So… yeah.

I kinda got distracted and forgot about this. So now I have like 6 months worth of progress to document?

I really need to stop doing this to myself lol.

No need for a long intro for this post, let’s just get right back to where we left off. OFFSET happened, had a great time, drove my car for the first time in 8 months and it felt like everything I wanted and more. Brought it back home and I tinkered with it a bunch.

Last thing I mentioned in the previous 240 post were the wheels, the car looks so much better now with the Model 5s in my opinion and I love them. Right now I plan on keeping these instead of rebuilding my SSR Strauss as I have more important matters to get done, and building a set of 3pc wheels isn’t a priority. So I’m thinking of chrome plating the Model 5s as a compromise but haven’t committed to that yet.

But let’s not start talking about future plans without talking about what I actually did do the past few months.

After changing the wheels I got more eager to try out some of my other parts that I didn’t have time to fit on my car, and at the top of the list were my Honda CBR400 mirrors. Made famous by Teruaki Itai of D1 fame, whose blue 180sx featured a set of these unique motorcycle mirrors.

Although these mirrors can be somewhat controversial, I personally love them, and that fact was cemented as soon as I had them on my own car. I was however hesitant as first as I did not have the base plates needed to have them mounted correctly. The go to move done by the people running these mirrors, including Itai, was to get the 180sx oem mirror block off plates. Used on 180s with the optional fender mirrors (crazy I know) so when I went looking for said block off plates I was met with the unfortunate news that only one side was still in production, with the other discontinued for some reason. I’m not really sure why Nissan only makes one side still and not the other. And what’s even more confusing is that it’s the same situation with most of block off plates on other Nissan models that were offered with the fender mirror option. I thought I’d be able to get a set from an s14 or r32 and modify them to fit an s13. But I guess Nissan was one step ahead of me.

So, I began looking for them on Facebook and Yahoo Auctions, only to find out that they are more desirable than I thought . And that they on average go for $350-$450USD. and that’s quite the upset when you factor in that the side still sold by Nissan today is only $80. So you’re pretty much paying $300 for only one block off plate.

Seeing these prices and knowing that I’ll be drilling into them to mount the CBR mirrors, I knew it didn’t make much sense. I proud myself on the fact that 95% of my aero is authentic Nissan aero. But sometimes you gotta choose your battles.

I started looking into other options and I saw that a lot of people use base plates from aftermarket GT style mirrors. They use a different sandwiched plate design but with some modifications they can work. Some even use body filler to make them look more oem. At the time I wasn’t 100% sure if I’m going to keep these mirrors on the car or not. So I went ahead and ordered the cheapest set I could find.

After getting the GT mirrors I made a paper template to make the new holes in the base plate for the CBR mirrors.

It was an easy job to drill into the plastic, just had to make sure to get the placement right. The quality left a bit to be desired but I expected that I won’t be getting a super high quality product anyway. As these were around $60 for the complete set.

I got the mirrors on and was straight away convinced and loved how they looked! Yeah the fitment wasn’t the best, but from a few meters they looked perfect. They complement the 180’s sharp design that can be seen on the Kouki front bumper and side skirts. They also do give off a retro Ferrari vibe which I love also!

Safe to say I will be keeping these mirrors on the car for the time being!

Since I wasn’t happy with the base plates, I started looking into other alternatives, and I think I found some that should be a much better alternative that also doesn’t break the bank. But they aren’t here yet.

After that the car stayed relatively the same for a bit. As it was summer and I did not feel like dying of heat stroke every time I drove or worked in it. And yeah I then went to California for a month.

Came back to a bunch of neat parts!

While away a few grail parts of mine arrived from Japan.

My very first Bride Maxis!

And a Kenwood SW201 also known as the “Power Base Reactor” which is a very appropriate name lol

Both parts I have always wanted for my car.

I have gotten around to installing both parts later on. I didn’t install the Maxis seat right away though as I had other plans for the seat setup.

And speaking of seats. A few weeks before my trip I got myself a nice NON FADED bride Ergo 1.5/1.75? This one is late 2005-2007 model. Which uses a tad bit different fabric which seems to be less susceptible to the fading to purple like all other Ergo/Brix bride seats. It also has a logo on the front and back of the head area.

I chose to get this seat to make the car a bit more usable in day to day life. As having the dual bucket seats was a big inconvenience. With the big halo of the Gardis I on the driver side, and not having proper access to the hatch area because of the Zeta II. It was a bit of a pain for my passenger and myself.

Getting the ergo meant easier access to hall things in my car and that I could switch and use the Pro Type Zeta II as my driver seat. So I ordered the appropriate bride seat rail for the Ergo. And once I got it I took all the seats out, and lined them up in my Mom’s living room for a pic of course!

Pretty decent collection so far, which I just recently added one more seat to!

This one needs some fixing so it’ll stay in storage till a later date.

Anyways, I got all the seat rails on their corresponsive seats. And into the car. As cool as the Gardis I/Zeta II combo was. This felt just right! I’ve always loved the mis match bucket and recliner look, it’s has more of a street car that goes to the track look, while still being appropriate for date nights lol.

With that I was pretty happy with my interior setup for the time being. I had gotten my head unit working a few weeks before with new Bluetooth capabilities. Replaced the Renown x RWB steering wheel, with a 330 Nardi Classic mated to a P2M quick release hub for a more period correct look. Shoutout to Kyle at GetJPN for the Nardi! A Nismo Fashion Lighter was also added, I’m not sure what made me decide it’s a good idea to buy something as useless and expensive as that. But maybe I’ll pick up smoking sometime in the future just to get my moneys worth!

The only two things I really wanted to get done were some cool mood lighting and the Kenwood subwoofer previously mentioned. I started tackling the LEDs first. As I had not gotten only interior LEDs only but got underglow as well! There was a pretty good deal on amazon for both and I couldn’t say no lol.

Each lighting system was done in a day, this was my second time installing this same underglow kit from Govee, which is a pretty simple install anyway. So it didn’t take too much time. Same for the interior. I opted to run the power directly through one of my fuses instead of the power plug on the lighter. Because that’s where the Nismo Fashion Lighter goes of course!

The LED lighting was also an accompanied by some new LED bulbs. I found some cool strobe LED bulbs that don’t need a controller online. They are supposed to switch on and off every time you turn the lights on and off. But mine seemed a bit finicky. So I opted to stick with normal LEDs during my normal street cruising configuration, and keep the strobe ones for special occasions. New H4 LED bulbs for the RAYBRIG headlights too.

With the lighting tune out of the way, I had to start tackling the subwoofer. I have zero to none car audio experience, but I did not want to take my car to an audio shop for several reasons. The delicate 30 year old plastic, the low ride hight, the expensive seats, and the old fossil of a subwoofer I wanted to install. All seemed like perfect things to go wrong at the hands of someone not careful.

So with that in mind I decided to figure it out myself, how hard could it be?

Surprisingly… not that hard actually. I was only able to find the installation instructions in Japanese, but was able to figure it out as I should. And after testing that the sub actually worked, which it did thankfully.

I started working on making a pedestal for it. I had a piece of wood made to the dimensions of the sub bracket. After that I got it wrapped in some black fabric to get it looking nice and oem.

grabbed some metal brackets and drilled a bunch of holes. And painted them black to better hide them. I was able to use the two holes for the interior trunk trim and squeeze the bracket between the hole and the trim on each side.

Pretty happy with how it looks right in front of the X bar! Since the bracket is only held done at one spot it does tend to wobble a bit. But not enough to hit the X bar under normal driving conditions.

Wiring it up was easy just took some patience to get everything ran inside and out of the car. But I managed to get it done and looking acceptable, I would like to get a new carpet for the hatch area that covers the extra space I have where the rear seats go. But that is a project for another day.

So, interior stuff done. Onto exterior stuff. Some of which I did before what was previously mentioned, some after.

After getting the Modal 5s on, I was happy with the look, but knew that the front ride hight was not where I want it. The car at that point was already maxed out on my 326power coilovers with the collar moved to the bottom of the damper. The car was simply too high because of the added length the Stanceparts Air Cups add to the overall length of the shock.

The only way to lower the car was getting a shorter spring, so that’s what I did. I ordered my self a set of 12k, 120mm Swift springs from 326. The old ones were 12k, 160mm springs. So this change would allow me to go 40mm lower. Changing the springs was easy just somewhat annoying, I didn’t feel like taking the 3 nuts at the top and take the coilover out. So instead made my life harder trying to do it in the tight space in the wheel well… dumbass I know.

Once the springs were changed I checked the measurements I took before hand and made the car approximately 30mm lower. And lowered the car onto the ground. Safe to say I was I love once again. Words can’t describe it so here are some pics!

I also did a quick side photo and edit as a reference to one of my favorite photos of Ito-San’s 180sx. An issue of Young Version where they took a bunch of measurements of the car’s hight at different places. Such a cool photo! Happy to say my car was just slightly lower than Ito-San’s, but that might be due to my non super accurate half-assed measurements lol.

After the first drive at this ride hight, something made it self very apparent. The car was scraping on anything and everything. I didn’t expect it to be as much of road sweeper as it did, I was scraping on every bump, crevices and lane divider rock! My sway bar, subframe and tension rod brackets were not happy. So all of that had to be addressed if I wanted to continue driving at this ride hight.

The sway bar brackets were destroyed on the very first drive after something got itself jammed in between the swaybar and the ground, causing a huge ruckus underneath the car, which I momentarily thought was my first engine/gearbox wanting to meet its maker lol.

Thankfully it was just the swaybar brackets which I was able to source a set locally easily. I also got my self some GKtech swaybar endlinks which offer more adjustment, which in turn could give a few more mm of ground clearance.

I then took my car to a local fabrication specialist to get my tension rod brackets taken care of, they were in rough shape and badly bent. I had em cut for more ground clearance and reinforced. Instead of going with the simple bar across like the nismo power brace, I thought it would be cool to do an X to tie it in with the Miracle cross bar in the hatch. It turned out great and I absolutely love it!

While there I also had a skid plate welded to the oil pan, and a spare tire well cover made of aluminum, to protect the air cup system, looks pretty nice and keeps everything hidden.

With that done I drove the car for a few weeks at the new lower ride hight, it was a struggle not gonna lie, it looked great but the subframe would still hit on a lot of things, and the driving experience was a bit too stressful. It was fun for a bit but I eventually gave up and raised the car just 10mm. That alone was enough to make the car 10x more drivable. I would love to lower the car back down once I get a raised subframe. But for now this is my driving hight where form meets function I guess lol.

With the car sorted out and running well (mostly) I decided to do my second track day in it, as the weather was pretty good and I had some free time. Unfortunately I wasn’t the only one with the same thought process and the track was super busy that open day. I arrived late and only managed to get 4 laps in.

It wasn’t horrible but the car was clearly underpowered, and I’m not very experienced at drifting low power cars. I did get one run on my GoPro, and some exterior footage of another run. Here they are.

I was a lot more excited to drive after that day, so I wanted to do whatever I could to enjoy the rest of the season, an engine swap is in the plans but that won’t be for a long time. So I looked around and a diff ratio swap seemed like the best bang for your buck. It would get me some extra torque out of the ka, and would still be a useful mod with an SR depending on my turbo setup. I decided to go up to a 4.6 from the factory 4.08.

I was able to source the ring and pinion from FB marketplace and ship it out here. Got the diff out and took it to a professional to get installed, I also got myself a VLSD rear cover for extra fluid capacity. Should help keep the 2 way a bit cooler and it was a cheep upgrade so might as well.

The diff install went smoothly but unfortunately the pinion baring which looked visibly okay wasn’t. So I had to make a tough decision whether to take everything apart to replace it, or just send it for just this season… I decided to go with the latter option. Which I sincerely hope doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass, but at this point I just want to drive!

The 4.6 feels great, going 90kmh at 3k rpm isn’t ideal, but the extra torque feels great and I can’t wait to try it out at the track!

That was the last mod I did to the car, I did change the driver seat again by the time this post comes out, I swapped the Zeta II for the Maxis, just for a quick video shoot. I think I’ll go back to the Zeta II as it’s a lot more comfortable imo, but it’s definitely cool to have the Mixes in even if temporarily.

While all of this was happening I also commissioned a talented friend to make a replica of my car in Assetto Corsa, so that’s cool, it turned out really well and you can download it from my IG account.

That pretty much sums up what’s been happening the last few months, nothing too crazy but I’ve got some new parts on the way and a few things I’d like to change, so hopefully those will be in the next post soon.

I’m finishing this post up on a Friday night at home instead of being out and about driving the car because one of tires decided to go flat on the highway, thankfully no damage and new tires already ordered. But that means the car will be out of commission for at least a week or so 😦

So what does the future hold at this time?

Trying to do a quick refresh for the winter season, a few places need a fresh coat of paint, and in more exciting news I’m currently looking at getting a new engine!

hoping to find something clean sometime before summer comes, will make for a fun off season project lol.

Anyways, thanks for reading as always! Enjoy some cool pics from a Cars@Coffee I attended with a few friends and some from the drift day I did.

-Malek