3 ½ years later…
It’s time to revive this thing. When it came off the road in 2013 I was having trouble getting it to pass Emissions, struggling to keep engine temps down, and had no power steering. It looked ok but it wasn’t what I wanted when it came to driving it. Lots of city construction and the car's small but annoying issues had started to get to me. I had started to regret my decisions to buy replica parts and had no doubt in my mind I wanted to replace them all with tasteful quality pieces.
It went into storage and when spring came around I had all the same issues and no desire to deal with them. I was done with it, I decided to take some time off and park it in the garage. I started to disassemble slowly from time to time. I wanted to get rid of parts I knew I was replacing to free up extra cash and space. During this time the car almost got parted out a couple times – and I’m glad it didn’t.
While the car was in the garage being neglected I was spending some time on local classifieds, YAJ, and forums collecting new parts for the build. This part was fun – hunting down the deals and stockpiling for a later date. I started putting some of the new parts on the car in the garage to keep the space as tidy as I could. Most of these pictures are old ones pulled from my phone, sorry for quality!
As mentioned earlier in my thread I had some Kouki 180sx aero and intended to complete the kit.
I ditched the Bride replicas and waited to find a deal on a cool fixed bucket drivers seat. I found this on YAJ and decided it suited my needs. I haven’t 100% Identified it, but I believe it’s an Artis II – can anyone confirm?
Shortly after this excellent condition Bride recliner popped up. It matched the driver’s seat well so I had to have it. I believe this one is a Brix 1.5 but again, unsure.
Found some aero marker mirrors
A 330mm Nardi classic, BLITZ horn button and some silver face Greddy gauges. Some other electronic goodies will be joining them, more on those later.
I sold the Varrstoen’s to my buddy for his Type-X hatch and started looking for new wheels
It took a while to decide what I wanted. There are so many classic wheels that look amazing on Kouki S13. I thought about Blitz 03, Panasport, LMGT4, Te37 and more. Eventually I found these Regamasters in need of light refinishing on YAJ. I had a local wheel guy Blain @ Rightous Garage take care of the rash and one crack (surprised?) and had his powder coater match the original colour.
F: 17x9j et18 215/40r17 Dunlop Z2
R 17x10j et20 245/40r17 Michelin pilot
Throughout the build hiatus I was occasionally working on the car. I bought this car as an automatic and it was equipped with cruise control as well. As a result there was a lot of extra wiring in the chassis. I had notched my upper rad support to tip the rad forward and make room for the power steering pump and belt again. This meant the bulky harness running below it would no longer fit – time to remove all the extra wiring!
I’ll suggest that if anyone else is only picking away at a long term is thinking about tearing their harness apart to thin it out – DON’T stop half way through and wait over a year to get back to it. I can tell you first hand, that is a bad idea.
It basically stopped me from doing any further work on the car. It was such a defeating sight when opening the hood that I really lost motivation to go out and look at it.
The car sat a long time before I got back to it. My friends harassed me about the car that will never be finished. As mentioned it almost got parted out. I told myself I wouldn’t give up on it…
That brings us to current day. This winter I found a shop for rent close by for a good price. It’s heated, has running water, enough room for 2 projects and room to do side work. I split the shop with the owner of the black type-x. He’s a welder by day so we have been talking about a few projects in the engine bay.
I moved the car to the shop after we set up and moved all our tools there. It was a great feeling seeing it out of the garage and into a new space, along with that came some much-needed motivation.
I decided the best way to go at it is diving right into the wiring. In addition to thinning the harness I’m fixing the wiring for my reverse lights, which never worked after the engine swap - nor did the speedo, or the tach. I started to make my new transmission sub harness and once that is done I have a battery boost/charging point to mount and wire. The engine harness is going to get a clean up and re-loom as well.
Here are a couple pictures from the shop today. I didn’t take many, most of the time was dedicated to studying wiring diagrams and planning mine out on the white board to make sure I have everything done correctly.
Thats all for tonight. More updates and work coming soon
-Andrew