SXDevelopments 180SX (SXD180)

[Style]

I love it when i see updates on this build!!

[ka-titties]

YESSSSSSSSS

thank you for staying with this.

[Mister.E]

Wow, the skirt and fender mods are sick! Looking forward reading the rest.

[CaBS]

So another update on whats been happening with the never ending story. Lots of background learning on composites stuff mostly.
Which translates into progress but in actual finished parts for the car nothing special.

Also lines have had alot of work done. This is fiddly work and required much patience.


The motor will need to come back out for a few things which are happening. I'll get into that in a future post but it'll also give me a chance to finish all the hard lines in the engine bay.


Skirts fitted up happy with how they've turned out. Should look pretty good and be at least semi functional.


Wiring splurge


I'll wait til my side skirt barge boards are finished before I finish these panels off and block the heights down to match the level I need.


More soon.

[CaBS]

Picked up these new OEM nissan strikers and fixing screws to complete the clean look.



Should help keep the doors nice and tight!


Also got a mate to order me some highfil and this cheaper end of the scale spray gun for spraying primer.


Along with a bunch of fiberglass supplies for making molds and parts.
Making the mold here for some reason I got cravings for strawberry iced donuts.


Said parts


After many hours work mixing resin and cramping thumbs brushing/rolling it in!


Popped out waxed up and ready to go. Big thanks to dumhed for loaning us his vacuum pump.


Ebay special for weighing the materials works a treat.


An essential when lubing on stuff in a backyard to help stop god damn insects landing on wet stuff!


More soon!

[ka-titties]

Mmmmm new OEM parts

[CaBS]

Some other goings on.

Also managed to finally get my roll bars painted and installed them so they're not using up space in the shed.
The door crosses got done aswell but were not in when I took this picture.



A mass of new OEM body seals arrived some of which have since been installed on the car. Still waiting to get the doors resprayed and then I can put them back together with all this new gear.



Picked up this titanium 180SX key online. I actually thought the guy had done a runner with my cash and raised a paypal claim. It turned up the day before his cutoff to provide legit shipping info so I cancelled the claim. Pretty poor customer service really but I'm happy with the quality of it now its actually turned up. :P



Now onto some more interesting carbon stuff. Twill it pretty challenging to deal with and keep it straight and looking nice. Here we are smoothing it out preparing to cut it up really to lay. I actually built a special huge flat bench to make working with this stuff way easier.


We did most of this work during the colder months here so the purchase of a $30 k-mart electric blanket helped our parts cure overnight. =)


King single fitted perfectly we'd then chuck an old doona over the top to help keep the heat in during frosty nights



We actually used the infusion process to make the parts hence the big flange around the outside of our mold. Here is a short youtube time lapse of the resin pulling through the part.
[media]https://youtu.be/YV3WH0U845s[/media]

Super happy with the end result. It took a few goes to get one this good.


The finish it not super high gloss but its very strong for its weight and should do nicely. Very happy with the outcome for our first real go at carbon infusion.


Still not trimmed/blocked here but you get the idea of how it'll sit. This goes in to the chassis rail. I'll be cutting some holes in it to access the jacking points I made earlier on the chassis.


More soon!

[ka-titties]

hoooooly shit that carbon process is awesome! that looks fantastic. well done!

[tricky_ab]

Whoa! Talk about an update! Great work my man!

[CaBS]

more soon!

[CaBS]

Some more goings on.


After having some concerns with the factory oil system not really being up the the task I decided to head down the dry sump route. Do it once do it right as they say... Peterson make this nice tall tank.


This should provide the best surge protection and be easy to package in the car.


Came with these nice rubber coated mounting brackets with spacers which I'll be using also.


I got a front and rear set of ikeya lower control arms. I'd already installed the fronts lots the pictures on a bum SD card. The fronts where abit tricky cause I needed the LCA arm itself to be S14/15 length and then the castor arm to be S13. Something I found out during this build that I hadn't realised before. S13 and 14/15 castor arms are different.




The headlight surrounds on my car were smashed up and in pretty bad condition so I bought these new OEM ones with lightweight plastic lamps. It'll be


Picked up a taarks cam sensor pickup. I'll combine this with my mazworx cam pickup for hopefully very accurate timing.


Tank in position, the more tricky task of building a sealed enclosure for it lies ahead.



More soon!

[Arteeste]

Love the updates ! If possible could you provide the seal part numbers & the headlight housing?

[CaBS]

Originally Posted by Arteeste

Love the updates ! If possible could you provide the seal part numbers & the headlight housing?

Hey bud, some of them I've already thrown out. I'll take a closeup shot for you of what's left.

[battery1882]

Some nice work there!

[CaBS]

Originally Posted by battery1882

Some nice work there!

Thanks bud. Doing my best =)

[CaBS]

Picked up some drysump bits at WTAC from the ross performance guys who were up in Sydney for the day.
Aviaid 3 stage pump. Noticed the mounting holes are a bit off not sure if this is by design or not.


Ross performance pump bracket.


Very nicely wasted down to a minimal amount of material. Its quite light for what it is.


Comes with cap screws / washers which should be expected for the price.


The pump actually sits around 10-15mm further forward than the original ross bracket I was using to test fit. This works well for where my drive pulley will sit.


On fitting it up I realised only three of the four bolts will fit into the bracket/block at the same time. One of the holes is slightly off which I found pretty disappointing. I'll have to drill it out slightly. Not sure why this is off, be interested to know if anyone else has had the same issue.


There was no room for a 4 stage pump forwards or backwards.


The ross billet sump itself is their new design which I thought was the best I've seen so far.


Comes with this neat silicon o-ring so no sealant required.


Also has these machined channels through the base of the sumo pan so the vacuum is being spread evenly across the base of the pan. I've been told these are less area across these holes than the -12 fitting ID so will always have vacuum across the face of it.


Three -12 ports for vacuum. I was considering a 4 stage pump to use all of these but there simply wasnt room for the pump so I'll be using them with the middle blocked off as pictured.


Hard anodized black.


=D


Comes with cages to help keep shit out of the pump in the event of an engine failure.



More soon!

[Initial Drift]

I love seeing these high quality build threads. Gives a lot of inspiration. Good job on all your doing! Can't wait to see more.

[CaBS]

Thanks bud. Try and do another update soon I've done quite alot lately.

[CaBS]

Hi Guys,

Any of you know of a nice aftermarket 180SX hatch brake light option?
Have one on your car you could send me some pics of?
Preferably red to go with the type x lights.

Cheers!

[RalliartRsX]

ANy updates on this vehicle btw??

[CaBS]

Lots more work has happened. I'll pull my finger out and go back through all the photos soon.

[CaBS]

So I've gone through a whole heap of snaps I've taken as I was going finally so should be able to bang off some updates in succession.

Dug out and fitted up my old ross oversized water pump pulley.


The main reason being to see if it fitted with the HT101 sensor bracket for my new taarks chopper wheel.


Also to get an alternator tensioner bracket underway. This soon fell over when I realised the current cnc pivot point bracket I have actually mounts to a piece of the factory sump pan.
Which I'll no longer be running cause of the drysump. Argh least I didnt waste to much time on it.


Turns out it fits.


Just! I'll get this anodized later on to match the other wiggins purple stuff I have.


More very soon!

[CaBS]

So I'd put the motor back in without applying much thought to how I was going to get the brake lines bent up.
Which pretty much ment I had to take everything out again and start the front lines from scratch.

The motor also had to come out to fit the drysump pan and it gave me an opportunity to finish the front section of the rear lines as well.

Took some photos to make sure I could check clearance visually to the brake lines afterwards cause at this stage I was just planning on using normal brake line and bending it into flare nuts like factory.



This would have been pretty tight as you have to allow room for the flaring and bending with the not on the line which is 10mm plus long.


Looks like truckloads of space without the plenum on.


"Wheelbarrowed" the whole car off themotor/box assembly. Was surprisingly easy to get it out this way. Managed with two people. Getting it back on will be much harder


Ikeya/Bilstein front end pulled out to make it easier to pull the whole sub frame out.


Tripod of stand is pretty damn stable.


Catch can had to come out aswell as I wanted the front brake line in nice and tight to the body behind it.


Banjo bolts to the rescue.


Much tighter and easier than bending up line straight into the master.


Very happy with how it dummied up.


Folded up this aluminum channel/heat shield from some sheet. This will help sheild the brake line and vacum lines for the twin waste gates from heat up the back of the engine bay. While also hiding much of them and keeping things looking neat and tidy. Mounted the line and then started working on each end.


Pretty much the finished product. Left the end to be double flared by the MSC dude.


Not 100% happy with how it finished off but its pretty good. Doesn't rub anywhere.


Plenty of room for vacuum lines aswell.


This will be getting covered with gold heat reflective wrap which is at least 50% because I think it looks pretty cool. :P



For the life of me I couldn't find where I'd put these clips to mount the brake lines onto the chassis. Picked up some new and second hand ones from UAS.


More soon!

[CaBS]

Picked up these titanium nuts for the rear struts. Given there is no trims its something to make it look pretty. Probably a tiny weight saving there somewhere too.


Same for the front struts.


Aluminum guard bolts with rubber washers.


Also washers for the front and rear towers.

[scottie]

YYUUUUUUUSSSS! This thread is alive! Great updates.

[CaBS]

Originally Posted by scottie

YYUUUUUUUSSSS! This thread is alive! Great updates.

Thanks man.

It took me about 2-3 hours to get all the photos together and then separate them out into posts. Then uploading them and trying to remember what I did takes awhile also.

So bear with me but there is alot more to come!
The more people who are actually checking it out and commenting I must say helps motivate me to get more done and sit down and put more posts together!!

[FaLKoN240]

I'm subbed so I may not comment every time but I do look at every pic and read what you do been waiting to see you complete this thing for a few years now!

[arlok]

Originally Posted by CaBS

Picked up these titanium nuts for the rear struts. Given there is no trims its something to make it look pretty. Probably a tiny weight saving there somewhere too.


Same for the front struts.


Aluminum guard bolts with rubber washers.


Also washers for the front and rear towers.

What brand are these?

[Riq]

This build is amazing, I really want get titanium bolts for my build in the future. Is there any chance you can recover the pics in the first 16 pages? I would love to see those as well. Keep up the great build.

[CaBS]

Originally Posted by arlok

What brand are these?

I can't remember off the top of my head maybe probolt. I'll find the packets and take another pic of them for you.