CamryOnBronze

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

It’s funny how things work out sometimes. When I had both of my S13s at this time last year, I had no motivation to work on them (for many different reasons.) A year later, I have tons of motivation but no longer have a car to work on. It’s been an interesting shift to say the least.

Last week, I was taking a look at the used Silvia clutch pedal assembly I bought and comparing it to the reinforced NISMO bracket. It didn’t seem to make a lot of sense to me. The two bracket and spring designs just didn’t look the same. As it turns out, the set of pedals I bought on eBay was not from a Silvia/180SX, but from a USDM S13. I ended up returning them and purchasing a different set, which worked out well as they were quite a bit cheaper. I think they may have been so cheap because they’re a little rough and have an old set of Impul pedal covers installed on them, but I ordered new rubber pads for them a couple weeks back – so that won’t be an issue.

I also did some research and visual inspection on the clutch rebuild kit I purchased and found that the return springs are different between the US and JDM S13 clutch pedal assemblies. I ended up selling the rebuild kit I bought as it was clear that the return spring would only work on USDM pedals, and I found that the JDM return spring has been discontinued. So consider this a heads up if you plan to buy a rebuild kit for your RHD S13 – the return spring will not work, but all of the other components will. Also note that the NISMO reinforced clutch pedal bracket will not fit a USDM S13.

I plan to order the clutch refresh components from Japan as I found them to be quite a bit cheaper over there, even with shipping and exchange rates. I’m also going to look into snagging some refresh items for the brake pedal.

As for my old 240 shell, I was able to source some items to make it a rolling chassis before the buyer comes to grab it in the coming weeks. I picked up front and rear subframes, knuckles, control arms, etc. from my friend Allen last weekend. I tossed the rear subframe on the car quickly last night, but plan to spend some more time installing these items this weekend. I’m hoping to source the remaining parts next week and hopefully have a pick up date nailed down soon.

Things are moving at a snail’s pace with the 180SX. The importer has a truck lined up for taking the car from its current location to the port, but I haven’t heard yet when this will happen. Fingers crossed that I will get some good news on that front soon.

So that’s about it for this week! Thanks as always for reading my rambling. Have a great weekend!

Damon

This week’s post is a little light on updates, but I do have a few things to share. I’ve been communicating with the seller of the car and the importer a bit trying to coordinate getting the car transported via truck from its current location to the Osaka area. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a port available to ship from in the car’s original location, so we need to go through some ground transport before it hits the boat. It’s been a painfully slow process so far, but as long as we continue to make progress I will be happy.

I also wanted to call out that the car will not come with the AVS VS6 wheels shown in the listing. It will instead be transported with the factory late model 180SX snowflake wheels, which I am pretty excited about. I guess the tires are in pretty bad shape, so I am considering replacing those when it arrives so that I can enjoy the car a bit before tearing into it – but we’ll see what happens. I’m also planning to remove the faded OEM window visors ASAP. I’ve got a new set stored away, but I’ve grown to not really love the look like I did many years ago. I’ll probably end up running without them.

My hope in the end is that I can preserve the car’s factory paint job and get it to a state that I am happy with. It’s no secret that my 240’s paint drove me crazy, but a big part of that was the fact that I didn’t know how to take care of it. I am hoping with putting in a fair amount of work (and cash) on the front end, I can get this car to a state I am happy with without having to paint it and keep it that way for years to come. At least it already has the complete factory aero on it, so I don’t really need to make any exterior changes. I still have my front bumper with R33 GTR N1 ducts, but I am undecided on if I will use that right away or not.

As far as parts arriving this past week, the first was a rubber shift boot for the transmission tunnel. I can’t tell you how many of these I have sold over the years, so it felt silly to have to search for one and pay someone else for it – but I will need it for the manual swap. These are still available new from Nissan, but it’s over $200 for all three pieces. I decided the money could be spent in better places, so I scooped this used one and plan to clean it up as best I can before installing it.

Next up was an order from Jesse Streeter in Japan. Just a day or two after paying for the car, I stumbled upon a complete clutch line and damper assembly from a 180SX on Yahoo! Auctions Japan. I had almost forgotten that the USDM and JDM clutch lines are not the same, so this one nearly caught me off guard. I really wanted a factory hard line instead of an aftermaket braided one, so I was stoked to find this. Some of the components are still available new, but not all of them – so this was a good buy. If I understand the schematics right, I should have everything needed as far as hard lines go for converting the car to a manual transmission. I will of course be replacing the rubber clutch line and slave, which probably would have saved me some cash on shipping this half way across the world – but it is what it is.

Finally, I received what I am sure will be the first of many orders of OEM parts from my good friend Russell at NissanParts.cc. Russell has been a huge help to me since I started building my first S13 in 2009, and I have seen a ton of shops come and go in that time. It’s cool to see what he has built, and funny to be going through the same process again 15 years later.

The first group of parts I picked up are for the manual shifter assembly: bolts, washers, wave washer, snap ring and gasket. Combine these with the used base plate I bought, and I should have just about everything I need aside from the shifter assembly itself. More on that in a future update.

Next, I picked up a pair of OEM S14 ABS front five lug hubs. So now I’ve got both front and rear five lug hubs ready to go. I’ll probably treat myself to a new set of lug nuts to use with these when the time comes, but we’ll see what happens. I have been running Muteki black steel lug nuts for a while now, but sometimes I miss having something a little bit flashier.

This order also included NissanParts.cc clutch pedal refresh kit. It comes with everything to replace all of the small springs and bushings on your clutch pedal assembly and seemed like a good idea to snag. I’ll tackle this project soon when I have some free time – it’ll be a good thing to keep me busy while I wait for the car’s arrival.

I also picked up a few other things for the manual swap – a new dust boot for the shift fork, new retainer springs for the release bearing, and a manual pilot bushing. I have never had to deal with a pilot bushing swap before, so I am hoping that won’t be too big of a deal. I didn’t order a release bearing as that will come with the clutch kit I am purchasing. I hope to order that next week – stay tuned. I am still debating if I want to replace the gaskets and seals in the transmission. The last time I tried to do that as preventative maintenance, I created some leaks that weren’t previously there. I may adopt more of a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality with this car depending on what kind of shape it’s in when it arrives. Time will tell!

Finally, I scooped up a new OEM clutch master cylinder and slave cylinder. I really wanted to run the NISMO slave again, but it’s not advised to run it with the clutch I want to use. It’s always sad to lose a NISMO item from the mod list, but hopefully it will be worth it.

Last night I had some free time to spend in the garage that I utilized to get my 240SX shell ready for pickup. I think I finally have a buyer nailed down which is a really great feeling, and I am happy about its new home. It’s going to be a few weeks before he can come get it, but it should be worth the wait. I reinstalled a number of items that didn’t end up selling, including the HVAC setup, dash bar, steering column, dash, S14 seats, and rear hatch. I filled it with most of my remaining spare parts that didn’t sell, which feels like a huge relief. I can’t wait until the shell is gone and out of my garage. I’m trying to track down items to make it a roller to make transport easier like I did with my coupe. Fingers crossed I can do that in a timely and not-so-expensive manner. We’ll see how it goes.

That’s where things stand for the last Friday of February. I’m hopeful that I can have just about everything I want to install on the car here in my garage and ready to go by the time it arrives, which shouldn’t be too hard to pull off as I plan to keep it pretty simple. Fingers crossed things keep moving with the import process. I am so anxious to hear that the car is finally on the boat and ready to make its way to the States. At least I have plenty to work on in the mean time.

Thanks as always for stopping by and joining this adventure with me. Have a great weekend!

Damon

I considered making the switch from a 240SX to a 180SX for many years. Jimmy and I would often discuss making the switch, feverishly pounding numbers into spreadsheets in our spare time to see if it would be possible. In most cases, the numbers rarely made sense, but as the years went on it became more and more realistic that I could conceivably part out my 240 and pick up its JDM counterpart.

I never had too much of a strong desire to own a RHD car. Based on talking to friends and acquaintances about their experience with it, it sounded like kind of a hassle to drive one on roads designed for LHD vehicles. I also really loved the idea of modifying a 240SX to emulate a 180SX as closely as possible. It was fun to try to turn my car into the “cool” version and explain to people why I made the modification choices I did. I grew up in the era where it was very admirable to take USDM car and convert it over in as many ways as I could. However, as I grew older and began to want a car that was as close to stock and original as possible, the idea of starting with an actual late model 180SX began to sound more and more appealing. Instead of trying to undo all of the mistakes I had made with my car, I could start with the version I was striving to have all along.

Around the time that I started parting out my hatch, I saw that a black 1997 180SX Type X was for sale in Japan on Zilvia of all places. It felt a bit like fate when I saw it as it ticked nearly every box I was looking for – late model 180SX, sunroof, complete aero from the factory, turbo – the only problem was the fact that it was an automatic. If I was truly going to do this and spend the money and time to bring a car over from Japan, I felt it needed to have a manual transmission from the factory. I was also kind of excited to find one that wasn’t black for a change.

I talked to the owner of a white 180SX Type R that also had a sunroof, but discovered that it had a bit more rust than I was interested in dealing with. It was very appealing given that it was already stateside, but the price was very high. The more I thought about it and looked around a bit, I decided it might be worth compromising on the automatic transmission in the first car I came across. It was proving very difficult to find a car with a sunroof, and most auction cars were going to end up being a huge crap shoot. I decided to take a second look and reached out to the owner.

A couple weeks later, I was sending my first ever wire transfer to pay for the car. I’ll save some of the details on the car until it is in my possession (which may be quite a while at this rate,) but here are a couple photos of the car I purchased. I am currently in the process of making all of the arrangements to transport the car, and with any luck it will be stateside by the end of June. However, I am trying my absolute best to tell myself to be patient and realize it may not be around for this year’s cruising season. By sharing it here now, maybe you guys can help share the anticipation with me.

With a car secured, I began to source some parts so that I can have things in order and ready to go before the car gets here. While I sold a lot of the parts I had not knowing what the future had in store, I did keep a lot of my more desirable parts in the hopes that I would be able to import a 180SX. For example, I ended up holding onto my Xcessive Manufacturing skid plate as I had just recently installed a fresh one on my 240 (despite it already looking fairly thrashed.) This is an essential piece in my opinion as it’s virtually bulletproof and keeps your oil pan safe on a low car.

I also ended up holding onto my PBM Cobra downpipe from my coupe as it only has about 100 miles on it. It’s kind of tempting to keep the stock exhaust on my 180SX, but I will probably end up upgrading it shortly after the car arrives. This is another essential piece for a lowered car as the flex section keeps you from blowing out turbo gaskets as frequently. I think I have used these downpipes on my S13s since 2010 or so with great success.

Another item I held onto was my S14 front knuckles and hubs. My plan was to continue utilizing S14 front knuckles, hubs and lower control arms on my 180SX like I did on my 240. As it turns out though, the 180 has ABS- something I would love to keep intact if possible. I ended up selling my S14 knuckle/hub setup in favor of an ABS set. I’ve got the knuckles now and have a new set of OEM ABS hubs on order. This will be my first time working on an S13 with ABS, but hopefully I am able to sort it out. Time will tell!

Speaking of ABS, this also meant that I needed to secure the correct driveshaft for manual swapping the 180. I ended up finding a manual/ABS driveshaft on eBay that was ironically located about an hour and a half from me. I feel like there are not typically a lot of manual/ABS driveshafts around stateside, so I was excited to find this as I wanted to avoid running an aftermarket one piece driveshaft. I’ll likely try to look into replacing the carrier bearing before this is put on the car. I’m still a little confused as they look remarkably similar, but hopefully this works and doesn’t come back to haunt me later.

I decided tackling the manual swap parts should probably be priority number one. In addition to the driveshaft, I also picked up a Silvia brake and clutch pedal. I have items on the way to refresh both pedals and will try to clean them up as best I can prior to installing them. It is going to kill me to hack into a totally stock 180SX, but I think we can all agree a manual swap is needed. Hopefully the process won’t be too bad (I converted my 240SX coupe from automatic to manual, so I am fairly confident I can pull it off without any issues.)

One piece I have always wanted is the NISMO reinforced clutch pedal bracket. Though I don’t drift and really have no use for it, my hope is to add as much of the current NISMO catalog to this car as possible. Pretty cool part that will likely serve no purpose, but I am excited about it.

Next, I picked up a used shifter base plate from eBay for the manual swap. I am in the process of ordering some refresh items for this, including a NISMO quick shifter that I have heard good things about and wanted to try. I’ve always preferred the OEM shifter over the various short shifters I have tried over the years, but I am confident the NISMO should fit the bill. Looking forward to scooping one up.

I sold both of my manual crossmembers from my 240s, so I had to pick one of these up as well. I was sad that I just barely lost out on a brand new one on YAJ, but I can clean this one up just fine.

Of course, the 180 will need to be converted to five lug. I picked up a set of generic Contano five lug hubs for the rear as I had some pretty bad luck with the OEM ones and they cost a fortune. Hopefully these will serve me well. The OEM ABS S14 hubs are on the way and should be here sometime next week.

Finally, a deal I could not pass up – a set of Ganador Super Aero Mirrors. I have probably owned about fifteen pairs of these over the years, but I couldn’t pass up the price these were listed for on Zilvia. I am contemplating trying to find a really clean pair of carbon/blue lens Ganadors instead for the car, but I am not 100% sold on that idea just yet. The idea of having functional power Ganadors that I can actually see out of sounds really cool after years of using them on a USDM chassis and not wiring them up. I have another pair of mirrors on hand for the 180SX as well that I held onto from my 240 that will likely complete the collection of mirrors I intend to own. At the end of the day, I really like the stock power/folding mirrors the best (stoked to finally have a set of those that works as well.)

Anyway, that’s about it for this week! I’ll continue to share parts I collect and plans for the car here as I work my way through the long process of trying to get the car stateside. I am hoping to be as organized and well-equipped as possible to make the car my own before it arrives. I will likely try to enjoy it for a while in its stock form before I tear into it, but I am definitely excited to work on it and install my own parts.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great weekend!

Damon

Let’s see here… where do I begin this time around? Well, when we last left off in late October of 2023, I had just finished parting out my S13 coupe project and decided to focus my efforts on one singular project- the S13 hatch that I first purchased in 2008 when I was in college.

While I immediately felt very relieved to shed the coupe project and motivated to finally paint and restore my 240SX hatch, the enthusiasm quickly began to fade a bit. I decided to remove the side skirts to check for rust as they had not been off of the car in about seven or eight years. Much to my dismay, I found what I would consider to be a fairly large amount of rust behind the side skirts. Despite people reassuring me that it was not bad in the scheme of things and could easily be repaired, it really took the wind out of my sails to make that discovery.

I get it: S13s are pretty old and Nissan metal isn’t known to be the most resistant to rust. But finding that my rockers were in rough shape was sort of the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. A lot of people online saw my decision to part out the car and move on as a knee-jerk reaction to finding a little bit of rust, but it was the culmination of many years of regret. Many years of decisions, modifications and mistakes that I had grown to regret. I shaved the bay and welded everything shut only to cut it back out and try to convert it back to factory specs again. Removed sound deadening just to add it again. Removed the HVAC system and reinstalled it. Pulled the quarters as a young twenty-something a lot more than I would have liked as a guy pushing forty. And though most of these things could be reversed by repainting the car, I ultimately decided it was time to make a change, take a risk and shake things up. If I was really going to pour all of this time and effort to try to build a beautiful S13 to my standards, I started to wonder if it made sense to start with the real deal: a late model 180SX.

Around the same time I discovered the rust, I took another leap of faith by applying for and accepting a new job. I was very happy at my role at the time, but the commute was brutal- typically an hour and a half or more one way due to construction. I ultimately decided to apply for a different role at a company twenty minutes from home and was thrilled to learn that they were making me an offer. My start date was pretty close to my birthday in December, and it just felt like a big shake up for the better. Taking a risk had worked out for the best. Birthdays are often a time of reflection, especially as I get older, and it got me thinking that maybe it was time to part ways with my hatch as well and take another risk. It was scary, but it felt like the perfect time to make the switch.

So I ended up doing just that – I parted out my S13 hatch again just like I had back in 2012. I was greeted again by that familiar feeling of relief with each set of parts I sold and shipped out. I went into the process with the mindset that I would be importing a kouki 180SX to replace my 240. The goal was to find one as stock and clean as possible – with the least amount of rust possible as well, of course. I knew this was a risk and that I may not find an example that ticked all of the right boxes for me, but I decided that with the way I had been feeling about the hobby over the last year or two it was worth the risk. If I didn’t find the right car, I would simply cash out and enjoy the simpler life many of us often dream of – a life without modifying a car.

Just as I was becoming more and more comfortable with the idea of not owning an S13 anymore, I stumbled upon a car that ticked just about all of the right boxes for me. I am very excited to say that I am in the process of purchasing that car and jumping through the hoops to bring it home to my little garage in the USA. I’m sure it is going to be a relatively long and tedious process that will require more patience than I have to give, but I am hopeful that it’s all going to pan out as it should. Fingers crossed!

As of this writing, I am essentially done with parting out my S13s. I am hoping a friend of mine can come get the bare shell out of my garage soon, but aside from that nearly everything is gone. I kept a number of parts from my hatch to use on the 180SX, and am still holding onto some of the harder to find Silvia parts for a while just in case I end up with one someday. Unlikely, but it shouldn’t hurt to keep these parts around.

With any luck, I’ll be able to share some details about the 180SX in my next post if things continue to progress as they should. I’m hoping to start posting more regularly to document the parts I am gathering for the car while waiting for it to make its way here on a slow boat. It’s been a while since I have tackled the build process from scratch, but I am looking forward to experiencing it again – especially with this platform. It’s nice to have some time to put a plan together and gather parts before the car arrives.

Thank you as always for stopping by and joining me in this journey. I am really excited about what’s to come in 2024!

Damon