Well, at least in the sense that it is summer and I do, in fact, own a 180SX. I must admit that since my last update I haven’t done much at all with the car driving wise. I did go back and adjust the toe before driving it to the office a couple times in June, but that’s been about it. After learning that my go-to alignment guy was tied up until early July, I decided to just let the car sit and only take it on short trips around town for errands and whatnot.

The first thing I needed to tidy up was my battery mounting solution. With the front mount intercooler in place, I had to resort to running a trusty Odyssey PC380 small battery to fit. I believe it has a different part number now, but that should give you an idea. Fortunately, my friend Kevin down in Houston (@koukikev) hooked me up with a slick 3-D printed battery tie down kit he had made. I had to drill a couple holes in mine to reposition the J hooks to my liking, but it works really well. While the entire solution isn’t show car worthy, it prevented me from having to drill any holes in the car or chop up/extend any of the wiring – which is exactly what I was hoping for.

After my last post, I got out the ol DSLR and snapped some photos of the car in its freshly completed state:

While I was feeling motivated, I decided to build another pair of custom OEM position lamps for my 180 just like the set I had on my 240. While a few companies sell aftermarket position lamps that function both as turn signals and running lamps, they typically just add a second bulb and mounting socket to the back side of the lamps. While this does the trick, I always thought it was hard to see when your turn signal was on with the running lamps also illuminated.

I wanted a more factory solution, so I cut up a pair of chuki S13 lamps and retrofitted the plastic bulb sockets onto the back side of a brand new pair of OEM kouki position lamps with Amazing Goop. While it isn’t the most glamorous solution, it does the job and avoids any water or condensation getting in the lights. The best part about this is if you’re using these on a USDM 91-93 240SX, they will be plug and play. I had to splice into my 180SX factory wiring to get these working, but it’s pretty simple with a multimeter.

The chuki bulb sockets are dual post, meaning that they function as a running light, but also blink when your turn signals come on. It was tough to cut up a pair of new kouki position lamps since the prices are through the roof now, but I think it was worth it to get the look and functionality I was after. While the factory kouki turn signals are cool looking, all of the classic 180SX cars I have always admired chose to ditch them.

After seeing that my car was on the road, my neighbor hit me up and invited me to a local car show at Dave’s Hot Chicken. He was going up there with his late 60s Mustang and his son, so we decided to go check it out as well. I probably would have said no, but I do love me a good chicken sandwich. There turnout was pretty small and most of the cars were not all that interesting to me, but it was still fun to check it out and have my car there with my family.

While the tail lights on my 180 weren’t in the worst condition, they did have a bit of fading. I’ve had a spare set in the basement for ages and decided it was finally time to put them to use. I always dreamed of bolting them on a freshly painted 240, but alas… here we are. I did want to try one thing different this time around, and that was running the black center panel with a factory 180SX decal in place. There’s only one problem – those are discontinued.

I had been watching one of these stickers on eBay since I bought my 180 and finally pulled the trigger. It looked fairly faded, but I was hopeful it may still be sticky and transfer OK. As fate would have it, I dropped it too early and botched the install. The sticker instantly disintegrated and that was the end of that. What a bummer. I removed the pieces of sticker that did manage to stay on the panel, and then installed my carbon kevlar look (as my good friend BH used to say) RPS13 panel over it.

The fresh tail lights really freshen up the back of the car. And I must admit, the kevlar panel always looks sick with bronze wheels. I ended up finding a much nicer 180SX decal from someone on Instagram that he was kind enough to sell me, so I plan to give it another try at some point down the line. Not a bad thing to have tucked away by any means!

I recently discovered that there are small, transparent stickers on the car’s body that protect the paint from sticking to the rubber bumpers on the hood and rear hatch. My hatch had been sticking, so I sourced a couple pairs of these stickers and installed them. Someone also mentioned that putting a little bit of coconut oil on the rubber bumpers will prevent them from sticking, so I’ll likely give that a try soon too. A small and cheap little piece of plastic, but not a bad thing to replace by any means.

After a second drive to the office, I found that my fender liners were sagging and contacting the ground on the driver’s side. I ended up repurposing some aluminum brackets leftover from my Voltex aero on my Evo to add some stability to the liners and keep them from contacting the tires or the ground. I am actually shocked that they are not rubbing more, but so far everything seems to be working well. It’s a bit of a hassle to trim the liners and make them work, but it really does make the car look so much cleaner with them in place!

On Father’s Day weekend, I was fortunate enough to have some garage time. I completely reorganized our garage and moved my S13 to the left side for the first time in the 15 years we have lived here. I realized I was climbing out of both cars against a wall when I would drive them, so it made sense to swap sides with the Sienna to allow for easier access to both vehicles. I am still getting used to it, but it feels great to have so much space in the garage now! I also moved around all of the girls’ toys and bikes to a format that seems to work pretty well. It’s still far from my dream garage setup, but I’m excited about the new layout.

With the garage clean and organized, I spent the rest of my Father’s Day knocking out a few tasks I hadn’t found the time for. The first was installing a replacement fuel filter, fuel injection hose, and clamps. It feels good to have all of the rubber fuel lines on the car replaced. They didn’t look to be in bad shape, but it’s good peace of mind.

I also installed a new pair of hood hinges since the ones on the car were relatively oxidized and rusty for some reason. A lot of the cowl area and front core support look like this, which makes me wonder if this car sat for an extended period of time at some point in its life. Whatever the case, the new hinges look much cleaner. They should probably be painted body color and sealed up properly, but it’s an improvement for now either way. I snagged these from a Canadian seller on eBay and saved a fair amount of cash over anywhere else. Hood hinges seem to be another part that has shot way up in price for no good reason.

Finally, I spent some time wiring up my Defi Link Meter gauges. I had installed them in the NISMO glove box mount a few months back, but didn’t bother to wire the controller. I used an old DIN pocket with a door from one of my 240s to hide the controller and wired everything to the radio harness (for better or worse) to avoid splicing into any of the factory wiring. To my surprise and delight, everything worked as it should when I turned the key. I installed the sensors for the boost and coolant temp gauges, but will install the oil related sensors at a later date when I need to change the oil.

I was feeling inspired after cleaning the garage and decided to extend that same energy to my basement. Initially I had planned to hoard all of the stock parts from my 180, but I came to the realization that this is probably pretty silly. There’s no way I will be converting the car back to stock at this point, so it made sense to try to recoup some funds for future additions that I would like to make to the car. I still have some items to sell, but I did manage to unload a few items. It always feels nice to have less stuff around.

After installing the GReddy intercooler kit, I had some issues getting the GReddy hot pipe to fit around the stock airbox. I ended up selling it and picking up a generic ISR pipe, which quite frankly drives me crazy. However, it’s the only one I have found that seems to fit correctly with the stock airbox. I plan to install an aftermarket intake kit soon to free up some space, but now this solution fits the bill.

Last week, I got bored and decided to try installing my Ganador mirrors on the car. I was excited to finally have a pair of these wired up as they are plug and play on this chassis, but it wasn’t meant to be. I plugged them in and found that nothing happened when I clicked the mirror adjustment switch. I swapped them out for the stock mirrors and may go back to them at a later date, but for now I love the functionality of the stock power folding mirrors. I’d really love to get a BNIB pair of Ganadors, but that might be all but impossible these days.

Anyway, that’s where things stand heading into mid July! I am hoping I can get an alignment soon and start driving the car more frequently, but I am not stressing about it too much. I am not sure if there are any other small projects I will try to tackle, but for now I am content with the car sitting in the garage and what little cash I have sitting in my wallet.

Thanks as always for stopping by to check out the blog. I appreciate it! Have a great weekend.

Damon