Pour one out for Zilvia.net. The long-standing Nissan S-Chassis (240SX, 180SX, Silvia) forum was, up until just a few days ago, an invaluable resource for owners seeking project tips, swapping parts, and more. After being online for almost three decades, there was a lot of insight and lore within the threads of Zilvia.net. Its going away is a loss for the car community and a reminder that digital content doesn’t necessarily last forever.
Members of the forum logging in this week weren’t greeted with new posts, build threads, or cars for sale. Instead, they found a message announcing the site’s permanent closure at every link.
The notice read:
“Zilvia.net has been permanently closed. In December 2025, an unauthorized party obtained forum-account data and published it online. The information involved included usernames, email addresses, IP addresses, and salted MD5 password hashes. No financial data or other sensitive personal information was stored on the site.
The forum has been taken offline and will not return. If you used the same password on any other site or service, please change it as a precaution.
A read-only static archive of the forum’s publicly visible material may be explored in the future, but there is no plan or timeline for this.
Zilvia.net started in 1998 and remained online for more than twenty years because of a grassroots community that showed up, contributed, and made it what it was. Many amazing friendships, connections, and even families grew out of the community that formed here. The depth of knowledge, expertise, and willingness to help one another defined this place and shaped countless projects over the years. The Nissan S-Chassis (mostly) focus brought together one of the most passionate grassroots groups of enthusiasts anywhere, and it was a privilege that Zilvia.net could be part of that story.
I am genuinely saddened to see it end and deeply appreciative of everyone who shared their time, knowledge, and passion over the years.
With heartfelt appreciation, thank you, Zilvia.net community, for everything.”
That makes it sound like somebody was hacked, but details on what exactly happened to the site, or if any other host will adopt it, remain unknown. We’ve seen some chatter in Facebook groups indicating that other forum owners have tried to help, and at least one FB group (calling itself “Zilvia 2.0”) has popped up where an admin shared that they hoped to “to see some of the vibe and knowledge base kept alive,” so there’s at least some hope for the knowledge base that was stored within the forum. But nothing’s really certain yet.
You can access parts of the site through the Internet Archive, but it’s incomplete and inefficient.
According to my Gmail records, I had been a Zilvia member since 2017, already nearly 20 years after the site launched in 1998, the same year I was born. I may have joined relatively late in its life cycle, but like many Nissan enthusiasts, I had been referencing Zilvia threads long before I ever made an account. With old cars, things break constantly, and with every Google search about any 240SX problem imaginable, there was always some stranger on the other side of the country who had already solved it and was willing to help.
Before Facebook groups, we had forums. These simple, rudimentary sites were more than just discussion boards—they were the starting point for ambitious builds and real friendships. It all started with a search: “Why aren’t my pop-up headlights working?” “S14 wheel fitment pics,” “Upgrading my SR20DET.”
Then a thread would unfold, and people from all over the world would share their knowledge and experiences. The dedication we had to the chassis made Zilvia a daily ritual for many—almost like checking your email. With that level of commitment, forming friendships with the OP (original poster) over time felt inevitable.
The knowledge shared in Zilvia’s database surpassed what you’d find in an original Nissan 240SX service manual. It’s heartbreaking to know that the deepest pool of S-Chassis wisdom is suddenly gone—and with it, all the images, diagrams, and walkthroughs. Sure, I won’t be able to reread 240guy92104’s legendary write-up on swapping an S14 differential into an S13. But thankfully, a lot of that information survives elsewhere. YouTube, Facebook groups, Reddit, and Discord are where much of the Zilvia community has already migrated.
Still, losing Zilvia feels like losing a piece of S-Chassis history. And for many of us, a piece of our adolescence, too.
Got any Zilva memories? Tell us about them at tips@thedrive.com.