It’s been a while since my last update and I know I left a few of you hanging. Well, despite being very close to having the car completed for the Club FR Drift Day last Saturday, I ultimately decided it was best to leave the car at home to avoid any issues on the trip.

I drove the car to work on Friday morning and for the most part everything went smoothly. There was still a bit of contact up front between the wheel and the coilover spring due to a ride height adjustment I had made. For some reason my front wheels always seem to be extremely close to the springs with these coilovers and I have never figured out why. The wheels are 17×9 +22 spaced out to +11 and should have plenty of clearance. I’ll likely end up replacing them at some point in the future anyway so it’s not too big of a deal.

I called the body shop when I left work Friday and they told me that the remainder of my aero was completed. At this point I figured I was golden: Slap the aero on after the kids went to bed and head out in the morning, right?

As these things usually do, I realized once I dove into installing the aero that it was taking much longer than I had anticipated. I finally had a freshly painted set of OEM 180SX aero again and I wanted to be sure that I did my best fitting it to the car for a worthwhile end result. Sure, I could have slapped it all together in a rush or left it off for the event, but I really wanted to do it once and do it right.

By the time I got to the rear of the car, I found that my Trust DD was a bit too far to the left meaning that I couldn’t mount the valence on the left side. I tried messing with the hangers a bit and even swapping back to my test pipe, but just couldn’t get it to sit right. By now I was frustrated and exhausted. Sitting on the cold garage floor at 3 AM knowing that Jimmy (who was upstairs in bed by this point) were leaving at 6 AM to drive nearly eight hours to Wisconsin, I just had a feeling that doing that probably wasn’t the wisest choice. I decided to leave the car at home and make the trip with Jimmy in his rental car. Even though I was bummed out, I immediately felt a sense of peace and relief.

After sleeping for what felt like ten minutes, Jimmy and I hit the road. We stopped in Indiana after a few hours to pick up our friends Max and Tony of BloodRunner/Drift Wolrd fame. Shortly after they hopped in the car, we picked up their friend Garrett who was in town from Western Canada at an Oasis to come along for the Journey. Tony and Garrett both have very nice S13s. It was determined that I would ride in the middle of the back seat for the duration of the journey since I wussed out and didn’t bring my car.

The trip ended up being a blast. It was great to see old friends and meet some new ones at the track. Though it was a bummer that I wasn’t driving my car, people seemed to sympathize for the most part. I think many people were under the impression that I live closer or that I was trailering my car, so when most heard the circumstances they seemed to agree it may not have been smart to attempt to drive the car out for the event this early in the season.

After returning home, saying our goodbyes, and getting back into life’s routine for a couple of days, I removed my exhaust and finished installing my rear valences. I still have some adjustments to make with the aero fitment and ride height/camber, but overall I’m really excited about the state the car is in. I loved the aggressive look of the Hot Road aero and Koguchi Power hood, but this current look has me really pumped.

I found that my front fenders must have been pulled a bit in their previous life and the front wheel fitment is a bit weak. I received a pair of 25mm spacers from my friend John at Touge Factory yesterday, so I need to install those and add some more camber up front to see if I can make it work. I’m still not sure what I am doing with the front suspension, but that’s something I can sort out on another day.

My new exhaust should be here Monday, so once I make the small suspension and aero adjustments and bolt that on I should be ready to drive. I’m dying to start putting miles on this thing and making sure all of the kinks are worked out so that I can give attending a Drift Day another shot very soon.

I’ve currently got a full set of 17/18 bronze Model V in my garage in addition to the TEs, but I am probably going to sell the set. We’ll see though. It would be kind of fun to at least see them on the car first, but I am pretty confident I’ll like the TEs more.

Hope to have more content and seat time soon. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

Damon