127. GM Builds, Roadcourse and Dragstrips, Tuning w/ Carl Thomas

Well, I want to run 950s, and you're like, you need 1500 wheel to run 950s. I think we need to go back into the back of the drawing board as far as what you actually need. You're going under the lights, you're at Taytona, and you just don't even really feel all the things that are happening, but it's just happening in harmony. It was really fun, that was definitely the funnest drive I've ever had in my life.

Hello ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Minnoxide podcast. I'm your host, Harris AKA Minnoxide, man of many automotive aspirations. And I forgot how to do an intro. What I usually do here, Dan, do I just throw it over to you?

Or you would throw me under the bus for being a Ford guy, especially when we're surrounded by GMs?

Yeah, I don't think there's, there's not a single Ford in here, is there?

No.

Not a single one, right?

Definitely not.

He's been looking, not for lack of looking. But yeah, I'm here with my co-host, Dan, Mr. Gunna Garage, here in enemy territory. You know, honestly, it's not as bad when we took him to Lingenfelter a few weeks ago. That was like really enemy territory.

Yeah.

And today we are here-

He seems pretty bad too, though.

In a great way.

Yeah.

You should have seen him. He was like violently vomiting outside. It was crazy.

It happened.

Yeah. But anyways, we're here with Carl from Twin Cities Performance. And honestly, you gave us a pretty awesome tour, and you told us a little bit about you and your shop here. But why don't you just go ahead, tell the audience about what it is you do, and we'll kind of go from there.

Sure. I'm Carl from Twin Cities Performance. I started this through tuning back in 2007. Bought my first GM LS powered car, which was an 01 Trans Am. Didn't really have much for tuning options back then, so I bought HP tuners, started doing my tuning thing, got going with that, tuned my car, tuned a friend's car, told a friend and then kind of started doing more tuning stuff on the side. And by 2009 or 2010, started to do more and more tuning with customers that were dropping off like new C6-06s at my house, which was kind of neat. Do you want me to go this far back or should I talk about that?

That's your story, man.

All right.

It's your day. It's what my friend says.

All right. So did that for a while. Actually, in 2009, started a buyout of a general auto repair shop called Lancer Service, which I still own and my wife, who's here as well, manages. As I was going through that, I kind of put the tuning on the back burner for a little bit. I did start the company name, which is CJ Tunes, which probably some people locally have heard about more than likely. I continued to do that through our building at Lancer Service until 2020, 2021. 2021. Yep. So I was doing quite a bit of tuning and tuning almost exclusively, along with my day job, which was Lancer Service and buying that and the business continuation with that. And then we bought this facility in 2021, moved in here, rebranded from CJTunes to Twin Cities Performance. And then we started doing more car building and less customer pay tuning. So we still do all the tuning. Obviously, I still do all the tuning in the house. But now we do a lot more with packages. So we're doing primarily like our really go-to cars, our sixth-gen Camaro, C7 Corvettes, fifth-gen Camaro, C6 stuff. We still see some C5 and obviously some cleaner fourth-gen stuff, but primarily it's like the new platform stuff that we do.

Was... So you're tuning cars, you're making a name for yourself over at Lancer. Were people bringing their cars there to have built there as well?

No. The building part of it came through just evolution because people would bring cars in to have them tuned. And like I was kind of talking about a little bit earlier, somebody would buy a car and they'd say, whoever sold it to them said it needs a tune, and they'd bring it in, and it didn't just need a tune, it needed a ton of other work. So we were kind of doing some of that work through Lancer, some of that work through CJ Tunes at night, some of that work through whenever we could fit it in to get it going. And then realize how many poorly built cars there were out there, and how much of an opportunity there was to build better cars, and then started to kind of take that on. And once we found the facility, it really just kind of fell in at that point.

Well, one of the things we talked a lot about off camera is like, this is a very open layout. You know, like some of the other shops we've been to, it's a lot of like tripping over cars, playing musical cars all the time. But the only thing you don't have is parking.

We don't have parking, which is good and bad. I mean, and yes, it is a very open layout. It is large, it's a long walk down to the dino down there. Like I need a scooter or something during the summer. No, it's good in the fact that like for parking, we don't have to worry about cars and security because it's all inside of our little bomb shelter here, which this building from the outside is very understated. It's very, it looks very Skunk Works-y, so you really can't even tell from the outside. But it's nice in that fact, or nice in the fact that we get to take care of cars without having to worry about them. It's terrible in the fact that we have to park everything inside all the time. But we may do with what we have. This is actually, like, this is pretty manageable as far as the cars that we see here now. In the middle of the summer, things get a lot less manageable, where we're moving a lot of cars around to be able to just get through the daily tasks and that sort of thing too.

We also don't have cars outside, which is, it's kind of a perk, right? Because you mentioned that off camera as well. It's like, if a customer asks, he's like, hey, don't turn his car into a shelf outside. It's like, oh, we couldn't if we wanted to.

Right, right. There's that, and you just don't have to worry about vandalism, weather, any of that stuff. So it's just nice to be able to keep cars inside. Yeah.

Is there a, you're just going to have to wait number? Like once you've got so many in here, you're like, okay.

We schedule out, well, that's what, that's a great question. We schedule out like this time of year, it's not as bad, it's middle winter. So like we have some bigger build stuff that we kind of put on the pipeline during the summer for people that are looking for larger builds, but just don't want the downtime during the summer. So we schedule a lot of that stuff around now. Then when we get into like right now for, because we still do some tuning appointments, our tuning appointments are like pretty much booked through April. And then we have builds starting once like April 15th, is kind of when we consider like snow out or ideally snow out. So hopefully at that point, we can actually get cars out, drive them down without trailering, and then we do start scheduling at that point on too. So what we tell a lot of people this time of year is like, if we don't have opportunity to get things in before April, it's going to be like if you call in May, it might not actually get into like August or September. So but we do a really good job of scheduling as much as we possibly can. Obviously, there's unknowns and all that stuff too.

Right.

Oh, you took a deep breath. I thought you were going for it. So tell me a little bit about some of the packages you do here, because I think you mentioned you had like what, two or three 427s in here, for example.

Yeah. I mean, we're really bad at marketing. I also told you that. Which if anybody follows our Facebook stuff, they can tell you that because that is our only advertisement marketing, other than word of mouth. But yeah, what we really try and do is we like for fifth-gen Camaros, for example, which is one behind you guys there. Like, I mean, if it's something simple, like a stage one, like headers intake or headers intake flex, or you do cam or cam converter on them or whatever. But we have packages effectively. It's always challenging with doing the package thing because a lot of times people already have a modification here or there. We try and work with people as much as possible with that stuff. Now, sometimes those parts won't work with what we're trying to do as far as the overall package. But yeah, that's really what we do. And we have all that stuff set up for whether it's like that fifth-gen or like this one here is a ZL-1, which is a ported blower, port, auxiliary fuel system, flex setup. Then that one made like 840, 842, something like that today or yesterday. So, but yeah, we have all sorts of different packages for all the different platforms. Obviously, all GM. Sorry, man. Sorry, man. We honestly do get a lot of calls. Actually, we added to our answering system an automated assistant because we get calls all the time and people are like, hey, can you tune my F-150? Can you tune my new Mustang or my Hellcat or whatever? And as much as those cars might be great, we just don't do them. So we're GM only. It's what I got into at the beginning. I figured it's best to specialize. We stay really busy with what we have.

So we just really try to stay focused. Well, that's huge too, right? Because you see us all the time where guys kind of try to branch out and they're like, all right, I'll do Mopar now, I'll do Audi now, I'll do everything. And then it can lead to issues sometimes. You know, this way, I mean, you just have one storage room back there and it kind of works with most of the stuff you get in here, I imagine.

Well, yeah, I mean, we could, with what we have for parts, we could literally put anything into... Yeah, if you brought in a C7 Corvette right now, we could do anything from like a blower to a heads cam package, to everything, we'd literally pull it off the shelf. So we do have a lot of inventory. It makes it easy on that side of things to be able to only have to house an inventory things for one car line or one make. And then back to your question about 427s, the reason we have so many big builds happening now is it is the middle of winter. So big build stuff definitely happens a lot more in the winter. We have more time to be able to do that. And people allow us to downtime to do some cooler projects with their cars so we can make some bigger power stuff and do all that good stuff over the winter too.

Who does your porting for you?

We actually, well, most of our, if we're talking about cylinder head stuff, we use primarily either Texas Speed or Guatney. OK. We've moved almost all of that business to Guatney just from a logistics standpoint. But we do, like, for a stock casting head, they've done a really good job with having a good port design. They flow well. They hold up super good. And yeah, like I was telling you, we have, I mean, stock porting castings for LS3s, Cathedrals, LT1, LT4, and LS7s. We do also offer Frankenstein and Alamese because people want different options on that, and we do stock those too. So kind of a variety of different people, I guess, just now that I think about it. But primarily for most of, I guess when I think about our most current platforms, because that's what we do the most of, it would be LT1 and LT4, and that stuff is generally from GDI. And they do a really good job.

I saw a Magnuson. I can't remember on which car it was here. Do you have any preference on any blowers you work with?

Almost all of them are Magnusons.

Really? Okay.

I mean, no, if it's going to be an aftermarket blower, yeah, we love the Maggie stuff. The Whipple 3.0 liter, I know Whipples are really big in the Mustang world, I think. Yeah.

Lots of them out there. Yeah, I have a Whipple on one of my cars.

Right. Tons of them out there. In the GM world, the 3.0 liter came late, and I don't want to talk bad about any blowers, but the 2.9 was not exceptional. So the 2.9 made really, really good torque, which you don't really need in a bigger cubic inch, DI like big V8 engine anyways. And they just didn't airflow as well as they should up top, which the new 3.0 liter overcomes that because they make boost a little bit more like a combination between a positive displacement blower and a centrifugal. So it's kind of like kind of comes up with RPM the same way the 2650s do. So but we've been doing 2650s on these cars for a long time. I have one of my personal car. You can overdrive them. You can run just run it into the ground. And I think I've only seen like maybe one of them that's had any issues, which is just, I mean, that amount of superchargers that are that heavily overdriven for that amount of time and not have any issues. If we go to an aftermarket setup, it's going to be a 2650 package. It's either be through Magnuson or through like Greg from Kong Performance. I know some of the Edelbrock stuff is out there. We really don't use a whole lot of that. But the Magnuson stuff is definitely what we would do as far as a go to on our blower stuff. And we do a lot of it. And really when it comes down to the LT4 platform, which is a great platform, right Dan? You gotta love that thing. I mean, the stock, it's funny because when they came out and the 1.7s initially started, everybody was like, these blowers are trash, they're tiny, they won't support any horsepower and they're right. They were right. That was some of the new porting stuff from like Jokers and Kong and the exports and the race ports stuff. Like we did a pretty simple six-speed car, I think two weeks ago, it was a manual. It was a six-speed with some methanol on it, I think in like E60, and it made like 920 on a stock blower, on a stock 1.7. So obviously caught up, that was a Kong export with a pretty good pulley combo on it. But it's just amazing how far the stock blowers can go. And I think that that's kind of been slept on for for quite some time. One of the reasons we generally move into the 2650, if we're doing an aftermarket blower, is for cooling, because the cooling bricks on a 2650 versus a 1.7, a stock little factory 1.7 is like, it's three times the size. So if you're going to be doing more extended, like road race stuff or longer pull stuff, like the 2650 really can't be beat. And we've done a couple of new whipples. I think I made like 980 on one pretty recently, and that one worked out great too.

Was that just like a customer choice sort of deal or?

Yeah, actually, how did that start? That started with... Yeah, I think he just wanted the look of it, honestly. And the one nice part, not the one nice part, because I don't want to downplay this on Whipple at all, but you can get a Whipple 3.0 liter in an LT configuration. You can still put regular port injectors on them without having to do plates, because hood clearance always becomes an issue.

So instead of having to drop front subframe, or just take them off entirely like every other Corvette owner I know. With what? Take the hoods right off of a Corvette.

Well, one of the other Whipples that we did, I don't think that one did have a hood on it. I think it was for that very reason. It's a regular thing. That one did have plates on it. But yeah, there was one that we did, and it was actually with a customer. We've done a couple of builds for him. I think he wanted it. And given the fact that they were able to drill them and put a rail on it and be able to put injectors above, instead of doing plates is beneficial. Because the three liters, you also get super close to the cowl on all six gen Camaro platforms. So yeah, we do those ones too. But that one turned out really good. Made a bunch of power. I was very happy with it. It's just you kind of get into the groove of what you know and what you're used to. And until I see a Whipple three liter wildly outrun, I mean, any of the fastest LT cars that are out there to the best of my knowledge, somebody can prove me wrong on this and probably will, are still 2650 power cars. I mean, if you're talking about blowers anyways.

Well, it's just crazy what you could do with those. I mean, it's like, for example, I got to ride in Caleb's ZR1 and I was a 2650. I'm like 99% sure. And it's just, it's, it's crazy what you're able to do. So I mean, why, why change what works so well, right? I mean, it's kind of widely adopted at this point. Damn it, I had a question in there. Oh, so where's your philosophy stand then? Are you trying to go for baddest of the bad street cars? Are you trying to get a reliable car? A common, just a Sunday cruiser. What's your target market look like?

Right, probably should have talked about that in my intro. Yeah, so like what we've really like defined, and when we did the rebrand, it was kind of interesting that you asked that question, because I was thinking about this before that too. We did the rebrand, we worked at the company and they're actually really good to work with. But they asked that same, they're like, what makes you like, as you're doing this rebrand, like what do you want people, what do you want this to look like? What do you do differently? What do you do better or the feeling that you excel at? And like the key to what we've always really tried to do is build really fast, fun street cars that operate as close to stock as possible. So what that means is like, when you get like, when you get done with a car, and this gets talked about a lot, but people are like, it should run and drive like a stock car. A thousand horsepower car is probably not gonna run and drive like a stock car.

There's compromise.

There's compromise, but they can be really, really close. And like, that's where we really, really shine. And it's not like cars that are making 2,500 horsepower on the street. And we honestly don't have a lot of our customers that like to spend a ton of time in the track. I mean, we do have cars that go to the track. We have multiple sixth gens and C7s at run eights is in like full street trim, which is the norm now. Like, it's just not that uncommon. But, like, going back to this Camaro, like, that's a car that makes almost 850 wheel. And that car does actually drive like stock because it's still a stock sealed long block. Like, there's nothing that you have to do. The maintenance doesn't change on it. The operation doesn't change the way it starts, the way it sounds. I mean, it sounds better because of headers and obviously that side of things. But like, until you get into the throttle, like the calibration, all the tuning side of it, like it literally, you would not be able to tell it's different until you really get into it. That gets a little bit more challenging when you get to like 1000, 1050 wheel horsepower mark, obviously, to try and make with a decent size camshaft, like still make them work that way. But that's always been kind of the key to what I've wanted to do. And like that also that also kind of goes hand in hand with what excites me. Like when we are building cars, too, is it doesn't necessarily have to be something that makes a bunch of horsepower. It just has to be the right package, you know, and like, I've always, I do like all cars. I know I'm very GM, GM bias.

I was going to say, you know, we're variable cam timing, you can hit both of those easily.

We have variable cam timing.

Yeah, now.

It's just on one cam. Oh, we've had it since like, oh, seven. It's been there for a long time. It's just, it's terrible. And everybody just throws it away, but we do still have it. It does still work. No, it's funny because people like, people always rave about, you know, certain cars driving certain ways and like trying to like Mazda Miata people. They're like, they're the best driving, handling, whatever cheap cars ever. And Porsche people, I've never like, hey, I want to be in a really cool Porsche. I've never been in a really cool Porsche. Somebody, somebody get me out on one on the track or a street and like have some fun with it. I like people rave about how awesome those cars are.

It's a glorified GTI. It's fine.

Sure.

That's how I know.

I'm sure every Porsche owner would agree with you.

Oh yeah, they would be. Well, it had the same steam. I got to drive AJ's last year, which I might take it out on track this year, probably. But I'm like, this feels oddly like my Mark 7 GTI. It's way better and more expensive.

Sure. It's just more. It's just more of everything.

Yeah, yeah. But anywho.

But like, you know, you didn't like like on paper, the car might perform better. Would it really like, there's certain cars where we get done building them and you're like, man, that is just the right, that's just the right combination. And we've done enough of them to really understand what that right combination is and feels like.

And what is that right combination?

It always depends on the platform. Okay. I mean, like, and it depends on what you want.

Like, what's the perfect like 2017 ZL1 look like?

I think that like my car before I put the cam in it, or like this one behind me is like a perfect, simple combination because it still does everything like a stock car would with just a little bit more sound. And like, like this car, this car on a drag pack should probably go like in decent air. Like, you know, I don't know, like 970s or something. 960s, probably even better than that. Yeah, maybe somewhere around there. Like, that's a really fun, fast, cool street car. Like, that just works out really, really well. But even like we did a 14 to 18 Silverado, we did a 16 Silverado, regular cab shorty, full wheel drive. And he was like, you know, just do what you want, which is kind of weird because he was a younger guy. And he's like, just do like, I want to do an LT4 blower or some sort of a blower on it, but you guys do what you want. And like, when you get, when you get all done with it, like the truck made like 620 wheel, about the same torque, 600, 610 foot pounds of torque, run anything between pump gas fully 85. Obviously those numbers aren't 85 because pump gas sucks.

Right.

It'll always suck. So you should always run everything on 85 if you can. But like that just had the right combination. So like the converter was like it was a circle D, triple, like it was a 245 or maybe a 258. But the converter was just right. Like everything shifted at like 67, 6800. Like the way it locked the converter with the triple disk, like it just felt right. Like it had a really good sound. We actually built a house, a true dual exhaust. It was equal length. So it sounded more like a Corvette, which is neat. Like the truck just finished well. So like when you went out and drove it, like it came back and I'm like, ah, that is exactly what it should be. You know, and it doesn't always happen that way, but when it does, that's the part that's actually really enjoyable.

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So out of all of it, and I don't know them all, LS, LT, all the numbers or whatever. Which one is it would it be LT4 then it would be your go-to? This is the perfect car engine.

Engine? I mean, right now, yeah, it has to be. I mean, the LS, when it comes to LS and LT's, like as far as what's at the very peak, what's the best of the LS or LT world, the LS7 was the king for the longest time because it came out early. It was 2006 and it's a 427 and it's huge. And as a factory CNC port it had, it makes 505 horsepower. And like, that's an awesome motor. And then when the LS9 came out in 2009, that would definitely take over that top spot, I would say for sure. Like 640 horsepower, also a titanium rod motor, which is super cool. Like really, really neat. The LT4, I mean, makes more power than the LS9 did. It does not have titanium rods, but it has better airflow and it has DI. And like cubic inch for cubic inch, like an LT4 will outrun any of the other LS stuff for sure. And I know there's controversy on that. And I know it's going to be coming. And I know all that stuff, but like the LT platform is just a better platform. It's a better cylinder head. It's got DI. It's just, they just work better. It's just better all the way around.

Well, there's a natural progression too though.

It is, yeah.

Technology, it just gets better. And it continues to improve. And it's a factory titanium intake valve motor too. And like, you can literally put in like an LAT and canal exhaust valve. And you have like, you have a cylinder head package that's capable of like 15, 1600 horsepower, like right out of the box pretty much. That's just a, that's a really, it's a really, really cool motor. And especially seeing what you can do now with the 1.7s. And the stock short blocks hold up relatively reliably to like a thousand wheel, 1,050 wheel. Seen a couple of them that have failed main bearings, which seems strange, but they run super tight clearance. And I think people might be getting after them before they're warmed up fully or something along those lines. But overall, like that motor is really, really tough to beat. They're awesome. They're fun.

Yeah. If you say so, yeah, yeah.

I love camshafts for some people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, simplicity is king, right?

Well, that's what I was going to ask you next. So if I'm coming in and I need pistons, rods, blower, I'm having to build here, I mean, I just watched him set an engine in this one, and he's dang near buttoning it up here, I think, before he left. To pull out one and then do the pistons, rods, things like that, is that pretty quick? Because I've done some push rod stuff. They're just kind of a simpler motor by all aspects.

There's less parts. Yeah, well, fifth gens are like, fifth gens are easy, fifth gens are like, and they come apart super duper quick. And Chuck's a machine. Chuck's a b*****, so you got that going on too. But no, I mean, the motors come in and out of those cars really, really quick. Like as far as doing rods and pistons, and that one's coming out just for doing a converter in it, because we're doing a cam and converter. And since we have the heads off, it's just easier to pull the entire thing out and service it that way. As far as like six-gen Camaros and especially C7s, the motor does not come out nearly as easy. So like on those, and when we're talking about doing, like you mentioned doing pistons, generally, like if a customer comes to me and says, hey, I have a 2020 1LE, which is a regular LT1 non-supercharged car, I want to put a 2650 in a fuel system, do drop-in pistons, et cetera, et cetera. It is cheaper to go buy a ZL1. Like, yes. Like, and this is a conversation, I've talked to... I'm not the best salesman apparently in our business. I've talked customers many times out of doing like significant work because of the fact that like, it is just better to start with a ZL1 than it is to go through all of that with an LT1. Like, unless you have the LT1, you already have the car, maybe it's just, you know, whatever. You know it, you understand it. But like, to do rods and pistons in one of those cars, it just becomes kind of a significant amount. And like, not many people... It all depends on what you're after, though, too. But not many people are really targeted over that thousand wheel horsepower. A lot of people think that they are. So when you really break it down, like a 7, 800 wheel car that's properly tuned and like shifts like it should and works like it should is a really, really fast car when done properly. So like, if it comes down to that and you have a 6th Gen Camaro or a C7 Corvette and you're planning on adding boost to it, I personally would recommend getting a ZL1 or a ZL6, especially if what you're starting with is a really clean, low mileage 6th Gen or C7, because you can usually sell it and then end up with a forged motor, or not, I'm sorry, I'll take that back, a better piston, better rod motor that can handle a thousand wheel horsepower without having to do that extra work into it.

Okay.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

No, and that's the debate we like to kind of kick out every single time we have somebody from the GM world. It's like, all right, do you start with a Stingray or a ZL6?

How many people have I contradicted right now?

It's like in any car forum at all, you ask about oil, if there was one answer, it doesn't matter, because you'll have 50-50 either way. You're going to piss somebody off no matter what.

And it comes down to sometimes the talk is resale value, or we'll sell all this away, or maybe we don't need this. You get the Stingray, it's more aerodynamic if you're trying to go fast. It's every type of...

There's always a thing.

There's a wide variety.

And the easiest thing to say about what I just said is, if you're going to do a cam in it anyway, it's like put and drop in pistons really not that big of a deal. You already have it on a stand. And you're not wrong. You're definitely not wrong. But then you also have heat exchangers on a ZL6 or a ZL1, and you also have a factory blower that you can send out and get ported for $16 or under $2,000. That is a blower that's capable of 900 wheel, that's already on the car. So that's just an expense that you don't have to incur. And a heat exchanger pump and lines and all that stuff.

And all that comes back to what's your ultimate goal. If you're going for $1,200 or whatever, everything changes.

Which is the biggest question. That's even the first question back to what makes us different or what do we really want to do. Comes back down to like, well, what do you want to do? As in like, you were saying you want to road race your car. Like putting a really aggressive pulley combination on a car that's going to road race, obviously, is never going to work out. And it's funny because since we still tune a lot of stuff, I see an array of things come in and people have got like, you know, some fifth gen ZL1 pulley to the max and they say they're going to go road race it for 30 minute sessions. I'm like, you're going to blow this thing up before you make the lap. Like, that is impossible. Like, you're not even in the ballpark. So yeah, it all depends on what you want and what you want to end up with.

So then take me through that process then. How do you manage customer expectations? Because some people probably come with some b****** wild expectations. Or just like, oh, they see this on the Internet. How do you manage this world of TikTok builds?

Well, yeah, that's really tough. I mean, the ideal is that one of our customers that has a car built by us talks to his neighbor. His neighbor has the same car and the neighbor says, I want the same package. And they're like, awesome. Perfect. Let's do it. On the far outside side of that spectrum, we have people that like, yeah, man. Yeah, it's like this guy is talking to a couple weeks ago. He's like, we're out of hydraulic roller lifters. So I want to do a solid roller lifter in my C6Z06. And I'm like, what camera you put in this thing? It's like some little tiny like stage one camera. I'm like, you don't want to do that. That's insane. Like you just buy the right lifter for it to do this. But when people come in with these big grandiose ideas of like, I'm going to build this amazing car and it's going to do all these things, the best way you talk them out of it is showing them something that you have or saying like, hey, I could have somebody bring a car and you can come see what a finish. If you're serious about it, come take a ride in a real like what this should be. And then we can revisit like what your thoughts might be with it. But that's a really, really tough one. And I haven't quite figured it out yet. But it is like the conversations are fairly entertaining because I mean, it's just it's funny with the turbo stuff too because people will say, yeah, well, I want to put twins on it and make 1500 wheel. And like, it takes a lot. Like that's it. Don't just like throw them on and say, like, we'll just dump a bunch of fuel in it and away we go. Right. You know, and then it's funny because you're like, then you start with these follow up questions. You're like, well, what do you want to do? And they're like, well, I want to run 950s. And you're like, you need 1,500 wheel to run 950s. I'm like, you could, I think we need to go back to the drawing board as far as what you actually need. And that kind of comes back to real in a minute and saying, like, what is it? Like, it's funny, we talk about this all the time, me and Chase here, but like, what is it you want to do? Like, what does your car not currently do that you want it to do better? Like, and then let's talk about what your plan is. Because when people come in with a plan without an idea of the end goal, you'd never know whether or not you've gotten even remotely close to it. So like, I mean, that could be like, I want to run 950s or 890s, or I want to beat my neighbor's Hellcat, or I just want to sound better.

That doesn't take much.

No.

Listen, I'm a Mopart guy, it doesn't take much to beat a Hellcat.

So, I mean, that's kind of, I guess that's kind of the best way that we go about it.

You ever, do you find a lot of them biting off more than they can chew? Or do you ever hand the keys to somebody thinking, oh, I'm going to see this on Co-part in a week?

Oh, dude, all the time. Oh my god, all the time. That happens literally nonstop. It's really funny, because if I get the opportunity, I will take the customer for the first drive. So we'll go out, and they get in, and they're like, oh yeah, this thing sounds great. And then you get down to our off road over here, where we have our private testing grounds. And you give it a second, and it's spinning, and it hooks, and it kind of comes through, and you run up to like 130, 40, 50, and they're like literally grasping for air, and grabbing anything they can. And they have no idea how much, like what they've asked for. Like a lot of people will say, yeah, I want a car that makes 800 wheel or whatever. And they have no idea how fast that actually is. Like, and then you take them for the first ride, and then it scares the s*** out of them.

Yeah.

And then...

Passengers see too, right?

Well, and they're not used to it. I get it, I understand that. But then you talk to them again in like a couple months, they bring in from the service, like, how is it? Did you bring it to the track? You're like, I'm scared of it, man.

I see that a lot too. Yeah.

Yeah. You're like, you got to get out and wear that thing out. Like, if you are, maybe we'll put a better tire on it, if that makes you feel better. But, you know, like, it's kind of funny because the Internet has broken everybody. And everybody thinks that they need a million horsepower to have a fun car. And once you get it, like, you may very well be happier with less just because you don't know what that actually feels like. But yeah, it's really fun. It's actually really, really rewarding and fun taking customers for a first drive, because even if you just take it easy on them or whatever, but you got to kind of show them the ropes, because the car, like a car that's making big power, does not operate like it did when it was bone stock. And they need to know a general idea on how to operate it so they don't end up killing themselves.

Yeah.

But.

Well, it's completely different, like, but also it's different, right? Because, like, I've been in, you know, Twin Turbo Vipers, and I've been in, you know, again, Caleb's ZR1, you know, which was making some serious steam. It's completely different how that power comes on too. Like, I could not believe how much the ZR1 scared the s*** out of me. I was like, okay. And I'm sitting in this death trap, you know, these Kerkys with no, there's no padding.

There was no pad on that one at that time, wasn't there?

Oh, if you put pads on it, you'll feel totally fine. Yeah. If you just buy a Kerky pad and you have a little bit of foam around you, you feel so much more here.

Actually, no, that was after Cars and Craft. I think he had a couple of towels in there because his girlfriend was sick of it. But no, man, it's different. And having that expectation setting, it's really different. I mean, I've driven a 1,000 horsepower GT 500 for a few hundred miles before. I can manage it, but I also didn't jump in on a deep end. Some guys will go from a 300 or 400 horsepower car, a stock SS or whatever, and then like, oh, I want a 1,000 horsepower car. It's like, well, hold on, champ. Let's have a conversation.

Yeah, that's really true. And back to that fuel though thing too, like, and it's totally different. Like, when you're talking about a ZR, because it's C6, right?

Yeah, yeah, of course, the daddies.

Which is, right, right. Which is a stick car. And like, they just hit different. I mean, that's no different than even like, I feel like sixth gen Camaros with the 10 speed versus sixth gen Camaro with the six speed. If both those cars are making 900 wheel, like the 10 speeds are so precise and quick and just feel like it's just pow, pow, pow, pow, pow. So once you get the initial like rush, it's good. Like with a stick car, there's a lot more upsetting the chassis. There's things that are happening. So they just, they just have a different feel to them. They feel more violent. Like they just feel more aggressive.

But I would be, I would be the last person to throw into a thousand horsepower stick car. Zero shot. I'm already garbage at driving stick as is. You do not want me in something like that.

I was worried about going the other way because my other one was probably 800, some stick car, TR6060, six speed. And that's how I have been, I grew up, you know, shifting, doing that forever and ever. So I know how to, if the power comes on too strong, if I start to get squirrely, I'm kind of like, okay, lay into the clutch. You know, I had all these things. I was worried about it. If I start to lose traction on an automatic, what do I do? Where do I go with this? But the DCT is a whole nother animal in itself in that car. But yeah, I very much enjoyed the conversations were hilarious.

Like he's like, I don't know what I'll do. I don't know.

Do I do something? Yeah, it's automatic.

Yeah.

Well, I just let off the gas. Okay.

Well, because like he's done a number of my road rallies back in the day. It's like you would always take the orange car out, you know, and then what is the orange car?

It's a 2015 GT.

Okay.

It's on its third motor now.

It's impossible. It lasts forever.

Yeah. Well, I am. I very much also don't like E85. And so I try and very much push the limits without going to E85. And I've learned my lesson. And so now it has two tunes on the car, one for 91 junk and E85. So yeah, yeah, it's it's my dad's car now. And I've taken him to the track. I still he still lets me borrow if I want to. But that's got a 29 Whipple on it. Okay, the Gen 4. This is how it also works in the car game. Really pisses me off. I hold off on something like, okay, I'm gonna get the supercharger now. I buy the Gen 4 Whipple like two weeks later, Gen 5, three liter. I'm like, son of a b****.

Happens every time.

Yeah.

Happens every time. Not even worth waiting. You just buy it.

Yeah, I know.

You just keep buying it and figuring it out.

Just go.

Yep, that's all you can do. That's all you can really do. Yeah, that's, pump gas should be like eliminated from the performance world. Yeah, all together. If it's got boost, it just needs to be on E85. That's the best way to do it. But where were we on this thing?

We were talking about stick shift cars.

Oh yeah, stick shift cars are just better too.

All right, Dan, on a scale of one to 10, how much do you think your wife loves you?

Oh, it's got to be like an eight, solid eight.

So I think it would be great if she used your credit card to go to tunebyshawnshawn.com to get you a Haltech ECU for 5% off using coban oxide. Does that math out?

Absolutely.

I don't think we tell her about this ad until it runs though.

There is more fun. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I love manual stuff is just, it's just better. It'll be, I'm really, I really hope they get a lot of miles on my ZL1 this year and spend some time with that.

Is that manual?

That is manual.

Okay.

Gotta have it, absolutely. But, and that's where like the one now advantage that we have being a stick car is that like a 2650, when you're really turned up on one of these, like and you're making a lot of boost, like because they do make power with RPM, just based on the blower design. Once you get them, and even with really small cams, I think that you guys have talked about this or maybe heard about like what Justin White was talking about, with the fact that like they don't need that much camshaft to make a lot of power. And that's 100% true. Like that they have a super short runner and it's a very efficient cylinder head design. So like they will make power easily. So you don't need big camshaft stuff. But I'm going with this is that the 2650s have a tendency to make that power up higher even on a stock cam car. Like this car, for example, it's got a stock cam in it. So you'd think that power, like torque and horsepower should be relatively squared. Made 840 wheel horsepower and like, I think it was like 800 or 790 foot pounds of torque. That's not a stock cam. Like that's still a really tiny cam. 189 degree intake lobe. Like that's a really small camshaft to make that kind of power. When you really turn one up, and it's going to make like 11 or 1150, because you're turning the blower so hard, it's spinning a lot of RPM at lower, the supercharger spinning a lot more RPM into its efficiency range at a lower RPM. So then they start to make a ton of torque. So like theoretically or ideally, like this car should make 1000 foot pounds at 4000 RPM. So like that's where the manual thing also becomes less of a problem, because you can kind of just lug it in third, let it work its way through, maybe do a single shift if you're doing a roll type thing. But you can't have power everywhere because they make power everywhere. So that's the huge benefit of 2650s or positive displacement blowers and stick cars.

Well, are they having issues with 10 speed transmissions to a GM if you put too much power on them?

I mean, not really. I mean, we have multiple cars out there. And yes, anything has, when you start making a lot of power, everything is wearing. I mean, when things are stock, they wear out. So obviously, if you take a car that stock makes 550 wheel horsepower, you make 1,000 wheel horsepower, the service life is going to be reduced. There's no doubt about it. But the consistency of operation in a good, starting as a good unit that's never been underfilled in fluid or overfilled in fluid, and ours are 10L90s and the ZL1s, I am not even worried at all at 900 to 950 wheel. That's totally fine on a stock, unless you're going to go out and you're racing the thing every single day. But we have a guy out in Wisconsin that has one, he's had his for like, we built it like three or four years ago, it makes right around 1,000. That car is still on a stock trans converter, everything. I think it might have axles in it. But the factory drive lines are really pretty robust. So they hold up really good. Yeah. Seen a couple of the six speed in the ZL1s that actually stripped the gears off the trans in the manual trans cars. We've actually had two of those that have happened. But overall the drive lines are super robust in these cars.

Okay.

It's actually amazing.

Are you guys getting a lot of CH3 or two?

Well, not as many as I'd like to. Yeah. I don't know. I own one too. Yeah. I own one. We'll probably put turbos on ours in the not too distant future. I mean, we obviously have them in the area. I mean, down south, they're all over the place, and tons of people doing performance work stuff on them. They're awesome cars. We bought ours super late in the season, but I have a 24 Z51. And we did, kind of ran out of time before it started snowing. But did, what did we do to it? Flex, tuned it, put a drag pack on it, and I did headers, but they only picked up like three horsepower, four horsepower. So I'm not even going to count that as a mod. Yeah. Cause they're actually gonna, they're coming back off anyways. And I tested a couple of different air intakes, still with a stock intake manifold, which I think a ported LT2 should pick up like another 15 or 15 ish maybe, 12 to 15 wheel. But anyways, that car made a 485 wheel. And like on the street, it runs like 10 7s, 10 8s at like 126. It's like, that's really not bad for an NA car. But yeah, we need to start getting a lot more of them in here because they're awesome cars, they're awesome platforms. And I will be at road race events with you with the C8 this year. I think that thing is going to get worn out.

Man, I'm telling you, just throw together like one Facebook ad, you'll get plenty of them in here.

Yeah, I know.

I'm telling you, man, back to the marketing.

Right, right. Well, hey, this gets out to a few people, right? Yes, we do C8s. Yes, bring it in.

Our demographic is not 65 and older. No, especially after spending, like that entire Lingenfelter facility is full with C8s to the brim.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's awesome. I got to drive, I keep bringing it back to AJ for some reason. I drove his Stingray last year. He's my test drive mule at this point. I love that car. It's deceivingly, I did not realize I was doing a buck, allegedly, in that car. It comes on so quick. Like it's not a ton of horsepower stock. What did it make? Like 450 crank or something like that? 480 crank?

Yeah, 480, I don't even know, 460?

I'm blanking on it. Something like that.

495? 495.

Yeah.

And it's a fun car. I love the DCT. I'm glad that that's finally making its way to the GM world too.

Yeah.

They're having issues with that though too, aren't they? That's kind of where we talk about driveline issues that was...

They're just figuring it out. They're just figuring it out. I mean, yeah, they definitely are having issues with them, but most of the issues, as far as what I've heard, too, from people at dealerships, as far as failures, none of it's actually a hard part failure. It's usually more of just like positioning errors within the transmission, then it'll fail out half the gears, right? And then you have to clear the codes, or they have to go into a recall on them or something like that. But they have had actually failures in unit replacements too. But that's the thing is like that platform, and you guys have heard about this too, and I'll reiterate, but like that platform is going to be really, really fast in the not too distant future. Like the car has like, if you just look at it and you say, as you know, we now got a DCT, we have the engines in the back, it's 60, 40 weight, it has all of the stuff that you need to be able to build a really fun car. And I think they're going to get deceiving, like you said, they're deceivingly fast. The one gripe about the C8s that I've heard from people is they're like, it just wasn't that exciting. And they're not because the chassis is really good, and you don't know how fast you're going. Like, so they make everything feel, now you just have paddles, there's no manuals in them anymore, you know? So the cars themselves are a much more, it's more like even just a video game type of an operation. But they're really fun. And I brought mine to Brainerd. Oh, you guys did the thing with Nick. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I was helping do some track support with him up at BIR. So I brought the C8 up there, and it was literally like bone stock. It's a Z51, so it's got Pilot 4S's on it, and I didn't have time to do an alignment because we did a Dragon Drive event. The weekend before, we did a three-day Dragon Drive. I have a Mustang with an L83, like an old... I have a Mustang I did a Dragon Drive with, got done with that. That Sunday when we got home, loaded up the Corvette, went up on Monday to do track support with Nick. And then I was like, well, if I'm going up, I'm going to bring my Corvette up. And if he's running a run group, I'll run another run group and I'll go up and do some track event stuff with it. And honestly, I wasn't expecting a lot and the car delivered. Like it was really good. Like it was really, really good. Like I thought it would be kind of numb and boring, which it doesn't feel that way on the street. I actually think they're really exciting driving on the street. I think they're great, but it was awesome. Like it was really, really a lot of fun. And by like the third session, I had everything shut off, like for all the Stabilitrack, whatever stuff. And like if you trail break it in a little bit, I mean, that car would rotate super duper well, and it would actually like corner exit, oversteer, it would do all the fun things, like really, really well. And I actually got a little too comfortable with it. And I almost spun it like going through turn two on the big track, which was at like, I think it started to really slide at like 118 or 19, like through two, it slid for like hundreds of feet, like before I recollected it. I was like, oh my god, I did, I just did not see that coming. But the car was really, really fun. So I'm excited. I'm excited to see what that platform becomes. And I think they're going to be awesome.

So what I'm hearing you say is that turns make things more fun.

I do like turns.

Yeah.

That's crazy. It's like a whole nother element. Because like I see this all the time, this is going to be my own vendetta. I apologize. I'm taking this episode and hijacking it. A lot of these guys in forums go like, well, actually drag racing takes all this extra effort. And it does. Don't get me wrong. There's a whole science to drag racing. But then you also add that to road course. Like if you mess up your turn over here, you know, it's like whatever a 10th on your 60 foot or whatever is like two 10ths out the back, or whatever the saying is. The same thing applies to road courses.

Except much, much worse, much, much worse. Because if you miss one corner exit by even a small amount, it could be like a half a second.

As a professional iRacer, it's crazy. It can affect you by two, three, four 10ths. And that adds up over the course of a lap. Now you're a full second slower.

Right.

You know, it's, it's fun to see. Well, you do a little bit of both then. Because you said drag and drive, do a little bit of road course. Tell us a little about the drag and drive car.

It's a Fox body, it's a 88 Fox body. I bought it as a roller like seven years ago, I think six, seven years ago. And the idea then was to put an L83 in it, which is like a 14 to 18 truck motor, just a 5.3 aluminum deal. And I had Nathan from One Guy's Garage help. He did the motor plates and the turbo kit stuff on it. Did a, the motor I did was just a stock LT4 crank, rods, pistons, and then that was it. Other than that, it was pretty much just a stock motor deal. So put it together, Glide, and it has a Precision ProMod 88 103 on it, on Methanol. And it's been 472, like 158 in the eighth. So it's kind of fast. So that was actually the One Guy's Garage drag weekend event. So it was a three day deal. So I think it averaged like four mid-480s as far as a three day. So that makes like 1,300 and some, 1,320, 1,340 of the tire. So kind of a fun deal. Light, drag racing's really easy in Fox bodies.

Yeah, I know.

I mean, it is like, I didn't know it until I actually had one. And when we got done with it, and I like, I put it on the scales, I'm like, this thing weighs 2,500 pounds. So that is ridiculous. Like that is so easy compared to like a ZL1 at 3,890 pounds. Yeah. Yeah, it's just, it's really not too tough to make those cars really, really fast. But that's a really fun event. And I usually try and get out with that car a couple of times. I, you know, I wish I had more time on the weekends to do things. It just seems like busy, summer gets super busy. But yeah, I would like to spend more time with that car, maybe do some no prep stuff with it and whatnot, because it would be kind of well suited for almost anything. So, but yeah, that's a really, that's a really fun car. It came together pretty nice. Still needs a lot of little things like all of them do, but it's never ending. Yeah. But the wild part is like the last, actually the last couple of years, it's like you put fuel in it, you charge a battery and you fire it up and I'm like, I go out and run like bottom fives or high fours in the eighth, and that's eighth and that's really not too bad. So it's been, it's been fun. But I really, I enjoy, I enjoy that side of drag racing. But I'd much rather go road racing. We actually did, are you guys familiar with WRL racing at all? World Racing League?

That's too sure.

It's like a higher level of endurance racing that's not professional. Or like the highest level of not professional endurance racing is what I would say. So like we did that in, actually a buddy of mine owns, his name is Kaz, he owns Kaz Tech Engineering in St. Paul here as well. He built, do you know who Matt Peterson is? Have you talked to him?

Maybe, I'm not, maybe.

He's a big C5 guy too. He does WRL as well.

But I'm probably friends with all these guys on Facebook and I still know it.

So Kaz put to, Matt built a C5 and used it in like, Champ Car and those endurance racing things and then later went into WRL, which WRL has like, I think now they have three categories, you step four, so it's GP 1, 2, 3, and 4, and it's all power to weight rate, you know. But it was really, really good. So like, and in GTO, well, I'll actually back up. So Matt was running in WRL for a while with his Corvette and Kaz built one. So I raced with that team for probably two years. So we raced like all over the place. Like we've been to Daytona, I've been to Austin a couple of times, High Plains out in Colorado. So we've, I mean, road raced all over with that car. And that was a C5 Corvette, set up very similar, like a spec Corvette, what that would be now, except with a little more power, because that had an LS3 crate motor in it. But we had to pull the power back a pretty significant amount. But we raced in GTO class, because it was tough to get our power down to where we needed to be for GP1. And that class put us in like every other car in the class, with the exception of maybe like an E46 M3, were all XGT4 cars. So like all of it was like sequential factory built race cars.

Right.

So like when we went to Road America, like, I mean, there's like Aston Martins, and there's all the Porsche stuff, and there's the Audi stuff, and like trying to compete with that with an old stick shift Corvette was, actually was really, really fun. And the car, the car could put down the lap times, it was just really tough to do it as consistently, consistently as they would. But yeah, I ran, I ran with them for probably like a year or two years, raced all over the country with the car. And that was, that was awesome.

Give me an idea of like a lap time of a, sorry to interrupt, but like, what's a lap time you've done on like Road America, for example?

I don't even remember.

Like just to put a frame to it.

I don't even remember. I would, I would have absolutely no idea.

Cause that's kind of like Dan's home track now.

What would be, what would be a traditional, what would be a traditional lap time? Like with the kink removed for like a normal pace?

I don't know what the, so when we did Optimus Streetcar, they removed the kink and I don't know. I know that a good time in a GT 500 with the kink is in the 220s.

Okay. Yeah, I would, I'd have to get back to you on that.

Yeah, I'm just curious.

Yeah. It's been, the car's been down for like two years. So, but that was, that was really, that was really like as much fun as I've had in a car, like racing is because you're wheel to wheel and like, the finals were always at Cota and you're on an F1 track and like, that's awesome. Pretty incredible.

We might go check that out here in a few weeks as well. I'm gonna see if we can check that track out.

Yeah.

I really hope so.

You definitely should. It's worth it. It's worth the hype. That was really fun. When we were racing in Daytona, that was awesome too. I got to run one of our final stints down there and it was like, the car was kind of coming apart. I think the pressure plate was breaking, so it wouldn't shift super good. But it was under the lights in its Daytona and it was awesome. Because when you run Daytona as you would for the Rolex, you pretty much run the entire like from turns two on Daytona, they have the little like bus stop in the back, but then you run three, four and the whole front like flat out. So like even in that car, I think it was like 160 miles an hour down the front. Yeah, so it was like, so like, it was really, really fun. And it was like the only, like that was the one time that I would say that you drive for long enough, because it was probably like an hour long stint, hour, a little over an hour.

Oh yeah, that's pretty intense.

It's a good amount of time, but it's like after a while, you just kind of fall into the groove. And it's, it's, it's kind of the same as like a runner's high where you feel like you're just floating. But like all the, all the manipulation of this broken car that was getting more and more broken every lap was like, it was just really enjoyable. Like it was, it was awesome. And it was, it was just like, you're going under the lights here at Daytona and you just don't even really feel all the things that are happening, but it's just happening in harmony. It was, it was really fun. That was definitely the funnest drive I've ever had in my life. Like in a wheeled car, for sure.

Did you see like the recent Corvette thing that went viral, the guy flicking the BMW driver off? Yes. I bought the shirt. It's on its way. It just shipped today.

That is awesome. I love that.

Yeah. That thing, that's cool. I love the CA platform. Like looks wise at first, I was a little turned off if I'm not wrong, especially when you had those stupid aluminum wheels on the stock ones.

Oh, they're terrible.

It's rough. It's rough.

It's like GM literally must like whoever the wheel guy is, like how do we make this thing look as ugly as possible? Like let's go with that wheel, and then just make it look a little bit worse, and that's what we'll put on it, and they'll sell it.

It just looks really cheap.

It does.

Otherwise, it just cheapens the car. It's kind of like when you see, actually I'm not going to hurt feelings, I'm not going to say that.

Well, I mean, it was a cheap car, right? I mean, for what it was, it's true.

They still are. Like they're really not too bad. Like that's a lot of bang for your buck. I've been really, really impressed with our car. It's been a bunch of fun.

I just saw a highlight from Hagerty today. They did a podcast with like the chief marketing guy and then who's the guy, with Taj, the guy that was kind of behind the C7, C8 before he got replaced, I was it Tony Roma or something like that. And they're saying like even people that worked at Chevy did not know it was going to be that little. They thought it was going to be like $120,000 car. They thought that they were out of their mind, blah, blah, blah. And then they're like, oh, they literally surprised people same day that worked at Chevy. It was going to be $59,995 or whatever.

Yeah, that's awesome.

And then it got marked up for $50,000, so it's whatever.

That's just what happens. That's just what happens.

I feel bad for those guys if that didn't last long.

Yeah, it is, well, because you look at the base cars, and then the Z06s and the E-Rays both look so good. Like the wide body in those cars just looks really good.

Yes.

You know, like really, really. And the wheel and wheel fitment on those cars is just a million times better. But I feel like the base car is going to, like I still feel like people are just overlooking them right now, and in the next couple of years, people will realize like how good the performance is.

Well, once they drop in price too. Right.

Right. I mean, they've still been holding price. I waited to get one for way too long because I was waiting for a used one to get inexpensive, and they just never did.

Yeah.

Like they just never went down. And then finally I had one come in here, and I was like, I just I need to buy one of these things.

Well, it's also reasonable. I think it's a performance bargain. I mean, how many other let's listen, I get it's a Corvette, but it's a supercar. It is on a Euro level. Like the Z06, the C8 Z06, it ran, I think it was like 10 seconds slower or whatever than a 2017 ACR on the ring.

Yeah.

Right. And you know, if we're using the ring for comparison, like that's not bad. Fast car. Yeah, if we're being honest.

It's much faster than 99.9% of the people are going to drive it.

Nobody's ever going to touch that.

Yeah.

Yeah. So the GTD did a 657. Nobody is going to get within three minutes of that.

That is mental.

Yeah. Okay.

What's your opinion on the C8 Z06 and that engine layout with the dual overhead cams?

It doesn't excite me that much.

No?

It really doesn't. I think that the ZR1 will be really, really cool. It took so long relatively to get tuning just into the regular C8 platform, that it will be hopefully really exciting when they do start allowing tuning on the C8 Z06s. I just, there's a lot of complexity there for arguably not that much more performance. Like, I just, like I even look at, going back to our car, this is just straight line performance, which I know obviously there's a lot more to a car than just that. But like, given the fact that just on flex, a tune, an intake, and a drag pack, you can run like 10.7s and a stock Z06 is going to run the right, like 10.6, 10.7 range, right? I mean, like, it's just not that much of a performance difference. But it all depends on what you're going to do with the car. If you're going to go out and like track the bejeezers out of a car, like, I would rather do it with something with an LT2 instead of a, you know, the dual overhead cam Z06 motor, which something bad happens to that thing. It's, I mean, what are those costs to fix? Or repost?

Oh, I don't even know.

Nobody knows. Astronomical. It's 30 grand, 40 grand, 60 grand. Who knows? So it's all relative to what you're going to do with it. It's a beautiful car. I just don't think that many people are doing what they should be doing with them just because they're too expensive. And that kind of defeats the purpose of it being a beautiful car, right?

I think you are going to see a little bit of hesitancy there. That's a good point.

Yeah.

Completely different. But that's why you don't see modded Ferraris, right?

Or people on track days actually. When's the last time you went on a track day and seen somebody actually wheeling a Ferrari or a Lamborghini and you're like, oh my God, look at that guy drive that thing.

I've seen Lambos and stuff, but I don't think I've ever seen a Ferrari.

No, I don't think. It's just a very special club. And I feel like if Corvettes are getting more and more expensive, it might be trickier to see people wheeling them.

I just see the C8 becoming like the C8 Z51 car becoming like a very potent track car.

The sweet spot.

Yeah, exactly. The absolute sweet spot. Where if something bad happens to it, it's not the end of the world. You're not up a Z06, it's kind of a big deal. You break parts on a Z06 and it's not under warranty, it's kind of a big deal. You break parts on an LT2 car, it's not the end of the world. I mean, that's a very serviceable setup. Like a lot of people can do it.

Well, that's one of the things that I told Dan is like, as this dream continues to take off, I eventually want to do some road course stuff. Like that's what's calling my name. And the Stingray is kind of calling me, man. I don't know what it is.

I think that's the program.

Just like, I mean, when you hear Wando's with a heads cam set up, dude, it's nasty. We got to check out the first 427s.

Oh, at Lingenfeld, you were at Lingenfeld, yeah.

That was pretty rowdy, too. So I'm excited for that platform. I've done a total 180 on that car, the G80 M3s, the Supras. I just stop, I need to stop talking when things come out.

It takes a while. Like, it just, I mean, realistically, we're like four years in on the C8. That's a long, like...

Lots of bugs to work out.

Yeah, it's surprising that it's already been that long. But like, that's the point where things are gonna start getting fast. Like, I really think that this is gonna be a breakthrough year for it. And like, I'm super stoked with our car to go out and we're gonna promote that thing and beat the balls out of it and have a bunch of fun. It's gonna be a good show.

I like that you're kind of both worlds to drag and road course. So that makes for an interesting conversation.

As that pick up, as that picks up, do you think you'll see any of the other C5, C6, all that stuff start to fall out of?

No.

No?

Because those cars are also, they're just cheap, awesome track cars.

Yeah.

And the C5, you talk about this all day. I mean, like, the C5, like, they're so easy to make them a super fun track car. Like, that's the, like, it's just a bigger, faster Miata. You know?

Is that what Justin's is, the blue one? The one we ran Road America with? I think it's a C5, right?

I think it was a C6 Stingray.

Okay.

I might be wrong. He might kill me on that one. It's okay. Well, I wonder, okay, I've been wanting to ask you this question since like three weeks ago. So who do you go, so since you don't do a lot of tuning in house anymore, I mean, you do a little bit here and there. Who's your go-to tuner now? Do you have a few or one or?

Oh no, we do all of our tuning.

Oh, you do all your own tuning?

I do all of our tuning.

Okay.

It's like all the build stuff, everything that we do, I'm doing all the tuning stuff on it. Okay. What I'm talking about as far as tuning is just like if a customer brings in a car and we're just doing just tuning on the car.

I see what you're saying. Okay.

So it's kind of been, again, another one of these slow progression things where we are kind of to the point where we only do tuning if we're going to be doing some mechanical work on it or if we've already built the car. So if we do adjustments or whatever to it. I bought credits again from HP tuners, which I do a lot because all the new stuff takes a lot more credits than the old stuff does. Like anything Gen 3, so like 97 to effectively 2006-07. Anything Gen 4, I have a tuner shop package, so I don't have to pay for credits for that stuff. So if you bring it in at 08-06, there's no credits on that. New stuff does, and the ECM takes some, the TCM takes some, the chassis control takes some, so you just have to buy a bunch of credits. I think that I've purchased, I think it was like 3,400 credits, which means if you just look at the credits and not the other cars that haven't taken credits to tune, and consider that like, or the tuning amount, assuming that that would be 50-50, that would be like eight years of tuning. I've effectively tuned, I think, it was like 3,100 and some cars. So yeah, so it's almost like it's over eight years if you tuned a car every day. So it's a lot of cars, like a lot of cars.

Do you do remote tuning too then?

I don't. I mean, we do some of it. We, I shouldn't say that. I do track support. So if we build something in North Dakota or Illinois or whatever, we absolutely will help with track support stuff. So like I sell you an interface, you data log, you send something back or you have any issues or whatever. We're absolutely 100 percent behind that. So we help support anything with that. As far as like somebody out of state calling and saying, hey, set me up with a tune for this. We just, I don't do it. I mean, we've been as busy as we can handle with what we have already. And I just really haven't gotten to that side of it. And that comes back to the original part of this conversation is that I've just kind of had to take away the customer bringing in a vehicle for tuning because we build so many cars in-house and we have so many cars to support. I mean, we've now been doing this for, I mean, well, if you go all the way back to a seven, but that's not realistic. Out of this building like three years, but through the CJ Tunes days and all of that stuff, I mean, we have a lot of customers and a lot of clients. So just making sure that we can still properly support them and their needs, it's really kind of tough to still be taking in additional work because I'm the one that does all the tuning stuff.

That makes way more sense now. Okay, yeah.

Sorry, I might not have explained that.

Like tune what you build. I get it. Rather than some Joe Schmo off the street, you don't know what's done to it. Then you have to go through the whole checklist of like, you forgot this, this, this, and this.

Well, and with tuning it, I mean, it's one of those things that I have a bit of a perfectionist mentality. I'm looking at my wife there. And I just can't not get it right. You know, and I like, it's one of those things that if you have a weird start or a hiccup or this or that, like I'm just relentless with it. And I won't let it go. Like, and so like, I will keep working and working and working and working and working. And we are trying to do that along with tuning the cars that we have here and managing the business and working with customers and all that stuff. It just becomes a lot. But yeah, that's the interesting thing about tuning. I love tuning. I really still love the whole process of it. And it's, there's always new challenges.

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I thought your guys' podcast with Greg was awesome. I did listen to almost all three hours of it and that was really, really good and really hit super close to home because it's interesting how many people don't understand how much of the ECU we have zero control over and how little we're actually allotted for stuff. Because for us, for a lot of what we do, and even what I do with a lot of these cars, we have to actually find and configure our own user to find parameters to get them to do what they need to do. So they just don't give us all the tables that you need. And it was interesting because he did a really good job of summarizing that and how that actually works. But yeah, the tuning process is that, the work that goes into making a new ZL1 or ZL6 run like a stock car should, but that makes big power, is a lot of time and effort, like from a tuning standpoint and making sure that it's like as flawless as it can be. So that in itself is a full time job.

Are you, do you only do stock ECU then?

Yeah.

Okay.

I'll just say yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, no, we do Holley's too. Like we'll help out, we'll help out. It all comes, you know, like if a customer has other cars and he's got something, I'm not going to say no, I mean, obviously we're here to help people out. But like when it comes to aftermarket ECU stuff, like there's other people in our area that do a good job. I know like the Haltech stuff is covered and Steven does a ton of Holley stuff down south. So like that stuff is really, really well covered in our area, I feel like. And I just, I, again, like the amount of time that it takes to do a new, like a new, a new car is just a lot of work. Like it's so, so I just really focus on that. And I like the stock ECU stuff. It presents a lot of challenges, but it's very, very rewarding.

We get to work the right way. You were talking about the credits and I don't, we've had some tuners on, I've never really asked how that works, but I know like I'm looking at getting tunes from my GT500 and I think I have to purchase five credits along with it. So what, what is that doing? Is it, it's not every time you flash a tune, right? So you have to get access to each module requires a different credit. Is that kind of what you're saying?

Yeah, I don't know how they do it in the Ford world, but yeah, in the GM world, that's, that's how it works. So like, for us, without getting overly technical, like 17 and newer, I'll keep using just cars as an example. This one here is an 18 ZL1. So the engine control module, which is an E92A, that takes four credits. The transmission control module, which is a T87A takes four credits. Those credits are used with the interface. So you have an HP tuners interface, I'm assuming?

Yeah, well, I was just going to get an RTD. I have not got it. I'm using a N-Gauge.

Oh, cool.

That's what I like right now.

Cool, I could sell you an RTD.

Yeah?

Or I could sell you an HP tuners interface too.

Yeah?

I need to sell more.

Okay. Problem solved.

My HP tuners rep is like, hey buddy, you gotta bring up those sales, which we don't sell a lot of interfaces because we don't do retail sales. We don't do a lot of e-commerce stuff. Everything that we do comes to the shop here. So we're small potatoes when it comes to people, versus people that have a larger online presence that are just selling stuff without any support of it. Like everything that I sell is going to be going directly to a customer, and I'm literally be sitting down with them being like, hey, here's how you work your HP tuners interface. When you're at the track, this is how you data log things, and this is how you send it to me, and this is how we go through the entire process. Back to your original question, whatever you end up purchasing, whether it's an RTD or MPVI 3, your credits will actually license to that interface. So that interface is what you're licensing to the car. So now that interface is now married to the car. So it doesn't matter who has it, or what laptop, or whatever it has, that is how the credits work. And depending on what modules you need or don't need, I don't know in a Ford world what modules you need to actually, I mean, obviously the UCM. But outside of that, I don't know what's actually needed for it, so I don't know what you need to license with them.

But certain things, depending on their complexity, could need more licenses and less.

Yep.

That's fun. That's a neat little way they did that to keep the money rolling in.

A lot of engineering time it comes in to be able to do that. And I love it. I would not have a business, this would not exist without HP Tuners. What's really funny is that my interface, my MPVI2 that I've had for like... When I started doing tuning, I started with the $600 or $500 HP Tuners interface, which is the same setup effectively that I use now, which is back in 2007, which is kind of wild. If it wasn't for that, none of this would exist because it all stemmed from the tuning side of it. That's where I really enjoyed it. That's what I got into. And back then to... You guys don't tune or do you want to... Do you guys have any time?

No, we have a decent understanding of it.

Okay, the HP Tuners forum back then, it was before things were like... I mean, now obviously this industry, it's profitable. Like there is a large industry around tuning LS and LT powered cars. So the information share on HP Tuners back then was like, the forum was a free for all. Like there was all sorts of information. That's when I got really geeky with it. Like I just lost my mind on the forum because I started as a technician in a diagnostic and drivability tech. And when I bought HP Tuners back in 2007, it was the first time that I was able to like look into the ECU and see what we had. And like it just, it opened up my eyes and I was like, I just need to know all of this. Like I need to literally know all of this. And I would, it's like people that game that just won't go to sleep, I was doing the same thing except it was just HP Tuners forum. And that at that time, there was a couple really, really, I mean, there still is a ton of really smart people on HP Tuners forum too. But back then it was, there was a couple of people on there that were like, they're posting really, really technical information and openly sharing all sorts of stuff. And you just don't see it quite as much because people hold on to what they know.

Yeah, a little bit of gatekeeping now.

Yeah, and I really feel like, I know that a couple of people in this industry have been much more apt to like saying, we need to share this. Like if we're not, we don't need to worry about losing business to our competitor in the GM world. We need to worry about getting run over by a G80 BMW. Like, let's get together here and make our stuff better as a whole, which I can-

Well, don't worry, the G80s are like triple the price.

So. But it's good that we're kind of getting back into that now, and I see more of that happening, because it is, I'm saying the same thing, but it is a lot of work to actually get an ECU to work properly and like define the parameters that you need that are not outlined for you that you don't have access to with just regular HP tuners, to be able to get the car to do what you actually want it to do, which is kind of wild.

Well, that's one of the things that I really like about, I'm gonna toot my own horn for like half a second here, my platform, but then also like Justin White, you know, we're, you know, just people are getting out there and they want to share it. Like, I can't remember, I think I was talking with Justin actually, and he was telling me about how somebody like Brian Tooley has this wealth of knowledge and he's willing to share it. It's not a secret. It's just that nobody's asked, you know? So that's why like when you come on a podcast and talk about it, I don't know, man, hopefully we can grow something cool out of this little community, because the sharing of knowledge is becoming bigger and bigger, too.

Well, it's a necessity because they're getting harder and harder, you know, like, and yeah, it's just if we don't kind of bond together with what we know, it's just why struggle with it if you don't need to. And yeah, I thought that was really interesting that like Justin and Brian's the Go Hard podcast, I think was that the one with the longer one with Brian, which is a really good one, too, by the way. But yeah, what he's doing and like kind of saying like, hey, we need to do a better job of like talking about stuff. And 100% correct, because it's been like, see, let's be hush hush. And we really shouldn't be because all we're hurting is ourselves as a community. So yeah, because these cars are awesome. A lot of the platform, a lot of more.

Having enjoyed quite a few platforms now this far into the game, it's really hard to just pick one. Like, I mean, I've been staring at your Camaro back here this whole time. I'm just thinking like, that's a gorgeous car. Like Dan's gagging. It's fine.

But for me, it's... I'm not much for the Camaro's. I don't mind some vets, but...

Oh, man. Oh, man.

It's calling my name, man. It's probably...

Well, what's my buddy Tim says? The car's so cool, they killed it twice.

I haven't heard that before. That's good.

Yeah.

That's good. The ZL11LE is a tough look to beat. Yeah. Your style GT500, the late late GT500, it's also a gorgeous car. I mean, but it's kind of one of those things, like even all the old BMW M Series stuff, it's one of those looks that will probably, ideally or hopefully, will never go out of style. I think that this car here is one that you look at and you're like, I know you're a Ford guy, but let's pretend that's a GT500 and you're looking at that, and we're having the same conversation. Because I do feel like the styling of both those cars are both really, really nice. They just did a really good job of the look of them. But that's one in 20 years, you're going to look at it and you're still going to be like, that is a good looking car.

There might be that gap too though, because I used to love fifth gens, and then I'm like, I don't know how that age. Then it's like, it's coming back to me.

Okay.

All right.

Well, then let's go back on that and say, but what about a fifth gen Z28?

Then yeah, that's what brought it back for me.

Right.

I love it. But it's like you forget about how good it looked. Even yesterday, this is going to discuss both of you. I actually noticed today, I saw a 2010 Challenger, like an SRT, and I'm like, I can see why I liked that back then. Because for a while, it's like, that's old, that's tacky. Because the Hellcats came out. It comes and goes, man.

Yeah. But that's the thing though, too, is like when you look at this stuff, you got to realize like the ZL11LE is still the same car as a base V6 or four-cylinder rental Camaro. So that's the thing. I look at Z28s and every Z20, I have never seen one where I'm like, oh man, that doesn't look right. You're like, that is just a sharp car. Yeah. The new style GT500 is like, I mean, I don't think you could do something wrong enough with a color where you'd be like, I don't dig it. They just look good. Same thing with the ZL11LEs. Everyone that I see that it comes in the shop, I'm like, hmm, yep, that's the stuff right there.

Blacked out like that one is perfect though. That's just my taste. I mean, granted the white too is probably second best.

There's something about a car that looks fast when it's sitting. Right.

Yeah. These ones do that pretty well. They are pretty fast though too. That works out.

I see a lot of them sitting, so I'm saying.

So what's next for you then, right? Because obviously you've had a ton of growth in the last few years, whether personally or business-wise or both. What's next for you?

Yeah, we're just going to keep doing what we're doing, except we are going to get into the C8 platform. I really want to make a huge push on that and do a really, really, really good job with it because nobody in the midwest has captured that at all.

Some shops are trying to. I know Minnesota Performance, they've tried. I think they did the one pro-charge one. I think that's it. That's all I've seen so far.

Yeah. And we'll use ours. Ours will be a test meal. It will get a lot of different combinations thrown at it, and it will definitely get work through a lot of different ways. But I really want to focus on doing that. And then outside of that, our staff, our group here is awesome. Our people that we have is really, really great. I'm really honestly kind of stoked with where the business is at right now. And we've moved a lot, you know, even in the last, you move into a new location, you have to kind of resettle yourself, you get new equipment, you get things kind of settled. Like it's nice to take a breath and actually take a moment. And I feel like we're kind of in that phase, like maybe the center to end part of that right now, or we're just kind of like riding the wave, you know, where you don't have to really go through and do a whole bunch of new things or incredible things. And the thing is, with optimization of the packages that we already do and offer, different porting technology comes out. Because even looking at, we talked about earlier with the Kong X port and some of the Joker Raceport stuff and the stock blowers, if you would have told somebody back in 2017 when the ZL1s came out, that stock 1.7 blower was going to make 900 wheel plus or 1,000. The LMP car out in the East Coast is a stock blower car. I think it runs like 850s or 40s or something. That's insane. That's absolutely insane. But that's the funny part about this is that even just staying on top of it, as things continue to progress, is a lot of work, too. Because you don't want to be offering old packages where your stuff isn't as fast as it once was. It's not as reliable as it once was. There's better product out there.

Staying relevant is a huge thing.

Staying relevant. That'd be a great way to phrase it.

Well, and the question is how, too, right? It goes back to what we talked about earlier with audience. Like, all right, are you trying to go for that 60 to 130 crowd? Are you just trying to go for the guys that can run eights or nines or road courses? It's tough because you can't capture it all either.

Right. Right. And that's really like, I just do what our customers want. That's the key to that. As far as what I want to do or what we want to do with the business, like I say, the C8, definitely, that's just something that's going to happen. I am, this is my own ZL1 is going to become more of a straight line car for at least a part of the season. I saved all the stock stuff, but that's actually got Kirkys in it now and some TBMs. So we're going to go try and run down the stick shift record, which is not very fast in these cars. I think the 6th gen stick shift record is in the 920s or low 930s, which is, I think, pretty achievable. So I'm going to pursue that aggressively this year and see how that turns out. And then once we hopefully set that, hopefully set it low enough that I can turn the car back into a normal street car again, but we'll see. I want to go after that and pursue that. Yeah, other than that, just keep building awesome cars, having fun with them.

Firing this up and getting this going, having the general repair, do you think that was helpful or in a way that you like, okay, I always have this gig going on, does it make it a little more easier to go, all right, we're going all in on this? Or was it detriment having to run both things at the same time there for that period?

Both. It was really beneficial. So, I mean, if I didn't have the auto repair, like, okay, let me back up again, we'll kind of go back to the origin story a little bit more. My dad founded Lancer Service in 1977.

Okay.

I've been around cars and car repair my entire life. So, we grew up in New Richmond, Wisconsin, it's just across the border.

You're speaking Dan's language now.

I'm very familiar, yeah.

God's country over there. It probably doesn't play to well with the title of the podcast. We were not far from Cedar Lake Speedway.

Yep.

He was like head mechanic slash crew chief for a late model car back in the 80s. So, like, I think like there was Soto 100, which is like the dirt track race stuff back in like 86, 87. Like the race car was always at our house, and I was around the race car, and I was born in 83, 41-ish. I was always around the race car as I was like as a kid. So I was like always about the entire car scene side of things. He did a really like he did a really great job. When I was 14 and 15 in the summers, I'd come into the cities with him when I'd like summer break, like two or three days out of the week, and I'd like sweep floors and be around the technicians. I was actually doing kind of funny, we were laughing about this a little while ago, but like I was doing test drives in downtown St. Paul when I had my permit with nobody else in the car, which is just a weird deal. But I kind of went through and I did that entire thing. So I've been around the industry and you know, that entire thing my entire life. Had it not been for Lancer, and I was still somehow into cars, I definitely would have went down the tuning side of things. And I would have ran into a different set of hurdles, not knowing what I knew through the business or being part of it throughout my entire life. But, there would have been different hurdles I guess, is what I would probably say with that. His mentorship and then the business continuation and buying the business all was like, I mean, I learned a lot through that, like a lot through that. So when we started, like when I really fired up TCP, because it was always CJ Toons prior to that, like CJ Toons was always just kind of like a back burner thing for me the entire time. I mean, there was moments where I'd focus on it a little bit more, but I'd get burnt out because I was doing, I was tuning cars at like midnight or one in the morning, and then I'd go still work 50 hours a week and then like tune cars again. And like, it was, it was a lot. But learning the business side of things through Lancer Service, through my dad, through that entire process, and then applying it into this, our organization starting here, like when we moved into this, our organization from a business standpoint was much better than what it would have been the other way. What I'm saying is it's two ways to get to the same point. This was a more direct, but slightly more painful, just because I was already working a bunch of hours and trying to make it on top of it. This would have been a much more curvy road, but I think we would have ended up here no matter what. It just would have been, it just would have been, yeah, a little bit more of a windy road, I think, before we got there.

You weren't coming from just like building cars in a two-car garage somewhere.

Right, right. Well, yeah, there is that. I mean, I've always enjoyed the building, the car building process, I really do. Like, I love the tuning side of it. The first time, like, when these guys are working on things, they're like, send me a bass tune, and I slack it over to them, and then I hear the car fire up like 40 minutes later, and I'm like, oh yeah, that's the stuff. Like, every time, I just get so excited about it. Fires me up, I absolutely enjoy it.

Do you still, do you ever send technicians back and forth?

Between the shots?

If you need, if you're busy in one area or the other?

We kind of were a little bit. We've kind of grown out of that. I mean, when I first moved over here, actually, when I first moved into the building over here, I was managing both or trying to, which was a terrible idea. I mean, like, in the view of, like, good and bad ideas, like, that's about as bad as it can get. Because I'd get in there at, like, 6 in the morning, 6.30 in the morning, I'd just stir the pot, just a catastrophe, and then I'd leave at noon and come over here and try and figure things out and get things going over here, or I'd work one day there and one day here and whatever. And my wife saw what was happening and she's like, I'm going to quit my job and I'm going to come manage Lancer. I'm like, nah, you don't need to do that. I got it. This is not a problem. I'm a mechanic. I can fix everything. Yeah, no issue here. She's like, no, I'm doing that. And she did. And that has been the best decision by far for me and my health and the businesses too, because then now we actually have a better leadership program, which works out much, much, much better. So yeah.

It's a team game.

It is a team game.

Where's Lancer at?

It's like 12 blocks away.

Okay.

Okay.

So we bookend downtown St. Paul. So like here at TCP, we're only like four blocks from Xcel Energy, and then on the west side, on West Seventh, and then on the far east side of downtown is where Lancer is.

Okay.

Okay.

Go for bar area. CHS Field for the Saints play.

Oh, yep.

We're right up from that. Right off of Seventh Street from there. Gotcha. Yeah.

So when your dad started that shop, then he was coming over from Wisconsin?

Yeah.

To do that, yeah?

Yeah. No, kind of. Yes. I think he built the house that I- yes. Yes, he was. Okay. I'll simplify that. We don't need to get into that for any reason. Yeah. He was commuting from Wisconsin. I initially was doing that too. We actually just moved back to Wisconsin, so we're in Prescott now.

Oh, okay.

I'll be over there tomorrow, by the way. Oh, I gotta tell you, I'm gonna be over there tomorrow. Later.

Oh, that's right. Hanging out with our sponsor.

Yeah. Are you familiar with Haze Performance at all?

Mm, I should be.

So he used to work over at MAP. He used to actually work with Kyle Nelson. He was like an assistant? What is his title? Whatever.

He was an assistant.

Anyways, he does mandrel bending or whatever out there.

Okay.

So yeah, I'm gonna be going out there to film some video or whatever tomorrow. Cool. But I was gonna ask, so then do you do a lot of wrenching yourself still then? No. Okay. No.

I'm terrible at it too. I always feel like I'm good at it and I start on it. I'm actually not terrible. I'm just not as good as I should be.

And so you're more so from the leadership perspective then?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, of course, if I'm out tuning something and I'm like, this thing's got a little bit of a misfire, we got to something or like, I'll jump under the hood and do something, but I try and cap it like a half hour, 40 minutes. Yeah. Because there's just a lot of things to be done. Like the tuning side of it is a lot and like parts procurement and what we do. We have some other great people within the organization too. Chase, who's our service advisor, is phenomenal. And we just all need a little bit of help though. We're a small team. So there's a lot of different pockets to fill.

It's hard once you get, as you get busier too and doing other stuff. So I've built some things in my shop. My kids were smaller and things were, business was a little bit slower and stuff like that. Now they're getting older. And I just bought a navigator from my wife off Copart and I've got it in the shop. Now it's on the lift. I'm tearing some parts off. I'm working on it. And then my wife said, you got to pick this one up at 2.30 and then your son's got wrestling at 6.30. And it's really hard if you can't just like sit down. There's no like bumping in and out of wrenching on a car.

And that's exactly it. Like the problem is that if I get into something and it's a three hour job, I'll start it and then the phone will ring and then I'll pick it up. And then somebody asks me a Lythra preload question, and I'll just hop over there. And then I forgot something over on the dyno. And then I totally forget to put the car back together. I sit in somebody's bay and then they're like, I know my technician's mad at me because they're like, you're taking up my bay, which they should be. Like that's not where I belong. That's not where I should be. And our taxi rock, man. We got, like I said, we got an awesome team. So I should stay where I need to stay. So I try and help them fill in if I can, if they need me or whatever. But as far as wrenching, I'm hopefully semi-retired from that. But now, so another fun, like you talk about being able to work at home, I've never had that. Like I've never had, our last place was we had a condo downtown St. Paul here. So like my commute to work from our condo to Lancer was three blocks and my commute here was 12 blocks. So like I rode a scooter all summer, which is funny because, you know, people are like picking up their big horsepower cars and they're like, what are you driving? And I'm like, oh, I got that Honda C70 out there. Yeah, the little scooter.

At least it's not a Lyme scooter some of you rolled up on.

No, no, no, no. No, we don't do that.

For just a nickel a day.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, and then prior to that I had actually a house down in a cottage drove area, but I never really got it outfitted. So like I've never had the opportunity to work at something, work on something with enough space at home. So all of my projects, because when it comes to customer stuff versus my own stuff, I will always put the customer first. It's just mentally, it's what you do. Like I'll come up here on a weekend, it'll be like, oh, I'm going to do X, Y, Z on my car. I want to change up the pulley setup or pull the heads off of it and do this. And then as I get up here, I'm like, oh, I still have to tune so and so's. I'm like, well, I'll just knock that out. It will take a couple of hours. And now you've completely lost track again. So now you keep going down that path. So I'm really hoping that in a new place, I have actually a 40 by 60 heated outdoor building. So hopefully that will have a two-post in it. And I'll actually be able to do some of my own fun wrenching there. Because the problem is once you start on something down here, it's the same deal, like it needs to be out of the bay on Monday morning. So it's a weekend project, that means it needs to be done on the weekend.

So now you can get like every other car guy and just take years and months to finish a project.

Yeah, that sounds great to me. Yeah, I've honestly never... Everything has always been on a timeline. Like it makes it... Like the process should be enjoyable. Like we forget that. I mean, we get overwhelmed by things, but usually the reason the process is not enjoyable is because we've exceeded our deadline and now we need to push, you know? And I would love to have the ability to let a car sit on a lift for a year. That would make my entire year. I've definitely never had that. I remember even like over at Lancer, I built a turbo truck. I mean, it's probably like 10 to 12 years ago, I think. It was like old 70 mil, just terrible turbo on the thing. And I didn't know what I was doing, but like I built that truck in like a weekend, like and because I had to. So it was like on Friday, we got done with work. It was like six o'clock, start rolling, get like a couple hours worth of sleep on the floor, keep jamming on Saturday. Like it was just like a thrash session to try and get it done. And it did turn out great. And that truck actually, it was probably like 2010-ish. And it was like a crew cab or extended cab, 2000 with a 5.3 and like a little 70 mil turbo. It went 1280s, like 107, which is a big level truck. I was pretty happy with it. It's amazing how things have progressed, how that speed has like, how the bar has been raised so far, because there was a lot of fun back then.

Speaking of trucks, are you seeing a lot of, are you getting guys also bringing their dailies in here or like the tacho for the wife, be like, hey, this needs a supercharger and...

Yeah, we do a ton of that stuff. Yeah, and that's probably another area that we just, we don't mark as much as we should, but we do general maintenance on GM VA platforms. So like as part of the business model, we only do LS and LT stuff, but that includes all LS and LT stuff, with the exception of LS4s. I don't do front drive weirdness. I don't know what that's about, but we don't do that.

So no cobalt SSs, got it.

Grand Prix GXPs and Paula SSs. Those are the weird, do you guys remember those? Yeah, they had a 5.3, it is an LS motor, but they have a different bellhousing bolt pattern and they're mounted the wrong way. They should go this way and they're going that way. So we don't do those. But yeah, we do all the general maintenance stuff and repair and stuff too. So like, I mean, a lot of it is customers with cards that we build or have done work too, that we continue to do work on. But yeah, we do it all.

No 4.3 stuff then too? No cyclones or typhoons?

None of it. No, not even the new DI43s. Okay. Yeah, we're weird like that. We only do V8 LS and LT stuff.

Those are, if I was gonna get GM, I would like a Typhoon. And then I've always liked the 05 and 06 Impala SSs, that look like the Caprice, but they had like the Corvette stuff underneath them.

Are you saying 95, 96?

Is it 95, 96? Yep, that's what I'm thinking of.

Yeah, Impala SS, like the big ones. They were almost all more black or maroon or whatever. Yeah, yeah.

I love those cars.

Yeah, I do too. They're cool. They're just a big old, big old awesome car. What was the first one you said? Oh, the side, side, side, side, side stuff.

I want a Type 2 specifically.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Man, I get it from the performance standpoint, but that 90s interior, man, I just can't do it. This is coming from a guy with an OBS, an 89C, I guess maybe I should just shut my mouth when it comes to that. I don't know what it is about the V6 stuff. I wish I could get behind it, and not to, like, the Grand National stuff is awesome. The Cyclone Typhoon stuff is really cool. I've just, it's just never appealed to me for some reason. I don't know what it is. I think it's the sound. I think I just can't do that V6 sound, but.

Well, I know a guy that's puttin a Coyote in one, so that's, I'm excited to see that one, in a Cyclone.

Oh, cool. Yeah, fun.

That'll be all of those Coyote the world. LS-swapped Fords out there.

Coyote the world.

Yeah?

Yeah, well, I mean, LS swaps have dominated the swap market for a long time. It's time we start getting some other players into it, too. So we welcomely, openly embrace the Coyotes into the swap side of things.

So, well, to get your hot take on that then, you know, the whole build a Ford, build an LS, you know, Coyote versus LS, what's, is it for pricing-wise, are we on the same table or is there?

LT's all day, baby.

Yeah?

It's the only way to go.

Okay.

Yeah. I mean, I don't even know what Coyotes make for power. I don't even know what they run. I seriously, like, I don't know. I don't see that many of them. I know what we do. I just, I think the LT stuff is really, really tough to beat.

Okay.

I bet you beg to differ.

Well, you don't know enough about my world. I don't know enough about yours either. Really, like, make a definitive answer.

I'll chime in.

We might need a mediator. No, I don't know. Look, man, I like anybody who gets behind the wheel with something fast and fun and hoons it. Like, the one thing that I do not like is people that bubble wrap their cars and put them away. Like, that's the thing. Like, you know what? I don't want to turn any business away because if people want to build cars and put them in their garage, that's great. And put it next to a placard that says it does X, Y, Z. That is fantastic, and that is your deal. And it's totally fine. You gotta go wear them out. Like, I don't care who's, whatever it is. I would rather see people beating things up and talking smack to each other.

Well, it was a gorgeous day today. It got up to 50 degrees, and I see that your car doesn't have any salt on it. So I don't know.

This is the time I, actually I did drive it today. Did you actually? Yeah, that's why it's washed. Yeah, that's why it's washed. That's why it's cleaned up.

Is it PPFs by the way?

No, it's not.

Okay, it looks really, I mean, again, I'm 15 feet away, but.

It's just freshly washed, that's all.

Okay. That'll do it.

No, I actually, we, you know, I was, I was toying with the idea of putting a cam in that, cause that's been just a stock sealed long block since I've gotten it. Okay. I mean, 900 wheel, like 890, with that setup, with a 2650 import. But I decided instead of putting a cam in it, since we had some blocks and stuff, I would just put a 401 inch motor together. So we actually just got the motor in the car last week, or yeah, I think last week. And we put together the front half of a really great fuel system and we're still waiting on a billet hat with triple pumps in it. So we can go nuts on the fuel system side of it. So I actually did drive it today and it's a fresh motor and I'm probably glad that I didn't have the fuel system for it because otherwise I probably would have been out hammered on the thing.

So you're looking for like a hanger, are the pumps going to sit inside some sort of a basket?

Just inside the stock fuel tank. So it'll be a four setup, four triple pump setup, which we generally use stuff like that. And like twins and triples on a lot of this stuff, unless you do a supplement kit type setup, there's a lot of different ways to go about it. It really depends on budget and what you're trying to do. With that one, like I just did not want to have the fuel system become an issue. I mean, there's all these cool kids playing with these weird fuels like Nitro's and C85 mix.

I haven't seen that a lot in the Draggy forums. I think, are you in the forums too, I'm guessing?

Oh yeah, oh yeah, I'm a lurker, man. I'm always watching.

You're probably talking about the same post I saw a few days ago where they were just talking about like Nitro and C85 and all that. Maybe, but.

Yeah, well no, it definitely, I mean, like there's no doubt about it. Like I, you can put Methanol in these cars, like in, and even like my Z01 here. I have not, but I do know what it would like. If it was making 900 wheel on pump E85, which for us is actually like falls in on a GM ethanol content sensor would be about like E78. If you took and you drain the E85 out and just put Methanol in it, it'd probably make about 940 or 950 on that exact same set up. If you have the fuel system for it. So that's where a lot of your Coyote people get really fast with their, with a lot of street race stuff, is they run like either like M5, or they're running like a NitroMix or C85, which does have NitroMethane in it. I mean, so like that's where the funky fuels can overcome a lot of stuff, or just take it to the next level. And when you're pushing it, and when you're pushing something to the point where like 2650s or Whipple 3L will only go so far, and the next step is realistically doing a big turbo setup that you may or may not want to get involved with. Like-

Different ball game.

Completely different ball game. Then you can start talking about doing something weird with fuels. So I just wanted to make sure that we had enough fuel system in this thing to go bananas. Because I wanted to make like 1200. Like 1200 and 1250, I think, is the end goal with it. So I just, yeah, we'll see. We'll see what it runs this summer.

Yeah, I say go for that little, go for that record, stick shift record.

Might as well.

I'm surprised that's all that it's been so far.

It's embarrassing.

What'd you say it was, 9-3?

Yeah, I think so. It's like between 9-2 and 9-3.

Interesting.

Yeah. Huh. There's some room to grow there.

Yeah.

Like a lot, like a lot. Yeah, it's wild. And I'm pretty sure. I mean, maybe that's what I've seen, because I've seen it posted a couple of different places online. You never really know. I mean, there might be somebody out there that-

Some guy named Bob I in the Hills.

Some dude that owns a sixth gen that doesn't have the internet, which would be odd, but possible, you know?

I've seen the kind of people that own Camaro's. It's very cool.

Very possible.

Some guy in Kentucky.

Oh, come on. Now, we're all classy. We're all classy. I do. I keep a mullet in. Do you? Yeah, for sure. Every time I drive it, I put it on. You'll see me with it at Power Cruise. I'll be bringing this one up for Power Cruise.

We'll have some fun with that.

Yeah, we'll see you there. Yeah, yeah.

That's a go-to.

Yeah. Then we can talk all the smack we want. We'll see you all there. All right.

Well, sweet. I guess on that-

Are you guys getting a fair amount of turbo builds in here, too?

No, we don't do- The factory-blower 2650 stuff is so good. When you're talking about what our business model really fits, which is really fast, fun to drive, cool street cars, and I'm not saying that turbos cannot be that, but the stock blowers in the 2650s do such a good job at checking all of those boxes, that we just don't really have many people that want to venture into that. And I really think that if you're going to do that, you really just want to cut the front off and do a good job with it.

It gets really crazy.

Yeah, Justin Keith's car, that orange ZL1, it's called Nemo, Heelan's Stain Killer Productions, I think he's from...

That's not possible the other day.

I think they own in Kansas City or something. Like that's how, if you're going to go to the point of doing turbos, you kind of cut the front up a little bit and you put together a real setup. Don't mid-mount them and do something weird like that. You just cut the front up a car.

Things get really crazy real fast.

And that's just not really a street car then. Then it becomes like, well, do we put a solid axle in it and put a turbo 400 in it.

There's more mental bandwidth that goes into it. There's just a lot more to think about.

You've lost controls. You can say it's a street car. But it's not a 10L90 that you go and put pump gas into and go drive it all over the place at the AC on.

We've been to Texas 2K. We know what street cars look like.

There's nothing wrong with that. That's a great street car.

But it really changes the definition quite a bit.

Yeah. I mean, my Mustang, I drove that 600 miles. That's a street car. But is it? I mean, sick weeks going on right now. All those people with their ProMods, trying to run five-second averages.

Oh my God.

That's just absolutely insane.

Well, basically, as long as it doesn't have concrete in there, it's a street car, I guess.

Right.

That's it. That's all it takes.

Damn Honda guys. Well, sweet man. Do you want to pop the usual three down?

Yeah.

So this will be interesting. At the end of every episode, we like to ask our guests to pick three cars. I need a track car, a daily driver and a show car. You have an unlimited budget, build whatever you want. What are you picking?

I'm so boring. You're already good. I mean, what's the first one? What are we looking for? A track car?

Yeah. Track car, daily and show car.

My track car would be a GT 500, obviously.

Oh, yeah? Really?

No.

Okay. Got me excited for a minute.

Oh my God, you actually freaked out. No, I couldn't do that. I couldn't do that to my faithful. There's no way I can get away from that. No. My track car would be a really radical street track setup. It would be, I don't know exactly what it would be. It would be a C7 Grand Sport, like a Carbon 65. Are you guys familiar with those cars at all? No. They have that Matrix Gray is the color, which they actually also put on the C8s, which I don't think looks quite as good on the C8s, but they only built them in 19, and they made them in 06s and Grand Sports. It's kind of a unique color, but it's like this odd off gray. But I would do something like that with a hydraulic roller 440 in it. Something that would make mid-sixes to the tire, NA, and just have it be an awesome track car. That would be a really, really fun... I mean, it kind of goes back to like, when you're at road race events, and you gotta admit a C6Z, or a dedicated C6 race car that's just snotty with a little triple clutch in it that revs in the moon and back, you just can't beat that sound or that ferocious nature. So I would do that same thing except I'd do it in a Grand Sport. Like that same feel. Pretty radical.

So you want to do like a 427, you know, C8? No.

Not there yet. If we circle back in a few years, we'll see where things go and that may end up changing. But as of right now, and part of it is just the manual transmission. Of course, it would have to be a seven-speed. Like a factory. Of course. I mean, I guess if we have an unlimited budget, there's no reason for that to be a sequential. Obviously, I totally forgot. I totally forgot about the unlimited budget thing. But that would definitely be my track car. My street car would be, I don't know, we talked about this. We actually talked about this at lunch. I had an 04 STI. It was actually a really nice car. It came from Arizona. It was super fun. I really enjoyed driving that. But I think I'd have to go some big European fancy thing. Even just like a, I don't even know. I'd have to, I don't know.

Well, being a career mechanic, owning a Subaru is all right at that point.

Well, I mean, every time you just start the clock. I mean, every time you hit the key, the clock starts. I put three motors in that car, and I was literally like, you know what, I'm done. I'm buying a C5 Z06. Never look back. Which is actually what I like. If I was just talking straight up, like what would you want for a daily driver? I would literally have a semi beat up C5 Z06 with some good parts in it. That's a bunch of fun to drive. The only problem is that I couldn't put my dogs in it. Like that would be a bit of an issue. Yeah, that's a trade off. Yeah, so that would be a problem. I was also thinking as far as a daily, like an e-ray would be awesome because they're all wheel drive. And I would not be mad about putting snowys on something like that.

Yeah, I've been seeing that a lot.

I had, not to get too far off on this thing, but I tuned a guy's C706 back in like, it was probably like 2020. And it was like carbon brakes, the whole package. And he brought it in and had like 140,000 miles on it. And the car was only like three years old. And I'm like, how?

Yeah.

And he's like, I drive it year round.

That's sick.

Like no way. And he showed me pictures like with it on snowys.

That's some good mileage too.

Yeah, and I know he like drove it every day, non-stop. So I was like, that is absolutely great. So yeah, I'm actually, I'll say that. I'll say I'll say I'll do a new e-ray. That'll tickle that CA side there.

Not even an Escalade V or something?

Nah, too big. Just way too big. Yeah, it's just too big. That's how you have kids.

I said he has dogs, not horses.

Yeah. Exactly, exactly. And then the show car, I kind of look at that more as a date night type dealer show car. I had a 55 Chevy with a dry sump LS7 in it. I sold it a couple of years back. Like that actually was kind of the epitome. Like that car, that car was pretty wild. It made a little over 600 wheel. It was a T56 Magnum. Had like boom tube exhaust off a NASCAR, but it was actually sectioned through the frame. So the frame was actually cut and then stretched. It was really, really neat. And like that thing, you know, the lift shift at like 74, 7,500, it was awesome. But it still looked classy because it was black, just black, black. And that was a really fun car. Yep.

That's rowdy.

That's fun.

Can't have weighed that much either, did it?

No, it didn't. It weighed, because I took that on a Dragon Drive too. That one weighed like 30, I think like 30, mid 34s or something like that.

Okay.

Low 34s. They're not as heavy as people think that they are. And yeah, it made like 610 to the tire.

Yeah, that's pretty legit.

Yeah. So it went, I think its best pass was like a high 10.6 or low 10.7 at like 131.

That's not too shabby. I mean, that's a GTI weight.

Perfect. It's a perfect date night slash show car.

It's perfect.

But no, it was a cool car. It was loud and ferocious and fun and neat and checked a lot of the boxes.

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

Facebook. That's a good starting point. We're on Instagram, too. And then outside of that, give us a call. twincitiesperformance.com is our website. Or just give us a shout.

Sweet. Damn.

What about the other spot you want to promote?

Oh, yeah, true.

Rance or two?

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we also do General Lottery Pair. Thank you for the reminder.

No problem.

Thank you for the reminder.

She's not over there staring at me anymore, but she is.

I'm a typical car guy. I know we're just talking about cars. I forgot I was supposed to promote my businesses, too. Yeah, no, Lancer Service, we fix all makes, all models. We're in downtown St. Paul. We do a great job. Love to have business over there. And if you want any consult, they're building as far as your GM Performance car goes. We'd be happy to help you out. Myself or Chase, give us a call. We'd get you jamming.

Sweet.

Awesome.

Dan?

You can find us at Gunner Garage, Two Ends.

Well, it's been a while since you said Two Ends. I know, it's almost like you forgot.

Me rebuilding this stupid car, but the other thing, add another let's film aspect to things is also not great.

There you go.

But.

Well, Carl, thanks for coming on.

You're very welcome.

It's been pretty sweet. Dan, thanks for existing, and we'll see y'all next time.

Thank you.

As always guys, be sure to check out all of our sponsors. They are what make this show possible. It allows us to travel and have some awesome guests on the show. So whether it's HP Academy, Tune by Shawn, or Haze Performance, all these guys have awesome services, products, everything in between. So be sure to check them out. All the codes are in the show note description, or on my Instagram, or wherever else I've mentioned it in the show. So be sure to check it out, and we'll see y'all next time.