SXDevelopments 180SX (SXD180)

[CaBS]

Originally Posted by FU12

Good to see a build that isn't 25% performance, 75% fitment. Keep it up

Thanks mate. Keep it up I shall

[Kriskouki]

Subscribed......

[CaBS]

I got afew things done that weekend. I dropped over to the workshop to checkup on the cage building progress on Friday afternoon. Things were getting a move on with the main hoop already bent up and front legs already bent up.








These are the brackets being used for the removable sections very solid and neat/compact and had all already been made up. Very happy with how they've turned out!

[310R]

Nice build,I am working on a time attack s13 here in the u.s.
Hope my build will come out as clean as yours.Need to get a
job so I can finish it.Times are tuff in states finding a job,especially
here in oregon.Good luck!

[CaBS]

On the Saturday afternoon we were over at the workshop doing some bits and pieces on two other cars. I decided to pull the intake manifold off as its one less thing to worry about later on. Pulled the whole thing off in once piece. I'm strongly considering deleting the heater core from inside the cabin and running an alternative option. This would mean I can remove all the heater lines from under the manifold in the second picture here. Its a total shit fight under there and its better than standard already. You can see where I'd previously removed the coolant line to the standard throttle body and looped it back into itself. At this stage I was still planning on keeping the standard S13 intake plenum and throttle body.






On the Sunday afternoon I decided to drain the fuel tank and stick the 25 odd liters I pulled out in the daily. I found an old fuel flap in the bottom of the tank. God knows how long its been knocking around in there! =) The tank scrubbed up quiet well I think I might polish the bottom just before it goes back in so it looks schmick. We may also paint it I havent decided yet. =)














The Monday on my way to work I popped into the workshop again to checkout the progress. The main hoop had been tacked in and the 3mm plate was in the process of being welded and moulded to the rear strut towers.













Later that week I would hopefully get the car back cage complete and also pickup my new SX Developments chassis stand for the next stage of the build. =)

[ixfxi]

people always suggest ditching the AC and heater (core and lines) and then.... what is the solution? you suggested using an alternative.

to-date, i have not seen any good solutions for AC or heater.. other than OEM. feel free to share and discuss, but i have a feeling that this is hardly a car that will need ac or heat.

[CaBS]

Originally Posted by ixfxi

people always suggest ditching the AC and heater (core and lines) and then.... what is the solution? you suggested using an alternative.

to-date, i have not seen any good solutions for AC or heater.. other than OEM. feel free to share and discuss, but i have a feeling that this is hardly a car that will need ac or heat.

I have nooooo need for A/C at all. I'm going to be running some small 12volt heaters + fans mainly for demisting but should also provide a small amount of heat for winter. I live in Sydney Australia though so we're lucky if we see more than handful of days below 0 degrees celsius a year. Having no dash matt on the firewall and the exhaust running reasonably tight should provide more heat than I'd like :P

Planning on running some of the reflective/adhesive heat pannels on the outside of the panels in these places though.

[CaBS]

Originally Posted by 310R

Nice build,I am working on a time attack s13 here in the u.s.
Hope my build will come out as clean as yours.Need to get a
job so I can finish it.Times are tuff in states finding a job,especially
here in oregon.Good luck!

Thanks man, awesome the more time attack S series cars the better I say! =)
Yeh times are not great here either at the moment everything is starting to slow down abit. Still we're lucky to be in pretty good position financially in Aus compared to the rest of the world!

[CaBS]

I went over and had a look at the progress afew days later and the cage was nearing finished. The cross in the rear and boxes for main hoop and front legs still need to be completed. There will be one cross in the main hoop also. Some things are still only tacked in so still need to be welded properly though. The main hoop is as tight as possible while still having the door crosses removable.

I was also waiting on some pre-fab items to arrive for the engine bay that would hopefully arrive sooner rather than later cause they'd be done at the same shop. I'd like to avoid shipping the car home just to pay to go back again in a weeks time.


Some pictures anyhow!






















Was pretty happy with it so far! =)

[CaBS]

I went and checked out the finished cage another two days later. I'm really happy with the result its very close to how I had it pictured in my head. The splice joints look really neat and its not stupidly hard to remove them but not easy either. I'd much rather have them more time consuming to remove and provide some rigidity though which I think these will.

The car was supposed to be towed over tomorrow by get it "CAMEL TOW Towing" lol. I've asked him to cancel the job if its raining though as I couldnt afford to get everything wet with all the bare metal and no windscreen. Anyhow some pictures... keen to see what you guys think of it its abit compromised but I think its the best weight/function I could achieve.




















I couldnt wait to get stuck into it and clean up all the welds with the linager along with the seam welding prep! I might have to buy some looser fitting jeans or hit the treadmill if I plan on getting in and out of it with the door bars in though lol. =)

[CaBS]

I didnt get the car back yet due to the rain all weekend and it turned out to rain every time we tried the week after as well. It was supposed to come home that sat morning but one of the people involved had a family emergency and it didnt happen. =(

That Sunday I went over and spent some time with the guys pulling down my engine accessories, exhaust manifold and turbo off the egine. The engine is starting to look pretty bare now. We pulled the whole alloy sump pan off the bottom of the motor aswell to have a look and feel the rods.

There is quite abit of lateral movement in all of them especially cylinder 2 not sure how normal this is? The inside of my engine makes me think it never got loved that much by its some of its previous owners in terms of oil changes. I was looking forward to geting it back and getting some work done finishing up the cage and pulling the subframes out!













MMMMMMmmmmMm dirty...






Turbo fins had eaten something at some stage!




This is the mass of heater core lines that run under the intake plenum. I'll be much neater to no longer have them there. I Have another plan for winter warmth and demisting!

[MaxxD]

Some very top end work going on there dude, keep it up!

[bookoo]

Will watch this thread as I have a 180 lol

[CaBS]

Originally Posted by MaxxD

Some very top end work going on there dude, keep it up!

Thanks man, alot more to come. =)

Originally Posted by bookoo

Will watch this thread as I have a 180 lol

Good to hear it!

[CaBS]

So the car was stuck at the cage builders for a week and a half cause either I wasnt able to be home to take delivery, the towy couldn't do it or it was pissing down rain. These not so little goodies turned up at the crack of dawn Tuesday. Now at least cause these arrived on time I can get them installed while the car is still there and not have to tow it back again.

These will eliminate the low point in the front arches (if I ever want to run it super low) and give me more room for Xlarge rubber under the front without any lock issues. Conveniently they also at the same time replace the shitty sections in front of my wheel arches full of badly done holes for IC piping. I ordered them without the bead, just prefer the smooth look.

[CaBS]

Dropped the front tubs off but holdups with other jobs ment they weren't able to be started on till later that weekend. They were done by Monday ready to be picked up. Pretty happy with the fitment they basically dropped straight in when the standard tub was cut out. There is a small area where the top of the kelway tub meets the tower could have been slightly longer for a better fit. Overall they're excellent though very happy with them!

Chop chop


Chop chop


Drop in, easy az bro


Motherloads of space!








The end result is going to look 10x cleaner, smooth and phat =)


Good shot of how much higher and bigger they actually are...



Couldnt wait to get it all back and pull the subframes out got some things planned for them too. =)

[CaBS]

Finally got the car back a week later after the towy being almost 2 hours late and making me late for work. Grrr
Very happy with how the tubs have turned out. I've decided to swap to an S15 rear subframe for the improved geometry. This will meant selling the arms I have now and the new S13 Nismo LCA's I had to put in. I also needed to source a nice straight subframe and S15 diff to put my nismo mechanical center into.

I managed to get these Items through some other NSCC members selling them off.

Also needed to find a 100x100 chunk of wood so I can get the car high enough to get on the chassis frame. The 500mm lift on the bluepoint jack isn't enough! :P
Some pics









More soon.

[angel mkiv]

nice progress love all attention to detail and the fab work!

[Strizi]

Keep up the good work and the pictures

[ixfxi]

i am no expert welder or anything, though i know how to tig fairly well.... but i just wanted to chime in and say that the weld job on this car is not really that nice at all.

its cool that your going to town on this car, but uhm.... overall, its pretty sloppy.

[Legoctf]

Amazing hatch build, would love to do something similar with mine one day, especially with full kouki 180sx styling. Up here though 180 bits are very hard to come by

[CaBS]

Originally Posted by ixfxi

i am no expert welder or anything, though i know how to tig fairly well.... but i just wanted to chime in and say that the weld job on this car is not really that nice at all.

its cool that your going to town on this car, but uhm.... overall, its pretty sloppy.

Interesting man, several thousand people have looked at this across several forums your the first to comment on the welding being "sloppy". Which parts are you referring too or everythings not up to your standards?

Everything to this point was still mig welded while its not art I was very happy with how they turned out especially after being cleaned up. Maybe I'm biased though?

[CaBS]

Spent some time working on the car when I got it back. I got stuck into cleaning up the cage welds starting in the engine bay. I was aiming to have the whole cage done by the end of next weekend and then I'll start working on the seam prep for some spot welding I had planned.

Before


After


Before


After


Here is the chassis stand we made so I can work on it and move it around easily without the subframes in it. They'll need to be removed to complete the chassis prep later on.




Started on the floor box not complete yet.


What the other side looks like still untouched.


All the stock metal which had to be cut out to fit the tubs...


Having some compressor woes so fixing that up too!

[CaBS]

Finally finished off the cage welding cleanup it might not look like much but there was a conservative 15 hours worth of air tooling to get it to this state. Probably taken the best part of a kilo off the car too judging by how much metal dust came out of the vacuum bag and off the floor when I was finished! :P

I also cleaned all the tar off the beaver tail that used to seal the tail lights to the body. Filling in the gaps doing this while giving the compressor a chance to cool down worked out well... =)

This was also the first time I've tried removing the front part of the cage. It actually came out without many hassles at all. Its a bit like a skill tester though working out the right angles to get it out on without belting anything! :P

This week I start on cleaning and picking all the seams in the car in prep for spot welding. The plan was to start in the front and work backwards doing everything I can reach from ontop. Then later put the car on the chassis stands drop the subframes and repeat but underneath. I still needed to finish off the cage front floor box near the drivers foot but cannot get in there without moving the car. So I'd get to that a bit later... Just tried to do things systematically so I didnt start spot fires everywhere and get nothing in particular finished. I find it much more satisfying to get to the end of the day and have one task complete rather than two half done :P

Afew bits of wire flew off the wire wheel today and stuck in the front of my shin. Good reminder on why you wear safety goggles as it could have just as easily been my eyeball without them! :P













More soon!

[ixfxi]

Originally Posted by CaBS

Interesting man, several thousand people have looked at this across several forums your the first to comment on the welding being "sloppy". Which parts are you referring too or everythings not up to your standards?

Everything to this point was still mig welded while its not art I was very happy with how they turned out especially after being cleaned up. Maybe I'm biased though?

not saying it to be mean, just saying it to say it. if you're happy with the end-result, thats all that matters. im just saying that if you compare this:
http://zilvia.net/f/builds-builds-on...240-build.html

with thread on your welds, its not the same caliber. but i'll admit, the guy in the other thread has very high/advanced welding skills. honestly, i think we could all benefit from learning from his thread (me included).

[CaBS]

So I got abit done the next week/weekend but not as much as I'd hoped. The top half of the engine bay seam cleaning is 80% done. I wire brushed all the windscreen sikaflex and cleaned up the seam around there too. This made a god awful mess everywhere though!

My S15 subframe weld on kit showed up from Japan as well Monday morning. Its basically exactly what I expected it to be. Looks like it will make a fairly big difference to the overall strength of the frame too. =)

I've also ordered suspension arms.

[Te37]

Please tell me you did it right and went with spl?

[CaBS]

So the kit I'd ordered finally arrived which was sweet. We picked it up from UAS who were kind enough to accept delivery for me. Luckily a mate of mine, Sip was available with the SP20 for front bar and guard transport as it would not have fit in the other car.

We did a trail fit, I was happy with the front bar and the rear guards but was pretty unhappy with the front guards. They're not nearly big enough for what I was after. On top of that one of the corners was cracked in transit. =( Basically they just were not what I was looking for so it was back to the drawing board for new fronts.

The rear guards on the other hand are quiet good fit and are massive. There are some inconsistencies with them though which will require some time and effort to fix but I couldnt find any other rears I liked more than these for how I'm planning to fit them. These will look super phat =) We also did a test fit of my seat which fits perfectly but is somewhat challenging to get in and out of with the door bars in but thats all part of the fun eh. lol :P
The front bar should work well with the splitter etc that will be made later on too but I'm going to modify it slightly. We'll get to that further down the track though.

Some time was spent on the Sunday cleaning seams the upper half of the engine bay is mostly complete now and a good portion of the interior has been cleaned up. I hope to have the rest of the interior done by the weekend so I can start underneath the car. No pics of this though I was far to fixated on the kit :P

Oh and yes its all genuine aero ppl, support the companies who support us and our cars. Don't buy fake shit!

Some pics



























Blue steel lols

[TaterBiscuit]

Deffinently subscribing to this.

[CaBS]

Got a fair amount of work done the following weekend. I got the car up on the stands, its easy to move around which is very handy. Also very easy to sit upright under the car which made it alot easier to work under there.

The front and rear subframes are now removed the car is looking pretty damn bare right now! I attacked the standard front tow hooks with the 9" grinder as they're no longer needed. God damn the steal they use for these is beast. I haven't finished it yet thought I'd spare the neighbors for a bit of a break after ages grinding on one side alone. I wasn't really happy with the marks it left but it should cleanup ok later.

I could only work on the outside of the car as it stood as the frame needs some slight modding to fit under the rails rather than the sills. I didn't want to be hoping in and out of it until it was abit more secure...
Anyhow, some pics.