sileighty ca18 gangster extraordinaire project *warning, picture whore

sup guys
this the 1989 180sx I bought after I sold my integra. When I bought it, it was bone stock CA18DET with 100,000 km on it. Super clean, all it needed was a battery and the alternator fixed. So I scooped it up for a good price, with the intentions of keeping it relatively stock, and very clean and low, nice wheels, daily drive it.









When I bought the car the alternator didnt work. It looked like he tried to install it and gave up halfway.. and he also lost the tension bracket thing. So i had to make one. i wired it up and it ran great. Also got a new windshield and got a new exhaust made. it was fully straight piped for a bit, but then a cop gave me a fix it ticket :/ so i got one resonator in there. i miss the sound off the turbo whistle




next came sound system, as I was driving it in the snow and couldnt do anything else. Pics are self explanitory.






new deck, And a 12" Sub 600 w amp. it pounded really nice. but was later taken out for weight. It was a really fun winter car, with what little winter we did have.

this is what happens when you have 23 year old stock speakers. All four speakers had the flexible lip blown to shit and missing. ridiculous.





more pictures... it was driven like this thorugh alot of winter. very nice comfy stock suspension. not for long.....




i could barely see at night so i got hid conversion housings, with 8k hids, kinda regret cheaping out on them as they do blind people though I try not to. The are halogen lights and they have Hids for high beams.

It was around this time I wanted to take off the spoiler, and we did, and wow. 11 holes in it stock. all rusted. its gross. Its the only rust on the whole car. So for the time being, I put a skyline gtst spoiler on.(pics later) i like it alot, not something u see on s13 hatch too much but i feel it suits the body.. also i ditched the stock airbox and got a new intake


parts!!!
no pics atm

Oem super hicas skirts (to replace mine, the passenger side has a scuff)
Oem super hicas rear valence , (gets rid of ghey mudflaps)
hopefully i can get em on soon


Blitz twin solenoid boost controller unit
Blitz turbo timer


I love it, holds one gauge, and the 2 units above fits under cd deck

Trisco water temp gauge




-



new mods..
i traded an old, cracked old VIS carbon fibre hood an intercooler. Apexi hybrid. sanded down and cleaned and painted flat black so she looks pretty again. Gained alot more top end but a bit of lag. I like it.
old :
the shitty part where its all bent in has since been replaced
new:

-

My goal for this car was clean and it needed to be low and fucking gangster.So I need to dump my car big time. But i gotta ball on a budget. so I sourced some cheap ksport rear, D2 front. Also I ordered a pair of 15mm and a pair of 25 mm ichiba spacers, and I got project silvia RUCAs. they were gross so i painted em silver and nice again.
works for now.





And the result!!! a bit lower. handled very nicely. so much better than stock.


fuckin sunkin in gayness




For wheels, XXR 507 18x9.5 +12 front, 18x9.5 +2, spacers on. light stretch.


They did NOT fit the car on stock coils, the fronts rubbed the stock spring. I THOUGHT maybe with coilovers they would not rub.. turns out they still rubbed. which is why i need to run spacers. so ive had some troubles fitting the wheels, its been a very lengthy process. still not done. Alot of hammering. and i also screwed up some fenders in the process. but oh well now I learned to go slower. theres more work to be done on wheel fitment though, I would like to relocate the under fender wires to inside the engine bay.


so after alot of work the wheels FINALLY fit, kinda. I rolled the back, added some camber, and woohoo they fit nice. the fronts, rolled, fit, but the fender looked like SHIT. i did not use a fender roller, i used a baseball bat and it came out pretty bad. i will address this later. but in the meatime hells yeah Im finally fuckin darn gangster
first look
reppin DG hard as fuck



camberrrr




-

it looked good but i needed to the replace the front fenders, so i had a couple options.

1. new fenders, easy enough
2. wide body
3. sil80 conversion

hmmm...
Answer number three!!!!!!!!

this was a HUGE P.I.T.A. heres some pics before and after.






i dont have silvia rad support so we had to make brackets. Seibon carbon fibre hood and brick lights . I also deleted the hood latch and line because the line runs through the wheel well, one less thing for me to rub on. Other than looking good, this swap saved me close to 50 lbs!! (headlight motors, carbon hood) i really like it. My old flip up lights werent working anymore so this really was the best decision. I painted the fenders flat black, they need to be rolled and then filled and sanded. oh well looks better than blue i guess. i will get paint when I get my kit painted. the only bad part is my rare foglights dont fit anymore :/. i wired some yellow bulbs into my dual projectors (looks like triple projectors but nope!) the HIDS are plug and play so that was simple enough.

So getting back to filling the body. It was still ugly. so I filled it and now its less ugly. hahaha Its got a decent flare to it. this was my first time using bondo. It looks decent I did it to both sides. I do still want overfenders though




-

Okay around this time, the relay box located under the airbox/air filter was really getting on my nerves. It was loose, and got in the way of my intake and my hid kit. It was very annoying. So i thought i would be a baller and tuck it. So heres my first shot at being cool (yes i know there is blue left over, i missed it while spraypainting. its fixed now)
where?
there
and the area it cleaned up (well not clean clean but you get the idea) :

-

SO while I was waiting for paint, i got bored. installed my blitz turbo timer and controller unit. i have never ever done something like this before but i figured i would give it a try, and Now i can say i learned so much throughout this install. thanks to some fellow DG's i hooked it up right. thanks guys
mid install madness:
after, clean as fuck yo :
I <3 carbon fibre! the console is faux wrapped and the door control surrounds. the shift knob is real nismo carbon fibre:

-




alllrighty more wire tucks.. *I should probably mention that I totally stripped and painted my rear. more on that later.

this was a HUGE pain in the ass. very little pay off. probably about 12+ harnesses and 5 feet of wire I had to navigate through the body. and had to lengthen some wires.. but now i have no wires over both wheel wells, theyre all tucked, looks clean, abs unit is tucked (kinda). im trying to prove that stripped can be done cleanly.. I also deleted the hatch pop and the gas tank pop.. Now to open the gas tank, push the left side and it pops open. All i had to do was bend a little piece of metal in the gas tank lid. And i got a fire extinguisher for half cool effect, half not a bad idea.
oh and i got a rear strut bar. made a considerable difference for the money
-
STOCK appearance when you take off the plastic panel

AFTER tuck. its less busy. Im anal about my car hahah


-

restoral of jdm parts! nismo s13 strut tower bar.. very cool, came on my car.. rare.. always loved it but it lacked that lustre. so i sanded and painted the bases black again. as for the bar: i sanded with steel wool, then wet sand from 800 grit to 2000 grit. then mothers metal polish on a ball on a power drill. finish it up with a nismo sticker and BAM from ashy to classy.



--
deep deep clean. all sound deadening removed in the process. VERY big pain in the ass without the use of dry ice. Not much notice in cabin noise. carpet was pressure washed and is now beautifully clean!


-



okay so i drove around like this for 2 days. truck mode activate.




I got some odd looks and questions about its legality,( which is still unknown to me..) its really nice on a hot day i was doing this because it is new hatch time. this time i got myself a carbon fibre hatch locally. I love it...im a carbon addict... anyways. weight loss effect? really not as much as you would think. with stock hatch, no spoiler, no wiper motor, WITH glass, weighs in at 55 pounds. my carbon hatch, no wiper motor, with glass weighs in at 38 pounds. so 17 pounds of weight loss. not enough to justify the price, but i figure I needed a new one because my old one was rusty and had like 12 holes in it. i dont get skyline spoiler anymore ill get used to the no-spoiler look.



okay so new mods. I never use my AC, so.. delete. this is a full delete and is for sale. everything including condenser under dash is 40 ish pounds of nose weight. equivalent to a spare tire.




so yeah im anorexic now. My car has ca18det, so i need all the power i can get. This can come in the form of weight loss. So what started as removing seats, turned into stripping Im going for the stripped and clean look, still working on it. the back was stripped and sanded of all sound deadening and accessories and painted sparkly black. rear strut bar loosk cool back there too, I would like to get a C pillar bar sometime in the future.
ive removed all the rear sound deadening, seats, wiper motor, seat belts, spare and tools, a/ c, carbon canister, blah blah blah and Im still going. cutting as much weight as I can. So far, ive cut 275 pounds as of july 17th. also the ca18det is 45 pounds lighter than sr20 and much lighter than ka24. so i believe im under 2500 pounds. power to weight ratio baby!!!

heres an ass shot from earlier.


ive got a TON more coming. in the meantime, keep it gangster folks. no sunken in wheels

MOOOOOOAAARRRR TRUCK MODE

truck mode is coming back again!!! eventually :p

hokay so ive been having an issue with my car not starting. i goofed something up, so i might as well upgrade.. anyways.. while its been sitting ive been collecting parts. so heres the current setup ive been pieceing together.

450cc dsm injectors
300sx MAF
Apexi SAFC NEO
tubular equal length exhaust manifold
Mines tuned ecu (tuned for my setup)
godspeed gt28 turbo

looking to get a solid 300 hp at the crank with this setup. I might need to buy a air/fuel gauge in order to help with the tuning part. injectors are on the way.........

parts in da mail

dsm 450's, came off a eclipse or talon. these are the twin spray injectors for MOAR PAWR also got new o rings.

Soldered in the N62 mass air flow sensor. easy peasy, looks kewl and flows way better than the stock pos

While waiting for parts, i decided to clean up the back. before, it was almost all wires fully tucked. So i tucked more and deleted the rear brackets. i dont have seats or rear speakers so it is just dead weight. So I yanked it out and I also tucked the wire underneath the body, cant see it no more. The only wire visible is the fuel pump.
before

after





full tucked and stripped. paint sparkle black/ clear coat. drift spec!

all right so i started the strip down. came much easier than some horror stories i have heard. no stripped bolts or nothing! was very nice to work on. so i got the stocker removed.


got lots of parts in. Gt28 came in, manifold, gaskets... So, i got to test fit the set up, and FUCK. hits the abs unit. awesome.... more work! Ill need to delete the unit. also my turbo needs to be clocked, and have a custom plate made for the wastegate bracket to fit. So i have alot of work to do