132. Fast Streetcars, Dragy Racing Vs Drag Racing, Twin Turbo Vipers w/ Minneapolis Mopar

You could have a 2,000 horsepower car and go probably 3,000 to 5,000 miles and have a very light maintenance cycle, or I can speak for myself that's like, hey man, what's the limit of that stock crank? I think we're gonna send it. How I know my passenger got the full experience is when they go from being slung back to slung up. When I see that out of the corner of my eyes, I'm grabbing gears, that's how I know we're in it. That's a good hit.

Hello ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Minnoxide podcast. I'm your host, Harris aka Minnoxide, man of many automotive aspirations. And I'm here with my Ford loving cohost, Dan. Mr. Gunnar Garage.

That's me.

Wearing Easter colors.

I am.

And today we are here with a good friend of mine who I've known for quite a few years. And we're coming up on four or five. Why am I looking at you? Four or five years now, Adam Mueller, Mr. Minneapolis Mopar. This one's been a long time coming. And my introduction to the world of actually fast cars came through you. And I'll kind of let you tell that story, but go ahead and tell us how you got into the world of Twin Turbo Vipers, what it took to get there, obviously all the things that predated it. And we'll just kind of go from there.

Yeah, man. So I appreciate you having me on your show. This is awesome. I love to see what you have grown this into. And it's pretty cool to see people come up, man. I really enjoy that. So my come up story, I started with an 86 G-Body Monte Carlo, had three of them from a junkyard.

Okay.

Threw them together in the alleyway. And basically turning wrenches, working at a salvage yard, trying to figure out what car style I liked. So gosh, I would have been probably 18, 19, something like that.

Kind of like how people experiment in college.

They started with a G body, so yeah, kind of the same.

Okay.

Built a, basically took a 400 crank, slapped it in a 350, made a 383 stroker out of it, took it down some back road, found a way to get a GPS to work back then because phones weren't what they are now. And it's like, oh man, we hit 143 or something. It's like, this thing's doing this. What can we do to get a little more? So I slapped a sway bar in the back and I think I gained like two miles an hour out of it. My buddy turns to me and he goes, dude, where'd you get these tires? I'm like, they're from the junkyard. What are they rated for? I don't know, man. We took a look at them and they're all dry rotted out. And that's kind of where I started getting my eyes open for, yeah, you can't just have junkyard crap trying to go fast. But that's what it was back then, man. Integra is that we're running 10s on nitrous. And it basically to get to where I got into the Mopar side of things.

Well, let's not skip all the way to Mopar. You had a bit of a story between the Monte Carlo and Mopars or not really?

Yeah, I mean, business stuff. So basically, you know, I started a small handyman company. And that took off and it got me into an opportunity where I could work for someone that actually had something, you know, with multiple employees, got to manage that for a couple of years. And then I got an opportunity within the ATM service industry. And that started to grow. And once I got to a place where I was actually earning income, because it took a couple of years to get to that point, once I got to a place where I was earning income and was able to put into retirement and have some of the baseline things covered. Stability. Stability, but also investment stuff and understanding of that. When we had access to be able to get into things, the charger came out. And well, I should say the Hellcat came out. The charger is what caught my eye. And they had them on lease, which isn't really something I'd recommend. Once you've been through it, you kind of realize you're just buying the bank a car. So I was modding the bank's car. So it was just your typical, you know, put a pulley on it, get it tuned. It was a terrible experience, man. There was a local shop that was trying to help me out. And I was kind of all over the place. I jumped around from, you know, one shop would do some mods, and then I'd go to another shop and ended up blowing the thing up. They said, go get some data on it, made a pole, came back, walk in my garage. And in this type of setting, kind of like a garage, you know, you can hear the acoustics reverberate a lot of the, they echo a lot. So the car parked outside, I walk inside the garage, and you could just hear something knocking. And I'm like, oh man, that's probably bad. Which car was this? This was my 16 charger Hellcat.

Okay, gotcha. And charger or challenger?

Charger.

Charger, okay.

Yep, so before the challenger stuff, before I dabbled in that. And then, you know, basically put that thing back together, finished off the lease with it and said, see you later. And then I was like, all right, I want to keep exploring a little bit. And what caught my eye was a friend of mine.

What time frame was this roughly?

This had been 2016.

16, okay.

Yeah, so there's a pretty big gap because I, actually I'll back up a little bit.

Yeah, I was gonna say, there's a big gap there.

86 G-Body Monte Carlo.

Okay.

Played with that stuff, had a lot of fun with it. Then got into, I really enjoyed drag racing. And that was what got me into these.

Okay.

Was, I saw how fast they were, how capable they were, but you could also have a weekend warrior. You could go to the track and you could go do things. But to get to this, had a bug eye. So 04 WRX with a five speed. And that car, it was fun. I think it went 17s or something, 17s, 18s. I mean, we had a little bit of a turn. This was right around the time. So this would have been probably 2012, somewhere around there. And the chargers were, I don't know, 300 shot or something. And they were running like a 13, a 12, something like that. But it was a big deal when the SRTs came out. You know, they were pretty quick. Actually, I want to say at the time when they came out, what was it, the SRT 300?

Yes, I think that was the first one that came out of the SRTs.

Yeah, well, yeah. Well, in 08, they had the SRT.

They had a Challenger.

The Challenger, but this was the full sedan. And that was what people liked about it was you could have all the creature comforts and the room and the four doors. And so that was that time frame. Turbos were getting a lot more popular on street stuff with shops, modding cars. E85 was a big thing, man. That thing, that was a big deal because you'd have Hondas, you know, single turbo Hondas on B series and stuff. And those turds were running, you know, 400 something wheel coming down here. And Bad Cobra was out there stomping the streets. And so getting back to my Charger, one of the things that actually-

Well, the Subaru thing, hold on, let's not skip that. So were you modifying your own Subaru then at that point?

No, no, I bought it as a repairable. Okay. So yeah, I didn't really get into the mods a whole lot. It was more aesthetics at that time.

Yeah, yep.

But I didn't really see a lot of potential in it. And the aftermarket wasn't what it is now.

Okay.

So I moved on and when I got into the business stuff, I really put that stuff aside. I really put all the car stuff aside so I could focus on the family, focus on the business, got out of debt.

Was there any particular thing that came? Was there any reason? Like, did anybody like instruct you to go that way, to take a pause on it?

Yeah, yeah. So I was roofing a house with a guy.

Okay.

And he saw me show up and we just got to talking about finances. And it was one of those deals where I just never really thought about it, but he's like, dude, you got a family, you know, you have potential. I think you could be more than what you are right now. And I never really thought about that before. Even though by this time I was young 20s, probably what, 22, something like that. And he just said, man, you got a lot of potential. You should get out of debt and you should stack some cash so that when the opportunity comes, you can say yes to it.

Were you pretty deep in debt at this point? Because this is a big conversation to have a 22 year old, by the way.

Sure, sure.

On the roof of a house.

On the roof of a house, yeah. Yeah, no. I had $4,000, $3,000 through one main financial unsecured loan. So that was big debt, though, at that time, you know, when your income is $25,000 a year.

Yeah. So he's like speaking to me directly, right?

Yeah. So it was one of those things where he just knew where he had been this individual. He'd been very successful. He had, he had made, you know, two to $5 million in a year and owned a construction company, you know, doing a lot of roofing and stuff commercially. And he had made some mistakes, some financial mistakes and he lost everything. And so with that, I've never been through that, fortunate to never have to go through that, but he was saying, hey, what I've learned is, is you got to be debt free. If you want to be able to take on opportunities and have the cool things that you want to have, go get debt free. And then you can say yes to things when you stack cash. In that pursuit, and I don't want to make this too much about business, but in that pursuit, I'll catch you off on this game, when it's time. In that pursuit, I really was interested in how do people make money on money. Okay. If you part cash, how can you make money on it? How can it be earning interest while you sleep? And so I dove into that. And by the time we got to the place of starting a business where we hired employees, that was what I really wanted was I took the employees on that journey with me. Because I wanted them, if the company was going to succeed, I wanted them to succeed. So our first Christmas bonus was we bought them all 100 ounce silver bars.

Oh, OK.

Which is crazy because if they kept those bars, it was basically the equivalent at the time of like a $1,200 bonus because it was 12 bucks an ounce.

Yep.

And now it's like 35 or 33, $33 an ounce.

Oh, my God. OK, so yeah, it's like when Meemaw gives you those treasury notes or whatever.

And that's what that's what perked my interest. So I was like, man, OK, this is cool. Well, so that aside kind of caught us up to the Charger, the Charger point.

Well, before that, so you were between being 22 on top of a roof, getting this advice to eventually gain a Charger. Were you working odds and ends jobs or did you? When did you? Because I know you started your own business. Was there some more things in between there as well in that 10 year gap?

Basically, just learning how to steward finances, OK, how to manage people's other people's time.

OK.

And growing a business. Cool.

OK. So anyways, now to bring it back to the Charger now. So you got this Charger, you had this nightmare build with it.

With a lease.

With a lease.

Always make money. Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Yeah.

So if you don't do that, you don't never learn.

I've never leased a car in my life. And when I met my wife, she was leasing. I told her to not do that.

When you get into when you deal with higher net worth individuals, when you have significant cash and you're in a high tax bracket, there is a point where when you want to have something, say, it's an exotic car, for example, well, exotic, whatever you want to call it, but an expensive car, there is a benefit to doing a capital lease because you can write off 100% of the payments. So if you have a quarter million dollars of cash that you want to have fun with, you know, outside of other things, that you can squirrel away and you can say, hey, man, you know, I want to make this 1000, we'll just use a simple number, but $1000 a month. So it's $12,000 a year on this lease. And you have the money sitting in a money market account. So it's earning what, 4.5% trying to keep up with inflation. But the lease is at 3% or something, and you're making a little bit more than what the lease costs you. I don't know if I'm losing you on that.

No, I think we may have chatted about this in the past because I know some other guys locally here do this. So I tried to explain this to the audience, but basically you're saying there's a way to have toys without...

That benefit you so that you don't have to pay as much in tax. Your tax liability goes down.

Right.

Because at the end of the day, you're bringing what you take home is going to be a lower number than what it would be without it if you wanted to have that. So as a business owner, you go and you say, I'm going to take $250,000 as a draw from the business. You're going to pay income tax on that. Depending on what your tax bracket is, if you're at the peak, you could be 38% to the Fed and you could be at 10% to the state of Minnesota. That's 48% tax.

I'm pretty sure that's what the Hamilton Collection does, by the way. You know you could rent his Koenigseggs and Bugattis for like a thousand bucks for a half an hour?

Right. So I understand that benefit for the taxes. And when you get to a certain bracket, that taxes are a killer, right? But do you lose equity in the car though at the same time? Because sometimes some of these exotic cars can go for more when it comes time to sell them. So if it's a lease, do you technically not get that equity at the end of if you wanted to sell the car?

Yeah. So again, it comes down to having the cash to be able to do this. It doesn't make sense for somebody that's just starting a company.

Right, right.

Or doesn't have the cash to be able to do it. But for the right person, it can make a lot of sense because really all they're after is, is they want to have the asset, but they don't want to have to pay as much in taxes.

Because to me, if you want to really boil it down, a lease is renting a car for a long term. I hate renting stuff. I absolutely hate it. I've bought a skid loader, I've bought attachments for to do one job because I feel like that's money. I just threw away that I could have put towards buying it. Now, I either have it to use or I can sell it when I'm done. I know that's really funny to you Harris because I never sell anything. But same thing, I rented a town home. This is the only time I've ever rented a house in my entire life or an apartment with my wife. It was $1,000 a month and at the end of the year, the lease, I said, we just took $12,000 and threw it away. We could have put that into a home that we own that we'll appreciate as we own it. That's why I've never been a fan of leasing or renting. But I understand it when you're-

Essentially, let's see if I'm understanding this correctly. Let's say quarter million dollar car, you want a quarter million dollar car, you have a separate bank account for a quarter million dollar car, right? You have all that money sitting to grow in a market or whatever, and then you just basically pull from that account to pay for that car because it's a lease, because you're leasing it technically to yourself, right?

Well, you're going through whatever, however you set it up, it depends on the use case.

Programs like Dream Lease or Auto Porter, for example, is that what you're talking about? Okay, gotcha. Okay, this all makes sense, because now basically what you get at is eventually you own the car, or you technically own the car at that point?

The lease company owns the car.

They own the car, but you're basically able to write off that lease because your loss.

You're able to write off the payments per year. That's why, so the way you want to stack it is you want to make the payments as high as you can stomach.

Right.

That's the idea of it. Well, if you have the cash set aside, you can set it up for five grand, you can set it up for 10 grand, but you want to also drag it out a little bit. You don't want to do it all in one year.

So basically, as long as the whatever the separate accounts you have in the market, as long as that interest rate is higher than the lease.

You're making money on it, yeah.

Okay, so that's pretty much it, okay, gotcha. Does the, if you have that as like a, do you have to have it set up as like a company though to actually write it off though?

Yeah.

Okay, so you have to like, for example, like.

Yeah, it has to be B2B, it has to be business to business.

Business to business, okay, so you're leasing it to somebody else. Again, I'm pretty sure this is what Hamilton Collection does. I need to have that on the podcast.

Right, well there's a lot of ways you can say that you're using it to be able.

At any point in time, because you were talking about selling, at any point in time, let's say I lease this, which I don't, but I'm just saying, if I did, if this was on a lease and Harris came up to me and he said, hey, I want to buy it. Because I have the cash to do that, I can just go and knock the lease out. Anytime, there's no penalty, there's no fee for that. I just go pay off the lease, I go and get the lien release card, sign it off to them and we're done.

Okay, so even if you signed a lease agreement in the beginning, so even if the car appreciated while you're doing it, when you come time to buy the lease out no matter what, that's already been a determined number, right? It's not like now the car is worth 500 grand, you lease it for 250.

And you actually set that number when you do the lease. So you get to choose what it is. You get to choose that number. It could be a $250,000 car and you're doing a lease on 100 grand or it could be the full 250. It could be 300 if you want. It's whatever they're willing to work with you on.

Okay.

Can it be an, because this is technically open-ended leasing, right?

No, no, no. There's a term.

Okay, gotcha. I just want to make sure it's not like the balloon stuff they used to go on back in the day or whatever, but okay.

I don't want to make the whole podcast about leasing a vehicle because that's not the business I'm in, but-

I think this is the right details for the right person. Let's put it that way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A lot of the people that play at the level of having multiple $250,000 cars are doing this type of stuff. Some aren't. Some of them, you know, they don't care. There are people out there that would rather be putting that capital to maybe buying a building or whatever, or there's people out there that are doing a lot of smart things and then they just want to have a hobby. Everybody has a different flavor for stuff. Now, when- there's another purpose to- another benefit to leasing things, aside from sport cars, is let's say a company, like the company that I have, let's say a company has a fleet of 10 vehicles, and that company goes to sell. Vans, trucks, whatever it is, right? So this waste management company that I'm a partner with, it's scaling right now. And if we have 10 vehicles and we decide to sell it, and up until the time we went to sell, we were buying these vehicles and we were writing them off. So we're lowering, essentially, we're lowering our income. It's gonna have what's called recaptured depreciation. We depreciated all those assets and now we're gonna recapture that when we go to sell. If you lease that fleet, you don't have the recaptured depreciation. Now, do you technically own those vehicles? No. Whoever you're leasing them from owns the vehicles. So to your point, when you're talking about, I don't like to pay for someone else to have something, there are scenarios where both from a business perspective or from just a hobby perspective and you're trying to not pay things that you don't have to pay, trying to use it to your benefit, there's a use case for this and there's a use case for this. So it just depends on what your structure is and what you want to do with it. Yeah.

It is worth noting that there is like a lot of people in the automotive community that like to structure things, especially like when you get to like shop owners or like, for example, like a local rental car company or whatever. There's ways to be smart with it.

What about dream leases? Is dream lease the one that does the fleet?

That's Tom Buce. And that's not his.

We talk about it all the time. We're not exactly sure how it works. It's only speculation.

No, it's all speculation. I don't want to get into it. Yeah, because that whole world is beyond me.

I believe they do fleet.

That's where some, well, no, like for example, I think one of AJ's cars is through them, for example.

Dream lease. Okay. Yeah.

That's where you go to get the sports cars for the leasing and all that. It's a whole thing. I should talk to them. There's questions.

Sure.

To say the least. Cause like again, that whole world is, it's very similar to Autoporter out here, right?

Yeah. Cause Autoporter, their big thing is fleet.

Yeah.

Now they do, they do do the cars.

Yeah. My buddy got a GTR through them, for example.

Yeah. So for the, usually it's for the owners that they cater to when it's a single case scenario. But the bulk of their business and their target audience is always going to be your fleet people. Cause that's where their bread and butter is, where they're making their revenue. Cool. All right. So, okay.

So now we're back to 2016. Don't modify a least charger. So what happens next? Right? Cause I know you had, again, before we get to a 2000 plus horsepower Twin Turbo Viper.

Yeah.

Some more steps happened there, right? Cause now you go from what, what was it? An 800 horsepower Hellcat, roughly.

Yeah.

Maybe.

Sure.

What's next?

So then I got a Twin Turbo R8.

Okay.

From a buddy of mine locally.

Okay.

And he got it. It was one of six built by GMG Racing. Which, so I like to do, call it a weekend warrior kind of drag car weekend type deal that can also be on the street. Some of these guys out in California, they like to do Le Mans style racing weekend warrior stuff that can also drive on the street. And that's what this was. Small turbo, quick to spool, gated six speed. And I learned the hard lesson of Michelin Cup twos in 45 degrees, sitting in a garage for a few weeks. It's not heated and your tires are rock hard and you go hit highway 10 and you find out that when you go to counter steer an all wheel drive car, that's trying to tail out on you. It wants to steer and drive that way too. So up the center wall, I went onto its lid, rolled that thing out, got paid out by insurance on it, had the option to buy it back, just wasn't interested. That was, again, there was kind of this, it was a long season, because I kind of put the cars away for a while, but trying to figure out what platform I really wanted to dedicate to, because I kept going through cars. You know, it was GM, and then it was Subaru, and then I tried the Hellcat Charger platform, really enjoyed the Charger as a car. I just wasn't a big fan of, at the time, they didn't have a lot of support or things figured out in that. True. In that platform yet. That now, it's a lot different now. I mean, you can actually have flex fuel on them and stuff. Like, you couldn't have that when they first came out. So that really deterred me. The R8, I learned, this is Gen 1's, not Gen 2's, because I did drive Jordan Martin's, and that thing is sick.

That's the AMS build.

That was when you and me were with this car the last time at GLD.

That drag away, yeah.

Yeah, and he's like, man, hop in this thing. I just ran, what did he run, 8's?

Yeah, he runs, he goes off the trailer, and I think first run he ran 8's.

Yeah.

He's like, I'm done for the day.

Wheels up? Yeah. It might even have been 790. I can't remember what it was. It went pretty quick.

Whatever it was, he was happy enough after one or two runs.

Yeah. So then we took it out, I don't know, it was probably tuned up on like 15, 1600 horse. But the Gen 1 that I had reminds me of a one-ton Ram, 3500 in four-wheel drive on dry asphalt, where it's just you go to turn the wheel and the front diff's locked up and it's...

Yeah.

You got one wheels trying to spin the same speed as the outer wheel and it just, that's how that thing drove. And so cornering sucked in that car. The gated six-speed, it was super notchy. I was just told like, hey man, that's just how they are.

Right.

And again, I don't want to name the name of the company that worked on it cause they've done a phenomenal job now. But at that time, they didn't really have that stuff figured out. So they were, you know, and I'm sure there's still bench flashing ECUs on those. The master and slave ECU set up on those is just, it's really archaic compared to the newer, the Gen 2 stuff. But the R8 back then, man, is, it was a really cool Sunday cruiser. That's really the best way to put it. Like it looks good, it sounds good, but it's not, I'm more of a performance guy than I am a cosmetic person. If you can get cosmetic with it, and that's where these kind of came in, I'll get to that in a minute. But if you can get the performance with the cosmetic, then it's a good deal in my opinion. But that car, like a Gen 1 just wasn't it. So I move on to the next one, and that's when I got the demon, the 2018 demon.

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

Ooh, it's gotta be like an eight, solid eight.

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

Yeah, absolutely.

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

And Plum Crazy Purple. What the heck was that? Number 2727 of 3300 and some change.

Yeah.

But so I got in the 2018 Demon. I left it stock because I had such a bad taste of my mouth from the previous Hellcat Charger, man.

Right.

So I just left that thing stock and flogged the crap out of it. We took it on Crown Rally. The wife and I are barreling down and I got some video for you, man. There was a C7, I don't think it was a Z06. I think it was a Stingray, but it was pretty wicked up for a track car. We were running rounds over at, is it Joliet?

Yes. What's the track?

Autobahn.

Autobahn.

Yeah. So that was where we finished the rally at. I don't know. We probably went like six, seven laps in that thing. You had to let it cool because here I'm in this big boat challenger demon dude with the, supposed to be a drag car, drag oriented type deal and we're playing with these cars. The Huracan, the R8, there was a Viper T8 2.0 or maybe, no, I think it was just a T8 that were out there. And they were pretty, oh, and a GT2 RS. And those guys were ahead of the pack. And then there was like me, some 911 GT3, I think, and then this vet, the C7. And on the straight, I could get around that C7 and then we'd hit the corners and the boat was struggling. But it was, I had enough of a gain that they were flagging the vet to let me pass. And I think we went four rounds like that. And I'm like, dude, I'm just gonna stay on the back, like 10 feet, man. We're just gonna ride it. And my wife's in the passenger seat. And we get to this, I think, fourth or fifth lap with this guy on the straight. And he's all in it, I'm all in it. And then pop and then smoke and kind of coast off and we kept going. But that was a fun car, man. One of the things I've come to realize, and I know I'm doing a lot of this, going to the front line of the story and going back. But one of the things I've come to realize is, is it's underrated how enjoyable a car can be when it's just really well sorted and you're not trying to be a draggy queen and you're not trying to be...

Draggy queen, that's my next T-shirt for sure.

And you're not just trying to post videos of all your races, dragging people cause you're out kicking pups. You know, I know guys get a lot of views and a lot of, you know, high school fan boys out there that not swing for the team, but man, I just, I've come to realize, like I chased down that rabbit hole for a little bit when this car was built, cause I wanted to go race those guys. I was like, oh man, it looks fun. You know, I want to go. But what you realize is, is most people don't want to race you. They don't even answer the DMs, man. You know, you even offered to go across the country to go get a line up with them.

I definitely, let's put a pin in that one. I definitely want to come back to this topic. We've talked about that a ton. That's a really fun one. But back to the well-sorted car thing, I think that's what you're trying to drive at with that.

Yeah, yeah. So the well-sorted car. So, you know, go down this rabbit hole of, you know, I want to make 2000 horsepower and have that fun experience like you see online. And it's fun. Don't get me wrong. I'm not downplaying it. It's just that this car, for example, is getting the hand-me-down parts from this car. From when, you know, this was at 2000 horse, which it still is, it just has more airflow. And then those parts are going down to this. And it's, I'm not trying to do with this, what we were doing with this. And the reason for it is, is because I think it's super enjoyable to have something at around 1500 horsepower. You get the noises, you get the thrill, you know, you still get to row gears in an H pattern. And you kick the tires and you change the oil. And I feel like, I mean, that's...

Isn't that what you do with this car though?

It is, but less so, because now we're on a Turbo 400. And there is an option, and I think we're almost there with it. And I don't want to spill those beans, because I don't want to be the guy to go into too much depth. But there is an option that's being R&D'd to be able to kind of have a no fuss, no muss, don't worry about highway and versus drag strip type stuff. There's some sacrifices when you go to a Turbo 400 with a three-speed when it comes to gearing. And so I think we're getting really close to that solution being have your cake and eat it too.

That's what Justin White always complains about. He says once you go Turbo 400, it's no longer a daily driver or street car, as far as he's concerned.

Not like that.

Yeah, no.

Not like a six-speed car is.

Yeah.

Even with the sequential, when this was at 2000, we didn't even introduce the cars. I'm jumping around a little bit.

Well, I guess we should probably touch on it. So you got, well, actually, you go ahead and introduce them real quick.

Okay. So 2018 Demon, got a 98 Viper because I've always loved the Gen 2s. My wife's favorite color was red, and I was driving through Chicago on my way to pick up a trailer, actually. I usually never have an empty trailer, so it's dangerous.

Yeah, I know.

You're driving around and you got some stroke, and it's like, all right, I don't know. Somebody messaged me and said, hey, man, this guy just posted this Gen 2 with 19,000 miles on it for like 30 grand or something, 30 or $33,000, and I'm like, no way. Told the guy, I'm like, hey, I'm an hour out. Let me come check this thing out. So I stop in, I look at it, and actually, he was a YouTuber, and he got in trouble for drag, I think he was drag racing his Raptor.

Okay.

Ended up having some sort of child endangerment issue because there's a kid in there. I don't know. I've like goofed around with kids in my vehicle, but I don't know how aggressive he was being. I mean, if I do stuff, it's pretty light.

Well, it depends what you get caught at and how bad the officer's day is and all that, so who knows?

Yeah, and it was on YouTube, so it kind of-

Oh, the Van Vorris effect, huh?

Yeah, there was some drama that came out of it. Anyway, he had to move the car, need the cash, one of those scenarios, good situation for a buyer. So I come through with my empty trailer, load it up and bring it to a shop. Actually, what's funny is I get a quote from Nth Moto, and they're like, hey man, we can twin turbo that thing for you, make like a thousand horse and call it good and it'll be happy hunky dory. They give me a price and I look at the price and I'm like, oh man, for like a 10th of that, we can put an F1X on it, you know, and you can, and went that route and tried to play the cheap game. Dude, I probably paid three times what Nth quoted me. Just to intervill that car. I kid you not. And that was my lesson learned. I regret it. It's funny when I talked to Aaron Miller about it. He's like, ah, you can't really regret it too much because then it kind of led you to us, which...

Well, explain what happened with that car. So what are the lessons you learned?

Yeah, well, the lessons I learned and the owner of the shop learned is when a shop takes on a project... I'm at fault for this a little bit too. When a shop takes on a project, probably stick to the project. Maybe don't let the customer, and I don't know how you do this as a shop owner, but maybe not let the customer talk themselves into more and more and more and more and more.

But that's more money though.

I'm a change order king, dude. This is actually a prime example. I don't know what you're getting to.

Yeah, I was about to say. You're about to change again.

It was going to be a stock engine Twin Turbo build, so that's how it started. So obviously, a lot of things are changed. But this car didn't exist yet, not to me, and this is 2018, and I'm like, hey man, I want to make like 1,000 horse. All right, let's put this blower on it, build the engine. Then it's like, oh, I want to make 1,200. Anyway, go down that rabbit hole. Car gets done, takes about 14 months, and I take it straight out to Juliet, which is the half mile that Shift Sector runs. Went out there, clicked off like a one, I don't know what, 180 maybe, or something like that, 180 pass. Whatever, 1,000 or 1,200 horse. I had hard to even remember anymore. And I get down there, come back around, make another pass, and it ate itself. It just, the engine, we had eight bearings and anything that was edible. It just ate itself, and the shop owner's like, oh man, I feel bad, you know, bring it on back and go through it. Next it, you know, gets rebuilt, takes about a year.

Was that out of your pocket or shop's pocket or both or? What was it at, at that point?

They covered part, they covered part of the labor.

Okay.

And I felt like I wanted to do some more things while it was in there. So I covered that difference.

Okay.

So they took care of me on that.

So basically chalk it up to, this is racing.

Yeah, basically. And then the second time, got the car back and I think I want to say, I had purchased this.

Okay.

I found this car. Actually, I shouldn't say I found it because I can't take credit for that.

AJ, right?

AJ, yeah.

Episode 34 kids.

AJ Metta actually, I believe he's the one that found that 98.

Okay.

And then I believe he found this one.

Okay.

This 2016 ACR, it was a non-extreme, and it was down in Mississippi. And he goes, hey man, this car's been on eBay. I know you guys are going to hate me for this. This car has been on eBay for like 125 grand, you know, low miles for like three months and it can't sell. And it dropped down to 110. I bought it from Caleb Easterling.

Okay.

Easterling, Easterling. And then it was 110, wouldn't sell. AJ got them to like 106.5. And I'm like, dude, I'm driving down.

This is before anybody knew Viper ACRs were going to be.

They couldn't sell these cars, man. I kid you not. Actually, there's another one just like it, but white, actually that library right there.

The Bondurant spec?

Yeah, the Bondurant spec.

Black with red stripe.

Yeah. ACR, non-extreme. So they were both non-extremes, which I figured, dude, if we're going to cut this thing up and turbo it, this is perfect. Basically, 100,000 bucks, you're going to cut this thing up and do your thing.

Well, before we get on into that lesson, kind of finish up. So you have the red car still.

Yeah. So I go down, I acquire this, and then...

Are you still dealing with the red car at this point?

Yep. So this is happening at the same time. And then I knew I wanted to turbo it.

What made you want to turbo it? You weren't going to go with the same shop though, were you?

No, no, no. I wanted to turbo it because I had that craving for that speed after I went on that half mile, did 180. I'm like, well, man, these guys are going like 200 plus.

Who was these guys?

Nth Moto, Calvo Motorsports. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Calvo, Nth and they're, you know, in other platforms too. Yeah. In the Lambo platform.

Did you feel you weren't going to get that with the red car?

I knew, I knew based on the response from the first shot.

That was really loud sucking, Dan. I really hope the mic picked that up. Okay.

Okay.

Serious, serious.

When you look a dude in the eyes and you see failure, you can tell when they are just like, I don't know what to do for you.

Yeah.

You can tell they're already past what they're capable of. Okay.

You felt that at some point?

I knew it when I brought that car back.

The second time?

The second time. The first time was like, hey, man, crap happens. I get it. The second time when I brought it back, when it went back there the second time, it was the response. The response was-

So it ate itself again?

It ate itself the first time.

Okay.

So I bring it back and really it was, again, I understand things happened, but it was the response to that.

Okay.

It was how he responded that really just told me, man, I don't know what I could do different to make this work. So as that's going through that process, I'm like, hey, I want to go do something. But this time, instead of being cheap and trying to go over here for a lot less money, and then you end up, which I didn't know how much I'd be into this thing for, but then you end up going over to this, to the Gen 5. I was like, okay, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right. I'm going to bite the bullet. We're going to do it right the first time.

Did you feel at any point just giving up on a modified car lifestyle?

I did. I was almost out.

Okay.

I was almost out. I was actually really tempted to just leave this and let it be what it is.

Just have it stock?

Just have it stock.

Which to be fair, it's still one of the greatest cars ever made, stock.

It's amazing, man.

Yeah.

Yeah. It checks all the boxes for me. So when you ask me about those three questions, I might be your boring.

Don't worry.

We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out.

You still got an hour to figure it out.

Did you still have your business at this point?

Yeah.

Were you going through all this stuff so you hadn't sold yet or anything?

No. The business was doing really well. We were maxing out our 401k, our Roth IRA, our 529.

The adult stuff.

Doing all the right stuff, man. So which has put me in a position to be where I am now, which is really comfortable.

Frickin idiot don't know Bitcoin.

Yeah, I didn't jump on that one, man. I missed that. I missed that. But my finance advisor, when we were talking about Bitcoin, he's like, you know, my job is to keep you safe. And if it doesn't have at least 10 years of history, I'm not interested.

You're telling me, man, I was 15, 16 years old when Bitcoin was, I want to say four or $500. And all the guys I knew were getting in on it. Because they're, I come from the Minecraft gold rush. Now, I've told this story before on the show, but like, there were guys that I knew that were making 10K, 20K, 50K a month off of Minecraft servers. So they were throwing their money and all these ridiculous things, driving crazy cars. But some guys were throwing it in Bitcoin. I should see how rich this on those guys are now. They're probably just loaded. Anyways, okay, so you almost gave up on modified cars.

Yep, almost gave up on them.

Because you had a horrible experience with the R8, the Hellcat as well. Now you have this Viper that you just cannot get to work. So then what's next?

So I had a hyper sensitive ear and eyes for crap that didn't work.

Okay.

And so I started to pay a lot more attention to what was out there, what was working. And that's where Nth Moto came in the picture.

So how did they catch your eye, right? Because at this point, UGR is killing it. Calvo is doing pretty baller.

Yeah, they're all doing really good.

All the big names that we know today, they were just on fire. You know, so it's, how did you stumble into the Nth Moto camp?

Recommendation, you should go check them out. And the fact that they're local, and the fact that they already put a bid in years before.

On the red car?

Yeah. So that would have been, because this came into play December of 2019.

Okay.

So about a year and a half before. So I had already gone to them for a quote. So there was already like a, I wish I would have gone to you guys the first time.

Yeah.

So that was established in my mind. So that's what brought me back over there.

Okay.

So yeah, I went over there, and Aaron introduced me to his at the time business partner, Devin, and got to meet him, got to meet the team in the back. And then, that's where I wanted one of these. That was sitting there, not this exact one. It's a different one.

But a GTSR.

A GTSR.

For those listening.

Stock engine, Twin Turbo, GTSR. And we went out for a ride, it was 29 degrees, there was snow in the ditches, and that thing boogied and it hooked up, and it was chopping up off traction control, and I'm like, holy crap, man, like this is, what a different experience.

This is a Twin Turbo car too?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Gotcha.

Yeah, stock engine Twin Turbo.

Okay. And this is roughly 2019. So is this right around the time when that Silver ACR, was it an ACR?

Yeah.

That was tearing up the streets?

Okay. Yeah, yeah. Will Dugas?

Yeah, his car was all over the internet.

Oh dude, that thing was crushing. It was Texas 2K17 1320 video. I mean, if you're watching any of that stuff when that thing was out on the streets, and that was a big push too. That influenced me on buying this, it influenced me on going over there.

Seeing that car?

That car specifically. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, that car has gotten a lot of people to go to Nth Moto and spend some money.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Actually, I'm curious, what are your thoughts on this? Who's the current, like for example, that car inspired a lot of people to go to Nth Moto. What's the car now that's inspiring people to go there?

Kratos.

Kratos, do you think so?

Yeah, because it gets a lot of attention.

I will say, it is pretty cool when you have a fleet of cars to go do a showing. Even if it's two or three cars that go out there and roll some coal, it does really well.

Yeah, some of them roll coal. Yeah. Got some Duramax burners out there.

But no, I do like that, again, this year, for example, again, we're going to, you know, quick little shout out to Calvo. They did have a Viper in the Elite Eight. And then obviously, Aaron had the Balloon White ACR, which was yours beforehand. Yeah. That car, you got second in his class, I think, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that one unlimited.

Yeah. But still, to go out there and do 218, like to have a rear wheel drive car doing what it does, it's pretty freaking sweet.

So you mentioned 218, 2000 horse, 218 was my number in the half mile.

Yeah.

So almost half the distance.

Yeah.

Pretty crazy.

Was that before the water box? Or, sorry, I get all these things confused nowadays. Okay.

So it is kind of funny though, you brought up, you know, a rear wheel drive car. It's like, it's American muscle against those GTRs and Lambos and all that s*** that UGR brings. It's kind of crazy if you really think about it. Just a good old Dodge out there kicking a**.

A good old Dodge.

Yeah.

With Dakota hubs.

Yeah.

It's still a Dodge, but man, I really enjoy them. So the 98 gets done and right when it gets done, let's see, was this the second time? So this car was in Q for Turbos and then...

So you already agreed to go send this Nth Moto at this point.

Yeah. Yep. Yep. It was Texas 2K of 2020 right around that time when I dropped it off.

Okay. P-Breakover. So at this point you're getting ready to send it to Nth Moto, right? I know it's in Q for Nth Moto at this point.

Yeah.

Thank you.

So, okay. So now you're-

And you still have the Gen 2 car. Yep.

So you're wrapping up whatever happens with the Gen 2 car in here, right? So you have your conversation with this guy. Obviously the light's gone from his eyes. He just is not able to make the car work the way you want it to. So what happens to that car?

So I want to say it was rebuilt once after it ate itself. I got it back and it ate itself again.

Yep. So is that a half mile or just cruising or what?

Driving.

Okay.

Yep. Made a hit in it and it ate itself. So this now, the first time was we had oil cavitation. So that was what was suspected to be the smoking gun for that. So then it was decided we need to go to a dry sump. So we dry sump it. We put Gen 5 heads on it and basically took it up, another 300 horse or whatever it was. And then we're dealing with eating belts and all this drama.

Typical F1X stuff.

And that's where I started to realize, even though people had told me, I just, I wasn't listening, because again, you look at the cost difference. But the reality is, if you really want to enjoy the car, the way that you can enjoy it, the way I had experienced what it was like being in one of these from Nth, when I went on my ride along, and he showed me like, hey, this is what this car does, now come experience what it's like. And then while I was waiting, I'm going to Florida 2K, I'm going to Texas 2K, I'm riding in, you know, making friends with people in the Nth Moto group, where they have cars.

You were attending 2K with them, or exactly where you were?

Yeah, with no car. So I didn't have a car, I was just there spectating. But I'm meeting all these different guys, I'm riding in their cars. And I'm seeing, okay, I can trust, I don't need to tiptoe around and see what their product is like, because now I've already done that. So instead of doing a stock engine Twin Turbo setup, let's wick it up, man. What's it gonna look like to go to 15, or 17, or 2,000?

What was a stock engine setup making?

1,200.

1,200, okay.

11 or 1,200, give or take.

That's like the limit then, before they start to let s*** go?

I would say that's the limit of where they want to stand behind their product.

At the time.

Yeah, well, I mean, for a stock engine setup, yeah.

Okay.

Just in general. You know that whole, where certain shops will be like, hey, we're gonna, like, we have this two-year warranty, or whatever the warranty deal is.

Yeah, we know the warranty, guys.

They don't roll like that. You know, it's kind of like back to the old school motto of, you know, you shake a hand, look a guy in the eyes, and you know they're gonna have your back. Yep. That's the vibe I got in dealing with them, and also talking with the customers. So at first I was like, okay, you know, do you guys stand behind your product? Cause I'm coming out of this nightmare deal.

Right.

Like where are we gonna be at if this thing lets loose, blah, blah, blah. It's like, hey dude, if it's workmanship, we're gonna stand behind it. True and true. I present to you a stock crankshaft. So you're talking about limits on a stock engine. There's different components that can be swapped out and different components that can be left alone. This is one of those components. So we have an engine failure in a 98 and we go through three rounds of it and we can't figure it out. There's no smoking gun. Nth Moto ends up stepping in because I'm already a customer. They felt like, hey, we want to help you out. Didn't see it be successful. So they took over the 98 project. The builder of the 98 actually compensated them for, I want to say, 50% of the cost.

Okay.

Super cool. Like, honestly, I didn't know where that was going to go. So props to him for doing that. I'm not going to name the shop. I'm not trying to downplay someone.

Well, it sounds like it's a guy that maybe just bit off more than he can chew, but he still did what he could to make it right.

It was 100% what it was. Yeah. And he was willing to acknowledge it when we got through that. He's just like, look, man, if we would have just left it in F1X, Pistons, Rods, and left it at 10 PSI or something, or 8 PSI, I think we'd probably would have been.

Right.

Now I'm dealing with a shop, and there's a little bit of a gear head in me. Back to the 86 G-body stuff, when I'm putting all these things together, I'm not tearing engines down, but I'm gutting these cars, and I'm taking three and I'm making them into one. So, and then, military background, 63 Hotel, diesel tank mechanic, more focused on the diesel side of it. But, so that gear head part of me was always curious, okay, why are we adding these components? What benefit is it? And digging in just a little bit deeper, not quite as deep as a machinist or the guy assembling, but, for example, when I said, hey, you know, what's it gonna take to go to 2000? The response I got in that scenario versus with that 98 was way different. In this scenario, it's like, hey, here's what we do. We're gonna go with, not necessarily like going down to the brand, but it's gonna need pistons, it's gonna need rods, it's gonna get our bearings, it's gonna get our head program. We're gonna leave the stock crank. And we have safely run them up to, call it, 2000 horse. But that's about that, that's that edge. And if you go beyond that, it's, you know, if you have a good crankshaft, it might go a little bit more, it might last a long time at 21, 22. Or you can stop at two and hopefully it's good. And so one night, leaned on a little bit more, air was a little bit cooler. We got a little bit more juice out of the squeeze. And I was, I finally got my, you know, cause this whole thing of like, I want to go 60 to 130, my car, anyone that's got a twin turbo, anything is out there trying to see what they can do. Right?

Yeah. You know, airy standard now I feel.

The shop owners, they get to do this and they get to, you know, they got it dialed in, man. They can go out there and fricking shift gears, like a Swiss watch and they can go click off the best 60 to 130s, put it on Instagram, man, put it on Facebook, deliver the car to the customer. But if you talk to those customers, a lot of those customers can't run them as good as what the guy that built or runs the business does. Because they're doing it constantly all the time with different transmissions or drive lines, and they know what the cars need to do, how much weight to put in the trunk, what road to hit it on and all that stuff. Or the guy that takes delivery of it probably doesn't have that opportunity.

There's a learning curve.

Yeah, man, they know what's going to make the car do the best thing, suspension included. So, I get this thing out, and I'm like, man, I want to really focus on my driving skill with the car, and I want to make it, I want to get 10 tenths out of this thing. So, I finally got it to run 328, three times back to back.

Okay.

And I was hot lapping it, and...

This is during this...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep, with that combination before we put a billet crank in it. And I had been running guys all night. This was at the very end, it's probably like two, three in the morning after we'd all been out playing in Mexico. And I'm like, all right, I'm going to go focus on this. And I did it, and I finally got that consistency, I got it down in the 320s, I had no weight, no ballast in the back of the trunk, like I wasn't playing any games with weight manipulation, or any, hey, send my tune to my tuner and have them revise for the temperature and the road surface. This was just out raw dogging it, man. And that third one, I lost power on the dash, and I'm like, oh, there went something. Pull over, and it's crazy, dude. It just snapped the snout off, and the balancer is just kind of like leaning into the timing cover, and just kind of hanging there, hanging out. And that was it.

That's crazy. I've seen it happen on blower cars, but not on twin turbo cars. That's nuts.

Well, it's, yeah. So it's funny you bring that up because that was one of the issues. Actually, that was the second failure. That was the second failure with my car. Okay. On the 98.

Oh, okay. Gotcha, gotcha.

Is I want to say we, if I remember right, I want to say we broke a, broke a snout.

Which checks out, by the way, with a, you know, Yeah, yeah. Pro charged car.

And we even did the bolt trick where you put the longer bolt in to fill the void.

Yeah.

You know, had it filled and threaded and ran the longer bolt in and that didn't save it. So then we went bill it. But anyway, so back to that story, I was dealing, I was finally working with somebody that proactively told me, hey man, you know, this is where the limit is. And if you cross this line, you're going to, you could potentially have an issue. And sure enough, it did. Where before I was dealing with shops where it's like, I don't know if they're just, they'd rather the customer find out where the things go wrong. And then they come back and they'd rather ask for forgiveness than permission, so to speak. Where the approach with Aaron and those guys is, they'll build you something.

Are you saying, do we have permission to blow your s*** up? Is that how you're gonna say it?

So for example, I remember Will Duga told me, in a run at FL2K against Alejandro or Texas Killer, they put a tune up in it where it was like, yeah, man, I'm not here to lose. So like turn that thing up. Where most customers probably wouldn't do that. They don't necessarily wanna find, push the limits, but that's also where you get juggernaut from, right? That's also where you get a Kratos from, or a Fabricio, for example, with Calvin Motorsports or whoever owns those.

The guys that just say, throw the f****** house out of there.

Throw the house out of me.

Like an 800 shot of nitrous and 57 pounds of booze?

Look at that video at Texas 2K after eliminations, the roll racing ones, where everybody's lined up in front of the grandstands and you got, I don't know, four or five of the cars are smoking. You know, they've blown, they basically blew them up, lifted heads, whatever they did.

I saw various responses to that in the comments.

But at the end of the day, what I'm getting at is, those are all people willing to go all the way, go 110% to be able to win.

To get a glory pass.

That's what it takes though, man. And those types of customers, the ones that are willing to push the limits, are the ones that are gonna find where the end of something is and then they're gonna be able to improve. In this case, we already knew, like that was a fail point, and it was just a matter of time. I'm talking more of the people that are pushing all of the best stuff, all of the best parts, hardware and R&D that's out there, so that they can endeavor on better stuff.

So you're saying in Nth Moto Camp, you're more of a D rather than an R. Somebody's gotta do the research, but you're in the development? Okay, got it.

You know, I'd like to say...

You've contributed.

I've contributed somewhat of a fair share of wear and tear. That crank went about 6,000 to 8,000 miles. I can't remember where in that line.

Yeah, let's actually paint a picture on that, because people think I'm smoking opiates whenever I bring this up, but you have literally road tripped this car across the country with 2,000 horse, right?

Yeah, man. I mean, I wasn't in 2,000 horsepower the whole time, but yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But nonetheless, there's something to be said for that, right? Like, I was scared to take my GTI across the country in my last one because I was just like, I don't trust this car. If you're a young enthusiast learning to wrench or an experienced shop owner already running 7s at the drag strip, the High Performance Academy is a resource where all horsepower junkies can go to expand their skillset. Whether you are learning how to build an engine, tune your ECU or dial in your suspension setup for some weekend autocross, the HP Academy has the perfect step-by-step course for you. They've provided the listeners of the show with a special 55% off discount code that you can use risk-free on any course of your choosing. Use code MINNOX to get 55% off or click the link in the show description to choose a course of your liking. Go check it out. Let's get back to the show. Yeah. Get that classic Volkswagen check engine light that you live with forever. But, sorry, trauma. I'm doing trauma.

All of my cars have check engine lights on them.

But touch on that. Yeah. I should really know my audience here. We'll touch on that though, right? Because there is a certain level of reliability that comes with this too, right?

Yeah, there is. The reliability is as good as you're going to maintenance. I might say that's the first and foremost thing. Take that balloon white car, for example.

The one that went to 2018.

The one that went to 2018. I'm going to about guarantee you, and I'm not saying this is true or not, but I'm going to guess because it was my old car, and I've kind of seen where it's gone to and from. From the previous owner that had it not long ago, six-ish months ago, to the new ownership, I'm going to guess the oil probably wasn't changed. I'm going to guess it's on two-year-old tires. Fortunately, there are no hiccups, and the thing ran great, but there are people out there where they have a significant build done to the car. And there's no maintenance for two years. That thing sits more than it drives. It runs E85, the oil's thrashed, and it's got four or five-year-old tires on it. And they'll take it out, they'll flog it, and then something happens with it. And they're like, oh man, you know, like you guys gonna stand behind this? I've only ran it four times. Like, yeah, in four years, dude. Like once a year for four years. Have you changed your oil?

No.

Tires?

No.

So I would say the first thing to as a response is, is they're gonna take care of you as good as you take care of them.

Okay.

And then as far as reliability from, you know, them being built just in that general aspect, I'd say how you're using it. Like, what are you doing with it? Going 8,000 miles in this was like road trip miles, but then it hit Florida 2k a couple of times. It hit Texas 2k a couple of times.

Well, that was also roughly around the times you were in the draggy world too, at that point too, right?

Yeah, yeah. Trying to improve on my numbers, yep.

Well, the first year you had it, didn't you get like, I want to say it was like three or 4,000 miles your first year?

Yeah.

Maybe more?

Oh yeah, dude, I was pumped.

And all you did was change oil, if I remember correctly.

Yep, yep.

Yeah, and then the whole crank thing happened the following year, I think, right?

Yeah, that was the following year.

Yeah, so I mean, you got a full year of absolutely, you put more miles in that first year.

It didn't happen until the very end of the second season I ran it.

Really? Oh, yeah.

It was at the end of the season.

Okay.

Because it made me miss, I think I missed, no, it didn't make me miss anything. If I remember right, these guys had this thing turned around in 10 days. Because we were talking about how quick it was.

Okay.

Yeah, they plucked the engine, popped a new crank in it and slapped it back together and it was in and out in 10 days.

Holy cow. Yeah.

But I didn't think it was going to be done that quick. And I think that was why I didn't go to Texas or Florida, I can't remember how it worked. No, that was the end of the second season. Most of those miles were driving, cruising. But there's a lot of hits in there, man. When you're cruising on some Mexican road, heading to some Mexican village from another Mexican village, and you got someone riding with you that wants to feel a blast, and you're nodding and you're trying to stay awake, it's like, oh, go make a hit.

I'm sorry, I'm just giggling. Like, I like the horchata from that village more.

We were chasing horchatas, man.

Yeah.

No, I get it. I've done that where you're just bored out of nowhere. You're like, oh, I might as well punch it, see what happens here.

And you got to understand, dude, everywhere you stop, someone wants a ride.

Yeah.

And I like it. Dude, and I like destroys these things.

Yeah.

Oh man, it's so hard on stuff. So after, I mean, you got to get the jitters out, right? Like you want to shoot flames and do all the cool stuff. But we did in it. What did I go? Two seasons? Well, no, it was, it was only did this. It was an engine refresh when, when they did that in 10 days, it didn't need much. I think obviously it needed a crank. And then I think they had to do maybe some exhaust valves, a couple of exhaust valves. And fortunately nothing bad had happened. There was nothing that dropped or anything, but it was a learning experience of, hey dude, look at these exhaust valves and look at what this, what anti-lagging for 20 seconds, for a video that your buddy said, oh dude, I didn't have the thing on, so can you do it again? And you're sitting there in one spot and all this heat's building up, you know, it's just wrecking stuff with heat. So, so again, it goes back to how do you use it?

Well, touch on that real quick, right? Cause me doing anti-lag with my GTI, relatively low expense, what's the cost of anti-lagging a 2,000 horsepower car? Cause I'm sure you had that conversation, like, hey, this is what's going to cost you.

Yeah, I mean, it wasn't like I got on anti-lag four times and then I had to have an engine refresh by any means.

Of course.

I did a lot of it and a lot of events and a lot of abuse, just regular Mexico abuse on it. It was just that while we were in there, let's take a look at some stuff. Hey, by the way, I want to show you what this does. But I mean, how long would it have gone?

Probably a while, but it's just another strike off its life sort of deal though.

Yeah, I mean, it's going to lower its life. And so with the Turbo 400 combination, the steering wheel button that we used for the trans brake was previously, actually it is now again, rolling anti-leg. There's a way for him to set it up to where I can have that, at say like a standing position where I'm not moving. And I was just like, I don't need it. Just to avoid the temptation. Because I'm not kidding you, man, every gas station or every stoplight, that's what people want. As soon as they figure out it's turboed, you know, or if you're driving down the road, what everyone wants, you know, make it. You can give someone a ride, make it. And so it's just, it all depends on how you use it. If you're going to baby the thing, I bet you if you were to ask Calvo, Aaron Miller, Todd at ANC, and I don't know this for sure, but I'm going to guess a good number of people that get these cars built, they probably don't abuse them the way that I've abused this car, or the way that Will Dugas abuses his Silver ACR, or the way that, you know, people, Manny, for example, I know Manny, he drives the crap out of his car.

Oh, he made that very clear to me when I met him.

You know, like there's some people out there that have these, and dude, Huracans, all that stuff, right? Like 2,000 plus horsepower cars that actually drive them and abuse them. I feel like there's more people of the people that have them that have them, and then they just drive them. Normal drive them. And they go to Cars and Coffee, they make a hit once in a while on Wastegate or 1500 horsepower or something like that, but they're not nuts in changing suspension settings, it's putting weight in the back, icing it down, getting sets of tires every couple of weekends. Running it, takes a 2K. Got a pallet full of fuel, burn through that pallet, go get another pallet and burn through that pallet. A rack of different tires that they rotate through that don't date more than a year old. Like, not everybody's doing it like that.

I will say it is funny when we went to Mexico a few years ago, Cancun, I think it was Cancun, and you come back here and you spend the better part of an afternoon like, all right, man, let's go put some real fuel in it now. And it's like, it turns into a whole day sort of thing.

It's a production.

Whereas some people, it's kind of like Bugatti's, right? There's probably out of like the several thousand made, there's probably one or two guys that really thrashes that car. The others are probably just show pieces. Is that kind of what you're getting at or not?

What I'm getting at is, when it comes to reliability, you're going to have some sort of a maintenance cycle, whether it's a Toyota Camry and it's your daily driver, every 10,000 miles you know you're putting oil in it and you're rotating tires every five.

You have to put oil in Camrys?

Dude, I don't know, man. They just, they take oil.

I'm pretty sure that f***** could go another 100,000 without a change.

It probably could, but it's a-

A Subaru WRX.

Yeah, yeah. That's self-cleansing oil.

Is gonna have a maintenance cycle.

Right.

These are gonna have a maintenance cycle. It all just depends on how you're gonna use them. You could have a 2,000 horsepower car and go probably 3,000 to 5,000 miles. I don't know how much you'd really wanna push it, but- and depending on what fuel you run in it, right? And just- and have a very light maintenance cycle. Or you can be that guy, like, I can speak for myself, that's like, hey man, what's the limit of that stock crank? I think we're gonna send it. You know, let's really try and dig deep and see what it takes to actually cut a good 60 to 130, or whatever it is you're trying to do. I wanna go to this event and I really wanna win and be competitive. When I go out to an event, and I know I'm getting a little bit further ahead of what you're asking, but when I go out to an event, one of the things that Aaron's really good about with customers is, what do you wanna do here? Are you trying to go for a PB or do you wanna go rounds? My answer is always rounds. I always just wanna go rounds. I wanna have fun, I wanna participate in the event. If I'm trying to go to a PB, I'll just go to a test and tune, you know, like what we've done.

Right.

Going to different tracks, doing a test and tune event. The reason I say that is because that's gonna determine what your maintenance cycle is gonna be like, what your life cycle is gonna be like.

Okay.

So I would say back to where I was going out with this, if you talk to your Jason Hefner, your Antonio Calvo, your Aaron Miller, your Todd, I think it's Abrams over at ANC, and you ask them what percentage of customers are digging deep and like really tearing it up, it's probably 20% or less, would be my guess. And it depends on, are they more race oriented or are they more, you know, like what are their, what's the target audience that they have of customer base? I feel like some places lean a little bit more race, so maybe it's 80%.

True. Yeah. I think it also depends like, it goes back to the referral thing from earlier, right? The guy that gets you in, you're gonna probably do something similar, right? Like, you know, if I, if Dan's got GT 500, odds are I'll probably have one too, right? And I'll probably, instead of birds of a feather, right? 100%, like, you know, if Dan's into drag racing and I hang out with Dan all the time, then we're gonna do drag racing or, you know, whatever the case may be. Like for example, like we've only gone to so many road course events, but we go to Texas 2K every single year to spectate because I'm affiliated with your crazy a**. So there's that. Speaking of 2Ks.

I still can't imagine having a 2000 horsepower Viper and not, I don't know why I started talking and got up. Yeah.

Where are you going?

Oh, he's doing the light.

Yeah. Oh, he's got the, I'm the lighting guy.

He's got it figured out, man.

Well, he would have a 2000 horsepower car, spent all that money to do that and then not drive the car or at least drive it as it was built to do. It's kind of crazy to me, but I know there's people that do that.

Well, there's some people that have the desert eagle on the wall and some of them have it on their hip.

Yeah.

Right? Is that a good way of putting it?

Yeah. I mean, it just depends on what you want to do with it, man. Some people get off walking out in their garage and they see a big group of crazy cars that can do crazy things and they just collect them. They don't drive them. Not everybody drives their cars. And some people get them to drive them and beat the brakes off them. Yeah.

I know a friend of mine that has all these cool cars and he drives a Toyota Camry, I think, everywhere.

I drive a Toyota Camry as a daily. Yeah. I get 52 to the gallon, bee bopping around. One of the reasons why I wanted to take that position though is I've shown up to customer sites and they've made comments that they're paying me too much for what I'm driving. And it's an uncomfortable thing and you're in a way, I mean, you could argue against this, but in a way you're kind of showing your hand a little bit. You know, you're doing really well, whether or not they're 20% of your business, they're 5% of your business, hopefully they're not 50% of your business. But in that situation, and it's uncomfortable to be in that kind of spot. And yeah, man, driving something that's a little bit less flashy isn't necessarily a bad thing either.

No, I've had employees do that, just that nice diesel trucks for work. And then I go play with cars on the weekend and stuff. And they'll be like, well, I'm like, you know, like the decade I went through of all the b******* of doing this by myself and working 16 hour days and barely making it by and doing all that s*** to build this business to where it is, is what has made me deserve what I have now. You coming in here and whatever, I'm paying you a fair rate. Shut the hell up.

Go work at Home Depot, m***********.

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, no, I get it. I don't like the flash around either, which is. Yeah.

Another thing I've noticed in this industry, the more I've paid attention to it, the more I've grown with it, is there's a number of these shop owners, they don't drive these.

Yeah.

Yeah, you pull up to their shop, they don't have a Twin Turbo Huracan or Viper or R8 sitting there. That's not what they drove to work in. They drove to work in like a Ram 1500, 3500, or a Camry or a V6 Charger. A lot of them aren't actually driving.

I don't know if they'll go as low as V6 Charger.

But you know what I mean? It's one of those deals where there's people that are a little bit more business-oriented on the business front. But then when it comes to play, yeah, I'm sure they have something to play with. You know, that might vary a little bit. But the more I've paid attention to the industry, I've noticed that what you would think, stereotypically you'd think like, oh, they build Huracans or they build Vipers. Dude, where's yours? You know? And then you think about it, you don't need one, man. They're driving everybody else's.

Right. It's also in the high end, well, maybe in the high end, it might be a little bit better margin, but these performance shops aren't making a killing. It costs a lot of, you know, they think they're charging you a lot. It costs a lot of money to build these cars.

They take a long time.

Yeah.

They take a very long time. They gotta pay their people well.

Yeah.

That, you know, they gotta, I mean, obviously they probably can't pay them as well as what they'd like to make, but they gotta be able to make enough money to justify the sacrifice and the grit that they put into it.

Right.

To be able to do it. But yeah, you're right. They're probably working on a 20 to 25% margin.

Well, also then, a question I had earlier, going back to these shop owners, what does that look like when you decide you're going to become an Nth customer and you want the ride along? Because there's a couple of people now that we've talked about that, somebody we know at Texas 2K just got a ride along. Is there a potential?

What do you guys know about that? Because I just discovered that. I didn't even know that.

We knew the second it happened.

Did you?

Yeah.

How bad was it?

One of them on-

I can't disclose that on the podcast. I can't disclose I know anything.

Let's just say somebody's breaking out a checkbook probably. What's that like? Is there a car that's there at the shop, you'll just grab, or do you have a customer come in, or how does that all line up when you decide you're going to hop in an Nth Moto car?

So when I was doing my walkthrough tour back in 2020, the beginning of 2020 before 2K, he called Kelly who owned the car at the time and asked him and said, hey, I have a customer here and was wondering if I could use your car to give him a ride.

Okay.

That was the experience I had. I don't know how everybody else does it.

I'm sure it's different depending on what's laying around at what certain times.

Yeah. And if the customer wants it to be used for that.

Yeah.

You know, if they were to say no, then, I mean, because you got to think when a business owner is reaching out to a customer about that, you have to have conversation of, well, what happens if it gets T-boned?

Right.

What happens if someone rear ends me? Or what if they rear end someone? I mean, that's a real part of it, right? There's a liability side to that. So they have to figure out, do they want to take that risk? Which, again, nobody leaves their driveway thinking that they're going to get hit, but that's what happens. Here's an interesting thing. Tim Holmberg, Holmberg Motorsports, a good friend of mine for a number of years now, we both ordered 2018 Demons from the same dealership. He knew I was super excited. I can't remember if, there was a little bit of confusion on, I can't remember if he ordered the car, or actually I think someone else ordered it. They backed out, actually I think their check bounced. That's what it was. They wrote a $30,000 check for a down stroke on the car and it bounced. And so they had him bring the car back and then he bought it, if I remember correctly. And so he calls me up and he's like, dude, I got my Demon. And mine was Plum Crazy Purple, which I think was the last color. All the high impact colors kind of went towards the end. This was F8 green, beautiful color. Calls me up and he's like, look man, got my Demon. I know you've been waiting. You want me to swing by? And I'm like, could you? That'd be awesome. So he swings by with it. He's like hop in and drive it. And I'm like, really man? He goes, yeah, you got yours coming. I know you're excited. Let's go for a cruise. So we go for a cruise. We hop on some highways, get onto an off ramp and you get that little spidey sense. And I look in my mirror and there's this old Chevy 1500 box, you know, square body coming at me, swerves last minute and smokes a light pole. And at that moment I'm like, all right, dude, so we're pulling up over here and you're hopping in. Thanks for the, thanks for letting me drive it. And I was just thinking like, what am I going to do in that situation? Dude, if that guy would have hit me, I would have felt terrible because you can't replace the car. They allocated them out to everybody. At least at the time, we didn't think there was even going to be any leftover from, you only make 3000. I mean, granted 3000 is more than some of the other limited runs. But anyway, I think about that kind of stuff and I would imagine that those conversations have to be had. And if they're not had, that'd be kind of a little shasty.

Everybody says no big deal until it's a deal.

Well again, we didn't leave the parking lot thinking that we were going to get smoked or potentially.

That was real close to see it happen though.

Dude, the guy whizzed right around us. And the pull for the lights was right, I mean, from me to the front wheel of the car. Yeah, it's that far.

Eight feet, so half a car length.

He just darted around us last minute. We don't know what the heck happened, like what caused it. But he was knocked out.

Swing by to say what's up.

We just, we went up because we would have been blocking the intersection because the light turned green. But we went up and then the people behind us, there's like two or three cars that pulled in. So we wanted to kind of keep with the flow and not be the guys causing another accident.

Yeah, yep.

We talk about that too all the time, about driving other people's cars and things. Even if like something was about to let go and it breaks while you're driving it, it's still like you feel responsible in that situation. It's a difficult thing.

So one of the questions that came to mind earlier, there's another video of you that kind of went around a few years ago, which was your car versus Kratos. How big is that difference?

Oh, Florida 2K.

Yeah.

Yeah. A lot.

Yeah. Because like you're over here, right? Let's be honest, this car can put a beat down on quite a few cars out there, especially at that iteration or of its life, right? What's it like just getting absolutely bust length by another car that looks almost exactly like yours?

The crazier part is knowing how much that car was held back.

At that point?

Yeah.

Really?

Wasn't that the one where it won the event?

Oh, I wouldn't know that's when I was just getting involved.

That was the first year Kratos was revealed. It was at FL23.

That's right. Yeah.

That was 22 because the year before, I can't remember if that was 21 or 22. Either way, I'm pretty sure it won the event. It was crazy in the experience to your point of mid-track, that thing comes alive and just takes off and leaves me what felt like a city block behind. But the crazier part is coming back in the pit and finding out how much was held back in the first half of that track. Like the fact that we were door to door for as long as we were was only because he was taking it easy. They were just getting the car figured out. It was his first outing.

That was before it even did a six second pass, right?

Yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah. It was before it ever made a quarter mile pass.

Yeah.

Because that was in a roll race.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's great. Because that was also what, a year after you got your car delivered.

Yeah, I think so.

Roughly. So you're familiar with it.

I think that was, so that would have been probably 4-2K22.

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah.

It has to be right around then. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, it was a pretty wild experience.

Was there at any point-

Makes you feel slow.

Why that's exactly what I was going to get at is, you see something like that and you're like, well, now I want that. Was there at any point you were like, man, I want to stroke a check and I want to be a second Kratos? Did that ever cross your mind at any point?

Not really because by the time I realized what was enjoyable and what was beyond enjoyable, again, it all comes down to use case. If you want to build an actual race car, I feel like a tube chassis, like an actual race car would be the solution and not trying to do it from a street car platform.

Get rid of that silly V10.

No, I think the dot and actually we'll get to this towards the end though when you ask about the three different vehicles. But I think the V10, the Viper V10, Twin Turbo set up in a 68 Charger RT would be sick. To me, that would be like the ticket.

Well, when that happens to, is there still some pride as being a part of the same camp too? Like even though that happens, any blue by you, you're still part of that team technically.

Dude, I would never have anyone else touch my cars.

Right.

Just because of like the engineering mindset approach to things. Yeah. Oh man, this fuel sucks. Let's figure out a way to figure out a fuel solution. I guess that's probably as far as I should go. So, it doesn't exist right now. Let's figure out a solution for that. Oh, this six-speed thing that we're getting from PPG isn't working that great. You know, let's figure out our own gearbox or gear set solution. So, that's just the approach. That's the mentality. Instead of the, how do I have someone else make something for me and white label it and they do it all for us? Which in some cases, that's just a smart business move. But for most of the things, it's how can we create an experience that's going to be enjoyable, even if it doesn't exist out there and we have to really clash against some of these, you know, these obstacles to be able to figure it out. And that's, they're willing to do it instead of ordering from a magazine. My 98 and my Charger, so the 98 Viper, my Charger, in those build situations, I was basically going out and like finding, sourcing the parts and then bringing them to the builder. And that was the experience.

That always ends well.

In this experience, I got all that off my shoulders and they bring all that to the table. And they say, hey, here's what we use, here's what we, how we operate. You know, this is, we're going to build and design this for you based on what you want to do with the car.

You can't go build a Twin Turbo Viper just walking up to Summit Racing? Is that what you're trying to tell me?

I mean, you probably in some roundabout way you could. You have to figure out chassis modifications and all that stuff. Yeah. But again, it just comes down to, you know, for the people like myself who have already experienced other platforms or other other shops and been burned, you really appreciate a lot more when you find a company that's going to actually take care of you. It's going to be their design. It's going to have their blood in it. And it takes a lot of, it takes the guesswork out. It takes the frustration out of it. It takes the crappy experience out of it. Because when you come to a situation where something breaks, now how do you figure that out? How do you resolve that? When Harris is the builder and I'm the customer.

I sure hope not.

And you're the vendor and now I bought the part from you. I'm the customer going to the builder and I'm saying, hey man, my car broke. Well dude, you, meaning me, have to go to you and figure out what you and me are gonna work out to then report back to him to figure out. And now there's this whole condoluted mess here as where he's the one stop shop and working with you to get the parts and doing all that stuff. And it's more of a, it's a turnkey solution to me.

Right.

And so, and then to take it up a notch, what I've experienced with Nth Moto is, is now I'm also dealing with someone that's, that's kind of a brainiac and really, really into, you know, the, the finite details and pays attention to those things and actually builds the car based on what the, what the use is going to be. And directs and guides and kind of steers that conversation or steers, you know, what's going to be used in that application. So like, if you go to them and you're like, hey man, you know, I want to, I want to go out there and have the fastest 60 to 130 car, you know, whatever it is for a rear wheel drive platform, they'll build it for you and it'll do the thing. But you'll also have the conversation of all the things it's not going to do. Versus, oh man, I just really want to win your business. Yep, it's all done.

So there's something really important that you kind of mentioned there, right? There's, is there such thing as one size fits all when you get to this level?

No, no, there's a, you can do a lot of things well, but it's not going to do everything 100%.

So, give me an example of something that it will do very well, but that's also a compromise.

I want to drag race and I want a Turbo 400 car, and I want to go on rallies and drive 120.

For example, like when you had your sequential setup versus the manual setup.

That's a really good example. Yeah, so a clutch car combo, clutch car combo, you're not going to cut a good, as good of a 60 foot is what a Turbo 400 is going to do. But in a clutch car, you're going to be able to cruise around the highway a lot easier.

Yeah. So, which it also kind of, you've been through every iteration of that then, right?

That's kind of the whole, like I've had a little bit of a influence. I don't even know if influence is the right word. I've just, I've experienced and I feel like I've contributed, contributed is probably a better word. I've contributed to some of the, like what works, what doesn't work and pushing limits and granted, they already knew stock cranks were limited at that point, but in other, in other ways with how many miles were put on, you know, the guys that are out there, running them hard on the street, running them hard at the track, going to multiple events. I mean, you're just finding stuff. You're finding things that wear points and things that suck it. You know, they might be great for the first four events and they might not be great at the first event or whatever it is.

That's something we touched with Becca and Stefan, right? With the whole RS3 TTRS platforms. It's like, all right, now we got to do this after this event, right? Probably not to that level because these have been pretty figured out for a while, it seems like. But yeah, those cars, they were every single event, they're breaking something, looks like. But again, that kind of goes back to, there's probably, what, a decade of research and development on these cars at this point.

Yeah, that was what was cool about me falling into this is, so, Will Dugas, Silver ACR had already been ran through the wringer. They had already figured out what made it happy. And by the time they got around to doing this one and many other ones since, it's just like, yeah man, here's everything we need for it.

Copy paste.

This is, yeah, copy paste. Now at the same time, they're always advancing.

And variations too.

And changing things. Like let's say someone comes in and says, and this actually happened, Kyle Flicker came in and he said, yeah, I rode in Adam's car, so I want what he's got and more. So it's like, okay, well, there's the then more. So then the then more, Arell, who owns that car right there on the top of the rack, rode in Will's Silver ACR and he said, I want what he has and more. So that was actually, if I recall correctly, that's the first Zenith iteration.

Okay.

Or I guess improved Zenith iteration. And this was what was considered a Delta. So different, a little bit different setup, engine program, turbo combination, a little bit of driveline. But then, you know, as these cars make more, you find out other wear points. So then you got to step, you know, step that up a little bit. And that's where they all kind of become a little bit different. So like, that Zenith car to this Zenith car, there's quite a few differences from the time that that was developed to the time that this was developed because of the, you know, 10 cars or whatever that were, or five or however many cars in between them, something changed a little bit more, a little bit more. So yeah.

Well, that's also part of being a low production thing. Let's call it production. It's not like an OEM thing, but low production thing, right? There's going to be those, well, for example, if you go back to like the ACRs, for example, some wings had to be painted because of a, whatever the carbon issue or whatever it was.

Yeah.

Am I correct?

When we, so being this was an ACR non-extreme, it had the 1776 millimeter wide or long, however you look at it, wing. And then it gets this one, which is a lot wider. Gosh, I want to say 18, it goes from 1776 to 1886.

Something like that. Yeah.

Something like that. I used to know all the specs on them, but the first one that showed up at the dealer, back when they still sold these there, that it showed up in primer. And we're like, what the heck dude? And so we look at the box and the wing, and it has the right part number. And that's where we were confused. Then what we found out was, if they had a blemish from the factory, they're made in Italy, all the carbon is. If they had a blemish on them from the factory, they would just prime them for paint. And that was how they made use of it. So yeah, the blemish ones are the ones that are primered.

Yeah, and the reason I bring that up is like, when you're dealing with such low quantities, there's some things that you have to figure out in between each one. And then also the variations. For example, it's like the Corvette guys, every single one's unique. But subtle jab in there.

No, it's like that across a lot of platforms though too. It's like, for instance, I put a Gen 4 Whipple on my car, and then three months later, the Gen 5 comes out. So it- Yeah, good point. You have to decide to pull a trigger at some point in time. Sometimes when you're modifying a car and just know that next year there'll be newer or greater s***, and then you have to decide if you're going to upgrade or not. Yep. But yeah, I will say that was one of the things I was most impressed with with talking to Aaron is the constant R&D they have going on over there, and that helps when you're dipped into a limited pool of vehicles that you're working on. But it doesn't matter in anything. Whatever you got is gonna be outdated. It's not as bad as a cell phone, but it'll happen eventually.

Yeah.

What's your favorite memory when it comes to Nth Moto or this car or in general?

Well, in general versus just specific to Nth Moto, I guess that'd be quite a bit different. To give you one of each, I would say in general from a car standpoint, would be probably taking this to Oklahoma.

Really?

Yeah, because I grew up in a trailer park and my parents couldn't afford much and I wanted different Honda motorcycles. That was my thing at the time, was the old 70s Honda CBs and stuff. And my parents were like, look man, if you want that type of stuff or RC cars or whatever, we provide a roof over your head and we give you clothes and food, all that stuff, and grateful for it, thankful for it. But you're going to have to go find a job. And so it encouraged me to be entrepreneurial, even though I didn't realize it.

It's my first time my phone's ever done anything in an episode.

I doubt that's true.

Well, you know what? Fact check me. You got 131 episodes you can listen to. Anyways, sorry about that.

So it taught me work ethic. And so going back there, there's just that that memory and bringing it back to the people that saw where I came from that actually know me that, you know, they got there, they looked and they're just like, dude, you achieve what you not that this is a life goal per se. Like it's my family's my legacy and they're they're what I put my all into. But as a dude who likes cars and they know that they're just like, man, congrats, man. Like, good job.

It's a good way to visualize it.

Yeah, so for a general memory, I would say being able to take this down there, show them what it's about, pop the hood, take them for a rip, and they're just minds blown, dude. Oklahoma hillbillies, man. Like, you know, going back to the G body, the 86 Monte Carlo SS. You know, that, where that all came in was from back down there. You know, there was whatever you could piece together and build. And if I could have afforded, you know, some of the old B body Mopars and stuff, I definitely would have been about that. But that wasn't in the budget when you're cutting grass for the trailer park. So the memory for Nth Moto, I would say, events. One in particular would probably be, I would say Florida 2K was probably one of the more memorable events from just hanging out with the guys, staying in the same house, and really enjoying the post-race time together. You develop a relationship with these guys, at least for me, and I'm a relationship person, so it goes further than just the track, and then you have the track time that's added with it, that just is a bonus to it, where you really get to know each other, get to know the technicians on an individual level, get to know Aaron and his family on a personal basis, and then obviously you go to the track side, you get to meet different people, learn about what they do, what brought them there, what passions they have that led them to that.

I'm glad you bring up staying with the Nth Moto guys. You remember the one time I stayed with you guys, that, what was it, the test and tune or whatever, whatever the heck it was, the other thing you went to a few years ago, and I was sleeping on the air mattress, and it deflated overnight, and I was sleeping sideways in the morning.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I remember, like, I'm like half asleep, and Adam's like, dude, you're sleeping sideways. And I'm like halfway hanging off the mattress, and I'm just like, great, I'm awesome first impression on Aaron, which, granted, they probably didn't even notice, but.

Air mattresses always do that.

Yeah, it's, what's the saying? It's like, yeah, when you want to sleep on the ground, but later.

Yeah, when you want to sleep on the floor, but not right away.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

One of the things that I think makes them stand apart, and that this is probably most any aftermarket automotive industry, because you have to have some sort of gusto that really just fire, puts fire in your belly, gets you fired up to want to go do these things. They have a team that is, they're just car guys. Like there's car guys, and then there's car guys. And I've talked with this about people, Harris, you're probably one of them. There's guys that, they're gonna have this built. They may or may not go to this extreme of 2,000 horsepower, but they're gonna have something built, and it's gonna go to Cars and Coffee. And it's gonna be on Instagram. And it's gonna, that's probably the extent of it. And it's gonna look really pretty. And then there's guys that are gonna build them, and they're gonna build them with a purpose. And the goal is to keep chipping away at more performance and continuing to advance their driving skills. Because that's part of it too, I feel like it's overlooked, is everybody wants to talk about the car. How much power does it make? What is it 60 to 130? And how big are your turbos, man? I have 60 millimeter turbos, I have 100 millimeter turbos. And when I started diving down that rabbit hole of, I wanna chase the draggy, I wanna be at these events or whatever, what I came to realize is, you gotta take time, I think it was, actually, I think it was Will, Will Duga that came up to me at MITM, that was kind of a one hit wonder event, but he said, hey man, don't lose what you got going on, that authenticity or that being genuine, I think is what he was trying to say. And really just enjoying cars, just being, you're there because of one reason, you just really enjoy doing car stuff. That's to me, what makes this stuff fun. What makes it enjoyable. That's probably memory wise, if going down the memory lane, that's what I would really steer towards, is it's just doing car stuff with car guys, not necessarily, and I'm not downing people that do aesthetic mods and go to car shows or anything like that. That's their thing. I just happen to find a platform that looks stellar, and it really performs, and it fits my personality. So in that whole searching babble of me going back from an 86 G-body to a Twin Turbo R8 to a 98 Viper and a 16 Charger Hellcat and all this in between, really I was just trying to find what fit my personality. And when I got into the 5th Gen Viper, it just clicks and checks all the boxes. I got the 6-speed car, which is right here. I got the Turbo 400 combo, so I can do the weekend warrior stuff. And I can still drive it on the street and do whatever, that type of stuff. And by no means do I want to paint this thing like it's only gonna be a track car thing, like you can't drive it on the road or whatever.

Do you ever foresee a future like that, Ford?

Yeah, because of the R&D that's going on, to be able to have a Turbo 400 that does more than just your typical drag race things, because of the R&D, much like the TR6060 that they developed, that that's getting, which actually that one has, for the Turbo setup, that transmission, you saw it, and it ran that balloon white car, my old car, to a 218, you know, rowing gears. So that didn't happen overnight, though. That took years. That thing's been in development for a long time. And it happened from stuff like that right there. This car was originally a six-speed car when it was Twin Turboed. It's just that the development process wasn't, it was still in the R&D phase. So it wasn't to where it is today. That's what they got going on for the Turbo 400 cars. They're still developing that Turbo 400 set up.

What is the stock trans that comes in the six-speed?

TR66.

Is it TR66? Yeah.

For the fifth gen, T56 for the Gen 2 that I had, the 98. I think that change happened in Gen 4. I think the Gen 4 has got the TR66s. Okay.

Which is not far off from a T56 Magnum, the TR66, I believe.

Yeah, it's just a newer version.

Yeah. Yep. Speaking of TR66s, and right around this era of you're looking at cars, you said you've been through all of these iterations of vehicles and whatnot. I'm not hearing any Blue Oval stuff in there. So I'm wondering, did you at least look at, because this is right around the 13, 14 Shelby's with the Trinity 5A and the six speed. Did you even look at them?

No. No, because none of the people in my circle were running with them.

Okay.

So that's always a big influence too, but I feel like the Mopar portion, I really leaned towards the Mopar stuff once I got into the Charger. And then all my fleet too, all my fleet that I had for running ATMs across the country was all RAM. So it just kind of fit to kind of keep it similar as far as like screen layouts and just knowing where buttons are and things like that.

Yeah, creature comforts is what people come back here to.

You're a loyal guy like I am once you get into a brand.

Like I said, I'm relationship-oriented. So I'm going to be driven by the relationship. If the relationship is a good relationship, I'm going to stick with it. But if the relationship is not, if it's sketchy or some bull crap smoke and mirrors thing, man, I'm going to walk from it. And generally, like if a dealership is sketchy and I got a relationship with the, I usually deal with management or owners. If the management or ownership sucks, then I'm going to probably go to, I wouldn't be too disappointed to go to the cross street. You know what I mean? But yeah, so a good relationship with Cooner Rapids Dodge back when they were owned by the Polad family, they sold it off to Lithia. They're actually selling the Minnesota Twins now, I heard.

Oh really?

Interesting.

They did really good on the sale of the dealership franchise. Or yeah, franchise, not franchise. Anyway, 975 million I think it was. I think they bought it for like 280 or 250.

Oh yeah, that's pretty good.

You could develop a lot of Vipers with that kind of money.

But yeah, so that relationship drove me to, you know, Coon Rapids Dodge, so I was buying Mopar products.

And it's cooler too.

Yeah, I mean, I drive an extra 20 minutes to a Ford store because I don't like the one in my hometown because you're not treated like a person there, just whatever. I mean, the other one's smaller.

That's not the one that Alex works at, is it?

No, that one did f*** me, so they can go to hell too.

I will say I do like the Raptor R is pretty sweet. That's a nice competitor to the TRX. I think that they probably have a better suspension set up on there.

Well, I would hope so. It's like three years newer, right? It's like, I would hope the new thing's better than the old thing.

Oh yeah, but the Raptor, the suspension, the development of the suspension has been since the Raptor Raptor.

Yeah, but this is the R.

All they did was put the GT, the Predator motor.

I doubt that's all they did. There's no way.

There might have been a few other tweaks, but I guarantee you if you get the non Raptor R, it's gonna be just as good, just not as fast.

Yeah, but we're talking about the R.

You know, one of the hints-

I just love giving him help.

One of the hints I got towards getting a Viper was actually from Tony Santini. Okay, Bad Cobra. Bad Cobra. Dude, he drugged me. You gotta drop this video if I can find it. He drugged me in that Hellcat, man. I thought that thing was something. We waked it up and it was supposed to be like 900 wheel or something. We ended up putting a short block in it and stuff, and here I am in my leased bank car. But yeah, he put into perspective the difference of 900 horse and I think 13 or something, and it was a lot. He goes, look man, if you're going to stick with the Mopar stuff, you're going to have to go over to Nth Moto and get a Viper built. I think he planted that seed. But yeah, that guy, man, he's been heavily involved in the street scene in Mexico for a long time.

I've yet to meet him. I have a lot of friends that are good friends with him, but I've yet to meet him, I think.

He's a cool dude, man. Yeah, he's got a lot of knowledge, and you guys would probably have a good synergy.

Oh, I would just be watching them interview each other.

I've seen him in some of my circles in the Ford world, I'm pretty sure, but yeah.

I don't know if you exactly answered my question there. So is there any iteration of this where it goes full race car?

Yeah, yeah, I would say that's the direction it's heading. Just given the nature of having something more street, that's the idea of passing on the stuff that came off of here onto the GTSR. Okay.

So this will become more of a street car?

More of the street cruiser and fun and just kick the tires, change the oil and drive it wherever. I don't care about what miles I put on it, dude. That car I didn't buy in this one, too. They weren't bought to sell them.

So at what point, what's a better way to ask this? At what point does this stop being a street car?

I would say when you can't valet it at a wedding.

Okay, so here's a Calvo episode.

That one's blowing up all over the place. I think that's become now the new standard.

That was a really good comment. I gotta say, that was a really good way to define a street car.

I'm just glad Calvo gave me a legendary quote because the one he had on the Go Hard podcast, you think 3,000 horsepower is f****** cheap? That's another amazing quote from that dude. That dude's just full of quotes.

The interesting thing about street car is there once was a time when you went to a street car class and you had to have a qualifying drive. You had to go 10 or 12 or 20 miles on a drive as a group. And you weren't allowed to make changes when you got back from it. They had rules to it, regulation, and it ruled out the non-street cars. If Texas 2K were to do that, I'm telling you right now, you'd see a very different group of cars in Elite 8. I'm not going to start throwing names and doing all... I'm just saying the whole thing would look very different. Because go to Florida 2K, is it Ausier, whatever in the back half chassis, GTR with a shell, and everybody was frustrated about it. And I'm pretty sure there's a couple of people that I've talked to that decided they won't even run their cars there, that run at Texas 2K, they won't even run their cars there because of the lack of regulation. So they're running against race cars in a street car class, and it gets frustrating.

Yeah. When I do the ultimate street car for Optima, they have a road rally version, part of the event.

What was it, like 10 miles, 20 miles?

Yeah, it was like a 20 mile drive out to an auto zone because that's a sponsor, and then back.

I mean, Dragon Drive, look at that. Yeah.

Well, I was gonna bring up Dragon Drive, but at the same time, like some of those guys do some serious flipping between the two.

I mean, Brett LaSalle does it.

It's a different level, but the point I'm getting at is they have to drive a car. True. There's a reason for that. You have to have a car that is able to do that, whether you're changing out your rear tires and stuff like that or not.

I'm glad you bring that up because me and Dan are doing our first Dragon, by me and Dan, passenger princess, driver, are doing our first one with the Drag Drive Repeat guys here, what is it, two weeks from now? Yeah. So that's kind of like where our headspace is at right now. Has there ever been a Viper on a Dragon Drive? I guess was Ned's was on a Dragon Drive, right?

Yeah, his chassis car?

Yeah.

Yeah, that was doing Dragon Drive stuff. I wouldn't really consider that a Viper though. That's not a Viper PowerPoint.

Yeah, that's a whole discussion in itself.

It's Viper-shaped?

Sort of. Yeah. I don't know enough to have that discussion, let's put it that way. But at what point, man, do we just throw a hitch on this thing? Because you already drove it to Oklahoma. It's less miles. Because me and Dan, it's a 300-mile Dragon Drive. I think I sent you the link to it because me and Dan were working out our logistics. It's in your old backyard, right? Yeah. It's in Oklahoma. Yeah, it's in that area. So it's like, at what point do we just throw a hitch on this thing? I mean, is this thing even capable of a Dragon Drive in its current state?

This would be in its, as it sits right now, 100% ready to ride.

Throw some seats in it.

Yeah, I have the seats out for upholstery right now. But yeah, you need some seats or some five gallon buckets so you can strap yourself in. But no, the problem is, is I reached out to Aaron Miller on it and he pointed out to me. Oh, wait.

Oh, you're good.

He pointed out to me that my cage, though it is NHRA-certed, it's only certed for an 850.

Oh, that's right.

So you're really dialing it down almost to wastegate, you know, to, not quite.

But I think you'd have a lot of fun still.

It would be fun. You know, you'd definitely go around, it's like I was telling you earlier, that's what I like to do. You just wouldn't be able to be as competitive as what the car is capable of. But I mean, you could, the other part to it too though is you have to have an NHRE license.

Yeah.

So it's not like I can just, I can't just show up and be like, oh, hey, certify me. My car is good.

Yeah. Well, one of the things that, like one of the guys we were talking to at 2K in the ARS camp, right, Dan.

Yeah.

Like he was running slower because he wanted to be competitive and actually win the event. Right. Even though the car could go, what, a full half second faster or something crazy like that.

Sandbagging.

Yeah.

No.

But that's why they have the breakouts too, right?

Yeah, it is. So, yeah, it's fun.

I think, I mean, again, if you threw, if you ran this thing on wastegates, I think you'd have a blast, dude. Because again, there's more to drag racing than just running it out the back. Dude, like these grudge guys that we had on the podcast, like, they loved that 8th mile stuff because it's more driver rather than car, from their perspective.

Yeah. I mean, it's in your, your setup has to be right. You have to put the effort into it.

Right.

Yep. That's what a lot of the roll racing it takes out of it. Not saying you don't have to have any of it, because obviously, if you get to that elite eight level, you're doing that stuff.

100%.

But for most people that are roll racing, the reason why they're doing it is because they don't have all the stuff or the know-how or the components to be able to actually be really competitive.

It's interesting because it's expensive in other ways, right? Because in an eighth mile, is it almost like half the wear than a quarter mile would be, because you're not running it out the back? There's got to be some sort of...

No, I wouldn't say half, because you still have all the wear from the dig.

Yeah, true.

You're still rocking everything back on the shock of the driveline and all that stuff. The only difference is on the engine combo, you're not running it as hard for as long.

Right.

So, I mean, that's a real thing, right? If you're running that thing, humming it 8,000 RPM like this thing does when I'm going through the trap, how long is it hovering up there on a converter?

And also by that logic, would a half mile also harder on a car than a quarter mile?

It absolutely is.

Yeah. So, there's definitely...

And there's a different build approach for guys that come in the door, at least for Nth. Okay. From what I've been told, you know, if a guy comes in and says, I just want a half mile car.

Okay.

Well, that's going to... There's going to be a different variant than if I come in and I say, hey, I want to have a street strip car.

Okay.

I want to go quarter mile drag racing on the weekend and I want to pimp it around on, you know, to work once in a while or whatever you want to do with it. Be a different approach.

Well, that's what ARS was saying too. They prefer eighth mile because it's a lot less abusive to the cars.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Now you're going to get more life out of it.

Yeah. So Dan wasn't a believer until recently, but I told him all about the world of MoTec. Was this car your first introduction to MoTec?

No, my 98 was.

Oh, okay. That was on MoTec. Oh yeah. That's right. What did I have? M130, right?

M130, yep.

Yeah. Okay. I guess...

They gave my old 98 traction control.

Yeah.

That was like huge because that thing was just slimy.

Well, that's what he called me. He's like, I just rode in a 2,000 horsepower Viper. And I'm like, okay, who gives a s***? You can't do anything with 2,000 horsepower, especially not on the street.

The heck you can't.

Yeah. So then he's like, no, no, the MoTec, MoTec. I'm like, okay.

You can do more with a 2,000 horsepower, any of these ones that are sitting here on 25 degree road surfaces, then you can do with a factory 392 or a Hellcat. When it comes to traction.

Yeah.

That red Viper.

On 100 degree day. If you're comparing 25 degrees, 100 degrees on a Hellcat platform. And those things will do burnouts at 70 miles an hour, dude. You know, the whatever, those stupid scorpion tires they come with or whatever. The Pirelli scorpions, hard as a rock.

Yep.

And these things, 25 degrees, like terrible conditions. And you could be putting down 14 ish 100 horsepower on the hit. And I mean, it'll be in some TC, but it's going to do the thing.

I always tell people the story of when we first went for a ride along, you know, it was a 38 degree day and TC was freaking out all the way.

Yeah, road temp was probably 20. Road surface temp, because it was cold out. It had been, it had been cold. We just happened to be on a decent day.

On a warmer day, yeah.

Yeah, but the road temp was still freezing at night.

Yeah.

Yeah, and to still, again, I saw the video somewhere, like I was in shock for probably a solid second or two, just silence after, you know, the hit, as you're, you know, winding down. And I just bust out laughing. I'm just like, dude, because like you, listen, I've been on roller coasters before, but the way I explain a Twin Turbo Viper to anybody that is like, the way I explain a Twin Turbo Viper to all my friends is like, imagine you fall off a building and the moment that your face meets concrete, that's the level of force you feel in the back of the seat. Like it is just absurd just how much, how hard that car pulls.

From a driver's perspective, how I know my passenger got the full experience is when they go from being slung back to slung up. Because if we make a hit in this thing at 1800, you're going to go all the way back in your seat. If we hit 2000 or even a little bit more, that's when you start your body is following the contour of the seat now, and it's starting to do the creep, and then the neck starts to, you know what I mean? Because your head's hitting the ceiling. When I see that out of the corner of my eyes, I'm grabbing gears, that's how I know we're in it. That's a good hit.

And then there was the one time he posted a video of us going for a ride, and everybody thought I was asleep. You remember that one?

That one was pretty funny with the big green highlighter.

Yeah, the highlighter hoodie. But there was one night where you kept turning it up, and it was starting to, as a passenger, I was like, I was starting to s*** my pants at the end. I was like, dude, this is a lot more than the night when it was 38 degrees.

Yeah, we had it turned down quite a bit that night.

Oh yeah, I mean, you were just, yeah, I think you told me like, yeah, this is gonna be around like 1400 or something like that. Like that was not fully wicked up at all, but it was enough to get me giggling.

Dude, 1400 to 2000 is a big difference.

Yeah, I mean, I know it's like a whole another car's worth.

Only 600 horse, but at that power level, it's such a big difference. 2000 is really fun.

Well, it's also about how it comes on too, right? We talked about this with Aaron Miller when he was on the podcast, Episode 98. The way you choose to have that power come on, it changes the car completely.

Yep, yeah, cars that don't have aero, like mud truck. The car was a TA, so it didn't have any aero. So that one's on a stock displacement, and it's got a cam profile in it that really has the torque come on a lot higher in the RPM band. Where these cars, they're both Zenith combinations, but this is a 9 liter versus an 8.4. My torque is going to come on a lot sooner, so it's going to wake up earlier. But I'm putting downforce on the back of this thing, so it can actually drive that out sooner. So again, different cars, different purposes in use case scenarios. But to your point with what you're saying, how it comes on, you know, it just depends on what the build is, what the car is. But if they're both roll race cars, if there's a non-arrow and an arrow car, even those are going to be a little bit different. Just to be able to put the power down. Because what good does it do if you're knocking the tires every time you go to leave, you break boost it and leave at 50 or whatever the heck you're leaving at, and you just shake the tires loose every time.

That's kind of what I was saying to him. Like, yeah, 2000 is unusable. But yeah.

So is our buddy Mark as well. Like, I drove his 1000 horse GT 500, sorry, 1200 to the crank is what it says on his hood. I always give him s*** for that sticker. He's like, no, no, there's no way. I bet I'm, you just in disbelief. I'm like, Mark, I'm not going to throw you in that car. You will not believe what it does. It's nothing short of, like, where I come from, right? Where I was just an automotive photographer a few years ago with very little understanding of, let's be honest, how cars worked as a whole to something that's just short of a race car but still has AC. Let's not forget it has AC. It's kind of nothing short of magical. Like, I remember when I posted that video of this car and, you know, said the caption was like 2000 horsepower or whatever, and people were like, 1000 horsepower is not even possible. You know what I mean?

It's all they do is spin out and kill people. Yeah, yeah, that's what they're known for, man.

Is there any merit to that?

Yeah, an old 92 Viper that has 1992, 91 tires on it, depending on when they were made. Yeah, and you got dry rotted hard as a rock tires. That's what does that crap. People that have tires that are 10, 15, 20 years old and it's rear wheel drive, and it's got a short wheelbase, it's gonna be snappy, man. It's gonna break loose and it's gonna... They're gonna bite, and then all of a sudden, it's gonna send you off. And they call it snake bite, for the Vipers. But I mean, my R8 did that. That was the whole issue. It was cold, tires were rock hard, it spins out, and then it sends me off somewhere. So, with rear wheel drive, you can counter steer it a lot better.

That's what Calvo was saying. He goes, the all wheel drive scares the s*** out of him more than a rear wheel drive.

I'd take this, I'll take this all day spinning. Dude, I've had this thing, I have disabled traction control on this, like through the MoTec, disabled it, because that's what we do when we race them on prep. I've disabled that thing, and parked it, and then went out and made a hit, or however that worked out. And all of a sudden, that thing just blew them off. And I had to steer that thing. And I was like, okay, well, let's change that back to, you know, we're back on the street now, we're not at the track. And it was pretty early in the, back when, like when I first got it delivered, and I was still learning in the car. But that was my little wake up call of, these things can get out of hand a little bit, if you're not careful. You gotta respect the power. But it wasn't unmanageable. I mean, there was a time where I was making a hit with a buddy of mine from Russia, and we're on full boil in this current set up. It was moving. And we went over a hump on this Mexican road, because their roads aren't very straight and flat. And there's a slight curve, and then there was a hump. And we just kind of hung in there. And this thing went airborne, and the fricking attack was like, zing! We came down, and I was half expecting that thing to get into a sway, because I don't have a front sway bar on this thing now, because it's more of a drag, a little bit more of a drag approach. Again, you compensate a little bit when you want to get a little bit quicker, a little bit quicker, things start to change. So I hit this, as I dip down, I'm half expecting it, when it comes back down, it's gonna want to start to wander a little bit and sway.

I love all these moves he's doing, by the way.

And all of a sudden, we come down, and it comes up, and I just, and just pedal into it, and it just sets back and goes straight as an arrow. And we lift, I lift off, we look at each other, we're like, man, this thing was nasty, because it was throwing us back hard. The whole time we were out, we were trying to get traction, to get it to leave, just solid. No trash control cut, throw the power at it, get this thing to sit back and just take off. And I was trying this road, this other road, this other road. We about traveled the whole country of Mexico, man. And we finally get to Cuauhtemoc, and we get this nice spot that just happened to be a little hump and a bump in it. And after that, man, it just stuck and it was awesome.

Well, I really want to ride in it. Just remember that between you and me, we have enough children to start an iPhone factory. So, let's just make sure that all the nannies are on.

Yeah, that's what the cage is for. No, knock on whatever this is, it's been pretty... Jesus Christ.

I mean, I'm not wrong, but yeah, that's fine.

I need a f****** second.

I'd say one of the hardest things about owning one of these cars is, if you are the type of person that wants to push the car to its limits and you don't want the company that built it to be able to drive it better than you, that's me, and you actually want to be able to out-drive the guy that drives these every day in your own car, it takes a lot of time. You gotta go through suspension settings. You gotta go through data logging. You gotta have a fresh set of tires on it. Gotta be ready to burn up some consumables. You gotta put a couple, two, three, four, five, six weekends into it. Maybe you won't get it that season. And maybe you will. But you gotta find the right spot. Then you gotta go back to the same spot. And you gotta have that consistency so that your data is comparable. And it's gonna be the same over here on this set of logs as it is over here on this set of logs. And hopefully you're trying to get a lot of that stuff on the same day. Going to the same spot, the same day, same time. Where's the sun at? How much sun do you have? Is it a cloudy day versus a sunny day? That changes road surface temperatures. When you're trying to get down to that small micro number, dude, you could fart, and the fart could be the difference of a... And I'm not kidding you, man. I think I farted, and it's like a sub 360 to 130, and then it's a 308. You know, it's such a small margin of difference, but what makes that difference are all those little things. Your suspension, your weight balance, are your tires fresh? Do you have good sun on the road? What's the road surface like? All that crap.

So Aaron, is that guy can wheel or what?

He can wheel, man.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know he builds the cars, but that doesn't always mean that they can...

Oh, you saw him at Texas.

Yeah.

Yeah. Growing gears. Yeah, dude, I told him when he got done with this one, I said, don't tell me what you did for 60 to 130, dude. Like obviously make sure it goes and does a thing.

Yeah.

Because I know what their Zenith stuff does, but I want to be able to be the one that has that quicker number.

Yeah.

So I think currently I am pretty sure.

You are what?

Quicker in a 60 to 130 segment on my own car. I take pride in that, man. Like I want to be able... I'm not the type of guy where I want something built and then you drive it for me. Yeah. The whole purpose of this is that I'm able to do it in my own car. I'm not knocking people that have drivers. That's freaking smart. I'm the idiot out there risking my life.

Yeah. I don't see Elon going on those f****** rockets.

Yeah. Obviously, that says there's a measure of wealth for certain people where they can't take that risk.

Well, people buy race teams for a reason.

There's that.

They hire drivers, right?

Some of them has to get their sons in Formula 1.

Yeah.

But yeah, dude, it's been a really fun experience going through all of the iterations. And it started off as a, let's go Twin Turbo. And it came out with 2000. That was on their, call it Delta Series setup. And then we spit a crank snout after about 8,000 miles in the second season with it. And which was to be expected. And then went to their Zenith combination. And I decided, you know, when we put the billet crank in it and dry sump the car, I want to be able to do some drag racing. So I don't want to, I didn't want to make it a full pure drag only type of deal, but I wanted to be able to do it. I wanted to be able to do it competitively. So that's why you see these all-terrain looking tires on here, these M&H tires. They got this goofy tread on the side, man. They're just a really interesting looking tire. But then the center portion of it, I'd say like six of the 14 inches of tread, or maybe more, is just a nice smooth slick. They hook up really good on the track. They are terrible on the street. I got a video on my IG where I'm going under a bridge, and I blow through this overpass underneath it, and you can just hear it, just da-da-da-da-da, and it's just knocking the tack down, just tch-tch-tch-tch. So yeah, it's probably not too good on the engine combination. You know, probably don't want to, that's you're going to be knocking on your maintenance door if you keep doing that too much. But yeah, I was like, man, it doesn't matter, because the part you have to balance is you put too much weight in the back of these things, now your suspension is not able to do its thing. It's not able to compress and rebound the way it's designed to. So now you're changing, I don't know, not necessarily changing like your coil rate, but you're changing its ability to do what it's designed to do. So you can't overweight it in the back to where it's just slammed down because now it has no mobility. So there's that balance that I've learned. Then there's the balance of what map do you have it on? And then what's that map set up to do? I always got a kick out of, you know, people online where it's like, map four, it's like, dude, map four, your tuner can make map four kill mode and make map nine waste gate.

Right.

Map four means nothing.

Yes, I know.

But to the high school fan boys and the nut swingers out there gobbling it down. Everybody's liking it.

I had to explain the maps on my last car to the new owner. And it's like, well, what's all these do? And I remember my map one was like, like a 91 base or whatever. Then map two was like 91 plus, and then 93 base, 93 plus. And it's like, who cares, right? Like it only matters so much, right? But you can make, you can program those to be whatever you want. So it is always interesting seeing that in the comment sections, map eight, nine. Oh yeah, this is only my map four.

My wife's diesel truck, I think map five is a whisper mode. It's supposed to make it run a little quieter. So you can take it to a drive-thru without shutting it off.

Man, I gapped his a** on whisper mode.

Yeah.

Ideally on these cars, if you're, if you have some seat time and you know what you're doing, your base map's going to be pretty close to peak power. I mean, I'm going to say it is peak power. Like it's wicked up. The only difference is each click is a little bit more on the hit. So that that first gear, your map, you know, starts off down here and works its way up gradually over, over the length of that graph. Click, you know, map to, it just raises it up where it starts. Three, four, all the way up to nine. You know, nine is just going to be everything. You know, you're on a prep surface at that point. But the reason why that's ideal is because you don't know what your road surface is going to be when you drop the thing out of the trailer and you go out to run somebody. So if it's going to be a really good surface, you're going to be able to get away with like seven or eight, maybe. If it's a crappy road service, road surface, you don't want to be in a position where all of a sudden you go to run someone and it's just knocking them off and you don't have anywhere to click down.

So I've been there for a spicy one or two. Yeah, that was Ken Koon.

Well, all the talk about this car, whatever happened to the red car?

The red 98?

Yeah.

So Nth Moto rebuilt it.

Yeah.

Then they ironed everything out and they had the laser plumb line, the blower, which was way out of whack. The bracketry was all suede, which is why we're having belt alignment issues. They had to redesign that whole setup. Once they got it all tidied up and done, because I'm the type of person, I don't want to sell something to somebody that I can't put my name behind. So I wanted to make sure it was going to be done and done right. And I did what, you know, obviously it cost me to do it, but I wanted it to be a handoff where they were going to be able to enjoy the car. So they did that. They got it done right. And they spent the time to correct all the issues. And then I ended up selling that car and a black ACR Extreme with no options. So I had no trunk carpet, no speakers. I think they come with like three in the dash. Your iPhone on speakerphone is better than that. No sound ending, so no NVH in it to my knowledge. And I know there's some Viper gurus that are probably going to be watching this. So don't critique me too much.

Oh, it's okay. I had a Wyze S a year and a half ago when I called a TA, just another TA and I just, I heard it. I heard it on that one.

That's number 13 TA, but the black ACR Extreme and the red 98 GTS both went to AJ Meta.

Oh, okay.

I did the videos and well, actually I did the photos of the black one for you, but yeah, the red one. I got to ride in that one. Again, it was a cold day like today.

What's crazy is, is that red one, the thing came up like a turbo car.

It made all the noises too, by the way.

A lot of noise, too much noise. I'm not a fan, like I used to think it was cool, the whole blower noise up front while it's idling. I just, then when you have one of these, you're like, oh dude, I'd rather hear some turbos in a cam.

I will say, I don't know how much you want to touch on this. How much did the whistle change?

The whistle change for what?

Because you used to whistle a lot more when I first met you.

Oh, the exhaust note on this car? Oh, night and day, dude, I miss it. I'm looking forward to that one, haven't it?

Yeah?

Yeah.

Yeah, that'll be fun. I'm excited for this car, man. I really like this matte PP. Is it matte or satin?

Satin.

Satin? Yeah, dude, that turned out freaking sweet.

Turned out nice. To touch on the GTSR, so I have a screenshot after I got this car. I was looking around in 2019, like right around, it was right around when I purchased this. $106,000, this was like $149,000, I want to say, is what they had it listed at, at BJ Motors, which is Viper Exchange. And it was new, or no, I'm sorry, the first owner had already had it, that's right. And it was number five of 100 built. And I took a screenshot and I'm like, do I want to pay $150,000 or $106,000? Because it's going to get Turbos. So like, and then I know I'm going to want to do more stuff to it. I don't want to wreck and cut up that beautiful thing, you know? But I want that car. Well, then I ride in that Turbo one. Then I'm like, dude, this thing's not hacked up looking and crappy running. And like what I thought it would be, I'm going to go get me one. And then I met Disney World January of 2021. And I want to say my company cash-fold like 770 or something like that. We had a really good year. And, you know, again, we did all our retirement funds and our college education funds and all that stuff. And I was looking at my money off to the side. And I'm like, man, I could go scoop this thing up. I call them up and it was for sale for $2.09. And I offered a $2.05 offer on it. And then I found out that the owner was good friends with Aaron Miller and that Aaron knew the car. It had actually been down to Texas 2K just in its current, you know, heads and cam, by the way. So he had it. He had Viper exchange do the prefix heads and cam package on it, which picked up like, I don't know, 50 or 100 horse. I guess I'm not really sure. Something like that. Probably about 100 horse. And so ported heads gets a different cam profile. And then they do a full exhaust on it. And he was like, oh yeah, man, that's Rob Rob. Really unfortunate. He ended up passing away probably about a year after I bought it, which kind of connected all the dots for me, why he was selling it. He was kind of getting ready as what I put together. I think you saw his son at Texas 2K.

Oh, maybe brief. Yeah. The person I may have texted you about somebody who's wearing Nth hats or something. Yeah.

Yeah. So he's good friends with them, usually comes around for each, you know, lives in Texas obviously, but bought it through Chicago Motor Cars. My buddy, Rich took delivery of it for me and I was super jazzed up, dude. And I was like, dude, my wife's going to be not so happy about this because she didn't know if I was going to surprise her. And I'm like, how do I do this? So I bought her a minivan. I bought her a new minivan.

This is how you negotiate. We had this conversation all the time with our friends in the car scene. It's like, man, it's like their wives and girlfriends never let them do anything. It's like, no, no, you just got to know how to negotiate.

I would not be able to bribe my wife with a minivan.

Yeah, again, again, taking care of priorities first, not, you know, one thing I've noticed in the car scene, man, usually the people that are the most arrogant is their cars or their net worth. And that's I think that's why they have so much hostility and pride towards. If someone comes up to me and is like, do things like that, like, OK, yeah, whatever, dude, that's your opinion. I don't care, you know, but you do that to certain people and it's like everything they have. And it's their identity. You know, you're offending them personally. And so, you know, with that being said, priorities first, this is a hobby. And so I picked it up, I get home, I go pick up the car from my buddy's place that took delivery.

And you just gave me the gnarliest idea. I'm going to tell you this one off camera. That's why I never take notes during an episode. Let's just say I'll be releasing something in a month. You're just giving me an amazing idea. Let's continue.

So I pick up the car, I get it home, and let's see, I get it PPF'd. That would have been February of 2021. And then this car gets done and all of that. And this one's just been left as it is. And then we were just talking about the satin PPF. That's what made me think of telling the story about the VGSR. Is the plan for this one was to just be a Twin Turbo mild build that is easier on parts. Dude, 15, 1600 horse on these things, and they're happy all day. I think Calvo told you guys that on that podcast. You got metal gears hitting face to face at that power level versus at 2,000. It's a lot different, but they're super fun. And makes the noises, you get the experience. Really enjoyable. And after four years, the PPF was super yellow. The whole car looked goofy, man. Unless you're in the sun. But like in this kind of lighting, you could just see the yellowing really bad.

Yeah, it started to look like a Lambo. It was really weird.

Yeah, it was almost like the balloon white Lambo. The balloon white Viper with Lamborghini balloon white.

Fair enough. Yeah, yeah.

But that expel deal, they ended up taking it back to the place that did it, and they're like, yeah, we'll cover it 100 percent. I was like, man, that's freaking sweet. Really? I was expecting maybe a partial credit or something. Right. We'll do the whole thing. You want to stick with clear or you want to go satin?

I'm like, he calls me up. He's like, what do you think on satin? And I'm like, absolutely f****** lutely.

Yeah, I found out that they charge like 10 grand to do that now. Back in 21, that car was wholesale. It's like I get stuff at wholesale with certain people with, again, the relationship perks, right? Yeah. $3,350 to do it in 21. Wholesale now is $6,500. If you were to bring your car in and like be a walk in, you'd pay like $9,500 to $10,000. Jeez. Pretty freaking crazy how much that stuff's gone up.

Yeah. I'll stick with my Plasti Dip.

So this is, I think, the first satin wrapped GTSR.

Yeah? You think so?

I think so.

Okay.

I don't know if anyone else has done it. Some old fact check you. If they have, I haven't seen it. Yeah. Maybe out in Dubai or something, but.

What would you say to somebody who's considering a Twin Turbo Viper?

Figure out what the heck you want to do with it, man. That's the number one thing. So many people just think Twin Turbo and that's as far as it goes. You got to think of the use case. What the heck you can use it for? Is it going to be a garage queen, an Instagram queen, you're trying to be a draggy queen, you're trying to go to events and actually throw down, you're just trying to drive it on Sunday. What do you want to do with it?

And all those options are okay, just be aware of what you're getting into.

Just know what you want, yeah. Who cares what you want to do with it, as long as the guy that's building it understands.

At what point did it start getting really expensive? Or has it always just been plain expensive?

No man, if you're gonna do a build and then you're gonna change the whole thing, that's where it gets expensive. So if you say, hey, you know, I want to do a 1,500-horsepower combo and then you want to have a 3,000, you're gonna probably pay it twice, potentially. Well, because you've got to undo a lot. There's almost nothing... Yeah, I don't think there's anything that you're looking at reusing other than the car from 1,500 to 3,000. So figure out what the heck you want to do with it.

I'll leave this up to you if you want to answer this one. What's it cost to do a Twin Turbo Viper?

Um, I mean, it could be a garage build, and you can try and stumble and fumble and get through that.

So six times what it should be.

Well, don't you have to modify the chassis to get the Twin Turbos in there?

No, no, there's some DIYers out there that have just kind of craftingly fit them up in different places. There's one on IG that has waste gate pipes coming up through the hood.

Oh yeah, I've seen that one. That's an ANC car, isn't it?

Well, I think the engine was built by them.

Okay.

And someone else did the fab work. I'm not sure how they did it. But I want to say that's a front mount turbo.

Same thing in the GTR world too, by the way. Like there's so many different positions and stuff you can do. Everybody has a way of approaching the same problem, I guess.

It really depends on what you want. So using that one, for example, I'm guessing that person really likes the look of that and the attention that it brings.

It definitely does that.

So for that approach, that makes sense. If you're going to go try and play a Texas 2K, Florida 2K, you're not going to have a good result. There's a number of reasons why that combination is very inefficient for that type of format. So it just depends on what you want to do with the car. You know, I wouldn't knock either one. Obviously I have my own preference, which is what this is, but it doesn't mean that, you know, some other style or whatever is necessarily a wrong or a bad style, it just is their style. Know what your style is.

What you identify as.

Yeah, what do you want to do with it?

Well, if I, let's just pretend I picked up an ACR and I want a Zenith build. Do you, or can I ask you what that costs?

Yeah, I would say if you're going to do it to my standard, it'd probably be about 400K.

Okay.

Yeah, because I'm going to cage it, I'm going to shoot it, I'm going to have all my safety in there.

So, I will say one thing that really stuck out to me in the Calvo episode, he was really harping on safety.

Yeah. Well, you've seen what he's been through.

Yeah.

Again, guys that go, you know, that do that stuff. I mean, I didn't roll at 200, obviously, when I rolled my R8, but I rolled the car on the highway. So, you know, that's why I put a cage in this. You know, the guys that have some skin in the game and have actually had experiences like that are generally going to value those things more, especially to using that reference with Antonio. He has kids and a wife, you know, he's got a family. Family guys are going to think about that a little bit more. They want to come home and be a provider.

Sometimes you want to open an iPhone factory, Dan.

You know, I feel like when I was single, I didn't give a crap about any of that. I was just telling you a story about a G-Body doing 145 on junkyard tires with rot.

I would not do that today.

Swaying. Yeah.

This is what I tell people, like, for example, like this future co-part build that hopefully has not come to fruition this summer. The guy I want to compete against, I'm like, he's got kids. I don't. So there's that, right? There's considerations at play because I feel like most of the guys that go to the track, they do have families to go back to. So yeah, no safeties. I remember you showing me like where the cage is in this. And I'm like, really? That's impressive. There's a certain level of quality that comes with this. Who's someone you've considered a mentor in this space?

In the car industry?

Sure.

I would say, my buddy Rich Franchi, out of Chicago.

That's the other guy who used to have an Nth car, right?

Yeah, yeah, he sold his to Brandon Cruz.

Okay. That guy's sharp, by the way.

Very sharp.

I don't think many people ever know him via a podcast or anything like that, but that guy's sharp.

Yeah, he stays low-key. Yeah. That's another thing too. I used to chase after the, not necessarily looking for the clout, but around the clout and want to do the clout type things because it looked fun and appealing. But then I also, when I started hanging around that scene, I also noticed all the drawbacks with it. The bad things attention gets you. For example, I know a guy that titled some things in Montana, and wanted to not have to deal with taxes, and he got wrapped up in some stuff, and that was an expensive lesson for him. Yeah. So the reason why he got caught up in stuff, though, is because of the attention that was brought in. So I've learned the walk, quiet, carry a big stick is a lot more effective, and it's more of my style. I just, again, I was trying to search around and kind of find like, what did I really gravitate towards?

Right.

That's, I feel like that's a big part of why people choose certain places to go. Kind of back to that birds of a feather, is if you like people that don't necessarily shout what they have or what they do from the rooftops, you're gonna lean that way. If you're really looking to be voiceless and have your information out there and you want everybody to kind of peek in at you, you're gonna gravitate towards that type of group of people when it comes to picking out where to go for car builds. And that goes on any platform. And it goes for business too. You just, your circle, who you hang around. You guys probably have a synergy between you two and things that you guys connect on. There's probably some similarities.

Yeah, we finish each other's, see?

Podcasts.

Yeah.

He was just saying he was afraid of dying over there. I'm like, well, let me know where the podcast backlog is before you go.

I always thought about leaving behind a password or something.

Very quick, sign this will.

Here, delete my browser history and then here's where all the files are.

Well, I'm so glad you bring up browser history because this podcast is brought to you by DuckDuckGo. No, I'm kidding. Damn, I had one more in there. Where the hell did it go?

It's fine.

You want me to go in there and get it?

Sure.

What are you going to get?

I don't know. He's going to excavate, fire up the house, do some digging, onion layers.

If somebody wanted to get, doesn't go straight a little bit from the car side of things, but it's obvious you've had some success in your life. You've obviously done the white picket fence with the family. You've gotten to have some fast cars, and it doesn't seem like you've gone completely insane and hate your life, at least from the outside looking in. Most people don't get to have all three. What's some advice you would give to someone that's in their teens, 20s, 30s, or even a 65 year old that's just trying to turn your life around?

Gosh, man, that's a very different, that's like asking a finance advisor where to put their money for a 20 year old versus a 65 year old. The risk, the level of risk you're going to take is, I can make it up for 30 years and I got three years. Man, that's a broad question.

Well, what's it take to have all three if that's an easier question?

That's probably a better way of putting it.

That's a good way.

Dan just likes to take all the thunder.

This is where the connection comes in, right?

Personal development.

Yeah.

Yep. Personal development, 100%. You have to be willing to be the guy. You have to be willing to delegate. You have to be willing to not micromanage people. There's a book by Robert Kiyosaki, and it talks about how A students work for C students, and B students work for the government. As a C student myself, sometimes worse, you're not afraid to ask for help from an A student. Hey man, can you help me out? Understand this, you know, I'm trying to, I gotta take this test. Give me the highlights, man. Like get the cliff notes, because obviously you're a C student, and that's kinda, you don't really read in between. And the A students, they're perfectionists, and they're trying to, you know, they're the micromanagers. They're the ones that really want to make sure everything's done just right. And so, the A students in this book talks about they end up working for those C students, because those C students know how to delegate, and they know the A students are gonna do a good job. But you're gonna, you have to be a person that's willing to accept a B. And I would say in my first company, looking back, that's where I really struggled was I had a hard time delegating certain tasks to like project managers and such, because I wanted to strive for that A result. And since then, I've had some amazing mentorship from guys that are 100 millionaire plus billionaires. They understand people development. And it's kind of floating around the internet, obviously with different entrepreneurial podcasts, but millionaires develop systems and processes, and billionaires develop people.

Well, it sounds like you're kind of talking about developing the people around you, but what happens when it comes to you?

Yeah, so I'm getting to that. So basically, where I'm going at what that is, is if you want to be able to enjoy the fruit of your family, and you want to enjoy the fruit of your labor and go do the hobby thing, and you want to enjoy financial freedom, you have to be willing to accept where people come in at. When you delegate things to somebody, like say in a business or in a family, and you say, hey kids, I want you to do chores, because you're trying to build that work ethic in them. You have to be willing to accept the fact that the four year old is going to make four year old mistakes. The 10 year old is going to make 10 year old mistakes. You have to be, that's kind of where the C is accepting the B result, because you're not going to get the A result out of the family unit, or in the business, or maybe even in the financial, in the marketplace. Necessarily by doing everything yourself, you'll burn yourself out. And I fell victim of that in my first company that actually took off and did something. This next company that I got involved with, it's really cool because now I'm able to take the things that I learned from that one and apply them over here. And I'm already seeing significant results in that, which is really cool. It's, I guess, yeah, hopefully that answers your question, but I guess what I'm really getting at is, you have to be able to be a person that's willing to be understanding, be willing to delegate, but also be understanding of people and where they're at. And you can't necessarily make them into you. You can kind of guide them, lead them, show them what needs to be done, but let them develop themselves as, as their own individual within that space. And that's where you start to see really good team building. That's where you start to see the family unit gets really strong and then the money comes secondary. A lot of people like to talk about like, oh man, you know, buy this or invest into this. And like, that's the goal. And for me, finances and the money portion has always been a secondary outcome. I pursue the relationship. I pursue the relationship with the team. I pursue it with the family. The money comes secondary. Cause like I was just alluding to what the business side, you build the people and the people will build the business. I know you're an entrepreneur yourself and obviously you are too with the podcast. It's a leadership development in yourself and then through other people. Hopefully that makes sense.

No, and it's exactly at the point of my business where that's where I struggle. It's, I've had a handful of employees, but I struggle very much with the micromanagement or the things, wanting everything to be done.

Perfect.

Yes, to my standards and it is absolutely beat your head against the wall, frustrating. Even just this week, I've had just one hell of a job. So and yeah, I already had some issues with some connectors and now I'm doing them all myself because I can control that, but I probably should just let the person go with it. And if I have to fix 10 of them, at least I didn't spend my whole day doing that.

What you're describing is what I saw on a couple of your guys' podcasts when you guys are talking to people that build different types of platforms of cars and they say, man, what really bothers us is the things that are beyond our control, the things we don't make. We're not in control of those things. If it's a transmission and it's Dodge Center, it's PPG or whatever it is, it's frustrating when you can't control the outcome of the situation. But in your case, you're dealing with the employees and it's easier to just slide them out of the way. When really what it comes down to is, is if you develop a system and a process for them to follow, some checks and balances, some guidelines that they can follow without you having to necessarily be there to correct them. Because then you're not micromanaging. You've developed a system and a process for them to follow. And then now you're able to take that hat off, that micromanaging hat off, and now you can go over here and focus on something else. And that's where you get a little bit more freedom. And now all of a sudden, look at this. Now I can maybe take a little bit of time for myself and go do a hobby. Or maybe I can go spend more time with my family, whatever your thing is.

Big knitting guy over here. Lots of knitting.

Yeah.

Yeah. Scarves, everything. Well, sweet man. You want to pop that usual three? I think we got to be coming up on two something hours.

Yeah, probably.

Sure, with all the light breaks and the... Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so 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 can, you have an unlimited budget, do whatever you want.

Track car, right here. Okay. An ACR, hands down. A daily driver.

Well, hold on. ACR in its current configuration here or?

Well, it depends on what kind of track.

Well, that's what you got to choose.

Well, if it's a road course, it's that one.

Okay.

If it's a drag strip, it's this one.

So which one you're choosing?

This one.

Okay.

Drag strip guy. Okay.

Yeah.

You still dabble in some road course stuff though, too? You go-

You know, it's funny because these are track weapons.

Yeah.

But I've done, what, three road courses, I want to say. Only one with this one. It's fun. Don't get me wrong. It's cool. It's just a, it's a, it's a different style. It's more of a marathon and I'm more of a sprint guy.

Okay.

I like the sprints.

We saw how fast you ran around this building.

The warm up?

Yeah.

Yeah. I'm more of a sprinter, man. I like to A to B.

Yeah.

He's Usain Bolt's cousin. He didn't know this, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's also my personality, just A to B.

Yeah.

You know, with businesses, I like to build them. I don't want to run them. That's another thing I've kind of learned a little bit, kind of to your prior comment or question is that's, you kind of learn a little bit about yourself in the process of entrepreneurship or even in the car world. You know, like, what do you like? What car fits your personality? With business, it's like, what part of the, what do you like to do in the business? I like to build businesses and then I also like to do the people building part. It's learning to really enjoy it, but it's also come because you have four kids, five kids, and you're building little people, you know? You start to get good at it. First one's really frustrating, second one's annoying. Third one, you're kind of starting to get a feel for it. By the fourth one, it's like, okay, I'm starting to understand, like, it's okay for a four-year-old to act like a four-year-old. It's not okay if the 12-year-old acts like a four-year-old. Yeah. But cars, I'd say ACR this car for a track car, weekend warrior kind of deal. For a daily driver, trackhawk. Dude, I miss my trackhawk. Most comfortable seats has to have the leather option. It was like a $5,000 option, but you got to do it. Because the leather seats, the cloth seats are not the same. The bolsters, everything, totally different.

It's actual leather, it's not pleather.

It's actual leather. Yeah.

For $5,000, it better be.

Super thick. In today's market and economy, it'd be a $15,000 option if they're still making them. But yeah, the trackhawk, I had a Durango Hellcat and I don't know, it's just not the same. So it feels a lot longer inside and I don't really like the look of them.

Most people like it longer.

Yeah, I like the punch.

He already told you he's a short and quick kind of guy.

I took my trackhawk with my family when we were a smaller family over to Disneyland in Anaheim, California, drove it out there and we drove through the Rockies and stuff. And dude, that thing was the bee's knees to be going through the mountains in a snow blizzard, like in a blizzard, snow storm environment. You know, you got the all wheel drive and you get in the mountain roads. You can hit the twisties. Got to pull over for the kids if they get motion sick because dad's driving it like a track dog. But no, man, it's super comfortable. You can tow a little bit with them. You can haul this. So I'd say for a daily, that'd be it. For a show car, 68 Charger RT. And I would definitely want a Twin Turbo Viper V10 in it.

Someone did that, didn't they? I could have sworn somebody threw a V10 in a 68.

Yeah, unfortunately, they got a Gen 3 Viper engine in that.

Oh, is that what it is? Okay.

It's like, dude, if you're going to go through the work, do it right, man. Put the good one in that sucker, man.

Is Gen 3, do they get better as each generation or is there a generation?

That was an 8.3 liter and they just, they have a, it's just a different build. The architecture of it's different.

Okay.

So you're not going to have the air flow, you're not going to have the rigidity, I guess, overall compared to the 8.4 that came in the Gen 4 and the Gen 5.

Okay. Is it still better than a Gen 2?

Probably a little bit, but I don't know, man, because the Gen 2s from 96 to 99, they had the forged guts, you know, forged rods, forged pistons, and you could run them up to like 1000 horsepower with a Twin Turbo setup. A lot of the guys actually back then, they were doing nitrous on them to wick them up a little bit. So a lot of guys were pretty quick with those, but yeah, that'd be my show car.

Okay, well, sweet on that note, where can people find you?

Well, which me? I got, so business-wise, it'd be State Your Business podcast for the car page, Minneapolis Mopar.

Okay, do you want to touch on what State Your Business is real quick?

Yeah, so State Your Business is a podcast that I started with the intent of interviewing businesses that, you know, entrepreneurs, they started a company. It might be in its infancy stage. It could just be mid-stride and things are rocking and rolling and they got a lot of the humps and bumps that they overcame and just sharing their story, how they got there, what motivated them to actually step out of the comfortable nine to five or whatever they had going on and start a business. And then the other part is catching them on the exit side because I'm a business broker with Calhoun Companies, any Dyna Minnesota. So looking at the exit strategy and options for people that are selling their business and looking to retire.

Okay. Sweet. So if anybody wants to basically hear what we do but on a business sense, go head over that way then.

Yeah. State Your Business Podcast. It just started up so it's not a lot of traction yet but I'm hoping to really ramp it up. Ran into some technical issues after it got launched. That was a pain in the butt having to tell somebody up. Sorry, man. We just spent 40 minutes and that thing wasn't rolling.

Well, like I always tell people, man, it's your first 10 of anything are going to suck. Yeah. That is one thing I beat into your head. You finally got it. It took a couple weeks, but anytime somebody wants to start anything, your first 10 will suck. If you plan on it, you can't be disappointed.

So I really enjoy it. I enjoy the conversation. It's also an open door to a bigger network. Every single person that I meet in an interview knows people and they get excited. They genuinely get excited that they're on a podcast. And a lot of people are going to the podcast for their information these days. You know, it's like a, I don't know, in the last, I'd say probably since COVID. I feel like that's where people really started leaning on independent media to get their information and figure out what to do. You know, YouTube. It's like, do I hire an electrical contractor or do I put my own light switch in? I don't know, I'll go to YouTube, figure it out. A lot of entrepreneurs are doing that stuff too. A lot of people that want to start a business are getting on a podcast. What made this guy motivated enough to go and leave the nine to five? How did he do it? Or it might be midway through and they're trying to figure out what kind of insurance is needed or this or that and they don't have an insurance broker, they don't know how to navigate some of the questions that they have or they're looking to sell and they're at the exiting phase of their life and they don't want to pay half a million dollars in income tax. They want to, you know, what can I do about that?

So it's good to gather information. I mean, some people, you know, I got my license to do what I'm doing after several years of working without it. Then all of a sudden I had this huge fine looming over me and I couldn't work. I actually had to hire another company to do jobs I had on the line.

Oh, because you didn't have a low-voltage license?

Because I didn't have a low-voltage license at the time. So I had to go bust my a** and get that so I could get back to work. But yeah, there's things like that that you could learn from people without having to go through all the b******* that I, you know, I, or whoever else has had to do, you know, the hard time s***.

That and business laws are always changing.

Yeah.

You know, the year I sold my company or the year after, there was already a new law where what's safe and sick leave for employees. You know, they got to have X amount of days off, you know, and they weren't letting, you weren't allowed to go and say, hey, you know, we had a 14 day PTO package, we're going to dial it back to four and 10 of those days are going to be for you to have safe and sick leave. And that was a violation. And you know, people didn't really necessarily know what they were supposed to do or how they were supposed to respond to that. So getting myself around a network of people of different business owners and basically giving them an op, you know, a stage to the podcast to be able to share.

Sweet. That's cool. Dan?

You can find us at Gunna Garage where we are not posting anything like usual.

I was about to say, if you tell me Snowmobile content, I'm gonna throw that chair out.

You never know. It's, you know.

Yeah. Well, sweet. You guys found me. Dan, thanks for existing. And we'll see y'all. Oh, Dan, or not Dan, Dan, Adam. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Dan, thanks for existing. And we'll see y'all next time. I will get this right one of these days.

It's been a while since we've done a podcast.

It's only been 131 episodes. So, sweet. We'll see y'all guys next time.

You got the whole Texas thing going on. See y'all.

I've been saying y'all for two decades. And all of a sudden people are like, Oh, you go to Texas. No, it was actually my third grade teacher. She used to say y'all. I started saying y'all.

Are you leaving all this in?

The guest is leaving now.

The guest is left. Yeah, see you Adam next time.