180SX

My 180SX has had a hard life, thats why i bought this chassis in 2007, my plan was to modify it to the point where it worked well and would be competitive at a national level leaving the chassis mostly standard and replaceable if anything bad should happen to it, you see drift cars being reshelled all the time and i wanted it to be a painless excercise if it was to ever happen, this left my PS13 to be preserved as a neat street car.

Since first building it in 2008-9 its remained fairly unchanged, everything works really well without being too “on the edge” that things fail prematurely.

Fast forward to the start of 2013 and the styling aspect of this car has just about gone full circle, why are there no sponsor stickers? Well i planned a long time ago that 2013 would be the start of a new era for me, i can no longer promise that this car will be the main focus of my drifting career, with so much going on right now i either need to go all out with sponsorship or nothing at all. My plan for the Hilux has always been to have it 100% sticker free, im working on a lot of things right now that will hopefully pay off and my driving will be a tax write off for my business (i wish)

Its a breath of fresh air, with sponsorship comes commitment, with commitment comes pressure, that pressure sometimes takes the freedom out of the sport. Its extremely hard to be sponsored in Australia and be doing enough to fulfill the commitments of your sponsors, i believe that your actions should speak louder than words and a successful sponsorship partnership should be balanced with the sponsor doing the talking and the driver doing the actions.

Im extremely happy with the 180SX’s current look, im not happy about the rear end at the moment and im planning on doing something to fix that, i have a spare shell that a friend (cheers Miles) will be lending a hand to shape, then my local FRP shop will take a mould and i will essentially have a 4 panel FRP rear end that only needs TypeX taillights to make a complete rear end. The guards will have full coverage and wrap all the way around and under the taillight essentially needing no sheetmetal in the rear end. just a tube structure to hold the fuel cell and FRP on. Whats the shape going to look like? Im thinking a 30mm pump with the factory bodyline intact…

I have wound a little more camber into the front to fit the 17×9 Bee Racing rims into the factory metal guards, more camber and metal guards work well together, the sweep of the tire fits inside them a lot nicer than a similar fitting wheel with less camber.

I made up some decals for the windows for Top Gear Festival this weekend to look the part but they may come off later, what do you think?

Inside things are mostly the same, i actually want to fit a head unit and some speakers so those boring startline waits can be more entertaining.

This Nardi wheel is nearly worn through, it shows how much track time this car has seen.

I made a new sunroof too, using some left over 3mm Lexan Polycarbonate from the Hilux i swapped the red for clear as i really want to open up the interior now that theres no tint and everythings clean.

Remember what i was saying about competitive drift cars? Well this setup from 08 is now a rare sight in national competition and the HP it supports is no longer enough to cut it, the internally standard (apart from ARP headstuds, Metal HG, Greddy Cams) SR20DET is still as healthy as ever, as far as SR20s go its actually very stock in my eyes, since the Hilux engine has taught me so much about ECUs, tuning, wiring and ancillaries im looking forward to updating everything and making this view a neater one.

See you all in Sydney this weekend for Top Gear Festival!