and it has a nice refined tone. Finally, I trimmed my front bumper and turn signals to clear the intercooler and finished installing the front lighting.

On Saturday morning, my good friend and fellow S13 owner Joe came over from Toronto with his Dad. Joe brought me a complete set of kouki 180SX seats and a Canadian headliner for my interior. I’ve wanted one of these headliners for a long time now to complete my manual seatbelt swap but never had a way to get one here from Canada or the US. Pretty exciting! It’s very weird to be sitting in factory seats again, but I think it looks kind of cool for a street cruiser. I’m sure I’ll have another bucket at some point down the road.

By the end of the day Monday, my kouki 180SX front lip and side skirts had still not cleared customs in New York. I was pretty bummed about this but decided I would probably have to remove the wing and drive the car up to Shawano without aero for the event. But as luck would have it, I received a package slip in the mail Tuesday night stating that the aero was ready for pickup at the post office. I picked it up last night and will be taking it to the body shop on my lunch break today. Thankfully they have agreed to have the pieces done by end of day Friday, so with any luck that will happen and I’ll be able to install everything Friday night before Jimmy and I leave Saturday morning!

It’s taken a lot of things to fall into place, but I’m feeling pretty good about things at this point. Hopefully the car will be completely assembled and ready for departure by early Saturday morning!

Damon