Back in an s body-180sx import drifter

[derekmcl05]

Hey everyone, thought it was time to get another build thread up of my latest rwd, a freshly imported 180sx type x.

My first proper drift car (after owning a sierra and a vauxhall carlton)was a uk spec ca powered 200sx many moons ago, I sold it six years ago and have owned a 1jz manual soarer and a 1jz manual jzx100 chaser since then. Loved the jz power, but I really wanted something that would be more competitive that I didnt care so much about, ie more fun!!!!
And after the chaser taking a shunt to the quarter panel at a competition day I decided it was time to sell.
So with the help of my mate Alan McCrory at driftwizards I finally found my perfect car in Japan. A 1996 180sx type x in silver, grade 3, recently rebuilt blacktop, with a lot of good mods already done.

After a very long 6 weeks, she finally landed in Dublin on 17th May last year. We set off 3 days later on the 3 hour journey to bring her home

[derekmcl05]

After getting it back home and giving it a full inspection, I was really surprised at the amount of extras that came on it!!
As the car is going to be driven hard 95% of the time, some safety mods and reliability were the first thing to address. I ordered an ACT 6 puk clutch kit, the standard clutch seemed ok, but would be a waste of time trying to drift using it. A driftworks solid gearbox mount was ordered to help prolong the life of the sr box and help with gear changes at higher revs.
Also fitted a baffled sump and tomei rocker arm stoppers, new 10w 60 engine oil, redline gearbox oil, funches diff oil

[derekmcl05]

Next was to get her undersealed, fit a fog light for the MOT and sort the speedo, got it sorted in an afternoon and booked the MOT for the following day,
She sailed through


The wheels that came on it were 16x6s, so it was time to get them replaced with something more stylish, I fitted a pair of 17x9 et20 Rays I had from the chaser, and bought a very similar almost matching pair off my bro in the same sizes. Also screwed the coilovers as low as the sump and diff would allow
Sitting pretty on my driveway fully road legal

[derekmcl05]

After some 'testing' on the street, I bought a rear strut bar and some kinked front tension arms, and dropped the car off to chris burnett for some steering lock modifications.
Picked the car up 1 week later, and by the time I had made the journey home I was already getting used to all the extra lock.
Next on the agenda was to get to a track and give it a proper days testing!!
Me and my brother attended our local track for a practice day in July. Part of the day was spent fine tuning the coilovers stiffness/height but by the end of the day the car was handling fantastic and I was getting confident with the big entries in my 240hp machine

[derekmcl05]

Thanks to JamesWilsonPhotography for the photos

[rmc]

Really clean looking car. Great to see it being put to use.

[derekmcl05]

cheers rmc. Its downhill from here, shes already had a couple of taps front and back lol, pics to follow

[derekmcl05]

So after the first practice day I was really pleased with how the car was handling/performing. A bit down on power compared to the 1jz's I owned, but the speed that can be carried in it makes up for the lack of power and torque
I daily drove the car over the next while, then entered it into the AMA Drift Series final at Nutts Corner on the 24th August (I was competing for fun on and off in the chaser in the AMA Drift Series, best I acheived in it was 4th place out of around 60 entrys and my chaser was basically stock bar fmic exhaust and lsd)

Nutts Corner Oval isnt a very forgiving place as its basically a stock car stadium with solid concrete walls running the full way around the outside of the track.
The way the organisers Con Tinney and Andy McFetridge set the track up was fantastic, balls out at the first wall, getting as close as possible, running the wall the whole way round, followed by a manji up the straight then another big entry into the bottom corner as close to the wall as you can get without it all going tits up.
Practice went ok considering it was a quite a hot day and the 180sx had just about enough power to get me round the bends the way I wanted.
Qualifying came, 3 attempts, I felt I done 2 average runs and a good run. I made it into the top 16, qualifying around 9th position.
The battles were intense, I was first up against an m3 bmw, I knocked him out and proceeded to the top eight, where I met another m3, running a lot of mods and wisefab lock etc etc, we done our lead and follow runs, and the judges voted for a one more time, but on the first one more time the m3 smoked me off the line, leaving the underpowered 180 a few car lengths behind before the first initiation, I closed the gap some, but not enough, so I was knocked out before I could make the top 4
But I had a fantastic day, lots of fun and I was buzzing the whole way home, thinking about some stage 3 power mods


Got so close to the wall on my practice I rubbed the paint off the bumper