Installing An Original Nissan 180SX Type-X Front End On The RB25 240SX!

Instead of going the original route with all the parts that came on the car. In 89, i'm actually going to spice things up a bit with a full 180sx type x kit, now, just in case you've, never heard of a 180sx before. Let me give you a bit of background in the us. The 240 was available in two body: styles, coupe and hatchback in japan. You had the same thing, but the body styles went by different names. The coupe was the silvia, while the hatchback was the 180sx. The 180sx had a 1.8 liter turbo 4 cylinder known as the ca18, while the 240 had a naturally aspirated 2.4 liter, four cylinder known as the ka 24. Now, despite the differences between the two different markets, they were still the same s13 chassis now fast forward. A little bit in japan, i think, maybe around the mid 90s, they updated the 180sx with a few new versions called the type r, the type s and the type x. The type x was the top dog. So to speak, they all had different styling tweaks, but only the type x had this full on ground effects. Kit a spoiler, unique tail lights like it was just one big old package. It was very, very cool, i think, that's also when they introduced the sr 20 motor to the chassis. That being said, it's understandable why the type x conversion has become such a popular upgrade on us cars.

The downside is that, especially in the last couple of years, parts are starting to get harder to find i've been on the hunt for all of my stuff for the last three three and a half years, and i just got the last piece of the puzzle. The other day it's the little side marker lenses that go on the front fenders, but i've got a mix of new oem parts that were still in stock at nissan some new old stock parts that were from different vendors in the states and in japan, and some Used stuff, so it's worked out pretty good. I was actually able to track down the rare front. Lip too, which i'm very excited about. The thing is, my car is not ready for body and paint, so everything i do in the front is gon na have to come back off later, but i need a front end and i'm tired of just seeing all of this stuff sitting on my shelf. So it's been really fun, taking all this stuff out, organizing and seeing how it all goes together, because there's no set instruction manual on how to do all of this. You kind of just got ta figure it out, but if you got all the parts it's pretty straightforward, you can expect additional content on the rest of the type x parts going forward. But for this video we're going to focus on the front end and i'll show you how the complete setup goes together.

All right. First things: first let's start fitting the bumper. This is the center support for the bumper it just slots in here. There'S holes already cut in the bumper just like that. Then you've got this curved metal piece that has three sections of weather stripping on it, that slots in here on top of those studs the center support, brace and then it's all bolted together before i go any further let's go ahead and set the bumper on the Car right, quick because i have a sneaky feeling i'm going to run into clearance problems with that intercooler piping. Well, it looks like i'll have a couple problems to deal with here. The bumper sticking out way too far, because this little tab on the backside is hitting the coupler. Even if i take that tab off the back side of this brace is going to hit so i'm going to have to notch that too. In this hole, you have a little vent shroud with a light that mounts there's a tab right there, it tucks into right there and then it screws in in two places now worst case scenario. I may not be able to use that lower screw hole but i'm, not sure. Yet. I guess let's go ahead and start trimming and see what we can come up: Music with Music, well, it's, better, but still a long way off. Those bottom screw holes are gon na have to go, and i might even have to come into the bumper a little bit more.

All right, it is very close. The back edge of the bumper right now is resting on the coupler, so it's still poking out a little bit. I'M gon na shave a little bit more off the back of the bumper just to accommodate the couplers, and i think that'll be enough to get it to sit flush sheesh. I completely underestimated how much i was gon na have to hack out of this thing, but it should fit fine now with the setup as i have it, just the intercooler, the piping, where the headlight motors are located everything put together. There was no way i was going to get this thing to fit without really cutting some stuff out. I would have to have completely changed my current setup and it's. No, so, unfortunately, i also had to cut up those little vent inserts too. I think once i clean everything up, it's going to look alright but uh. Let me just reset. Let me just show you what i'm talking about. I still don't have any other brackets attached, but, as you can see, it's lining up at the car pretty much perfect. Now, everything's looking pretty good over here too, i might trim a little bit more down in here like where the bumper gets a little close to the intercooler, but as far as the piping and coupling and stuff there's plenty of room now so again, this is what The complete vent and light shroud housing, whatever you want to call it looks like – and this is what i had to do to actually make it fit.

So it still has the shape. It'Ll still mount up fine, but i had to get rid of every single extra piece of plastic on here. Of course, i got to clean all this up and make it look nice and pretty or as pretty as i can make it. I guess, but let me show you what it looks like on the car here. It is screwed in it honestly doesn't look bad it's missing the two fins down there. Obviously, so you see more of the intercooler piping, but it's screwed in up there. The tab is secured over there, so it's not going anywhere, and then you don't see anything on the back that i had cut off. So it's still going to plug up just fine i'm going to move these two hose clamps to where the the screws are pointing down, so they don't get in the way, but i think it worked out all right Music. All things considered, i think this turned out pretty good. I got to go through and clean up all the rough edges and reposition the hose clamps on the intercooler piping, but i'm happy one important thing to remember when it comes to the type x lighting components both for the front and the rear. Is that the wiring and the pigtails are different from usdm cars, so you're either going to have to rewire the taillight or the lights or find a conversion harness? I found all of this stuff, probably a few years ago, somebody on ebay was selling these and it makes all of the type x stuff totally plug and play to the usdm harness.

So this is going to save a tremendous amount of time very well worth it. That'S, pretty cool right there, i'm gon na go ahead and take everything back apart now, so i can finish cleaning up those edges and then i'll come back when it's time to put the rest of the brackets on all right. Everything is nice and smooth it's, not totally perfect i'll be able to work at it a bit more when uh it comes time for body and paint. But for the moment all the jagged edges are gone. So it'll do i'm just about ready to mount the bumper back on the car, but i want to first show you guys something else that i went ahead and took care of i'm. Not sure if i ever talked about this in a previous video or not. But when you're running a touch radiator on these cars with the pop up headlamps, you actually lose the pop up functionality, which, in my opinion, is one of the coolest features of the car, because the factory motor location is up in this area. So you can see with the radiator you lose all of that space. However, there is a company out there called auto collect storm that makes a headlight motor relocation kit, which takes the motor from being up there to down there. They have a longer linkage and whatnot and i was having trouble adjusting them turns out. I had the linkages backwards, you know the one that was over here was supposed to go on the other side and vice versa.

So i got all of that. Taken care of and adjusted as best, i could again we're gon na have to fix these body gaps and stuff when it comes time for paint because it's definitely not perfect, but they are flush now so it's gon na look sweet. I almost forgot about one more thing: i actually have an original foam bumper core from a type x bumper, so i had to take the stiffening brackets back out, but i've got that laid down in there fits perfect last time. I double checked all of this fit with the crash bar that i have on the car, so let's go ahead and fit the whole thing back on and keep our fingers crossed. I also picked up a set of replacement fender braces from auto collect storm because they're a lot more durable than the factory ones now here's a little comparison between the type x side, markers and the usdm ones. These are actually a little bit wider, so you can see like where the original one like kind of made a pattern in the paint over the years. This one is also completely flat, while the type x one has kind of a little bump out right here. It'S, just a different look, so oh man she's coming together just a couple more things before we can call this finished, so let's go ahead and put on the fender extensions. Now that big bracket right here this secures the bumper to the fender has three tabs.

As you can see, the type x bumper sticks out further than the body itself. You got ta put those extensions to fill it all in well there you have it folks, the 180sx type x front end. This looks so good. This car being an 89, would have originally had what's commonly referred to as the pig nose bumper, which my car actually had the factory lip at the bottom of that too, and it looked alright, but this is just way more aggressive. I love all of the air inlets across the bottom, the little vents to the outer edges. I mean it's, just really really cool well last, but certainly not least, we've got one more part to install and that's the optional factory front. Lip anyone familiar with these parts knows that this is a pretty rare piece. They don't come up for sale very often and when they do they're very expensive now i got lucky finding this one on like yahoo auctions, japan or something like a few years ago. It was attached to a type x bumper, which the bumper was trash, but it had good hardware, it had the lip and i think after um you know currency conversion. It was like a few hundred bucks or something it was for a very, very good deal for one of these lips, there's, no cracks or broken tabs, or anything like that. I do have to do a little bit of repairs on the mounting holes at the back edges, but that's not a big deal at all.

These look phenomenal on the type x kit and when you see it, you'll think that you'll think that the kit looks naked without it it's that awesome. I just can't get over how good this thing looks. This has been a long time coming: wow Music. There is a specific emblem that goes on the top of the bumper right. There got to drill a little hole and it's got some sticky tape so i'm not going to put this on quite yet because obviously got ta get everything painted, but this is technically the last piece of the puzzle. I would show you guys what it looks like with the hood closed, but i haven't installed my um, my hood pull cable yet so i can pop the latch, so i can't bring it all the way down, but anyway, i'm just it's, so so happy to be At this point right now and to see all of this come together, i can only imagine what it's going to look like with the side skirts and the rear valence the taillights, the spoiler all of that stuff, because now it's, finally starting to get kind of close To my original vision for the cars doing like sort of like a resto mod oem plus build with nissan power and all of that it's just so cool, well everyone. I hope you enjoyed the video, please don't forget to leave a like below. It really helps the video a lot and, if you haven't, subscribed already consider doing so, because there's always a lot more content where that came from i'll, see you guys on the next one.