Hey everbody. My name is Mike; I've been trolling here for a few yrs... and decided to post my last few yrs work. If any of y'all were in Okinawa between 2005 & 2008, and into cars; you may remember my old 180SX that I built up from fairly stock form:
^^That's not me lol... She was a friend of mine who wanted to pose with it for a swimsuit calendar.
ANYWAY... When it came time for me to leave, I packed up just about everything from the FMIC to the tailpipe & brought it back to the states and sold the body.
My dream has been to reicarnate that car in LHD form; so in 2009, I flew down to Dallas for a nice, rust-free car to bring up to St Louis and get to work on.
Here it is (was lol):
First order of business was to rip apart the interior and redo it. So I tore it all out, cleaned and/or repainted everything; then added sound deadener.
Then put it all back together nice & clean with:
- R33 seats
- Kouki 180SX rear seat
- New [to me] dash
- New OEM speaker grills & shift boot
- New Essex carpet
- Nismo floor mats
- New headliner w/fixtures & visors dyed to match the darker shade of grey
- New power window switches
- hydrographic carbon map light
- New Canadian-spec A & lower B pillar side panels
- 180SX seat belts & upper B-pillar panels
- LED dome
- 180SX cluster
- 180SX digital climate control
- Painted glove box door (graphite)
- carbon scuff plates
- Razo carbon pedals
- Momo wheel
- Kenwood Excelon deck w/Pyle Red label speakers, 320w amp & Kicker Impusle 15" sub
- carbon C-pillar bar
- Cusco carbon rear tower brace
- GT Spec trunk cross brace
Looks & smells lie a whole new car in there lol!
- There are still a few things left to do to the interior, but it's SO much nicer than it was... and there were a lot of other things I did to it as well, but I am trying to keep the narrative short.
In between some the above work, I did a 1yr stint in Afghanitraz. While there, I bought a whole bunch more stuff for it on top of what I brought home from Okinawa. When I got back 8 months ago, I did some other prep work & started on the rear underbody portion of the build...
- Completely redid fuel tank (cleaned, undercoated/repainted)
- Summit -6AN braided fuel lines
- Walbro 255 h.p. pump
- Deleted evap system
- Undercoated entire underside & rear fenderwells with Herculiner
- Had rear member, sway bar, spindles, lateral supports & LCA's powder coated
- Moog ball joints
- Energy urethane subframe bushings
- RS-R urethane main bushings
- R32 GT-R rear brake/5-lug swap
- 300ZX (2+2) ebrake cables / extension brackets
- Ray's Volk Racing GT-C wheels 17 x 9 +13 / Nitto 555R 275/40/ZR17 drag radials
- HKS Hipermax Performer coils
- Drift-Spec RUCA/toe control rods
- GT-Spec lower tie brace
- 180SX VLSD
- Driveshaft Shop Alum driveshaft
Then I got started on the front underbody prep
Aside from all of that, I did a bunch of other prep-type stuff done while waiting for the front stuff to get back from powder coat... Like the tranny lol!
- CA18DET tranny w/SR bell housing
- Cusco baffled center plate
- HKS return springs
- Nismo pivot ball
- C's short shift
- Circuit Sports urethane mount
Sent the manifold to Jet-Hot- very happy with the turnout=)
Looks damn near new- I beat the piss out of it in Okinawa for 2+yrs.
FReddy intake... Got it free:
Sent it to St Louis Plating for polish:
Cleaned 20 yrs worth of shit out from behind the old tails & garnishes... Slapped the new setup in
Continued front prep
^^Had the rear cut up to the body line & pinch-welded in prep for overfenders.
DIF/Tokico Z32 MC
Now that it finally had brakes again; and good ones at that, it was time to to drive it...
Felt like a whole new, yet underpowered car!!! LOVE the URA's tails~
Picked up the motor from the builder (Adrenaline Motorsports, St Peters, MO)
Very happy with their work~
Typical machine work (hone, tank, deck, polish crank, line bore etc), all new [OEM] bearings, thrust washers, gaskets yadda yadda...
PLUS some other stuff:
- Wiseco 86.5mm forged pistons (9.0:1)
- Eagle rods (kit comes with ARP HW)
- ARP main studs
- ARP head studs
- BC valve springs/retainers
- Tomei solid lifters
- Tomei 260* solid-type Procams
- Powder coated crank pulley & bracketing
- Billet blue CAS cover
- Nismo ratchet-style oil cap
- Tomei Super oil block
- Tomei oil pan
^^Mmmm sexy~
It was time to my buddy's shop to toss the KA, start building up the SR and get the engine bay ready for paint... so I got some stuff ready for it.
Pulled in and went to town:
Bay is ready to stage the engine in to cut the holes for the piping:
