Levan's 93' hatchback resto/custom 180sx build thread.
 

Sup dudes. I'm finally getting around to starting this build thread after almost a year of building the car, better late than never.

My goal with this project was to try to build the cleanest s13 that i possibly could, nothing extreme, I just wanted it to be almost like " new ". With my old 92' SE Hb I ran into a few problems with body damage, and not having the time or ability to get that fixed due to it being my daily driver, I decided to go for a whole new chassis.

Because of the fact that my whole family has been car enthusiasts for as long as i can remember this build has been a family effort of sorts. My father Jay, and my grandfather Gary have been helping me out with this thing for the past year tremendously, I can't possibly thank them enough. It's pretty neat that I can say that about a silly 240 build of mine.

Some of you may already be familiar with my ol' Goldie hatch.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5294/...f6e210c1_b.jpg
Sad to say I had to begin reaming it of its parts for the new chassis after working so hard to get it the way it was, but I will still be driving it nonetheless.

Onto the new chassis:
While i was on the lookout for a new car to start with, my father ran across another gold hatch, what a coincidence. It was a 93' and was also an SE; right down the road from his house, and it was for sale. He said it was the cleanest completely stock s13 he had seen in a while. The car had two owners it's whole life. The current owner at the time had owned it since 1995. So of course i jumped on it and bought it a few hours later.
Here it is the day of purchase:
http://www.southeast-performance.com...6523.sized.jpg
http://www.southeast-performance.com...6522.sized.jpg
Drove the car once completely stock, just because. ran into some small electrical problems and addressed them right away before i started stripping it down.

Started off day one pulling the front end, doors and hatch off of the car.
http://www.southeast-performance.com...6560.sized.jpg
http://www.southeast-performance.com...6561.sized.jpg

Then went the interior.
http://www.southeast-performance.com...6562.sized.jpg
http://www.southeast-performance.com...5/IMG_6569.jpg
http://www.southeast-performance.com...5/IMG_6568.jpg



All of the doo doo brown interior would be either replaced or painted to be black and grey.

The interior of the car was sprayed with Lizard skin for sound deadening. I was skeptical about it at first, but it turned out okay apart from the messy overspray :eek3:
http://www.southeast-performance.com...5/IMG_6578.jpg
http://www.southeast-performance.com...6577.sized.jpg
http://www.southeast-performance.com...6582.sized.jpg

Then came some minor body work, I wanted to have it as smooth as i could before it went to the painter to try to make it move as quickly as possible, since I am unfortunately a very impatient person. Hah.
http://www.southeast-performance.com...5/IMG_6579.jpg
http://www.southeast-performance.com...5/IMG_6583.jpg
http://www.southeast-performance.com...5/IMG_6580.jpg

Pulled the grimey KA out, it wasn't quite as " Clean " as the rest of the car, Then worked on stripping down the KA and feverishly cleaning the bay.
http://www.southeast-performance.com...5/IMG_6588.jpg
http://www.southeast-performance.com...5/IMG_6586.jpg
http://www.southeast-performance.com...5/IMG_6594.jpg
http://www.southeast-performance.com...5/IMG_7005.jpg


Put the car up on the lift where it would sit for a while, and dropped the front crossmember and rear subframe.
http://www.southeast-performance.com...5/IMG_7014.jpg
http://www.southeast-performance.com...5/IMG_7010.jpg
http://www.southeast-performance.com...C_0009_003.jpg
http://www.southeast-performance.com...5/IMG_7006.jpg

Finally, the bay was prepped and ready for paint. unfortunately i couldn't find photos of it in primer.
I wanted the color for the car to be something that was a little different, I spotted some photos from japan for some inspiration, and went for it.

http://www.southeast-performance.com...C_0015_001.jpg

The color is a bit more green than what it looks like in the photo. Thats all I'm posting tonight. bare with me on the photos, they are scattered everywhere on different computers.

Wow, that's a gorgeous color man. Lucky dog, I wish this was mine!

Man she looks sweet... cant wait to see how she looks finished... great work

sweet giant sized pics brooooooooooooooo
florida fail <3

Great start! Paint looks like it was done well~

But please.... for the young people on the boards... there is a difference between IRONY and COINCIDENCE

I don't get it?

:picardfp:
Fixed.

Thanks for the positive feedback dudes. I should be adding tons more when i get the time.

Good stuff, love that your dad and grandpa are helping out! I really want to do something similar and build one from the base up so I'm sure I'll get lots of inspiration and ideas from yours!

Thanks Matt! Yeah I'm pretty thankful to have them help out, its been pretty nice. Especially the past two weeks, been busting ass on it. Nice, I'll try to post more as soon as I can.

So cool- really looking forward to the rest! I'm jealous man!

Looking forward to more man! Loving it so far.

ol goldie was very clean

lil turquoise will be even cleaner i bet

I'm liking this so far.

Good job, looking really good

diggin it so far!

Love that color man! Subscribed!

this build is awesome just from the sneak peek from the kouki thread

I'm loving that colour :)

hell yeah brett this this is gonna be awesome cant wait to see more .. ps this is matt from ohio

Very jealous you got to basically take everything off the car, wish i had another chassis to do that do! Anyways can't wait to see the whole thread infold!

Can't wait to read the rest ...and this is Gabe by the way

so far, awesome sauce!! looking forward to seeing what it turns into!

Wow! I was not expecting so many replies already. Thanks for all the appreciation guys!
Finally I get to sit down and do some more posting.

As you may have noticed in the last photo, When i dropped the front crossmember and rear subframe I applied some de greaser and went to town cleaning on them.

After the thorough cleaning the spindles, suspension arms, diff, axles Etc.. were pulled off to be refinished with gloss black paint, and have all the bushing replaced with brand new energy bushings!

http://www.southeast-performance.com...5/IMG_0841.jpg

Please excuse the very poor photos guys, I did not have my Nikon around for a lot of this build, I will dig up as much as I can.

I also purchased a " new " Oe replacement rack, Oe replacement lower control arms, and Ichiba 5 lug hubs.

http://www.southeast-performance.com...5/IMG_0936.jpg


Brand new OEM rear lower control arms.
http://www.southeast-performance.com...5/IMG_0911.jpg

Energy suspension bushings in the spindles with fresh coat of gloss black.
http://www.southeast-performance.com...5/IMG_0914.jpg

Also here is the Underside of the chassis with a fresh coat of lizard skin after pressure washing the underside. That was a giant mess, and pain in the ass. especially in cold weather.. huge thanks to Gramps for helping me out with that.
http://www.southeast-performance.com...C_0025_001.jpg


I had my buddy Mike cut and weld up some of the seams in the fender wells, cut that razor sharp seam at the top of the fender, and welded that before all the coating was applied.
http://www.southeast-performance.com...5/IMG_6573.jpg
http://www.southeast-performance.com...5/IMG_6574.jpg

Finished product:
http://www.southeast-performance.com...5/IMG_7026.jpg

That gold hatch at the top of the page (your previous car or whatever) is one of the cleanest hatchbacks I've ever seen. If that is any indication of what this car could become, I cannot wait to see more.

Also, all your parts look really sexy cleaned up. Makes me wish I had another car to daily so I could take mine apart and clean it up nice like yours haha

Thanks man! I love that car, sad to say its in pieces right now :naw:
Yeah I'm really happy about the way they turned out, It's been a whole lot of work.

this shit cray

Ain't it jay

even though mine has nice paint i am thinking of swapping it all over to a vert....

Nice build man, lizard skin looks dope.