CamryOnBronze

While it feels like this is always the case these days, life has been pretty wild lately. Work has been absolutely nuts since the start of 2026 and currently doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. While I am fortunate enough to not be in a job that requires long hours or overtime, the mental toll when not at the office certainly manages to derail my mental state. Though my kids are unbelievably old now and self-sufficient in a lot of ways, the problems and challenges they face only get larger as time goes on. While I wouldn’t trade it, this also consumes a lot of my time. Combine that with training for my first half marathon next month and I have been pretty tapped out lately.

I’m sure I would still make time for car projects 10-15 years ago when I was younger, but it’s just not as easy for me now. Combine that with what I did last month after I finished my most recent blog post and you have the perfect recipe for making zero progress on your 180SX.

But before I talk about that, I need to tell you a story. Back in 2016, I started a job as a graphic designer for a local hospital system. Another designer started that day as well, and despite her being a fair bit older than I am, we became fast friends. She learned that I was into cars (I had my 240SX hatch back then) and told me her mom had a car that people liked to use for drifting – a Honda Civic. While she may have been slightly off on what those cars are used for, her heart was in the right place. I have wanted a 96-00 Honda Civic since I was in high school and told her about how cool they are. She wasn’t sure what year the car was, but was certain it was pretty old.

We worked together for four years before I was laid off during COVID. Though we didn’t see each other anymore, we stayed in touch as we navigated life and new jobs over the years. In 2022, the topic of the Honda arose again via text message. She told me she thought her mom was done driving and joked about giving the car to me, but I guess she talked with her and found that she wasn’t quite ready to give up driving just yet. However, she did send me a couple of photos when her and her husband went to visit her mom and put a new battery in the car for her. My jaw nearly dropped when I saw the photos – the car was much newer than she had guessed. It was a Tafetta white 2000 Civic DX hatchback. I later learned that this was the only year the Civic hatchback was offered in white in the US. I only got two photos, and could see a small rust spot on the rear quarter panel, but it looked pretty solid overall. Then she told me that her mom was the original owner and it had just over 21,000 miles on it. Again, I coudln’t believe it. What a gem!

I was practically salivating at the idea of owning a Civic one day, but couldn’t hold my breath. Who knows how long her mom will want to keep driving? The car could be crashed or stolen before then. Not to mention the fact that I had two 240s at the time and would never be able to take on a third “fun” car. I tried to put it out of mind, but every time we chatted for the next few years I couldn’t help but wonder if the Civic would come up in conversation again one day.

Finally, when my wife and I were in Tennessee picking up my Racing Service Max hood, I got the text and nearly dropped my phone. My friend’s mom was now 92 years old and decided her driving days were behind her. She asked if I would still be interested in the car, and after a quick phone call on our road trip home, we made arrangements for me to get the car the following Saturday. Surely something was going to go wrong. There was no way I was going to have the chance to own this car.

After what felt like the longest week ever, my brother and I drove in the Vibe to pick up the Civic from a town about 25 minutes from my house. We pulled into the Lowe’s parking lot and I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face as soon as I saw the car. How cool! After having issues getting it to start (the battery was depleted from sitting and we found out the positive terminal was loose) the car fired right up and purred nicely. I’m so thankful to my friend for sticking to her word, and to her mom as well for taking such great care of this car.

It rand and drover very smoothly on the way home, and turned over 22,222 miles during the trip – meaning it had been driven less than 500 miles since I got the last update on the car in 2022. I couldn’t believe how smooth it ran and rode, especially for being a 26 year old car. The paint felt a bit rough to the touch and I honestly wasn’t sure how it would clean up. I wondered if the clear coat had been more or less destroyed.

After looking it over when I got home, it really did seem to be in awesome condition. The only rust spot on the body was the passenger quarter panel, and though the suspension and brakes have some rust, the body itself is very clean. I did find some rust on the bracket for the spare tire, but fortunately it was very minor.

I started by hosing down the engine and cleaning all of the filth out of the bay. There was evidence that critters had lived inside the bay at one point, but the airbox and fuse box were both clean and free of debris. I managed to remove lots of grime from the hood, core support, and strut towers and the bay cleaned up pretty nicely. I also removed the front dealer license plate and bracket. All of the door jams and gaps between panels were filthy, and I learned that the car did spend a number of years outside without a garage. There were lots of pine needles and tree debris that needed to be cleared from the car.

I was so antsy to see if there was clear coat left on the car or not. I ended up using the leftover materials from my 180SX refresh and hit a portion of the front fender with my DA wheel. I couldn’t wipe the silly grin from my face when I saw how shiny and smooth the paint felt in that one small area. It seemed like this car might clean up nicely after all.

My next task was to cut and buff the entire outside of the car. Once my materials arrived from Amazon, I started taping off the trim and got to work panel by panel. It’s nice to work on such a small car without many contours and curves as things seemingly went a lot faster than my 180, but maybe it was because I have a little experience under my belt now. I removed the rear hatch exterior trim and gave it a good scrub underneath. I want to color match this panel eventually, but that will have to wait.

I ended up removing the hatch emblems to clean around them, and decided I liked the look without them. The H emblem has holes in the trunk lid, so I decided to leave it in place for now. I may eventually replace it with a JDM red emblem should I determine that the car is nice/cool enough to warrant it, but that’s for another day.

After knocking out the exterior refresh, I was very pleased with the results. Though there are still tons of swirls, blemishes and dents present from a car that had a bit of a rough life (despite the lack of miles) it really did clean up very nicely. It became apparent that I was blessed enough to have this gem fall into my lap, even if it did take me ten years to finally make it happen.

For the next couple weeks, I continued to tinker with small aspects of the car. I removed the chipped up wiper arms to strip them and give them a fresh coat of paint, but I haven’t finished up that project yet. I also changed the oil with a fresh Honda filter, and put the car in the air to check out the condition of the brakes and the suspension.

While inspecting the car, I removed the black rubber trim on the rear quarter panel lips to check for rust. I was really happy to see that it was only isolated to one spot on the passenger side. I also removed the factory side skirts and did not see any rust or damage there either. However, I did remove a massive pile of soil from both front fenders while the fender liners were apart.

I also picked up an OEM Honda touch up pen and spent some time on all of the dings around the car. While it’s not the best solution, it’s cheap and really does make a difference in how the car looks, especially at a glance. It was worth the time and very small financial investment.

By the end of the month, I had the Civic insured and registered, though I was on a temp tag waiting for my plate to arrive. I started driving the car to work whenever the weather was nice and have really been enjoying it, even in stock form. Though it’s an automatic, it’s still fun to cruise around in. Alicia and I actually drove it on a date one night and got several looks and thumbs-ups from other fellow nerds. She had kind of been laughing about my love for this silly and junky old car, but she began to understand on this drive that it really is special. Well, it’s either some junky old car, or really dang cool depending who you ask.

After spending spring break in Florida, I arrived home to some new parts for – you guessed it, the Civic. The first thing I really want to tackle with the car (wait, “tackle?” are we tackling things with this car? What is even happening?) is the exterior, so I started with some parts to add sidemarkers to the front fenders like the Civic has in other parts of the world. It’s funny that the USDM Civic guys add sidemarkers while the USDM S13 guys want to remove them – all in the spirit of matching what Japan has.

I purchased some JDM OEM clear sidemarkers like the Civic Type R has, as well as some items to make them functional – an adapter harness I found on eBay, a template to use for cutting the holes in the USDM fenders, and bulb sockets. I also picked up a pair of “city light” bulb sockets for the JDM EK9 headlights (more on those later.)

Years ago I started chatting with a Honda guy named Chen on IG that had purchased a kouki 180SX. I had seen one of his cars on The Chronicles website before and was really impressed with his taste and the quality – and being a closet Honda guy myself, I started following him. Chen has been a big help by educating me a bit on these cars and helping me locate parts. He was kind enough to sell me an OEM CTR grille for a great price (one of my favorite pieces for this generation Civic) and even threw in a pair of EDM Civic sidemarkers. Really grateful for him and the other handful of Honda people that have helped answer my questions so far. It’s difficult to start over!

Another item I scored a great deal on was a set of used JDM/EDM “Thin” side moldings. The USDM Civics had thicker, chunkier side moldings than the cars in other parts of the world. I am stoked to get these painted and see them on the car eventually (after I source the rest of the exterior items I need, which may take a while.) This set came from the Netherlands, and I lucked out finding such a clean set for less than what they typically go for.

Turning my attention to the interior, one thing the car was lacking when I got it was a set of OEM floor mats. I came across a seller in Poland that was able to source brand new OEM European floor mats, meaning they fit my LHD Civic. After some issues with customs, they finally arrived. They look awesome in the car and it makes things feel a bit more complete in there now, even if they’re so nice that I don’t even want to put my dirty shoes on them.

Immediately after treating the car to new floor mats, it threw a CEL for a bad O2 sensor. For whatever reason, I guess I thought this car might be different than any other one I owned by not breaking immediately after I threw money at it – but this quickly brought me back down to Earth. Though the code was for the upstream O2 sensor, I saw that the wires on the downstream sensor had been chewed up at some point and the wires were exposed. I ended up ordering both Denso sensors from Amazon, and was happy to find that replacing the upstream sensor solved the CEL issue and long-crank starts I was experiencing. I still need to install the downstream sensor when I have time. I had to wonder if the old fuel that was in the car fouled the sensor, but thankfully I have since burned through it all and put a fresh sensor in there.

The last item that has arrived for the Civic is a fresh OEM pair of EK9 headlights. These are still available new and totally transform the look of the car, so I knew if I was going to modify it at all I would need to snag a set. Everyone is worried they will be discontinued soon (it’s S13 Silvia bricks all over again! Ugh.) so I figured it was a good idea to grab them while I could.

But anyway, enough about the Honda – remember that Nissan 180SX I used to have? The one that most of you are no doubt here to read about? Well, shockingly, I did actually manage to spend one weekend putting in some work on that car as well. In mid-April, I finally tore into removing the intake manifold for a refresh. I removed the entire intake manifold assembly and replaced every coolant hose that lives under it, as well as the heater core hoses on the passenger side. Before my 180 made it to the states, I purchased every OEM hose I possibly could and saved them for the day that I would take on this task. I elected to reuse all of the stock clamps for a couple reasons – I like to keep things simple and factory, and I also don’t expect to win any beauty contests with this engine bay.

I was surprised to find that Amayama offered crossover part numbers for the two straight hoses under the intake manifold that I had previously found were discontinued. I decided to drop the $50 to try them, and the gamble worked out. Although they were way too long, I was able to cut them down and use them to replace the old, crusty stock hoses.

With all of the new hoses in place, I removed the stock brake booster, lines, and ABS module. While my intent was to keep the ABS system in place, it was doing some strange things. The light would come on periodically after a hard pull, and the system would activate in a weird way when braking from high speeds. With the ABS module being so close to the new turbo manifold and needing a new master cylinder for the complete Z32 brake setup anyway, I decided to remove the system. I bench bled the replacement master cylinder and installed it, and am nearly finished installing the non-ABS 180SX hard lines.

The GReddy oil pan that I ordered in February finally showed up last week. This is the issue I find with ordering from US vendors – they never have anything in stock stateside, even when they claim to. Then you end up waiting for it to arrive on a slow boat anyway, when you could have just ponied up for the tariffs and had the item sooner had you ordered it from Japan – but I digress. I had one of these on my souped-up SR setup about 15 years ago and thought it was a cool piece, so I decided to add it when upgrading the turbo. I also intend to install the S15 oil pickup I bought when the 180 was on the way over from Japan while swapping the oil pan.

I also picked up a GK Tech v1 oil catch can that I was considering using, but it won’t fit with the Racing Service MAX hood. It was already bugging me that it’s not a true Kazama can (missed out on one of those before they got discontinued) so I may end up just selling it.

Whenever I get back to working on the car, I’ll finish up the brake line install before turning my attention to reinstalling the intake manifold. It’s been about two weeks since I last worked on it, so I need to find the time and motivation to do that.

However, herein lies the problem: my motivation for the 180SX has been all but non-existent since I got the Honda. I’ve got this new manifold and turbo setup to install on the car that I was really excited about, but now that I have two “fun” cars again, I can’t help but wonder if going down that road is a mistake. I still need engine management, but have just about everything else I need to install the T28 turbo properly. I’ll need to have it tuned as well, and don’t have anything lined up for that yet. Does it make more sense to keep the turbo setup stock and sell off some of these parts to free up funds for tinkering with the Civic? While at the same time avoiding having to deal with tuning and keeping the car simple and reliable?

I know from experience that having two project cars is the pits. I know for a fact that I can create a much better final product (and actually finish it) if I focus on only one car, and can also save myself a lot of headache. I decided years ago I was an S13 guy and didn’t have any desire to take on learning a new platform, but I’ve been really surprised about how much fun I am having learning about the EJ/EK Civic chassis. Doing something new sounds like a fun change of pace, and going all-in on the Honda could be really cool.

In any case, I need to make a decision soon. Once I muster up the strength to spend a couple more hours on the 180, it’s going to be decision time about that hot side and which turbo is going to get bolted up. I think the stress of that decision has kept me from working on it, but I think I’m finally ready to get back to work on it when a free evening presents itself. Time will tell what I decide to do.

I think we all know the Civic is going to end up getting built – it’s purely a matter of time. It will just depend on how quickly I want that to happen and if my motivation for the 180SX returns any time soon or not. I’m going against my own rules by having two project cars right now, so I need to take my own advice and tread lightly. Regardless of what happens, I am excited to see what unfolds this summer – and I am really excited to have the Civic to cruise around in while the 180 is in shambles at the moment.

Whew! Another long one. I guess it’s about quality over quantity at this point. Thanks as always for stopping by.

Damon

Here we are – I am already slipping on my goal of one post per month in 2026. But it’s too early to give up just yet! I’ll hang in there and see what I can accomplish. Here’s a recap of what went down in February and early March.

At the start of the month, I was fortunate enough to fly down to Houston to spend some time with my best friend Jimmy and his family. I like to do this at least once a year if I can, and though it has gotten a bit more difficult now that we both have families, I always cherish my time down there. Though it was unseasonably cold down South, we still had a great time hanging out.

Jimmy had just gotten his JZX110 from the port a week or two prior. He bought the car over three years ago and had been waiting for it to be legal for export to the USA. We picked it up from having some maintenance work done and tinkered with it throughout the weekend, installing a Works Bell Hub and Nardi wheel, along with a GReddy front mount intercooler kit. We also had the fenders rolled, installed Stance coilovers, and a set of refreshed 350Z wheels that I hate to admit look pretty darn cool on the car.

Kevin made the trek out from across the state to hang out and it was great to see him as well. That weekend just happened to be when Frankie was in town to record some podcasts, so I got to see him and the Faction crew again as well. All in all it was a great weekend and sparked some motivation for me to work on projects of my own back home.

One part that I really wanted to purchase new for my 180SX was a Do-Luck Floor Bar. I had owned a few of them over the years and nearly bought a new one before my 180 even arrived in the states. As fate would have it, I went to order one the other day and found that it had been discontinued. This has happened with several items recently – I finally get the real deal and all of the cool parts are no longer available. A bit bummed out, I posted a WTB on Instagram not expecting much. To my surprise (and thanks to tips from a couple people on the internet) I found one for sale for a good price in California a couple hours later.

The bar does need some love, but I am confident I can find a way to get it looking good again. I was excited to find that this one has the badge in place, which was only available on the older versions. It’s not in the best shape, but still – a really cool find and a piece I am stoked about having in the car at some point.

An order arrived from Amayama with a few OEM pieces I needed for the car, including intake manifold and throttle body gaskets, clamps for the turbo drain, new exhaust manifold washers and nuts, and some various studs and bolts for installing the new turbo and downpipe. It’s brutal to pay the tariffs on little pieces like this right now, but it’s so much easier and efficient to get items from Japan vs. US retailers that don’t know what they are doing and rarely ever have anything in stock. If it needs to come over from Japan anyway, I feel it’s best to just bite the bullet and order directly from overseas.

I bought a new set of 4 fuel injector caps and planned to purchase a brand new fuel rail as well, but sadly found that it has been discontinued. It looks like I may still be able to get one from Japan, but the cost is much higher. Since it was essentially for cosmetic reasons, I’ll probably just hold off on that for now.

After a couple month wait, my order from Jesse Streeter finally arrived the next day. The first item this included was a DMAX turbo manifold. I have never had what I would consider to be a cool or rowdy sounding SR, and I think this style of manifold is likely the missing link. I am really looking forward to getting this on the car. If only it would stay this clean and shiny…

In order to make life easier with the larger turbo manifold, I decided to pick up a set of Non-ABS 180SX brake lines to delete the ABS from the car. Since swapping to Z32 brakes, the ABS seems to do some funky things. I had intended to keep it in place, but I think getting rid of it completely is the move. I need to spend some time learning about how to swap the lines and remove the large ABS module sometime in the near future.

The other item I was waiting on from Streeter that caused the delay was the GReddy suction kit. This is the same intake setup I had many years ago on my 240, and allows you to run an OEM S15 turbo with a Z32 MAF on an S13 SR. It’s a bit overkill vs a reclocking kit, but it looks so cool in the bay.

I found when I started mocking things up that the outlet pipe was contacting the turbo manifold. Thanks to a tip from my buddy Kev, I was able to clock the turbo just slightly to achieve some more clearance. I still need to finish bolting everything up after realizing I ordered the wrong gasket for the S15 oil drain, but I hope to get back to it soon. I should now (theoretically) have everything I need to bolt up the hot side. I can’t wait to see it.

One thing I am taking care of this offseason is replacing all of the coolant hoses on the car. I have a full set of OEM heater hoses that will go on before the turbo goes back in, as well as what should be every coolant hose on the cold side of the engine. I have started removing the intake manifold to clean everything up and take care of that – so this is on my list as well. It was so nice to get actual factory heater hoses vs the conversion kits needed to install an SR20 into a 240SX. One of the many perks of owning an actual 180SX.

Last weekend, my wife and I took a less than 48 hour road trip down to South Carolina to pick up my new hood. After working out all of the details with work and child care, we were finally able to cruise down there in our van on Friday morning and arrived about 12 hours later. I finally got to meet Thomas from Garage Abstract and his wife, as well as see his incredible GP Sports 180SX build. This has to be the craziest 180 stateside, and I am really stoked for him that it’s finally coming together after a ton of hard work.

With the hood secured, we drove 3 hours back up to Gatlinburg, Tennessee and spent the night and a bit of the next day hanging out there. What a wild place! I had not been there since Alicia and I went to Import Alliance 15 years ago. We really enjoyed being able to get away, even if our time there was short. Things couldn’t have gone more smoothly – and I was pleasantly surprised that the 22+ hours of driving didn’t feel nearly that bad.

After returning home, I began working to test fit the hood and get an idea of what work would be needed to utilize it. We had an abnormally warm night, so I swapped my recently installed NISMO engine mounts out for a set of Cusco solid mounts. These are my engine mounts of choice when installing a vented hood as they drop the engine down considerably and provide good clearance. They do vibrate the interior a bit at idle, but it’s not too bad if memory serves. Granted I am a bit older now, but fingers crossed it won’t be too bad.

I had installed washers under my Cusco strut tower bar to allow it to clear the valve cover with the NISMO mounts in place, and it probably cleared by 1-2MM at most. After the engine mount swap, I could easily fit my fingers under the strut bar. Hopefully this will be enough clearance for the new hood.

Though the hood is just sitting in place at the moment, the fitment seems pretty solid compared to my Koguchi Power hood. I do not think I will need to slot the hood hinges like I did with the KP, but I’ll know for sure once I tinker with it a bit more. It does look like I will need to remove my hood prop rod for clearance. Further fitting of the hood is my top priority for the car right now so that I can get it dropped off to Mikey in Illinois sometime in April (if everything goes according to plan) to have repairs made and paint it. I’ll have to be patient, but I think the end result will be more than worth it.

Finally, I picked up a Z32 MAF sensor for the new turbo setup. I want to utilize this as it matches the setup I had years ago, but I know many people now run a MAP sensor or a Z33 MAF. I am still undecided and need to purchase a Power FC, but that’s something I am going to figure out down the road.

I am diving into an interesting side quest this Saturday that will likely derail my S13 progress – but I am going to do my best to prevent that. I’ll share more details later in the month, but I am really excited. Fingers crossed it all goes according to plan! I am feeling really motivated to work on cars lately, and the weather’s slow and eventual improvement will certainly help feed that ambition. It’s always an exciting time of year.

Thanks as always for stopping by to check out my progress! I am excited to make progress on the cr when spring finally arrives for good. Have a great weekend!

Damon

As far as I’m concerned, there’s no harder time to be a car enthusiast in Michigan than during the month of January. I’m typically broke after the holidays exhausted from all of the traveling and madness that comes with it. At this time of year, my car is usually the least of my concerns – and this year is proving to be no different. This is also the point in time each year where I start to question if I even enjoy the hobby anymore and if I should be cashing out all together.

However, little lapses in chaos and peeks of free time typically remind me that I do still in fact enjoy owning an S13. While the car is much lower on my priority list than it was twenty years ago and doesn’t serve as my identity anymore, I do still enjoy the hobby quite a bit. The terms have change and the timeline is much slower, but when life allows it the passion is still there.

One of my goals for 2026 is to provide some sort of update or post here on the blog once per month. A month feels like a good amount of time that should hopefully allow me to keep pace and feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of the year. As my enthusiasm for Instagram and social media continues to fade, I think this will be a really rewarding space to provide some documentation for myself and feel a sense of fulfillment in a place with a lot less noise. If it can bring some enjoyment and information to folks that happen to stop by, that is definitely a bonus.

So let’s get into it! As I mentioned in my last post, I decided to take the plunge and attempt to squeeze some more power out of my SR20DET. 2010-2012 was my favorite stretch of time for my 240SX hatch build as I felt it was the most complete build all around. The car looked great, had a cool interior, and made really good power on a reliable S15 T28 turbo setup. I put the most miles I ever had on the car in 2011, and attended a lot of cool events with even cooler people that I still talk with occasionally to this day. This was the peak S13 experience for me, so my goal is to replicate that stage of the build with a real-deal 180SX this time around. Many people will probably scoff at taking the same approach again, but as I’ve said many times before, at this stage in life I like what I like.

When January began, I decided to let go of a lot of my spare/stock parts for my 180 in addition to the few random parts left from my 240SX couple build. My mindset is shifting a bit after turning 40 in December and hoarding really doesn’t feel necessary anymore. Having a couple parts around that have become difficult to find or afford seems like a fine idea, but I am done holding onto every little thing in case I happen to need it one day. It feels great to get rid of the clutter and live a little less simply.

As the remainder of my S13 coupe build parts slowly trickled out of my basement, new parts for the 180 began to show up. The first was the S15 T28 turbo that I ordered through Chico directly from Nissan. After being given the run around and told it was no longer available by one of the bigger-box online Nissan dealers, Chico had one at my door in less than a week. I am very thankful for his help! It’s kind of nerdy, but it was important to me to get a hold of one from Nissan directly like I did with my 240 build back in the day.

Tariffs are proving to be a real annoyance when trying to source parts for this car. Ordering from vendors in Japan has always been my go-to, but even with the favorable exchange rate the tariffs have been killing the cost benefits of going out of the US to buy the parts I need. Sometimes there’s no other option, but I have been forced to find US vendors that have parts in stock for a decent price. My biggest gripe with US retailers is they often do not actually have items in stock, contacting you about a long back order after you have placed your order. It can be frustrating, but after a fair amount of research I was able to track down most of what I needed in the US.

The first set of parts I tracked down were items to install the S15 turbo. I picked up an S15 7 layer metal exhaust manifold gasket, as well as all of the other needed gaskets for the turbo. I also grabbed the metal and rubber oil drain tubes and the required gasket. Finally, I picked up one of the keys to a leak-free four bolt turbo gasket – some OEM locking tabs. The prices of these were outrageous in the US, so it made the most sense to order from Amayama in Japan and pay all of the associated fees. Everything else I sourced from Nissan dealerships on eBay and Z1 Motorsports. Shoutout to Z1 by the way – their stock status on their website is actually very accurate which is a huge help when ordering from inside the US.

The new turbo setup requires larger fuel injectors, so I picked up a set of NISMO 740cc side feed injectors. They were a little more costly than some of the other brands out there, but I had a bad experience with a DeatschWerks injector failing prematurely years ago and had good experiences with the NISMOs, so I decided to take that path again. I also ordered a set of OEM O rings through a seller on eBay to go with them.

Though I replaced the fuel pump with a Walbro 255 back in the fall trying to diagnose my engine issues, I have read about the issues people have with their fuel pump wiring not supporting the power needs of a higher flowing pump. This was never an issue for me in my 240SXs over the years, but I figured it would be a good idea to get ahead of it on the 180 just in case. I picked up a plug and play fuel pump hard wiring kit from Key’d Performance during their Cyber Monday sale. Key’d has been great to work with in the past and I am really impressed with the products they offer, so I am sure this will be no different. I haven’t investigated how to install it just yet, but I’ll keep you posted on how it goes later this winter.

While replacing the turbo, I decided to install a new set of turbo lines. I reached out to my friend Frankie at Faction! Motorosports and ordered a set of their SR20 braided lines. I really appreciate that they look a little more low-key with the all black fittings, and their was an option to add the needed oil restrictor for the T28 turbo. It’s a super nice quality setup that I am excited to install on the car.

I snagged a couple more items from Faction that I was really stoked to hear they had in stock. The first was an HKS T28 turbo actuator. I don’t really have a reason to buy this at all, but I had one on my T28 setup in my 240 and thought it would be cool to do it again. It’s one of those parts that is just kinda neat to have. The stock actuator on my T28 was dented during shipping anyway, so I figured why not?

The other item from that order was a HFM brake master cylinder. When I converted the 180 to Z32 brakes front and rear, I never replaced the brake master cylinder like I did on my 240. The brake pedal feel was less than ideal, and it felt like the first 1/2 of the pedal travel didn’t really do anything. I am excited to solve this issue. I’ve noticed my ABS light coming on randomly as well, especially after doing a pull in the car – so I may try to delete that as well later this spring when I am working through installing some of these other parts.

With my Racing Service Max hood secured, I decided I should be parting ways with my Koguchi Power hood. I brought it out of the basement and tossed it on the car to grab a couple photos for the for sale ad and it got me really excited about having a vented hood on this car. I’ve seen this in person a bunch of times, but it’s still exciting to step back and see it every time. What a cool piece for a 180SX. I believe I have a buyer lined up and hope to make it down to South Carolina to pick up my new hood in February. Fingers crossed it pans out sooner than later because I am really excited.

One afternoon in December a few days after Christmas, I started the task of removing the stock turbo. It’s been about 15-20º colder than usual in Michigan for a couple weeks now, so my motivation to go in the garage has been pretty low. While I used to spend all kinds of time out there on the cold garage floor to ensure the car was ready for the first nice weather day of the season, it’s not worth the agony to me anymore. I think I would rather wait until the weather turns to work on the car, even if it means missing some of the season. But with that being said, I had the stock turbo and manifold removed within a couple of hours.

I haven’t done much since, but I’m hoping to find the time to continue cataloging and sourcing the parts I need for the new setup in the coming weeks. I am still waiting on a couple crucial pieces from Japan right now, but with any luck I should have them by the next update. Fingers crossed!

Thanks as always for stopping by to check this out. In a world where everything is instant now, I know the amount of brain power and effort it takes to find and read a blog post. I appreciate you tagging along!

Damon

Well, here we are. Another year has passed and 2025 is beginning to come to a close. While doomscrolling instagram last night, I was greeted with the news that Zilvia.net has finally shut down – for good this time, it seems. While I can’t say I have really utilized the site like I once did in the better part of a decade, it was still sad to hear this news. Spending time sharing and consuming information in that community is such a core part of who I am today, and I’m so thankful I got the chance to be a part of it. I learned so much and met so many cool people from all over the world that I consider to be lifelong friends, and none of it would have happened had I not hopped on there way back in 2008 with an interest in learning more about the S13 platform.

Fortunately, I took them time back in 2019 or so to save every page of my build thread in one big ol PDF. I’ll have to search my hard drives and see if I can find that file to share with everyone. It feels silly to put so much stock in something as trivial as a bunch of online posts, but it’s still motivating for me to read through to this day. Zilvia shaped a lot of my identity at that stage in my life (as cheesy as it might be) and made me feel like I was both a part of something – and was maybe even good at something. It meant a lot to me, and it’s the reason I keep paying Flickr their increasing prices every year to keep the photos posted on this blog (most of them at least) alive and accessible for anyone else that might want to enjoy them.

About three weeks after my most recent post in July, I sat down and fired off another blog post. The only problem is I never finished or published it. This is kind of unfortunate as I had finally gotten a surprising amount of work done on the car around that time, but I’ll do my best to hop back in time and document what I’ve been up to in the second half of 2025. This may be a long one… grab a snack and settle in!

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LATE JULY 2025

I’m glad I was able to find some motivation to enjoy tinkering again this summer despite the crazy heat and humidity we had here in Michigan this summer. I’m sure that’s a bit relative, but we aren’t built for this up here in the North. The humidity and high temps were something else.

After I sharing my previous post, I fished my TE37s out of the basement and gave them a good cleaning. The rear wheels had a fair amount of CV joint grease on them from when they were last used on my 240, so it was nice to get that taken care of. I took some photos of them in case I decide to sell them, but the thought of letting them go is tough to handle. I wish they were the older version of TE37s without the extra stamping on the outside of the wheels, and would also like if they were a bit lighter shade of bronze.

When I tried installing my Ganador mirrors, I was bummed to find that they did not power on. I decided to give it another try, and jiggled the wiring while pressing the mirror adjustment button. Surprisingly, the motors fired up and started working! However, I noticed they would only adjust left and right. After looking behind the glass, I noticed that one of the rubber pegs had been cut off of each mirror, preventing them from adjusting. I got out my East Bears and tested those as well, but the story was the same – they powered on, but one adjustment peg was missing on each.

After removing the glass from both pairs of mirrors, I noticed that the rubber adjustment pegs appear to be the same on both Ganador and East Bear mirrors. I ended up ordering a complete replacement glass assembly from Kabuki for the Ganadors. This included new rubber pegs, plastic backing plates, and blue tinted glass that all looks completely identical to the original Ganador equipment. They also arrived from Japan in less than a week and were reasonably priced. I liked this option in particular because the backing plates don’t appear to be 3D printed – so they look just like the originals.

As for the East Bears, I ordered a set of replacement pegs and some new glass while I had them apart. Those should hopefully arrive in the next couple weeks and I can share some more details. It will be cool to have both of my preferred mirror options on deck and actually have them function for once!

Next on the list was addressing the worn and broken sunroof molding on my 180SX. The seal is actually worse than the one on my 240 was, and that was pretty bad. I have always been afraid of replacing this as I have heard a lot of horror stories, but I decided it was time. I removed the glass from the car and got to work by removing the old molding and scraping off all of the old adhesive.

I had a slew of OEM sunroof components that I had been hoarding for my 240, so I finally put them to use and installed them. I replaced the sunroof molding (that attaches around the glass itself,) as well as all of the inside and outside items and the large weather strip inside the car’s interior that attaches to the roof. It took a really long time to clean all of the excess 3M weather strip adhesive off after the install, but it was worth the effort.

The seal doesn’t sit perfectly flat and there are some minor imperfections, but it’s a great improvement over what it was before. It feels great to finally put these parts to good use and get the sunroof refreshed! I also installed a new latch and plastic interior trim while I was at it.

My next project is something I had been avoiding for over a decade: correcting the black paint on an S13. Truthfully I have never known much of anything about how this process worked, and always dreamed of repainting my car to avoid having to deal with it. However, I’ve never been able to scrape together the cash to get it done. Thanks to my friend Oliver from Canada’s advice, I was able to order all of the supplies I needed from Amazon and watch this video to get an understanding of how the basic paint correction process works.

I ended up ordering a 5″ DA grinder/sander, some medium cut pads and some finishing pads, microfiber cloths, 3M automotive tape for taping off the moldings, and a couple products Oliver recommended- including One 3D Cutting Compound & Finishing Polish for the initial pass, and Jescar Power Lock Plus Sealant for the polishing process.

I taped off the moldings, watched the YouTube videos a few times, and got to work – starting with the roof where I had just worked on refreshing the sunroof. It took me the better part of a week, but I slowly made my way around to all of the various panels and parts on the car. It was amazing to see how many imperfections came out of the paint – most noticeably the swirl marks.

There are still a lot of imperfections, and it’s apparent that the majority of this car was repainted at some point in its life – but this has completely made me fall in love with the car again and feel a lot more proud of it. I backed it out of the garage into the sun for the first time and was so pleased with the results. I’ve always been bummed when I have to drive my car somewhere in the bright sun as the paint swirls were just terrible.

The clear coat on the roof is in rough shape, and the A pillars have a lot of scratches and imperfections from the optional window visors the car had on it. If I were to repaint anything, it would be the roof, A pillars, rear hatch, and rear bumper as those items seem to have the most fading and deep scratches. I don’t know if or when that will happen, but for now at least the car is 10x more presentable than it was before.

That’s about it for the month of July!

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AUGUST – DECEMBER 2025

As August began, I was still spending a fair amount of time working on the car. I elected to take out the window switch bezels and shoot them with a quick coat of SEM Satin Black to freshen them up a bit. This made a big difference and made them match the refreshed interior door handles and bezels I installed last summer.

Speaking of door handles, after getting the car’s paint corrected and looking a ton better, I decided to finally dive into the pile of restoration parts I had been hoarding for years and put them to good use. I always wanted to do this on a freshly painted car, but I decided life is just too short to keep waiting for something like that to happen. The 180SX felt like the perfect car to install these parts on, so I decided to go for it. The first new part I installed was a fresh pair of KH3 exterior door handles I sourced from Japan back in 2018 or so. It’s a really nice feeling to have brand new door handles on the car!

Next on the list was weather stripping. I ended up installing new seals along the doors, both on the door itself and the seals along the body that butt up against the door glass. It’s crazy satisfying to have fresh rubber in place without any tears, especially the notorious areas along the top of the side view mirrors.

With the new seals in place, I elected to reinstall my Ganador Super Aero Mirrors. I can’t say enough about how nice the Kabuki replacement glass assemblies are – everything is super high quality and an exact match to the factory Ganador components. I was also able to mess with the wiring a bit and get both mirrors to work properly with the factory switch which is a real treat. I’ve always wanted a working pair of Ganadors. Seeing them on the car with fresh weather stripping and the new blue glass made it that much better.

The weather strip retainers on my 180SX were pretty trashed from the OEM optional window visors that came on the car when I got it, so I finally bit the bullet and installed replacements of those as well. These parts are pretty rare, and I can’t say I had ever seen another brand new pair of them. They weren’t cheap to bring over from Japan, but man am I glad I did it when I did. These made the car look a TON better. It was hard to let go of the potential cash I could have gotten from selling them, but the satisfaction was well worth it.

In the spirit of continuing along with opening and ruining rare collector parts, I next installed a pair of brand new exterior B pillar trims from my collection. Again – these made a massive difference and look so nice next to the new weather strip retainers.

The door belt moldings along the glass were also replaced with new units. These were a lot more of a hassle to install than I had anticipated, but the results were impressive. Seeing all of the trim around the side glass on each door in place was a real treat and continues to catch my eye every time I stare at the car.

With all of the new parts installed on the car, I decided to enjoy driving it a bit before the season ended. By this time it was mid August and I still hadn’t managed to find anyone to align the car (though I’ll admit, I wasn’t really trying very hard.) I drove the car on a couple of longer drives and had a great time finally getting it out and about.

My friend Nick invited me to a meet at the Nissan technical center at the end of August and it was a ton of fun to go to a car event again. I met some new people and saw some friends there as well which was really cool. The car still felt a bit down on power which continued to confuse me, but at least I was able to get out and enjoy it.

In September, I got a shipment of parts for the car for what felt like the first time in ages. An order arrived from RHD Japan that included a Kakimoto test pipe, another pair of Project Kics 11mm spacers, a set of Cusco solid engine mounts, and a pair of J’s Racing hood pins.

I’ve been running a Magnaflow high flow catalytic converter on the car for several years now and really enjoy it, but the Kakimoto catback is so quiet that I was yearning a more aggressive sound. I swapped the test pipe on the car in mid September, but it didn’t really liven things up much at all. I was reminded of the stinky exhaust and why I like to run a cat on the car, but it felt nostalgic to smell the fuel again. We’ll see if I end up sticking with this or not.

I ordered a second pair of 11mm spacers because my 18×9.5 TE37s are +22 offset, while my LMGT4 are +12. The spacers allow the TEs to fit exactly like the GT4s do. I would rather run the TEs without any spacers and remove some camber, but didn’t want to mess with all of my alignment settings. I threw the TEs on the car to take a few photos, but couldn’t really drive the car since the tires were rubbing the quarter panels. I didn’t expect 1mm to make that much of a difference, but I guess different tire brands can contribute to that too.

I was reminded of how much I love TE37s and how perfect they are on a kouki 180SX. However, I also realized how great the LMGT4 are on this car. I’ve always found TEs to be superior, but the GT4s have grown on me a lot. I’ll likely hold onto both sets since they just can’t be beat. I still long for a set of silver wheels and miss my mercury silver TEs a ton, but really want to try white TE37s one day too. But for now, any changes to my wheel setups are on the back burner.

Late in the season, I finally got motivated to figure out why the car felt a lot slower than it should. It was making boost as it should, but constantly felt like it was chugging along or being held back. I talked it over with my friends and we decided that it would be a good idea to replace the fuel pump on the car. I was excited to not have to deal with that on a true factory SR20DET car, but decided they were probably right. I picked up a Walbro 255lph fuel pump from my pal Frankie at Faction! Motorsports and tossed it in the car in late September. However, the issues with the car feeling slower persisted.

I did not have this issue prior to installing the front mount intercooler over the winter, so I decided to it must be related to that. After doing some research, I found that the 180SX has some sort of boost control solenoid (not sure I am using the right term) that I did not plumb correctly when I replaced all of my vacuum lines after installing the front mount intercooler. I bypassed both this and the EGR junk that was still on the car (aside from the charcoal canister) and this did the trick! What a relief to have it feeling like a true SR20DET car again.

At the end of September, I decided to switch the interior up a bit and installed my black Bride Maxis on the driver’s side. I had purchased a pair of side mount Bride FG rails a year or so prior in case I needed them, which I was glad about as this let me avoid all of the current tariffs that are making sourcing parts such a pain. I swapped the other red brix out for a clean black ergo that I had been holding onto for quite some time. I wish it was a brix, but it’s so clean that I can’t really complain too much. Climbing into the car, I was reminded that I am not essentially forty years old. Climbing in and out of a Maxis or Zeros is really a chore. I finally understand why people like having a quick release steering wheel after all these years. While I look like an idiot climbing in and out, the seat is super comfy and I am so thankful I still fit in it. I guess running about thirty miles a month is paying off after all!

The first weekend in October brought along the fourth annual CamryOnBronze S Chassis BBQ. I’ve really grown to love hosting this event each year and all of the people that come along with it. Each year I get to see some old friends and meet some new faces, as well as check out a lot of really cool cars. I don’t make it to car events much at all anymore, so it’s always fun and motivating for me. This year was no exception, and despite our best efforts to dodge the summer heat by having it in October this year, it was still very unseasonably warm. Better than the alternative though for sure! My brother and my nephew Henry came out as well this year which was a fun surprise. Thank you to everyone that comes and hangs out at this event. I always have a blast and I’m thankful for the opportunity!

This year was special because my friend Ethan (AKA Bish) came up from Ohio to hang with us. I hadn’t seen him in a couple years, so it was really cool to have him there. But not only was his presence cool – it was also cool because he brought me the Koguchi Power hood that I sold him back in 2023 when I parted out my 240SX. Ethan hadn’t used it, and I decided it would be a cool piece to own. When it popped up for sale, I couldn’t resist snagging it – especially with how annoying it is to source parts these days. This is also why I picked up a set of hood pins and Cusco engine mounts from RHD Japan – but plans have changed slightly since. More on that in a bit…

As October progressed, the car sat for several weeks. I would hop in occasionally, but family life took some wild turns and I found myself with little time or mental capacity to devote to the car. Installing all of my NOS parts on the 180 motivated me to come to a realization – I am not going to own a second S13 any time soon. I had the crazy idea in my head that I could sell off some parts and import a Silvia somehow, but I kind of knew in the back of my mind that I would not be able to pull it off. I decided to start letting go and selling a lot of the parts I had hoarded for my coupe build, including the brand new Silvia lighting I had, the Silvia hood and aero bumper, and all of the moldings etc. I had sourced.

It was very difficult at first, but I feel a lot lighter without all of this stuff rotting in my basement. I have a lot more space now and was able to put some cash aside for improvements to the 180SX and some life situations as well – which always feels good. I still have a couple lingering parts left, but just about all of it has moved on now and is being used on other people’s builds. Turning 40 has really shaken me up in a lot of ways, and it’s crazy to think that much time has passed in my life. What’s the sense in letting parts sit around? Sure, I may get more money someday or regret it, but for now I feel a lot lighter and I am thankful for that. Raising a family and surviving life at this stage isn’t easy, so any baggage or complications I can shed feels awesome.

With some extra cash in my pocket, a late night click into instagram brought up an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. Thomas from South Carolina was selling a genuine Racing Service Max hood for 180SX. This is the hood that Koguchi, Itai and Itoh ran on their cars- and the one I have always wanted to emulate. I tried a DMAX hood, purchased (but never received) a Hot Road hood, and owned a couple of Koguchi Power hoods – but none of them could really capture the look of the original. I’ve never seen one stateside and never thought I’d have the chance to own one, so I couldn’t resist when I saw he listed it. I sent him the cash for it, but need to figure out a way to get down to South Carolina to pick it up. I am hoping to do that in January if I can, but I can’t wait to get it and try mocking it up on the car! Hopefully I can swing the road trip sooner than later.

I drove the 180 to a photoshoot for work in early November as sort of a “last ride out” for the season. As I sit here in early December trying to finish a post I started in July, the car is in my garage with fuel stabilizer and a battery tender in place. I haven’t gotten started on working on winter improvements, but plan to put it up on jack stands and get started this weekend if I have a chance to. My birthday is usually the last opportunity I really have to work on the car before the holidays take over – then I pick things back up in January.

With committing to owning just one S13 moving forward, and selling off a lot of my parts from my collection, I decided it would be fun to upgrade the turbo setup on my 180SX. I had a really nice S15 T28 setup on my 240 from 2010-2012 and it was so much fun. When I got my S13 back in 2014, I left the SR alone on the stock T25 turbo and never really had the money to do much beyond that. There was always something else I wanted to do and didn’t want to mess with the engine too much. With deciding to keep the 180 my only project car, I am going to dive in this winter and work on making some more power.

Parts are starting to arrive daily this week. In the spirit of honoring Zilvia during the week of it’s demise, I am going to put my best foot forward with finding time to keep this blog alive. Let’s see if I can manage to pull it off. Thanks for continuing on this journey with me – I’m thankful and appreciate it!

Damon

After writing my last post, I finally found myself in the home stretch of getting the car running and on the ground for the first time in 2025. Both subframes were in the car, all bushings were replaced, the five lug conversion was complete – I just needed to find the time for the final push to completion.

I started by stripping the chipped up black paint off of my Z32 calipers leftover from my 240SX. I decided to switch things up a little bit this time and ended up painting them silver. I am still a little torn if I like it better than black or not, but this is meant to be a temporary solution. My initial plan when I bought this car was to go with an ENDLESS big brake kit up front, but scope creep and life slashed my budget a bit before I could get around to it. I still hope to make that happen sometime down the road though.

I bolted up the calipers with Stoptech pads and a fresh set of their Z32 conversion stainless steel brake lines. I’d prefer some nicer rotors than my old 240 leftovers, but again – at this point it was just time to set feelings like that aside and get this car road worthy. I reinstalled the OEM ABS sensors and made some custom brackets for where they bolt to the coilovers to ensure the lines didn’t have too much tension on them at the ride height I plan to run.

Next on the list was installing the new Kakimoto catback exhaust. The quality and fit on this piece is so nice. I installed it along with some GK Tech polyurethane exhaust hanger bushings and it tucked up very nicely against the chassis, even with having a large secondary muffler. It’s so cool to have the proper hardware for all of the exhaust mounting locations – something that was always sort of cobbled together on my previous S13s. I really love the look and fitment of this exhaust!

By the end of the first week of May, everything engine-wise was assembled. I ended up having issues with the GReddy hot pipe fitting alongside the factory airbox, so I elected to toss the factory pipe back on in the mean time. After finishing up replacement of all of the vacuum lines, I filled the coolant and tossed in a new Odyssey battery the day it arrived to attempt starting the car. I loved having a full-size battery in the car, but a slim battery is needed to clear the intercooler piping for the front mount setup.

To my amazement, the car fired right up and idled nicely. It always feels amazing to hear the car run after being torn apart for a long time. I figured the Kakimoto exhaust would be a bit quieter than my DMAX, but wow is this thing quiet. At first I was disappointed, but I think I might actually enjoy it being this quiet in my old age. We’ll see what happens – I might get tired of it and try something different.

Despite everyone’s advice of trying to work on the car a little bit every day, it’s been happening in larger, infrequent bursts for me as of late. I usually spend several hours (or even the majority of an entire day when I can) working on the car, achieve a few key milestones, then take a break for a week or so to let my body and mind recover. Things take a lot longer at this pace, but it’s been good for me lately.

A few days later, I got Alicia to help me bleed the brakes. I had been putting in a fair amount of time adjusting the height, camber and toe on the car prior to this to get it ready to be dropped back on the ground. With the brakes bled, I finally bolted the wheels up and removed the car from jack stands.

The next day was Friday. I decided to take the day off of work to finish adjusting the suspension as it is always a long and labor-intensive process to get it sitting the way I want it to. I found the night before when the car first came off of jack stands that the cat converter was more or less sitting on the ground. Before I could move ahead with setup, I needed to install my set of NISMO engine mounts to raise the engine and exhaust up a bit. This ended up taking several hours due to all of the factory stuff that was in the way, but I eventually was victorious.

The new mounts raised the engine up quite a bit and tucked the exhaust up a lot closer to the frame rails like I was hoping. After some advice from my friend Tony, I tossed a few washers under my Cusco strut tower bar to give it enough clearance above the valve cover. I’ve never been able to run a strut tower bar with NISMO engine mounts before, so I was pretty excited.

After a quick lunch break, I spent the majority of the afternoon and into the evening continually tweaking the suspension, lowering the car down, inspecting it, raising it back up, and adjusting it further. There was a ton of camber in the rear due to not pulling the quarter panels this time around, so I elected to raise the car just a little higher than I would have in the past to remove some. I also added an 11mm spacer up front, added some camber, and raised the ride height to get it looking closer to the rear. More camber up front than out back is always the goal visually. I am not quite there yet, but I am relatively happy with the current compromise.

Over the weekend, I finally got to pull the car out of the garage and wash it. I couldn’t stop staring at it. Sure, as my pal Jimmy said, “it’s the same thing you have been building over and over again for years.” But that comment was validating and rewarding for me as that’s exactly what I set out to do. It does feel like the same car I’ve had for so long in so many ways, but to see a genuine late model 180SX in my driveway – the very car I was trying to emulate and dreamed of owning one day – really is a trip.

When I pulled ride height and camber out of the rear of the car, it messed up the toe – so I need to circle back and fix that. Then I should be able to test drive the car a bit more and address any other issues. There are still small tasks to tackle, but with any luck the car should be on the road in June and ready to enjoy for the summer. I really need to spend some time and money learning paint correction, but we’ll see what happens I guess. At the end of the day I am just relieved to have the car back on the ground and in a semi-operational state.

Thanks as always for following along – I’ll share some proper photos soon for the one year anniversary of me bringing the 180 home. Have a great weekend!

Damon

Let’s see here… what do I need to revisit from my last post before diving into the progress I have made over the last two and a half months? This could be a long one…

As it turns out, the ignition I bought from NissanParts.cc did not in fact fit the late model 180SX. The push button to release the key is positioned on the bottom of the lock cylinder in a kouki 180 as opposed to the top, so when I tried to install my steering column I found that it contacted the cluster surround. I had to remove it and sell it, and since the kouki 180SX ignition is discontinued, I ended up just reinstalling my old one. I’m sure I am going to continue to have issues with it, but I haven’t had the time or motivation to try to find a solution.

Shortly after my last post, I removed the factory radiator to begin working on some cooling system maintenance and upgrades. While things were out of the way in the engine bay, I installed the new front suspension components. This included a NISMO power brace, NISMO S14 front lower control arms, S15 ABS front knuckles, Cusco tension rods, OEM S14 five lug hubs and hardware, NISMO steering rack bushings, GP Sports inner and outer tie rods with new tie rod boots, Moonface front sway bar endlinks, and a Cusco front sway bar. Bolting all of these parts into place was motivating as it allowed me to toss one of the NISMO LMGT4s on the car and step back to see it for the first time. Sure, it’s the same thing as my 240SX more or less, but it was still pretty exciting.

With the front suspension in place, I then turned my attention back to the cooling system. I installed a new OEM water pump with NISMO thermostat, Pitwork belts, and a few different coolant hoses. I still have several of these to install under the intake manifold, but decided to wait and install those at a later time. I replaced my coolant temp sensors near the throttle body and broke one of the brittle old connectors in the process, so I had to source one of those and replace it. I also found that I had purchased the incorrect coolant temp sensor (the blacktop SR20 uses the later model sensor found on the S14) so I had to sell that and order the right one. Sometimes it’s just one thing after the other, but I always get through it eventually.

The final additions to the cooling system were a new Koyo N-Flow radiator, along with a fresh fan clutch, blade, and shroud. All of these items were in good shape on the car, but I had purchased these before the car even landed stateside as a part of my planned maintenance. The water pump was actually an Aisin aftermarket replacement which was sort of interesting. I also installed a new set of OEM upper and lower radiator hoses with new clamps.

While working in the engine bay, I also managed to install the freshly coated valve cover along with fresh gaskets and brand new hardware. I replaced the coil packs back in the fall, but went a step further and installed a new OEM coil pack harness, cover, and hardware. I also replaced the PCV valve and associated hoses while everything was apart. The valve cover and new hardware cleans up the bay a ton, but also draws attention to other items that need to be cleaned up. I’ll get to it eventually! I finished things up by installing a new-ish exhaust manifold heat shield I had bought for my 240SX a few years back and new OEM hoses for the factory catch can.

I moved back to working on the exterior for a bit, starting with the headlights. I installed a pair of Raybrig headlight housings I held onto from my 240, as well as new metal bezels, adjustment screws, and plastic shrouds. It’s crazy how something so simple can freshen up the front end of the car. I kept the blue tinted H4 bulbs that the car came with from Japan in place since I thought they looked kind of cool. I was really tempted to completely strip the headlight assemblies and paint them (as well as the crusty core support) while I was at it, but decided to leave it alone for now and keep pressing forward.

To continue the theme of bouncing around, I moved back to the interior of the car. I had removed the gauge cluster to see about correcting my airbag light issue, but found that the dummy sensor included with the Works Bell hub should hopefully do the trick. After getting some help online, I found that I should have left the stock clock spring in place. Once I put that back on (thankfully I didn’t toss it) it was easy to see where the cancelation plug should be placed. This allowed me to finally install the Works Bell hub and quick release with the Nardi Classic 340mm wheel. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I have never had a quick release before – so I am pretty stoked about the setup.

Fresh wiper and turn signal stalks have alway been a must for me in my previous builds, and I wanted to do the same thing with my 180SX. The wiper stalk was still available new, but I was bummed to find that the late model headlight stalk had been discontinued. After talking to some folks online, I was told the R33 stalk would work – so I picked one up. After installing it, I found that it does not return the headlights back to the down position when I turn the lights off. There’s an additional plug and harness on the 180SX stalk that accomplishes this, but I have not found a way to swap it over. I decided to run my headlights in the “sleepy” position (something I haven’t done in years) and I will just crank them up and down by hand as needed. If this gets old, I’ll just swap back to the original stalk and deal with it looking less than stellar. But for now I love the look of the clean new stalks with the fresh steering wheel setup!

While working in the car’s interior, I installed my NISMO glove box gauge setup with my Defi Link Meter II gauges. I gave the panel a fresh coat of SEM satin black, drilled the necessary holes in the glove box, and glued the gauges in place with Amazing Goop (strong hold that can easily be removed later if needed – kind of similar to hot glue, but better.) I installed the box in the car and routed the daisy chain cable for the gauges, but will finish the install at a later date. I love the subtle placement of the gauges and the fact that I can close the glove box to hide them if desired. Really stoked on this addition to the car, especially since there are not a lot of modifications left that I get to experience for the first time.

Back in the engine bay, I used the instructions from my GReddy intercooler kit to cut the hole in the battery tray for the cold pipe. It went surprisingly smooth and I was very relieved to have this step out of the way as it is always pretty nerve racking. I installed the cold pipe, couplers and a new OEM air hose between the cold pipe and intake manifold.

I also installed a new Cusco OS front strut tower bar that I picked up from Japan when I ordered my set of Cusco front and rear sway bars. I’ve owned a few of these, but usually don’t keep them since they don’t fit with the NISMO engine mounts. Since I haven’t installed them yet, I decided to toss it on the car for now and find a way to space it up slightly when the engine mounts finally go in at some point in the future.

Bouncing around again, I finally decided it was best to remove the rear subframe completely for the suspension refresh. By around mid-March, I made quick work of dropping the subframe right before our family trip to Florida for spring break. I stripped the subframe down completely and gave it a good scrub, though it was relatively clean and in really good shape.

When we returned home from Florida at the end of March, I was feeling motivated again to try to get the car ready for spring. I started by drilling out the rubber bushings for the subframe before cutting out the sleeves with a reciprocating saw I picked up from Harbor Freight. I had not removed stock bushings myself in many years, so I was anxious about this process – but it went really smoothly and much quicker than I thought it would. I didn’t even have to burn anything which was nice. I also removed the bushings from the rear knuckles with a ball joint removal kit and some sockets to prepare those for the refresh.

Next came the always exciting task of pressing the new bushings into place. I reassembled my Harbor Freight press down in my basement, and managed to press a fresh set of NISMO subframe bushings into place. I swore I never would do this job again, but here we are. Once that was done, I moved upstairs to the garage and pressed all of the new NISMO knuckle bushings into the rear knuckles with my ball joint press. This may not technically be the best way to do this, but it got the job done! Once everything was pressed, I gave the parts a fresh coat of black paint. I always consider powdercoating this stuff, but never want to deal with the wait time, cost, and finding a local vendor. For a chill street car, paint seems to fit the bill just fine.

In the spirit of trying to keep myself interested, I moved back to the front of the car and installed the rest of my intercooler piping along with the stock bypass valve in the fender well. I’ve always just welded the provision on the intercooler piping for the stock valve shut and gone without one, but in the spirit of getting the car on the road and leaving as many things alone as possible, I decided to keep it in place. I’m still messing with the placement to get the hit pipe in the engine bay to fit properly with the factory airbox, but I hope to make some progress on that this weekend. While I was at it, I replaced as many of the factory vacuum and charcoal canister lines as I could with new lines as most of them were very brittle and crusty.

Once the bypass valve and piping were in place, I was finally able to work on installing the front bumper. I was going to use the bumper with the R33 GTR N1 ducts in place, but decided at the eleventh hour to go with the license-plate-cutout-only option. I started by modifying a JDM S13 crash beam I had been holding onto from one of the cars I parted out years ago. I chopped it up to clear the intercooler, cut out the center for the license plate cutout, and gave it a quick coat of black paint. I then spent far too much time installing all of the kouki 180SX bumper brackets from my 240 onto the new bumper before bolting it all into place properly – including a brand new pair of OEM fender extensions. The front lip that came on my 180 is pretty thrashed, but I decided to use it for now until I can get the gray one from my 240 painted.

It was so motivating to step back and see the body of this car complete again. Like I often say, this isn’t really anything I have never seen before – but it still ignited a spark and got my motivation fired up to see the car really coming together. With the bumper and lip in place, I installed the modified fender liners from my previous 240 coupe build. I am sure some trimming/repositioning will be needed once the car is on the ground, but this will do for now.

With the bumper assembled and on the car, I turned my attention back to the rear subframe. I put everything back together with the new trio of Cusco adjustable suspension arms, NISMO rear lower control arms, Z32 rear drum assemblies with brand new OEM 2+2 cables, five lug hubs, and a Cusco rear sway bar with all new OEM end links, bushings and hardware. I had originally planned to replace the diff and the axles during this project, but the funds I had set aside for that vanished into thin air around the holidays. In the spirit of enjoying the car this summer, I decided to push those details off to a later date. I replaced the rubber fuel lines at the rear of the car prior to bolting the rear subframe back into place. I just need to replace the fuel filter and lines in the engine bay before calling that portion of the project complete.

After the subframe was lifted into place, I spent some time installing the NeXt Miracle Cross Bar. While this is one of my favorite pieces for a 180SX, I can’t stand installing it. After plenty of busted knuckles and swear words, it was finally in place. One interesting discovery during this process was that when I removed the rear seat belts, one of the trim panels was filled with glass. It looks like the driver’s side quarter glass must have been shattered at one point. The quarter panels are very clean though, so maybe on the glass was broken? It’s hard to say, but it was definitely interesting to see. I’ve got a privacy cover that I trimmed to fit with the Miracle bar that I may end up using at some point, but we’ll see. I am still debating removing the upper half of the rear seat for a bit as I have in the past.

After waiting a few weeks, my set of G-Corp floor mats arrived. The red is pretty subtle in person which I actually really like. These were more or less the final detail I was waiting on to finish the interior. I still want a bolt in cage and a Do-Luck floor bar, but those items will have to wait for a while.

My Z32 conversion lines leftover from my 240 were pretty old, so I decided to replace them with a fresh set from StopTech. I still need to paint the calipers prior to installing them.

A few other OEM items arrived, including a new oil pickup and gasket, a fresh dipstick, and some rear sway bar bushings. I’m planning to install the oil strainer when I swap the oil pan sometime down the road. I’m hoping to get a GReddy one again if I can pull it off.

Another random order including a GReddy sandwich plate for the gauge sensors, a few NISMO oil filters, NISMO thermostat, and GReddy air filter for the factory airbox.

Finally, I decided the 180SX deserved a new exhaust, I picked up a new Kakimoto catback that arrived just before the tariffs and DHL restrictions kicked in. I’m a little concerned about the clearance with the mid-muffler, but hopeful I can get it to work. I’m looking forward to bolting it up and hearing it.

Whew! These long posts take a long time to sort out. I really need to do a better job of updating more frequently to ensure I don’t miss anything and include all of the photos I want to. The weather has gotten pretty nice here in Michigan and I am very anxious to get the car out of the garage. Parenting and life in general has been a lot lately, but I am trying to get out into the garage when the motivation is there. With any luck we will finally get to see this thing out and about soon!

Thanks as always for stopping by to check out my progress. Have a great weekend!

Damon

It’s been nearly 1/3 of a year since my last update. That’s actually crazy when I think about it. I knew it had been a while since I had the level of motivation required to create a blog post, but this one is a bit surprising even to me. November – January is always a busy time with the holidays and whatnot, and this year was no exception. However, with thoughts of spring starting to creep slowly into my mind, I am back to working on the car to try to have it ready when the snow finally melts and the road salt is washed away. I’ll do my best to recap what has happened with the car since I completed the manual swap last October.

After completing the manual transmission swap and putting a proper exhaust on the car, my driving experienced changed a lot. It took a little bit of practice to get used to shifting with my left hand, but thankfully the transition wasn’t too bad. The NISMO short shifter is surprisingly a little notchier than I expected it to be. I almost prefer the stock shifter, but I’ll give it a bit more time to see if I get used to it. I’m also trying to tell if the transmission I am using is a little crunchy between certain gears, but all in all it’s not too bad.

I took a road trip about three hours away to Ohio that had been in the works for quite some time. I ended up buying my old pair of red Bride Brix 1.5 seats back from my friend Cole. I sold these seats to him in 2017 or so and missed having them. Fortunately he was willing to sell them back to me, so I made the trip on a Monday and scooped them up. The seat rails had developed a little bit of rust since I owned them, so I sold those and ordered a fresh pair of Bride MO brackets from Japan to replace them.

That was just about all I did to the car in November. I drove it for the last time of the season just before Thanksgiving, then parked it to begin my projects for the offseason. I started in early December by removing the front fender liners, front bumper, lip, and crash beam. It was cool to see all of these items in their original, unaltered state – before altering them. While I had the fender liners out, I installed a pair of DMAX crystal clear sidemarkers.

After Christmas passed, I managed to make my way into the garage again. I removed the stock front seats and installed the pair of red Bride Brix with the new seat rails. I also removed my valve cover and sent it out to TRG Coating in New Jersey for fresh powder coat. TRG did the valve covers on my previous S13 builds and does amazing work for a reasonable price – I highly recommend them!

In January, we picked up a new family vehicle and replaced our 2008 Toyota Sienna with a 2025 XSE. It’s been a crazy transition to get used to all of the new tech, but it’s nice (hopefully) not having to worry about working on my wife’s daily vehicle for a little while. We were excited to get a black one as that is Alicia’s color of choice and she has never been able to have one before. We also opted for the AWD this time around which has been really nice in the winter time so far.

Shortly after New Year’s, I finally made a daytime run out to Chicago to pick up some parts I had dropped off for paint in May of last year. This included two pairs of mirrors (Ganadors and East Bears) as well as two front bumpers – one with only the plate cutout, and the other with a pair of OEM R33 GTR N1 ducts. I think I am going to install the one with N1 ducts first to see what I think of the look. I had this bumper on my 240SX previously, but never with the vents actually painted. I discovered that most of the tabs are broken on the front lip that came installed on my 180SX, so I will likely try to have my spare lip painted so that I can install it sometime before spring.

More time passed without much motivation, but things have been ramping up in the last couple of weeks. I continued working on preparing the car for the new suspension and five lug conversion. I decided to tackle the most difficult task first in mid-January: rolling the rear quarters and hammering the fender lips and metal seams on the front of the car. I had been putting this off as it essentially sort of felt like ruining the car. Once you take this on there is no turning back. January is always the hardest month of the year for me living in Michigan, and it’s a tough one financially as well. I always have thoughts of selling my car around this time, and this year was no exception. However, I decided to take charge of the situation and make it happen.

I used a cheap fender roller that I purchased from Summit Racing a few years back for my coupe project. It doesn’t work very well, but I did manage to get the job done. I experienced a little bit of paint flaking, but overall it didn’t turn out too bad. I elected to only roll the lips flat this time instead of pulling the quarter panels out a bit like I did on my 240. While it was nice not needing to run too much camber with a 9.5J +12 offset in the rear, I prefer the look of the stock body lines. I am hoping I will be able to make this work, but we’ll see what things are looking like when we get to that point later this spring. If I absolutely have to, I will likely go with a slight pull again.

The front fenders went relatively smoothly as well. I always hammer those flat a bit with a rubber mallet instead of a fender roller so that I don’t warp or damage them. After that was finished, I removed the front fenders to prepare to tuck the chassis harness on both sides. It’s always painful to break the seam sealer for the first time, but it’s a necessary evil if you want the car to be low.

I took a break from the chassis work for a bit and turned my attention back to the interior. My car came equipped with the optional fog lights from the dealership, but I had decided not to run them. I wanted to remove the switch from the cluster surround, so I took it out along with all of the associated wiring that ran through the firewall and into the front of the car. I ended up selling the complete wiring harness and switch which helped fund some of the new parts I needed. I replaced both the fog light switch and the automatic transmission “power” button with brand new blanks from Nissan to clean things up. I still need to put the interior back together, but it should look pretty nice when I am finished.

Back outside the car, I removed both the stock side mount intercooler and the windshield washer fluid tank from the front of the car. I would have considered keeping the fluid tank, but the sprayer function didn’t work when I bought the car anyway. It needed to be relocated slightly for the TRUST front mount intercooler, so I elected to remove it.

At this point it was time to really start ruining the car and move the fender well chassis harnesses up out of the way of the front tires. I’ve done this a few times now over the years and like to think I am getting decent at it. I initially wanted to run the harness through the engine bay above the strut towers like my friend Kevin down in Houston, but when I started unplugging everything from the interior I got a bit intimidated. It looked like I may need to remove some HVAC components to access everything, so I decided to do it how I always have in the past and tuck the wiring up inside the fenders instead.

At this point, I started removing all of the front suspension to prepare for undercoating. Everything came apart fairly easily, and I have had all of the replacement parts on deck since before the 180SX even arrive stateside. I’ll share more details about what is being bolted up in a future post, but it should look pretty familiar to what I have done in the past with a couple of small changes.

After removing the stock plastic wire shielding and tucking things up nicely, I hammered all of the seams in the front fender well flat with a dead blow hammer. Once this painful process was complete, I sprayed everything with a couple coats of 3M undercoating to protect the metal I smashed up and freshen up the look of the fender wells a bit.

Last weekend, I finished the process of securing the chassis wiring, hammering it flat to try to clear the fenders, and bolting the fenders back up. It’s pretty tough to bolt the fenders on and keep the gaps and body lines straight as the new location of the chassis wiring is a tight squeeze against the fenders, but I think I did the best job I have ever done on any of my cars with this process. It felt great to have all of this clearance work out of the way as it is not the most glorious work. It certainly feels like I am destroying the car, but being over this hurdle is a huge win. While I was at it, I installed a new pair of OEM fender braces and a new hood release cable.

I held onto my modified OEM fender liners from my 240SX coupe project and installed the rear portions on either side into the freshly modified metal seams in the fender wells. I’ll go ahead and install the front portions once the suspension and front bumper are installed. Now it’s finally time for the fun part – installing all of the goodies that I have had sitting around for almost a year. I’m excited to dive into the front suspension install later this week.

On my way out of the garage Sunday night, I bolted up the TRUST front mount intercooler core. I have used this same setup on all of my S13s and I am super happy with both the look and the fitment. It’s really cool to see this car with a big front mount on it. I know it’s essentially the same as my 240SX looked, but I was still stoked about it. I still need to cut the hole in the battery tray, weld the hot side BOV portion closed, and order a hot pipe for the engine bay section – but all in due time! For now I will enjoy staring at that big core.

As far as new parts go, things have been fairly light – but I do have a few things to report. I got the valve cover back from TRG a few weeks ago and I am really happy with how it came out. I tried to match the OEM blacktop cover as best I could, but it does have slightly more texture to it. However, I think it looks amazing! I’ll be installing it with all new hardware and a new coil pack cover soon – likely this weekend.

I found a deal on an Apexi Power FC and snagged it a couple months ago when I was thinking I might dive into a T28 turbo setup and supporting mods like I had many years ago, but that has been put on hold for a while until I have the funds. I want to finish the projects I already have started before spring and save some money for it, so I decided to sell it and worry about making more power at a later time. I loved my S15 turbo setup though and would definitely like to do this again sometime if I can swing it.

I ended up buying a black Bride Brix 1.5 to replace my Ergo with. The seat looked very clean in the listing photos, but it turned out that the photos had been edited to make the seat appear less faded. When it arrived, I learned that it was faded purple like most old black Bride seats. I ended up selling it and keeping my Ergo, which will fit the bill should I swap to one of my black seat setups in the future. I would still love to have a clean Brix instead one day like I had previously, but that might just be a pipe dream in 2025. I can’t imagine there are many clean ones left out there! Be wary of some of the resellers on instagram out there, specifically the big ones from Thailand. I had good luck with them up to this point, but wasn’t so lucky this time around.

I received an order from NissanParts.cc earlier this week that included a new ignition/key for the car as I am still having random no-start issues. Only one of the 3 keys that came with the car will start it, and the others cannot be removed easily after the car is shut off. The key had to be inserted just right or the car would refuse to start, so I elected to replace the whole thing with a new one. I am hoping I can have the door and hatch locks modified to work with the same key, but I am not sure if that’s the case. I’ll look for a local locksmith and see if they might be up to the task. I also picked up a replacement valve cover stud as I messed one up when I removed the valve cover.

An internet friend and fellow 180SX owner named Tony hit me up a month or so ago asking if I would be interested in trading my optional window louvers for his NISMO glove box gauge holder panel. I had a set of white Defi Link Meter gauges I was hoping to run in this car, but I didn’t want to drill into the dash again our mount them on the top of my clean factory dash. Needless to say I was stoked about the trade and we went through with it. This is such a cool piece! I can’t wait to install it in the car.

The NISMO panel houses three 60mm gauges and one 80mm gauge. I had a set of four 60mm gauges, so I had to replace one with the 80mm version Defi offers. Thanks to a tip from Instagram, I found a matching 80mm boost gauge and was able to snag it from YAJ via Jesse Streeter. Once I had the gauge and panel in hand, I had to toss it together for a quick mockup. I am in the process of ordering everything I need to install the gauge sensors and should have the whole setup in the car soon. Very much looking forward to seeing it installed!

So that’s where things stand right now. After selling some spare parts I had laying around, I have a list of things I want to order this week for the final push towards having the car ready to rock this spring. I don’t need a lot of things, but it’s a decent list. With any luck I will be able to have most things here by mid-March and make a big push as the weather warms a bit to get everything installed. It should be really satisfying to make progress and see it all come together. Here’s to hoping the motivation continues!

Thanks as always for stopping by and following along with the new car. I get bummed out sometimes that things don’t move at the pace they did in my younger days, but that’s the reality of trying to hang in this hobby while pushing 40 years old. It’ll get there eventually! I’m thankful to still be able to do this when time and funds allow. Have a great weekend!

Damon

The last three weeks have been a bit of a blur in all facets of my life- work, car projects, and family life. We have been taking turns trading sicknesses, and my oldest daughter has been dealing with walking pneumonia for more than two weeks. Schedules have shifted and changed more times than I can count, but I think we are finally moving in the right direction. Fall weather has arrived, with cold frosty mornings in the mid 30s this week and a lot of really nice looking colors on the trees. The smell of the fall season in the air is a reminder that it’s time to button up this manual swap on the 180SX and try to get a test drive in before the car gets parked for the season.

After my last post, I had a couple more successful nights in the garage while Alicia was out of town. After the pedals and clutch master were installed, I turned my attention to removing the automatic transmission components. I started with something easy and satisfying – converting the shifter bezel over to a manual configuration. I kept the manual shift boot from my coupe since I barely used it and installed that so the trim would be ready once the manual shifter was in place.

Next, I removed the automatic gear selector from the interior. With that out of the way, I started removing everything I needed out of the way to get the automatic transmission itself out of the car. As the exhaust was in the way, I removed everything from the turbo back. I held onto my Powered by Max Cobra downpipe from my coupe build and my DMAX catback from my hatch. I would love to get a cool Japanese O2 housing and downpipe, but there’s no substitute for the Cobra if you want to have your car low. All the dragging and scraping will eventually blow out your gaskets, so I’ve learned that this really is the way to go. I may buy a brand new catback this winter, but the DMAX is a classic that looks and sounds great – not to mention the fact that I already have it. It will get the job done for now.

I was surprised how many things I had to remove from the engine bay to be able to even come close to the transmission bellhousing bolts. I had only replaced a transmission with the engine in the car one other time on an S13, and I was about thirteen years younger to boot. It took me a lot of trial and error to be able to get to the top bolts, as well as a few trips to Harbor Freight – but with the engine mounts loosened, the engine tipped back, and no less than seven or eight ratchet extensions, I was finally able to break them loose. Once the torque converter was removed as well, I finally dropped the massive auto trans out and celebrated victory.

There was a point during the process during that weekend that I wanted to pull the engine, respray the car completely, and essentially rebuild everything on the engine. I was so frustrated with trying to get to the bell housing bolts and wondered if simply doing all of this work once was the way to go. However, I knew that this simply wasn’t realistic from a financial standpoint – not to mention the downtime that would bring with it. As much as I hate doing the same work repeatedly, sometimes it is best to keep the scope creep in check and just deal with the additional repetitive labor in the interest of keeping the car functional. It’s tough to talk yourself out of it, but its usually the smartest course of action if you can restrain yourself.

After taking a night or two off, I got back under the car and removed the automatic flywheel. To my surprise, the bolts broke loose easily. The next task on the list was one I had feared for a while: replacing the automatic pilot bushing with a manual one. I had never encountered this project before as I have always swapped a complete manual SR20DET engine and transmission setup into all of my cars. After Kev told me about the bread trick, I decided to give it a shot despite my skepticism. After trying this for multiple days to no avail, as well as breaking a cheap slide hammer/puller kit from Harbor Freight, I finally caved and purchased the $70 bearing puller kit they had for sale on day three of trying to remove this stubborn bushing.

I made some relief cuts in the bushing with a dremel after the more expensive slide hammer kit was still failing to remove the bushing. In the end, I tapped on the bearing remover with a dead blow in four directions – up, down, left, and right. I gave the slide hammer two good hits after that and the bushing finally flew out of the engine! This has to be one of the most frustrating tasks I have ever been faced with when working on an S13, but the relief I felt when it was finally removed made it all worth it. Once the auto bushing was out of the way, the manual one tapped into the crankshaft with ease.

With that tedious task out of the way, it was finally time to move onto the fun part- installing new parts! I started by installing the OEM clutch line and dampener assembly that I sourced from Japan. It was so nice to bolt everything into place without any headaches. I definitely recommend trying to source the correct OEM components from a manual transmission car if you plan to tackle this project. There are of course generic braided clutch lines out there, but I love having everything fit the way Nissan intended.

On Staurday morning, my good buddy Nick came over to try to help me install the manual transmission. I hadn’t lifted one of these into place on my own in over ten years, so I wanted to have some help with the process. I started by tackling the install of the NISMO Super Coppermix Twin Disc clutch kit that I bought before the car had even landed in the states. I have always wanted to own a cool clutch like this, so I was pretty stoked to finally make it happen. The first step was to install the flywheel portion with the provided flywheel bolts. One other note for anyone tackling this swap – the dust shield between the engine and the transmission is the same for both automatic and manual SR20DET setups. I had purchased a dust shield only to find that it was identical to my automatic one. One less part you need for the conversion!

I also installed the NISMO pivot ball, release bearing, and provide sleeve on the transmission with a fresh clutch fork and clips. Nick brought an S13 manual speed sensor with him for me as I did not have one, but more on that later – I ended up discovering that the 97-98 manual 180SX uses the same speed sensor as the S14 (and as a result, I ended up not needing the one I bought from him as my manual transmission was sourced from an S14 SR20DET.

Things didn’t go as planned on Saturday. After installing the clutch and lifting the transmission into place, Nick and I were not able to get the transmission to connect to the engine properly. In the end, I ended up removing the clutch and reinstalling it several times before I got the discs to sit correctly and the alignment tool to work. Once Nick had left, I finished reinstalling the clutch for the seventh or eighth time and wrestled the transmission into place by myself. While the engine and trans were closer together, I still couldn’t get them to seat properly. I wasn’t able to rotate the transmission enough for the bolt holes to line up, and could hear something hitting the bellhousing.

Kevin, Shane from Bosstown, and a couple other people told me to check to see if there were two dowel pins present in the same location. When I had initially checked, there were not. I decided to sleep on it and take a day off. I went into the garage on my lunch break on Monday with fresh eyes and a rested brain and immediately noticed there were in fact two dowel pins at the top of the engine and transmission bell housing that were contacting each other preventing the trans from spinning. I pulled the transmission once again, removed the dowel pin, and wrestled it into place again by myself. This time, everything lined up perfectly! Thank goodness. I was so excited to finally have the manual trans in place.

From here, I was essentially off to the races – aside from a lack of free time and energy during the week. However, I still managed to make a little progress each night. I bolted up the transmission with a fresh set of bolts I purchased on eBay as I read that the automatic starter bolts are too short for the manual trans. I installed a NISMO transmission mount along with a manual crossmember to get the trans fully bolted into place. I also installed the NISMO clutch line, which ironically deleted most of the OEM clutch line piping I sourced for the swap – but that’s OK.

On the interior side, I installed the NISMO quick shifter assembly I put together a few months back with fresh rubber boots and a new retainer. I highly recommend spending the cash for a new one of these vs using an old, rusty one. I didn’t expect it to be so satisfying! With everything in place, I was able to reinstall the interior panels, seats, center console, and shifter trim with manual boot in place.

My first look at my 180SX as a manual car was very satisfying. I was hesitant to tear the car apart, but I am so happy with the level of quality I have achieved with the install. It definitely feels factory and doesn’t feel like I hacked the car up at all. I originally intended for this blog post to end here and be shared last Friday, but I didn’t have the chance to get it completely buttoned up… so forward it shall continue!

I spent the entire morning and just about all of the afternoon last Saturday finishing everything for the manual swap. I installed the ABS driveshaft after some confusion about which one I had was actually the correct length. I actually ended up using the front half of one and the back half of another to make a combination the car seems happy with, aside from the carrier bearing being shot. I will need to address that at some point in the not-too-distant future.

Aside from the drivehsaft snag, things went really smoothly. I bolted up the exhaust components after removing the rear tow hook for clearance. I also wired up the reverse lights and installed the Wiring Specialties loop plug to the correct plug under the fuse box (Thanks to Kev) to trick the ECU into thinking the car is always in park (so that it will start after the manual swap.)

With everything finalized, fluids filled up, and wiring neatly tucked away it was time to finally get the car back on the ground. The car initially would not crank as I did not have the WS jumper harness in the right location, but once I talked to Kev and moved it around it started right up! It was such a strange feeling to back out of the driveway in this car with a manual transmission. I was overjoyed. Huge sense of accomplishment from this project! I went down the road a couple miles to pick up some victory pizza and Mt. Dew Live Wire (of course.)

Well, as fate would have it, I ended up getting pneumonia that night. I was completely wiped out from Saturday evening until Thursday when I finally got some antibiotics. That being said, I haven’t gotten to enjoy the car much at all just yet. I did determine last night that I still have a random no-start issue despite replacing the ignition switch, and I must not have wired the reverse lights properly because those do not work. But at least the car is a manual now. I can work on picking off these small issues as I get time and continue to feel better. I’m thankful to have this relatively large task out of the way before I continue modifying the car this winter.

Thanks as always for stopping by and sharing the joy of 180SX tuning with me. I have faced some pretty annoying challenges thus far, but the wins make it all worth it. I am so grateful I got a chance to own this car and am finally able to start adding some of my own touches. Have a great weekend and stay healthy!

As I mentioned in last week’s post, my ignition switch fix turned out to be a temporary one. After removing the switch and ensuring the case was pushed together completely, the issue returned after a couple of weeks and the car refused to crank at all. I picked up a new switch from a local auto parts store last Friday and swapped it in. I was pleased to find that the USDM ignition switch was a direct replacement for the JDM unit, the only difference being that the wiring harness is longer on the USDM switch. I was able to tuck the extra wiring into the steering column cover without any issues.

Last Saturday, I hosted my third annual COB BBQ. I’ve been trying to host an S chassis BBQ at my house each summer for the last few years to pay homage to the BBQs that Broadfield used to host at his house back in the day. I made a lot of great friends at those events, and it even indirectly had a hand in getting the attention of Modified Mag for my eventual feature alongside Toby’s immaculate S13 coupe. I am at the stage of life that Toby was when he was hosting these events, and since I don’t make it out to car meets anymore it’s a great way to hang out with some like-minded folks. I like to say hosting this event keeps me young.

At the BBQ, I got to chat with my friend Allen and his girlfriend Shayna. Shayna worked at a body shop for a few years and recently did the paint work on Allen’s new S13 build. We looked at my 180SX in more detail and determined that a large portion of the car was repainted at some point. We could see tape lines on the rear quarter panels and a little bit of overspray on the underside of the quarters. This makes a lot of sense, as I noticed some areas of the car (namely the hood hinges and the core support) have a fair amount of wear and oxidization, but the paint was still really shiny. I also felt that there was a lot more orange peel present compared to my 240SX (which was original paint.) It looks like some items have not been repainted, including the rear hatch, roof, rear bumper, and aero – but everything else was resprayed at some point. The paint still has plenty of scratches and dings, so I am assuming it was done quite some time ago.

There’s no evidence of bondo work or a crash, so who knows. The car is so clean underneath and overall that I can’t be too bothered by it. It was good to have answers and a little bit better understanding of the car’s history. Ideally, I would respray the car and put this to rest once and for all – but we’ll see what happens. In the mean time, I am going to continue moving forward with modifying the car and getting it set up the way I want. That will be a decision for another time.

There were a number of cool S13s and S14s present at the BBQ, which is always a great sight to see – but the people are the best part. I am very grateful to call these folks my friends and enjoy meeting new ones each year. I am looking forward to doing it again next summer! Thank you to everyone that came to hang out.

After attending two car events in the last month, my motivation is at an all-time high. This new found spark just happens to coincide with Alicia going on a girls trip for a few nights this weekend, which doesn’t leave me with a lot of free time during the day as I will be parenting solo. However, once the girls go to bed, my schedule is wide open. I decided that this weekend would be a good time to tackle the first real modification to my 180SX – the manual transmission swap.

After doing some more research on the project over the course of the week, I found that there were still a few parts I needed to complete the swap. With any luck, I have everything ordered and on the way as of today. I’ll dive into those details in my next post.

The first order of business for the swap was to complete the refreshing task I started a couple months ago for my clutch and brake pedal assemblies. I had an issue with the large plastic bushings that go into the pedal arms (x4 46525-N8200) being too small, thus not allowing for the large bolts (x2 46560-50A01) that hold them to the pedal brackets to pass through them without excessive force and binding/damage. A few people on IG had the same issue, and recommended sanding down the bolts slightly to allow them to fit correctly into the bushings. I ended up using some sandpaper, a scuff pad, my power drill, and a bench vise to shave the bolts down just enough to get them to fit properly. A few minutes with the power drill on each and reassembly was a snap.

I pieced together my own rebuild kits for the clutch and brake pedals as I found a few issues with the kids available stateside- primarily the cost. However, the kits are also fairly US-spec centered, including the spring that’s included (which will not work on the RHD clutch pedal.) It was easier to pick and choose the pieces I needed – especially since I was using a NISMO reinforced clutch pedal bracket. I also replaced the pads for the clutch and brake pedals (x2 46531-v5000), as well as the plastic accelerator pedal (18016-89900).

With the pedals ready to go, I was out of excuses. It was time to tear into this car. I started with the scariest part- drilling into the firewall. As I did with my S13 coupe a few years back, I used a 1.5″ hole saw bit to cut the large hole for the clutch master cylinder. The key difference this time around is that the car was completely assembled – which I thought would make things a lot more challenging, but turned out not to be a big deal. After cutting the large hole, I drilled the two smaller holes for the clutch pedal bracket studs to pass through. Fortunately, this procedure is extremely simple on an S13 as the stamps are in place from the factory, even on an automatic transmission car. My Milwaukee drill was compact enough to fit under the dash without any issues, and I had this part of the swap done in about ten minutes.

Next, I dropped the steering column down out of the way to replace the automatic brake pedal assembly with a manual one. I know you can cut the brake pedal down, but I prefer to have the correct piece in place. Once the automatic brake pedal was removed, I noted that the bracket and spring were in much better condition than the replacement I had sourced. The brake pedal brackets are identical, so I swapped everything over to the factory bracket and reinstalled it.

One thing to note – in order for me to be able to install the clutch pedal assembly, I had to remove the plastic air ducting that runs above the steering column to have room to wiggle it into place. With the clutch pedal in, I was able to install the new clutch master cylinder and clutch line I had sourced from a 180SX in Japan.

With a little over two hours into the project, I went to bed last night feeling a great sense of accomplishment. One of the biggest hurdles of the project is now complete. Tonight, my plan is to begin removing the automatic transmission and gear selector. We’ll see how everything goes, but hopefully I don’t hit any major snags.

My hope is to complete the manual swap and drive the car to ensure everything is working properly before I have to put it away for the winter. We may still have some decent weather in October here in Michigan, so it would be great to have this done and get used to driving the car with a manual transmission before it goes into storage. It will take a bit of luck, but I think it should be possible!

Thanks as always for stopping by. It feels great to finally be making substantial changes to this car and my motivation is high. Here’s to continuing the trend! Have a great weekend.