106. Worlds FASTEST Evo, Apex Turbos, 4G63 Platform, w/ Hochman Fabrication and Speed

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Minnoxide Podcast. I'm your host, Harris, AKA Minnoxide, man of many automotive aspirations. And I'm here with my Ford loving co-host, Mr. Gunnick Raj.

I always do that when we're in a territory where you shouldn't bring that up. You just love doing that, don't you?

Yeah, he's our dedicated Ford specialist here. So, specialist is a strong word.

But you said the word coyote over there earlier, and I got a little excited.

Did, one of our biggest first projects was twin-turbo coyote motor setup.

Really? Today, we are at Hochman Fabrication and Speed, and we got a lot of things to talk about from, well, realistically, mostly about your Evo from this past weekend, literally, was it this last weekend? Yeah, just a few days ago.

It was, yeah.

You just set the record for fastest Evo in the world.

I did.

And, well, just go ahead and just introduce yourself a little bit, tell us a little bit about your shop, the Evo, and then we can go from there.

Sure. So at Hochman Fabrication and Speed, we specialize in high-quality fabrication. Most people know us for our custom exhaust work. That's mostly an entry-level custom fabrication job, so that's why people mostly know us from that. But we do everything from complete engine builds, we do full projects, cars from the ground up, we do basic maintenance, we build full roll cages, NHRA-certified roll cages specifically is our specialty, but we do road racing roll cages, and we'll be getting a lot more into the road racing world here soon. And we're just an all-around custom fabrication shop, and it's not the project that we say no to, it's the customers, really, and whether the timeline, the budget makes sense, and it's realistic. So we work on everything from Honda Civics all the way to multi-million-dollar hypercars. We built one of the only Porsche 918 custom exhausts that exist in the world. And there's nothing we don't take on.

I think I saw something about that in your lobby. I think those are Hamilton's cars, I believe, right?

Yeah, Steve Hamilton's brought in a couple of vehicles to us before. His first one was the Resvani, the six-wheeler. We did the custom exhaust on that one. And then, the next one that he brought in was his Porsche 918. We did a custom exhaust on that. And then, directly following that, we installed a Valvetronic exhaust system for him on his McLaren P1.

So you really don't say no to anything? Like you said, it's just usually the customer sort of deal. But no projects really scares you at this point?

As you know, in today's world, money and numbers drives everything. So it really comes down to what people's comfort level and expectation is, both with money and timeline. And if they're looking to get a custom exhaust for like $1,000, it's just not a realistic expectation. But we have a lot of different options. We can certainly install a pre-made exhaust if that's within their budget because custom isn't the way to go. But we usually don't get phone calls with people trying to compare us against the next shop when it comes to installing something off the internet because that's just usually not how they're looking for us. You know, they're looking for us because they really need us. They need a custom. They need something they can't. They've got a modern day SRT motor and, you know, a 1952 Dodge pickup truck and it does not fit. So running a manifold through that can be a challenge.

What's in this? I don't think I overheard earlier. Are you able to disclose that?

Yeah, it's and I'm not going to give all the details yet because I certainly haven't discussed openly with the customer about sharing it with the world, but it's an older 50s Dodge pickup truck that has a modern SRT engine in it. And it's a pretty unique project like many that come through the shop. And it just so happens to need manifolds because it just can't fit them through the frame rail with something off the shelf.

So tell us a little bit about your racing side of things. I'm guessing that's where most of your passion lies is on the racing side of things.

Absolutely. I mean, that's what drives this business, is the racing part of the business. My background is in business. I went to school at the University of Denver for marketing and was racing a Subaru 2006 STI up at Bandimere Speedway in my free time. My friends were drinking and partying most of the time. And I was in the garage trying to figure out how to make that car faster so that I could go do bracket racing and do whatever class was coming up like the KBPI, big event that they would put on or import wars or something that would come up. I always wanted to try and beat my personal best. So that's really where my passion and my background came from, was racing my car through college, my Subaru. We held many titles in the state even after we left, years after we left, we still had the fastest Subaru in the state of Colorado. I went to Stevenson High School over here in Lincolnshire, Illinois and graduated in 2002 before I went to school out there. And after living out there for over a decade, my high school sweetheart wife dragged me back home. So I packed up the Subaru with her and headed back to Illinois. P&L Motorsports is still the biggest Subaru shop in Illinois and holds many titles when it comes to the Subaru world. So first thing I did was take that car off the trailer straight over to P&L, get it dyno tuned and adjusted to make sure that it was at sea level. because when you're in Colorado, you're a mile high. There's a lot less oxygen. You can't run the same tune up there than you do down here. So definitely need adjustment. Right off the trailer, broke their dyno record. And this is a street car. So went up to Union Grove, which is the local racetrack, made a couple of test hits. And on the second test hit at the finish line at well over 120 miles an hour, the car went into a spin and hit the wall.

Oh damn.

So meanwhile, I had just moved back from Colorado to Illinois. It's my wife, our two dogs in my parents' basement. And the next morning, that breakfast was very interesting because there was a race car in their garage standing on like two or three wheels. They're looking at me like, what are you planning on doing with this? So I ended up selling that thing and like a day later, because it had a lot of history and a strong reputation. There were people that were going to come out from Colorado to try and bring it back. But I sold it locally and was a pretty lost soul for about six months. I drank a lot of beer and played a lot of golf, looking for the next chapter.

Cheaper hobbies, that's for sure.

And one day I was at my high school friend, Josh Starkey, shout out to you, and stumbled upon this sitting in his garage. And it was just stuck in 2003. It had an SAFC controller on it and a deafie boost gauge. I mean, it was perfect. And I said, I had to have it. So I ended up picking that thing up and decided that this was the next path. And I had AMS Performance Local and I had Boost In Performance Local. And they were very reputable, both of them. But at the end of the day, the red demon sold me. So I went to Devon and Boost In and I've been working with them ever since. And we've evolved this thing since then from 13s to 12s to 11s to 10s to 9s to 8s and now into the 7s at over 200 miles an hour, which really was never part of the program.

I can't imagine that was the plan. So when you say since then, when is then? What year did all this Evo stuff start for you?

Yeah, that's a good question. If you like, I can try and figure that out, but I want to say that it's probably been about nine or 10 years. Okay. Yeah, it's been a pretty good timeframe. because I bought it and was working on it when I was still working at Bosch. And the shop's been in business now, going on six years in this facility. So I probably tinkered with it for about three years amongst my Bosch career before telling them, hey, I got to go. I got something going on here.

Well, you were telling me that this whole shop stemmed from a supply and demand issue that you ran into while building this car, right?

Correct, yeah. So I took this thing to Route 66 Raceway over here in Joliet, Illinois. And I really have to thank them and their tech staff because most people don't like them. They're the most strict tech that I've ever been to beyond Bandimere Speedway. But at least Bandimere Speedway, the guys were pretty reasonable. The guys over at Route 66 will literally throw the book at you. And even though it's like trying to talk a foreign language comparing the way the book was written to an import, there's like no mixing the oil and water. It's just, you know, this is how it is. Stay within these guidelines and you can race. Well, the car is running about 9.7 around that time. And if you didn't have a scatter shield on, you couldn't go faster than like, I wanna say 10.0 or 10.5 or something. I know that 11.50 are required or faster, you are required to have a scatter shield. But I don't know what their equation was at the time. I just remember being able to do like high nines and them telling me, no, you can't do that. You're limited by three tenths or whatever the little amount was. But I don't know if there was other safety equipment that they were like factoring into that. But I know 1150 or faster, you're supposed to have it. 1149 technically. If you're watching TED and NHRA, I'm on it, all right? And so I raced that day limited at that number. I think I even just broke out in the final just to give it to them. But I went home that day, read the rule book, looked at the guidelines, which was like, it's gotta be quarter of an inch thick stainless steel. It's gotta be four inches wide. And I started making this. And I remember being in the process of like using the press and building a custom die to like bend this quarter inch piece of stainless steel, which my neighbor at the time, because we're in my garage at home, mind you, is like, there's no way that that's gonna bend when you pull that rod. And I remember pulling that thing and it veeing a little bit and him being like, oh. And so I started forming this piece of stainless around this transmission and I posted some pictures on Facebook and I remember this very distinctly because it's one of those chapters in your life that you'll never forget. I posted on Facebook and it was very late at night and I remember passing out and the next morning, waking up to messages from people in Puerto Rico, New York, Canada, Hawaii, I mean all over the world with guys that had fast Evos that had experienced similar things, where they were told by the officials or they just wanted them because they were like, dude, I know this is coming, this is gonna be a problem and I want one and take my money. So it was like this huge aha moment of like, whoa, I might be onto something here. So I didn't really know how much to charge or like what it was gonna be but I knew that people were motivated and I was willing to do this and more people involved, the more likelihood that it was to come to fruition. So I took $50 deposits from anybody that reached out and told them, look, I'm gonna make this. I don't know exactly what the number is but the more I can get people involved in giving me deposits, the better the number is gonna be for you. So tell all your friends and we'll get this done. You don't have to blow me up with how soon and when is it and all that, just pay attention to social media which was dual purpose because then it pushed them to my social media page and told them, look, you'll see when I'm on shield number one through five and where I'm at and when I'm shipping six through 10 or working on six through 10, you'll know that. But as soon as you give me a deposit, you're shield number one, you're shield number two. And I made sure that everybody was in good communication and was able to see and understand what was going on throughout the whole process and feel good about the numbers when they came. And, you know, that's really the foundation that this business was built on was transparency, honesty, and just being real with numbers. because like at the end of the day, everybody wants the number to be low. Even I want it to be low for them. But I think it comes down to hours and materials. And sometimes when it's custom, there's no way to know on the front end, not to mention most customers that are in this, given the opportunity to be this involved, make changes along the way. So, that's, you know, the history and the way that the business came to fruition. And we've been manufacturing scatter shields since then. And we make them today.

You know what you sold those first batches for? Or do you not want to disclose that?

Yeah, so, I want to say for, originally for like the Evo guys, it was like 300 or 329. And it really hasn't increased that much, honestly, because that's the products. And I make it for several different model vehicles, but because that product line is the product line that started this business, I feel dedicated to keeping that product price as low as I possibly can to give back to the community. And the guys that want to get to that level, right? because it's like a doorway that was never open and I opened it. So I want to keep it open for the guys that are coming behind me.

That's pretty cool, because I feel like a lot of people tend to gatekeep as well. Do you find yourself being the opposite of that then?

I try to as much as I can, you know?

But in reason, right?

Yeah, at the end of the day, I'm in a space that's like a super niche, niche, niche or niche?

Nesh, niche, niche, whatever people prefer.

It's a niche, okay? And so, that's one of the reasons that I've, you know, my business background is like, look, if you're gonna, it's like getting into a fight. Don't get into a fight unless you know you can win. And if you're gonna win, like, have a strategy. So when I come up with the business, it's like, I'm not trying to be like every other shop, right? I'm trying to be the shop that's gonna give you the best product and the best service and the best end result. And I have to push a number, you know, I have to push the number up in order to make that possible. So...

Number up financially, you mean?

Yeah, I mean, realistically, like, if you want it fast and you want it quality, it's not gonna be cheap. You know, it's like pick two, all right? And we actually do fast quality. And, you know, if you look at our rate and all that, it's honestly a lot lower. Like we charge 129 an hour plus the cost of materials.

That's pretty good for a fab shop, considering what we've been hearing.

Yeah, for a fab shop that has people that will show up with two Tesla motors, front and rear, and say, I want it in this. And I've built the chassis work to do that.

Sounds familiar to us.

It's on our YouTube channel. Now, for those of you that are following and actually know about this project, which is the most common question I get, it is not running yet. My terms and conditions for this project were that I would build the chassis work, the front and rear drive units are in the vehicle. He was responsible for cutting the custom axles and handling the wiring and getting the car running, which is not anything I was interested in taking on. Car was delivered three years ago. I haven't heard from him since. Sorry to say that. But the job that I was contracted for is complete. So for $129 an hour, I think that's pretty good considering I'll do anything, as long as it's reasonable for timeline and budget, and we'll work together on that. But I mean, there's shops out there that are doing factory style work for $160, $179 an hour. That's pretty insane. So when I have full transparency on the entire process, start to finish, and the hours come up, there's really no arguing. Like, dude, it took me 36 hours to build you this custom exhaust, and it's build out, itemized, per bend, per foot of straight, get under there, count it yourself. plus the videos that justify every hour that's been put in it, plus, because we usually don't bill out actual hours, let's be fair. Like, we're putting in probably another five to 10 hours in some of these jobs that we're not billing out, because there's other things that are going on, we're multitasking, we're dealing with delays that were unexpected, that might be tool related, that's not something the customer needs to pay for, but we're not being unhonest here at all.

Well, what I also saw you doing was sending videos to customers as your, so, let's be honest, you usually have, there's several projects in any shop that's going on, you're not always working on every single one every day. So, when you do get a chance to work on a customer's car, you guys take a video and you send it to them that day, letting them know what you've done and what the progress that's going on.

So, interesting, I want to take a step back and to that point that you said, we're not working on every customer car here every day. That is incorrect.

Oh, really?

We are one of the only shops that I'm aware of that does not take in a customer car unless we are ready to work on it that time. It might be here for a day because we're transitioning one job, but we don't have cars that are sitting in a corner. There's a car behind this Evo here that you may or may not be able to see in this shot, but that car is owned by my employee. So he comes in on the weekend or after work, he's actually probably really sad right now because this frame is like directly pointed where he would be, so he's not here working on his car like planned. But any car that's in the shop is either owned by me, my employee, or it's getting worked on. There's no cars in the lot. I highly don't like that type of business when people just take a car and stick it in a corner because at the end of the day, that's one of my customers that probably is gonna end up in here a year later telling me about how their car's been stuck in a corner and they haven't had any updates or any work done because they were gonna get a good deal on it. There's two in here just like that right now, and that's the everyday for this shop. And that's why the guys are willing to pay the unknown number in the custom world because they've been burned so hard before. Yeah. Unfortunately.

So to go back a little bit to the Evo then, right? because that's been obviously a long journey, right? When you, again, going from tens, nines, eights. What has that progression been like over the last few years? Like when, because for example, right now you're into sevens.

Sure.

When did you start breaking below nines?

So about five years ago.

Okay.

Yeah. I won the stock appearing class at this event we were at last weekend at the shootout. because they have, of course, bigger class, you know, various classes. And this, you know, last few years we've been in their fastest class, the quick 32. But five years ago I was running, you know, mid nines. We would trailer the car on an open trailer all the way to Ohio with my wife's Durango, back to the wives. And as soon as we unloaded in Ohio, that's, that was our car for the weekend. We would drive it from the hotel to the racetrack, qualify, compete, go back from the track, maybe take it out to dinner, go back to the hotel, go back to the track the next day. cause it's like a three day event. You know, they do a couple of days of qualifying and then final days eliminations. We won that event and then went out for a celebratory steak dinner and then back to the hotel in that car with a PPG dog box whining all the way. And then it went back on the trailer and went home. So, I mean, five years ago was when we were running nines. And around that time was really around the time we decided that we were gonna get serious about this business. A little before then, if you think about it, cause the years, like we're going on probably about five and a half years now. So after I ended up leaving Bosch, I decided that, you know, the tool that helped me create the business was going to help lead it and be our number one marketing tool. And if we were gonna do that, we were gonna make it throw down with the big boys. So slowly but surely it progressed from there.

So what's serious look like, right? Like, is there any sacrifices that you had to make along the way to make it make sense?

Yeah.

cause racing is not cheap, whether you look at it financially or the things around you that it may cost you.

Yeah.

I've got a five year old and a seven year old. And, you know, my wife and I have conversations all the time about time and being away, you know, even on a Friday night after work. And, you know, one of the biggest sacrifices is time with the family and the kids, because if you want to run a car like this, it's got major maintenance. I mean, if you look at the guys in the NHRA that are running faster than us, they're pulling their motor every pass. So, you know, we're pulling our stuff apart in almost every event and putting it back together again. And there's a lot of time and expense that goes into that, even if we do all the work ourselves. So, and we're talking about seven second passes here. So it's all for seven second, seven second, seven second. And it's kind of crazy for some people to think about, but if you think about that seven seconds having the impact that it has on the business throughout the years, it makes a lot of sense.

Well, that's one of those things where like, the internet makes it seem way more common than it actually is. Like when you go to an event like, and yeah, I guess it's kind of tricky when you start throwing in like the big national events like Texas 2K, but when you go to any drag strip, not everybody's clicking off a seven second pass.

It's hardly ever.

Yeah, like to see a seven second or even an eight second car, you know, you go on Instagram, you just scroll and it's like, oh, yep, this guy did it, this guy did it. I mean, do you find that to be a similar sort of reality when you go out there as well, or do you only typically go to events with fast, fast people?

Yeah, life is all about perspective as you know, and it's interesting to hear you guys say that because I feel like I'm the slow car in the group. I go to World Cup finals and everybody's running sixes and it's like low sevens. So, there's always another bigger, faster guy, you know, and that's just the way life is. So.

Well, not at the moment, right? You are fastest.

I'm very fast at the moment. And I, you know, there's guys out there that are much faster. Like, for instance, where this stick event, I mean, aside from Devin, who, you know, congrats to him, he just went on and won the shootout in the quick class. And he's running six seconds at over 215 miles an hour. I mean, I'm racing Jonathan Atkins in second round elimination at the stick event. He's running six five at 226 on me. So yeah, I'm feeling slower.

Yeah. And then so which cars are those? And cause again, me and Dan are from outside this world to a degree, right? Like we keep up with some things, not some others. So just explain to the listener what you're talking about.

Red Demon and Devin Schultz. Devin Schultz is the owner of poussin Performance during Hoffman Estates, and he's the owner and driver of the Red Demon. Runs 6.9 at over 215 miles an hour. And for a long time, he was the fastest car in the world. And he still remains to be the fastest manual four-cylinder car in the world. But since that time, the record was taken over by Jonathan Atkins in a vehicle known as Grub Worm, which is a very, very well-known Camaro. Won many titles. And then from Grub Worm, Devon took it back and they've kind of did that for a bit. And then come along Nick Coleman with Nick Coleman customs. Shout out friend and fellow fabricator out in Wisconsin who currently owns the world's fastest stick car. And it's a S10 pickup. So, I mean, these cars are no joke, man. And Nick has brought a lot to the table and he has earned every bit he gets because he built that thing from the ground up and has gone through a lot. And I think that's a lot of what the pedigree is in guys like us that want to build these kinds of cars. Like I told you a story about me hitting the wall before. He's gone through some crashes too, you know, and Devon, he's racing RDV 2, version 2. Why? Similar issue. So, yeah, these guys are no joke, they're raw.

Yeah. I feel like, depending on who you ask, is crashing kind of like a rite of passage in some ways?

There is two types of racers in this world. Those that have hit and crashed, I shouldn't say those that have hit, I should say there are two types of racers in this world. Those that have hit the wall and those that will. That's just the reality of the situation. We're doing 200 miles an hour within the confines of how many feet. And there's sometimes another car often next to you. So you both have to be on your game. You both have to be going straight. You both have to have no fluids coming out. because that is the reason that the Subaru ended up hitting the wall. This is before belly pans were a requirement, or even really something that people had. And I'm sure that if I had it, the coolant that got under that tire and threw me into a spin, would have probably prevented that from happening. But I mean, that's the reality of what we're doing here is like anything can happen at those speeds. And it does if you watch enough of it. So, yeah.

Do you find the stick shift stuff? I mean, now it's all automatic, automatic power glides, all this stuff, is that continuing to be a dying thing? Are you guys kind of like the last of a breed? Is it still you getting fresh blood in there? And I mean, even it used to age pattern stuff too. You're not talking sequentials or any of that stuff either. You guys are real deal drag racing.

Stick racers are never gonna die.

Yeah.

We will be in gears forever.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you're still seeing some fresh blood coming into that and that's not going anywhere.

Absolutely.

All right.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've got PDK Porsche here. I've done some sequential customer cars. I've driven all this stuff. They each have their own space. But if you're gonna race in the quarter mile, the stick class is just leave its own. because leaving on a staging brake is one thing. You know, it's very consistent, pretty reliable. And a lot of guys are out there doing it with a Powerglide. You know, it's a great recipe. But that's why they have menus out there. because there's different flavors of everything. And you wanna keep it exciting. And I can tell you that the stick class is a much more exciting class than some of these Powerglide brake classes. Is because there's a lot of glorious failures. And there's a lot of things that can happen too. You know, it takes a lot of the, it puts a lot of variable into the race. So it makes it anyone's game. You know, like, I can go and race against some of these guys, like Jonathan Atkins and Devon in the Red Demon, and have a chance. because they gotta shift every year like I do. You know? So I think that adds a lot of the excitement to the stick class aspect of it all. And one of the reasons why we do it.

So that's one of the things that, like, for example, like we've had Enthomoto on the podcast before, and, you know, you'll see over 2,000 horsepower six-speed car. How do you even get to that level, right? And I mean this like to train yourself, because obviously racing is man and machine, right? How do you train the man part of that to be able to, you know, go seven seconds in a manual car?

I think you don't just get in a seven-second car, you know? Like we said, it was a progression, and throughout that progression has been a training process. So, yeah, I mean, it's just, it's not something that happens overnight, and it's not something I recommend. You may recall a year or so ago, I think it was like two years ago, when there was so many crashes at TX2K.

Yeah, I remember.

And it had nothing to do with anything with the track. I mean, sure, it was like there were high winds and things of that nature going on, but the way the cars were spinning out at the top end had nothing to do with wind. It had to do with inexperienced drivers with way more horsepower than they're used to. So they were doing half mile races or they were doing quarter mile races. And after they would finish, they would hit the brakes pretty hard. And you could see them spin after they would do that. I've even seen cars do that at World Cup because they're for whatever reason, not ready for what was going on inside the cabin. And I think that to be able to do something like this, you need to have the experience. And that's one of the reasons they offer racing schools. Like if you go to Arizona, there was Bondurant Racing School, and now it's called Radford Racing School. But there are racing schools for a reason, you know.

So well, somebody can't, I shouldn't say a thousand horsepower. Like I've jumped in and driven a thousand horsepower car before, but not everybody can just take delivery of like, let's say a Twin Turbo R8, or again, whatever your Evo is making, and just go click off a crazy pass. I think that's kind of naive to think that you can.

Correct.

And I'm just curious, right? And you don't have to disclose, and maybe you don't even know the number. Do you have any idea what the Evo is even doing power wise? I mean, these Apex Turbos, for example, are pretty new to kind of the average ears in this segment, I suppose, if that made any sense. That was a f***** up way of saying that.

They're fairly new to this market, this aspect of things.

So the Evo on the dyno at like 60 PSI was making like 1300 and a little under 1350 horsepower. Like I said before, when we were talking offline, the things, these bigger turbos don't really turn on to like 75 pounds. We're running 90 pounds of boost through it, and it's probably making north of 1600, realistically. And that's before we put the bottle on. And we have not had the bottle on this whole time. For anybody that's following along, there has not been a bottle even in the car yet.

Which is just crazy to consider. Yeah, because we were talking again about the Apex Turbos. They're kind of more used to being seen in tractor pulls. And that's sort of just that market. There's not really a lot out there for them. So do you want to kind of tell us a little bit about it? because you and I go to YouTube and try to research it, at least a few months ago when I was trying to do my own research on it. There's not a whole ton out there. So are we going to start seeing more and more of that in, again, for example, Evos or whatever?

I think you're going to see them in a lot. Anywhere that there's a turbocharger, you're going to see a lot of them more because they're so much more efficient. They're pretty incredible. And one of the reasons we hit the world record this last week is because we're running new technology that they put in our car before anybody had access to it. And that's how innovative they are when it comes to continuous innovation and bringing new things to market. So just at the shootout alone, like the shootout isn't just a drag racing event. You may or may not know that they also set up and race an autocross course as well. And they have a whole class where it's, you know, a mix of being able to go on the autocross course and the drag course. It's called max effort. And if your car is a hybrid and capable of running the best time in both of those, then you can win that class. There's a lot of guys in that class that are buying Apex Turbos from the event because they're just seeing and experiencing some of the efficiencies that they never knew existed until they've tried this stuff. To put that into perspective, David Schultz, who owns Red Demon, who I've talked about quite a bit on this podcast, has been running Precision Turbos pretty much forever. He did run FP earlier on in his career, but he's been running Precision for probably 15, maybe even 20 years. I decided to put Apex on my car, and he and I have been working together very closely for many years. He went and bought an Apex before my car came off the dyno. He was that impressed.

What exactly was impressive about it?

It came into power earlier. It made more power and held the power band for much longer.

And what are we comparing it to in that instance?

At the time, we were comparing it to a custom force performance 4508 turbocharger, which had previously run my first ever seven second quarter mile pass. So we were, to be fair, comparing it against a more dinosaur-age turbocharger, but nonetheless, it produced so much more power, so much more efficiently, so much more early, that it was persuasive enough for one of the most influential people in the drag racing DSM world to just drop everything and go buy one and put it on his car. And he's been running, he's run a six, you know, like he's, he knows what he's talking about. He's on that dyno all the time and looking at dyno sheets. And as soon as he saw mine, he dropped everything to go buy one of these. That says a lot.

Well, especially for somebody who's been running it, like you said, 15, 20 years, be like, all right, that's like you going from Chevy to a, or no, from a Ford to a Chevy.

From a Subaru Mitsubishi, yeah. Would you imagine that?

I'd like to think there's a few steps in between before I go right to Chevrolet, but that's fine.

So then, so how long have you had it on your car then?

This is now going to be the second year we've run an Apex.

Oh wow, okay. Yeah, and how many iterations have you had? cause you said you're running a new one right now, correct?

So last year we were running a 73 millimeter Apex Turbo and we were running in the Wild Street class for World Cup finals. This year we're running an 86 millimeter and are racing in the stick class, which is an unlimited size turbo class. So that was one of the biggest changes that we made within the last year. And then we went to the stick event earlier in the year and we're racing at that. And because of the environment and the time of day and the fact that we're like in cornfields and there are big bugs everywhere, this turbo suffered, the compressor suffered quite a bit of damage. Not catastrophic, but enough where, you know, sharing with Apex, they're like there's no way we're letting you go to the shootout like this. So we replaced the cartridge before the shootout. And after it was in the car, it wasn't till after they told me, yeah, by the way, there's new tech in there. So it's gonna go faster. I was like, okay. And they were not lying.

The proof is in the pudding in that instance.

So we've, in that case, had three iterations with Apex, the jump, the original 73, the jump from the 73 to the 86, and now this 86, 88 cartridge that they've given us with some new goodies.

So what about serviceability, right? cause like that was one of the main things that people were talking about, you know, because you get rid of the nut and you know, just a lot of people like in my comment sections when we were talking about Apex Turbos on a previous podcast were like, this is just going to be a problem, right? In whatever way that they kind of typed up in the comment section. Has serviceability been a concern of yours or not really?

Actually, it's been the last thing I've been concerned about because these things are way more durable than the other turbos. I mean, for instance, in the last event alone at the shootout, we saw two or three precision turbines just completely exit the chat. So it's dangerous and it's one of the reasons why it's a rule now that you have to have one of those cross-bracings in your downpipe so that if for some reason that turbine housing decides to leave the chat like that, that it's not gonna injure or kill somebody because that has happened. The Apex Turbos, like if you go...

Real quick, just to clarify, not necessarily that that was a precision one, but turbines in general.

Correct, yeah, turbines in general, not necessarily saying that was precision, although those two were precision, to be honest. There's a catastrophic failure likelihood on all of these turbos, including Apex, because let's face it, there's a service life for all of them. And the reality is that they can't go at any time. The build quality of the turbo is going to determine the life of it and whether or not that's likely, certainly comparing the overall build quality of the Apex versus some of the other previous turbos I've worked with and many of the other brands that I've worked with, it's a much more durable turbo and it's in a billet housing, it's got internal baffling and filtering, so you know, you don't have to worry about the right fitting, so it doesn't overfeed the turbo, I mean, a lot of those elements were kind of a big hassle in the past where people were seeing their cars smoking because they didn't have the right reducer fitting, all of that's internal and if you're running a turbo like this at this level, let's face it, the service life of that thing is like a couple years at most anyway, you're gonna want to have that thing serviced and make sure it's at the top of its class and it's as simple as sending it in to have it serviced just like any other turbocharger. I'm telling it, in that condition, it was like brand new. The only reason we made the change with this cartridge is because it suffered some cosmetic damage that, you know, at the end of the day, we want to bring our best presentation to an event.

If you're full sending it, you want to make sure all your ducks are not, you don't want any reason to be like, ah, it might have been this.

Right. Certainly if you have a partner like Apex that's capable of producing what you need to make that change in the timely manner that we needed it, it would be stupid not to take advantage. Certainly if you're trying to reach for the stars.

So, again, forgive me, it's been a few months since I've looked at like the specifics of it, because I know like the compressor has like the machined tip. The turbine is in the same way, isn't it?

The turbine, yes. Everything is machined in the same manner.

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Yeah, that was last Saturday, you know. And the reality is, is like, my goal is not really is trying to go break the 204 mark. It's really the ET.

Okay.

A lot of people don't know that I'm not very happy. You know, it's like a bittersweet thing. because I made a lot of changes this year. We went through 73 to an 86. And we're also making some changes with the drivetrain to accommodate. And it's changed the way that the car drives completely. In a very humbling way. Like I've told you about how we went and turned the car from like 13's all the way down to 7's. And every year I make big changes and I've never struggled as much as I have this year to get the car off the line. Usually I'm in like a 1-2 area for the 60 foot range. We're in like the 1-5-1-6 world.

Which explain that math to people, right? because, again, when you did your 204 mile an hour pass, what was the ET on then?

The ET was an 8.0.

OK.

because when we launched the car on that pass, in first gear the wheels were spinning. Like, very little traction. Second gear, little traction, gaining traction on the top end. And then third gear actually hitting like solid traction. And when you have not a great launch in the quarter mile, you tend to see your mile an hour go up. because the car is in the longer gears for a longer period of time. So it's making its most power for the longest period of time in those gears. So in that pass, we were like on the top of second, making some traction, hit third, and it was like doing a dyno pull, like, whoa. And it was in power in that gear for a very long time. So most people might look at the slip and be like, how is that even possible? It's because it was in that gear, making the most power that it makes in gears for a very long time. And then it was in fourth gear for the full pass. OK, so it picked up mile an hour big time in fourth gear. So much that some people are having a hard time believing it, which is fine, because that's the reality of the world we live in. When something happens like this or they go faster, the math doesn't always math.

So you keep saying for a very long time. And this is all still transpiring over less than eight seconds.

Seven seconds, yes. Well, I mean, if you're in the driver's seat, the difference between the gears, because if you like, I have a lot of videos on my YouTube channel. You can ride along with me when I'm making these seven second passes. Like the gears are short, man. Like we're first gear, second gear, third gear, fourth gear, pull the chute, you know? So like when I'm in like third gear and it's on a low RPM and it's like building boost all the way up to the top of that gear, it feels like a really long time to me, a really long time. So by the time I hit fourth gear, I'm like, holy s***, we're cooking, you know? Whereas when I'm going one, two, three, four, there's a lot of s*** happening before I can go, okay, you know, there's no time for that. Whereas when you get into third gear and it rolls into boost for a long period of time, it tends to want to oversteer a little bit. So we don't do 1320 feet, we do like 1350, because we're driving over here and then we're turning here and then we're going down to the.

I love the math there.

Watch some of these videos, it's not going straight.

Yeah. So then in that instance, right, so you ran, you know, 204.80, oh, 204.48, whatever the point was, right? In theory, if you get down to that one two, which you were running in the past, you are gonna essentially be chasing the fastest ET then?

Correct, yeah. The fastest ET, which was just reset today, mind you.

So when's your next outing then? Or when are you anticipating and are you thinking of going further south, since it's gonna get really cold here soon?

So just to finish expanding on that point, the world record is 749 at the moment. And if we do get the car to 60 foot like we're supposed to, I would imagine this thing is gonna see closer to a 720 or a 730.

Holy s***.

So, and I'm not even factoring the bottle at this point. We've got a couple of things up our sleeve. My closest friend and strategic ally, Devin Schultz with the Red Demon, has the recipe for success for this platform. So, I'd be stupid not to take advantage of that and utilize it. I've been kind of pushing against that for a while now. But, I mean, when push comes to shove, it's time to go, man. So, these guys out there that are competing with us, that are friendly competitors, I've been doing it kind of old school for a while. I could do this on my own, I could do this on my own. I am doing this on my own, but now I'm about to start taking advantage of the resources and team that they all have been. Everybody working together in that sense, and not that we've been working together, but I'm about to take advantage of some stuff that's been offered to me that I haven't been, because I've just been trying to do it in the way that is a little bit more barbaric. So, I'm going to go ahead and take advantage of this, and you guys are going to see the end results pretty soon.

Yeah, so to go back to it, so then what are the next few events looking like for you?

The next event formally is Import First Domestic World Cup Finals in Maryland. That takes place.

Okay, and we were talking about that.

It takes place in the beginning of, end of October, beginning of November.

Gotcha, so that's, and I believe I looked up the dates the week before SEMA, which again, for most people listening to this specific podcast, probably don't care because you guys are performance-oriented, but nonetheless, just for a little benchmark for me and Dan, that's our calendar, so. But, so that's gonna be exciting.

East Coast, West Coast.

Yeah, oh my God, it's gonna be a busy season for us, that's for sure. So then, I kind of want to take this to another, well, sort of a similar point. Who are some competitors you respect? Whether it's somebody in your immediate sort of realm to, again, for example, somebody that's across the world doing a completely different platform. Does anybody come to mind?

Yeah, obviously Devin Schultz and Red Demon are like, one of my most respected people and racers out there. Naturally, that's why I aligned with him. I have tremendous amount of respect for Rafe and RRT Motorsports, that whole team, super respectful. I mentioned Jonathan Atkins. He's one of my own favorites when it comes to watching these races outside of Devin, who's an obvious favorite. But those are the guys that come to mind. And Joel Greenis, watching his Supras is definitely one of the reasons that I enjoy watching racing at World Cup when I have free time. Those are the big dogs that I respect a lot.

So, one thing that comes to mind to me is obviously everything in the sport gets exponentially harder. The further you go, the more time you shave off, the higher mile per hour you get. What are some things that you've had to learn along the way? because again, when you go from trapping 150 to 200 in this instance, what were some things that made this car look as different as it does than it did back then?

Well, certainly the aero on it. It's got wider fenders in the front, which allow us to run a 10 inch tire instead of an 8 1 1 2 inch tire, which is normally what you would run on a 26 inch tire with the normal fenders that come on this car. And then accordingly, the aero of the front bumper to accommodate that, and it's all three piece. That comes from Carbonetics. They specialize in making really high end quality carbon fiber parts.

What are they based out of by the way?

They're out of California.

Gotcha, okay.

Their manufacturing is in Mexico, but their operation is based out of California.

Yep.

So they're the ones that made the fenders and the front end. And if you look at Rafe and the other cars that are in this category, going the speed, they're all running his products. Yeah.

So in addition to all the aero components, I'm sure there's some safety things to consider along the way as well.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So we talked about scatter shield a little bit earlier. Certainly having a fire extinguisher in the vehicle is a really good idea. We do make fire extinguisher brackets that bolt to the front seats. You can buy them in whatever option for passenger or driver when it comes to the Evo. Primarily people buy it in the passenger side because it's easier to reach over and grab it in a scary situation. But then there's also, you know, fire suppression systems, which we have on our vehicle so that if you're doing 150, you're doing 200 miles an hour, and you see a flame under your hood, you don't have to stop. You can pull a handle and it'll douse under the hood or even inside the vehicle with a flame retardant so that you're safe. because personally I have been in a situation where I'm trying to stop a vehicle and it's on fire. So having something that you can do in cabin and not have to stop is a big deal. But aside from that, of course, obviously roll cages, which we make in house custom. We install pre-made cages and weld those in, of course, but we specialize in custom bending and forming cages to not only the vehicle, but the individual that's going to be driving. because let's face it, it's important that that person fits. because building it around the frame of a cage is one thing, but building it in a way that'll fit the person is entirely different.

What are some things to consider when you're building it around a person?

Their height.

Okay, in 6'3, 3 quarters.

Having them sit in the car with a helmet on and understanding where your actual limit is. because in a lot of cases, we have to lower the seat so that they can get low enough. Or even cut out the floor and create a negative space for that. Guys like you, if you came to me, and this is not the first time, and said, hey, I'm gonna be racing this Miata, and it needs a cage. And you're like, you're like 6'3, and I gotta fit you in a Miata. I'm cutting that floor.

Don't forget that.

I'm cutting that floor, okay? We're gonna create a negative space.

And that's so important too. For example, I've been in Gen 5 Vipers before, and it's like, oh, if I were to put a helmet on, this would be problematic.

Yeah. I mean, when I was looking at Porsches to get into the road racing world, which we're just now getting into.

Oh yeah, we're gonna touch on that too.

We'll get there.

I went and was like, you know, I'm going to get a Cayman. 15 minutes of driving that, I'm not getting a Cayman. Too small. Too small.

I like that. I think that should be your race. Race your name, by the way.

What?

Negative Space.

Negative Space. I'll let you take that one. All right.

Sounds good.

So yeah, again, to go back on the... By the way, we had to bring up this funny story. So we were at Road America, what was it? A couple months ago for the Optima Ultimate Street Car Challenge. See, I'm getting better at saying it. Dude, there were so many people that came up to us and they're like, what the hell are these things, these quick jacks? They've never seen quick jacks in their life before.

Oh, yeah.

It's just always funny to come up and see that.

But yeah, they're really useful. I mean, we bring them to the track sometimes and they simplify life quite a bit. When I first started the shop, before I had all the lifts, I didn't really know what the layout of the shop was that I wanted. So I bought a couple of them and was trying to feel out what I wanted to do. And it's worked out. It's something that I have used and continue to use on the Evo in the shop because it just, it's, you know, I can move it around and I don't know. It's just, it's great tech. It really is.

It's really simple design if you really get down and think about it. Yeah.

Yeah. And if you look at like the actual, like professional drag racers, they make custom jacks like that where they like get them under their car and they like wedge it under there. And it lifts the car up in the same manner where they've got like a quick custom jack on either end of the car and it lifts it and drops it. So it's a small, there's like no infrastructure to it. So I don't have to commit like I do with the Village on installing this stuff and wiring it with, you know, licensed electricians. I just plug it in the wall and put it where I want.

Shout out Quick Jacks, need a sponsorship, thanks. Well, it's just one of those things where like, we had so many people come up to us, like it was probably like five or 10 people that came up, they're like, what the hell is this? And then they're like, wait, is that an RX7? Stupid RX7, but anyways. But anywho, let's actually touch on the road course stuff. So when did you acquire this GT3?

Honestly, it was like a month or so ago.

Okay.

It was like, it's probably been two by now. I've just been doing services and like sinking my teeth into a little bit, trying to familiarize myself. cause like anything, you know, I try and stay humble and I'm not expecting to go out there next year and like break records with this thing. That's not, that's not at all. So we have a 2012 Audi R8 to V10 gated, that is a beautiful car. And that was our first supercar. Started getting into supercars by acquiring that and showing the world that we can work with this level of quality vehicle. And, you know, we built some exhaust systems and intakes and we broke the dyno record over at AMS for an R8, without turbos and racing fuel or any of that. Not trying to be like special or any of that s***. cause it's, it's reality. Like most guys are not going out there shooting for a dyno record on the R8. We just so happened to, you know, Jacob was on the dyno and he's like, dude, I did just broke the dyno record. So we mentioned that. Okay.

Are you guys doing your tuning in house here?

No AMS, AMS to the tune. So when I got the R8, I'm like, all right, we got to bring product to market. So we developed an exhaust system, which you can buy on our website, because let's face it, a custom shop, most of the work when we're done with it is like on the vehicle and it's gone. So I don't get the opportunity to reproduce a lot of products unless it's my own. And when we got the R8, we made an exhaust system, we made an intake system where it actually gets rid of the box and puts the air filters like on the side of the car, right behind the inlets. And that's why I picked up the power, didn't it broke the record, because we had like fans blowing on it, you know. But we really just brought that car, bought it and started making products to make products for it. We weren't going out there to like compete it. We've quarter-miled it, runs 11.6 right out of the box, no changes, no low fuel, no removing anything, just for fun. And to say we are in this market. Well, we had it for about three years now. And I'm like, dude, I can't stand driving this thing on the road where I go one, two, and then I'm like at speed and I can't go any faster. So I'm like, we're going to Autobahn Country Club, we're gonna go put laps on this thing. So we took it to Autobahn and Joliet, and they had, shout out to GPS Track Times, Jimmy runs really nice events, they're not competitive. He's got beginner, intermediate, expert groups that he sends out at various tracks on various days. And it's really well organized, it's not competitive. You can rent or not rent a GPS and just go out and have fun. So we went out, I actually had my dad in the novice group driving the car and I had myself in the intermediate group. And we went out there just to be like, let's go have some fun and drive this thing and see, like, you know, let it stretch its legs a little bit. And we weren't trying to like go out there and be competitive and race, but we sure as hell did. Oh my God. We ran out there and we were getting lapped by Porsches and we were trying to keep up with them, but they were just so fast. because let's face it, the R8 is a really nice car. It's a well balanced car, but like if you want to put it up against a Porsche or on a track, it's not nearly as well balanced. It's big bodied. And you've got to really put some seat time into it. Like we did the Evo to get a car like that to really be competitive. plus it's a stick. It's a gated stick. So it's like rowing a boat between the gears, you know? It's like it's not competitive. And I left that event and my dad and we're looking at each other like, dude, that was a lot of fun. And he was looking at me, he's like, you should get in that. And I was like, all right. So I was like, I'm going to go out and buy like a $20,000 cheapo older Porsche and do something like this, but like road racing. And I made the mistake of going on test driving a bunch of cars. And like I said, I test drove the Cayman. I really was like, this, this is new. And it could be, you know, a better budget. Or I shouldn't say better budget than some cheapo, like $20,000 Porsche, but like better than I ended up. I drove that and it was too small. And then I drove a Turbo S and it was really nice. And it fit me well. I fit like I did in the R8, but then it was like, dude, I could just, it feels like a f****** R8. So I was like, I couldn't do that. And then the guy of course was like, yeah, I have a GT3, you should try that. So I made that mistake. I went and drove that car and it was game over. So I had to have one. And I spent about a month hunting him down and driving all over the state and trying to figure out what I was gonna do. And I came across this one, I bought it. And since then we've pulled the motor on it.

Okay.

And literally visually inspected everything. From cylinder walls with a borescope, changed the spark plugs, like combed through this thing. because, you know, we did a pre-purchase inspection with a third party and it came back not great, but did not come back as bad as it did when I took it to my buddy who works at Porsche downtown Chicago. My buddy scanned this thing and was like, there's some really scary codes in here.

Really?

Yeah. So, shout out to Seth. Thank you for helping me out. And Elvis, you guys are the best of friends, new friends to do what you did with me and help me out. Using my friends, they helped guide me through this whole process of getting this thing checked out and making sure that it was good to go. So, we did the services on it, PDK service, and I literally just got rotors and pads. I'm like super excited to slap them on and go take this thing around the road course and baseline it.

What year is it?

It's a 2018. Okay. And it's got the four liter in it, which is the big motor. And it's a very impressive car. I mean, it's the closest thing to an Evo when it comes to revving, man. I mean, it runs to 9,000 RPM when I put my foot in it and it's going, I'm like, always surprised that it's not shifting. And then it shifts and I'm surprised at how fast it shifts. So it's, you know, there's a reason they call the Porsche the ultimate driving machine.

So you kind of have two extremes here, right? I shouldn't say the Porsche is an extreme, but it's definitely up there. A lot of people will be like, oh, manual only, manual only. But then you look at a PDK, right? And you know, my, my GTI has got a DSG, which is derived from the PDK. It's scary how good they are. So how do you feel about the two different extremes from dual clutch to again, banging gears?

Well, first of all, this is, you're kind of an anomaly too. cause most of the time when we see the drag guys, they're like, that was all right, like not for me. Or you got road course guys that are like, nah, drag racing, whatever. I find it very intriguing that you're like, s***. Yeah, man, we're going to give this a go.

Well, believe it or not, like I'm a really, people think that I'm like a straight line only guy. Nobody knows my background. Like I'm a big cart guy. Like I did shifter carts and I've won a lot of cart races in my time. When I moved back from Colorado to Illinois, I mean, most of my friends from high school, you know how it goes. Like they're usually not still there. They've gone to other states and they're living other lives at that point. So like I had, I still have my like core friends, but they like have spouses now or kids on the way. So they were not available to hang out and do stuff. So I'm literally building my friends and my network over again. cause mind you, I left all my sponsors and all my network in Colorado after living there for well over a decade, going to school there, lots changed. And so naturally I'm like, well, I need to build a relationship and find people that are into this stuff. So what did I do? And it's winter time by the way. So I went to K1 and as sad as silly as it might sound, I spent a lot of time at K1 racing the K1 leagues. And there was also a third party league called Carl's Racing or Ken's Indoor Racing League, Curl, K-I-R-L. And dude, the Curl group was super serious. It's literally racers that need to get racing in in the winter time. So, you want to talk about rubbing is racing? Dude, qualifying everything in these electric carts. Well, I won the K1 GP and I won this league and all this stuff. So like, I have a background in going around turns. But when it came time to deciding, like I was going to get into like racing my car a lot, Van Dammeer Speedway was in my backyard. No longer sadly open, but one of the nicest facilities that has ever been on this planet for drag racing. The staging lanes were on a downward slope so that when you were like waiting for your race, not only could you just like go over your brake and roll instead of have somebody push you because you want to keep your car cool, but you had a view of the racing ahead. It was like stadium seating. The track itself, of course, had really nice stands, but it had water lines underneath it to help control the temperature. And when you finished your race, you were on an upward slope, which helps slow you down. Safety. I mean, didn't know how good I had it till it was gone. So the reason I'm so drag focused is because most of my routes were built in that world. And I did autocross with Subaru. I did road race the Subaru. Like, if you go to Pueblo Motorsports Park, their drag strip is the state of straight away in the road course. And I've raced both with that car. So yeah, I mean, if it's going fast, I'm in. Doesn't matter whether it's going straight line or turn.

Not a big FRS guy over here then. We have a friend that's very fast in a, it's an FRS, right?

Yeah. 196 horsepower FRS.

That's just blowing the doors off of guys that have active aero C8s. Like just fast.

Really?

Yeah. He literally, the C8 guy asked him like, you got, you know, big turbo in that? And no, car makes 197 horsepower. He's setting some really fast time.

Again, that has to do with track layout. Like these are tighter, more technical tracks.

Road America would be a different story.

The way that the cars are set up for them too. Like there's a recipe for every track.

There is.

Yeah.

Depending on how many turns.

Well, get this bad boy a little closer. You're driving away from me.

Yeah. I mean, there's a recipe probably. And again, I'm shooting from the hip on this now because I'm developing my program for road racing. But I would imagine that these guys have a recipe and a tune for their suspension for different tracks, right? just like you see how the oval track cars are like super twisted in one direction because they're just doing the same lap. Like you're going to want your suspension to be set up a certain way for running Road America versus Blackhawk. Right? So that's one of the reasons I'm, you know, when I started the Evo, I didn't have an opportunity to start with like such a nice foundation as this. You know, if you ask me, all right, you're going to get into drag racing, what's your foundation going to be? It probably wouldn't be an Evo. It would probably be something like with a Coyote motor in it and twin turbo that b**** and make sure it's light.

Dan's just thinking to himself, the greatest ever was and ever will be.

Yeah, so, but if I'm in this stage of the game in my business and my career and I want to get into this world, the better the foundation in the canvas, the better your opportunity is going to be. And the guys that are trying to be competitive with these Porsches are definitely my target market. I mean, these are the guys that want to go fast and they got the money to do it. As long as it's right, they're down. So that's my market too.

I've passed a few of them on the track before.

Sure.

Yeah, one of them was broken. Rare instance, by the way.

What, when they were going past you because you broke down?

Oh, no, I'll catch you on the straight. But yeah, it's a...

For the active listener, so Dan's got a newer GT500, so.

Nice.

The straights are where he shines. The weight otherwise, well, don't worry about it.

I've always been worried. I've been heavy my whole life.

It's fine. Let's talk setup though. We can come back to the road course stuff at some point, but I'm curious, right? When it comes down to setup on the drag racing side of things, how much is it varying track to track in your instance?

I mean, for this stuff.

For the Evo.

For the Evo, I mean, it really is real world conditions. So, one of the things that the Evo has is rotary dial switches in it. So, I've got three rotary switches that, if you imagine a clock, it's got 12 options and you can turn it up or down. These three switches control launch RPM, launch boost, overall boost level, and can be switched on the fly. That's why they're there. So, if I'm feeling after walking the track, like it's in really good condition, and I'm feeling confident that it's going to hook really well, but then I see a car just ahead of me, in the same lane I'm going to run, spin really hard when he launches. That's a really bad sign that the track is not in good shape. So I might take my launch RPM and click it down a little bit, just from what I'm seeing in real time. And that's one of the factors that gives you a competitive edge is being able to do that as opposed to like call over your friend to plug in his laptop and make this change for you. You can just do it like right then and there and be seconds before you run.

Who's your laptop guy?

Devin Schultz.

Okay.

The owner of Boosting Performance and the Red Demon. So only the best.

Yeah. And then, and you're on Haltech in this instance, right?

We're on a Haltech nexus.

So, and then how did that relationship kind of kick off? cause like, for example, you have a good bit of sponsors on the back of your car over there. Do you kind of want to run through all the individual ones you have?

Yeah, there's a lot.

There's a lot of them, but just highlight.

I mean, Boosting Performance for sure is on the top of the list. Likwimali. We've got Apex Turbo, Quartermaster, PPG, Haltech, EvoSpec Performance, I'll have to pull out a list. I'll be honest. There's a lot of them. Okay. These relationships started through communication. So as I mentioned, my background is in business and communication is key in everything. So first things first, you've got to put proof in the pudding. So you've got to go out there and have a reputation for doing good in this market. Racing the Subaru gave me that. So when I would approach somebody and say, look, I want to work together, it needs to be mutually beneficial. You can't go out there and be like, give me free product, you know?

What does mutually beneficial look like on your side of the bargain?

Well, it's a give and take relationship, right? So if I'm working with say a strategic partner and they charge $500 for a product and they're giving it to me for half of that or free, there's gotta be something in return for that investment they're making. Sometimes that is just a good faith investment where they'll give me the product on the front end and it's my job to go do what I did. Yeah, go fast. Other times, the terms are in place where, we'll give you a little piece now and you'll get the product and then on the back end, we'll refund you a certain amount based on your performance. But like that's the difference between yes and no, is having reasonable terms and expectations for both parties involved that they feel good about. Now, like company like Lick O'Malley that I have years of history and reputation with or boost in performance, they're comfortable putting that investment on the front end, unspoken sometimes. It's just like every year we do this. Knowing that they're going to get a good return on investment because we go out there and we talk s*** and back it up. So every year I go to PRI and like right now, I'm going to go on the hunt for a tire sponsor, Mickey Thompson, because I got NGK. You got to have your consumables, man. You got to have your spark plugs. You got to have your oil covered. You got to have your tires covered. You got to have your fuel covered. Fortunately, I run a mix of fuel not to be disclosed at the moment, so I can't go out for one company. But other consumables, good idea to have on board. And for guys like Mickey Thompson, they're pretty surprised with what I need. They're like, how many sets of tires do you need for the year? One. Easy sell. Hopefully. Coming for you.

Well, can we get back to the road course stuff now or no? You got more questions?

Sure, sure, go for it. It's all over the place. You think this is an organized s*** show?

That is true, that is true. Are you still planning on, are you taking your dad again, or are you letting him drive the Porsche?

He gets to drive it. Well, we can jump back all over the place again, because one of the reasons that I got the automatic is not only because it's competitive, but because my wife can drive it. She's tried to drive stick and she's driven stick before, but she's not really comfortable driving the R8 yet. Certainly not around a road course at high speeds with other competitors trying to go around her. So, that's why, you know, there was like all these factors. It was like super impressive, super competitive, quite different, and she can join in. Now, my dad could roll gears with me on the R8, no problem, because he's part of the fun group. Like when we go do stuff sometimes, he's involved, you know, if I can get him off the golf course. And yeah, he'll be out there for sure, driving that thing.

It's just kind of, so I ended up moving into the GT 500 last season after I had some problems with my 2015 GT that was built. So now it's on its third motor iteration, and my dad bought that car from me, and so now I've scheduled a high performance driving school. He went and did that, and I'm starting to do some more stuff like that with my dad. And he's just, he's an old drag race guy, and he's smiling ear to ear, man. He's having a blast, so.

That's awesome to hear, man. because I'll be honest, that stuff is what I live for. I love this stuff, but sharing this with my family, seeing my kids, my kids are with me in the pits when we test the car locally, and they're all about it, and they want to be with us in the big races in other states, and they will, I'm sure. But sharing that stuff with them and having the pictures of it is really special. My dad is not a car guy at all, no, he's really not. He's very supportive, it's nice that he'll come out to the races and support me and all that sort of stuff, but he's not like, I gotta go get a race car type, or like, I want a sports car to drive A to B. No, he wants a luxury sedan, he likes to be massaged on his way to work and back and like that. He's not looking for, a car to him is not something like that. But I will say that after we went out in the R8, he got bit, he's like super excited about this and ready to get back out there. So, he may not seem that way, but he is because he's pushing for a lot of the stuff that I've been doing with this Porsche, you know? Like he's that little thing in the ear, cause I'll be honest, like I was like, yeah, I like the idea, it's fun, you know? Now, I gotta go work on the Evo. He's like, no, you should really get involved in this. We went out to dinner that night after we raced the R8 and he's like, you really, if you're gonna do this, you should be marketing to this market. And I was like, yeah, we have customers that do this. He's like, no, you really, he was pushing me on this and he's not a huge car guy, so I was like, all right. And now he's like, when are you getting, when's that car gonna be ready to go out there? And I'm like, I got breaks, so let me put them on and we'll go.

So real soon then.

Yeah, I'm thinking like October 6th.

Okay, oh, so he's got a date.

There's something going on down October 6th, right? At Autobahn or, yeah, right? I think.

At GPS track time.

Yeah.

Jimmy's running this non-competitive group again, and I wanna baseline this car and see how fast I can get around the course with what it came with when it got it. I can tell you it's got a FabSpeed exhaust that's getting ripped off as soon as I can. Meaning like it's getting ripped off the car. I'm not gonna do anything with the design. I'm gonna be my own proprietary design. Thank you very much.

Yeah, I mean, if you can make your own, why not, right?

Yeah, everything that I can do my own, I tend to do. Especially if it's something I see an opportunity in. And this is a market I think I can get involved in.

It's a great time. It's my favorite. I really enjoy it. I like going out there for 30 minutes and racing instead of eight seconds.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

I'll be honest. Like it was pretty funny because I was definitely out of my element when I went there. cause like, of course I had friends that like do this regularly and were like pushing me to get organized and do this. So they were there. And it was so chill. Yeah. I'm so used to being in the hustle and bustle of like turning a car around for the next round of racing. I got the R8 back in the pits after first lapping session and I whipped out the fans, you know, I'm like getting my tools out. I'm getting ready to double check the torque on the wheel lugs. They're like, bro, what are you doing? They're like, just sit and chill. The car will sit and cool down on its own. You did a cool down lap. It's fine. You know, that's cooling it. And when you're out there again, it'll cool itself. But you don't want to torque your lugs right now because you might snap them. And you just want to chill. And I was just so like, I'm not used to this, man. I'm used to running a car for seven seconds and having to rebuild the motor in the pits before the next round. This is crazy. I love this. So that was really, it was weird, but so nice. I mean, I left there having so much fun for such a long time. And the maintenance was very low. And naturally it's like, I'm not at that competitive level yet with what I'm doing. But it was just bringing me back to earth on why I started this all. cause like the weekends where the car was running in the stock appearing class, I wasn't doing that between rounds. We were going out to dinner with the car afterward. It was way chill. So it's a different world sometimes. And I'm really looking forward to getting involved in it and hopefully not getting over my head like I did with this.

We're going to cut to five years from now. I did it. I did it again.

I will say I've already got a roll cage in the process.

So that's expected given your profession.

So yeah, it's not even one that I'm going to make. Like I'm one of those firm believers that if a product exists in the world and it's made well and certainly if it's a reasonable price, there's absolutely no reason to go out and make it yourself again. Certainly not compete with them. So yeah, I'm looking forward to not remaking everything because there's quite a bit of product on the market for this car. The one thing I will make though is exhaust and probably an intake because that's just, I have to.

Well, we got to come down this way to hit some good road courses. So I hope to run into you at the track or I'm going to look into this GPS one.

Definitely.

But I highly recommend this Optima Street Car Challenge. That one was a really good time.

I actually ran into one of those going on live because I was at the Barrett Jackson. No, it wasn't Barrett Jackson. It was a Meekam Auto Auction in Phoenix, Arizona. And they were running that outside with a group of guys. If I'm not mistaken, and I might be mixing this up with another one, but it was, it was Optima. It might have just been Optima sponsored, but those guys were road course, like they were autocrossing like in the parking lot.

Yeah.

And they were getting down and they were really cool cars. Like I think the one that I watched was a Ferrari swapped Camaro.

Oh yeah. Do you find some wild stuff? There was a Blazer out there on the track running crazy numbers.

Yeah.

obviously underneath that shell, I'm sure it was complete race car, but.

Yeah. There was nothing basic there at all. It was all crazy builds and they were pushing them to the limit. It was really cool.

So, sorry Dan, I'm going to bring it back to the-

That's fine. We can go bounce the bird. I can just sit here quiet through all the drag stuff and then we can go back.

Yeah.

Not that I don't love that also, but.

So, we were talking a little bit before we started this episode about the rebuilding side of things, things that you're checking in-between passes, right? So, with any platform, there's common failure points. What are some of the things that are just absolute must checks in-between passes for the Evo?

Every pass that we make, we pull the valve cover and check the roller rockers to make sure that they're all there and if they're all there, that they're not beginning to fail. The one thing that I experience most common as far as failure goes is, I break and destroy the roller rockers. When we were at the shootout, the world record pass was one of four passes. Three of them were not full, meaning like I didn't even make a full pass because I just let out, because I could tell that I broke something. And that item is usually a roller rocker. The rocker sits between the spring and the spring that's the valve spring. And the cam. So it's essentially the buffer between the spring on the top of the valve stem and the cam. So it takes a lot of abuse at 10,000 RPM. And they were designed, you know, these are the original roller rockers from the factory. And they were designed for a vehicle that makes 300 horsepower at the crank. We're making a little over 100 horsepower more per cylinder at the wheels right now. And the question becomes at a certain level, is this going to work for the long run? Or is there a need to develop a new rocker for this platform in order to sustain the powers that we're seeing nowadays? If you ask some of the gentlemen in the RRT Motorsports camp who currently owns the ET, shout out to them, respect, at 749, their answer to this is that it is not a mechanical problem, it is an electronics problem. Their solution to this is to move over from Haltech to MoTech. They claim that MoTech and the way that the ignition cut is and how it behaves is far less aggressive and ultimately results in no more issues with the roller rockers. If you ask some of the other resources in the industry, they will tell you that it is not an electronics problem. It is a mechanical problem. It has to do with the roller rocker itself and that it needs to be redesigned. Or they will say, or, and they meaning someone else, amongst this group of respective individuals in the industry, whether it be Devon or another valve stream company, they will tell you that it's actually oil pressure related and that it's because the lifters are not staying pumped up because the pressure is not able to keep up with the demand, so that you need to feed the head more oil throughout this process of running it to prevent this from happening. So there's a lot of angles of input and a lot of feedback making it extremely difficult to pinpoint the actual cause of the issue. I'm sure most of these guys that are listening to this, if they are probably tearing their hair out, saying no, it's much more simple than that. But the reality is, is like, you have companies like Kigley Racing, who manufactures the valve train for my car, who still experience the same issues. I mean, I towed Kevin back because he broke at the end of the finish line. I need to write back, you know, and he's making products for this industry. And that's not to say that he is doing anything wrong. It's like, this is just currently the problem on the table that nobody's solved and has a solid solution for in this platform.

So it seems like there's differing philosophies as to how to address the problem.

We have to prove it first, right? Like you have to, if you come up with a solution, and it could be MoTeC, right? Or it could be adding oil feed. It has to be proven. For a while, people thought they were like the little keepers because there's like little clips that today's modern engines use on the rockers to keep them in place from like bouncing out of position. People made those for the Evo, and people have tried them and they don't work for us. So we're not running them. We're trying to figure out the solution, and we will, it's just a matter of time. It could be just continuing to shim the valve springs and really push that pressure up so that we're not floating the valve as much, or increasing the rev limiter so that you don't hit it. You know, just make sure you shift that b**** at 10, not 12. So, you know, this is just kind of speaking, you know, shooting from the hip, lightly, lightheartedly about the topic. You know, there's probably a lot of strong opinions about what's really going on and who's right. But at the end of the day, I'm just another pawn in the mix of this game, trying to get their car to run down the track. And it's super frustrating to go four passes and three of them, not even be anything. So I will get to the bottom of this and I will be scouring PRI to talk to Valtrain companies and we will come up a solution, whether it is a mechanical issue, an electronics issue or pressure.

What do you do right now? You just have a bucket of them. You keep in the glove box or in your trailer?

I have a Tupperware container of them. Yes, yes.

So you just, after a pass, do you feel that you pull a valve car off? You're like, click, click, get rid of those. Put some more in.

I mean, we visually inspect them. The only time we get rid of them is if they're destroyed or they're showing signs of failure. Like I was showing you guys earlier how the roller rocker, the roller in the rocker itself is a little bit elevated from the cast body of it. And when it's about to fail, it tends to recess a little bit and be the same level as the cast body. And it's a telltale sign that you need to remove that before you make another pass. You can also see like a hairline crack on the roller itself too. So there's, you know, I tend to look for the recession. I know some guys that get real detailed about it and have their team rotate the motor and they look for a crack around the entire, for each one. And if you're at the very, very top, that makes sense, you know, and I'm probably make sense for me to do at this point, because I'm having so many issues with it.

So what's next in that aspect, right? because obviously you have your next few, what's called dates set. What does the next like year or two look like on the competition side for you?

I want to get out to FL2K and TX2K. Those are two races I've never been to. They're early in the year, so it's usually rough for me, because I'm getting my act together with major changes and redesigning things. Like this year, this three piece front end really beat my a**. Like I had to develop new mounts for it. It takes a lot of work and the tolerances are very, very tight. So I'm usually not out until like, in my mind, I like to be out like late March, early April. This year, it was like late June, because every year we take on a much more monumental task. This year, I'm planning on not really changing anything with this car other than maintenance, some fine tuning and most of my time is going to be in this thing, trying to get it set up to go make a presence for ourselves in that world. But I think this car, aside from continued research and development on the Valtrain side, along with progression on developing the short track, there's really not much that I need to do at this point. See if I can remove some weight a little here and there, like for instance, the roof needs to be ripped off and put a carbon roof on it, because it did have a sunroof, so it has a carbon fiber sunroof plug in it, but it's still heavy as hell. So that's, you know, that's pretty much what's in store for it. But I have two motors now. We're on a billet block from Bullet Engineering. That's DemonSpec Boost and Performance. DemonSpec, they build the whole short block and make sure that the rotating assembly is set up just like Red Demon. And this year I bought another one. So I have, you know, the ability to show up to a big race and have a major failure and just swap it. I have two transmissions. I have two of everything at this point and.

We gotta get you a stacker now.

Yeah, yeah. So now I'm gonna be out earlier in the year because I have another motor. Usually my other motor is under service and in other states sometimes. So having a backup that I can be like, okay, we just finished that. Assuming I didn't need both at World Cup, I can just be like, oh, this one's been, you know, ridden hard. Let me give it back to Devon and have him freshen it up while I slap this fresh one in and we're ready to go in spring. You know, I'm not planning on building another turbo kit or changing s*** like I did last year.

At what point did you, at what power level did you need to go billet block?

As soon as I hit sevens. I mean, as soon as you get over a thousand horsepower in these motors, like realistically, you should be considering getting over. because like what we do is we fill the motors all the cooling jackets with concrete to reinforce it. And that will get you a little further. But as soon as you're about 1200 horsepower, you really in between the cylinders in the center of two and three, that little casting tends to split. And that's catastrophic. So we got into billet as soon as we should. because when they fail, they fail gloriously.

Were you running concrete before that though? Were you doing that or the epoxy stuff? Or was it actual?

Concrete. I mean, it's a special concrete that's intended for that use, which is partial epoxy, from my understanding.

It's not like Quick Crete from Minnoxide.

No, no, no. We're not.

I have heard of this. I hear-

From Honda guys?

Yeah, I see it the Honda guys doing that stuff too.

Well, you know, the Honda guys do all kinds of stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

Was there any point, right? cause obviously you were Subaru for a little while. Was there any point where you almost went, like for example, the domestic route or whatever, some other weird off-the-wall thing that wasn't Evos?

Honestly, no. I mean, it was like Subaru and then I had lexus, you know, that was like my daily driver for a while. It was an IS 350.

Those things are awesome.

Yeah. But then it was right into the Evo, man.

Yeah.

Nothing domestic. The first domestic I had was my wife's Durango.

Okay.

Yeah. She had a Land Rover before that and I needed something to tow. Yeah. So that's why.

Reliably.

Yep. And now I've got a Ram 1500 so that I can bring the show where we're going. So that's as close to American as I've personally gotten. My father would love to have a Corvette. But again, he's not like a huge car guy, so he's never really pulled through on that. I think that might happen in the near future though.

Yeah.

Yeah, I do.

Yeah. He'd probably really like a Grand Sport C8 or something. He'd probably, it'd be a good time for him.

Yeah.

Doing what he's doing.

He's always talking about the vets. And I'm like, dude, he's really successful. He's done well for himself. And I'm like, you should be in a Porsche. You are not a Corvette guy. You've done better for yourself than that. Don't do that.

Does he already have new balance shoes or?

He does.

Oh, then. It's the hardy set.

That's a telltale sign of Corvette ownership.

He's going down this path. I'm gonna try to drag him out. Please don't do that. You're better than that.

So what's this car weigh currently? cause again, you've taken so much weight out of it.

I'm not telling.

You're not telling?

I'm kidding. Yeah. I had a little over 2300 with me in it.

Is there any like class restrictions you have to be thinking about?

Yeah.

Okay.

I mean, nothing relevant though.

Right.

cause I'm overweight for all my classes.

Fair enough.

So World Cup is really the only one that matters. Nobody's weighing us at other classes. Okay. And I'm always overweight, always. So always more than the stick class is really not a huge restriction. The biggest restriction is turbo size. So when it comes to weight, I'm always like overweight. So if I can run as big of a turbo as I can, that gives me a much better chance. Like last year, I went to World Cup thinking I'd be competitive in Wildstreet on a 73 limit turbo, and pretty close to the limit in weight. But I was racing against guys on trans brakes, and they were dead consistent. So after that, I was like, man, I really shouldn't be running in this class because I'm a little outpowered by some of these guys. And I could be running a bigger turbo and not weight your street. Like it just, that's what World Cup does, is they structure their classes in a way that makes you like always feel like you go in competitive, but somehow always leave there with your a** handed to you. Like every time. So I'm hoping that eliminating the trans brake aspect of the competition for me will give me at least a fair chance, because I mean, let's face it, Joel Grannis and Devon Schultz and RRT and me, like all of us, just making it through the rounds is part of the game. And in most cases, we'll keep our s*** together before finals. So if you can run a seven second pass and keep it together, you have a pretty good chance you can win that event.

So one thing that we've kind of seen is like, for example, again, when it comes to these Apex Turbos, is those class restrictions, once again, is there an aspect where those kind of help when it comes to those like turbo sizing classes?

Oh, hell yeah. I mean, that's why one of the reasons I went in World Cup thing I was gonna be competitive is like, I'm on a 73 Apex, because it's like I got more fan to work with here versus these guys in the FP's and the PTE's that have nuts on their wheels. Was thinking I had a competitive advantage. The reality is, is like all these other m************ were wearing Apex Turbos too. seriously, there was like either Apex or PTE on most of them. And the guys that were running Apex had a little bit of a competitive advantage in my opinion, because if you're limited by a 73 millimeter max and you're running a 73 millimeter Apex, you do have an advantage over a PTE.

Is there any like tangible like numbers that support that advantage that are just out there or not? What does that look like?

I mean, if you look at Dino's, or if you really want to look into this, I would highly recommend you maybe reach out to Devin and boost in performance, because he has all of that data. He's got like every turbocharger on file if you really wanted to look for it. So if you want to see an 86 millimeter precision on top of an 86 millimeter Apex, he has it. From what I recall, it's making like five or six pounds of boost more at like 700 RPM earlier, or like something like that.

just something crazy.

It's like, that's crazy, because when you're working with like increments as small as we are to get as small of an increase as we are, that's craziness. That's why he was like, he didn't even unstrap my car. He went straight to the computer and ordered one. I'm telling you, like he hit me up. He was like, dude, this is absolutely insane. I can't even tell you. And I can pull, I have the dyno sheet that I just was looking at, but like-

For your car.

For my car. And he's like, this is just absolutely nuts, man. He's like, this is incredible. He's like, I heard about these things. You told me about them. I looked them up a little bit. I was like, I don't really believe it. He's like, I can't believe it.

So one of the things that we kind of like, again, that I saw in my comment sections a lot regarding this was when you're talking about non-class restricted turbo.

So like that's the dyno on my car. Like it makes power early and just ramps up. It doesn't stop.

Yeah.

You know, like most of these dyno curves, they go like this. Like this thing is just, whoa, like just gross. And that's at 60 PSI. This thing turns on at 75.

Right. So again, it has room to get routier.

You crazy, man. Like I'm serious. Like this is like this, I'm telling you, like Devin, he's very, very mild mannered. And when he's excited, you know s*** is like crazy. And he is like at his computer, like after passes looking at data, just like, I can't believe this s***. Like this is insane, you know? And that's just the reality of new technology. It's gonna be that way for a little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah, so one of the things that kind of like that I kept seeing again in, you know, regarding these in my comment sections and such is, does this only make sense for classes where you're restricted to certain sizes? Or like, does this apply to like, let's say somebody wants to just go gung ho, don't worry about classes sort of deal. It makes more sense to do an apex over something else.

If you're trying to shoot for the fences and throw caution in the wind, certainly Apex is the right fit for you. If you're looking for, you know, a small or medium or large, any size turbocharger and you're just looking for the most efficient and structurally well-built piece, then Apex is the right fit for you. At the end of the day, this is new technology that's being brought to the market and they manufacture them for all different size vehicles, depending on what your application is, primarily custom right now, because it's not like they're out there advertising that you can go swap your Audi with an Apex Turbo. I mean, I'm sure that's coming, but it's new technology and it's getting adopted like really fast, like Chet GPT. You know, they're like, oh, this thing just got launched. Look, everybody's using it at a astonishing rate of adoption. That's what's happening with Apex because it's new found efficiency and durability that wasn't available until they came about. And it's pedigree is from running like 200 plus pounds of boost on tractor poles. So when they're running like 90 pounds of boost on our car, it's not a big deal for them. Whereas most of the technology until Apex came out was used to running at absolute maximum capacity and then realizing, okay, I got to go get more size or more millimeters in a turbo to get more power. We're still trying to find the limits of this thing right now.

What's the argument against just adding a couple millimeters in size?

I mean, that can be resulting in anywhere from 20 to 50 horsepower or more, depending on the fuel you're running. So it's pretty significant.

Well, because it's machined out of one deal to where, I don't know if that makes a huge difference or not, but you're losing a little bit of rotating mass too from the nut and shaft in there.

I mean, the rotating mass is important, but I think the actual surface area of the fan blade is most important. plus, you're also eliminating one more element of failure, right? Like the nut and the connection there, it's not something that can come apart anymore.

Is that something that was a common failure before?

I mean, it happens. It's common is, I mean, it's somewhat common. More common is your turbine wheel exiting the chat.

Yeah, fair enough.

Or just the overall housing and bearing coming apart. Like most of these turbos are no longer journal bearings, they're ball bearings. So they can spin quite well and stay lubricated in velocity. because like before, the issue was that you would launch your car in drag racing, okay? And the velocity and G forces would literally slosh your oil to the back of the pan and your pickup was dry. And one of the first things that would go is the bearings in your turbocharger, because it was relying on that small film to float on, that little surface, that little, it was gliding on the oil, that little thin layer. And if it's gone, it's making contact with other metal and everybody, oh, my turbo seals are out. There's no like rubber in there. The seal is the ability for those two pieces of metal to actually seal each other with a small bit of oil film. And if you cook them to the point where they either attach themselves to each other or out shape themselves, then it's not going to seal itself anymore and you're gonna see it burning oil. That was a big problem for guys that were drag racing cars like this, because we would ruin turbos in no time. And then came along the ball bearing turbocharger that needs like just a little drop to just spin for a long time. It really changed the game for the guys that were having that type of an issue. And we've mitigated that in many different ways. Aside from ball bearing turbochargers, we've got trap doors in our oil pan. So like when you launch the car, that trap door closes and it keeps all that oil up by your pickup. And when I pull the chute, you know, it doesn't have anywhere else to go. So there's a lot of technological advances similar to what we're experiencing with Apex and their new technology that came along to solve those issues. So that was kind of long-winded.

No, you know, it's just, the reason I keep asking questions about that is just because there is so much pushing against it. And you know, whether I'm one way or the other or whatever, that's not my decision. I'm just here to kind of get information and knowledge, right? because if we're being honest, I went through your website, not a ton on the website, right? And people are always quick to judge something that they can't spend hours learning about. Exactly. So that's just where my my own curiosity is there, right? Well, so that's why, like when I found out you run Apex Turbos, I'm like, I got questions for this m***********. You know, that's just how it was.

That's good. And that's what we want. You know, like I, I was in your shoes two years ago, right? I'm going to PRI shows, f****** stop it at Apex, bro. I'm going to ask them all these questions you're asking me. Right. And I met Dina and she was very knowledgeable and very helpful in explaining and I explained to her, look, I've been racing for this many years. I'm racing this platform. I'm trying to chase down Rave and I'm running an FP Turbo and I'm considering moving over to you. Why should I? And she educated me about, you know, no nut and the way they build their housings and how it's all high quality and it's all internal and just a really nice package. You know, you're talking to a guy who sells his business on, you know, high quality over price. So that's what they're doing. They're selling high quality with a high price point and they're delivering on it. And they're letting the data speak for itself. And that's why you're not seeing a lot of information on their website is because their marketing strategy is exclusively at the moment from what I understand, letting their product do the talking. So, they got guys like me and Rafe competing with each other for the world record ET or mile an hour with their product. That says a lot.

We need guys like you putting out as much YouTube content about it as possible too, right? because that's the first thing I did is I went to YouTube and I think there's only a handful of videos out there. And that's just like, again, from a complete outsider who is out of this space, I was just like, well, you know, research is everything. I would love to actually have a conversation with them. I actually messaged them on Instagram, so maybe I'll meet up with them at PRI, because again, just on 100.

I could probably help you with that.

Yeah.

Do you know what, as far as price point, or how much more they are than like a competitor, like Precision or something like that? Would they be?

They're like a thousand, or depending on the model and the options and what you're getting as far as housing and stuff, they're like a thousand, maybe even a little more than the competitor. But if you factor that into the durability and like the performance, it's so worth it. because we're talking thousands of dollars for maintenance sometimes. You're telling me, give me another thousand dollars, I'll get a better performance and like won't blow up on me likely when I'm racing it, give me it.

Right.

Well, the way I see it is when you're a competitor, money is no object either.

Well, that's why I'm in racing business.

Yeah.

Like if you wanna go fast, it's gonna cost you money and it's one less barrier to deal with with a customer. If they know it's gonna be costly, then it's just part of the game, man.

Yeah, if you got into this, for example, like a Caval is recently on the Go Hard podcast, like I saw a highlight from that, talking about what you think 3000 horsepower is f****** cheap, you know, like nothing about this sport is cheap. And it's just one of those things to, I think it's a fantastic quote. But as we start to wind down here, was there any other questions you had come to mind before we start doing the usual three?

I don't think so.

Sweet. So Dan, do you wanna pop the usual three?

Also, we're winding down, coming to a complete stop.

Dude, this is a loaded episode.

Yeah, so at the end of every episode, we like to ask our guests to pick three cars. Track car, daily driver and a show car. You can swap whatever you want. Money is no object. What three cars are you picking?

My mind just melted. When you said money is no object, man, did my s*** spin.

Yeah.

So, yeah. The 918 is on this list.

Okay.

Driving that car was like F1, man.

Well, you got to drive that one.

Oh yeah, so naturally, you know, Steve Hamilton is a really nice guy. And my relationship with my customers is always very personable. And his way is like, you know, he's got like 18 year old interns where he's like, oh, take this million dollar car. And we got to let it stretch his legs, convenience, you know, like, so naturally, and with most of my customers' cars, if they're in a driving state, I would request them, hey, would you, can I take it down the road and back so that I can make sure that at least things sound good. I don't hear anything weird or wrong. cause there are times where like something might be rattling and I want to make sure it's right. Like we're all human. You got to double check things sometimes. So I told him, you know, we're done. And I was like, do you mind if I take this thing for a spin? He goes, get out there and have a read it, you know? cause like, if you look at his videos, he tells the personalities, you know, and they're racing this car around Willow Springs. So I knew he was cool with me just taking it for a spin to check stuff. So of course I drove that car. Yeah. Took it around the block and it was glorious.

So where's the place? Daily track or show?

Daily, man. I mean, dude, if you look at his fleet, that's like the one car he's kept of all of them. And there's a reason. It's the most well-rounded car.

What do you like about it?

It is very easy to drive. It's very visually appealing. And it sounds amazing. I mean, even without our exhaust, it sounds good. You know?

So, we got the Daily, Track and Show.

Okay, so Daily.

Let me get this bad boy close again.

Daily.

Well, Daily was the 918, right?

Oh yeah, that's right. That's right.

You're trying to double up.

Double the double.

Show car, R8, all day.

Okay, gen one or two?

Gen one, that's what we have. Okay. We have a gen, I mean, it's my dream car. That's why we still have it. Well, it's not right, we still have it. We still have it. It's, dude, I wish I had it here. I probably should have. That's shame on me. But this thing is gorgeous. It's got red, like candy wheels, carbon fiber everywhere.

Okay. What color is the car?

It's black.

Okay, okay.

You guys haven't seen it yet?

I may have stumbled upon it while perusing, but.

Okay, well, just let's, hold on one sec, come on. So, R8, V10, gated, show car, for sure.

You're gonna keep it stock then, or?

What I have done to it is what I like.

Yep.

So, it's got our intake exhaust and the AMS tune on it. It's got a nice little crackle after you shift.

Crack, crack, crack.

And track car.

Track car, right here.

GT3, huh?

GT3.

On limited budget?

I would say Evo, but the Evo is a fill block, meaning it doesn't have coolant other than running through the head, so it can go like three blocks.

When we say track car, that can mean any type of track.

Oh, okay. Well, I mean, that's my baby right there.

So, on limited budget, that's what you'd be keeping?

That's pretty much what I'm doing. Don't tell the wife that. Yeah, I mean, this thing's probably quarter million dollars when it comes down to budget and investment, research, development. Like, if somebody were to come to me and seriously want to buy this car, I wouldn't let it go for any less than a quarter million.

Fair enough.

And that's it. That's all I have to say about that. So if you're serious and you want to come at me, no less than.

I mean, I can go pick up a stock one for what, 25 off of a co-park or what?

Nope. Good luck right now, dude. Their pricing is insane. People want like $50,000 for a car that's a roller. It has like no running, nothing. The Evo prices have gone insane. Oh yeah, it's nuts. You cannot get an Evo for like 20 anything, unless it's like 200,000 miles and beat to s***.

Yeah. And sweet. On that note, where can people find you?

They can find me on social media, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, although I haven't really been posting my YouTube channel very much. That was one of the big foundations of building the business was trying to document all the builds that I was doing. And then I got employees and responsibilities, rules through the roof, so I really didn't have the resources. Although I am looking for somebody that could work with front office and possibly be a media person. So feel free to reach out if you are a hybrid and feel like you'd be a good fit for that. Automotive experience is a must. So don't waste my time if you don't have any.

So real quick, because we could easily, I could easily cut this out for you for like a highlight or something that you could put on your page. What would the responsibilities? We're going to put out a job application.

Basically a fly in the wall with a camera.

Okay.

And creating good document like, you know, being able to take what we have going on here, which is cool projects all the time and turn it into a good story because there's a lot of good stories behind all of this stuff.

So video and photo experience.

Sales. Yeah. So like somebody that has experience in sales and marketing, but like super passionate about videography and like making videos and posting on YouTube.

What would that sales sort of role look like?

Working with customers and trying to sell products that are either custom made or exist today. because like I mentioned earlier, we have a lot of options. Most people don't come to us unless they're looking for custom made. But we are a really good option when it comes to trying to source and install a pre-made product. So that person would be dedicated to trying to go out there and create a better representation that like, hey, we don't just do custom. We can sell and source and install all this stuff. But I don't put a lot of time into that because most of the stuff that I'm focused on is already in front of me and they need it now.

Right.

You know?

So you're still someone that's working in the business, right, not just on the business. You're hands on every day still.

Yep.

Okay, gotcha.

I got three guys at work for me and I'm involved in every project in here.

Okay.

Did they set up the balloons for you?

No, that's from the wife.

Okay.

Actually, they did because the wife got them, she put them in the car and brought them and they were so twisted when they showed up one of my customers came in and was like 420, huh? I was like, no, it's supposed to be 204.

F***.

So my guys split it up and made it right.

That's cool.

So back to the social. So that would be Hochman Fabrication and Speed then?

Hochman Fabrication and Speed. You can find us on our website, hochmanfabricationspeed.com and Instagram.

Awesome. Dan?

You can find us at Gunna Garage with two N's.

Sweet. And if you guys made it this far into the episode, thank you very much. Thank you again for coming on, Ben. This is awesome. We made this happen. I'm glad we finally got together on this one.

Absolutely.

Dan, thanks for existing and we'll see you all next time.