180SX Project Part 2
In Part 1 we delved deep into the development of the 180SX and took it round the country doing drift events, the ethos was always “keep it simple” and here in Part 2 we see if it can stay that way.
As is often the case it’s the simple, uncomplicated ones that recieve the least amount attention, with the Hilux project, the S13 project and all the motorcycles taking shape around this garage the 180SX sat and waited.
I would come back from an event and immediatly prep for the next one.
I did this to maintain the car and make sure I wasn’t forgetting exactly what it needed for it’s next outing.
Once clean and prepped it would go up on the rack ready to wait things out for it’s next outing.
I like drift events where the car is the focus, sure I love agressive driving but drifting to me is first having a cool car and second driving it with agression and style.
I always pushed to be a better driver, I do have some bad habits around my handbrake use but I am always pushing to improve.
Post event prep and reload for the next one.
Whenever there is a track I have not driven I will jump at the opportunity, here at Wilby it’s a fun flowing track with a laid back vibe.
The car was setup in a way I would call 2000’s style. Low, metal front fenders, small front tyres in 215/40/17 on a 9j with 235/40/18’s in the rear on 10.5js.
Keeping the interior clean with the amount of rubber flying around inside the cabin was an effort, this would pay of at a later date though.
Im always trying to get one last lap out of a set of tyres, the rear end always seems to pay the price though.
I started doing a lot of demo events at festivals and enjoyed the seat time but it was never a relaxing environment to enjoy drifting in.
It’s never a bad time shredding tyres and letting that TD06L2 sing though.
Drift events happened less frequently but an invite to Geelong Revival in my hometown was a welcome change.
It’s a 1/4 mile sprint around a corner so I tried to make it somewhat interesting for the fans.
in 2019 things slowed down but the event invites kept rolling in.
Back to MotorEx for more demos.
I do love the fact that I get in this car and feels like home, it’s very predictable and we have spent a lot of years working each other out.
This is a snaphot into the setup I would take to events, multiple trips with my trailer to deliver cars and bikes, merch production and everything else required to run a stand. It was a lot of effort and I can’t thank my wife enough for running things whilst I was out driving or talking to fans.
After this covid kicked in and the evnts dried up for the next few years. The car was sitting in the garage and I had dreams of hitting the streets again.
The last video of this chassis captures the car in its “drift spec” prime and it’s a culmination of over 17 years of development, not development in the sense of building an all out competition car, development in the sense thats it’s an affordable, stylish, fun drift car with a sum of parts that are all working well together.
Earlier in this post I spoke about keeping the interior clean and the effort this took? The payoff was when the reshell began. Let me rewind a little, the reshell began when the events dried up, my 180SX was always styled as a street car and I had plenty of rare and genuine parts mounted to my 180SX. I couldn’t get the idea of returning it to the street out of my head.
I’ll let the video explain in more detail.
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With the driveline going into the new street chassis it doesn’t mean that old chassis is completely going away……
It’s just going into storage for a while, maybe one day it will come back out and recieve a refresh with a lot more power and grip.
The whole driveline dropped stright into the new chassis, I moved a few items, added a muffler and reconditioned a few parts.
It took me a while to get the red matched properly, I have redone the guards twice now.
I can’t tell you how satisfying this is to drive on the street.
And drive to local shows.
I won’t lie, I do miss having a dedicated drift car but that just means I need to get the Hilux out and drive more.
Thanks for reading/ watching.