112. Building and Racing Mustangs, Coyote Swaps, w/ Joanna Lacobelli Reid

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 co-host, Dan, Mr. Gunna Garage, lover of Fords. I think this is going to be the longest intro for you ever. Yeah. And today we are at the Jack Frost Museum, which, by the way, you pulled out all the stops to get us out here. This is really cool. There's some stuff. I'll be honest with you, anything before 1965, I turned into a pumpkin. I don't know anything before that. So but at least they have everything nicely labeled here. So that's what we're doing in today's podcast with Joanna Iacobelli, which I just found out that's an I, not an L.

Or a T, because everyone used to say Taco Belly.

I've got a Taco Belly.

I was about to say that straight up rude. But today, we're continuing our trip out here to the Motor City. We're just checking out all the outskirts. There's a lot of cool stuff, man. I'm really bummed I haven't come here sooner. Dan's been telling me for years. And the hospitality and the warmth that we've gotten here is ridiculous. They say Minnesota nice is a thing, which is just Minnesota passive aggression. But out here, this is traditional Midwest nice. I think Dan would agree.

Yeah. Well, we've only been dealing with car people, which are usually pretty awesome. That's fair.

Yeah, I guess there's a lot more domestic cars out here, too, so that kind of helps.

Oh, 100%.

But nonetheless, today, we're going to kind of talk. It's going to be a Ford heavy episode, I imagine, even though, like you just mentioned before we started, that you have a little bit of diversity. And I was actually listening to the podcast you did with Blanking on the First Name, Lacey, and then what was it? Bailey?

Blair? Blair.

Yeah. So I don't know how much energy I'm getting out of this Lamborghini energy drink.

I meant to get you a coffee halfway through.

I know. Which by the way, this is just the Red Bull. We got it from one of our guests from two episodes ago. It's literally just the repackaged Red Bull.

It looks even smaller though.

I know. Yeah.

Well, you know, it's a Lamborghini Italian. They're trying to cut back, you know. They want to sell you less for more.

That's usually how it goes. Yeah, because I know you mentioned something about like a G8 or whatever on that episode. So you had a G8?

I've had two.

Oh, okay.

Yep. So we had one that we bought as my husband's daily and then the pandemic hit and he had to go back into the office. So once we started getting like 11 miles to the gallon, we were like, we were heartbroken. I was heartbroken because I always wanted a G8. It was the first car I ever drove that was rear wheel drive in the winter. My dad would not let me have a rear wheel drive car growing up. So it was so much fun. Like I did some really dumb stuff with that car, but it was awesome. It was orange. We had a friend pick it up for us in South Dakota, and then I met her in Minnesota, and then I drove it home. We actually took it to the drag strip. Brian won a 12.0 class, and then we took it home. Really? Yeah. So we had that, and then I bought a second one that we just flipped. I planned on building it, but I got such a great offer on it that I was like, I can't. And then we both have had CTSBs.

Which generation?

V2. So mine was kind of cool. It was an auto, it was a sedan, and it was just a rare color, so that's what made it kind of unique. And I raced that one, and then Brian had the Holy Grail wagon manual. Yeah, he had a stick.

What color was that one?

Black.

Okay.

It was black, and then it had the yellow brake package. I don't know what that was, but it was cool, and we wrapped it. It was teal, because we all joked that we were going to LS swap the SN, and then we joked, and we were like, here it is.

I got to give props to you Ford people. That teal is one of the greatest colors ever. So Dan's got one. Which car is that again?

93 Cobra.

Dude, and when you pulled up to that podcast with it barely running, of course, it was...

Come on, it runs great.

The shade.

The shade.

We're just swinging right out the gate today. Like, I love that color. I was like, Dan, should I throw a stripe on my car to that color? I'm like, I don't know. But anyways, so you did Vs, so you got rid of the Vs then too?

Yeah, so when I met my husband, my dad was like, okay, so let me backtrack a little farther. So I always wanted to be really serious in racing. And my dad is just not, not that he's not, but not supportive. He's just very much like, if you want to be serious with this, you need someone that's going to help support you. He was like, you need a husband that has a truck and trailer. So I was like, I'll be husband with truck and trailer. And I got my own truck. I had my own Mustang. I just hadn't had a trailer yet. I didn't know how to tow anything like that. And then I met my husband, and we were only together for like four months. And I was like, I want something more serious. Like I want factory supercharged, because I knew I wasn't going to be able to put a blower on it at the time. So I sold my 07. And he was like, well, these are the two things in your price range. You can either get a 2011 GT 500 or you can get a CTSB. And I was like, I think all people like CTSBs, even if you're not, you know, you're not any Ford or any I secretly like them. Yeah. Any general or any car person likes them because they're just cool. And I was like, oh, CTSBs in my price range. So and it all like fell together so well. So we looked at the car. It was like a bluish gray. I was like, good color scheme. It was at our friend's dealership. He's the general manager. So I go test drive it December 21st, and it's snowing. We hadn't gotten snow all year. Starts snowing. So I'm trying to get on it like under a viadoc so I can hear the blower. And I'm just spinning everywhere. So Brian's like, turn around. He's a turner. And I'm like, no, it's fun. So I buy the car and I got it for a steal because it was our friend's dealership and they hadn't like skyrocketed yet because the V3s weren't out yet. So I got it for 26 grand. It had 60,000 miles on it.

That's brand new.

Right.

How long ago was that?

That was in the very end of 2015.

Okay.

Yeah. So it had some dings and dents. From what we were able to gather, apparently it was owned by the person who invented the JPEG. So it was like his daily and he just beat the crap out of it. You could see every door had been opened up into a wall or another car, which was really sad because the color was called the blue diamond tricot. So it was only an 09 color and there was only 85 of them. So it was a bummer. And it almost, you know what's crazy is it looks just like the new dark horse color. The color that's iridescent like that. Mine was a little more blue, like the flake I would say was a little more like rose gold. I'll have to show you guys a photo, but yeah, I raced it and turned that. And then when I got mine, four months later, Brian found a wagon. He's like, I want a wagon, which at the time I didn't understand wagons. I was like, ew, why?

Traditional American response.

Yeah. And so he ended up finding one in Staten Island, and we drove all the way, or we flew to go get it and drove it back. So that was our V journey. We kept those, I think we kept them for two years. And then I saw when the 18s were coming out. So it was like April of 18, everyone was already going like low nines. And I was like, I don't want to be behind. I need to get rid of this. So I went to my dad's shop and I said, hey, because he did not like the CTS. He did not like the 6L.

How's that next?

Yeah, he didn't like the 6L90. That was mostly it. He thought the car was cool. He just hated the transmission in it.

Okay, fair.

He's a big transmission guy.

So remember the GM transmission conversation I had with you earlier? There's a 4L60 in the garage over there all torn apart.

I wonder why.

Yeah, right?

Because you got to deal with it. So I go to his shop, and I'm like, hey, I was like, what if I buy an 18? Because he normally buys the newest car. So he had an 11, but he never bought S550. So I was like, it's time. I was like, there's enough that's changed from Gen 1 to Gen 2 to Gen 3. I was like, you're going to need to learn the 10 speed. And he was like, what are you scheming? And I was like, what if I buy it? I'll pay the payment. It's my car. You can race it when you need to, but you pay to make it fast. You put the blower on it. Because he gets a discount a little bit through Whipple since he sells so many of them. I was like, then it works out. And he was like, it's definitely one of your better schemes. But I was like, he was like, but sell the CTS. So I throw the CTS up for sale on a Friday. I sold it by Saturday night. And I was like, man, I probably shot myself in the foot a little bit. I probably should have put it up higher. So we actually, a lady bought it. So I was really excited that a lady who was going to continue racing it did. And she went nines and did what I couldn't do in it. So it was great. I was really excited about that. Bought the car 18 beginning of beginning of August. And then I like hit it from everybody. I didn't want anyone to know I had it yet, even though it wasn't that discreet. Like we would go to car shows and I'd follow dad in the yellow Fox. And obviously, you know, that car and then everyone's like, why is there a silver brand new car following him? Yeah. So but I wanted to unveil that I had it at Mustang Week, which was at the beginning of September. So I kind of just did a few small things to it, just to keep it discreet, didn't post about it. And then I was like, hey, back in the Mustang world, I'm here. So that's how I got that car.

That's why.

But dad didn't end up helping me on it.

It's like we had a deal.

Yeah. Well, we can go into that when we start talking about the Asan because all the stories end up working together.

But okay.

Yeah. Unless you want to go into that now.

Sure. Why not?

Well, real quick about your following around in the Fox. So I think I first found out about you when you did the 2024 reveal, right? With Ford, didn't you do a thing? Yeah.

Yeah. When my car was on stage.

Yes. Yes. I was like, wow, that's really cool. I have three daughters. And like I said, my wife drives a cool car and all this stuff. So I was like, wow, this is really awesome. So anytime I see a girl in motorsports, I just.

That's how I feel, too.

And then you guys did another one where with, I believe the S650, where you come back around with the Fox in front. That is like, oh my God, I watched that reel like four or five times every time it comes around.

I was so pumped with that. So my cousin's actually at CCS. I don't know if you know that college, but it's College for Creative Studies. So my cousin's an excellent photographer. So whenever I need someone, I'm like, come on. Like I got an idea. So I had seen that transition like two years ago. So I had saved it because I was like, oh, we'll do it with the S550 and the SN when the SN is done. And my cousin, like nobody was understanding what I was saying. So my cousin has little hot wheels because he shoots only cars. And I literally had to like show him what I wanted to do. And when I heard the song, I was like, oh, it's perfect. And my dad's like, oh, a good trend. Every once in a while, he'll hop on it. So we just went out in the middle of nowhere and we got it shot. And I was like, that worked out so well.

Yeah, finally. Great.

Yeah. And my parents have had that Fox and Snoo. So anytime I can share a little light on it, it's always fun to bring it back out. Because my dad does drive it sometimes, but he hasn't raced. He raced it last year and he went 830 in it, which is way faster than he should with the safety it has. So he won't race it a ton, but he'll bring it out. I think it's been to dream cruise and stuff this year.

But that's on our bucket list too. We keep hearing we need to come back for that.

I think they've said they expect a million spectators per year. Because it's the world's longest one-day car cruise. And it started because it was to raise money for a soccer team.

Oh, wow.

That's crazy.

Yeah. So it's nuts because what happens is that Woodward starts in Detroit, but they don't start that far down. They start at nine mile in Ferndale, and then it hairpins up. So I think it's 12 or 16 miles somewhere between there, and then it hairpins, and then it goes all the way back down. And it's insane. You see insane stuff. You just see so many things that you don't see all the time. And it bothers me because I'm like, bring that out. I want to see that more. I want to love it. Don't just bring it out one day, because a lot of people will do that. They'll just bring it out for that weekend. I'm like, come on, it's meant to be driven. What are you going to do? Leave it down to your kid that doesn't care about cars? Drive it.

We've seen that too. There's somebody back in Minnesota where he recently developed, I shouldn't say recently, a few years ago developed an illness or whatever, and his kids are just waiting to liquidate the cars.

Yeah, it's sad.

Yeah, it's a bummer, especially when the tradition doesn't carry on.

Yeah.

It's just a big bummer.

Yeah, my siblings give me a hard time. They're like, whatever the yellow car is worth, you have to give up your inheritance of money. I was like, first off, mom, dad are car people. So you're you're acting like they have money to pass down. Yeah, I was like, I like said I sent them like a Kelly Blue Book thing, and I was like, see, the yellow car is only worth 1300 bucks. I was like, see, it's not worth anything because they don't really. My siblings, they don't really know the story. Like they do, but most of that story is I'm involved in a lot of it or like I grew, I lived it. So to me, it's like way more fun. Like so my mom actually wrote into Muscle Mustang back when I was like two. And there was an article saying that like women killed the hobby. Like women were not fun. Like every time somebody gets married, they have to sell the car to have a family. And my mom was like, oh, hell no. She was like, we both have our Mustangs. We have a kid, we have a shop. You know, I work part time and we have a second kid coming. This is not how it all works. Don't be fooled by that. And so there's a picture of me like with little sunglasses on in a height, not a height chair.

Booster seat?

Yes. In the back of the car, like with my mom buckling me in, in her car. So that's why for me, it's a lot more special because I've been there the whole time.

Right.

And like when my mom had two, she didn't put us both in there. So it was like my journey with it.

So what went wrong? Right. Like why did of your siblings, why are you the one that?

Yeah. How many siblings do you have?

I have three.

Okay.

Yeah. So I have two sisters and a brother. What's crazy is my one sister doesn't even drive. But her kids are actually starting to really get into cars. So I'm really, and they're both girls. So I'm hoping that we can, I can carry it on with them. My, I think if my sister, my youngest sister had married someone that was into cars, she probably would have picked it up. But she just kind of does what he does. And then my brother, he's actually into Japanese cars. So he's into them a little bit. But my dad lets him drive the 24. So he's getting into it. But he just bought a Maverick two years ago. So he's like, let me pay off the Maverick, and then I'll buy something more fun. So I think if we encourage him, he will do it. But I think I just spent the most time with my dad. I went to the track the most. When we would bring them, they all were like, oh, we're bored. But me, I'm like standing at the fence, like waiting, watching. And I remember that. Like, I remember just being so immersed into it at such a young age. And asking my dad, I'm like, when did you notice that I was like really into it? He was like, you were always into it. He was like, but 12 was when you like really wanted to learn about it. Because my biggest thing was when I would go to the track with him and him and his buddies would be in the front of the truck. I'd be in the back and I had no idea what they were saying. And I was like, one day I'm going to learn this language. I'm going to learn this car language. I don't want to know what he's saying. And now it's like, oh, I have those talks with dad now. I'm the one that goes to the track with him and sits in the front and unloads the car and helps him out.

Are you the oldest? Yeah. Okay, so my oldest is 14 now. She's going to be 15 in April. She's the best.

She helps at every event. We took her to Texas 2K last year.

It's something about the oldest. I'm telling you.

Well, they tend to, so I'm out doing something they're able to go with sooner, right? So I have another daughter. She's 11, and she's like, I want to go. I want to go. And I'm like, dude, you got to remember, Rowan is two years ahead of you. Like, give me two more years, you'll be doing all the same stuff. Like, my 14-year-old has been at Cash Days.

Really?

She's in 1320 videos.

That's awesome.

Yes. So like, you know, we're at Texas 2K. She's with, we're out there. It's like two in the morning. We're out in the street.

My dad did the same thing with me. Yeah, because I remember one time I had to get like a paper done, and it was like a Sunday night at like four, and I was getting ready to work on homework, and he was like, hey, get that done. We're going to go race in the industrial park. And I'm like, okay. You know, because I was like, I want to be there. Like, I want to see all this stuff that's going on. Like, I used to go, because we, as locals, like we will hang out at Woodward on Friday and Saturday nights, or like during the week. It doesn't have to be like dream cruise time. Like, that's our like hangout where everybody meets up. So I remember going to Woodward with him, like as young as I can remember, and he would bring me out there. And then that's what's always sparked that I wanted my own car. Because I dated someone in high school that had a G8, and then I was like, I don't want to be a passenger anymore. I want to do this. Yeah. Yeah, so.

That's such a cool quote, by the way. I don't want to be a passenger anymore.

Yeah. I hated it. And now, well, it's come like a little bit full circle that my husband's like supported me for the last, since we've gotten 18, so six years. And now it's giving me like a little bit of issues now that it's more serious. And I'm like, maybe this is the universe's way of telling me that it's my time to support him. Because his car, we can go back, I guess we were roundabout going back to the SN. So the SN needs its own time frame, so I guess it worked out best. But, so in 2018, I bought my car, and he called me one day and goes, I want to coyote swap the SN. So, oh, back to teal and like backtracking, sorry. He got that car in 09 from his uncle, and it was hideous. His uncle had like a cowl on it that was huge, like a four and a half inch cowl on a stock car. I was like, it was bad. Yeah, it was bad.

I'm not a huge fan of the huge cowl hoods.

No, no, especially when it doesn't need it.

Yeah, right.

So, he got that and he drove it through school, and he like made it a little bit nice, and he went to college in Detroit, so he had to have like locking arrow catches, and it was not when the city was nice, or has gotten nicer. But what's funny is I just learned that he wanted an orange Trans Am. So, I'm like, man, they would have changed the trajectory of our lives if you had gotten that.

Right.

So, he gets that, and then in 2015, when we were talking about getting the CTSs, he had a lot of nice parts on it, and he was like, I think I'm just going to sell it. And I was like, why don't you just take some of the stuff off of it and sell that, and then in a few years, we can always go back to it. He's like, you think? And I'm like, because my dad had just done the same thing with the yellow car, because the yellow car had sat for like five or six years. And I was like, you don't, you aren't paying on it. Like, what's the point? So we literally stripped it as much as we could, and we put on dollies and we put in the back of our garage. And then when I bought my 18, he was like, I loved the CTS, but we knew we weren't going to do a Tunduit, like to hurt the value on it. So he goes, I think I want to build something. And he's a, he's more of a tinkerer. He's an engineer. He's a builder. Like he wants to work on something. So I was like, what do you have in mind?

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He's like, well, I want to coyote swap it. And I was like, oh, we can manage that, like dropping an engine in and some headers and whatever. We'll figure that. He goes, mm-mm. He goes, I want to put an 18 dash in it. And I was like, I'm on the phone. I was like, who? Who's doing that? Because not us. Couldn't be us, because we don't have experience like that. He's like, we'll figure it out. And I was like, if you think we can figure it out, I have faith in you. Four days later, he sends me a wrecked 18. He goes, I need to buy the whole car. I'm like, we're getting married in a year. You want to buy a whole car, a wrecked car? He was like, yeah, it's fine. We'll just get a conventional loan on it. We just won't tell him it's wrecked. And that's what he did.

Really?

Yep, and our friend shipped it up from Florida for us, and it looked identical to my 18. It was silver and everything. So we like joked a lot. We were like, oh, something happened. You know, like we kind of messed with the internet a little bit on it. And that's where the Whipple came from. So my dad never ended up having to put a Whipple on my car, because that car already had it.

Okay, ooh.

Yeah, so we paid 17 grand for a car. It was like Steeda's test car, so it had full suspension on it. The guy who owned it was just kind of a degenerate and ended up in jail and had to sell it like ASAP. So if we had sold everything off of it at that time, we would have made money on it, because it was so new and people needed the front ends. Because we thought about fixing, we had our body shop guy come, because I was like, this thing's like too nice. I was like, what if we just fixed it, sold it, and then bought a worse wrecked one, or like one that couldn't be saved. And the body shop guy came, because it was still 18. He's like, I'm not gonna find this front end for a few months. He's like, it's not worth it. So we sold everything as much as we could off of it, whatever could fit in the SN. And then we gutted it, gutted the dash, and then just slowly kept trying to fit it in. And you'd be surprised, it fits a lot better than you would think, but I don't want it to sound easy, because it took us a long time. But the S550 dash is very heavy. You have to gut it, like gut it, gut it, where it's just the frame, or just the pad, and then we disconnected it from the frame. So he had to kind of, so the SN, if you ever take the dash out of an SN, they're like this. They're not...

It looks just a fox body underneath the, but you take all the stuff out.

100%, but they're not even. So we had to like, oops, we had to cut this side out a ton, keep going deeper, go more, then we'd put the pad in, because we wanted it to fit OEM. Like we wanted it to fit where the very edge of the S550 dash like went into it, like underneath the window. So it took us a little while. What really helped jumpstart us was both being home for the pandemic. I hate to give credit to that time, but we were able to do that, and he sold everything he could off the Ascent. So like the dash, because it was swapped. I think then he explained to me that they didn't have all black dashes in 94, or he painted it, or I don't know. There was something special that he had done to it. So he sold all that. So we only kept the seats. He had sparkos. OK. And then we really wanted the center council to fit the same way, too. Like we didn't want to have to cut it. We didn't want anything to look like it was hacked or like put back together. So you'd be shocked. Like I know we're only 10 minutes away, but if you guys want to go see it, it's actually kind of nuts how well it fits. So it has a Gen 3 Coyote in it now that's built pistons. Well, it's just pistons rods. I guess it's not built. It has my ported. So it actually has the original blower back on it. So because it went to my car, then I gave it back to him. But it's ported now with a 10 rib conversion. And then it has a Magnum XL. And the XL puts it. So the cool thing with SN is like, you know how everyone's always like, you got to like reach so far to shift them. It pulled it all back. So when he shifts, it's like right here. So it's like an extra short throw. But then the spark goes, unfortunately, I had dyed the stitching on them teal. And I was like, great, we're never gonna get rid of these. Who wants specific teal ones? That's the most popular item the two of us have ever sold in 10 years of being together. We had like 30 people waiting for them. I was like, man, you should have put them for more expensive. He put them up for $660 or $650. Some guy goes, I'll give you 10 extra dollars if you let me come right now. Brian, being a nerd, posts on the forums. He goes back to his forum posts from like 2012 when he bought those seats. He paid $660 for them.

Really? Yeah.

So it's weird, like everything with this car like kind of really came full circle. Like that was my engine, then that was my thing. We like swapped everything back and forth so many times. So then he, because the sparkles didn't fit with the wider S550 center console. Unfortunately, we were kind of bummed, but he ended up getting bougie, kirkie covers because he's just, he's just bougie. We had him custom made. So I mean, for a car like that, it's hard to just want to put something plain in it because everything's custom on it. Like the BBSs are custom. Like we had a set of BBSs turned into a drag setup. So everything on it's like very thought out for him. And then for me, I'm like, I don't care. Just leave the burnout on the side. Don't even wash it. You know, like with his, it's like basically a show car. And with mine, I'm like, it's a race car. I don't care.

Right.

But he does race it. He did. We went on Wednesday to go get his licensing passes. If so, if he does Sick Week, he's ready to go for it. Okay. Because the stick shift class is not very big yet. So I'm like, oh, we could get in there, probably be in top three.

What does that look like getting your license for something? What do they have you do?

I may be incorrect because I did mine a year ago, so I don't totally remember, but he got four passes. I think you need six. So I think you need two short ones, two moderate, so pass the thousand foot, and then you need two full outs. And then someone at the track or two, excuse me, two people with their licenses have to sign off and watch you do them. So it wasn't too bad. If the track hadn't been, I mean, this was the busiest I had seen our local track. Not that it's ever dead, like it is busy. I don't know if it's because everyone thought it was like the last day of the season, but it was packed. There was stuff there I have never seen. There were 10 civics. I was like, this is Metro Detroit, where'd you guys come from? I've never seen civics. Like it was awesome though, like to see different stuff, like S2000, like who are you people? Like where are you from? Because I love seeing different stuff like that. The first time I had ever seen a civic or something front wheel drive was at World Cup. And I was like, why are the skinnies in the back? Like I've never seen it. And you know, out here, it's all domestic. Like if you see anything different, you're like, who's that weirdo and where'd they come from? So that's why.

Civics are weird too. Like my first time seeing a front wheel drive, like dedicated drag car civic, what did Fuji run? He was running eights or nines or something. I think he was running low nines, high eights or whatever. Front wheel drive civic. And I'm just saying you're thinking like, this car is so backwards.

Yeah, it's like so weird. Cause I'm like, why are the big tires in the front? Like just very like green. But the first time I went to world cup, I think was 16. So I was like, so I've always been around drag racing, but I had never been like serious about it until like 15, 16. And what's actually kind of crazy is I got Brian more into it. So Brian was always like into cars and like made a couple of passes here and there, but I actually got him more serious on the drag racing side. And he got me more on like the technical behind it. Like before, I was like, just hit the pedal and go. Now it's like, oh, well, you need a 315, sheer gearing is this, and you want to keep the 10 speed out of this gear, and you want to do this, and you have to set this up and change the coils. And now I'm learning all the stick shift stuff, like more base in the clutch and more this and leave off that. And I'm like, I really do. I kind of want to get into the stick shift space with let him have his car because he's the nerd. Brian literally has a spreadsheet of every single pass I've ever done.

Really? That's legit.

Yeah, and he has a whole spreadsheet of the SN build, so he has what we paid, what a normal person would pay, what we've had sponsored, what we had someone work with, all different kinds of stuff. He likes all that. And what's really crazy is that original blower, I know I said it was on Brian's car, so I forgot we had one more. Or we ended up with an extra one. We sold that blower, so that completed selling everything from that wrecked 18. So we literally sold every single item off of it. So he has that whole list, and he's like, you know, we made 14 grand on that. And I'm like, I don't, but I'm glad you're telling me. Because he has a list of it. So we were thinking actually this winter of doing a big series on how much that car cost us and how much it would be for someone to replicate and whatnot. Because that's like, it's tough because it's like, do you include the price of the car? How do I include our labor? It took us four years, right? You know, like, so that's why I've been very hesitant of it, because I know what comments are going to look like. But at the same time, it's like, I love comments.

Well, at the same, somebody who's going to watch that is going to be interested on how to do it themselves. So you shouldn't really count the labor, right? Like that doesn't matter. Like what do you think your time's worth? Right.

Yeah. You're not going to go to a shop like that and do it. I mean, even though I've been trying to convince my dad that we should start doing it, because... Do you guys know who Justin Keith is? He owns Killer Performance in... He's the second owner of Street Car Takeover. He has Nemo, that really fast six-gen Camaro. It's orange. So the reason why I bring him up is because he essentially created his own market with OBS trucks. So he takes a Chevy OBS, and he puts a ZL1 drivetrain in it, and updates the interior. He doesn't do as far as we have, but he updates it. And he essentially took a truck that nobody really wanted and created the market on it. So I was like, nobody really wants S&s. Everyone thinks they're still ugly, but they're basically the new Fox. I was like, so why don't we do that? So I have been trying to talk to my dad about like renting some space out of his shop, and maybe, I mean, if you just do the engine swap, it's a K-member and a couple other small things.

Well, technically, it's not even a K-member. You started with a 94. If you start with a 96, you pull a 4.6 out, it's a mod motor. It goes right in there. Right.

So that's why I'm like, we could do this. I think people...

I say full send it. I mean, what's stopping you from doing something like that?

The space. Space? The space. Well, I did get laid off this year, so space and money a little bit. But I think that if my dad's shop name is behind it, people will be totally interested in it. Because it's just people don't have the ability to do it themselves. So if we could do it, it looks nice. I'm sure people would ask us to do the dash. I don't know if I'd want to mass produce the dash yet, just because it's scary.

Did you hook up all the venting and stuff for AC and all that too?

So AC works.

That's one thing that's boggling my mind and how that it all works.

I'm sorry, car never had AC, but the heat works. Heat works, Apple CarPlay works, Windows and regulators all work, the backup camera works, and it has Bluetooth and everything. So you can Bluetooth it and it all is functioning. But again, this is another thing. Brian got a wiring book about this big from Ford, and he de-pinned everything. So some stuff didn't work originally because we didn't know anything about the CAN bus. So once we would pull something, we didn't realize that that may have been the link for something else in the CAN bus. So something like this, we did have to learn a lot. We thought the ECU was locked because it was an accident, so we sent out to HP Tuners. Turns out it was probably not that. We figured out. And someone from Ford, we know, came over with a computer and tried to help us read the CAN bus because why we couldn't get it to start. Then he had to steal parts from my car with the fueling because something didn't work. And it was just a lot of trial and error. And we're very lucky to have the system that we do, because we work with HP Tuners, so they helped us right away. My dad came over at 10 o'clock at night to come start it. We sat there and it just makes very distinct noise when it did not want to start. And I heard another car like that and I was like, maybe it's the neutral safety switch, because that's exactly how Ryan's car sounded. And so it was just a lot of trial and error with things like that. But the hard part stuff was not that bad, like wheels, hood, fitting the engine in. Transmission's a little shoehorned, I will tell you that. But it's a big transmission. So but other than that, like it has a factory style gas tank. He redid the whole trunk because he moved the battery in the back, and it has the battery shut offs and stuff like that. But like it sounds like a race car, but it really is just very pretty. Like it doesn't look like a race car, really. Yeah, especially like we have a friend that has a Fairmont with a Barra in it, and he has a sticker on it that says not a 2J. So under the hood. So I told Brian, I was like, maybe we need one that says check out my dash or something, because like people look at the front and then they don't go to the back. So we're trying to get them to like look at the dash a little bit more. But I'm like, you don't go to enough car shows. So it's like a rock and a hard place. Like how much is he gonna race it and how much of a show car show is it gonna be? Because we wanted to go to Carlisle. Carlisle is almost too early in the year for us. Like we're just never, our lives are never together to do it. So we wanted to do Carlisle, and then I've been talking to him into doing Ponies in the Smokies.

That's on my bucket list too.

I was added as a vendor, so I didn't get to like experience the whole thing, but I have seen the city before. I don't think we would take it on the mountains at all with the front runners.

It's so much fun though.

I know. I would want to take another car, but the front runners kind of make me nervous, and we don't have a street set up for it.

Snag your dad's 24.

I was just going to say that the 24 or his Shelby would be so fun. So that's on our list to just go and hang out and maybe bring dad's Vaux too. So that's the kind of thing, their two cars are cool, everyone cares about it, and then mine, they're like, get out of here. Nobody cares about new stuff. I don't know if you guys follow my friend Lauren. She's got a Silver Vaux. That's Turbo, and she did a video between the two of us, and was like, my Vaux or this S550, and I was like, girl, you're setting me up for failure. Everyone's gonna pick your Vaux. Everyone's gonna pick your Vaux. And then she didn't put any information, but someone, I don't know who they were, but they came in in white night and was like, you guys are insane. It's a stack block 302, or her super, super built 1300 horsepower S550. You guys are insane. And I was like, yeah, someone's offended me. But I knew it was gonna go that way. Before we even did the video, the concept of the video is everyone's gonna pick your Fox. It's a coupe. It's a 92 coupe. Of course, everyone's gonna pick a coupe.

The coupes were throwaway back in the day. Same thing with SN95s. When they were out, people were like, ugh, they were like, oh, it's horrible, all this stuff. And I didn't even like them at first. They're really growing on me now. And same thing, I wanted a hatchback Fox. Screw the notches. And now they're like Cobra prices.

It's funny that you say that, because when my mom ordered her Fox, my dad told her they were only dating, and they weren't married yet. And he said, don't come home, unless it's a black hatch GT with a stick.

Yeah.

She comes home, she orders it. And I guess the guys, the dealers were like, you better pick this thing up. We don't want this car. They were like, you better come get this, because this is the weirdest ordering ever. No one's gonna want this. We're gonna get stuck with it and never be able to sell it. So she gets an LX coupe, yellow, automatic. Completely opposite for what he wanted. But it worked out in the long run, because now it's the most desired. I mean, the color rubs people wrong, but I think that car specifically, somebody would be interested in that color. But every once in a while, she'd be like, I want to find that salesperson. She's like, I wonder if he's still alive, because she told them, I'll keep it forever. And here we are.

The color is different enough, because probably not a lot of people ordered it, that it does make it look cool. It is also not my favorite color, but that car looks nice. It's still good, it's clean. It gives me SSP vibes, you know?

Yeah, like the Florida SSP.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so it is really cool. It is cool, my dad's kept it, because he has talked about selling it all the time, and my mom's like, it's in my name. You can't get rid of it. So it is kind of cool. So I'm always hanging out with my mom, like, yeah, when I get to have the yellow car, but it's mine.

Is that one Coyote Swap 2 then? No? Okay.

It's Windsor based, but I want to say it's a 421.

Okay.

I mean, I could show you guys later. I don't know a ton of stuff on it. I know it's Turbo, and then he's been 830. I do know the map light still works.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Does that one have the dope scope? The one that swings down? Yeah. All right.

Yeah, so I know that because I have the original BFG ad. I had it in my dining room, and I, because I just didn't want it outside, because I was like, I don't want it to get damaged, because it's not a repub. It's an actual original. And I had a living, a dining room at the time that had all of our car pictures in it. And I did a TikTok that was like, everyone comes in and asks why I have this in my dining room. And it actually went kind of viral. And I was not expecting that. So it's always the dumbest one you don't expect. Right. So I talk about it. And then all these comments were like, well, if you still have it, can you do an updated video? So I asked my dad, I'm like, can you just park it outside and like walk around it, whatever. So we do a video of it. And again, going back to comments, everyone's like, that thing's been restored. And I was like, it's 35 years old. I bet you look a little different too, sir.

Right.

And I'll say the same. Because my dad had all the black trim painted to color match. I mean, people do that all the time.

Yep.

He color matched his G8. He color matched his SuperDude had different handles. Like he just does that. And it's like, it hasn't been, if you saw it up close, like the fiberglass hood has like a little bit of a crack in it. Like it's not, it's probably 85 or 95 percent, but it's not a hundred. And we don't claim that it's a hundred. Right. So, I mean, it's been raced. Like it's gone 830. It's been beat up. And it's been, my dad learned on it too. So he put a manual in it, put the auto in it, put a manual in it, put an auto in it. Like it's been around. It's not, we're not claiming that it's amazing. We're all, we're just claiming that it's the same family. Then my mom bought it, which was cool.

It's hard to be honest with you. Most like my 93 Krobe, he was making fun of his barely running. But I got in it the other day, and like half the dashlights aren't working now. So it was like anything from the 90s, 80s, anything like that. It's even if it is working right now, it could be not tomorrow.

Yeah.

So he could come full circle on that. Okay, cool. So it wasn't throwing s***.

It was running fine.

So yeah, like the map light could not work tomorrow. Cause even when I took that video and sent it to my dad, he goes, oh, he goes, you got the map light to work. So like, you never know. And that car, like, my mom also ordered it without AC. So it really was like SSP. And then he took the radio out of it. So I remember going to get ice cream with him in the summer.

It's brutal.

It was hot. But yeah, the cool thing about that too, is my mom bought it in a dealership. They wanted to go somewhere where no one knew them because my dad worked at a Ford dealer. And so she just picked a random dealership. And I actually bought my 18 at the same dealership 30 years later without us even realizing it. Same, like two months different.

That's crazy.

Yeah, it's weird. All this stuff comes full circle, and you're like, who knew that? Who planned that?

Right?

We had no idea. I mean, it has a different name, but it was definitely the same location. So they are literally 30 years exactly apart.

That's crazy. Is it one around here?

It's in Ferndale, so it's off of Woodward. We used to live down that way, so we just went there because our friend was there. That's where I bought the CTS.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, so that guy, we've probably given that guy a lot of money. We go in there all the time. Our friends buy from him. We buy stuff all the time, so we just kind of follow that guy. So it just happened to be that I bought both things there. I bought my F-150 from there, and then when he moved dealerships, I bought my Super Duty from him. And then a few other stuff, we mostly get stuff from Marketplace. It's like I bought my ST from Marketplace from a 20-year-old kid. I'm sure you guys could hear it coming in. It sounds like a 20-year-old kid on it. I had to do a lot of work to not hot-boy it. But I have the stock exhaust, like a full stock exhaust. I just have it. I just don't want to pay someone to do it. Exhaust work is so expensive now. I know. That's why I'm like, maybe we'll just unbolt it. Because it has aftermarket tips, and I like the aftermarket ones better than the stock. The stock ones are like that weird hexagon shape on the STs. So I'm like, no, I at least want these tips, but we got to make it sound better. Because the minute you downshift, it's like the entire way. I'm like, I can't.

That sounds like an ST thing.

Yeah. Well, because Brian used to drive it, and I was like, you're an adult. I was like, you're an engineer. I was like, if you have to take a client out in that thing, that's embarrassing. I was like, you're too old for it. So then he works far away, so we got a Jetta and he drives that. And he's like, oh, well, you get to have the cool car now. And I was like, that's because I worked with them all.

I'm not saying that as a Volkswagen enthusiast.

So we've actually had a GTI too. We've had a couple of things. So we've had an older Jetta that was a manual, that was a manual diesel, and he loved that. He still misses that thing. Then we had a GTI. Yeah, it was very reliable. And it got like 55 miles to the gallon. It was nuts. Then the GTI. Excuse me, sorry. And then we got the new Jetta. I mean, I think it looks nice. It looks like an A3. Like it's very similar. Like if it had new wheels on it, because theirs are awful. They're sunken in and they're way too short. Like if it had like S3 take, because that's what we've been looking for, like S3 takeoffs, it would be pretty cool. Like he tinted it pretty dark. He like blacked out some of the chrome. Like I think it's cool. And I was the one that insisted he got it, because I rented one in LA. And I drove from LA to San Diego and back to LA. And I had to like, it took half a tank. And I was like, oh, we need this, this is cool. And I was like, how about a white one? He was like, what do you think I am? And clueless, he's like, I'm not driving a white Jetta. So then I get the ST, because I work closer. When I was going to the office, I was working closer, and then he has that, and it gets like 45 miles to the gallon. So I'm like, you gotta have a little functional reform, I guess.

That was us on the way out here, man. With this car, I'm getting like 35 MPG, because it's not tuned or anything right now. My last one was, it was rough, you know, because it was almost double the stock horsepower, and it was just chugging gas. I mean, you know, it's not like you guys with your V8s, but.

Yeah, some of them are crazy. When my Mustang was new, we taped off the front end, so it didn't get like rock chipped, but apparently it helped me with gas. My 10-speed bone stock was getting 33 miles to the gallon and down to Myrtle Beach. I could not believe it, and I was probably averaging 85. Like, let's be real.

Which is crazy.

Yeah.

What did, the Mustang that Dave worked on, he says it was like on E85, the 900 horsepower one. I think he was getting like 20 MPG or whatever on E85 or something like that.

Yeah, they're nuts. The more transmission, I guess, the better the gas mileage, they say. But when I went down to E85, or when I'm on E85, because I went right from stock to E85, I didn't even have a 93 tune, it averaged like 12. But I also only drive it for short distances. But then when I did Sick Week, there's not a lot of E85 in Florida, so I did a 93 tune. So we would race it on E85, swap it all out at the next location. And I couldn't believe it, it was like 23, 24. Because you don't really take the highway when you're doing a drag and drive, or at least some of them. They want you to take the back roads and the routes and hit the checkpoints.

It's probably safer for some of the cars that are running that anyway.

Yeah, like the Brett Lasalas and what not.

Yeah, exactly.

They probably don't want to be in major traffic. I mean, I don't want to be in major traffic sometimes with these crazies. Especially because you have a trailer and what not. I didn't do a trailer. If we do one in Brian's car, we'll have to because the trunk is so small. But an S550, there's room for days. We put the tires on the roof and did a little rack, literally just for the gas and some tools, totally fine.

Well, that's what you're thinking about even potentially taking the orange car for the drag and drive. That's one of the ideas, and I'm just like, dude, there's so much space in the back of these.

What do they do for... So part of my question is, and I want to get into the racing stuff a little bit. Sure. So my goal, I want to go like eights, nines. Is that still fun to go do that stuff? I mean, you don't need to go-

It's more fun. Is it?

Yeah. Okay, so they still, you can still win. They just put you in that certain category matched with other people.

Do you have a cage in it?

No, so that's all the- when do I have to start putting cages in? Do you have stock seats? Yes.

Okay, so as long as you have stock seats and stock belts in a 15 or newer, you can run 9L.

Okay.

So you won't have to touch it. There is an 850 class, and then I can't speak for other ones because I've only done Tom's events, but they also do do your own dial. So if you average 940, it's a very consistent 940 car, you could win, do your own dial. Because I don't know any, to be honest with you, I haven't looked into a ton of the other classes aside from 850, because that's what I run.

Okay.

Or like the stick shift stuff, but there's lots of classes, like you definitely have a chance to fit into something perfectly. But I say it's more fun because I'm in like a rock and a hard place with my car. Because I have, it's 18, but the cage is only good from, so you can go 9L with stock belts and stock seats, but I can only go 850 with my cage. So I'm waiting for NHRA. I have a feeling they're going to move it down a little bit, at least 830, 820. I mean, it should be 799. I know I'm probably going to get you guys some nasty comments on that, but.

No, we enjoy them. We don't look at them.

That was in the last few days. It's been fun.

Yeah, I just really think that this new stuff is a lot safer. And a crash at 150 and 170 probably going to look pretty similar. It's not like you're crashing at 120 and then you're going 200. And it's an S550. No matter how much you lighten them up, they're fat. They're not going to get off the ground like a fox. They're not going to get airborne like something like.

Well, Texas 2K next to Kratos, that one got pretty airborne.

Really?

Did you see that one?

Which one was it?

So it was a blue one, and it was like probably make it 3,000 horse or whatever. It got all four wheels off the ground.

Oh, yeah, where he was bouncing on the parachute mount. It was on that 1320 shirt. It's like a grabber blue one.

No, it's like the darker blue.

Is it darker?

Yeah, but all four wheels went off the ground, and then it slammed back down.

Yeah, I did see that one, but when I referenced getting off the ground, when I was at World Cup, and I saw a Fox body do 10 barrel rolls, you're not going to see a S550 do that. No. So that's why I feel like with how safe, and I always say S550, but Camaros are heavier, and Challengers and whatnot, anything in that 15 and newer range.

That's offensive, by the way. She even put Challengers in the same class. They're way heavier.

Yeah, I know. But in comparison to the Shelby, the Shelby's pretty thick. Yeah, what's that at, Joanna?

40, 200 pounds, and then I put the rear seat back in it, because mine's a track pack car, but I have kids, and they love to ride around in it, so I put the seat back in.

Kids love it.

Oh, yeah. Well, the back of a Challenger is actually kind of sweet. They're really big. My dad had a Challenger in 16. He had it for a couple of years when he was learning how to tune them. They're kind of cool.

They're fun. They're cushy.

I like them.

I grew up I grew up It's a flying couch. It's amazing.

You straight-line people like it, I'm sure, but I love corners.

You can't handle them very well. I did, so Tom, when we were driving to 66 on the route to get to the event, he gave us a wide-body charger. So it was Hellcat, and it was fantastic. And then we drove a Durango back, just a 392. I was like, man, I can see why everybody loves these.

Dude, they're awesome. So nice. The Hellcats are so fun too. Like my old co-host, Rest In Peace. Not actually, not actually. He's not part of this podcast anymore. I know he's not listening, he's not giggling. But he had like a Hellcat Durango, and we've taken that thing around, like down to Texas 2K, it was amazing. Like it's not an Escalade V, those things are even bougie-er.

Oh, those are insane.

Like, you know, they're slower, but it's cushier. It's nice, those are awesome.

Have you seen him launch? I saw some guy in traffic, I was watching him. He literally just every single light would get it, and the whole thing looks like it's going to do no prep. The whole front end separates, it squats so hard.

You mean the Vs or the Hellcats are the same way too?

I was like, I want to ride in that. Somebody at the track, actually, that we were talking to went 940 in a trackhawk, and I was like, it's impressive.

They just got into the eights, I think, with I think it was Ripatune, just did a TRX record and a trackhawk record.

Yeah, it's nuts.

Just like last weekend or something.

I just love that at the time Dodge was putting a Hellcat in everything. That's why I really wish Ford would put a Coyote in something.

I want one in the Bronco.

I wonder if that had a 5.0. It's not a bad-looking car.

I said the same thing. I think what they should have done is put a Coyote in it for a couple of years and then ran the electric adjacent, because then people would know the name of it, and they're like, oh, that's kind of sweet, or, oh, it's a trackhawk competitor. Because now, again, I'll probably get you guys some comments, but Farley is V8s, manuals, until it's illegal. And it's like, well, you're talking about extending the lines, right? He talked about Mustang and Bronco. Okay, Bronco, whatever. We saw what you did to extend the Mustang line, and no one liked it. So is everybody forgetting that? Because unless he puts a Coyote in a sedan, we don't want the Mustang line to extend it again.

I'm pretty sure there's a four-door Mustang coming down the pipe.

Yeah, I think so too. But does that mean it has a Coyote in it? Because if it's another electric car, I mean, if it was hybrid even, that'd be kind of cool, because the Maverick is, I mean, it's slower than dirt, but it's cool. My brothers is a hybrid. But it's just like, if you don't give us something cool, your words are not matching these actions, Mr. Farley. We need some cool stuff here.

I cannot wait.

But they have so many other names they could, I wanted to bring back the Torino. They should have made a four-door Mustang and called it the Torino.

I said the same thing. One of my friends does handling, and I was like, come on, you got to know enough people to get these names out there. I was like, what the heck is a dark horse? It's a Katy Perry song. It's not a car.

There's a wine out there that's a dark horse wine, too. That's like the same logo.

The reason why it bothers me is because obviously their marketing team or whoever they're working with are not young, which I know because I know a lot of these people. Everything is nostalgia right now, everything. You could literally put a Walmart ad out from like, oh wait, with the bubble furniture stuff that girls had back then, and I guarantee you, you could put that exact ad out and no one would know that it was old. They would think it was from now.

Yeah.

Everything's nostalgia. Like Halsey, the singer, she's doing a whole nostalgia ad right now, and she's dressing up as all different singers from the early 2000s. So why couldn't you have grabbed a name from that? Why isn't it a Cobra? I know there's probably some licensing because SVT is not around anymore.

Yeah, since Shelby and them made up again, they kissed and made up in 2007.

So it's like, well, couldn't you have called it the Terminator? I mean, I'm sure they owned that name. They may not be able to use Cobra, but they could use Terminator. Something. Give us a nostalgia name. And that's why I keep getting irritated with all the color changes. Just keep it Oxford White. Just go back to Inget Silver. We know those names. People are like, oh, have you seen carbonized metal twist with a this in it? And I'm like...

Firefighter Grey.

Yeah, I'm like, I don't know. And they don't even say the same for... Because you used to have an Oxford White truck, Oxford White Mustang, Oxford White Focus. But now it's like, well, this one's lithium carbonized white, this one is shoe polish white, and this one is this. And I'm like, I can't keep these. I probably sound so old right now. I can't keep them straight. That's why I'm like, I don't really want anything new unless it comes out and it's a Ford Falcon. If it's like, have you seen the Australian Falcons?

Yes, I love them. We just had Andre on, and he's from New Zealand, and we talked about that a little bit.

Oh, that's not the same, pal. That's like calling us Canadians right now.

I know, I brought that up with him. I know that the Australians in New Zealand, that's like a whole thing, right?

No, those are Kiwis.

Yeah, it's like when you call a Minnesotan Canadian. So yeah, we get that.

We found this out two episodes, by the way. Did you know you can legally drink and drive in New Zealand? It's the only country in the world.

No.

Yeah, you just can't be drunk.

You can't be over the limit, but you can drink and drive and have a beer.

How many accidents do they have?

Like, almost this...

Probably nothing.

Yeah, that's true. It's probably when they get an accident, everyone's all loose. Because the drunk driver is always the one that lives, or at least a lot of times.

Well, when everybody's drunk, then it doesn't matter.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, you're right. Then it's like bumper cars, probably.

Especially in a town car, a Lincoln town car.

Yeah, right, something huge. But I want a Ford Falcon from there with a Bara in it so bad. I've heard it's Barra, so again, don't come at me. I don't know what it is, Barra or Barra, but we were actually gonna put one in the SN, like way before they became popular, because we talked to a lot of people in Australia, and we just, my dad, like, he's like, I'm gonna hold your hand when I say this, but it's gonna be a nightmare. And I'm not gonna be able to get parts for it. Like, it would be something I would want in a car that I don't race.

Yeah.

So, like, just because we know the guy that has one in a Fairmont and he's having a hard time. He's like meeting its limits with it. But they're fast. I mean, they have seven second Falcons in Australia. So, but what's funny is when you talk to an Australian, they're like, they're not cool.

I know, right?

I'm like, well, yeah, because you guys see them all the time. It's like when an R30...

That's what we said in that episode, too, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah, they don't think they're cool at all. Because when I was at Sick Week or 666 just past a couple weeks, there was a group that had... They had the Ute, they had the SS Ute. They had two Utes, so one was a G8 front-end and one was the SS, and then they had a wagon. And the SS front of the Ute was a Maloo, and it was like they were all insanely rare, like 300 or $400,000 worth of cars valued here in the US. And all the Australians are like, who cares?

Right.

But for us, it's like, I love G8s, a wagon version of them, now that I'm like into them a little bit.

What's the Subaru with the truck bed in it?

I know what you're talking about, but I'm blanking on it.

Yeah. Yeah, I've been wanting to do a current gen Taurus show, just to scratch that itch a little bit, because they're kind of close.

And put a Coyote in it?

No, I think the 35. Just build it, yeah.

Yeah, that'd be cool.

You can get kind of crazy with those.

I always liked those. My mom had one as a daily, and I used to drive it all the time. They're really nice. I mean, Ford is not where they're at, because they've made wrong decisions. I just think a lot of their decisions now, being in the industry, so many companies have just gone off the deep end of hiring people that can do it cheaper and faster, that don't know the brand. So I feel like there's got to be a turn somewhat, because when I was at Motor Trend, none of the salespeople knew what they were selling as far as car parts. The people would come to me and they'd be like, hey, can you explain this, and I'm like, no, you're getting commission on it. Why should I sell your product? I'm not a salesperson. But to me, I'm not a salesperson, but I know the product, so then they don't feel like they're being sold. But I feel like that's a lot of stuff now. They're hiring people from Disney. They're hiring people from the Ziploc. They're hiring people from a screw and battery company to come do social media on a car. And then they're like, well, we don't get it. It's really doing bad.

Right.

Oh, shocker.

Right.

We could have told you that.

Yeah, they don't. There's guys like me out there that are super loyal, right? Like we've been like, we live, eat and breathe it. I could go to Ford and I could probably talk more about the history with almost anybody that I hate going to the dealership and being the smartest one there that knows more about the cars on the lot. As like, it just really gets frustrating.

Well, you know, what's frustrating about it as well is the fact that all of these brands turn their backs on the enthusiast because their thought is this, well, you're always going to buy, right? Well, in my marketing mind is, who sells cars more than enthusiast because they're your free salespeople. You know, like in my family, who comes to me and says, hey, I'm between an Escalade or a Navigator. What should I get? Well, obviously I'm going to say the Navigator because it's Ford. Or hey, I'm between an Explorer ST or a 392 Durango. What do you think? You know, I mean, now I may say the Durango, but a canal that I've driven one, but I'm obviously going to tell them the ST Well, the ST has massaging seats.

Let's not forget that either.

Oh yeah, that's a good sound.

Durango doesn't have that, I don't think.

But that's the kind of stuff that drives me nuts because being an enthusiast that's worked with Ford, that's all you hear is they don't care about you. They don't care about you at all. They don't post people's cars on socials that are modified because to them, they don't think that you're valuable. But like you said, we are the ones that have, I have my Mustang, I have a second Mustang, I have a truck, I have my ST, I have this. My parents are the same way. Every year, they just release something new that's Ford. So we are the people who you should be bending over backwards for because we're the ones that are constantly buying something new or convincing people to buy stuff from us.

Oh, absolutely.

From them. Because I had a friend that was going to buy a Mercedes SUV for his wife, and I was like, have you thought about an Expedition? And he was like, no, I haven't even thought about it. Bought it, she loved it. But they don't care, they don't see it like that, because they're not car people, and they're not, I mean, I can't discredit that they have great resumes in marketing, but you just don't know this industry.

It's not always transferable.

Yeah. Yeah, because that's what I mean. Like, they grab these people who have excellent resumes on paper at Disney, but how are you going to sell people a Focus ST?

Well, they just do the, oh, oh, and then they're good to go.

They win their interview with a Mickey impression, and they're good to go. Yeah, but that's the kind of, again, I don't want to sound ranty because I try not to, because those are the comments that you get that are mean.

But it's so true, right? Because, for example, if I were to switch to Ford tomorrow or whatever, as a daily driver, like if I got a Focus RS, I would tell 20 people, assuming I'm a normal guy, like, okay, my coworkers, my family, all this, like, what do you think of that Ford you just got or whatever? That's 20 potential customers there. In defense of the companies, there's really no way to calculate the lifetime value of a customer, either, like, oh, everybody, they tell. Like, you can't count that. It's like I told 150 people, and then three of them bought a Focus, you know?

Right, but it didn't cost them any money to get those three people still sold. That's the way I always see it, too, and like, that's how I am with my ST I'm like, I kinda wanna get rid of it. This is gonna sound goofy, but I wanna get rid of it for a Cayenne. I know.

No, no, we've been down this road. They're a great vehicle.

Well, I want a diesel one.

Okay.

Because then I figured I didn't have to bring my truck out all the time, but I also don't know if I wanna buy a six-year-old Porsche.

What episode number is it?

Episode 103 with Kurt, and he was talking about what years to avoid. I think I did a, I don't know if I did a highlight on it, but I think basically everything after 2008 or 2009 is free game. Anything before that you don't want it because there's a cylinder scoring issue of some kind. Those are basically garbage, but anything after that, but then they also have like 55 variations with like diesels.

If you go listen to 103 when you're in a car or something, he kind of breaks it down and they specialize in building like off-road ones. And he's like, they're super capable. Like we take them out, like we're barely doing anything to them.

A friend of mine picked us up in his and it was brand new, or not brand new, I'm sorry, brand new to him. And it was like an 18 and he said that he was towing with it. Like they have a pretty big toke capacity.

7,700 pounds.

That was the older ones too. I bet you the new ones are probably even more.

A little bit more. And then he was like, yeah, when I to, I average like 28 miles to the gallon because it's deleted. And I was like, my truck's getting 12 when we tow.

Yeah.

So I mean, my truck's not deleted. It's like bone stock. So I don't know, maybe it would get more.

Mine's deleted and I still get, if it's heavy, it's 12.

Yeah.

But if I'm not towing, I'll get 16-ish.

I think mine goes up to 15 maybe when I am. Like that's why we got the Super Duty. So we could tow our two car trailer or get a two car trailer to tow then. So it is nice when we do have the two car. It's usually 12. Or if it's a single car, it's probably still 12. But at least it doesn't go down to like eight, you know, with the two car.

And the big difference is too, when you come, like if you end up in the mountains, if you're going uphill, it's no difference whether you're going uphill, downhill, on flat ground.

Yeah, it doesn't struggle at all.

Yeah.

That's we've had, well, I had an F-150 before, and I'll be honest with you, I loved that thing. Super Duty as a daily, awful.

They're not. I put heavier springs in front of mine because I put a plow on it and it rides like a hay wagon.

It's probably the same as mine because mine was like snow prepped.

Oh yeah, so it has the stiffer springs in it. It's not fun.

So what happened was is I had a just junkie dailies forever, and then Brian's like, we probably need to get a truck again. Well, my dad turned in his truck and I can't really speak on it, but there was something that when he turned in his truck, Ford gave you a couple of opportunities. They'll give you a deal for a family member in the same household to also lease something. So we got really lucky. I bought the Mustang, then I leased the F-150, and around here then, they were like $210 a month. They were dirt cheap. So because you always know someone, there's a plan, whatever. So I get this truck and I loved that thing. I just had like 35s on it. It had like gold wheel or bronze wheels and it was black. I would want that truck back.

Five-O truck?

No, it was just a two-seven.

Oh really?

Toed fine. It was very capable for what we needed. Drove everywhere in that truck. Loved it. Then I turned it in, or well, the dealership had to buy it because I was over miles. The dealership buys it out and I had to turn it in in November. We weren't going to buy anything. We were just going to wait a couple of months, save up so we could put like five or eight grand down on a super duty because we knew we wanted one in April or May of the next year. Of course, the day we pull in, my friend's like, oh, I have a super duty waiting. You guys are probably want. And I'm like, of course, you do.

I told myself that lie before.

Yeah, I was like, of course, you have one waiting. And the only color I said I didn't want was red and white. So the only two, I guess it's white. I hate it. I hate white super duties. I think they look like work trucks.

Is it white though? Or is it the tricot metallic?

No, it's white.

Okay, it's work truck. Mine's the tricot because I don't like white either.

No, it is like landscaper white.

Oh, jeez.

And I hate it.

Landscaper white.

Yeah, they're landscaping truck white. Like, it just looks like a work truck. So we blacked out the grill, and we wrapped a lot of stuff on it to kind of give it its own look. And it has wheels and 37s, but that's it. But it rides like hot dog s***. Like, it's just rough. It's rough. So the plan was when we got it, I was working from home, and then I got the job at Motor Trend, and they were like, you have to come in three days a week. And I was like, great, there goes my sanity. And all these little roads in that city, and I'm going like, kuh kuh, kuh kuh. And the whole thing jumps lanes. Like, it's not great. I mean, we also haven't put a ton into the suspension. I'm sure we could figure out how to soften it up.

But Fox 2.0 shocks helped mine a lot.

Did it?

And they weren't, it was like $800 for a set. I got from like Shock Surplus.

It's not bad.

Yeah, no, and they were huge. They got rid of my death wobble, all that stuff.

That's good.

That's a fun one.

Yeah, well now that it's parked, I like forget to do anything to do it, but it has 114,000 miles on it. I bought it with 60. I think we've had it almost four years now. I mean, I love it. Don't get me wrong. Like I don't want to sound too bad about it. I just hate that it's like. I bet it's been flawless. The only problem it gave us was it needed, I want to say it needed a ball joint in the front. So we did something, or a control arm. It was something like that.

The geometry of that stuff with the ball joints and the track bars, all that stuff is a thing.

Yeah, we did that. And then the oil, or the fuel pump, fuel filter, fuel filter broke. But it was a $100 fix. That one was wild. I was driving home, and it was a super hot day. So I have the AC on, and I'm probably two miles from home, and I start smelling gas, or diesel. I start smelling it, and I'm like, that's weird. So I get home, and I open the hood, and it's just shooting up. Gas is just shooting up everywhere. And I'm like, what is going on? So I shut the truck off. I text Brian, and he goes, oh, it's like a known thing. He's like, I'll get a filter on the way home. So we just fixed it, and it was totally fine. The only issue I guess we've had with it was for Dream Cruise, I had a girlfriend in from out of town, and she has a very rare, very nice 67 Mustang. And I was like, well, I don't really want her to drive it with the craziness. So I mean, she took it for a show, and then at night, it gets wild. So I'm like, we'll take my truck. So her and her husband and my husband all jump in the car, and we take the truck, and when we drop them off, there's smoke billowing out of it between the cab and the bed. And I was like, well, shut it off. And Brian's like, no, it's fine, we'll just go home. It was like two miles away. So we fixed it, and there was some sort of line. I think it was the transmission cooler line that had rotted out. So he fixed it. It wasn't bad. It was like a couple hundred bucks worth of lines, and they were fine. But I guess it's like also a known thing. I was like, it only has 115,000 miles. These are weird known things.

I have a 16, so right before they went to what I call the Alluma duties.

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of names for the new ones. Alluma duties, Alluma dirties, Super dirty. I call mine, do you guys ever hear of a show called Letter Kenny? Yes. Do you know their spinoff called Shorzy?

I've heard of it.

Okay, so in Letter Kenny, do you ever remember the hockey scenes where it's like one guy that's always on the toilet pooping and they never show his face and we know it's Jared Queso? Like he's the main character, will they give him a spinoff that's all hockey? And so he has a bird that he yells at all the time called Big Sexy. So I started calling the truck that that's the truck's name. Well, it used to be Dwight, but it was Dwight shooter duty and we never.

Oh, that's a good one. I like that one.

Yeah, sometimes I call it Dwight, but mostly it's just Big Sexy now. Yeah, it just fits it because it's huge. But yeah, I don't drive it all the time anymore. Right now, it's in our driveway with the SN on the trailer because we were degenerates and didn't unload it.

That happens all the time. Why unload it? It's already on there.

Right. That's why. Cool, because we were thinking about going tomorrow. So I was like, I might as well just leave it. And the nice thing is, is we have a little bit of property now. So we just if I'm too lazy, I'll just pull in the backyard.

So it's not sitting in the driveway. Ask him about my backyard.

It's full of trailers, trucks, cars and shipping containers.

Yeah.

Oh, how big is your yard?

I have two acres of basically all grass. And my neighbors gave me crap because I do fox bodies. I collect cars. I buy cars for parts. All this stuff. But I stack them outside. Nice, you know. It's like a it's like a nice little junkyard there. And they were b******* and moaning and up to where they called the city on me. And they were like, hey, you got to have the stuff inside. So I was like, all right, cool. So two rusty China shipping containers showed up at my house. There's no regulation on that. Guess what? Now they get to look at that. So, you know, you can b**** and moan. Well, the guy from the city called me. He's like, hey, you got all these junk cars, junk cars. He said, you're doing all this with the junk cars. He said it like three or four times. And I stopped him.

I was like, listen, we'll get back to the show in a second. But if you or your shop is building a car this winter, you might need components for an exhaust and intake charge piping. And who knows what else? Because you know, builds never end. If you need mandrel bends, flex couplers, tea clamps, and more, make Hayes Performance your first stop, so you're not sitting around waiting on your stainless steel goodies. Check out everything they have to offer at hayesperf.com and use code MINNOXIDE for free shipping as well. Let's get back to the show.

You may think they're junk cars. I was like, but to me, they're collector items and parts cars and stuff that I'm using to fix other cars. To me, they have a value and I don't think they're junk. And he goes, nope, you're right. You're right. I'm so sorry. He goes, unregistered vehicles. I'm like, okay, fine. I'll give you that.

Yeah, but I love when people come up with petty innovation.

I know.

And you can't mess with car people because everything what we do with racing and car stuff, it's reading between the lines. So if you're reading between the lines, you're always going to come up with something real petty. So you should have just dealt with it the way that it was. Because we're actually really lucky because we had a wreck. Brian bought a wreck 17 a couple of months ago, or it's probably been a year now, and he parted that out. And you could see it from the road. It looked like it looked bad. But we're so lucky because we have really old neighbors on one side. They're like 85 and 90. And then on the other side, they're 65 and 70, and they don't care. Because one day, we started the SN really late to get it running. And we didn't realize it was so late out because we were just so excited to get it running. So I knocked on their door because we were newer. I think we had only lived there like seven months. I knocked on both doors and I said, hey, really sorry. We started our Mustang really late. I didn't realize it was as late as it is. The 90-year-old lady goes, oh, honey, I take my hearing aids out at seven. So I was like, okay, well, I know not to bother you guys. If there's an emergency, I got to make sure you put your hearing aids back in. But we're really lucky being on the main road because across the street is just an industrial park. And then our two acres butts up to another two acres. So we've never even seen the neighbors behind us.

That's perfect.

Yeah, we are really lucky. So I don't love the house that much because we've only lived there for two years, but I wish it was a little farther back. But otherwise, I can't really complain about our setup because everybody's so chill.

This guy doesn't bother me anymore. And the guy across the street, the old guy, he loves it when I start stuff up. He doesn't care what time it is. He says he yells America every time he hears it happen. He's like, you guys are just the best. But one guy who keeps his yard super nice is my right next door neighbor. But like I have a skid loader. I have all this cool s***. So like I help him do stuff all the time. I just hauled a bunch of trees out of his yard the other day because we had a big storm come through and blew a bunch of stuff over. So he's he absolutely loves me. So it's just that one guy. And now he's got an old Dodge truck sitting out back there.

So he must be the junk out there.

Yeah, I know. Right. He must have been like, if you can't beat him, join him type situation.

So yeah, because we've had some terrible neighbors in the past. Like we sold we had an old 15 Super Duty that we sold because our neighbor was so awful because you can't it was such a small, tiny little neighborhood that you could we couldn't leave it in the street. And then anytime we would pull out of the driveway, he always said that we were on his grass. And they were younger. They were young people.

Those are the ones you got to watch out for. Oh, yeah.

And you know what's even crazier? Again, stuff coming full circle. We had a friend that was like, Oh, you live next door to my cousin. So the cousin that lived next door to us would say nasty stuff about us on Facebook and would say stuff like because he would send it to us. And it was like, I can't wait to vandalize their cars and pop all their tires. So we did have a popped tire. And I called the city and I said, Oh, it seems weird. So these people would rant about us when we were getting married. Very stressful time, right? We had one of our cats ruin all of our invitations. So we were out at Woodward and we were hanging out and I came home and I just lost my absolute mind. And I wasn't yelling at my husband, I was just yelling at the situation because it was a couple of weeks before we were getting married. Tensions were high and I just took my truck and I drove around, whatever. Well, my friend goes, hey, are you guys okay? The neighbor was ranting about you last night. And normally, I'm very non-confrontational. Brian goes, what are you going to do? I'm like, I'm going to knock on the door. So I knocked on their door and I said, I'm sure you can understand. I kept very calm, very composed. I said, I'm sure you can understand that getting married is very stressful. You don't know anything about us because you're not very friendly. You never talk to us. You just complain on Facebook about everything. And she looked at me and I was like, yeah, I'd like to speak with your husband because I know it's him posting. And she was like, he's sick right now. And I was like, well, just know that we have a backlog of everything and I'm willing to call the cops again.

Just the eye twitching, by the way.

She was literally looking at me and I was like, if you guys have an issue, come to us next time because we can fix it. Granted, we were degenerates for a while. Brian had a roommate before I moved in and we used to park in front of their house all the time. But all it was was a conversation. All he had to do was say, hey, can you guys not park there for extended periods of time? Sure, sorry, our bad. We didn't even.

That was my problem with the other guy. He never said a word to me. I just saw a letter shows up and then I get a phone call.

And that's the biggest thing. So Brian, everyone always thinks I'm this big, bad, rude b**** and I'm like, every time I talk to someone, it's always at this tone. I was like, I don't know, maybe that's more scary. Yeah, I think it is. My dad always taught, we're Italian, but my dad always taught me not to yell. He was like, you will get your point much farther if you stay calm. And I'm like, okay.

I dated a Sicilian girl one time. She was not calm.

No, my dad like.

Well, it's not technically the same either.

I know it's not. I know.

Close enough.

Similar enough.

I'm half, so I get it. But we are very much try to stay calm. Like when Brian bothers me about something, I'm like, look, I've asked you before. I'm at my wits' end. And he's like, just yell at me. Just yell at me. He's like, it'd be easier sometimes. Then you know what's happening, right?

Yeah, right.

But now I'm like, hmm, I'm gonna get, you know, just stay calm. I mean, we don't really fight a lot, so that's good. Unless it's about something dumb, like he'll leave the I don't know. We haven't really argued in a long time. I'm like, is this what?

Well, you don't have the normal. You don't have the normal like you probably don't have the normal like, why did a car part show up at the house?

Why are we at the track so much longer than you thought? No, it is interesting. And we've had a lot of people ask us to do stuff on that, like videos of the two of us, like how do you budget stuff for each car? And how do you do this? Yeah, yeah. I was like, you're not a real car person if you think there's a budget, but how do you do that? And things along those lines. And we've talked about it. I'd really like to be like the Chip and Joanna of the car world. Like the, do you know them?

I've heard the name before.

They're big on HGTV, so they redo houses and stuff like that. So we've talked about trying to start a new series like that, but I just can't get myself to go back to YouTube. I'm having a very hard time. It's been like three years. And we were on a pretty steady path with it, because it's always really hard to go back to something that's a little bit dead. Because then you have to spend a ton of time on it, and then it'll even back out. But back when we were on it, I would say 2020 pretty consistently, the comments were just, I will say about 99% of them were good. But that one, I was not mentally prepared for that. I just was not in a head space for something like that then, because it would be like, I mean, they would just brutally nitpick me.

You got to just stay out of there. He told me that right on. My first experience on here was doing an episode. I was a guest first. And I bought a wrecked Shelby GT500 and then wrapped it.

Dude, that picked up steam again, by the way. The comments are brutal.

And technically, I plasti dipped it, because it's autoflex. It's spray on deal. Well, it's not plasti.

If you can cut it, you can buff it. It's better than plasti.

I have to tell people. It's like paint. But anyway, I'm sure I got totally lit up, but I'm not even going to look. I don't even care.

Well, so all of our friends on YouTube always told us to read the first hour of comments. If they do well. That's fair. So this is how, with any platform that I've realized, they kind of work. First couple hours or whatever are always people who are like, love you, looks great. Oh my God, proud of you. Car's awesome. Then you get the questions. You get the like, well, how'd you do that? Do you think you'll run more in the future? Is there more power? How much did it make? Like the curiosity, then you get the a*******. So like, if you watch it only for a little bit, then you're fine. But then you get the, like, I had a video pop up of driving Brian's car, and I knew better. I knew it didn't have belts, but I wanted to get on it. I really wanted to drive it. I knew it. Every comment, you're an idiot. Dumb blonde moment. Doesn't have belts. I'm like, why are you guys all so worried about me?

I will say, we've had, especially like, we've had a handful of women on the podcast. The comments are like double aggressive too. At least with the car scene, I think. Like it's, that's rough. But again, it's like, I tell people, just don't even look. It doesn't even matter. It doesn't even push engagement. My favorite ones is when, especially with shorts, people start fighting and I'm like, you go off queen.

Yeah, like let you guys go because you guys are gonna help bump this.

I've had threads in the hundreds. Like people just going back and forth. Something we picked up recently, it was like an eight or nine week old video or whatever, and like the comment was like nine weeks old, and then some guys started fighting nine weeks later, and now it's like, they just blew up at each other.

I had one like that too. So we posted this video. So the trunk won't like pop on the SN, but you can see from the S550 key that it will like unhook it. Like it'll go up, but it won't like swing all the way up. So I did that, and then I did like a lock, so you could see that the S550 key was regulating that car. And I did something and I said, can't remote start a manual. And people were like, you need to kill yourself. You do not belong on this earth. You are the dumbest broad alive. And I was like, there's no thing on the key. I mean, I'm sure you can, I know people can add it, but you can't in this situation. We're not gonna add it. I'm not always gonna leave it in gear. Like come on, I'm very irresponsible.

There's a reason why the OEs don't do that.

Exactly. But I meant because you can't have it on, we don't have it on the key. And then like nine weeks went by and some guy goes, if you can't drive a stick, then just say that. And I was like, how? I was like, I literally replied and I was like, I wish I lived in whatever Delulu land you live in, because how did you get that together? How did you put, pinpoint those together? How did you put that together, that you think I can't drive a stick because of that? I was like, I'm like, if you don't know what you're talking about, it's fine. Couldn't be me though. I was like, it's just like, I'm a lot better with comments though. Like I had one where I was holding the driveshaft, I have a carbon driveshaft for the S550, and someone was like, that's so unnecessary for a car like that. And I was like, well, what else do you recommend for a car that makes 1300? I've had Steel, I've had Cromalli, they've all broken. So what else do you recommend? And then they reply, or they don't reply most of the time.

They usually don't.

Usually don't. Sometimes I'll get them to change. Like I did the Christmas tree race for Cletus a couple years ago, big old Christmas tree on my car, cause I knew I was gonna be the slowest, but I was like, I gotta be the most rememberable. So it was like wild. We had bulbs on it, everything. And some guy was like, you know you only made it to the second round because the car next to you broke. And I just wrote back, and I was like, that's the Christmas spirit, Scrooge. And so many people tore him apart. And he actually ended up saying sorry. He was like, yeah, I guess it was supposed to be fun and whatever. I was like, we weren't there for money. So it is supposed to be fun. And that's drag racing. The fastest car on the property could break next to you. You don't know. That's why you try.

Most of them have never actually been on the track, right? I lose all the time. I enjoy every single moment of it.

I've never won.

Yeah, the adrenaline that I get when I'm there. I got my helmet on, I got all my gear on. I feel so alive right now.

I'm probably the worst drag racer, because for me, it's about the experience and not winning, because I'm not very competitive. If there's a drop of water on the ground, I'm like, we're leaving. I don't want to wait it out. I have seen a friend rec really bad when they let some water on the track, and they should have shut it down. But I'm just not competitive. If it's like, oh, okay, whatever, let's go. I just do it because I love it, not because I'm here to win. I mean, sure, it'd be nice. It'd be sure to have the recognition, but in 14 years, I think I've been in third place. I've been in third place, and then there's a local guy that I always end up next to him at the end, and I've come in second to him twice, and that's it. So it would have been nice to beat him, but I'm also...

There's so many people out there that are giving it way more than I am willing to give it.

Yeah.

And good for them. They should win. They're really... The stuff they do to their cars, to me, make it totally unusable now for anything else, which is not exciting for me, but good for you. That's what you should do. But I'm fully aware that I'm not going to beat that person.

Well, it's like what we said earlier about being fun still. To me, everyone wants to say they have a 1,500-horsepower car and that they've been 780s. But what lasts at that point? With my car, like I said, I was in the rock and the hard place of taking it to the next level because I'm not going to put a 25.5 or 25, whatever one, 25.3. I think my car is even too heavy to put one in. It has to weigh 3,600 pounds, like a full chassis cage. I'm not going to do that. I don't want to put that in that car. But guess what I have in that car? I have a 10 or 80 that's almost on its fourth year, making 1,300.

That's crazy. That's crazy.

That's why everyone talks about how they hate 10 or 80s, and I was like, you're not, I mean, they're finicky, but you have to know them.

So how do you make it last that long?

I don't have a trans break. The trans break helps a lot, because I've watched a lot of people, and they'll sit there and, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, and I'm like, you gotta go, you gotta release it, and trans fluid immediately squirts out of it. You can't put a trans break on them. And again, my dad is just a very good transmission tuner.

Well, let's say he's tuned the transmission, then?

Yep, so a lot of people may say that it... I can't say a lot. Most people like my dad. But if somebody doesn't like him, the one thing they'll give him credit on is he's a very good transmission tuner. So he just, I think we just know the quirks of it now. We know not to keep it in the one-to-one at the end of the track, leaving from a different gear. We've just spent a lot of time with it. So if you hear a lot of people that are like, oh, it's the worst transmission ever, they probably don't know that much about transmission tuning. And not to be arrogant, but I'm the bonafide 10 or 80 queen at this point, because I'm the only one that's still on it. Most people have gone to 400 at this point or a glide. I just don't want to. I just don't want it to be a race car yet. That's the hill I'm willing to die on, that it's not a race car. Front runners, parachute, drag brakes, cage. It's not a race car, because it has a 10 or 80 still in it.

Yeah, is that what defines a street car?

There's a few things I feel like. That's such a crazy argument. Because is Brett LaSalle really a street car? You know what I mean?

Yeah, they talk about that. I've listened to some podcasts, and they're like, cars have an alternator, but sitting on the passenger seat. You know, like, yeah, it's like, OK, yeah.

You're like, OK, well, I guess it's in. You didn't say it had to be on it.

Right, yeah.

Right. Like in my case, I really do think mine's still a street car. I mean, the Apple CarPlay still works. It's got a digital dash, AC and heat, heated steering wheel, remote start. Like, it's still door panels still to door panels, too. Yep.

Like it just takes a 2K door panels in a radio, I think.

Yeah. Yeah. That's why that's why I'll probably build something else. I think I'll get a chassis like an already built chassis and then do something else down the line. But I don't know what because everyone's like, just sell the S by 50 body then because the the engine that's in it is probably way too built. Like it doesn't need to be as built as it is to just stay an 850 car. Like I could probably rip a seven out of it. I just haven't had the opportunity. We just didn't have the money to race this year. So it was fun to just drive it. I had a lot of fun actually just driving it and taking it to stuff this year, but I don't know. I like don't really want to put a heftier cage in it. So I think that I was talking about this car behind us. This is, I might try to get like an 05 to 09 chassis because everyone hates them. Everyone hates three valves. Like everyone thinks they're ugly. Everyone's like, oh my God, three valves, it's the worst. So now I want to be like, now I'm going to be the best, you know?

It brought the Mustang excitement back. When the retro stuff came out, it was like, holy s***.

Yeah, like, well, cause I lived in that time, but I wasn't old enough to kind of know. But like, I'm sure after the 03, 04, people were like, oh, it's the best Mustang of all time. Like, what are you going to do next? And then I remember when that came out, I literally wanted a car that looked just like this one. I used to carry around a picture of a white California special all through high school. I was that weirdo. It was in all of my, like in my backpack all the time. And then I did end up getting an 07, that generation. It was gray, but I loved that car. Everybody gave me a hard time about it. They're like, it's so slow. It's gonna make no power. I think with nitrous, I ran like a 1230. Oh wow. Yeah, my Mustang ran like 1180 stock, the 18. So it's just, that's kind of why I really like late model stuff too, because it's just people were doing stuff that people wish they could have back in the day. You know, like my dad used to tell me all the time, do you know how hard it was to run 10s? I was like, I don't know. Cause I don't, I didn't even try.

Right? You can buy one right now and go run 10s all day long.

Exactly. Yeah. Like I told you in the 24, he just ran a 980 in it, and the car is fully weight, full weight, everything. So that's why I like this kind of stuff. And that's why I don't want to just, you know, LS swap a Fox or put a Coyote on a Fox, because all those, there's, I don't want to say no uniqueness, because I think they are all very cool. Like when I see a Coyote swap Fox, I think it's awesome. But I want to do something that's more unique. I mean, obviously, we have an SM that's very unique. My wrap is bright colored. Like I just like to do what people are not doing, right? Which I get is kind of sounds ignorant because that always ends up being the expensive route. But if I can, I mean, you can find 25, five or 25, three, whatever chassis is already done. So if I can find one of those, I mean, I'm not in any rush. Obviously, I'm still unemployed. But if I can find one eventually and swap my motor and do it, and then maybe maybe I would go turbo.

I don't know.

Don't listen, Whipple. It's so sad.

Well, to be honest with you, it's the next route, really. I mean, if you want to do what the the big people are doing, that's usually the route you got to go.

Yeah, I think my three, it's pretty I haven't even gotten to push the three yet that much.

What size polly are you running on?

It's big, it's like a 3.7.

Are you overdriven on your crank polly too? Or is that a stock crank polly, do you know?

I think it's stock, or whatever's 20%.

Okay.

I think it's, I don't know, I think it's stock, to be honest with you. I don't even know. I don't think they sent us another one. But they told us to put the three, like a 3.8 upper on it, because that was equivalent on the 3.0 to a 3.0 upper.

Oh, really?

Yeah, that's how much, like that blower has a lot of potential. I just haven't had an opportunity with it. And I wasn't gonna do that blower until my motor got more serious. So that combo could go into a really fast, why I want a stick car, really fast stick car, and could be probably a 750 car. I mean, Brian's car is my old ported 3.0, and the car weighs 3,200 with him in it. So if I've gone 840, he should be a low weight second car. He just has to drive his. I can kinda just know it'll be reliable. Well, again, knock on.

Yeah, right?

Knock on something, but yeah.

So beyond that, what else has been a contributing factor? Because what's the fastest you've run so far?

840 at 170. So my mile an hour is very low weight. So I just haven't gotten there yet. But because that's a thing too, like about the 10 speed is like I could put a trans break on it and probably get way better 60 foot and have been closer to low 8s and high 7s. But it comes back to the fun. It comes back to the reliability. I don't want to pull that trans every time we're out. I don't want to put it out every season. Or I could put a glide in it or a 400 and be a 780 car probably all day. But I just don't want to. I have such a fun time the way that it is. And I probably sound so old, but that's just what we've gotten to. I've gotten to the point where it's a blast when it's figured out. But right now, it's just this engine, like when we went more serious, it's just these rods were an issue. This piston had an issue. So it's just been the more serious stuff. It's my dad doesn't do a ton of serious, serious stuff. His customer is a lot of the intake tune. You know, intake tune headers throw a whipple on it. Like he gets a lot of those, but they're mostly not serious people. Like they're the car show guys, or they'll go rip a couple of passes, but they put a 305 on it, 18. Like they're not very serious. And he has experience with serious stuff. Like my dad just went, I don't know. I don't know what he's doing with that car. So I don't know if it's a grudge car or not, but I'll have to tell you guys off camera. But he went very low in the eighth, very low in the eighth. And so he knows how to do serious stuff. We just, we're both just learning, right? Like it's all new, late model stuff. And that's why I think it's fun. Cause I like the hiccups and what could be wrong and figuring it out. Like again, we could put a proving combo in a proving car. But what's the fun in that? Then you're already doing seven seventies. And then what's next?

A lot more money.

Right. And that's again, that brings us back to the fun. It's not that fun when it's that expensive and high maintenance.

Yeah, the closer you get to like low sevens or high sixes even, like that's where you're starting to talk about seriously big budgets.

Yeah, you need big sponsors, big people behind you. You need sponsors that aren't gonna say, hey, we can give you this part for free for some videos. You need someone that's gonna give you some capital.

Yeah, yeah, that's a whole different ballgame too.

Yeah, so we've been blessed with sponsors and whatnot. I've been working with a lot of them less because I just, sometimes they pan out, sometimes they don't. I just want less responsibility. I just wanna go out and have more fun. A lot of the people we've worked with now have become really good friends. So we work with Ignite Racing Fuel, which is kinda out your guys' way.

Are they?

I think they're in Illinois.

Okay.

Or no, he's in Indiana, I'm sorry. So we work with Racing Fuel. We work with Whipple all the time. We work with HB Tumors. We still work with Lethal.

I love, like just the stuff that Jared does is, oh my god, that guy's hilarious. He seems like, I wanna go grab a beer with him sometime.

Yeah.

This seems like a blast.

Jared's fun. But yeah, that's like what we do. We've just like, it's anybody that has turned into like friends with us, and then that's it. Like, I mean, sure, I would love for somebody to sponsor like some optic armor. I would consider doing that, like the back glass in my car. But I've heard like if you roll the windows down when the car is going to like fast on the highway, it can pop out. Oh, yeah. So I was like, yeah, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. I mean, maybe if I build something else, I would consider working with somebody. But as of right now, I'm like, just chillin, just hanging out. Yeah.

Yeah.

It is fun to see Brian race to, you know, after how long that car's taken us and pit crewing for my dad. And so it's been different, but it's still fun.

Well, you mentioned that you got, so you say you got laid off from the motor trend, things not a thing anymore?

No. Motor train got bought out by Warner Brothers. So they were like a partial silent owner, I think, from my understanding. And then they only gave us a three day notice. I mean, we got two week notices afterwards and like really good severance. So I think they did what they could to take care of us. But I was definitely blindsided because I had just been promoted in September, like a big promotion, and then by February, I was laid off. So I didn't even get to like show what I was able to do. So it's been tough. I've been doing some freelance stuff for Tom Bailey, which he might be taking on NMRA and NMCA. So I'm kind of hoping that if he does pick up a series like that, he'll be needing more hands. So maybe he'll hire me full time. I don't know. I've had a few interviews here and there, but it's just a weird time. So I have some freelance stuff. I'm trying to not have to make content for people because I really don't enjoy. I know myself, I know people know how I talk and my video editing styles and stuff like that. But if I go for another shop or another person, they have this expectation and they're like, do whatever you want and then you do whatever you want. And then they're like, no, no, no, no, no, that's not what I was thinking. So that's why I've been doing some video stuff for my dad. He does not pay very at all. He didn't even give me a discount to put my motor together.

Well, to be honest with you, does he do remote tuning?

He doesn't.

Okay, so I didn't even know about him until I started doing some research on you. And I mean, I'm looking at his shop and I was like, I should know this guy. He doesn't afford stuff. I'm surprised I don't.

Yeah, so I grew his socials a little bit this year, just like with the blue car. The blue car, he's so easy and the blue car is so easy because everyone wanted to know what those were doing. So we like got from the dealer, went to the track stock a couple of times, then with just wheels a couple of times, and he's a chit-chatter and he's always willing to do dumb stuff. So one time I sat in the seat well part, in the front seat and watched him do a pass from the inside, or well, we were on the street, and he'll put GoPros on it. He's fun. He should be paying me, but he doesn't. But yeah, I just posted before we started talking about taking the car there and it went a 980, so I was pretty excited about it. And he's excited about it, and so that's what's fun. Because I'm sure I'm going to check my phone and it's going to be like, did you know evolution's almost in the eights? What are you guys doing? And for me, it's like, yeah, that's my dad. I mean, my dad knows all those guys. He just talked to evolution a couple days ago. It's not about that for him. It's about the fact that it has a much bigger pulley. It's a little bit of boosting and it's still fun. I think a lot of people forget the fun. That's a huge thing I've noticed, is most people forget that. Sometimes it is supposed to be fun. One time Brian and I did get an argument at the track. He put my traction control back in and didn't tell me. So I was trying to do a burnout and I looked like an idiot. Because there's a way to work around it, right? You just turn it off, but I didn't know the fuse was back in. And I got so mad and I was like, you're supposed to tell me you guys changed things and you don't let me know, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I posted it because people were like, oh, you guys need to be more realistic. Got my head tore off that I was mean. They're like, you need to say sorry to him. And I was like, no, I just yell at my husband like that all the time, we're so happy. But it was just one of those things. And he looked at me and he's like, this is supposed to be fun. Like you're supposed to have fun. And so I remember that all the time. I'm like, yeah, we're supposed to have fun. This is supposed to be chill. So it is kind of cool. Like it has been weird trying to be a spectator or like pit crew and helping people, not racing, but it's the journey, right? There's a reason why my car is giving me an issue, which to me normally means there's probably something else wrong, but I can't, I'm not gonna go that, I'm not gonna go down the conspiracy hole.

Yeah, it's part of it is going to the track and hanging out. You know, you'll probably still have a good time. And is he gonna let you drive his car every now and again or what?

Brian? Brian will. Yeah, Brian will. Dad, probably not as much.

Okay.

He, I really want to drive his, the new grudge car because it has a 400, and I just want to know what it's like to shift one just in case I, I know I've said I'm gonna die on it, but I really, I just want to know what it's like because I've never had that.

Well, not in that car. You could do it at a different car, right?

Yeah, yeah, so I would like to drive it in his just to see what that's like. He did say down the line, he may let me have the blue car to drive it. But when I was younger and didn't have one, it was more like, please let me drive it, let me drive it. But now it's like I already have my own stuff, so it's fine. And he's having fun and he's just in remission now after having cancer for a couple of years. So it's like fun to watch him have fun again.

Yeah, no, I caught a couple of videos with him in it. And after looking at his shop, well, we're definitely come back out here again. We'll have to see if he's interested.

Dude, yesterday, we cemented like we got to come back here in the next few months.

You guys are going to have to, yeah.

It's ridiculous. Like there's so much out here. It's it's great. Like I thought our Chicago trip was fun. Holy s***.

You guys have to go to like the museums to like the Henry Ford, the Paquette.

I know. Have you done a rope tour? The rope, the F-150 tour?

No.

Oh, my God. That was like one of my favorite things when I came here, just seeing how they build those trucks and you get to watch a video beforehand where they talk about how they went from cranking out a Model T once every eight days to doing one every 12 minutes because the Henry Ford and the production line stuff. And then you see where they've got now, where they take a truck as elaborate as now, and it's like eight hours from start to finish. It's just nuts.

It's nuts, yeah.

We came during the chip shortage.

Oh, God.

So there was F-150s everywhere. They had them in Starbucks parking lots and everywhere around the tour. I was like, it looked crazy to me. They were parked everywhere.

I remember that because my dad ordered one and he was waiting for it, and somebody at Ford called him, and they were like, hey, we can either give it to you right now without start stop, or you have to wait for the chip. And he goes, ship it. He was like, I don't care about start stop.

That's what they were waiting on?

A couple of them, yeah. He was for sure waiting on start stop. And so he was he's like, send it right over. He's like, I don't need that. So I remember that because I used when I worked at so I worked at Campbell before I worked at Motor Trend, and they did all the marketing for for performance. So I would go down to Dearborn, and I would see trucks everywhere, everywhere. So that was again, a weird time.

Yeah, we're supposed to have Sean Day on tomorrow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I don't I don't think I've met Sean, but I know Sean.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just speaking for performance stuff. Yeah.

Yeah. That'll be a good time. But yeah, you guys got to go through like all the museums here because the Henry Ford everyone hears and they're like, I don't care that much about Ford history. But it's I think it's called the Museum of Modern Innovation.

Yep.

So it's like the house from the future. And what's really crazy is I talked to my grandma about it, and she's like, yeah, it was a real thing. And it's a circle. The house was shaped like a circle, and they have one. And then there's like the commercial of it. And you can like watch what they were trying to pitch back in the day. Trains. They have the cars from presidential limos. So JFK's limos there. Ford has like a little racing movie theater that you can watch, like this little racing series. That's really good. Then they have the village, which is all outside. So Edison's like lab is there. I think there's a little thing for Tesla or Nikola Tesla. Then the Wright brother plane is there. I don't know if it's the exact one or if it's like a replica, but then they have where you can ride in Model Ts. It's so cool.

So it is more Ford based. I didn't do the pioneer village thing.

Yeah, you got to do the village. We go there every year cause they dress it up. Everyone dresses up for Christmas. So you go out there and like you can, everyone's in like the old clothes and you can ride the Model T's and they let you go through some of the houses and check them out with candlelight. It's really cool.

We did, we also just drove around with my wife and I stayed here for a couple of days. And we just went around looking at all the abandoned factories and buildings too. Like that was one of my favorite parts. This was right when Ford had just bought Grand Central Station. So we went to go do that, but they had it all roped off. But like you go to the old, like I think it's a Studebaker plant or something. And like just literally nobody around and you're just, you look inside and it's super creepy. And I took a bunch of pictures of my car out with that stuff. That was one of my favorite parts too.

Did you guys get a chance to go back to Grand Central Station since it's open now?

I haven't yet, no.

Yeah, you guys gotta look at that. Paquette's really cool. My friend got married in Paquette like two years ago. And during, while she was taking her photos, you got to go on a tour. So it was all the first like model tees. And it's just, I don't know a lot about all that stuff. My Mustang knowledge kind of ends in 79. So I would say, I mean, and she's great because she is the classic. So like, I always wanted to build something with her like a, you know, 65 or 68 or something, really a 69 Mach 1, and then put a Coyote in it because then it would be her knowledge and my knowledge of like late model and we would come together on it. And she could teach me what I don't know. And I can teach her what she doesn't know because I mean, she's taught me a ton. Like when I saw her Mustang for the first time, she's like, you know, I was like, oh, what's this? And she's like, oh, that's an upper center council. And she's like, oh, well, these ones don't have it. Or she only has one side mirror. Like she's like, oh, it was just ordered without it. So really back in the day, Mustangs were pretty much all one of one because they all were ordered of something crazy. So it and what's crazy is they feel a lot bigger inside than you would expect. And like with the dash doing the dash, I think Mustangs just got bigger on the outside because the S550 dash fit in this end, we only took a quarter on each side of the actual dash pad. So you'd be surprised it fits a lot better than we expected without a lot of modifying. And then when we put the cage in it, we just had to cut a little circle like this for the bars. We didn't have to do a lot of hacking on it, which was cool. So he lost the side vents don't work, but the heat will come out of the middle vents. But I put his shift light in the vent, I hid it in there so he can close it if nobody wants it. He doesn't want anybody to see it.

Oh, that's cool.

And then you open it up. Yeah, my dad is always really known for that. He always hides little stuff in vents like that. So he was like, where do I put the shift light? And he was thinking about the cord running across the window and all this. And I was like, absolutely not. Then he wanted to, I hate when you have to drill into the A pillar. So I was like, can you, I was like sitting in it. I'm like, can you see it before I put that panel back in? And it's angled a little bit, and the shift light's perfect right there. So we try to do like fun little stuff like that. Like mine, I have my ice tank button and stuff like hidden in the bottom of the dash. You know on the S550, how there's like that little spot for the, there's like a little tiny thing at the bottom of the dash. It like collects junk. It's got that rubber thing on it. Can't think of like what it's called, but there's like a phone cord there, like the USB.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I have a little.

It's like a spot where people toss change. Yeah, it's just got, my phone doesn't fit there because it's freaking huge.

Yeah, mine too. It's like a junk. It's just a junk collector. So we made like a little panel that kind of fits in and like looks OEM that fit, has my line lock and my ice tank. Oh, that's so we always like try to hide them because when I did that, everyone's like, oh no, put in the sunglass holder and all that. And I'm like, when I'm strapped in, I can't reach it. I literally can't reach to like unhook it. So that worked out perfect. Like it's right here and I changed, I have more there lit up too. So it's kind of cool. So when the line locks on it's green and then I undo the line lock and then I circulate the ice tank and it turns blue. That's cool. I had to do it. Well, I have like PTSD because I know people who haven't turned their ice tanks on and it's blown up their motors. Because then no water flows. So I'm like, won't be doing that based on a button. Because we used to do it like when the key would turn, it would just circulate. And Brian's like, well, by the time, I don't know why he was so like anal about it because that blower never got hot. Literally, you could put your hand on a brand new Whipple and it's not going to get hot, especially not one with an ice tank. Well, back in the day, I was used to the CTSV though. You could cook meat on the top of it because they're spinning that little blower, but these blowers are just so much bigger and so much more efficient now.

I have what they call the Gen 4, so it's the 2.9, but with the upgraded rotors or something. If I want to make real power, I got to go Gen 5.

If you want a 3.0, let me know.

Yeah?

Yeah, we'll find you one.

Oh God, he's gonna buy stuff again.

Yeah, sorry. Black Friday's right around the corner. That's when I stock up. I literally, lethal boxes start showing up, all this stuff. You'll see all kinds of crap just start showing up at the house.

You're everyone's perfect customer.

Yeah. Last year was a ton of VMP stuff because I went the full treatment, the lid and all that stuff for the GT 500. Yeah.

Justin was up here. It's probably been a couple of years ago now, but my dad and Justin are pretty, they talk all the time. Yeah. Sometimes he'll send us stuff to test. So he made an actually really b***** plastic ice tank.

Yeah, I have that for under the hood of my, I bought that one, that whole setup with their air intake and everything.

Yeah, we have the, or this a bigger one. So it's like a trunk set up one.

Oh, okay.

He sent it to us for the SN, but Brian doesn't really have like the stock trunk set up anymore. So it's got the big ice tank. He had one under the under the hood, and I asked him to move it. Cause we've seen somebody that it didn't close correctly, and they almost wrecked cause they ran over the water.

Oh really?

So I was like, please move it to the trunk.

I don't plan on putting ice in mine. I just did it because it attaches to the nice cold air intake and just have more volume of, yeah, of fluid. I'm not gonna run water in mine. I want to be able to put it away and not have to think about, I have to empty that out and put antifreeze in it.

You got to put that one around a few weeks ago.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. And it looks funky in there, but yeah, we did it for Justin to post about it. So it was actually, the setup of it was really cool. It's just Brian doesn't have the stock spare tire well anymore.

Okay.

So we kind of had the fung in her leg moving. That's why we, that's why we would need a trailer if his car was to do a drag and drive, because his trunk setup is not very great. We'd probably not even be able to put a suitcase in there. And it's much smaller.

Yeah.

So.

Any advice for us going into our first drag and drive?

Don't overdo it. Don't overdo it. Don't overthink it. And have a little bit of a mentor.

I will overthink it, but I probably won't overdo it because I'm pretty good at that.

Well, don't like, don't start off with a trailer. That's like the first thing everyone thinks. And I was like, well, are you bringing an engine or a trans? And they're like, no. And I'm like, then what are you bringing?

My biggest thing was I wanted to have some sort of radial that I didn't want to ride on the entire time. So I thought about just having another set of rear wheels.

Yeah, we did that. So I hadn't, I hadn't intended on doing it. I was going to do it all on the radials because they were like a little bit of a newer set. And then I was like, I'll just buy another set when we get home. But the weight from the luggage and the weight from the little rack and the, and cause for S550, it's easy. They make, there is, I think it's from E trailer. They make a hitch that just lines right up. So you don't gotta try to make one or whatever.

So with cut into the bumper at all, do you know?

No, I mean, I didn't, but I also have my valance cut. But I think you'd be fine. I don't think I think they make it so you don't have to. Okay. So and then I put the wheels on the roof. And it sagged the back end so much that it was like in the radials. So we had to change, we had to take a couple things off. And then my friend lent me his stock Mach 1 wheels, which were the ugly ones. They weren't like the performance pack ones. So I was like, well, at least they're just black. But it actually worked out because the back end was so low that they actually kind of fit perfect on it. So they looked really good. I would consider doing a trailer, maybe. But if you aren't planning on bringing your whole life, then you don't need it.

No, the car is TR60, 60 swapped. So the orange car is the one I want to bring. I don't think I'm bringing the GT500. But if I put... I don't even know if I need bead locks. I'm thinking just drag radials. And then I think I should probably have GT350 half shafts in it. But if I'm going to hard launch, I might have to get some G-Force or Ford Performance axles would be the only thing that probably needs.

I always recommend spending the money on those because they do break. I don't know about the 350 ones. I have heard that they are a pretty good upgrade. I have the Outlaws from G-Force because I broke a Renegade. Renegades, I don't know if they list the horsepower anymore on them, but I was a little over 1,000 and I broke one. So I convinced my dad just to go right to the Outlaws because I knew that when tuning is available on the blue car, things are going to be wild. And he says he's not going to push it, and I'm like, yeah, okay. So I just had him do those. But yeah, I've always had really good luck with G-Force. And if there's ever an issue, like the Renegades, I just sent them out and they fixed them and then they upgraded them to the Outlaws. So you don't have to buy a whole other set. So we paid to have them upgraded, but put them back in and they were totally fine. So we've had really good luck with them. I always rip on people who have bead locks that don't really need them. Well, I don't know.

I heard that they're more of a pain in the a**. They tend to leak.

I've been very lucky when it comes to that. They are very tedious to put together, but they're not hard. But a lot of people, I think now, they're just like, oh, I'm just gonna buy a bead lock. But it's like, if anything, you're kind of slowing it down because they're so much heavier. They're a lot more work. To me, my thought is, is if you can't install them yourself, your car doesn't need them.

Fair enough.

You know, because I've seen people, I've been to Mustang Week, and the tire is, they're not on correctly. Because you're not really supposed to take them to a shop. They don't really know what they're doing. That's right, yeah, you see it a lot, yeah. I told this girl in private, so she wasn't embarrassed in front of people, but people were ragging on her as she was driving through. And I was like, do you plan on racing it? She's like, no. And I was like, I would try to get a regular wheel then, so you can take it to a conventional tire shop, so you don't have to deal with it. But we usually change mine out every... I probably do two tires a year, two sets, but I really, like this year, these are pretty much brand new. They have two burnouts on them.

What do you run for a tire normally?

Mickey's. Honestly, I haven't bought a set in so long. They're the...

Is it the ET Streets?

ET Street R.

Okay.

And then I run a 315. But I run a 315, which I do not recommend those unless you're making us north of a hundred, like a thousand, north north of a thousand.

This is an 800 wheel-ish car.

A 305 would be fine. I say that because they are hard to spin. They are very hard to spin. And so if you... Like, I just did a line lock like two years ago. I wish I had done them sooner. But a lot of people want to go 315 without knowing why most people do 315. I did it because of the ratios and the transmission. It helps me keep the 10 speed out of seventh at the top end.

Okay.

So there's like a little more tech behind it. But I recommend a 305 to most. And then if you start spinning, you can because they're not easy to put on to. Like I had to raise my car back up to put them on. So it's got a little little race car rake, but not really.

That looks cool.

But yeah, that's it. That's what's great about that. And it always looks like it's got a race car rake. But that was on an intentional. I think those cars just sit like that when you put a tire on them.

Well, this one's a manual car. So like definitely three or five. Yeah, I can dump the clutch and usually get a good burnout.

You may want a bead lock then. Now that you say that, you may want one for manual cars and then you just don't have to buy another set eventually. But they do take a lot harder launch, manual cars do. So let me know when you go buy some wheels, they'll help you. Okay. But yeah, other than that, I would try to find a mentor when it comes to it. Cause we had a couple that we did sick week with and they helped us a lot. Like there's not that much to learn that it's different. But there's just like little quirks, like make sure you turn in your slips at certain times. When people are on the side of the road, like you have to, like, hey, you guys good, like try to stop, make sure they're fine. Like, and that's what's really fun about Dragon Drives is it's it's very much a community. Like you're not sitting in the heat all day on the track, trying to get six passes in and more cutthroat. Because you're really just racing yourself and you're racing the fact that you built a car that can do this. So that's why they're they're really fun. And the community is just so nice. Everyone sits in the parking lot and has beers afterwards, and people are so friendly.

That's one of our favorite things about car events is parking lot beers, man.

Parking lot beers, man. Every road rally, I remember there was a bunch of new people on this road rally we did a few years ago. I think it was the 10K Lakes one or whatever. The one I did with Mark, and I was telling everybody, like, hey, let's go. Parking lot party. And they're like, what? They're like, we're going to bed. I'm like, you're a f****** idiot. It's 9 p.m. Versus like, let's go.

You gotta go out there for a little bit, or somebody's thrashing, and we're all having beers next to them.

I got a video of a guy falling off. One was like, little, what's the thing that your son's always riding on that you tell him to put away? The little.

Is it the scooter?

Yeah, the scooter thing or whatever.

Like one of those like razor scooter.

Yeah, whatever. But like a guy like I got a video of him falling off. We're all just destroyed, smoking cigars and doing beers and fireball. I remember fireball on that one. That was wild.

The reason I tell you to put it away is that's his sister's.

That's the problem. She's going to get yelled at. Yeah, I know that.

Yeah, he's got a dirt bike. So I'm like, why are you on her electric scooter?

Yeah, I know. It's like a little brother.

Yeah.

Well, as we kind of start winding down here, because I think we're literally about to hit two hours, dude.

Really? Dude, wow, that went by quick.

That was super quick. I think that was probably one of the most free flowing podcasts we've done in a while. We have a variety, right? We get some super technical ones where it's like, I pause and think for a second, but that was just super free flowing.

See, I told you I could talk your ear off all day.

I could keep going.

Dude, I'm just saying you're thinking like, we could do this all day. This could be like a nine hour episode easily.

Well, when you come back, maybe we can figure out to either of my dad or Brian on it.

Yeah, sure.

Brian's a chatter too, and dad. God, he'll be like, hey, your video cut off on Facebook. And I was like, yeah, because they have to be a minute. I had to cut it off because you had 17 minutes of telling me something. But he will. He'll talk your ear off. People like your dad so quiet, I was like, he must not like you because he is a chatter. But in a good way.

That's hilarious. Yeah, he must not like you.

Yeah, he must not be chatty. But he's blunt. He will tell you if he doesn't like your car.

Oh, really? Yeah.

He had a customer one time and they're like, oh, I have this, and I want to do this, and I have that, and whatever. They're like, it's a vert, though. So what do I do? And my dad's like, that all sounds great. But sell it and get a coupe. Or like if it sounds, which coyotes are a wild world where they don't sound that great. You got to do a lot. Like my dad will be like, I'll do whatever you want as long as you give me freedom to fix this exhaust.

Really?

Yeah. He hates him because I always call him a bass boat. Don't I sound like a bass boat underwater? A lot of them.

I don't know. I love the way mine sounds.

Some of them sound great. Don't get me wrong. I think mine sounds great. And Brian's car sounds wild because he has like side pipes. He has the SBO side skirts. So they have side off. And his sounds like a retro. I really want to do a video now that we're talking about it, where I just let it roll, you can hear it, and then be like, what does this sound like? Because to us, we don't think it sounds like a coyote. But a lot of them, when you go to Mustang week or something and you hear them, it's, uh, uh. They all sound, they sound like a boat underwater.

I think a lot of people go to that raspier muffler setup too. I went with, saw them at FoxBot, I went with MagnaFlows on mine. That's just a tried and true, they've been around forever and ever, and I think they have a deeper throatier sound.

Yeah, we did. With my car, well, because all my exhaust is custom now, but because we made the tips come out in a local thing, they have to be past the door. So I have a giant MagnaFlows suitcase and then a couple of resonators and whatnot. It's probably weighing it down quite a bit and choking it up, but at least it sounds good.

Yeah.

Well, that's huge, too, like we recently... Somebody just pointed out to us the other day, I won't say who, but they're like, have you ever heard of titanium exhaust that sounds good? And then they laid it out and they're like, yeah, that's probably why it sounds like it has that tinny sound or whatever because it's so hard or whatever. I'm like, that makes sense.

So I think with S552, it's like where the muffler is placed. Yeah. It's in the far back and it just got worse as the coyote's gone along. I mean, not stock, they sound great stock, but I think everyone just chops the mufflers off and straight pipes them, or they just go to the Facebook page and they're like, course looks dream, but they don't read that. Everyone hates those.

Yeah, that's kind of what I see a lot.

Yeah.

Well, it's like we were talking about this, like we just had a GM engineer on the last episode, and it's kind of crazy how much work goes into designing these things stock. Like somebody put their... We're talking so many 40-hour weeks into designing the sound of that car, and all this exhaust work, all for you to just chop it off.

Yeah.

Well, it's also like the seats too, like seats and the diagnostics and the handling and this, and there's so much when you talk to somebody from Ford, and then you're like, oh, but I put some Kirkies in it. Or I lowered it and I did this and I changed the whole diagnostics, or the whole geometry of the car, and you're like, those engineers are probably like, you know, I've been here doing this for weeks, and we're over here just chopping it up.

We did talk about that last night, the technology and seats between the airbags and the heated and cooled and the moving them back and forth and up and down, and it's nuts.

Dude, he almost gagged when he said it, but he's like, I don't think I've ever been in a more comfortable seat on a podcast. You're setting up some like Chevy seats.

So I'm a very loyal Ford guy, right? But after doing all this, I'm learning to, I mean, I do like other cars, and I've been getting more into like even German stuff and whatever. But I still like, I love giving GM guys s***. I don't like GM much, and they're like my favorite people to pick on.

Yeah. So there's always one that's really fun.

Yeah.

Like, you know, an argument I can't stand is like when somebody does something and they run like a 850 in it, and they're like, my LS did that in 98.

And I'm like, oh, my comment section is full of it.

I see that all the time, but it's like, why are we comparing technology from 1998 with something that came out in 2024?

Right.

Like, I get it, but like-

Just because GM's technology hasn't changed in decades.

Right.

Well, it's like, you're also comparing apples to oranges all the time. Like, the Coyote is just different. Did you guys see, before we wrap up, did you guys see that the guy who bought Brett LaSala's number two, Snot Rocket, is putting an LS in it?

I think I just see something about that somewhere.

Which is kind of a cool social experiment, because then we'll all see is it the engine or is it how it's set up.

Right.

So then it'll be kind of cool, because then we'll know, like, is the Coyote now king? What I think is funny is we've been talking about Coyote being king for the last five years, ten years, since I've known that. My dad bought an 11, so we've known it for a long time. And now Cletus thinks they're great, so now everyone thinks they're reliable. I'm like, man, it took Garrett so long, till so long to give the reputation this deserved.

Have you met him then too?

Yeah.

Yeah, is he as cool as he seems on, that guy just seems like a good time.

Yeah, it's been always very brief, or like I see him at races and I feel bad, because he always has to like, at World Cup, he has to block off his entire space, because people will walk right up to him. But I've met him and talked to him and his wife, Maddie, they're very kind people. We always joke that we're two degrees always away from someone big. Because the street car guys are good friends with him. I mean, really a lot of people become really good friends, but I have spoke with Brett a lot. Brett and Jim Braun are very nice people. When I first met them, they're looking at my car and they're like, okay, you still have this stock, you still have that, let's save some weight, we can move this. And then I had a header leak at Sick Week, and they were like, oh, do you want us to take you to Garrett's shop and we can fix it? And I was like, my car at Cletus' house? And they were like, yeah, we can fix it or whatever. And they've always just been very kind to us. If we ever have questions or anything wrong, they're very willing to help us. So the community is really cool. And one thing, I'll have it as a takeaway that I've learned, that's helped me a lot. No one faster than me has ever degraded me.

Yeah.

It's always the guys that wish they were doing it. So I think that helps a lot when I remember that.

That was my argument when I said that the people, they've never been on the track when they're giving you that crap. It's not, like even in the road course world, when we're doing that stuff, there's plenty of guys out there faster than me, but they're more willing to like tell you how to do it or help you, guide you into it so you can accomplish the same goals.

Because they've been there. They know that you're struggling. And it's the same thing with the SN. Like if somebody messages Brian or I and says, hey, I have an SN, I bought a wrecked car, I already have the dash, what computer did you go with? Or, you know, hey, how did you do this? And can you walk me through that? I'm so much more willing to do that because they're trying. Rather than somebody, one time, someone was like, how much to do it? He was just very rude. So I was rude. I matched his energy. I was like, hey, I was like, well, because Brian being an engineer helped us a lot. He CAD designed a lot of his brackets and stuff that he needed, and he welded it himself. I was like, well, I think GM pays $60 an hour for a CAD design right now. So he probably has like $4,500 into it. I was like, how do you want to pay? And the guy was super mad. But I was like, why should I tell you all that? Being kind, like if he was very nice, like, oh my god, I really want to do something like that, you guys did a great job, or and someone wanted help, like how to start, then sure. But you're not gonna just harass me and expect me to just bend over backwards. We have a ton of time and money into it.

Yeah.

You know, cause we used to have a friend that was always really rude. His Cobra was so fast, like he was doing like 790s back like five years ago at TX2K and stuff. And he was, anybody would ask, like, what are you doing, or what transmission or whatever, and he would always just kind of nod his head and be like, and we always were like, why are you so rude to people? He goes, because they're not paying me for my time. So like over time, I've kind of adapted it, but I'm not going to be rude like that.

So most time car guys want to talk about their car, right? I guess, yeah.

Unless they feel like they have like the secret that's going to change the world.

I love a secret guys sometimes too though. Yeah, oh man, especially when somebody's like pushing a platform, because like we've had a handful of record holders in the podcast too. And it's like, yeah, they're not going to give you everything.

Yeah.

So there's that.

Yeah, I get it.

You want to know the secret? Start with a coyote.

OK, can we just get this out of the way?

Sure.

It's not a small engine.

No, God.

Like they're like, well, we've been doing it out of a five oh for this long. Dude, it's not like it's a two liter. I mean, come on.

I think people I think people when they say that is like, oh, well, you have a Thompson 427 and I'm over here on a 302. So it does feel like it's a littler, but physically it is not littler.

That's my next shirt. More littler.

More littler. Sorry.

I got to show you something afterwards. I need your opinion on actually. But what's it called? Dan, do you want to pop the usual three?

Yes. So at the end of every episode, we like to ask our guests to pick three cars. You can pick a daily driver, a track car, and a show car. You have an unlimited budget. You can swap whatever you want. Meld two cars together, whatever you want to do. But you have to pick three cars.

OK. A daily would be an F82 M4.

OK.

I think I'm saying that right. I want one because I know I won't touch it. Is it F82?

Yes. So like the outgoing generation?

Yeah. Like not the current one.

Yeah.

Because that's a G.

Yeah.

That dude, that's what I think that I drove when I was like stage two, 560 wheel or whatever.

I've never even driven one.

They're so great.

I mostly just want it because it's beautiful. I don't know anything about it and I know I won't touch it.

My friend just got like a gold one. You know, that gold color?

Yeah. Yeah. I love those. I love them. I just think they're beautiful. Won't touch it because I don't know a damn thing about it.

That auto rev. Manual, I'm guessing, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You get that auto rev match.

Yeah. That would be like my focus replacement.

Dude, it's the easiest car on the planet to drive.

Drag car? Like a track car?

Whatever kind of track car.

You pick a track. I would probably, I would need the budget to go with it, but probably one of the Snot Rockets. I would take one of Brett's cars because it's just so nice. Which one? Probably three. It's gonna be crazy. Yeah. And then, what was the last one?

Show car.

Oh, show car. I would want a Countach, an old one. I think they're so cool. They're just, they're like the pinnacle of Italian.

Not a Diablo?

No, I love the Countach. It's so cool. That or the Miami Vice Ferrari? It has to be that one, but probably the Countach more. I know, well, it would have to be a show car because I've heard they're not very comfortable.

Everything about them is horrible, I've heard. It's also like a 50-year-old car, what do you expect?

At this point. So yeah, those would probably be nothing outrageous. Totally outrageous, I guess.

Sounds like you had those ready. Like, that was a quick one. That was a rapid fire, right?

Really?

Yeah. That was pretty quick. We've only had a handful. I think the fastest we've had somebody answer was like 10 seconds. Just ridiculous.

I just want to M4 so bad, and everyone keeps trying to talk me out of it. I didn't expect that.

Dude, there's so f****** something.

I really want one and make the plate alter ego or something, or just very different. I want to wrap it pink. I want it to be nothing like myself. I'm very always, teal's very obnoxious. All my cars have been silver or gray. And then when I wrapped that, I'm almost like, this is weird, you know? So that's why I want something even weirder, like a bright, bright pink, or like a fuchsia pink or something, and then put like a bronze wheel on it, and just, that's it.

There's a girl out in Arizona, I think it was. She had one that was like, had like these like brushed silver wheels or whatever. And then it was like a solar beam yellow. That looked so good. She's got an Aston or something, I think, but like it just looked amazing. Dude.

There's a girl in Florida that I follow that I want to emulate her. It's the pinkest pink, pink car I've ever seen. And she hosts pink car events. She gets like 40 cars and she has an M4 and she has those heart wheels. So it's pink and then she has a pink heart wheels and everything on it. And she puts like a pink bow on it. And that thing goes viral constantly. And I was like, well, I know why, cause it's so cool. Definitely not, like I said, not my personality, not my like, I mean, for a long time, I didn't even post myself cause I wanted it to be taken seriously as like a guy's car. And so that's why, like when we did the TL, I was like, who, who, this is weird. I'm putting myself out there.

You know which car I've been really liking lately? Do you, I forgot her last name, but you know, Brooke, she has like a pink GTR, like a chrome one. Yeah, so I've been chatting with her a little bit, cause she's friends with another person. I don't even know how we made a connection.

She's in the East Coast, right?

I think so, something like that. Yeah, she's going to like World Cup, but like, we're gonna try to coordinate with her to get her on at PRI. But like, I didn't even notice that her beadlocks have the hearts in it, I'm like, okay, that's kind of cool.

Oh, no, I've never seen that. We always miss each other at events. Either she's going to this one or she's not, and I've never, I think I saw her at TX2K a couple years ago, but we didn't know.

That's where I first saw that car.

Yeah, I didn't know who she was, so I wasn't definitely not as open to walking up to people because I was always scared, but we do, we always miss each other again. I always do World Cup, can't do it this year because we have a wedding, so again, I'm missing her. So there's a lot of people like that. Like, do you know Joanna Marie? She has a Civic.

Yeah, yeah, I think I follow her.

Same thing. Missed her at, she was at World Cup and I missed her. So when sometimes when these events are just so huge, you don't get the opportunity to talk to people, which sometimes is better because you don't want to bother them while they're getting ready.

Yeah, it's like when we do episodes at events, it's like, oh, maybe we should just come here a month earlier.

Yeah, yeah, or like stay later, do it at the end or something because it is tough. Like, because I've had people walk up to me while I'm strapped in and I'm like, please politely, please go away.

Just keep your composure, like woosah, get tough.

Yeah, like I need to like do my ritual of like getting ready. And I like get, I'm starting to get a little claustrophobia. So I don't want to be in there longer than I need to be set up. So I'm like, please, kind stranger, I will talk to you later, go away.

Respectfully disappear.

Yeah, or like me and Brian have had his hand signals, like when somebody is talking to me, I'm like, get him to go away, you know, like Brian will help take that help. I mean, he's really good at it. Like, we're a good team. So.

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

On Instagram. I don't really post a ton that much anymore. I do need to go back to it, but on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, it's all that 1320 chick. And if you want to follow me on Facebook, I'm not very interesting. I'm usually pretty sappy, actually. I just posted, actually today, Brian and I met 10 years ago. So I did a sappy post and I had it all ready and loaded. So I'm waiting for him to be like a sap text back. But yeah, we met 10 years ago at a car show today. So I'm more about like my life and things that are happening on Facebook.

I think that's how people use it.

But yeah, if you want to follow me, we'll have some interesting stuff, hopefully mostly probably following dad and Brian this year, I think, or next year coming up.

Yeah, we'll see what's next. Do you have anything like what's next on the horizon for you? Any idea?

For me?

Are you just playing like on the sidelines waiting to see where things shake out?

I think with figuring out work and stuff like that, I think I'll be on the sideline for a minute, which is fine. I really do think it's my time to let Brian shine. Not that we've ever had to compete, but taking two cars to the track is hard. Yeah, we forget one thing. Forget this. Didn't do this. Forgot that.

Yeah, Becca and Stephen are like, or Stefan. He's gonna kill me again. Stefan are like that, too, because they both have very fast Daza cars, but she's faster, like just better in every way, apparently. But now he's finally starting to do a little bit of the garage racing stuff, too, himself. So you see that a lot.

It's tough bringing both. So I think maybe because we'll do sick week with his car, I think, and then just kind of play the rest of the year by year.

That makes sense.

Yeah, I'm going to SEMA and then PRI.

And you'll be at both as well. OK, then we'll go on to both.

Yeah, I'll catch up with you guys then.

Sure.

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, my wife will be at both. I'd love that.

Yeah, that'll be cool.

And check it out. Yeah.

Pick her brain. Because you said she's more in the drag racing, right?

Yeah, I mean, she's only done it like once or twice. But and we she saw as an MT 82 in her car.

And we got that sweet. I don't know how to manual drag race. I've done it twice in Brian's car.

So, I mean, she finally has an MGW shifter now. So she likes it a lot more. So we'll have to get her back out there.

And yeah, that's sweet. That's why I want to I would like to learn Brian's car a little bit more and eventually like transition in the stick world, because there's a very I don't like micro records and I definitely don't like female micro records. But there's a big deficit in the world with girls of driving sticks. So I was like, might as well jump in while I can.

Right.

So dude, you know what was super b*****? Do you follow any of the Twin Turbo Viper stuff or not really?

Not really.

So there was the guy who owns Juggernaut, his, I think, wife now, pretty sure wife, like just took delivery of her Gen 3 Twin Turbo Viper and just went off and just clicked off. I think it was like a 7.4 or something like that. I can't remember if it was a manual or sequential on that one.

I want to say, it's probably sequential.

Potentially. I'm not sure. Cause like they also, like they just had his old car, the owner of Juggernaut, Viper that just ran the streets for years. Colossus, they just took it out to a half mile event and did 225 miles an hour with a stick.

That's insane.

Just drive six speed. Like it's just, just gnarly, but I can go on a rant. Every episode, I gotta bring up Viper's. I mean, hometown heroes, man. And he's also from Detroit, like the owner of the company. So like that he's like, you have to go to Woodward or you're dead to me.

Oh, oh, wow. Something like that. I'm paraphrasing.

Yeah. Real quick, this sign that's been behind you the whole time made in Detroit where God intended is amazing. Oh, that's cute.

I didn't see that.

That's awesome. And before we kind of close, I also want to say thanks again to the Jack Frost Museum, Otto Museum here. This place is really cool. So like we actually were a little bit delayed on setting up. Like when you showed up, we were just kind of checking everything out. Like there's a lot, like there's big stuff here, like cars, like there's an awesome firebird over there. That's called my name.

But it's not that expensive. Like they have their cars. Like sometimes you go to a museum, you're like, okay, yeah, okay. No thanks on that price.

Yeah, one million dollars.

But I could seriously leave here with a car. Like they're kind of affordable. That's funny.

There's some really cool stuff here. But then there's also like a lot of these cool like knickknacks. Like I feel like if we ever get like a Minnoxide like studio or garage, like I'm going to come here and just shop for stuff to have in there. Like there's a lot of cool stuff here. So I highly recommend coming out here if you're in the area. But yeah, shout out to you guys. What was it? Russ for hooking it up for us. This is super cool. We're probably going to do a little bit of scoping out after because now the next episode today is SEMA Garage. So we're going to head over there.

That'll be fun.

But Dan, where can people find you?

You can find us at Gunnett Garage with two ends. We're trying to post more, but it's busy doing this stuff, not always easy to catch it and go.

I couldn't even do any highlights yesterday. We literally did podcasts for 12 hours yesterday.

That's nuts.

We spent six and a half hours in Nostrum yesterday, and that was ridiculous. But anyways, as for me, you guys made it this far into the show. You know where to find me. Make sure to sign up for the free sticker. I send out free stickers to everybody with a newsletter. So but other than that, Joanna, thank you very much for making this happen.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

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