Although nothing has happened with this car I’ve been flat out in the garage, working hard on the Hilux and distracting myself with a little bit of two wheel fabrication, ill update everything tomorrow night, for now we can bask in two tone glory!

The 180SX has touched down for the first time this year, im pretty stoked that everything i had on my mind last year is now fixed, after 3 years of ownership its a good feeling to have put so much time into driving and maintaining this car.

With the new tunnel, RB25 gearbox, new battery, new ecu mount, washed seats and repainted floor the interior went back together just like it should. I made a new shifter to see how it goes but i may make a few to try some different angles, let me know if you have an RB25 shifter laying around i can buy.

All finished with the reworks on the 180, tomorrow ill get it of the jackstands and give it a wash, I’m really glad i put the effort in to go over every little issue i had last year. Cant wait to drive again, 2012 will be a heap of fun!

When i started this project the idea was to maximise the use of low cost parts, my tried and true recipe of low tune 400HP TD06 (by the way you may notice the new TD06L2 8cm has shown up) SR20 with an RB25 gearbox and r200 2way means the 300kg drop in weight will transfer to an increase in performance and reliability that would otherwise be super expensive in a normal weight car. Its still not cheap though but as far as builds of this calibre go its a drop in the ocean. If i was to purchase every product needed to finish the build right now i wouldnt have much change from around $15,000. Instead ill just focus on what i need next and plug away at the bigger picture.

Since the end of last years drift season ive been slowly getting through all the jobs on the 180SX, keeping with the plan to only fix what needs to be fixed im confident this car will feel like it did at the start of last season. Last night i gave the inside a clean out, repainted the floor, cleaned the seats (you wouldnt believe how much rubber was under the cushions) and made a new dump pipe. Now all i have to do is finish the exhaust and shes ready to go!

With the engine bay now taking shape it was time to put the motor back in and start thinking about where everything will run, with my TD06 only days away I cant wait to start designing the plumbing and cooling side of things. Read on for more..

I have been looking forward to this weekend all week, a full day with no plans other than move forward on the hilux build. Its amazing what you can get done in a solid day of work at home. Heres what happened.

Last night was spent finishing off the new tunnel, I deciced to keep my original handbrake setup so i positioned and welded that on the top of the tunnel, i had a FullRiver drycell battery that i planned to run in the hilux but i decided to swap my heavy battery with that so i also mounted it behind the dash on top of the tunnel. A quick coat of pressure pack red and you would hardly even notice all those hours of work.