Well i have been organising cruises round some real tuff roads and i have found my first trial rally event to compete in if they will let me so i have decided i am going to completely overhall my steering suspention breaks to like a rally car and get it set up nicely From reading past posts this is what i am looking at, at this stage please feel free to point me in a better direction.

replace all the rubbers and bushes etc with nolathane?? (not sure what this is weather it is a brand????)
Recondition steering box
Adjustable Bilsteins struts
King Springs
Hilux 4 pots
mitsubish ventura rotors
Maybe R31 rear brake conversion

For a otherwise stock 180b it should stop quiet nicely

I want the car to compete in rallys (when i am older) so i am slowly going to build it up, and i thought i would start with handling stopping as i am just learning

i am hoping to do the above for about 1.5 - 2k, is this too little? i am guessing the most expensive items will be the bilsteins and the brakes but i have seen a set or adjustable bilsteines for a datto (unused but 2nd hand) sell for around 1100 so i am hoping that i can get somthing in a similar price range and that was with brakes any sugestions or help where to get bits from, has anyone got any of this the want to sell??

These a couple of things I have found when doing a similar thing, I'm sure everyone else knows better, but hopefully this might help you make a decision on what to do.

1. Replace all rubbers and bushes etc: Yep Nolathane is a brand of bushes. They have a reputatation for being the 'firmest' bushes too compared to other poly urethane bushes. I would be a bit cautios with replacing everything with poly urethane bushes. This is because it makes the car and the feedback you get from it very 'harsh'. Replace things like idler arm bushes with nissan stuff if possible. Same with LCA bushes.

2. Recon steering box - good idea, do your ball joints and tie rod ends while your at it.

3. Bilsteins - unfortunantly only P30 Bilsteins will fit into a datto strut and these are too small . You really need to use a commodore tube on your datsun strut with P36 bilsteins (about $450 pair new I think + $$$ to fit the commo tube if you cant do it yourself.) Other options are KYB's cheap and fairly good and hold up well. Or Koni's - the off the shelf stuff is pretty useless on the dirt, but once modified and revalved for rally use its great stuff, this is what I choose to run now (I have used KYB's, Bilsteins and Koni's on dirt.) although it comes at a cost. Its about $440 for some rear Bilsteins too.

4. King springs - things like Low/superlow etc as your choice for springs doesnt really give you much info on what your doing. Find a place that will make you a custom spring from scratch and work out what you want from there. With good inserts/shocks you could get away with std springs.

5. Hilux 4 spots + vented rotors, good. R31 rear brakes are an improvement too.

Hope that helps.

That is a heap of help mate thanks alot but now i am confused as all hell as what to use as a strut maybe it would be best of going the 240k struts for now? only down side to that is they are not adjustable which from what i have read is kinda important for rallying, oh well i take it 240k struts arnt that expensive so maybe ill work on struts in a bit when i get the rest sorted

How do you mean by adjustible? As in adjustible ride hight or adjustible damping / rebound inserts?

Both (eventhough beneficial) are not super important for your first car. If you have the spring rate, and ride hight right as well as the insert valving right it should be pretty good as is.

240K struts are a pretty good option as you can run the hilux 4spots etc.

Cheers

hmm i was talking about ride hight, i dont know enough about all the other steering suspention adjustments to be playing around with just yet :p and 240k stuts it is anyone got any maybe ill put up a wanted add, and some more research on hilux calipers

no strut is height adjustable from factory, all that are have been modified, and with the bilstein shocks - they are an insert that have adjustable rebound/damper settings

as said stick with the common setup of 240k struts with a hilux brake uograde, cheap and very effective, as for shock choice, how serious should depned on what setup you will need, if you only plan to hit the dirt rarely in comparison to it being a daily driver, i suggest getting a set of new stiffer shocks and springs along with all new bushes, that way it will be reliable and fresh, with no worn parts

but if you plan on rallying more seriously, then go for a set of koni's or bilsteins etc

first update in 1.5 years anyway a lot has happened since then. My family now owns 5 180b's, dad bought each of my two brothers one. I have also purchased a 180b SSS which will be restored and I still have my daily and my parts car. However I went bush with a friend at the start of the year in my daily and too much gas around a corner resulted in me taking on 3 small gum trees and a ditch. so my daily is now a few different colours. I have purchased a pilot air compressor (13cfm 12.5 watt motor 100L tank), a Lincoln 175 amp AC/DC tig welder along with a few other goodies for restoring cars.
so here are my plans at the moment.

Rainbow car (daily)
keep as a daily while I restore my sss, I will take off the vinyl roof and use some filler to get rid so its kind of straight and do a quick respray so its all one colour.
I want to get some lower springs all round because at the moment it is a dinosaur
I’ve upgraded to 240k front struts and brakes and might get some r31 discs for the rear otherwise that will do it.

Parts car
this will become a race car for me to get into some circuit racing. After going to a Winton fun day with a group of about 5 ppl and a vl on semi slicks plus a rwd Celica and having a ball I have decided to have a bit of a dip. So I will weld up all rust (just roughly of coarse) do some basic fabrication and stiffen it up a bit and see how we go. I assume ill be doing more performance upgrades down the track and i will experiment so I know what works well for my street cars.

SSS.
This is getting a bare metal restore. It is full of rust so with a wire brush attached to an angle grinder i will take of all the paint (I may invest in a sandblaster for hard to get to spots) I will cut and weld all rust and with the hammer and dolly kit I will get it as straight as i can before using bog to get it straight as a die and then paint. Prob metallic orange.

Anyway enough typing more pics (there will be more to come later, they are stored on my other comp)

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My garage:
180b sedan daily (needs some TLC)
180B sss (under restoration)
180b Wagon daily
http://ozdat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f= ... 9&start=30

I love the way you just do your repair job in your street. I've done that with friend's cars and it's a lot of fun.

The SSS looks a little rusted but it's definately savable, it's good to see you're going to tackle it all yourself. Kind of looks like my 200B SX at the back, maybe I should invest in a welder also....

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green200b - aka Alistair

The fleet:

Australia:
'80 200B GX - the green200b - hibernating
'81 RX-7 - 12A extend port - daily
'74 RX-2 - 13B bridgeport - cruiser

Europe:
'93 200SX - CA18DET - tourer