This week has been a relatively quiet one as far as car things go. But when it takes this long to purchase and import a car, there are bound to be some quiet ones, right?!

I got confirmation from Richard that my 180SX arrived safely at port and is currently being booked. He said most of the cars he has imported have been booked within a month of arriving, so I’m crossing my fingers that the car will have a ship assigned and begin its journey to the USA within the next few weeks. The fact that I am buying this car begins to feel a little bit more real with each step in the process being checked off. I’m anxious, but really trying not to dwell on it too much to avoid losing my sanity, haha.

I received the car’s VIN number this week which allowed me to learn a little bit more about it via GTR Registry. My good 180SX friend Maq had mentioned that black kouki 180SX Type X cars with a sunroof were relatively rare, which he was definitely right about. As it turns out, this car is 1 of 9 KH3 180SX Type X with an automatic transmission and a sunroof, which I thought was pretty interesting. There were 76 total 96-98 black Type X 180SX produced, which makes me that much happier that I bought this car. With numbers that low, waiting it out may have been a bad choice. Granted, I sort of wanted a different color other than black initially, but that’s OK. Sometimes fate has other plans.

As far as parts go, this week was pretty light. However, I did receive a package from my good friend Frankie at Faction Motorsports that contains a new GReddy LS Spec intercooler kit for the 180SX. I’ve owned a handful of these over the years and really love the fit and finish of the kit – as well as the cost. I almost kept a kit from one of my 240s since both were relatively new, but really wanted to have brand new parts for the 180SX build whenever I could. If you are in the market for one of these setups, I definitely recommend reaching out to Frankie at Faction. It arrived in just two days!

No updates to report on the 240 shell. I am still working on sourcing the items needed to make the car a roller, but I am pretty close to set on that. In the mean time it continues to sit until it’s picked up about a month from today.

Earlier this week, JY and I were talking about “tribute builds.” He explained that he is really into building cars that pay homage to specific cars of our past, much like he just did with his S13 Silvia. I joked that my 180SX build is going to be a CamryOnBronze tribute car, mostly just to be funny. And although it sounds a bit arrogant, that is actually sort of my plan. Now that I only have one car again, I am excited to combine all of the best aspects of my 240SX hatch over the years into one final car that I can be proud of. I’ve been through the process so many times now that it’s very clear to me what my favorite aftermarket parts are, so I hope to sort of collect all of the heavy hitters and have them on hand to be swapped out as I see fit. I’ve never really been able to keep parts when I swap them out for others in the past, but I hope to change that this time around.

As far as future blog posts go, I’m planning to zero in on my plans for each aspect of the 180SX build: interior, exterior, suspension, and drivetrain. I think it should be pretty fun and will definitely help keep me on the right track and hopefully allow me to follow through.

Thanks as always for swinging by to check out the blog. I appreciate it! Take it easy.

Damon