Jimmy Oakes is a guy I’ve been following on YouTube since around 2016 when he decided to film his LS1 300ZX swap. From there he never put the camera down and his channel has well and truly taken off.
While he may be considered a “YouTuber” and move in the circles of other popular vloggers (and even did a stint at Hoonigan helping to wire up ShitCar’s SR20DET swap), he certainly doesn’t fit the mould. Jimmy is my favourite ‘tuber one simple reason; he puts in work! You won’t find him filming his morning coffee run, or a 10-minute monologue of the work he’s ‘going’ to do (and then outsources), nor will he spruik a giveaway or heavily push his merch. Every video is Jimmy grinding away in his shop, just getting shit done.
Which brings me to this build. Now the usual formula for Jimmy’s builds are simple in theory, but it’s the way he executes them that makes them great. Usually there’s an engine swap, a shaved/tucked and re-sprayed engine bay, a healthy dose of lowering and some killer wheels. There’s nothing wrong with this, but Jimmy and his mate Brian Hall (a certified body repair technician) wanted a challenge for themselves, and so Nissonda was born.
Nissonda is an EK Civic coupe with a K-swap. Not so unusual, I hear you say. But this “K” isn’t a K20 or K24, it’s a a KA24DE+T. Yep, that’s a Nissan 240sx engine with a turbo strapped to the side. Being a RWD engine in a FWD car, the guys also custom fabricated completely new architecture under the car to accept a complete 240sx driveline and suspension swap!
Along with the swap, every single piece under the car gets refurbished and refreshed, and the finished product is amazing. While I can’t wait to see this thing ripping around a track sideways, what I’m most excited about is seeing what the guys build next, now that they’ve completely raised the bar.
Unfortunately there isn’t a dedicated playlist for Nissonda, so you’ll have to go through the channel and manually load them up. I suggest scrolling down until you find this video and work your way up from there.
Usually with video builds I just link you to a video or playlist and leave it at that, but I like this one so much that I wanted to document the build in pictures here, for the sake of archiving.
You can also follow Jimmy and Brian on their Instagrams.
Enjoy!
