RED 180SX Build Thread

[kyles1988]

So, I figured I would do a little build thread for my car since it's a much easier way to get feedback and help than hoping people read and then comment on my blog. I'll probably do a few posts a day here until I'm up to date on where the car is now. I'll be completely removing the HICAS this winter (as opposed to just using a HICAS eliminator bar) and will be doing a pretty big brake upgrade project, so I'm sure I'll have some questions for you guys based on your experiences.

Anyway, let's get on with the first post. I'm just going to quote these from my blog so if anything is contextually weird, sorry, I'm not rewriting these posts haha.

First post from back in May when I flew to seattle to buy the car:

Flew out Tuesday afternoon. Thought I had a 545 flight, so I showed up at 4:30, turns out it is a 445 flight. Luckily the flight was delayed 2 hours. Bummer on the delay, but better that than miss the flight. So flight finally leaves around 6:30pm. At this point I'm bummed because I thought my second flight would also be delayed 2 hours, so I'd be making Niko ( guy I'm buying the car from) stay up even later. It ended up just cutting into my 3 hour layover time so that was sweet. My landing in Chicago gave me whiplash it was so rough. Neat. Had an hour to chill at O'Haire before my connecting flight to Seattle took off. That was an 8 hour flight of no sleeping and pure boredom. Was an aisle seat too..bummer.

So I land in Seattle at 11pm local time / 1AM my time. Niko picks me up at the airport, takes me over to the car and we sign some paperwork. So it's pretty late but I just flew across the country and bought a car so I'm pretty wired. I decide to try and drive a little while. I made it about 2 hours before I figured I'd pull over and sleep. So it was about 3am my time. I pulled into some random rest stop and hopped in the passenger side, locked the doors, and leaned the seat back. Between the cars constantly coming and going, the uncomfortable ass seat, and being extremely cold, I didn't get much rest. I woke about 2 hours later with back pain so bad I couldn't feel my legs, hands shaking from cold so bad I couldn't get the key in the ignition etc. So I decided that that was probably all the rest I was going to get in that 5-star resort, and to hit the road again.

I pull out of the rest stop and realize I'm in the middle of some national park, it's sun-rise, and there are snow-capped mountains everywhere. Pretty wild. Where I'm from there are no hills, mountains, lakes, rivers, etc. Nothing. Just a bunch of corn. I drove for about 2 hours before I started falling asleep again. I guess I overestimated how much rest I got from the 2 hours of shitty sleep in the car. So I found a Motel6 on the side of the interstate and pulled in. I got about 4 hours of much needed awesome sleep. As i was checking out and walking out to the car I snapped this pic.



I hopped back on the road and started driving. Overall in the first day I think I drove about 20 hours.
After a few hours I pulled over and snapped this picture with the trusty iPhone. Reminds me of something out of a Fallout game or something.



I plugged in the GPS and it said this:



500 Miles to the next turn and it can't calculate the arrival time. What did I get myself into.







In the next picture you'll see a flood on the side of the interstate. Well what you don't see is that that flood decided it would be sweet if it crossed the road, and flooded it about 1 foot deep for 100 yards. So I sit in traffic for about an hour near Livingston, Montana as everyone has to creep through it. I get up near the front of the line and decide to pull over check out the flood. I walk up to the State Trooper keeping an eye on things up near the front and ask her how deep it is. She says "It's only about a foot deep, you should be fine". I kind of give her an "Are you serious?" look, and glance back at my car, which is probably about 2 inches off the ground at the lowest point. She's like "well, you don't have much of a choice, it won't be down for another 3 or 4 days". So I just had to go for it. it was scary, but I made it. Felt the car get a little floatey at one point. So i make it to the other side, heart beating about 200BPS. I see a cop on the other side and he's just laughing and shaking his head. Not that funny man. Anyway, car was fine, no electrical shortages, no hydrolocking, etc. Moving on..





So about midnight rolls around on the first day and my GPS has me hop off the interstate in south eastern Montana and get on some state-highway for a little bit. Long story short, worst roads ever, deer everywhere, almost run out of gas in the middle of nowhere, finally find a gas station in this real impoverished Indian Reservation town, multiple super beat cars creeping through the lot with like 10 guys in the back just STARING at me (not in the "oh, cool car" way, but in the "oh, let's rape this guy" way), then the car would just pull back out of the lot, etc. Finally find a hotel about 3am and hit the hay. At this point I was pretty delusional, I was laying in bed, but couldn't make my mind go to sleep because I thought I was still driving. Wake up the next day around 9am and drive 16 hours and make it home. All in all it was a little over 2000 miles in 2 days.

Safe and sound and cleaned up a little



I drove back with the previous owner's license plates on the car, but with the plates from my previous 240 in my backpack. I wasn't sure which was less illegal. The cop that pulled me over, searched the car, etc in western Montana I think it was, said I was in the wrong either way. He ended up being really weirded out by the fact that I flew across the country and paid a lot of money for a 1991 Nissan to a guy that sounds like a Russian mobster. He let me off with five written warnings. I was originally pulled over for 83 in a 75. That damn boost gauge blocked my speedometer.

What made that gas station stop so sketchy was that it was 3am, I had no cell service, across the street from the gas station was an old run-down garage with a couple guys sitting around a bonfire watching two pitbulls fight, and there were multiple cars full of dudes that pulled through just to look at me. like in one entrance, roll thru the lot real slow making eye contact with me, then back out the other side.


Ok that'll have to do for my first post. I keep going thru and editing this thing and adding details and it's getting annoying.

Here is the second post to provide some actual "build" for you guys.

So last week I had a few parts show up for the car. I'll start with the smallest.



When I got the car it didn't have a Nissan badge on the bumper, which kind of bugged me since there was an indentation on the bumper for it. Russell from NissanParts.CC let me know the factory US one works fine and you just hacksaw the little pin that comes off the back of it off and you can use it.

Next order of business. New carpet. The carpet/floormats in this thing were DISGUSTING. You can't really get a feel for how nasty in this pic but whatever.



So I went ahead and ordered a stockinteriors.com black carpet pan for the front and rear.



I work 8am-930pm pretty much every day so it took me three days to get this in, as I could only work on it from about 10pm until when I fell asleep. Usually about 1:30am I'd start kinda winding down and call it a night. The first night I got the interior and old carpet out, as well as installed the new rear section.



I put the new carpet pan on top of the old one and left it in my garage during the next day so it warmed up and really mimicked the shape of the old carpet.

The second day I started doing a little bit of trimming and cutting on the new pan. Here's where I finished that night.



I didn't get a picture of it all finished up just yet, but it turned out pretty good. Here's a random picture of my new DMAX floormats as well. I got these at the same time.



I also put in my Bride Zeta 3, but once again, I'm a scum bag and didn't get a picture yet.

Random closing picture with Damon



And here is the list of modifications that Niko provided. Not a bad foundation at all! But it needs a lot.

red top SR20DET
FMIC
Walbro 255lph fuel pump
Cusco Type MZ 2-Way Clutch Type Differential (300mi)
JDM OEM Kouki Type-X Rear Valences
JDM OEM Kouki Type-X Side Skirts
JDM OEM Kouki Type-X Front Bumper
JDM OEM R33 Skyline GT-R N1 Vents
JDM OEM Kouki Type-X Front Lip
JDM OEM Kouki Type-X Fender Caps
JDM OEM Kouki Type-X Rear Spoiler
JDM OEM Kouki Type-X Kevlar Garnish
JDM OEM Kouki 180SX Position Lights
5000k HIDs
Hella H4 Conversion
JDM OEM Kouki 180SX Driver and Passenger Seats
JDM OEM Kouki 180SX Rear Seat
Volk TE37
17X9+15
18X9.5+12
greddy profec-b boost contoller
pivot i 100mm boost gauge
pivot RHU-M
Brand new paint
Apline CD player with Ipod hook up

[lflkajfj12123]

King of Dope

[Persona]

I've been lurking on your blog observing this come together. Subscribed!

[turbo2nr]

gona be epic!

cant wait to read whats in store for this car

[HPKMotorsports3]

that car is beautiful... other than the flood how beautiful was montana?

[Fearell]

That flood would have freaked me out like crazy. Good read I look forward to seeing more

[CamryOnBronze]

Originally Posted by s0apgun

King of Dope

<3 So good!

[kyles1988]

Originally Posted by HPKMotorsports3

that car is beautiful... other than the flood how beautiful was montana?

Western Montana was awesome. Idaho was probably my favorite though.

Originally Posted by Fearell

That flood would have freaked me out like crazy. Good read I look forward to seeing more

Yeah I was really freaking out. I was texting Damon like crazy lol. He got me through it without having a breakdown.

[Casperjay]

Looks like an awesome start, looking forward to see how good it looks when its finished!

[Josh7X]

Looks great man

[Brian]

Best story of 2011 and probably 2012 too.

[Broadfield]

Subscribed! Although pretty much every mod now gets done in the driveway at my house on Tuesday evenings... so I guess I'll just check this thread for the classic Zilvia banter and worldly advice

[towlie]

So many kouki build threads

[sr20drifter1]

Subscribed! I'm so in love with your car man.

[Sarom_ps13]

I would love to drive this car that far anytime! Glad your trip was safe and is in good hands.

[hOngsterr]

oh man i fucking hate you.

love the car btw

[CrimsonRockett]

Originally Posted by towlie

So many kouki build threads

True, but as always, people manage to fuck up even the simplest of things.

Looking forward to this build.

Wish other Kouki build threads would have more attention to detail, but oh well. I'll just worry about my own build.

[MidwestMyriad]

Needs more Do-Luck and Ganador, then I'll scribe

[DamianN.]

Nice story and awesome car. I was going to fly to Arkansas to pick up a car very similar to the one you bought from a guy on here (super nice dude). I talked to him over a couple day period and planned for him to pick me up for the nearest airport and what not. I live now live in San Francisco so I would have drove a total of 24 + hours back. After a final decision I decided it probably wasn't a good idea with time constraints and expense on the trip back. I found a nice stock hatch to start new with in LA. So I flew down there and picked it up and drove back 6 hours to San Fran all in a day and also hit up a crazy (House music) party right when I got back (1:00a). We love our 240's.

[va240dude]

Good to see you finally started it haha! I was getting tired of clicking away from Zilvia to read updates on your car! I can help you join the Ganador club lol. Looking forward to seeing more...

[taran!]

I read your blog from time to time, and love what your doing with the kouki.
But now i don't have to click away to read it, which is awesome!
Definitely can't wait to see the rest of the build unfold!

[thrax]

That's some nice scenery.

[tricky_ab]

Driving through sketchy areas that you don't know on your way back from purchasing a car makes for awesome stories...

I'm down for this build...

[Lukasss]

Actually interesting read lol. Ill be tuned in.

[shaggy sr]

i missed montana. i banged some chick at pourhouse. pizza sucked! montana - long ass drive thru mountain.

[da_crew10]

Miss my kouki : ( mine was porshe guards red but sold it !

[DS562]

i wanna fly across the country to buy a car and drive it back this looks promising!

[Exas Spec D]

I like. Subscribed. I wish I was as baller...

[sincity_sil80]

"i wish i was a little bit taller"

[Zero-Offset]

Originally Posted by Brian

Best story of 2011 and probably 2012 too.

fckingmsglnth