CamryOnBronze

When we left off last Thursday, Liam and I were preparing to head down to Houston to retrieve my new car. Liam arrived at my house around 3 or so, and we left for the airport about an hour later. We drove down to my aunt’s house and she was kind enough to drive us to the airport. There was a big accident on the freeway that caused a pretty major delay causing us to be very concerned about making our flight, but fortunately the traffic parted at the perfect time and we arrived with time to spare. The trip down was rather uneventful aside from needing to circle over Texas for about 25 minutes due to some storms in the area.

At around 10 PM or so, we finally got off of the plane and headed to the ground transportation area. There, we were greeted by the third member of our longtime trio – Jimmy. We picked up some late night Whataburger, a Texas staple, and went back to the house to hang out for a bit and see the car quickly before getting some shut eye.

The next morning, Liam and I were up early. Jimmy and his wife had to work that day and were getting their kids ready for daycare. Jimmy was kind enough to loan Liam and I a G35 sedan that he was in the process of selling. We headed out to grab some coffee for Liam and got to experience a good old fashioned Texas thunderstorm, which is always a treat. After grabbing coffee and breakfast, we headed to Walmart and Autozone to pick up some essentials for the car. I ended up buying some oil, spark plugs, temporary floor mats for the drive home, and a new battery. Even though the car started OK for Jimmy at port, it was dead when we tried to start it on Friday morning. With a long drive ahead of us, we decided it was best to replace the battery so we didn’t have to worry about it. I ended up grabbing a Toyota Prius battery as it has the small terminals that match the size of batteries from Japan. As it turns out, it’s also a pretty perfect size for the 180SX (as long as you aren’t running an aftermarket front mount intercooler.) The part number for the Prius battery is: S46B24R. This was the first of many unanticipated expenses along the way.

After Jimmy got home from work, we put the car in the air. Liam and Jimmy ended up doing most of the work, including swapping in some fresh oil and a NISMO filter that I shipped down prior to the trip. Liam installed the new spark plugs, and I worked on installing the wiper arms, as they were removed from the car prior to shipping for whatever reason. The coil packs were cracked and in pretty bad shape, but we decided to chance it and hope for the best. We put the car on jack stands and loaded up the wheels and tires to get them mounted. The seller had told me the tires were old (10 years old, to be exact) and dry rotted, so I purchased a set and sent them down to Jimmy’s house before the trip.

We went to a tire shop that Jimmy uses occasionally that was interesting to say the least. They did the work quickly and for a good price, but we realized after the fact that they didn’t replace the valve stems. This was a little odd and concerning, but at that point there wasn’t much I could do about it other than cross my fingers.

When we got back to the house, we slapped the tires on and took the car down the street to the gas station to fill up. This was when it finally started to sink in a bit that I owned a 180SX. I had only driven a RHD car once prior to this, so it was a very strange adjustment for me. I kept almost hitting the curb on the passenger side, and had my share of times pressing the wiper stalk instead of the turn signal. When we got back to the house from the test drive, our friends Kev and Harris arrived to hang out.

After a couple more test drives, we decided that the car felt incredibly slow – too slow even for an automatic, bone stock SR20DET. We decided to order a boost gauge from Amazon to determine if the car was making any boost. I thought that a clogged catalytic converter might be to blame, but it was difficult to tell. We also started to hypothesize that the turbo may have seized up, but didn’t want to tear everything apart just yet to check. That night, Raul stopped by to get some parts from Jimmy and ended up hanging out with us for the night. I had talked to him a bit on Instagram, but it was great to meet in person. We didn’t do much more wrenching on the car that night and just hung out.

On Saturday, the boost gauge arrived. Kev and Liam got it installed in the car (albeit with painter’s tape and power from a drill battery) and test drove the car to find that it was indeed not going into boost. They pulled the intake piping and confirmed that sure enough, the compressor wheel was completely seized up. This meant that we needed to find a stock SR20DET turbo to swap in – and fast, since Liam and I planned to begin the drive home at 5 AM Sunday morning. While Kevin and Liam began tearing the car apart to remove the turbo, Jimmy, Harris and I posted on instagram trying to find a turbo locally. As fate would have it, Raul mentioned he had one in his trunk the night before when he was hanging out. He was at a birthday party about 40 minutes away and said we could come grab it. So Liam and I drove out there in Jimmy’s truck to get the turbo while Kev continued to work on removing the old one.

We got back to the house around 8 PM or so, and Liam and Kev continued to knock out the turbo swap. We didn’t have any gaskets on hand, so we had to just reuse the old ones knowing that I will need to replace them at a later date. I jumped in at the very end to help a bit, but Liam and Kev really knocked out most of the work on the car. I am super grateful for their help, because I am honestly not sure I would have been able to finish the work so quickly. I truly could not have accomplished having this car ready without my friends, and I am so thankful for them!

Finally, at around 11:30 PM, the car was back together and running. Liam and Kev took it for a spin, and returned to the house to tell me it was still not making boost. However, Liam was just messing with me, and then told me that it was in fact fixed. I was very relieved to hear this news. While I was still a bit worried about the drive home, it was a massive relief to know the issue was solved. We cleaned up the garage, packed up the car, and prepared to get about five hours of sleep before heading for Michigan on Sunday morning.

Sunday morning arrived far too soon. However, I didn’t feel as terrible as I had expected to. I think the adrenaline and nervousness about the trip was keeping me awake. We said our goodbyes and made our way over to the highway. Liam drove the first leg of the trip and things went very smoothly. We were both surprised and impressed with how nice the car drove. As the day got hotter, we eventually put the windows up to try to AC. I still can’t believe it works! I know it shouldn’t be surprising to me for a stock car, but I have never experienced an S13 with working AC. Even with the wild temperatures and humidity down south, we stayed really comfortable.

We took turns driving with each truck stop we stopped at for fuel, steadily clicking our way through the remainder of Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and Illinois. I had never been to Arkansas or Missouri before, so that was pretty cool to see – as well as crossing over the Mississippi River. By evening, our arrival time was slated for 4:30 AM. We decided to travel through Indiana rather than Illinois for something a little different and to avoid Chicago traffic. Not wanting to be total zombies the next day, we stopped at a hotel in Bloomingon, Indiana at around 11 PM to get some rest.

After what felt like another relatively short sleep, we got on the road around 6:30 AM on Monday morning. We clicked off the remaining 5 hour trip to my house relatively quickly and again without issue. I wasn’t able to get the car registered and plated in time before the trip, so I was a bit apprehensive about driving over 20 hours with only insurance on the car – but I guess luck was on our side for this trip. It was great to be home and see my family after such a long journey. Liam quickly said his goodbyes and headed back to Toronto, another five hours of driving still ahead of him.

Once I saw the car in my driveway, the reality of owning a real-deal kouki 180SX set in. It felt oddly familiar as the car basically looks like my old 240 did, but very strange at the same time. That night, I washed the car and snapped some photos before the sun set as I often did with my previous S13s before it. I wanted to try to capture a baseline of the car how I purchased it to have for reference in the future. I also hadn’t seen the car in a clean state yet, so I was anxious to check it out and see what condition the paint was in.

Overall, I am very impressed with the condition of the car. The interior is in great shape overall, despite the floor mats missing and a spot on the driver’s side where the carpet is separating. I’ve been working on sourcing some OEM mats but haven’t had any luck just yet. There’s a tear in the vinyl on one door panel and the fabric is lifting slightly, and there’s no head unit in the car. However, that just about completes my list of gripes with the interior. The dashboard is uncracked and all of the panels are really in great shape. You can tell by the lack of rattles that the interior hasn’t been taken apart. The car even has a pristine sunroof cover and the straps for it in the hatch area. Overall, I am super happy with the car’s interior.

The exterior of the car has its share of blemishes as well, but nothing alarming considering it’s a stock, 27 year old car. It’s weird to see dings in different places than they were on my 240. There’s some scrapes and areas on both bumpers that have been touched up, and a few dings on the front fenders and quarter panels. All of the seals and moldings are pretty tired, and the optional window visors are very faded. However, the aero is complete and was installed from the factory. It’s amazing to feel how solidly everything is mounted. Most of the rubber gaskets between the aero and the body are even still in place. I’ve dreamed of having my aero mounted this perfectly for a long time, so I am definitely excited about this. The car needs to be detailed, but the paint is definitely in much better shape than my 240 was. I’m looking forward to getting it cleaned up properly and installing some of the restoration items I have collected.

The same is true of the underside of the car, as well as the suspension. The previous owner installed new pads and rotors in Japan, as well as a set of KTS coilovers before having the car aligned. This was definitely apparent on the drive home, as the car tracked straight and the brakes worked really well. I of course haven’t been able to fully dive into the car behind the aero and whatnot, but after inspecting all of the areas my 240SX has rust, there was none to be found. This just affirms my decision, and though I am sure there is rust and corrosion hiding on the car, it won’t be anything like what I was dealing with on the previous chasiss.

I’m anxious to work on the engine bay and to begin replacing some maintenance items like the coil packs, but this will happen in due time. As of right now, my plan is to enjoy the car in stock form for the remainder of the 2024 season and tear into it when the snow flies. We’ll see if I am able to maintain that plan though as I am already anxious to tinker with the car despite only having it home for less than a week at the time of this writing.

Speaking of tinkering, I have already started to make improvements. There was still adhesive residue in a number of places from shipping, as well as stickers inside the door jambs from service shops that I have been removing. And speaking of sticker residue, I created a ton of it when I removed the old, faded window visors from the car. I guess some people like the look of these faded purple, but I am not one of them. I have a new pair that I have had in storage for a few years, but I don’t plan to install them at this time. For anyone curious about the OEM visors, the part number is: G3810-40F00.

The weather strip retainers under the visors are pretty faded and scratched up from the visor brackets that broke loose during the car’s life, and the rubber strip along the glass is faded and cracked. I plan to finally install my brand new set that I purchased for my 240SX many years ago once I have all of the adhesive cleaned up. I could never convince myself to use the new moldings and weather stripping on my 240 as I wanted to paint the car first, but I’ve decided that I will on this car. Life is too short to hoard things waiting for the right day. I think this car deserves these parts and it will bring a great deal of satisfaction to it overall. I ended up using a product my friend David recommended called Tarminator to remove the leftover adhesive, as well as trusty old Goo Gone.

Next on the list, I installed a new pair of door strikers. As I mentioned in a previous post years ago, this is one of my favorite improvements for any S13. The driver’s side was cracked and falling apart, and the door had to be slammed in order to shut. It now closes with very minimal effort and a very satisfying sound. If you’re looking to replace these on your car, the part number for the strikers is 80570-41L00 (they’re the same left and right) and the part number for the screws is 01432-00051.

On the interior side, I decided to install the factory Bose head unit I had in my 240. I was told this unit is from a Maxima, but matches the kouki 180SX cluster (aside from everything being in English.) I am hoping to find an actual 180SX head unit, but this fills the ugly space in the dashboard for now. I haven’t decided yet if I will install and aftermarket head unit, but it sounds really nice to have a working radio. We’ll see what happens down the road.

Yesterday, I went to the Secretary of State to attempt to register and plate the car. They told me I had everything I needed except for a form that needed to be completed by a police officer to verify the VIN. After a stop to the station and a phone call to the Sheriff, they sent an officer out to my house to look at the car and complete the form. With all of the paperwork now in hand, I am hoping to complete this process today so that I can start driving the car around. Fingers crossed!

There are so many people that I want to thank for their help with this car ending up in my garage: Dario for selling the car to me and answering all of my questions, Richard from Run Works for handling all of the import logistics stateside and making life incredibly easy for me, Jordan from Tweed Autogarage for handling the shipping process from the Japan side, Jimmy for picking the car up from port, storing it for me, and giving us a place to crash in Houston; Kayla for letting us take over her house for a long weekend with a sick kiddo at home, Liam for driving all the way from Toronto to roll back with me and for all of the work he did on the car in Texas, My aunt Jodie for driving us to the airport, Kev for doing a ton of diagnosis and work on the car when we found out the turbo was shot, Harris for driving me around to get things we needed for the car, Raul for selling me a replacement turbo when we were in a serious bind, Andy for driving me to get the Vibe after we got home- and, of course, my wife for taking care of our girls and the dog for so many days while I was gone – and for always supporting me when I want to do stupid things like bring over an old Nissan from Japan.

I know there are more people that I am forgetting, but I truly could not have done this on my own. I appreciate everyone’s help and support so much! It’s such a crazy feeling to finally own the car I was trying to emulate with my 240SX for so many years. I’m really looking forward to driving and improving this car for years to come.

Thanks as always for stopping by – especially to everyone that has been here since the Zilvia days. All of the messages mean a lot! Hopefully I’ll have more interesting content rolling on here from now on.

Damon

Today will be another short and sweet post, but here’s a quick update. Last Thursday, I got word from Richard that my 180SX had cleared customs and was ready to be picked up from the Port of Galveston. I was heading up North to the lake for the holiday weekend and wasn’t able to get down to Texas to retrieve the car, but thankfully JY was able to cruise down there on Friday and get the car out of the hot Texas sun for me.

I was on a field trip with Hattie at Greenfield Village Friday when he texted me the first photo of the car on US soil. To say I was excited is a massive understatement!

I called Jimmy on our way home from the field trip, and he told me the car looks to be in really good shape. He also said it started right up to drive onto the trailer which was a welcome surprise. It was a big ask to have Jimmy go get the car for me the day before his daughter’s birthday party, so I was thankful that it went smoothly and didn’t fight him too much.

Fast forward to today- my longtime friend Liam and I are going to fly down to Houston tonight to retrieve the car from Jimmy and drive it home. While I would be much less stressed having the car transported instead, I was eventually talked into attempting the 20 hour drive home to Michigan. I definitely have my concerns, but plan to look the car over tomorrow and do a little bit of maintenance before we set out on this journey.

Liam, Jimmy and I haven’t been able to get together since 2019, so I am super excited to hang out with them. Whatever happens, this trip is sure to leave us with more than a few stories to tell. I’ll be back next week with a recap. Wish us luck!

Damon

Another Friday is upon us and we are rapidly approaching June. My daughters have 8 more days of school before they are on summer break, which is difficult to believe – but I am excited for them and look forward to amazing weather and trips up North to the lake soon.

I haven’t done much related to cars this week aside from cleaning out my garage and moving some parts to basement storage in preparation of the arrival of my new car. And speaking of the new car…

180SX Shipping Update

I got a bit of surprising news earlier this week when Richard reached out and told me that a new ship had been assigned to pick my car up from Panama and transport it to Galveston. As a result, the new ETA is this coming Monday, May 20th instead of June 1st. While this was awesome news, it did throw a wrench in my plans to retrieve the car a bit. I’ve been scrambling ever since trying to get everything set up and in place to get the car home in a timely manner.

As of right now, the plan is for Jimmy to pick up the car from port for me when it clears customs and store it until I can get down to Texas to retrieve it. I will be heading to the lake house for Memorial Day weekend to help my wife’s family get the house open for the season, so I can’t make it down to get it until the end of the month anyway.

My good friend Liam is going to fly down to Houston with me at the end of the month. The plan is to do some quick maintenance on the car, spend some time hanging out with our friends down in Texas, and then cruise the car up to Michigan that weekend. I’m a little worried about the car making the trek home safely, but it should be a great adventure regardless. With a little luck, the 180SX will be home and parked in my driveway by early June!

I am so excited to make this trip and really looking forward to seeing friends I have not seen in a while. Huge thanks to Liam and Jimmy for all of their help and keeping me sane through this wild process. It appears the end may be in sight- stay tuned!

Thanks for stopping by – have an excellent weekend.

Damon

It happened again… life got a little crazy. I had such a great streak of weekly blog posts going, but with the weather starting to get nicer (much faster than it usually does in Michigan might I add) life has gotten busy once again. It’s been three weeks since my last post – let’s see if I can recap what has been going on!

On Saturday, April 20th my good S13 friend Loren made the trek from Wisconsin to pick up my last remaining SR20DET drivetrain, this one being from my hatch. Loren bought my full OEM aero setup from my S13 hatch when I parted it out the first time back in 2012 and owns a few S13s, so it was cool to see my engine swap go to him as well. He arrived right on time and got things loaded up quickly. It’s always nice when things go smoothly! With that, I officially no longer own an SR20DET… aside from the one floating out on the ocean right now anyway. Another good friend of mine known as LA came over that afternoon and hung out with the family for a while, so that was a lot of fun as well. He transported a few other leftover parts for our friend Mikey that have been waiting to somehow make their way to him for a while. It felt amazing to have so much garage and basement space back.

The first Friday I missed posting here on the blog was April 27th. As fate would have it, my wife Alicia and I ended up driving to Chicago late that night to pick up our new puppy, Farley. Farley is an 11 week old Finnish Lapphund or “Lappy.” Ever since our husky Tomei died back in 2019, my daughters (and eventually Alicia) have been begging for a puppy. Tomei was a bit of a handful, and we just were not ready to rush into owning another dog so quickly with three young kids at home. However, being the last holdout of the family, I finally caved and said we could get a dog. Farley came from a breeder in Tennessee, but his sister was being sold to a family near Chicago. He was able to hitch a ride with his sister, which was a huge help in helping us get him. There aren’t a ton of breeders around for this type of dog, so we were really fortunate to be able to find one. It was a super long night, and I drank more energy drinks than I should have, but we eventually made it home with the new pup.

While we were in the Chicago area, I took the opportunity to drop off some parts I am getting painted for the 180SX with Brent of B Street Garage. I ended up taking him two pairs of mirrors (East Bear and Ganador) as well as two different OEM front bumpers – one from my 240SX with the plate cutout and R33 GTR N1 ducts, and the other with only a plate cutout. I have had a spare kouki 180SX bumper in storage for years, so I decided to cut out the license plate area and have that painted as well should I ever change my mind. That will leave me with all three configurations – stock, plate cutout only, and plate cutout with R33 GTR ducts. Hopefully that ends my indecision once and for all. I made quick work of the plate cotout with a dremel the morning before we left for Chicago. It sounds like the parts should be ready to pick up in a few weeks. If I can have the car professionally detailed and possibly ceramic coated, my hope is this will be the only paint work that it needs. Fingers crossed that I get that lucky, but we’ll see what happens.

While I had my front bumper setup apart, I decided to replace the four brackets that are still available new for the heck of it. I was fortunate enough to purchase all of the brackets new back when I switched from Hot Road back to OEM aero in 2016, and they are still in solid shape. A number of the brackets are now discontinued, but some are still available. I will probably make a post while I have everything apart to show all of the brackets and where they go as I think that would be valuable information for some people.

The day after we got home with the puppy, my good friend Frankie of Faction Motorsports pulled up all the way from new Jersey to purchase my 240SX rolling chassis. It took us a bit to get the car loaded up, but things generally went smoothly all things considered. I met Frankie in person at Final Bout II many years ago and he is an awesome dude that is very passionate about S13s. I don’t think my car could really have gone to a better person! He took a ton of my leftover parts off of my hands, and even hauled my kouki 180SX seats to NJ for a gentleman named Kevin to purchase. I am super grateful to Frankie for all of the help! I would like to say seeing the chassis leave my driveway (again) was bittersweet, but it really wasn’t this time. I was pretty glad to get it out of my hair this time, LOL. Maybe I will look back and regret it one of these days, but I haven’t dwelled on it much at all since the car left.

Frankie was kind enough to bring me a few items from his shop Faction Motorsports, including 3 of the 4 kouki 180SX brackets I mentioned earlier, a brand new SR20 fan shroud setup, and another kouki 180SX front bumper. I decided it would still be good to have a spare in storage should I ever need it, and I couldn’t pass up the chance for free shipping. I hopefully will never need to use this bumper, but it’s good to know I have it should they ever be discontinued. I got the upper bumper retainer bracket from Z1 Motorsports to complete the collection of new brackets (just because it happened to be out of stock at Faction.)

I’ve been waiting before I purchase too many other parts for the 180SX as I am not quite sure how I am going to get it home to Michigan yet, but I did find one thing I couldn’t pass up that just arrived today. I picked up this super clean black Bride Ergo from Get JPN out in California. I haven’t seen a black bride reclining seat this clean in a long time, so I decided it was worth picking up. This brings my current collection of seats to four with the Maxis, Zieg, Zeta and Ergo (all black.) Far more seats than I need for one car, but we’ll see what happens. These things are getting so tricky to find that I would love to keep all of them around and swap them out as I see fit. I always say I will do that with parts and end up needing to sell them, but I am hoping I can truly make it happen this time around.

Finally, I had one small order from NissanParts.cc arrive that included the rubber bushing for the hood prop, six nuts for the wiper pivots, clevis pins for the clutch and brake pedal assemblies, and a new PCV valve for the car. More little odds and ends to add to the collection of restoration items.

Adding a puppy to the mix has definitely proven to make life a bit hectic. The girls have a lot going on with school wrapping up in a few weeks, and they have been spending a lot of nights out way past their bedtime playing with friends in the amazing weather we have been having. That being said, I feel like I haven’t had much free time at all to work on car stuff. However, I am still really excited for the car’s arrival and hope I have the time and energy to focus on it again soon. At least things are sort of at a lull right now anyway while I wait for its arrival.

180SX Shipping Update

Speaking of the status of the 180SX, the ship carrying the car arrived in Panama earlier this week. However, the ship it will be switching over to is currently in Brazil making its way to Panama. This resulted in a delay in the car’s ETA to Galveston, TX. The new ETA is June 1st, which throws a wrench into my plans for retrieving it – but at this point I just have to take things in stride and adapt to the situation as needed. As of right now, my target to go pick up the car is Father’s Day weekend. I am still debating if I should attempt to drive it home, or fork over the cash to get it shipped. I definitely don’t want to take on such a long journey alone, but I have some leads on a copilot. We’ll just have to wait a bit longer to determine the best strategy.

I received the import certificate for the car from Tweed a couple weeks ago and am currently in the process of adding classic car insurance to the 180SX as well. My 240s were never properly insured and that always stressed me out a fair amount, so I am excited to have this sorted out with the new machine. My hope is to have it fully registered and plated when I pick it up to Texas, but we’ll have to see how the process is going at that time. It’s a little tricky to understand what needs to be done and in what order, but I am navigating it OK so far thanks to help from people like Richard.

The previous owner of my 180SX shipped me a bunch of items from the car to avoid them potentially being stolen on the journey over. This package included paperwork and tools for the KTS coilovers he installed prior to the sale, plastic trims for the seat bolts, the ash tray, key ring trim, and the wiper arms.

The seller also shipped me the sunroof cover and the sunroof straps for the rear hatch area, which I am super excited about. One of the cars I parted out had these straps, but they were very dirty and rusty. It’s so cool to own a car in this original of a state. I was super worried about the sunroof cover arriving safely, but fortunately it didn’t get cracked like the one I imported for my 240 from Japan many years ago.

I’ve learned that my new car was loaded with a ton of cool options from the dealer. I want to wait to talk about a lot of them until I have the car in my possession, but two of them made their way here already – the optional kouki 180SX fog lights and window louvers. One of the fog lights is shattered unfortunately, and I am not quite sure why there are only two instead of four, but it’s still pretty cool to see. I don’t love the look anyway and will likely never us them, but it’s still a neat piece of the car’s history to have. The seller removed the window louvers and was selling them separately, but in an effort to preserve the car’s history and buy it in as original of a state as possible, I purchased them. Again, these are another part I have never been that interested in and likely won’t use, but I thought it was cool to have the louvers that were installed at the dealer when the car was new. They’re in great condition as well which is a plus!

That’s about it for the last three weeks! I need to decide soon if I am going to try to drive the car home or not. If I am, I need to send some maintenance parts to Houston and purchase a set of tires for the car so that it’s ready for the journey. Things should go from 0-100 pretty quickly over the next few weeks, but it’s definitely getting exciting.

Thanks as always for following along! Have a great weekend.

My plan for the interior of my 180SX build (if we can even call it that) is very simple and straightforward. Fortunately, all JDM S13s came with traditional manual seatbelts, so there’s nothing I need to source or track down to make that a reality. The car is also equipped with Digital Climate Controls (DCC) which I have purchased multiple times over the years and never managed to properly install in my 240SX. The dash was uncracked when I bought the car, so with any luck it will still be pristine when it arrives here in the states.

One of the items I kept from my previous S13s is my seats. I have three black bucket seats to choose from for use in the 180SX: My Bride Maxis, Bride Zieg II, and a pristine Bride Zeta II. I haven’t decided which combo I will install first, but it’s great to have options. I am also in the process of trying to acquire a couple other seats to add to my collection – more on those in a future post. But in the mean time, I will be ordering a pair of seat rails for mounting dual buckets in the car.

Another item I held onto from my 240SX coupe is my black Nardi Classic 330mm setup. I have considered switching it out for a slightly larger wheel for street driving, or even a silver one – but haven’t decided yet. I also kept my Works Bell hub, but I’ve always wanted to try a quick release setup. This might be the time to finally make it happen.

As far as cool-spec bracing goes, I held onto my NeXt Miracle Cross Bar from the 240SX as well. I’ll definitely be installing it in the 180 at some point as it is one of my favorite aftermarket S13 parts of all time. I am also hoping to pick up another Do-Luck Cross Bar that installs behind the rear seats as they’re still available and I have alway thought it was a cool piece.

Ever since I had my Cusco roll cage in my 240 many years ago, I have wanted another one. However, I am hesitant to get one for my 180SX for a few reasons. I don’t want to hack up the factory rear plastic trim panels, but I did keep both sets from my other S13s for that reason. But, I also really don’t want to drill holes into the floor or cut up the factory carpet. Time will tell, but as much as I would like to have one, I probably won’t mess with installing one this time around. Things change though – we’ll see!

As you can tell, the interior plans are still a little in flux – but they’re also very simple, so I think things should follow pretty closely to the plans laid out in this post. I’m in the process of shopping for a nice set of RHD floor mats for the car, but haven’t made a decision yet. I was bummed to see that Karo no longer makes mats for the S13 chassis as those are what I have always dreamt of owning, but I will find something cool that fits the bill. Finally, I also held onto my white face 60mm Defi Link Meter gauges from my 240, but I don’t have plans to install them at this time. I definitely would not want to drill into my dash again, and probably won’t want to mount them on top of the dash either. They’ve gotten so expensive and difficult to find though that it makes sense to keep them for the time being.

180SX Shipping Update

I’ve become a bit obsessed with tracking the ship’s progress in the last week. I watched as it departed the port in Kobe with my car on board, and followed along as the ship made stops in ports at Nogoya, Yokohama, and Hitachinaka. Finally, its destination updated to Panama and the tracking updates stopped as it headed out to sea. The current ETA in the app is around May 7th, where it will switch ships before heading up to Galveston. It feels great to know things are progressing. Now I just need to get my ducks in a row stateside to ensure I am ready when the car arrives!

The 240SX rolling chassis was supposed to be picked up tomorrow, but sadly the buyer needed to postpone pickup for a week. Hopefully I will be able to get it out of my garage next weekend. However, the SR20 and some other parts I sold quite a while ago are still supposed to be picked up tomorrow – so hopefully everything goes smoothly!

That’s about it for this week! Thanks as always for following along. Have a great weekend!

Damon

When I had finally committed to purchasing my 180SX and sent the wire transfer over back in February, I immediately started thinking, planning, and dreaming about my vision for the car. Whether I am planning a build, listing out tasks for a large project or reassembly, or parting out a car, I always start with a list divided into a few specific categories: Interior, Exterior, Suspension, and Drivetrain. This helps me to stay organized and keep my thoughts clear during the process.

After building and tinkering with S13s for nearly 16 years now, I have a pretty good idea of what I like. When I first bought my 240SX hatch chassis back after parting it out, I felt an odd pressure to change things up. OEM aero was replaced with a Hot Road kit, the red interior setup was switched to black, a silver Nardi wheel instead of black, etc. And while it was fun to do something different, I found myself eventually returning to everything I had previously. That experience taught me that while I may have cared in the past about having a car I felt was unique or different from others I saw online, it’s best to just do what you enjoy and not worry about silly details like that.

In the spirit of my 180SX being a sort of “tribute build,” I hope to harness my past experiences and preferences to put together a car that features all of my favorite parts executed at a high level. However, if it doesn’t seem much different than my 240SX, I’ve achieved my goal. A few people asked me what my plans are regarding aero, interior, etc. and my go-to reply was something along the lines of “If things go according to plan, people likely won’t be able to tell it’s a different car in photos (aside from steering wheel placement.)

Fortunately, the car was equipped with full kouki 180SX aero from the factory, including the optional rear valences and front lip. This will certainly make things easy for me when it comes to styling the exterior. It also has a sunroof, which is a must-have for me. The original owner opted to have the 180SX window vent visors installed, which appear to have faded to a bright purple color as they often do. I will be removing those, and though I have a new set in my parts stash, I likely will not install them. I had a set on my 240 for many years, but have grown to prefer the cleaner look without them. Hopefully I can take them off without damaging the paint underneath.

As far as lighting goes, I have a pair of D-MAX clear sidemarkers left over from my 240SX that I held onto. Ideally I will be able to remove the factory turn signals and run only position lamps like I have in the past, but I’ll need to come up with a solution for converting the position lamps. The custom set I created for my 240 won’t work on a 180 due to wiring differences, and I want to hack the car up as little as possible during the build process, so I may need to get creative. I also held onto my pair of Raybrig H4 headlight lenses to use on the 180SX. For the tail lights, I’ll install a brand new set of kouki 180SX tails to freshen things up, and will likely install a kevlar RPS13 garnish again as well – though I am interested to see what the car looks like without it for a change of pace (but we know how that typically turns out.)

Let’s talk about side mirrors. I’ve been notorious for swapping mirrors over the years, often preferring the look of the factory ones over anything else, with Ganadors a close second. To attempt to end this struggle once and for all, I have sourced pairs of East Bear and Ganador mirrors to use on the car as I see fit. I am pretty excited to have the factory power folding mirrors as well – something I have purchased a few times over the years and never really got the guts to install on my 240SX. I love how much mirrors change the look of an S13, so it’ll be cool to have options available (and actually hold onto them for good this time.)

The last exterior item I plan to switch up is the front bumper. I have collected a few different options for this. I will leave the stock bumper intact, but also have a spare bumper painted with the license plate area cut out and my R33 GTR N1 ducts installed. I had this setup on my 240, but never got around to getting it painted. I am also planning to have a bumper painted with only the plate cutout, as I grew fond of that look when I had it a few years ago. I won’t have complete brackets for all three bumper setups, and likely will not swap them often due to all of the work that task involves (when bolted up properly,) but again, it will be great to have all of the various options I may want to use on hand for the future. I held onto a spare JDM crash beam as well to modify and install, as I would love to run one for a little extra insurance. Most of my 240 setups over the years did not utilize a crash beam, which is a little sketchy.

At this time, I do not plan to run an aftermarket hood. I love the Koguchi Power bonnet, but hate all of the challenges that come with it. I was not impressed with the quality of my most recent one. I have always wanted to try a Hot Road hood after ordering one and never receiving it many years ago, but I am undecided if I want to mess with it or not. Don’t count it out completely in the future, but for now I am committed to sticking with the factory unit.

I should probably talk about wheels in this post, but I typically consider those to be a suspension component. I have my bronze TE37 and LMGT4 17/18 setups from my 240SX on hand for the 180SX, but really want to add something new to the lineup – ideally something silver. More on that in a future post…

That’s about all I have planned for the exterior! I need to get my mirrors and bumpers painted in the not too distant future, but have been working on getting that lined up. The plan may change when I see the car in person, but I am hoping the paint is in decent enough shape to have the car detailed and ceramic coated. I am a terrible detailer, and my 240’s paint condition was something that bothered me from day one. With any luck, things will play out differently with this car. I still have my full set of new OEM moldings and weather stripping leftover from my 240, so my hope is to eventually install those on this car as well. I’ve been holding onto those parts for so long that it feels like it’ll never happen, but this certainly feels like my best shot at seeing it through.

180SX Shipping Update

I got the exciting news earlier this week that my car had been assigned to a ship and was ready to depart. After tracking the RoRo vessel assigned to it, I saw that it arrived at Kobe Port last night. At the time of this writing, it looks like the ship has just left the port and is underway. I’m told that the car will actually switch ships in Panama before heading up to the port in Galveston. The current estimate for the car’s arrival is mid to late May, which is slightly tricky timing for me with a few other life things going on that month. I am confident everything will fall into place though – it’s just going to remain a bit of a mystery until the details become clearer.

As for the 240, I received some brake rotors and front struts/springs from a couple of very generous guys on Instagram to get the chassis rolling again. Tomorrow I am going to meet up with my friends Nick and Allen to grab the last items needed, so I should be able to finally get it on the ground and rolling by early next week. If everyone pulls through, the SR20 drivetrain and rolling chassis will both be out of my garage next Saturday – which is sure to be a very weird feeling, but I am looking forward to finally closing this chapter and focusing 100% on what’s next.

Thanks as always for stopping by – I appreciate it! Have a great weekend.

Damon

Hello, and Happy Friday my friends! The end of another week is upon us. Last week’s silence ended a weeks-long streak of new blog posts that I had going, but my family and I were on a much-needed vacation in Florida for spring break. It was great to get away from Michigan for a while, even though the weather has really not been too bad at all up here lately. Time away from work and winter weather is always great though. We also celebrated Hattie’s tenth birthday while we were there, which is hard to believe. I may or may not be suffering from a mid-life crisis (if that wasn’t already apparent enough.)

For this week’s post, I wanted to touch on my process for ordering OEM Nissan parts as it’s something that I get a lot of questions about. Back in 2017 or so, I had a bit of a perspective shift when it comes to building my S13. I began to become very interested in sourcing replacement OEM parts, rather than simply adding aftermarket items to improve the car’s appearance or performance. To my surprise, I found that a lot of components were still available new. I learned about the great satisfaction that can come from replacing the simple things – the parts that many of us often overlook.

As I traveled along this path, I shifted my sights from US sources to Japan, as I found that a lot of parts that were discontinued in the USA were still available in Japan. Some items were specific to the 180SX and RHD applications, but most were the same between the two variants. The resource I quickly began to trust most for looking up part numbers was jp-carparts.com They have an amazing catalog setup with exploded views that makes it fairly easy to find anything you are looking for (if you’re willing to be patient and spend a bit of time with it.) I have yet to find a good US equivalent for a system like this.

While it seems that this website also allows you to purchase parts directly, for whatever reason I have never used them to actually buy parts. I typically search for the part numbers I find there with US retailers to see if the items are available stateside. If they are not, I typically turn to RHD Japan’s OEM store to request a stock check on the item. You can submit these requests right on their website without ever needing to contact anyone directly, which is nice. After a day or two, you will receive an email notifying you if the item is available or discontinued, the cost, and the ETA for the item. If items need to be preordered, you can purchase store credit and order them. They’ll notify you when they receive it and give you a price for the shipping cost. At this point, you will be able to add the part to the cart and pay for the shipping, and voila! You have OEM parts right delivered right to your door from Japan. I used this process to source a number of my hard to find moldings and weather stripping, as well as my complete S13 Silvia lighting setup.

It’s also worth noting that I have used Jesse Streeter to source a lot of my OEM parts from Japan with great success. His process is a little different as you’ll need to email him with part numbers to request a stock check, but otherwise the process is pretty similar. Jesse is always my go-to guy for anything from Yahoo! Auctions Japan, but I felt bad constantly bothering him with tons of small part requests. That made the decision to use RHD Japan easier as it is a bit more automated. Like I said though, you really can’t go wrong with either!

With my recent part purchases, I hit a bit of a snag with RHD Japan. Occasionally, if you request a lot of OEM parts at once, some items will be available for immediate purchase, while others will need to be pre-ordered. This makes the process tricky, as parts requests expire after 7 days. For example, if you requested 10 different parts, you might find that 5 are available now and 5 have a 14 day delay. By the time you purchase and wait for the parts on delay, the request for the other 5 has expired, and you need to resubmit it. This can add a few days to the ordering process and get a bit confusing. I recently had an odd issue where I could not check out after items were added to my cart which seems to have been fixed, but these occasional issues were enough to nudge me to try ordering from a different vendor this time around to compare the experiences. I’ll also note that RHD has pretty great customer service and has always been willing to help me out.

The vendor I used for my most recent parts order was amayama.com and overall it was a very pleasant experience. With Amayama, you see the stock of items you search for in real time with an ETA. This allows you to add everything you need to your cart and check out for the purchase all at once, which is really convenient. After you place your order, it’s reviewed and shipping charges are determined. You’re notified when everything has arrived from the warehouse and is shipped out. For whatever reason, it seemed like the shipping cost was a fair amount more reasonable from this website as well. I will note, though, that a couple items I ordered came back as out of stock and I was refunded automatically. This was slightly frustrating as I had already been told they were available and paid for them, but at least the refund process was seamless. I will end up purchasing those items from stateside vendors for the sake of convenience.

An interesting thing I found with Amayama is that they often offer two warehouse options for Nissan parts specifically – UAE and Japan. Each location shows the stock level for the part requested as well as the cost. My most recent order was split into two locations and shipments for this reason, but the process went pretty smoothly. Some of the parts have interesting packaging that differs a bit from the standard OEM packaging, but it all seems to be legit. I am sure someone more knowledgable than I am could explain, but I found that interesting. However, like I said, my experience with Amayama was overall a solid one and they’ll likely be my go-to for OEM parts for the foreseeable future.

Now, you are probably asking yourself – why not just purchase all of these items from Nissan in the USA? Well, there are a number of reasons that I typically don’t. I’ve found many times in the past that items US vendors say are discontinued are still available from Japan. However, the biggest motivator is cost. For example, one item I bought in my most recent order was the three components for the shift boot for my manual conversion – the large upper rubber boot, the lower insulator, and the metal bracket that secures them. Those three items, with shipping, were $263.41 from a US Nissan vendor. However, for the exact same three parts, the cost was $112.19 shipped from Amayama overseas. Remember, the exchange rate will certainly impact this- and it is very favorable to the USD right now when it comes to the Japanese Yen. However, that is a massive difference. Some small hardware and clips may cost $8 each from the USA, but will cost $1.50 from Japan. When you’re trying to restore a car and replace as many items as possible, this adds up to be a ton of money. That being said, sometimes the opposite is true. I recently looked into replacement SR20DET coil packs and found them to be a fair amount cheaper from US vendors than in Japan. It really just depends on the item, making it that much more important to do your homework and find the best price before you commit.

All of that to say, I have received a ton of great help and discounts from US Nissan vendors in the past. I certainly understand more than anyone that relationships go a long way, and I have definitely benefitted from them over the years. However, things are certainly not getting any cheaper these days, and every penny counts when providing for a family while trying to build a car. Sourcing parts from Japan definitely takes a lot more work, but if you are willing to put the time in, the benefits can be great. At the end of the day, go with the process that works best for you.

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Well, that certainly turned out to be a bit more long-winded than I had anticipated – but hopefully that information is useful to anyone that may stumble upon it! I’ll keep the rest of this week’s update short and sweet. I got word from Richard on March 26th that my car is next in line for booking, so I am really hoping to hear that it has hit the water sometime in the next two weeks. Fingers crossed!

When we landed in Florida last week, Alicia told me about the bridge collapse that happened at the port in Baltimore. I am always fascinated by disasters like this and was sorry to hear that lives were lost in the process. As fate would have it, my 180SX was actually scheduled to be shipped to Baltimore. After reading that no ships could travel in and out of the port there, I considered switching to Virginia as a second option. However, my assumption is that many shipments destined for Baltimore would be doing the same thing. I ultimately ended up reaching out to Jordan at Tweed and switching the car’s destination to Galveston, TX. This will hopefully avoid any delays on the East coast and will be a great opportunity to see Jimmy when I pick up the car. I have a loose plan for getting the car to Michigan that is still taking shape, so more on that later when I have a better idea of how it’s all going to work- but hopefully it won’t be too much of a headache!

While I was gone, a few parts arrived – the first being a pair of ABS sensors I purchased from the same Zilvia seller that sold me my S14 front knuckles. I have heard that it’s darn near impossible to remove the ABS sensors without damaging them, and I hope to retain it on this car – so it will be nice to have spares on hand. I am not sure how S13/S14 240SX and 180SX sensors compare, but I guess I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

I also scooped up a pair of OEM Z32 2+2 E-brake cables from another Zilvia OG Alex Chang. He was selling them at a pretty hefty discount to move the rest of his inventory, so I figured it was worth replacing my used pair with these while I am at it. Alex is the one that ran the raffle a few years back that resulted in me winning a pair of new OEM 180SX front fenders. I am still hammering out the details of my desired brake setup on this build, but I am pretty confident it will include Z32 rear brakes. These will likely come in handy!

And now, the OEM parts from Amayama that I mentioned earlier in this post. The first order from Japan included a few more various odds and ends. First up was a new clutch fork and some items for rebuilding the clutch and brake pedal assemblies (which I hope to tackle soon- I think I finally have everything I need for that job!)

Next was a brand new interior shift boot setup. I initially went with a used setup, but couldn’t pass up getting everything new and fresh. It will be satisfying to bolt these into place when the manual swap is complete.

I also scooped some restoration items for the wipers. New left and right wiper pivots were much cheaper in Japan than the states, so I grabbed those – as well as the plastic cover for the rear wiper arm.

Lower radiator bushings were in this order too, along with a clip for the hood prop rod on the front core support.

After I got home, the other half of my order arrived – this time from the UAE. This order included a few more bushings and components for the clutch and brake pedal rebuild, upper radiator bushings, The remaining clips for the hood prop rod, the rubber seal for the rear wiper assembly, nuts for the clutch master cylinder, and new door striker screws. This all just seems like a lot of small, trivial items, but I think it’ll be really satisfying to slowly install and refresh all of these components. I’ll be sure to share part numbers and more details when everything gets installed.

Finally, we are two weeks away from both my rolling chassis and SR20DET swap being picked up by their respective buyers. I am still working to get everything I need to make the car a roller. I think I have been bitten by the classic phrase “I’ve got plenty of time” once again. However, hopefully I can manage to get everything sorted out in the nick of time. We’ll see how it goes!

Whew, that was sort of like two weeks crammed into one. If you managed to read all of that, I salute you! Thanks as always for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Damon

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

Well, as far as the process of importing a car goes, this past week was a pretty exciting one. I first reached out to Dario, the seller of the 180SX I purchased, in November of 2023 to discuss the car. I committed to purchasing it in late January, and was finally able to get payment sorted out by mid February. Yesterday, the car was finally picked up for land transport from Sasebo to the port for export. Dario was able to swap the factory wheels onto the car and send me a couple photos and videos of when the driver arrived to pick the car up.

It was so cool to see photos of the car in this environment and know that it’s finally on the way to me. I am very grateful to Dario for taking these photos and how great he has been to work with in this process. I am working with Jordan Tweed of Tweed Autogarage for the import process on the Japan side, while Richard from Run Matsuo is assisting with things on the US side. Richard has been such an amazing resource so far – I highly recommend him and really appreciate his help so far.

It sounds like the car will remain in port for several weeks while a ship is booked to the States, but hopefully it will find its way onto a boat sooner than later. Fingers crossed!

Here at home, I received a couple more packages this week. The first was my NISMO Super Coppermix twin disk clutch kit. I have never had a cool Japanese clutch in any of my S13s before, and have always dreamed of a twin disc primarily for the sound it produced. It will absolutely be overkill for my needs and hopefully won’t be too terrible to drive with, but I just couldn’t pass up the chance to own a cool NISMO clutch like I have always wanted to.

My 180SX feels like a unique opportunity to acquire the parts I always wanted to have on both of my 240s, but never really could for financial reasons. Focusing on only one car and selling so many parts that were redundant from my hatch (like most of the aero, for example) has freed up the budget considerably to allow me to make this happen.

Jimmy and I were discussing how he enjoys making “tribute” builds, or cars that pay homage to famous cars from the past. I joked that I want my 180SX build to be a CamryOnBronze tribute build, which is pretty funny to think about. And even though it was a joke, I kind of really like that mantra. I want this car to encompass all of the best aspects of my 240SX hatch build over the years. All of the parts I sold that I wish I had kept, or all of the things I wanted to do but never had the extra money to make it happen. I really like this concept a lot, and I hope I am able to pull it off. This sort of feels like my final contribution to building these cars, and I am really grateful to have an opportunity to put one together with all of the experience and knowledge I have gained over the years.

Later in the week, one more box from Japan showed up. This one included a number of OEM restoration parts that I have been sourcing to help freshen up the car. The first included a new coil pack cover with fresh bolts, as well as washers and nuts for the valve cover. I will have to take a look at the valve cover when I get it and decided if I want to send it out for powder coating or not. I will most certainly be keeping it the factory black color though.

Next came a set of OEM drive belts for the engine. I’ve found with most of these parts that I am just rebuying all of the things I purchased for both of my SR20DET swaps in my 240s over the last few years, which makes things a bit easier. Fortunately I have found most of it is still available, with the exception of some smaller things.

I ordered just about every coolant hose for the SR20 that I could get my hands on. A lot of the straight hoses have been discontinued for some time now, but you’d be surprised how many others are still in production. As always, I will go into more detail with all of this stuff (part numbers, locations etc.) when I get the chance to install them on the car down the road. I am sure it will be sort of a long process.

Much like the coolant hoses, most of the crankcase ventilation hoses are still available as well. A lot of this stuff can just be replaced with random domestic parts store hoses, but it’s just too cool to have the real deal sometimes. These clean up the look of the engine a lot – not to mention I am sure all of the 27 year old hoses will be pretty brittle.

Door strikers are one of the best things you can buy for your S13 and add a really fresh feel to the car. I of course had to grab a new set of these. The screws are still on order, but should be here at some point down the road.

I scooped up some new nuts, washers and grease caps for the S14 front knuckles and hubs. Again, it feels like I am just doing all of the same things over and over again at this point, but it feels great to start fresh.

For the pedals, I picked up a new set of pads. I have some other pedal restoration items on order that should be here in the next few weeks. That will allow me to refresh the brake and clutch assemblies and have them ready to drop in before the car arrives this summer. This are really cheap from Japan – much cheaper than any stateside retailer. I think the accelerator pedal was about $2 USD.

Finally, I grabbed a new wiper cowl seal. This was one of the only pieces of weather stripping that I actually installed on my 240, so I needed a new one to complete my set. I still have all of my moldings and weather stripping that I bought for my 240s. My hope is that the paint on the 180SX is clean enough that I can have it detailed and coated professionally and be happy enough with the results to need any paint work done. If that’s the case, I will likely install all of these items I have been holding onto for so many years – which would be a pretty awesome feeling of accomplishment.

It’s been a very strange winter here in Michigan this year. We had a week or two of bitterly cold temperatures, and a couple of snow storms – but we have also had a lot of random days in the 60s and 70s. This past week was no exception, and I was anxious to work in the garage – so I decided to assemble my shifter for the 180SX manual swap. I decided not to replace the plastic carrier in the shifter base, despite being tempted. I also opted not to buy one of the brand new discontinued shifter bases I tracked down. While it would be really cool, I came to my senses a bit and decided to save some cash.

I didn’t end up using the wave washer I bought for the bottom of the assembly, as I forgot to put it in and hate taking apart the snap rings to get to it. I am sure this will not cause any issues. I am really looking forward to trying this shifter and comparing it to the stock one. I think it should be perfect.

Sadly, the one area I did not make any progress with this week was getting rid of my 240SX shell. I still need to find time to pick up and/or track down the remaining parts I need to make the shell a roller, but I found out that I have more time to take care of that as the buyer can not come pick it up until sometime in April. Again, it’s not really hurting anything being in my garage at this point, so I am not too stressed. I look forward to the day when it is finally out of my hair though.

That’s about it for this week! Thank you to everyone that has been keeping up with the process so far. I am having a great time and feel like I have my motivation back again, which is funny considering there’s not car here in the garage to actually work on. I’m so excited for the car to arrive. At the rate time is going right now, I am sure it will be here before I know it.

Thanks as always and have a great weekend!

Damon

I just had a funny thought: I have updated the blog more times since technically not really owning an S13 than in the past couple years when I had two more or less functioning examples. Kind of weird how that works, right? I guess it has really freed me up mentally to start from a clean slate. The transition of parting ways with two 240SXs and moving to a singular 180SX has felt like a total reset that I desperately needed. I hope the feeling of freedom and the mental weight I have shed in this process continues as I focus on only one vehicle, because it’s been a huge breath of fresh air so far.

I have a few exciting updates to share this week (at least in my opinion, anyway.) Let’s start with the 180SX. Last week I finally received an official invoice for transporting the car and was able to pay the importer’s fee, shipping to the USA via sea, and land transport to take the car from its current location in Southwestern Japan to Osaka for shipping to the states. I was able to nail down a pickup date of March 14th with the importer and the seller, which took a fair amount of back and forth. It already feels like ages ago since I paid for the car, but that’s to be expected with this process. I said I wanted to experience it, so here I am! Hopefully everything goes smoothly with pickup and transport next week. From there, I believe the car will be waiting until the next available ship. I am telling myself I will not have it in time to enjoy the 2024 season at all here in Michigan with the hope that it arrives earlier – but we’ll see what happens!

Meanwhile, I have continued to stockpile items for the car’s highly anticipated arrival. The first item I secured this week was a NISMO sport shifter. I’ve tried a number of shifters over the years including C’s, Tomei, and B&M but was never super happy with any of them. I ended up switching over to a stock shifter and had been using that for the last several years. It’s just tough to beat it, especially for street driving.

I’m told the throw reduction on the NISMO shifter is pretty minimal, which makes sense as most NISMO items are a pretty small change over the factory components they replace. I talked to a few people that have them and I think it will be a nice in between. I actually ended up sourcing what must be a slightly older stock item since the box has the mid NISMO logo on it. I went with one that I found on Yahoo! Auctions Japan and used Streeter to import it as I found that these are apparently on backorder until the end of July. Though I am not in a rush since I don’t even have the car yet, I figured it was worth paying a little bit more (but still much less than any stateside vendor) to have one ready to go when the car gets here.

If you haven’t sensed a theme here yet, my hope is to source just about every modern NISMO component still available for the S13 chassis for my build. I think it’s so cool that items are still being produced for this chassis by Nissan, even if it doesn’t seem to get the same support that the R chassis does. NISMO parts just generally sort of fit the relatively conservative tuning mindset I have acquired as I have gotten older and I am really excited about adding all of this stuff to my mod list. I had the majority of these parts on my 240SXs that I parted out, but I thought it probably made sense to sell those items and start with fresh, new components wherever I could for the 180SX build. I think the satisfaction it brings will be worth it in the long run.

So, let’s see – I’ll start with the NISMO suspension components first. I’ll share more detailed photos and part numbers etc. later when I actually begin installing all of these items on the car. I started with bushings, including steering rack bushings, rear knuckle bushings, and rear subframe bushings. I almost kept my old rear knuckles and subframe to save myself the hassle of pressing them again, but thought it would be cool to keep the original parts on the 180SX that came with it. Plus, it’ll give me something to do down the road when I am in the mood for a project.

Next, I sourced what is more or less the same suspension setup I had on my 240s with NISMO front and rear lower control arms. I decided to stick with the S14 front lower control arms again for the additional track width and camber adjustment, in addition to being able to utilize S14 front knuckles and OEM five lug hubs. I liked this setup a lot on my hatch, so I decided to just copy/paste the setup. I also bought what is probably my favorite NISMO piece of all time – the power brace.

Finally, I decided to round out my NISMO order and grab a few drivetrain related items. This included engine mounts and a transmission mount. While I love the engine clearance and lack of vibrations with these, it does bum me out that I can’t run a strut tower brace with them. However, I think it’s worth it to avoid running more aggressive engine mounts. I also picked up a reinforced clutch pivot ball and a braided NISMO clutch hose to replace the flimsy, aging rubber one on the manual clutch line setup I sourced from Japan. Unfortunately I had to ditch the NISMO clutch slave cylinder I had been using on my previous cars due to the clutch setup I decided to run in the car, but I think it will be a worthy trade off. More on that later when it arrives – possibly next week?

I am really excited about the next set of parts that arrived this past week. Many years ago, I sourced a couple pairs of Cusco adjustable suspension arms for my 240SX hatch from a seller on Zilvia. They came in really cool boxes and I loved the blue color. Cusco has always been one of my favorite Japanese tuning companies. When I bought my chassis back after parting it out, I went with SPC arms as they were much more affordable and got the job done well enough. However, I always missed running Japanese components on the car. I often dreamed of replacing them with Cusco components, but never really had the extra cash to make it a reality.

Fast forward to this new clean slate I find myself in, and I was able to make it happen with the full fleet of Cusco adjustable arms: front tension rods, rear traction links, rear upper control arms and rear toe arms. I know it’s silly, but it feels so cool to be collecting all of these parts from Japan for an actual 180SX. Truthfully it doesn’t really feel real, and probably won’t until the car is sitting safely in my garage. But the excitement is building by the week. Again, I’ll share a better look at these in a future post when I begin getting everything put together.

I scooped up a set of Moonface Racing front sway bar links to try out. I noticed on my coupe that the stock end links were at a crazy angle, especially when I was super low on the 15″ Work Equips. This caused the sway bar to sit at a funky angle and the bushings to become distorted. I am hoping these shortened end links will help with that issue.

Finally, I got out my set of DMAX Super Street coilovers. I actually bought these months ago to replacing the aging Stance coilovers on my 240SX hatch (it still feels so weird to keep calling it that, but I feel I have to now to avoid confusion) as I had a set of DMAX coilovers back in 2012 or so that I really liked. They have a really cool camber adjustment feature up front and seemed to work well enough when I had them previously – not to mention they are MUCH cheaper than most coilover offerings out there these days as the prices have increased dramatically. I know they go plenty low, so hopefully they will serve me well.

As for my 240SX shell, it’s still hanging around. I finished installing the rear subframe last weekend and also bolted up the front subframe, arms, and knuckles. I still need to get a couple items together to make it roll and to nail down a pickup date with the buyer, but I hope I will make some progress on that soon. For the time being it is a bit of an eyesore, but a minor inconvenience to have in the garage. So much of my current situation is really testing my patience, but I know good things take time.

If anyone reading this is in need of an S13 Silvia slicktop headliner, a crack free S13 dash, or a crack free S13 dash with four 60mm gauge holes in it, let me know! I am still actively trying to sell these items from my previous cars. Unfortunately, these items are too large to ship – so they would need to be picked up in Michigan. I can also have them transported to NJ with the shell if that is closer to you. Let me know!

That’s about it for this week’s update! I hope to continue to go into a little more detail on my plans for the 180SX next week. I think I am beginning to form a pretty clear game plan, but it always helps to type it out and ensure everything seems to make sense. I know I frequently change my mind, so that is always something to look out for.

Thanks as always for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Damon