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Originally Posted by LoSt180
I've been watching your products for a while and I certainly think the minor twists you've added are tasteful.
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thanks man, i appreciate the compliment. everything im releasing from here on out (except maybe the Border kit cause its perfect in my eyes) will have updates/changes made. the C-West kit im bringing back, i will be editing the front bumper a bit. there are quite a few things i dont like about it now that i have one on hand (the center air dam being the biggest). the Bomex and Greddy Gracer bumpers im bringing out will have their lower lip area raised up an inch so they match their accompanying side skirts i already make (they are both GT style bumpers that sit an inch below their matching skirts and ive NEVER like this style of bumper).
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Originally Posted by LoSt180
The trends are changing, but I don't think that is a bad thing like you're alluding to. The trend now seems to be away from extreme body kits and the "different for the sake of being different" mentality that gave rise to them. What you call "trendy" looks more to me that a shift is being made to restoration of these cars vs wild mods. Newer platforms are becoming track favorites. After having a crazy kit back in the early/mid-2000s, I know that I now really like the simplicity and ease of clean lines and how much the OEM parts fit the car so much better. Maybe I'm just becoming an old millennial. I have a 97 with OEM JDM aero that I've been putting together the past 8 years or so. Just funny what I thought was nice is now considered trendy.
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my issues with 180sx kouki aero NOW lies in the fact that EVERYONE is doing it because its social media popular (and that the old school kits that im bringing back simply arent available anymore and no one runs them so people cant see how good they look properly mounted and painted). big name social media folks and influencers are all running the kit on their cars, so 180sx kouki aero is pretty much all thats seen anymore on hatches. 8 out of every 10 S13 parts sales i make are all 180sx kouki aero. while i appreciate how well these particular parts sell... its just frustrating that very few people will try anything else i make anymore. i think once i bring out the bomex and gracer bumpers, this may change a bit (along with the C-West and Border kits). i do hear from people that they think my bomex and gracer skirts are too "aggressive" when in fact, the skirts sit at the same height as 180sx zenki/chuki skirts. ALL of the parts i bring back are strictly 90s based aero designs and i dont think a lot of folks understand that 90s based aero was very timid in terms of its height. the bulk of aero items designed in the 90s were made to work with 180sx zenki/chuki skirts and everything sat at roughly the same height as those mentioned skirts (be it valances, bumpers or skirts).
while i do agree with you on the restomod thing folks are doing in modern times, i still have the old school mentality of when i was young in the 240 scene back in the early 2000s and people wanted to be different. there was so much variety out there in terms of aero and the approaches folks were taking. and yes, i will agree with that huge paneled aero kits are out. there was a small window of time where i liked the overly aggressive kit look, but the bulk of my interest in aero parts has always been on the more subtle side. and now that its almost 9 years later of me doing aero parts, i have a very deep seeded love for 90s aero as a lot of it was very unique, but also was made to work well with the car itself utilizing OE aero parts as a base. so nothing was super over the top... outside of BN Sports and B-Wave, no one in the 90s/early 00s was making super aggressive and low aero. that didnt come until the mid to late 00s. Vertex, Instant Gentleman, Rocket Bunny, Uras etc all adopted that really aggressive height of BN Sports and B-Wave in their designs. though, i dont think a lot of younger folks now understand how timid 180sx kouki aero is. the skirts sit at the same height as the OE S13 Silvia skirts and if you run the full 180sx kouki kit, you really have to slam the hell out of the car for it to look really good IMO. the 180sx kouki aero kit was all a giant cluster fuck on Nissans part as well. from a design perspective, im not sure what they were thinking TBH. The front bumper and lip sit lower than the skirts. the valances were carry overs from the 180sx chuki model. the skirts SORT OF match the front bumper and valances (nissan should have redesigned the valances to flare out a bit more on the side instead of tucking under the car so as to better match the skirts). the wing, i wont even get into that monstrosity (ive NEVER liked the 180sx kouki wing, it doesnt match the car at all). personally i think TBO and Bomex wangan wings are the ideal wing for a hatch as they match the cars design aestehtic perfectly, no matter what generation OE aero you are running
but yeah, in terms of coilover height... personally i cant stand being that low anymore. i like making it over speed bumps without my exhaust flanges scraping (and anything else for that matter). i really did like 180sx kouki aero for a long time up until recently... back before it became a huge trend. now, i feel its all over the place and no longer unique in any way. as i said, 180sx kouki aero used to be the "anti-trend" aero as very few people ran it. now, it along with Navan and S14 kouki aero, its the hottest commodity on the market for the S13. im just happy im done with the DorkiDori V2 Hatch kit and i can move onto new projects that have nothing to do with 180sx kouki anything for a while. though i still have to redesign the S13 V6 Hatch valances to fit the coupe this coming summer, just so i can get those out of the way as i know A LOT of coupe guys are going to want them (and i will be making the matching coupe bumper in the next year or so). to this day though, i am still happy i took those 6 weeks back in Jan/Feb of 20 to make the S13 Type-XC valances and do something no one has ever done in the past. it made me happy to be able to offer something so special to coupe folks.
im not trying to sound like an old man yelling at clouds by any of this... i guess im just from a different era who isnt influenced by social media much. ive never been one to follow trends much in my life. i always try to either stay ahead of them, or really just do my own thing. i get wanting the hotest new thing is kind of how life goes for most folks, but maybe it has to do with me owning and building S13s for 20 odd years that i have this huge catalog of memories in my brain of things i thought were amazing that so few got into, but i still go back to memories of Zilvia in its hey day... seeing this huge community of 240sx owners all really wanting to make their cars stand out and do different things, and that doesnt seem to be how it is in modern times i guess. im glad that kids are still building these cars, and i am beyond humbled that so many people see what i make as something special (i just like to make what i make, it brings a lot of happiness to my life... money and attention have zero influence on that either, dorkidori in all its ventures is fueled by my passion and love for these cars). i just HOPE that in another years time when i have a lot more full kits available for both the coupe and the hatch that i can bring some variety to the scene again and help people realize that "type x" isnt the only game out there for looking amazing.
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Originally Posted by LoSt180
My daughter picked up an S13 hatch recently. Of course I told her that the kouki type-x aero is the cleanest, but since that's so hard to find complete (and out of her budget these days) I've steered her towards your website as a nice alternative. Of course she's doing typical 17 year old things like drift charms and sticker bombing the cracked dash. But hey, it's her car and she'll figure out what works at some point.
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i appreciate you showing her my stuff
thats very kind of you to do! and keep in mind, a lot of us were all into that JDM hype trend stuff when we were younger too
it takes a bit of maturing to really appreciate keeping things simple and getting away from the teeny bopper trends of (current times) social media influence.