135. Building Transmissions to Last, Racecars, Ford vs GM and more w/ Adam Petersen

The bread and butter of the industry has always been GM stuff. 3 to 4 4L6's a week was very common. It was the bread and butter of the industry. So some people, it's not the miracle product, it's not the miracle part. You don't need the best of the best overhaul kit. You don't need anything that's magical. It's not really what you use, it's about how you do it.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Minnoxide podcast. I'm your host, Harris, AKA Minnoxide, man of many automotive aspirations, and I'm here with my Ford-loving co-host. You're no longer in enemy territory.

I'm Ford-loving, I'm feeling the love in this garage for sure.

And today, we're here with Adam Petersen of Performance Drive Train Solutions. And I think it's been a long time, in 130 some episodes. I don't think we've had a dedicated transmission guy yet.

No.

You know, I don't think we even had an EV guys, but we don't have to get into that.

Sure, well, it'll come.

It'll come sooner or later. We have some words to say.

No, I can get on on them.

I think it's about time, man. So it's funny because you actually reached out to me through my website, but it looks like you know some of the guys we've had on from Joe DeVito, which was episode 71, and then Carl from TCP, which is 127. So you know some of the guys that we know. So go ahead and just introduce yourself. Tell us what it is that you do, and we'll just kind of go from there.

Right. Yeah, no, it's Adam Petersen, Performance DriveTrain Solutions. Just go through transmissions for people, and it's been a labor of love. If I can't afford to do it myself for my cars, my stuff get going on the road, I'll gladly help anybody else out, get their stuff going too, because I'm part of the program. It's nice to be able to have the opportunity to help racers go faster and faster and faster. Nobody's taking power away. So, I mean, who goes slower? But so, year after year, after you go through these things and get them going and go through them again, and see what you can fine tune here and here and here, everyone's trying to get to the nth degree and to get it done. So, fractions of a second of a shift means tenths in the quarter, you know. So, there's a lot of times that you have to go through stuff to make it worthwhile, to build a better product, to make it work how you want it to. So, yeah, it's a lot of fun. Been doing it forever, but also doing not just racing stuff, but started out, obviously, like anybody else in the industry, just doing stock transmissions. So, you know, came to a point where break jobs and the general repair stuff is easy. It's basic. You know, it's easy to do. It's a lifestyle. Many people do it. I've done it for quite a while, and then all of a sudden, it starts to... It's just not there, you know. I want to get to the technical aspect of something more advanced, you know. So, it seemed natural and fitting, and I had an opportunity to work for a friend, and he was a Ford Master Tech, and he knew the ins and outs of everything. So, perfect. I will sit there and listen and watch, and get my hands dirty, and just start learning these things. So, it's been a fun ride.

Do you mostly just do performance stuff now, or do you still do some stock stuff, or?

I got one showing up here later today. It's a stock 6070 GM transmission transaxle. I do a lot of shops around the area. So, predominantly, about 30 shops, I build them, kind of their transmission guy. General repair from Eau Claire area, other side of the city, south, north, everywhere. So, a lot of stuff local in the area where I can leave a spot open, where, you know, all these are in the mix of getting built and whatever process. I still leave time and a spot open for one of the shops to just drop something off. While the shop, or the vehicle's hanging on the hoist, it's going to tie up their hoist for two or three days, or as soon as I get it done. So, the sooner I get it done, the sooner they have it on the road, too. So, a lot of the stuff, because I don't want to say I'm more geared towards performance, but performance is funner. You know, it's a lot of funner stuff to build that's more exotic. There's not a lot of parts for the factory vehicles I have to machine or make work. I mean, sometimes you have to kind of make honey out of horse s***, but it happens. And sometimes wrong parts, inferior parts, not all the time, you're going to get the brand new parts from GM, Ford, Chrysler. So you have to count on like a used part. So it comes from a hard part company, and you still have to go through it and do your due diligence to make sure it works. It fits, it's used, but it's probably in better condition than the thing that they dropped off at you. So if you have to go through it and make that work, you just have to make it work. And it's got to go at the door better than obviously what it was originally. That's the whole point of rebuilding the transmission, is to make sure the power gets to the ground in an efficient manner and it's not going to fail. The goal is to make it last longer than the factory gave it to you. So 6L80 that only goes 120,000, 160,000 miles before the converter shuts the bed and the pump is out. Hopefully you use a converter that isn't going to let that happen. You use a better product than what GM gave you. That's the whole goal. You do it long enough and you start to realize what parts you don't want to use or what parts you can trust, what parts you don't want to trust. And you kind of get your own reputation for using better products or finding an aftermarket solution. Use Sonax, use Transgo, use a multitude of many other companies to actually get the job done. You have to ream a valve body. You can make it better. This AFL valve is poor design in a 4L80, but different valve in it and solve that issue altogether. So have the rigmers, the fixtures and all the stuff that make it happen.

Do you have a preference between the two then, the performance side I take it or?

You know what?

Because one's easier than the other, I'm sure.

I can get one out the door overnight. I've done many overnight overhauls. So I mean, I got a ton of parts on hand just because the common ones, 4L60s, 4L80s, 6L80s, 6L90s, 60s, 70s, they're all...

These are like 90%... These are GM transmissions.

Yeah, predominantly. I mean, even for performance race stuff, performance stuff too, it's all GM because it's been there forever. Your Powerglide, that came out in 1962. We're still using it. There's a brand new one right there. Didn't bear a case. But still, all these... We're using 70, 60 years old parts, 55 year old parts for stuff that is still good today, still desired today. Some stuff needs tweaking, re-machining and adding stuff to it, but that's like the labor of love part of it. I TIG weld up parts on that. I machine parts on that. So, I mean, there's a lot of stuff to make it... I can get a good quality product to make it work, especially for the racing industry. Granted, this is going in like a thousand horsepower garden tractor. It's a tractor puller. So, 496, alcohol, naturally aspirated big block Chevy. That's cool. So, I think I've built like six or seven for these guys. Friends of them, them too. They're kind of local, but these guys are from the Southern Rochester area. But still, it's one of those things where you have to put a lot of labor of love into it to make it work and function and give it the best of your ability to make it work. Stock transmissions, I mean, they need to be reliable, dependable. That thing goes 300 feet. The last one I took apart, I built 10 years ago, still had the green grease in it. Oh, really? They never got hot, didn't solidify or melt it away. It was still, there's still transmission grease that I put in there 10 years ago. It's 300 feet. It's just a full pole or whatever it is, and they're done for maybe the day or may have three other poles, but it doesn't get hot enough to even melt the stuff. It's limited use. You don't have to really worry about it. 4L80, your drag week guys, these guys go out and put 2,000 miles on the thing. It's gotta work. It's gotta last. It's gotta stay cool. We're looking for dependability and longevity.

So application's huge then in your case. Yeah, yeah. So what's the scope of your customer base then? So is it a lot of 100,000 mile plus drivers? And then obviously you mentioned 300 feeders. I guess for your overall customer base, where do most people fall?

It's mixed. Both, it just depends. Like performance side of it is different. You know, the general mom and pop shops, I mean, I used to do 200 units a year.

Oh, wow.

Okay. Yeah. It's like four or five a week if you can. Yeah. And then still get vacations in there and everything. So I don't know how many workdays there are in a year, but you know, it's a lot of units out the door. Yeah. And I've cut back quite a bit. I used to do this as a side gig, too. And so I spent a decade doing race stuff out here. Okay. Before, I was a transmission builder day in and day out. Set my lunchbox on my toolbox and build transmissions all day for a shop. And it's just what you do, you know? And so make it happen. And just to mix, go home after a long day of building transmissions all day to come here to do the same thing, but at least this stuff was, I can be passionate about. I can be, it's not necessarily passionate about, but you just have to have a reputation to make sure it works, it functions, it goes on the road, you know, you have shops out there, like you won't want to trust somebody to do their transmission because they don't have a reputation. So I don't want to be something that, like I would be losing sleep over because if I was building a poor unit or something that didn't work or something that I was not proud of, I wouldn't want to do it. So to build a 4L60 out of Mama Pop's generic 3,500 truck, make it the best you can. It's got to last just as long. My goal is to make it last longer than the first time it went out. So that's kind of what, where it come to be like a, it used to be a, it was really meticulous about it, and I still am, but focusing on making that one part and individual thing work, and you still have to. But with the stock stuff, you just, you can figure that there's going to be some mishaps, or it might not go 80,000 miles, and all of a sudden, the converter goes out of it. Now you have a pan full of s*** and metal everywhere, now you have to go through the whole thing all over again. And you could do that same way with somebody just installing one of these, I've done it many times, two or three times a year, I have to go through a brand new overhaul that somebody botched the install on. Ruin the pump, the brand new converter's junk, the pump is junk, and now you have metal everywhere. So it happens. But sometimes you have to go through it again and make it happen. But long term stuff with the generic public general repair shops, the warranty is only as good as the product you put in it. So unfortunately, for an independent shop, you know, Amco or somebody, big places, sometimes they have other builders put their stuff in from other shops, like another Amco. So not every Amco has a transmission builder. So one Amco might be building transmissions for the other three, four, five other hubs. Oh, okay. So, I mean, that happens. Not every single one. Transmission builders are hard to come by. I mean, kind of, I wouldn't say dying breed, but there's not a lot of them out there. Everyone's got an engine builder. I mean, I know four or five, you know. So it's easy to go to, but to try to find a transmission guy, it's probably a little bit more difficult. So, you know, with a reputation or somebody who can get the job done too.

Well, especially for like GoFast stuff too, right? Like there's that as well.

Well, there's a lot of like, we were talking about this before we started, a lot of mail order stuff right now a days where you just go, I'm going to order a monster transmission or I'm going to do something like that. But then you never know. I mean, I'm assuming they've still got the same struggles with finding transmission builders and doing all that stuff. And somebody could have a bad day and put one together, not quite right. And then I love all this warranty work, right? Like, oh, I'll warranty that part, but you got to put the transmission in, you got to take it out, you got to crack the gate. Like, there's a lot of work to warranty something.

It's not the funnest thing, but if you want to trust somebody, you know, at Summit, I've gone through everyone else's stuff, everyone. I mean, I don't care what name is on the side of the car, you still have to go through it if it doesn't work. The big name stuff. And obviously, if you're in the Midwest, or you're five, six hundred, four thousand miles away from whoever built it, you got to find somebody local to take care of it if there is a problem in the first place. So I've been through every single monster transmission that they make, probably. I just had a 727 here a couple of months ago, that the guy didn't even work. I mean, it had issues. Oh, I've done, oh yeah. Sometimes they don't even like, I don't even know if it dinoed. Why would it even leave this thing? Really? It wouldn't even work. You know, made it around the block, even if it had gone out of the garage. So I mean, there's stuff like that that happens. And you have to kind of take what somebody else is going to do with their recipe and then find out, you know, make it work. I mean, some stuff is simple. You're not going to order a four or five thousand dollars, or a four thousand horsepower transmission, unless it's from M&M or big name company, Rossler, to do something that they aren't going to put the best stuff in. So I mean, mail order stuff, Jag Summit, you know, you can order this stuff, and most of it looks like stock, unfortunately. I mean, I've been through a lot of transmissions that it's a glorified pile of s*** that really should have had better parts in it. And unfortunately, the dollar, the bottom end is, bottom line, they want to make and maximize every bit of it, but a lot of times people don't really fully understand what it takes to make a product work. So if you're going to use stock parts, like a thousand horsepower, 400, yeah, you can use the forward hub. It's just a cast iron thing. No one to break it to 600, maybe some horsepower. It depends on the torque. But if that's in the stock performance or a racing transmission, you didn't get what you paid for. You could use a 4L81 or rollerized 4L81s, they're steel, they're actual better quality product. So the composition of the parts that you're actually going in the transmission makes a difference. It depends on what the weakest link is. The input shaft is going to give up eventually, but if you're going to pay $3,000 for a transmission, it comes out the stock, but it's got a sticker on it, it just doesn't cut it. So unfortunately, a lot of that happens. And your local transmission builder is going to be the one who takes care of it in the first place, because if you have to ship it back and forth, the company's, their warranty is only so much. They're only going to eat so much. Monster has probably had, I don't know, I mean, they try to take care of a lot of their warranties, I'm sure, but a lot of the stories I've heard from other people, I've never bought one, so I can't really say anything, but I've gone through a lot of their stuff. So unfortunately, to find a builder or find somebody who knows what they're doing, yeah, sure, 10% of them work great and everyone has no problems. What about the other people? So you just, sometimes you gotta take care of the warranty or you just charge a customer and then they just go back and try to get their money back from the builder or the people who own it or bought it or whoever went through it.

What's the way that you would recommend then? Let's say now I'm up to 2000 horsepower, I'm ready, I wanna start getting into the eights and low eights and now I'm ready to go TH400. Do you just source a case? Do you just find your builder and go, hey, put me one together? Or is that, what do you suggest?

If, depends on how inclined you are, like as a do-it-yourselfer guy.

Well, let's just pretend, so I've had lots of transmission problems over the years, but I grabbed junkyard transmissions and swapped them out because they probably were something simple inside the transmission, but no thank you.

Right, right, no, and a lot of people don't want to crack it open or look into it. It's what we're here for. It's what I do. And so I choose to, you know, I choose my battles. I don't want to do this. I have an engine builder, you know, right? Whatever, they're the specialists. You go over there and the transmission side of things, contact somebody who really is known to do it, either like an opinion or to have them go through it or open it up and see what's what. Sometimes it's just, it's cheaper to do, and it's easier to do, too. Instead of going back to the junkyard to get a new unit and putt lobins, you already have one that's used. Why put another one in there if it's questionable, too? So sometimes, you know, transmissions have common issues, too, in the 3-4 clutch on a 4L60. The reverse reaction shell was always a problem back until 2003 when they hardened it. But prior to that, anybody calls you up and says, Yeah, I just lost a second in reverse. Now, I know exactly what part it needs, but you have to... Why would you put a new junkyard, another junkyard unit in there for the same year you have? And it doesn't probably already have the upgraded part that you should have in the first place. So you have a time bomb that's going to go off in 10,000 miles, or did you just inherit another problem altogether? So it's always better to have the transmission in the vehicle that came in the vehicle with it because you know either way where it came from, or you're better off with something that's not been pieced together with three other units, too. So you're better off just using what you have and finding somebody or going through it with however you want it to go about it, but use what you originally had. So I mean, power glides, we can take parts from, I got a new pump for that from another 1965 transmission that we're going to put in it, but the castings are different. It's not interchangeable, but it's always better to start with what you had. So, you know, someone else has already built this. I got to do a ton of upgrades to it, but it could be a mixed set in there. We'll see what happens when I take the pan off and I go through it and see if it's got mismatched components. And, you know, you get into the stuff where it could be an inferior setup too. And all of a sudden, like, we should do something about that before it becomes a problem. So it's building these things is more or less like you fix the problem and all the 30 other inherit other issues. But then you also have to modify it and make it work for this other totally other different application for what it's not intended that it was originally designed for. So it's a catch-22. You have to go through all of it and make sure from end to end, it's complete and done and fixed. If I come, I've gone through TCI stuff several times. I just had one here a year ago. It didn't make it around the block. TCI build and found the problem, but the builder who used 20 other different transmissions because these big name places, they get cores from everywhere. The case could be junk on this one. Up here, we have Minnesota rot, so cases go to s***, the aluminum corrodes. And a lot of times, the 4x4, 4L80 stuff is all corroded and don't want to use this case. I don't want to even use some of these parts. But now we're mixing and matching other things across the board, and as often as these things are changed by either the factory, every other week, Ford changes something. Friday, hey, let's change something. Ford's more complicated that way, but at GM, you can take an alternator from a Metro and use it on probably a dually truck, a diesel truck. So they're more universal across the board, but Ford has got more money to play, too. They change stuff. It's middle of the day, and now they have a running order change. So this part doesn't mix with this anymore. And now, oh, we got to go back a little bit, maybe, or redesign that one, too. So Ford has more money to be able to do that stuff, and it kind of makes it a little bit more difficult to be able to just lob new parts or other parts in there to make it work. So it depends on what you're getting. These other shops that tear this stuff apart and get just core parts. I've seen them. There's walls of input shafts and drums and cases, and we need one of these, one of these, to put one together. They don't just take a... They tried, and we all tried to, to take a good core that was a good runner and make it better. But you could build something into it, too, that it shouldn't have. And now you just inherited other problems, and if you don't catch it, know the line pressure, know how it shifts. When these people drop this stuff off, and, okay, what line pressure was it at, and what's the issue, and why are we going through third gear every 500 miles or attempting to replace the clutches? There's so many variables that until you tear it apart and actually do the forensic science on it and figure out what you have or where the problem is, it's gonna be a lot of work.

So actually touch on that a little bit, right? Because we've had a lot of shop owners on the show where they have a particular way of diagnosing issues, but now you're getting into something that has, let's be honest, a s*** ton of parts by itself.

Yeah, it's magic.

Yeah, it is magic to a lot of guys, right?

It is, yeah.

So what does diagnosis of a transmission failure look like to you?

I can take it apart, and I've seen it before, a Ford E40D going down the highway, a super duty truck. If it's had a slow leak, all of a sudden, you can see where the clutches are slowly, for every gear ratio has diminished, and some parts are burnt. And then the second intermediate clutch is less burnt. Third is less burnt, you know? So you can kind of tell what's going on based upon how it looks inside.

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I can tell if it's had a misfire. 4L60s predominantly have an issue where the forward splines of the clutches engage into the sprague. And if it's misfire, it's counteracting against it. It's kind of banging against the teeth of the splines of the clutch. So it kind of makes them pointy and sharp, but not all the time. I mean, you have to have a misfire. Pretty bad to let that happen. I mean, to not fix your vehicle by the time it wastes your transmission, that whole mass air flow sensors.

He assumes people do maintenance.

This is crazy. I know better.

He's seen it, and he knows the problem, so somebody's definitely done it.

Oh yeah, I've seen it before. Mass air flow sensors will wipe out electronic transmission because the transmission, now we don't have a kick down cable to make sure line pressure goes up with throttle load. So you use a mass air flow sensor that determines how much load is going on the engine. But if your transmission pressure isn't ramping up and correlates one to one with it, it needs to, it'll burn up, you know. Lose a kick down cable on an AOD without a shift kit in it. You just lost overdrive. You just waste it right away. And it's got no kick down. So you could do that on the hoist. Just put in a brand new transmission together and put it in a car and you have big tires or something on it. You know, it could be in truck, but in AOD, if it doesn't have the kick down cable set right, and it doesn't have a shift kit in it to modify it so it's hydraulically better, you could just waste that band on the hoist. Just put it in the vehicle and just test shift it and that's it. So, I mean, you could do a lot of damage pretty quick in some of these things. And especially if it's not built right, there's some stuff where it counts, it matters. So, there's really, there's an exact science to it, you know.

Well, one of the things, one of the highlights we had on this episode, are you familiar with Greg Banish by any chance?

No.

So, he wrote the book on tuning, right? We're talking like, it's insane how much of our audience has come from Greg Banish, but...

Is he local?

No, no, he's Detroit area. Yep, so he's worked for each of the OEMs. He gets around. But one of the things he touched on is like, if you're not having good data from your injectors, that just goes down the entire line and just causes issues, like, you know, it can cause transmission issues and all that stuff. Do you have the same ideology on that too?

Yeah, the drivability side of everything, it matters. You know, if it's electronically controlled transmission, it needs every single bit of data. Your mile per hour, it just says speedo alone, your shift points, or it has to be specifically set to the tire size, the axle ratio, you know. So unless something's driven by the actual output speed sensor or the transmission itself, it's going to rely on false data. So back in the day, it was that you put a colder thermostat in something to make it run richer, right? More horsepower is what it was, but you're tricking the computer and the emissions, or the system to actually function differently. So you can manipulate these in many different ways, and not really have them work right either. So it's very important to have the data go to the transmission. And if you don't, something with, it's an electronic, but this is going to be a manual valve body, there's nothing that it needs, but maybe a speed sensor, or wire going to lock up switch, that's it. So the complexity of nowadays transmissions, it needs every single bit of data. And you'll get codes, false codes. I mean, there's all sorts of stuff that can go wrong in them. Nowadays especially, they're all solenoid driven. So it functions based on how the information that it gets from either the engine or the PCM. If the engine has a catalytic converter that's plugged up and you're just lost 15 horsepower and it can't breathe, it's struggling the transmission. Most people say, back in the day, it was very common on the GM 3.8s. Converter would be plugging up and all of a sudden, you don't have overdrive because it doesn't have enough power to get into overdrive because your foot's so far into it that it doesn't even call for overdrive because the throttle position sensors are so wide open. A lot of people are like, my transmission's all messed up. No, that's not, it's just the converter. Okay. You can't let the converter exhaust anyways, your engine powers down. So it all matters, it makes a difference.

It just seems like a transmission because you can't kill a GM 3.8, those things that go on forever.

No, yeah, if you could find them in some more, it'd be great to have, but a lot of them are kind of corroded around here.

Oh yeah, no, they're rotting away.

It'd be a nice car to have.

It's funny to say that, though, because I just did a 93 Cobra Intake, I have a 91 GT Convertible Mustang that we put the Cobra Intake on, I did a throttle body, I did all silicone vacuum line.

Yeah, all great stuff, yep.

Yeah, so now I got the car back together, it runs great, and I went to go test drive, but I got first and second gear, my AOD is acting all kinds of crazy. And I was like, it was shifting just fine before I did this, so I did something that's not, I don't have a kick down, I got something going on.

But gauges on it, they have taps on them for a reason. That's part of the diagnosis thing. Obviously GMs here, they only have the one line pressure sensor, but the AOD has several. Direct clutch, intermediate clutch, forward clutch. So there's taps all the way around the case, you could actually just put a gauge on and see what it's doing here or there. Ford is kind of nice in that respect, but they're not like that anymore. There's just one pressure port.

Do you have an opinion on some of this new 10-speed and 8-speed stuff?

I don't touch 8 speeds, I have, I've done two of them. Not for performance-wise. And it's a ZF transmission that was co-engineered for GM, and Ford didn't use one, that I know of. But Ford and GM have gone in cahoots and did the 6 speeds and the 10 speeds. It's all a ZF platform, so it's foreign to a point, but the 10 speeds are really good. I haven't done a GM one yet. I don't know why. I mean, I don't know if they're all being done at the dealership or what. Fords, I have, I shouldn't say, but performance wise, I haven't done a GM. I've done four of the 10 speed Fords. Two of them, yeah, two of them for Dave Rasmussen.

We've had him on too.

Yep, so two of them were for them. They're 1200 wheel horsepower. One was David Buck. He just passed away here recently. So I did that one for him. And then, that was probably three years ago now. I don't even know when. And then one for Dave, so I'm pretty sure. But yeah, so either way, I mean, there's a great solid unit. It doesn't mean it shouldn't have parts, but I mean, you have to put extra clutches in them. You still have to do, nowadays, the CDF drum and the basket. So there's some inferior parts that really should get replaced when you do one. Now that we know about it, they had a bushing spin and caused some issues. And the nice thing about it is with Ford and GM, they didn't change that. They didn't do anything differently. So Ford doesn't have, because every 10-speed in the dealer needs that drum, just go to GM and get it. So Ford won't really tell you that. They're not going to go out and just go to GM and go to buy the part. But in the transmission realm, independent shops, we can do that stuff. So it's nice to be able to do, but they don't, it's kind of the same manufacturer, but it's just in two different boxes. So I don't know how much of that it plays in effect with the new GM. I've never had the two side by side, but I've gone through six speeds GM and Ford's. GM's six speed predominantly a lot. Today's 4L60.

I was going to say when you brought the 4L60, I was like, you mean that transmission with all the neutrals in it?

Yeah, it works great though.

That was when we went to that museum down there, remember that transmission I was taking apart on the bench? I was telling you, I was like, yeah, I'm pretty sure that was a 4L60. I was like, those are always apart.

Put them together with Velcro.

What do you see come through here the most? Like, what just sucks, I guess?

Power glides, it's a weird thing to not like. I mean, I build tons of them. I've got some out there, 3,000 horsepower versions, and I mean, they're a great transmission. It's just not this fun to build, you know? I mean, there's a lot to go. I take every single bit of pride into it, but still, it's a power glide. They only work for so much. They only work so well. They only do so much, and they're limited. But they work for what they do very well.

Okay, so touch on that, right?

Very efficient.

It's a regular debate, right? Like, power glide versus TH400. I keep seeing this regularly. What would you want to do one over the other?

Depends on what you're doing. A quarter-mile car, I would take a three-speed all day long. And, you know, eighth mile, two-speed 400, if you need the strength or the power, or if you have the drivetrain to keep up with the 400, you know, it's a heavier-duty transmission to begin with. It's a straight-up heavier-duty. The parts, the components, you know, the output shaft size in itself. Not to say you couldn't, and when you get to like 3,000 horsepower, you have to, with the power glide, you have to go big input shaft. You have to do something differently. But 400 will take a lot more power, more efficiently, and price prohibitively too. So 400 will go twice as far as a power glide will, until you put 10 grand into a power glide. So 400, I mean, you can use a power, my limit on planetary from a 400 is 2,000. So, to the tire. So 2,500 horsepower, a stock planets, and a 4L8400 works just fine. Depends on the weight, everything else. Sometimes s*** happens. Let's see, bad cold breath Tony, Tony Santani. I originally did that transmission probably 10 years ago now. I couldn't tell you, I have no idea. It's been like 2014, maybe 11. I don't remember. But he just, I think it was last summer, he just, his planet s*** the bed and it fragmented. And he's only about 1200 maybe wheel horsepower, maybe 14, I don't remember it is, 16 or 14 horsepower.

I think it's 16 nowadays, I think.

To the tire?

I don't know about that. I haven't met him yet, but I just, I'm pressing him on Facebook. I could have sworn it's 16, but I might be wrong too.

Yeah, I can say, I mean, I build so many transmissions for so many people, it's so hard to keep track of this stuff. When they drop it off, I write down how much, what are we making, what are we building? And I'll call you in three months when it's done. And so to try to keep track of it, but just out of the blue, I don't know, he just went and got him rolling on the throttle and all of a sudden it s*** the bed, you know? And it's not very normal. I always take care of my planets and make sure it's usable core, whatever, make it work, it better be good. But it was just fragmented, it just exploded. So it wasn't like it was hot, there's no bluing of the rollers, the washers were fine, until it s*** the bed. All of a sudden it looks like a bomb went off in the pan. So, yeah, sometimes-

It's still like 11 years.

Yeah, well, yeah, and beating the s*** out of it too. But we're starting with something that, his core could have been made in 1968, 1979, 72, you know, this stuff. It's all old, making the 400 in 87. So, or no, 89. So, but either way, it's like, you have to source good parts. And for the most part, they're good, they're strong. And, you know, until you get into, even like the custom, the reed case one, that's got custom ratios in it, they still use carrier parts, and some stuff is still OE carrier. They just put new pinus in it, pins, gears. But the carrier itself is still original. So power glide is the same way. Build a shorty power glide, they still use the stamped carrier, or the cast carrier for the gears. They just machine out the back of it, put a new input shaft or output shaft in it, and weld it in place. And it's a stock 55-year-old part, still, just reconditioned and repurposed.

Well, it's like Calvo sat on his episode. It's like 400s and whatever. They're like the best redneck engineering ever made, you know?

It worked, though.

It's been around forever, right? Yeah.

And it was a heavy duty unit. And actually, I think it came from tanks, you know? And they had Allisons back in the day. My grandpa was working on Allisons in the Marines, on the half tracks. And they had an Allison. I think these were four speeds. But just big monstrosities in the Allison, you know? And big transmission. And these turbo 400s, the Allison 545 clutches would fit right in place. So it's a lot of stuff that's exact science, and it came from General Motors. So it's all under the same umbrella. And they just repurposed stuff and used it over here. So I mean, there's some inheritance, inherent stuff that you could put a turbo spline input shaft in a power glide. Now you're using a converter from a turbo 400. So otherwise they had like a 12 spline input shaft, and nobody uses that. I mean, it doesn't fit a 400 converter, so use what fits. Use what works. And in the industry, people like parts that fit across the board here to here to here. You can use a converter from this car to that car, and it just makes it nice and universal. But it doesn't mean that you don't have to go through some struggles to make it work. So that's part of the upgrades and everything else that you do to a transmission to make it work and survive. If you want a reliable unit, you have to put all those parts in there, and it's got to be lubed. It's got to have lubrication going through it to stay cool. So you can make five different modifications to the pump, and then still have struggling to get fluid to the back until you drill a hole over here, and now fluid goes through. So even to manipulate dumps and converter dumps, and they're very popular. Everyone thinks they need to have a converter dump on their transmissions nowadays. It's like a band-aid, and 5% of the time they work.

Okay.

So unless your converter is specked, what you're doing and all this other stuff, and if you could have a converter, that might take eight seconds to get up on your two-step. Or as far as it's going to go, wherever the converter is going to go, if it's too tight, but you're not going to launch very well, so people just will put a dump on it, and lose all the fluid in the pump, and it just goes back into the pan. But there's times where, like in a power glide, the way that it works, it's not effective if you just go through the cooler lines. It's downstream. It doesn't... It's like an ineffective area. So sometimes you might gain 15 horsepower, or a 15 RPM, 50 RPM. So if you need the extra 400 RPM to get your converter back up, or your engine's going to be happy, that dump system probably isn't going to work until you re-engineer everything, put a good pump in it, put an actual internal dump system in it. So there's like band-aids that you can put on stuff, and it's a waste of money, unfortunately. And a lot of people go that route, but until you actually do it, you don't know. It could be some systems work differently, the input shaft size, the fluid restrictions in the pump and the bushings, and how fluid goes from A to B. Some stuff it works better on. So some stuff, yeah, works right, but not all the time. So unfortunately, until you find out or you experiment with it and try it, we won't know. I hate to see people put stuff on here that makes them work better or whatever, but it could be a wash too. So unfortunately, but for the most part, the industry takes care of a lot of the stuff for reinventing the wheel. You know, Sonax, the big name companies, and all these people, like, all these people, they're going after a purpose, and specifically making something work better, you know. So, yeah, it's nice to be able to trust other companies too, but...

Do you have a common mistake that you see in this space?

Um, not necessarily, I mean...

Or like a misconception?

Oh, um... No, um...

Whether it's a combination or something, like I guess to more specify the question, like, some people... If you go into, like, let's say Facebook forums, somebody has, all right, well, here's my secret sauce, it works. And then everybody else will be like, no, this is better.

Clutches? Um, a lot of people think that you got to have the, you know, the most expensive, best clutches on the market, you know, they want an overhaul kit. And I try to stay away from all that stuff, too, the forums and, and like the transmission building 101 stuff. I'm part of a couple of secret groups, like, you know, the big name people are on there. There's only 300 of us, like worldwide, but it's pretty much in the nation, you know? I mean, there's awesome, awesome Australian people on there because they're bad a**** too. It's always the Australian. They get into it, you know? But, you know, it's not like, so there are a lot of big name builders are on there. But so a lot of the stuff that I see on like the rookie forums or stuff I've always helping, helping somebody else out on is like clutches. And you have, you have clutches that have tan material, just stock paper, generic stuff, cheap, 97 cents a piece. And so if we're trying to fit six of those into a clutch pack to make it work better, a lot of people think that they got to have the best composition available, the best type of component. And the paper doesn't make it really work better, it just helps it last longer. If you build a...

Please say paper, by the way, what does that mean?

The friction material on the clutch itself.

Okay, gotcha, okay.

Reds, blues, tans, you know, tan paper is as generic, just a standard paper. It's all in every stock transmission. The red eagle stuff, the L-Till reds, you know, there's regbessus material, exody material, they all have their own property composition, but that material, it's meant to withstand heat, co-efficient, affriction and all this other stuff. And so it depends on the fluid you're using too. And so I built 1500 horsepower transmissions that had stock clutches in it, and they were just fine. It depends on what you're doing. And so some people, if it's not the miracle, the miracle product, it's not the miracle part. You don't need the best of the best overhaul kit. You don't need anything that's magical. And you have to pay $15 of friction for it. You're going to put 18 frictions in this car, you got $400 in the frictions. Could burn up in the first pass or on the block because you didn't do it something right. So it's not really what you use, it's about how you do it. Okay. The composition, and like I say, I've taken stock replacement 4L80 transmission parts to 3,000 horsepower. I just took that one apart, that reed case one this morning, and I just looked at the frictions on it. I can still read the ink. Just stock 4L80 frictions I put in there last year. I don't know how many passes, maybe he's got 35, 45 passes on it. It's a dry week car, so he goes on the highway too, but stock 4L80 frictions, I can still read the ink on there like it was the day I just put it in there. So, and second gear is one of those ones that this burns up randomly if you have half a quart low of fluid or too far low of fluid, or 4L80, they have a starvation issue with the pan, so very common to have that burn up. But what are they, $1.39 for a friction? I got five of them in there for that. It works fine. So, it just depends on how much line pressure you have, or it's not necessarily, like I said, the material you're using, it can be, but it's a high energy stock friction anyway. So, no sense of wasting money on something you don't need.

Well, since we're talking stock components in there, is there a stock for stock? In your opinion, what's the best one transmission ever made and the worst one ever made?

Oh, oh boy.

Like reliability handles a little bit of power?

I'm sure, well, today's stuff, I don't really mess with a lot of the stuff on the market today. I know Shawn at DSRC, he's working with that 8-speed. I want to forget if it's Nissan, whatever it is. I guess it's a phenomenally working transmission. I don't know anything about it. I've seen it in the field, Nissan, whatever this thing is. There's a big brother to what I've worked on before. I forget the name, RE5, RO5, 1A, whatever it is. There's a lot of differences in other similar transmissions as time goes on. So there's a lot of stuff out there that's really good, but there's some stuff that's just garbage too. So, but they work, Hyundai's, there's a lot of stuff. I mean, I haven't worked on probably 10, 15 years, and I would refuse to today. I'm not going to work on some Hyundai or some Mitsubishi, something like that. It's out of my wheelhouse. I want nothing to do with it. I've done many of them, but nope, not going to do it. So, I mean, for the most part, I mean, they all have problems, every single one of them. Bearings go out, this one's known to go bad, that's known to go bad. There's updates throughout the whole spectrum of it. So, you know, from a certain transmission, Mercedes has always had a really decent transmission. Ford C6 has always been a good transmission. You know, it depends on what you're doing with it. You know, I can build a C6 transmission to hold 2,000 horsepower, 2,000 foot-pounds of torque, but you're going to have to replace the direct, or the intermediate band, second band frequently, because every 50 passes, it's going to wear out. The band is what holds the second gear, so it'll stop the drum from spinning. So that's how you get second gear in a C6. Turbo 400, now we, 4L80, most of the 400, some of the stuff will interchange and go right in here. So 400 across the board, 4L80 is a 400th overdrive. So a lot of stuff interchanger changes, and kind of the same science across the board, but a little bit different, because now we have lock up, and that doesn't. So they change parts of the pump and everything, but yeah, I'm not sure. There's transmissions I would avoid, mostly, I mean, domestic-wise, GM, I'm not a GM guy to begin with. I build enough of these things to know. That's 60, 70, that's gonna show up here later today from another shop. I was probably one of the first people in the country to ever build one in 2009, and it came out in the platform in 2008. He had 110,000 miles on this car within like 10 months. He was an insurance guy. So you go to the dealer, and yeah, we can get a transmission for you. Once we pull it off the line, and get it in there like six months from now. But I rebuilt it. I had known issues, the 35R drum, or the wave plate breaks, and then just comes flying apart. Been a Achilles heel for the whole design, but Ford parts and the GM parts interchange every time, every single one since that day. And since that day, every one I put in there has been a Ford part in the GM transmission, because they didn't try to save a tenth of a penny and not induction harden that piece. So Ford goes the extra mile to give you a better product to best of their ability. But it's also designed by, I think it was a co-engineer, it was a collaboration with Ford and GM. So they both made it, they both have versions. The Ford vel body won't go in the GM spot, vice versa. But some components inside will interchange, the clutches, the disks, you know. So there's some stuff that does work. So it's kind of like builder science. You have to know what came out of this and that, and if it works, it goes in here.

So how about education for you then, right? Because you're trying to probably keep tabs on what's going on in a community. Where do you get, do you get new information still nowadays?

Yeah, I still keep my fingers on the pulse. I forget all the new stuff. So I'm not very on top of it, because I haven't seen a 2020 Mercedes yet. But stuff like that, it's still part of the Atra community, Automatic Transmission Rebuilding Association. I still keep in touch with what everyone else in the industry is doing, and all these other forums for other transmission builder stuff. So there's other groups of us builders asking people, or whoever it is, looking for information and data on the stuff.

So it's out there.

It's just some of the stuff. If you don't want, there's a whole nerd science evolution of the transmission world. So you can get really nerdy and technical on some of the stuff. I mean, the GWIZ information that's out there is just nuts.

Really? Yeah. So to follow up on that then, so what are some evolutions that you've seen in the last, let's say, 10 years? Has there been anything, any reinventing of any wheels?

No. I mean, as it goes on, the progression goes like the six speeds to the 10 speeds, for instance. Obviously, GM tried the eight speed-ish. People are successful with them. It's not a problem. They're just like a Mercedes. I mean, it's a ZF transmission. It's got some failures here and there. It's not something that was picked up by the industry in the first place. So they had major problems with it when it first came out. A lot of it was clutch material and the fluid and the tuning and just all the other stuff that goes with it because it was new. GM will release a new transmission, a new vehicle to the public and before they probably really should. Then they get caught in the situation.

Yeah, we're seeing that a lot right now with the trucks and everything.

So, as soon as it went on, you can see distinct similarities between the six speed, the eight speed to the 10 speed. You know, a lot of the stuff is of the same manner. But we're also constrained by the manufacturers who get the constraint. They're not to clip by the EPA. So, everything has to be more efficient. We have stop-start stuff now. It's constant with trying to save and maximize the fuel efficiency.

Do you see more wear and tear because of that at all?

No, I don't. You still have... They know what they're doing by now. I mean, they still have the hardened parts. They still have the shafts that could have issues, but where a bushing could spin in a drum because it's aluminum, steel bushing, dissimilar metals. But they're really good at really finding these problems and they're actually maximizing it. A 10-speed is a great transmission. I wish my truck had one. I was one year away, about a 19 Super Duty, but I wish I had a 10-speed. Six-speed is a 6R100, which is just a beefed up 6R80. Same valve body, pan, case, all that stuff, but they added like three bigger shaft sizes in the hubs and the drums, and that's it. Two different bearings. It's the same planet, 6R100. It's not really like a, shouldn't be in a Super Duty, to be honest, to 6R100, but it's way more efficient than the 5R, or the, what is it, the 10R120? 10R140. So it's a big, massive monstrosity. I built a couple of them, but they're huge. I mean, that's why they got away from it in 17, because it takes five miles to the gallon away from it. That's a pig of a transmission. So it's a big, big unit. It's heavy duty, too, you know? So it was the progress from the 5R110. You can see distinct similarities from even like a Saturn, the 6T70, the first one I did, because the Saturn transmission, gone now. But the very first 6T70, I pulled apart, because I knew it was a joint collaboration with GM and Ford. And I can tell, this Saturn engineer did this valve body on the GM, and Ford did the planetary, Ford did the drums, Ford did all the heavy duty side of it. So, you could tell who did what, you know. And so, as the 10-speed progressed, the Allison came along too, that's a 10-speed now. I haven't seen one in life yet, you know, not one in the wild, but they've come a long way and made them strong. And they kind of have an idea. Everything is based on torque rating. So, you know, you're not going to put a quarter inch ratchet in to try to use, take your lug nuts off, you're going to use a half inch drive. So, the shapes are, you know, everything, it's to the science. And they've gone a long way with even check ball and how the fluid flow design goes through the case and the bell body. They've actually put science into it. So, a lot of the stuff is progressed very well. Unfortunately, it's a lot of electronics. So, you know, there's tuning involved. There's solenoids everywhere, wiring harnesses and everything. So, it kind of takes the drawback. You lose a lot of the concept. You know, they're good and bad, until you have electrical fault, they're great. Or until one of the solenoids s**** the bed, they're great. So, I don't know.

It's kind of funny that you said that about your, because in all the Super Duty forums I'm in, I have a 16. But they say that the 19 is the one year you want because a lot of guys aren't liking the 10 speed. I think because of the reliability issues are...

It's possible. It's very possible.

And it could be, you know how it is, only the squeaky wheel is the one that's always b*******. So, there's probably plenty of...

Full of forums and it's older too. So, I mean, 19 might not be predominantly as available, but what was it? Through COVID, nothing was good. Chip shortage, they're selling products and stuff out the door, even campers wouldn't s*** the bed. You know what I mean?

You get a good camper.

The fridge is everything's gone, the microwaves are junk. And so, to buy something that pre-COVID would be far better than buying something post-COVID. It's hard to trust anything anymore.

I just sold a 2014 camper in my list and I said, pre-COVID build.

Yeah, it's a selling point.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So, I bought mine right through COVID. Actually, right after the riots, the guy I bought it from was a fire sale. The guy I bought it from was a Minneapolis police officer. So, during the Floyd garbage when that was happening, we went to Florida. We have to get out of here. So, fire sale, take the camper. It was fully loaded, you know, everything. But it wasn't very much longer after that. When I started looking for my desirable camper, what I would want, like a toy hauler. I should have bought a toy hauler, because it's kind of what I need. But at the time, and everything I've seen since then, like, I'm kind of hesitant, unless it's pre-COVID. I look for something that was actually pre-COVID. It's sort of taken care of, it's maintained, and just put in the shed every year. Winter, it's been all the sun all the time. Even if it's 10 years old, it could still be a good camper. Oh, yeah. Mine's almost eight years old right now, but still, I mean, it was used twice. Literally twice when I got it, so it's perfect. But still, some of the stuff, the manufacturers have to deal with. It's their warranties, it's their recalls. So if they don't put a good product out there, it's kind of up to them. And now that I'm not really at a shop working in the environment day in and day out as a builder anymore, I don't see a lot of the newer stuff, the new new stuff. I still get asked about it. People are still asking about it and see what's good. There's really nothing you can't go wrong with the new 10-speed as far as I'm concerned. I mean, there's teething issues, but.

There used to be transmissions where you were having to work on them often or had problems with it, but they weren't super expensive too. Like I had one of those, I don't know if it's the first gen, but those like mid-90s Dodge Rams. And you knew it wasn't a matter of if, it was a matter of when on those, and I had one go out on me, but it wasn't crazy. It was like maybe two grand or something I had in the shop, and they were in and out because they were probably building them every few minutes. But nowadays, maybe it hurts more. I feel like they're maybe lasting longer, but you're talking now, you're five, 10 grand into it, yeah.

Parts haven't gotten any cheaper. So unfortunately-

They're more complicated.

Yeah, and even like BorgWarner, the Sprague's I tried to buy, domestic stuff. It's all, I don't want the offshore China stuff. You can buy it from India. I mean, all the parts places, they sell the other stuff. They sell other grades. You go to O'Reilly's or Napa, they sell three different grades of quality of product. You want the good, better, or best. That basis, in the transmission world, that's based on brand and where it comes from. So, domestic stuff, BorgWarner, you know, like the RayBest stuff, you can't go wrong with it. But there was shortages, and so sometimes it happens where they're outsourcing other products, too. They just put it in a box. Somebody else's product in their box. So unfortunately, that happens. But yeah, it's s***** to deal with. Sometimes you take parts out of a brand new box, and they're already inferior. You can tell by looking at it, or it doesn't even pass the inspection test. You can't just take a part out of the box and expect it to work. You're not gonna just throw it all up in there. Even if it comes from a big name company, Ross or Cohen, whoever it is from, you can't just throw it in the case and expect it to work.

Yeah, nothing is 100%. Good parts or bad parts. This happens way more often with bad parts.

Right, yeah. So I mean, that's the problem. All of a sudden, they could rip off 2,000 of them, and you're the first person to catch the flaw. That's happened. And unfortunately, it's not gonna be the end of it either. It's just gonna continue to happen. We're recovering, you know, for like parts-wise. You know, everyone's starting to make good quality products. Everyone's getting back to where we're making stuff readily available, and you can just order a Billet Velbody and it shows up 3 days later. The parts that they use, you know, the solenoids and everything, they're high quality, military-grade product. So if you get your parts sourced from somewhere that's trustworthy and they're actually hands-on, they're doing it themselves, you're not gonna go wrong, you know. And if there's a problem, you call them, they take care of it. It's pretty simple.

Here's a question for you with all this tariff stuff. When it comes to American-made products in the transmission world, how's that gonna affect things? You have any idea? Do you buy a lot of American-made?

Well, as much as I can. Okay. When I order overhaul parts for this, I can buy the China stuff, the cheap stuff, you know, it's $3, $4 cheaper, it's not much of a difference. When I put my order in, my sales guy at WIT, he already knows just some of the top-grade stuff, I'm not gonna take something that's cheap. Especially this stuff like this, this has to be the best of the best. It has to work, and I'm not gonna cut corners on anything else. But I think as long as we're making products ourselves, yeah, sure, costs can go up because some places outsource their material. I buy a lot of stuff for these from TCS, that Planet Overdrive Planet for this thing is TCS. You know, it's Canada, you know, they're just north of I think is Seattle. So I asked them when I ordered that a year, a couple of weeks ago, what do they expect? It's like, well, we're kind of eating it for now. They've already enacted some stuff, they're eating it. But, you know, it's just across the border. So it's manufactured in-house. They take a GM planet, stock planet, and re-machine it with the billet splines and the billet top cap to it, and then just sell it. And so they're really just making good money on it, but they're also being imposed a tax to it.

Right.

If they're going to eat that, it depends on how much it is. You know, 10, 20%, I suppose it's going to trickle down economics. It's going to come to the consumer. Eventually, it's bound to. And for me, as long as I'm buying American product, they're using American-sourced product, too, why should their tariffs affect anything? So as long as we're buying within this economy, we shouldn't have any problem. I'm not going to change anything. I'm not going to start buying anything from China. I'll tell you that. So I'll support as many people here as possible.

Well, it's not a cheap sport either. People already expect to spend an absurd amount of money.

And if you've got to spend $50 more because you're imposed on something, I don't think anybody's going to deny that or say, well, I want my parts from China.

Well, I think it's just going to, people are getting all bent on Shavar, but it's just forcing people to do exactly what you're already doing. Like that's the people who know what's up, it's kind of going back that direction, which is the whole point.

Is there a shift? Exactly.

So one of the things that we talked about with Apex Turbo, I'm not sure if you're familiar with them, but they do a lot of stuff here, stateside, but the one thing that they cannot get away from is castings. You have to do that in China just because it's a dirty process. I think the minimum order is like 10,000, which is just not happening for a lot of people. Is there some things in your world that you just cannot get away from when it comes to China-made products?

Yes and no. There's other options. Sonax, for instance. I buy a lot of Sonax parts. And some of the stuff, they have their own plants in India. So they own the actual metallurgy or they own the foragers or foundries in India, and they own the product that they're machining from. So when I get it out of the box, it's probably American-made and machined, but parts are sourced from India. So there's some product and they're not going to use cheap-grade stuff. So like chromoly tubing. You have American or German-made. So if I put chromoly tubing in my car, I'm going to use either one or the other. I'm not going to use some India or Chinese steel at all. So you have choices. So some of the stuff, like Sonax is proprietary for them. They're the only ones who make a 1.58 gear ratio. So if that output shaft had been sourced from India, I can't control that. But you want a turbo 400 instead? I mean, where do you want to take it? So some stuff, you have an option, but some stuff, you're just kind of stuck with it. So I won't buy transmission parts. They get it from Ford. They get it from GM. They get it from Chrysler. They're not going to take a solenoid that's meant for a 6R80 and make it themselves. It just comes from Ford. They just bought, they might buy 5,000 solenoids. And the Witt Distribution Center parts area, they have a ton of them. So then it goes to local distribution centers. So as long as like GM Tecum's, they use them unfortunately. We went through that whole ordeal through COVID where the Tecum came in a GM box from Canada, blue box GM, AC DoCo. And then through, let's see, what was it through? Yeah, through COVID, I used to replace Tecum's frequently because they're contaminated. The converters hit the bed, the screen's faulty, and it just went haywire. And now you have to replace the Tecum. You can't just clean it out and put it back on, freshly overhauled transmission because it's going to possibly wipe out the transmission. So replace it and be done with it. They were coming from Canada, obviously, through GM. And then they started wanting a core on these parts. Why would you put a core on a GM or a dealer part? Then they, so you could tell they wanted them back. But then they started coming from Mexico. So they're obviously taking the good solenoids from that Tecum solenoid pack. It's a computer transmission electronic hydraulic control module. Got all the solenoids in there and the computer to make it work. And so they'll use this solenoid, this solenoid, this solenoid, this one's junk, replace it or fix it, whatever it is. And then put it in a new unit and send it back out the door. It comes in a brand new GM box. And then parts used, about a year later, parts started coming from China. GM box. You're going to the dealership to buy a Tecum. And now it's being outsourced. I don't go to GM to buy products from China.

Right. You're paying a premium for it too, to do that. Yeah.

Well, that's the other thing too.

You don't have a choice though. I mean, we're also gonna get you to make it yourself.

Right.

There's kind of stocks. So unfortunately, you have to live through it.

Well, that's one of the other things through the pandemic. Like all of a sudden, you got used to this other supplier that's also cheaper. Do you really want to go back to it too? It's like, I'll take a little margin too. So I'm curious how much of that's stuck around.

Other companies, it's good with a competition. You know, a lot of people don't like competition, but a competition is good because that part could be cheaper. If there's three other people that make it now, and now you're all competing, and it's the same quality, great product for the input shaft, whatever it is, a valve body even. And so now prices start to come down because competition. So it's nice in that respect where people are, more cost-effectively selling their product, but there's not a royalty on it either. Valve bodies have seemed to come down a little bit in price, like everything. Used to be able to buy a brand new Ford Godzilla when they first came out for what? 6200 bucks, 6100 bucks, now they're at 8500? That was when they first came out. And why would it be so cheap? All of a sudden the prices go up and they're gonna start to come back down again. This is the way the Coyotes were too. I don't know why, but the first year release of anything is the time of year to buy one, if you're gonna buy one. So it is what it is. So I don't see anybody switching to stay with an inferior product or something that's outsourced just to be cheaper. That's where those fly by night deals come through with Craigslist. You have a lot of builders saying, come get your transmission. And they're reusing a lot of the parts. If it's good, they put it back in. Not really the definition of an overhaul, but they're trying to save every bit of money that they can. But here's your $500 overhaul. Do you want a torque converter with that? How long do you really expect that to last? So there's those fly by night shops that those parts are just meant for. I don't want even the problems. I don't want to deal with even the name or having a phone call saying, we have a problem with this or that or this or that. I don't even want that. Call me, but I don't want to deal with any of that stuff.

Well, it's out. It's a part. Like there's times to do so. There's been so many things that I've replaced even on like engines and things like that, because it's out right now. I can reach it. Yeah, I'm like, I'm just going to do this right now.

You're not going to put an inferior part in there.

Exactly.

You know, for your main seal. They give you the cheap one. Who does that? I mean, it's not going to work. You know, it just doesn't happen. But if you know what you're doing, there's times and places for all this stuff, too. You know, just choose your battles. So it depends on where do you want to draw the line. A lot of people, you build a $50,000 big block, and it's ready for all the boosting and throw at it. Why would you stop the budget at the flex plate? A lot of people only want to spend $8 on an overhaul or a transmission. So they shop around and look for the cheapest thing. Oh, JEGS has them for $1,800. How long is it really going to work? How well is it going to work? And how long is it going to last? So, same deal. That's why I go through so many of these other builds. And it just wasn't even built to suit or didn't meet expectations. Or you got a stock transmission that you just got ripped off on or would have had a big blue, a nice blue paint job on it with a sticker. So that happens a lot, unfortunately, because transmissions, I mean, engine, everyone owns engines. Everyone, you know, that's the most important part of the car. So transmission, no one cares about a transmission. It gives a s*** about that thing.

Like I said, I just take a motor and replace them because I'm not diving in there. I actually just did my wife's navigator out there. I had all these pressed on crimp connections now too in the coolers and it is pissing me off. So I had one that was leaking and I was like, I'm going to wipe it off just so I can see where it's leaking because it's messy. And as soon as I touched it with the rag, the whole line came off in my hand. I went, well, that's cool. Now I'm doing brand new cooler lines. Since you're in there. So now I'm like, all right, cool. I'm under here. Let's drop the pan. Let's do the fluid, do the filter. Cause I've heard on those six R80s of that, those particular trucks were, you know, it was a good idea to do that, which is going to lead me to my follow up here. That's another weird area, right? Changing your filter and transmission fluid. It's like one of those questions, half the people are going to tell you yes.

Don't do it.

Some people are like, if it's not f****** with you, don't mess with it.

Yeah.

What are your thoughts on that?

There's, a lot of times I get transmissions and that somebody else has already shotgun fluid at, didn't fix the problem, did it? He just wasted $200 in fluid just to bring it to me with a clean pan of fluid. So by the time it gets to the point of having a pan full of s***, fluid's not going to fix anything. It's not a magical lubricant. So I mean, there's times where the transmission fluid has broke down. You have no lubrication properties in it whatsoever. The friction modifiers are absorbed or burnt out of it. The torque converter is shuddering. It causes major issues, specifically like eight speeds, when they went through the fluid issue. I forget who, it was Mobile One. Mobile re-engineered the oil for the eight speed, then they'd come up with something else. I think it's a blue color. So then it fixed all the shuddering issues in the eight speed. Well, you change your fluid out, and all of a sudden your problem's gone. It's shifting better. It's not shuddering, it's not shaking, it's not doing its thing. And it was just only because of fluid. Now, if you bring something that's burnt up, and there's no hope for it, you're gonna change the fluid for nothing. This is just a waste of money. Some people say that the fluid, the lubrication or the friction material that's in the fluid and suspended in it is actually helping shift better, and it's working better. It's just stuck in the filter. It's not doing anything. You still have dirty s*** fluid going through the rest of the transmission that's not helping. So I mean, if the fluid wasn't fluid anymore, and it's burned up and just gone, there's an underlying issue. Yeah, putting new fluid in it will not help anything. So if the damage is already done, unless it's like a remote issue or a circumstance where it is the fluid, the fluid broke down and it's not burnt up, the transmission is not destroyed or anything, then it's possible that it will change things.

So, but otherwise, if your transmission is not giving you issues, don't be dropping the pan and changing the filters.

Yeah, oh yeah, no, you still have to do your maintenance on it.

You want to do maintenance, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just don't, once, once the fluid starts turning like from a bright red to an orange, it starts getting old, the dye is cooked out of it, kind of, so it starts turning orange. If it gets around 700 degrees, it's clear, because the dye is just burned off, you don't see it anymore. So sometimes, like a race car, you'll see they used a Dexron 3 or Fluid, something that's red, and it got really hot, it starts coming out of the pan clear, because the detergent or the dye is burned out. So different things happen at different heat levels, and there's nothing wrong, especially heat cycles. There's nothing wrong with putting new fluid in something. 30,000 miles, my super duty, 30,000 miles. I tow a trailer, a 37-foot camper with it. So it's one of those things where it doesn't hurt. Before it gets to the point where it doesn't have lubrication in it, or it doesn't have any friction modifier in it, change it. It only makes sense to keep fresh fluid in it, or good fluid anyways.

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Most of the people I build these for, they know what they're doing. They're not going to take, you know, I think this is a, it's going to be built for 1,500 horsepower all day long, but he's going to turn up the boost a little bit, and I think it's a new engine, he said, too. First time I've ever met the guy, like most of the time. I've never met, you know, one of the guy before, that guy I've never met before, this guy I've never met before. We talked for five minutes, what do we do, what does it have to be built for? And I'll call you in three months. So if they know what they're doing, they're going to put it in right and properly. And I'm very adamant on, if I'm not there, like he picked it up a couple days ago, another power glide, high-end power glide for a Nostalgia Pro Mod, lift-off body and everything. He drives a street car. But I'm going to go over to his place. He had put a new motor plate in it, and he wants to make, I want to make sure that the converter spacing is proper. I'm going to go, he's going to measure it. I have to machine the spud down on the converter for the pilot, but still he's going to get all his measurements down. I'm going to go over to confirm it, make sure it's good to go. I mean, he's right across from Hudson anyways, but still I want to make sure people put these things in properly because you just eliminate 90% of the reason that they fail. It's just uninstallation. Converter could be cocked and that was the problem with the last one that he dropped off. The converter was kind of uncentered. It kind of wiped out the pump and I had to do a bunch of machine work and everything. It's been in the car since, I think, the TSI transmission specialties built that transmission in 2006, so it's been really not a race car. It's just kind of a nostalgic thing, but not a lot of time on it either, so I had to go through it. It was in a storage fire, the only reason I went through it. It wasn't because it wasn't working or anything, it wasn't very functioning, but the vehicle was in a storage fire. So I had to go through it. You want to sandblast or recondition the reed case and go through it again. So for some, sometimes, when you go through these things, it could just be a refresh. I just built it 30, 40 passes ago. He just wants to make sure it's good to go before he goes for the year, like everyone else, just make sure it's good to go. So refreshes are very common.

When you're putting that kind of horsepower through stuff, it's probably a good thing. You want to get just into the season and then have it blow up on you.

Yeah, so there's a lot of things that... Sometimes some of these guys, they've known better. All of a sudden, they accidentally squished a converter. And then something just didn't seem right. Where the converter slid out and they crushed the pump gears. Got another guy right in Hudson. Same deal. He destroyed a brand new BTE converter in the pump and everything. It was a C4 transmission, but somebody else built it a long time ago. But he knew better. He's a hard-core hot rod guy, a high horsepower guy. And so he just knew better. And all of a sudden, he's mid-plate, motor plate, a lot of stuff going on. But he sandwiched the pump gears together and turned the key. So I don't know why he wouldn't have. He said, I kind of had an idea when I was trying to turn the motor over, get the convertible through it, but I really shouldn't have started it. You know, and you did it. You don't really probably know unless you took it back apart and say, oh man, but he knows what to look for now. Unfortunately.

Sometimes those are expensive learning curves.

It took a catastrophic failure for it to happen, but unfortunately, take care of it and get it done. But yeah, it happens. You know, two, three times a year, somebody messes their install, ruins a pump and converter, whatever.

Well, mating the transmission back to the engine, I hate it. It's like, because it's not something you can like super visually confirm either.

Lob it up there and hope for the best.

Yeah, right. There's so many times and most of the stuff I've done is manual transmission. So I'm like, s***, did that bearing, did I f******?

The pilot did.

Yeah, the pilot bearing. Yeah, I'm like, damn it. I can't tell right now if it is good or not good.

Yeah. There's a lot that goes to it too. To be able to measure, like, you're talking like tight distances, but use a drill bit to get between the converter and flex plate pretty easy. You're not going to get in there with the caliper. So just use an eighth inch drill bit. It's like a go-no-go gauge. If it works, great. It doesn't. Find out why. You know, is it too loose, too tight? So, but that's pretty much, I mean, the install side of it, if people get that right, chances are it's going to work fine. So, I mean, we're still dealing with stuff, you know, it could be 40, 60 years old, whatever it is. And trusting the pump to be proper. You know, I still flatten surfaces, and true everything up the best you can, but doesn't mean that when it's 110, 200, 220 degrees, that the bore of the pressure regulator valve isn't loose. It's been oscillating. Maybe the pump is half a million miles on it. Chances are it's not, but still, I mean, if it's in good condition, use it. It's what we're doing here when somebody brings a core, unless you want to buy all brand new parts, you know, it could be $900 for a pump, a pump. So, it could be a $15,000 transmission pretty quick. So, we have to kind of depend on the good resources of prior parts, US parts. So, and just recondition everything to make sure it works anyways. But Powerglide pumps, I mean, unless they start making them again, it's all aftermarket. You know, and they're all Chinese castings, all of them. They're fine. You know, there's nothing wrong with them. The pumps BTE has and TSI have, I mean, they had these pumps casted because there's such an outcry for new parts. And they're new, they're better. Actually, to me, I think when I drill them to make passages and lube modifications and everything, to me, they're better casting than the ones in the 60s. So they've come a long way too. So the metallurgy can also at that same time be better than what they did have. True. You know, block castings, for instance, you know, they've come a long way. You know, a stock Ford racing block is a better quality block than you can get back in the day.

Yeah.

Just because of the technology and what they're using and how they scrutinize it. You know, back then, it just poured some some molten metal into a pile of sand. They still do it today, but the, you know, the material that they're using is a little bit better.

Well, they don't do it here because the foundries and OSHA and all that s*** made it impossible. This is why you got castings outsourced.

But yeah, and so I mean, even then, there's there's there's there's problems that arise to, you know. Oh, well, that is like four or five years ago, just maybe through COVID before COVID. I was building a really bad a** pro mod read case. And so I got a bunch of billet cone parts and exotic stuff to go in there. Nothing's besides the part Paul is stock 400 stuff. So a read case and everything and all the parts are sourcing in. And I start, you know, throwing it up on the on the stand and everything. Go to town on it and start assembling, you know, just sub-assembling some stuff and fitting this here and there. And this is the center support. I'll bill it, you know, a nice 7075 aluminum just wouldn't go in the case. Why? You know, where's the problem? So I'll get a stock center support. You know, it still doesn't drop in. Now we're looking at the case issue. And read, I think, built about, or manufactured or cast about 200 units that the case lugs inside the case were half a lug. So the whole case, everything is junk. You can't just re-manufacture a center support to make it fit those cases.

That's not a cheap fix.

No. So I talked to several people on it, and I talked to Colin. I was like, where's the problem here? I didn't have another 400 read case, just to sit around and compare it to. And then I was talking to Colin, and he was like, yeah, oh, so they still have some of those out there. What do you mean? And so apparently there was an issue with the cases that everyone else is knowing about but me. So I called Dennis Reed in California, and why wouldn't you have told me that to begin with? I mean, oh yeah, they just bought it back, shipped me a new one, sent it back in. But the whole line of them, can't even use them, they're junk, scrap them, turn them into new ones. And as far as I know, they sold it in Circle D, now owns Reed. I think they're cast here in Minnesota. Speculation from what I understand, the last time I went to PRI, I was talking to Dennis about it. And he says, there was a case shortage because you couldn't get a Reed case for about a year and a half or two years, because they had an issue with the founder who kicked them out, and they stopped casting Reed cases for Reed. So they had a bigger contract somewhere else, come pick up your s***, your cores, everything, and find someone else to do it for you, because we have a bigger contract. That's what they had to do. And they only build, maybe, or manufacture, maybe 1,000 cases a year, 2,000. I don't know what it is, but they're always like supply and demand. Some might have bought 400 of them, and if you're one of the lucky people who are not 80th in line to get one, hopefully you get it sooner than later, because you have transmissions to build. But if they messed up 200 or 250 of these things, and now half of those.

They're flying real quick, yeah.

So yeah, stuff like that happens, and it's all exotic stuff, it's all custom manufactured, specific materials.

That's a tough situation to be in, because how do you grow that market?

You can kill a business entirely just by going, yeah, nevermind. But I always wondered how that was, what that was like, because we're using, like you said, we're using technology, we're using a Ford 9-inch, using a TH400. Like these things have been around for millions of years, and they're not making them anymore at Ford or GM. So yeah, we're relying on those people to remake that stuff.

Yeah, yeah. Hope it carries on. Yeah.

It seems to be, I mean, TH400s are like fricking...

They're still out there.

Yeah, well, they seem to be a hot thing right now.

Well, yeah.

I'm sure they always have been, but it's, they're throwing them in everything.

Yeah, it's like the LS.

Yeah.

Who doesn't own a dozen of them? You know, if you're an LS guy, you probably got 600 of the bench. Yeah. That's one fizzle, just throw another one in it, you know. And 400s are like nice like that too, because they're cross-universal. You know, I could take parts of all this for and put it in that one. And so a lot of the stuff, it's multi-platform, you know, drag cars, mud trucks, it's a solid transmission to begin with. So, unfortunately...

Would you daily drive one just to settle some other debates we've seen?

Yeah, well, Mustang is going to get a Godzilla. I got a brand new crate engine down at RaceCraft. So they're going to make a K-member for it. And so that Turbo 400 for that car is sitting over there next to the big block. So 400 for that one, there's a 400 for the big block. And, you know, so I'm going to street drive the s*** out of that thing. And so I'm probably... I got a 4L80 on the other side over there. Just wackadoodle the bellhousing off and put a modular bellhousing on it. Just go that way and put a 4L80 in there. So, I mean, you can't deny that 4L80s, 400s, glides, they work perfectly fine for what their application is. And for street driving and all that stuff, I'd rather have a 4L80 in my car than even a 10-speed, you know, just based on complexity alone. So it's a great transmission to transplant. Where a 6L80 was, I built a lot of 4L80s that there used to be a 6L80 behind that car or in that GTO or whatever it is, a Camaro. Trucks too, you know, same thing, 6L80. I mean, it's got so many problems that you have to build out of it, it'll take you eight grand to finalize it and still have tech issues, still have four, five, six clutch issues. Put a 4L80 in it, it's good to 1500 horsepower all day long for a decade. I'll see you in 10 years. It's time for a refresh. So it's hard to deny and hard to beat that. So it's just by design, you know, they did a really good job with it. So the purest, I just quoted, you know, Jarrett balling a transmission, you know, a six speed. That's a lot of money, you know, for one, we want 1200 wheel horsepower with a six speed. It's going to take parts, it's going to take materials, it's going to require some science. They're not cheap. And I still do them, they're always cheaper than what you can buy them from. You know, there's a shop out there, was it Midnight Performance? I think it is.

We went to go visit them.

Did you really? Yeah. Are they good people?

Usually, I mean, we didn't talk to him too much. Everybody was picking up a twin turbo kit from him. So we got to talk to him a little bit.

Oh, okay. I have no idea who they are, what they do. I know they sell transmission. I don't know if they build them there themselves.

Oh, yeah.

Is it PPG?

No, no, no, it's PPG. F***, what do they run in those? It's like Pure or whatever.

Oh, Pure drivetrain solutions.

That's what it is. I think that's what they run in those. I think he sells them on behalf or some sort of deal. Basically, if our buddy wants one for his twin turbo truck or single cab he's building, he would go through him.

Yeah, you would get it. They're called the Midnight Performance Transmissions.

Yeah, okay. So I don't know if they're like an actual shop.

We were at a shop. They are not building transmissions at the shop we were at. So I'm not sure. I'm assuming that's an outsourced thing.

It's some partnership or something. It's some deal, right? Yeah, I don't know.

Like a vendor type thing, maybe.

Yep, okay. So to compare their product, it's the same parts I'm gonna put in it, same build. Chances are, I normally like, there's a big four lady guy down in Texas. But either way, to build something similar to his, you can use a pricing matrix for it. An $8,000 transmission, I mean, it's no more than six grand. It's not a big deal, but you're not paying for the name and the sticker. That's the big thing. And half the time for that same transmission, I'll put more parts in it than what he would. I always overbuild everything, everything. Why would you build something to meet expectations? Transmission is the last spot to even cheap out on something or put an extra part in it that is going to need it or something that's going to make it more reliable or dependable. And just by composition alone, if you need an overdrive, build an overdrive planet, it needs it. It's part of the deal. You want a 1500 horsepower transmission, it needs this part. Or when do you want it to fail? I don't, I mean, the Senate bring it back to me in three weeks. I mean, as far as I care, I'll go through it again.

So, okay, you raise a good topic there, right? Because a lot of the times we hear, especially like when it comes to certain platforms, all right, it's good for 800 or 900, or it's good for 12 or 15. When do you know it's, like, because you don't fall in that it's good enough category. When do you know it's time to start over building?

Based on what you're going to be doing with it. And the weight of the vehicle. I mean, a lot of stuff, basic transmission science would go for what's its intended purpose. Are you drag racing it? Yes, you need a trans break. Trans break adds a lot of extra forces to something that never was going to be there in the first place. You're hydraulically binding the thing up and mechanically binding it, and then all of a sudden just releasing it and all of a sudden it's gone. So that's a lot of torque off the bat. So a 6-speed transmission, the 6R80 has a solenoid jumper, the transmission to have a trans break, for what I understand. I've never done it, I don't see any setup, I just build the things. And so if someone is going to be doing that, well, we need better shafts, we're going to need a better intermediate shaft for sure. Especially clutches too. So your horsepower has to meet your expectations for the build. If you're going to have a 1500 horsepower car, you're going to need more clutch capacity. You're going to need better clutches. You're going to need more, like I say, better hard parts. So some stuff is known, like your 10 speeds, they're good to put 1000 horsepower stock, throw a converter in it and things like match to your engine. And it's good to go for quite a while. And they're really reliable.

I think Joanna was 12 or 1400, I think.

Yeah, she's in the eights, right?

Yeah. Well, now she's being a TH400.

Yeah, going from R?

Yeah.

Yeah, that had a reliability.

So no, she took it out, she claims it's still shifting like the day one.

Doesn't surprise me. I mean, they're really a good strong transmission. And once it's built, and like I say, some of the stuff that's nowadays is out in the market is going to be expensive. Your planets, your drums, your billet parts are going to be expensive because nobody's really getting into the 10R80 stuff yet. And they are, but the product availability, nobody makes a mainshaft for it yet. When do they need it? Nobody knows what its capabilities are yet, because we haven't run 2,000 horsepower through one yet. So basic knowledge of science of these things just means that it just dictates you need more clutch material. You need more surface area for the clutches to hold power. So you have an input shaft that's trying to rotate 6,000, 4,000, whatever RPM. Your clutches have to sandwich on to get your shift to happen. It's just a stacked, stacked synchronous shift most of the time. So the next clutch that comes off or the next clutch that comes on has to be synchronized. It's got to be perfectly tied. And if it binds up, you're gonna put extra force into a shaft where if it was a stock shaft, it'll break, it'll snap in half. So you increase the, change the composition of the material, and now it suits a purpose. So now you have the next weakest link. The input shaft and the forward hub and a 400 and a 480. Change those two and you're good to 1000 horsepower as long as you have the proper line pressure. As long as you have the proper, up to the hard parts. And as long as you have clutches. As long as it's there, I mean you can use stock stuff to 1000 horsepower. Change the forward hub and then the input shaft and you should be good. So the next week is link, it depends if it's a second gear lever, manual valve body, second gear lever. Now you need to build it main shaft because the main shaft that was in there is now weak material. Now you have to put either a 300M, a Vasco, Aramet or a 300 Mirage shaft in there. Could be a NASA shaft too. But do you want to spend $1000 on a main shaft as good to 4000 horsepower that you'll never even see or use? Or do you want something that's just a 4340 just a step above factory? But it should be good for 1500 horsepower all day long. Now you change gear ratio, you put it into a mud truck. I don't know why somebody would put a 4L in one, but you put it into a mud truck, a totally different application, you'll never need it. Just a stock main shaft would have worked just fine. So depends on what you're doing.

So I see a monster truck up there. Have you ever done anything from one of those before or no? I guess what's the most intense application you've built something for?

Boy, I'd have to think about that. No, not a pure monster truck, no. Swamp donkeys, yeah, just your typical big block Chevy, swamp donkeys with nitrous, 1500 horsepower cars or trucks, swamp donkeys. Just generic mud trucks. Trophy trucks, I mean, I've done one for a trophy truck, but they use just Turbo 400. This whole reed racing got into business, was doing that, and they did an application where they needed a heavy duty case. So now they have, so their trophy trucks, four wheel drive stadium trucks are a little bit different, but just because we're in swamps everywhere, Minnesota, Wisconsin, there's mud trucks are all the way around here. But yeah, I mean, just stock 400 really kind of works really well for that. I'll create some hard parts, but.

Okay.

I mean, like the biggest application, I mean, the garbage trucks, you know, like an Allison, world class Allison, they're huge. You take the torque converter apart and fill up this whole bench, just the cover, the pump cover. Really?

Okay.

Oh, they're huge.

Like garbage trucks that pick up trash?

Yep.

Dan knows all about those.

Yeah. I just turned in front of one the other day.

Oh boy.

And my truck got hit. So yeah, yeah. That was one of those, like, I'm a pretty good, I don't crash a lot, but there was just a f****** Monday morning situation. I wasn't paying attention.

Weren't awake yet?

Yeah. Yeah.

Jesus. Yeah. No, it happens.

Yeah. Thanks, guys.

Didn't see it coming, huh?

Yeah, yeah. No, I did not.

Didn't see the dump truck going down the...

Yeah.

All right.

Anyway, as far as I know, the transmission's fine on that one. Good. Just got a few scuffs on the front of it now.

Do you want a body guy, at least? Did you clip to T-boned or...?

I just, again, I was trying to cut across the lane, which I shouldn't have been doing anyway, and I f****** turned and...

Gotcha.

Yeah, so I just got my front end a little bit, but I'm gonna fix it.

Still driving it all right?

It's not pretty, but yeah, I drove it around a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah. No, there's some stuff out there that, all of a sudden, it just shows up, you know? He's just having to do it.

So you can do pretty much anything, then? Do you do anything like DSG or DCT-wise, or no?

No, I've gone in the realm of the Ford CFT, CFT 30s. The Ford Taurus X first started using that CVT a long time ago. I mean, 2000, whatever it was. I've been through dozens of those. The Nissan, the smaller Nissan, there's two different sizes. I forget what they're called, but the big brother and the little brother Nissans, I've done plenty of those. And it's a CVT, so it's a glorified snowmobile. It's a chain, but it's a belt. They've had plenty of problems with them. They're kind of more or less predominantly a disposable transmission. So when that's the fact...

Yeah, we've heard a lot. You're talking about the Nissan and all that stuff?

Yeah, there's a reason why they're not really sticking around or...

That's why Nissan's in trouble.

Are they in trouble, really?

I don't know anything about it. Oh, Nissan's been just struggling. They were talking about being sold the Honda and all this stuff, and a lot of people in the comments are like, yeah, it's a stupid transmission. Nobody wants that car.

Yeah, no. They're stuck with it. They've been using it forever. The first time I did one, there's no published information on it. There could be now from the dealership, but they're hiding it, but they really can't legally. They can't tell you how to work on the vehicle.

Oh, I just remembered. So we had Ashley Vaughn on the show. She worked at a Nissan dealership, and when they were warranting them, they had an entire wall of transmissions sent back to throw away. Like, they were just ridiculous.

No, it's a disposable deal. Then they started getting wise on it, started actually selling parts. But by the time you need the pulley and the variator and the chain or belt, it's at five grand. Just buy a box unit from Nissan anyways, which is brand new. So like I say, it was a disposable deal. If they didn't have any published data on how to take it apart, service manual or anything, it should be a no-go. It should be a no-brainer, but everyone's doing them. I quit doing them probably six, seven years ago. It was only because of the shop I was working for. Actually, we were doing them. I've still got some specialties, tools, and all the stuff to do it. I would do one today.

But you're not doing any dual clutch stuff, though?

No, no. Okay.

Manual transmissions? You've screwed around with those, too?

I gave those up a long time ago, too. I'll do it. Oh, yeah. They're hard to get parts for. I love them. My first drag car had a TKO, faceplated in the Fox body. That was a ton of fun. I've never had more fun in a car, just shifting gears, just going on the strip. But to get a Tremec part, I went through a couple of T56s here three, four years ago, and they even get the parts. Tremec quit making them. The last one I did was for a GTO-5 or something, and they quit making parts, and the parts you're going to get come from Tremec. So unless it's... They don't make the T56 anymore. You know, it went on to production, I don't know how long ago, but it's a 6060 now, I think. I don't know, maybe they're done with that now, too. So Hamon Motorsports used to be the place to get the stuff, and they would have sourced parts, so they have, again, core parts that they could sell you. So it's fine if it's just another used part. But if it's prone for inherent weakness problems, like the output shaft on this thing, or the mainshaft on it was known for issues. That's why it was only used for two or three years. So depending on what casting number, what specification you got for the transmission for the part you need, there's a reason that they probably quit making it, and it's just hard to get. So no aftermarket company has picked up the trimmer parts in the first place. It's kind of proprietary, and a little bit, but there's aftermarket companies doing it. So unless you send your transmission to somebody East Coast, West Coast, or somebody you know local who's like a specialist in this stuff, it's hard to get parts for. So there's people I can refer to, to want something done, call this guy. So I've done many of them. I mean, many thousands of them. It takes five minutes just to set up the press, just to set a cluster off. I can have an automatic transmission whipped up by the time I get the thing apart. There's press plates, there's all sorts of specialty tools involved. It's not a big deal, but it's just a process.

No, Bowen's going through an MT-82 for me right now, and it's been a while. But yeah, I think I'm getting an input shaft because we couldn't get the gears off of the other ones.

Oh boy.

Yeah.

So, they still make that? Are they using that transmission still?

They are, I believe, in the new ones. I'm not 100% sure, but I bought a bunch of hardened parts and things. So we're building it a little bit better. Yeah.

I've never built one similar. Things like, it's nothing that's never been done before. You crack one open, it looks the same as many others. But I know they have inherent problems too. Like the rail, the shifter section, I guess is pretty weak.

Oh yeah. I did a shifter right away on it. So I had an MGW on it, but I grabbed third gear and a Whipple 5.0. And yeah, I hit her real hard. Took every tooth off of it.

Yeah. And when that happens too, I mean, you're wiping out just not that one part, but they're hardened parts. So yeah, it fragments and ruins other stuff. So no different than this stuff. Same thing, but-

Jarrett was impressed with my distinctions.

I'm sure it's not the first one, but still. No, I mean, I've seen them apart. I've had people ask me for them, MT82s. And I've got the press. I've got press plates to get all the clusters and the gears off and everything. I just choose, I don't want to. I gave up, last manual I did. I mean, I'll do select ones, you know, Mopars or Ford Toploader or something. I've done many, many, many of them. So I just rather choose not to. Like imports, over domestic stuff, transactional stuff. Unless it's for a shop or somebody, you know, just mom and pop general stuff. You know, I'm not going to do a Hyundai, a Mitsubishi, you know, anything that comes under the key. I think it's probably a Hyundai anyways. But still, you know, there's a lot of stuff. You just pick and choose your battles and know what you're good at and focus on that.

If you can work on, let's say, three transmissions for the rest of your life, which three would they be? If this is your perfect customer.

It feels like I'm already doing it.

Yeah.

4L80s for sure. I mean, 4L80s are... I do dozens a year, you know, just for very high horsepower. I just did, well, there's one outside that's ready to go. I did those two at the same time. Both of them are 1500 horsepower cars. One's a truck, but both built for 1500 horsepower, and it's very common, and I do a lot of them. They're fun to build. You know, like Fords, I do like building C6s. I've got some really b***** C6s out there. I'll roll their eyes for 100 parts in it, all custom machine stuff. Fully roll their eyes in everything, but a 6-pinion plan is from the Super Duty stuff, transplanted into a 60s, whatever case, you know, C6. You know, supercharged whatever, you know, Broncos or mud trucks, whatever it is, they're fun to build. So, I mean, there's really not one specifically. I mean, I build so many of these damn things. It's, I mean, they're here all the time. You know, I do dozens a year, and a lot of them, it's so easy to whip up for a 1500 horsepower build. And they were great stock for, you know, 800 horsepower, just change an input shaft if you want to. And even stock ones still will work fine. So, it's not really, it doesn't really matter which ones I'm doing because they all get, you know, the same amount of love and attention that it needs to go into every single part. The pump has to still get everything that needs to get done on every single one, you know. Unless it's like a billet, a bad a** pump or a build, but there's not a lot to do with that to fix, you know. You use $12,000 worth of Cohen's parts, and what am I supposed to do with it? Just make sure that it looks good or it's supposed to go together, right? There's some stuff I have to change or I still rearrange, but I'm not going to remachine or re-engineer their product, you know, so some of that stuff, it is kind of like, yeah, you do have to do some drilling here and there, but I'm not really machining parts for that application. So, you know, anything, 3000 horsepower, power glide, enjoy just as much as anything else, you know. It's not going to leave the door by tomorrow, you know, or like, it's going to stay here, you know, like two months, you know, as parts trickle in or jump from this one to this one. And it depends on, like I say, whatever stuff shows up too. So, four ladies, I mean, they're just fun to build. I really don't have a preference, but as a Ford guy who builds 90% of everything GM, I'm kind of stuck, you know, but whatever, it doesn't matter to me.

Well, I've had almost solely Ford's my entire life. And to be honest with you, the amount of transmission problems I've had over the years are very minimal. You know, I have a 4R70W and an Expedition that went out, but I was using it to plow on an Expedition. So like I was doing things I should have been doing.

It's a plow on an Expedition.

Yeah.

But yeah, so I mean, the bread and butter of the industry has always been GM stuff, always. I mean, I used to do, I mean, for the last, what, 20 years now, as a transmission guy, 3 to 4 4L6s a week was very common. You know, it was the bread and butter of the industry.

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So today, now, current stuff, the 6L80 is now the bread and butter. There's a round. They're everywhere than every vehicle. They also need a punch of extra attention too. So, but they are, they last longer. They can handle more power, more torque. So, you know, as time goes on, 700R4 came out in 1982, was used in the, you know, upgraded to the 4L60 and then the 4L65, 70, whatever it is. Same transmission more or less, but what did it go to, 2011, 2009? So, I mean, there's different iterations of the same transmission, but when they came out with the 6L80, you can run three times the amount of power you could ever think about in a 4L60 in a stock transmission now. So, it's come a long ways. So, I mean, they realize that people are doing stuff with these things, that they want it reliable. And reliability means it has to be held, built, to withhold extra abuse. That's what we're doing with these things. So, as long as it's built to sustain abuse, you know, and it's built above and beyond what they're really going to be doing with it, it stands to reason that it's going to be a better product to begin with.

Well, look at these manufacturers. The OEMs now are coming out with cars that are 700,000 horsepower stock. So, they need to do something.

Yup, yup. So, I mean, they realize it, too. And, you know, some of the racing stuff, like Godzilla, for instance, you know, Brian Wolfe, he was part of the engineering of the engine. He's been a Ford race guy forever. He's been factory Ford racing in MRA back in the day. I mean, I remember going through RacePage magazines when they were actually a magazine back in the day, 20, 30 years ago almost. And these guys are getting it done. Well, he retired from Ford, helped co-engineer the Godzilla. But he's using it in his platform for his, in his Fox body, his race car. He's got almost just under 2,000 horsepower through a Godzilla. And getting it done. And when these guys are developing this stuff in the factory to make it go out the door, they're anticipating that people are gonna be put superchargers on. They sell them. Ford racing sells this stuff. They sell performance packs for these engines and all this stuff. They always have. So they kind of know that there's things that need to get done and people are gonna do something else with this. So it's nice to see that they're still intermingled with the performance side of things, too. Yeah. So I don't know how much of it... I mean, the LS is a lot of parts interchange from the LS to the Godzilla. Lifters, for instance, are just dropping.

Oh, really?

Exactly.

Okay.

So the lifters I ordered, they're just an LS short travel, whatever lifter, a Johnson lifter, for an LS. It's just changing. You're going to do a link rod or link bar instead of the buckets. But Ford, their block is like an LS. Six bolt mains, deep skirt, the crank is in the middle of the block. It's a huge 60 millimeter journal. It's a big crank or a big camshaft. And now, I don't know why, they went the way of the GM, and now you can't get the lifters out without pulling the heads off. Oh, really? Ford, forever, you just take the manifold off, and the lifters will come out once you do the rockers. You don't have to take the heads off. It's just something like that. That's the LS world. You can't get the lifters out without pulling the heads off.

Well, I remember a lot of Ford, like small block Ford kits, the valve covers came with those easy twist-off T-handle things, so you could just get in there real quick.

Well, maintenance, yeah. Exactly, and all those other things. Friday night, before you go out on a Friday night, you set your lash. Just make it convenient and easy. But no, I mean, they've come such a long way as to have, I mean, granted Ford's always gone the way of having s*** rods and pistons, so you gotta put new rods and pistons and stuff nowadays, but, you know, if they had a Ford forged bottom end, it'd be great, but now the forged crankshaft is, it's forged, you know, it's like the Coyotes, they're good to 2,000 horsepower stock. You can be done with it, you know, but like the old Cobra days or the old four or six days, you still have to add rods and pistons to, you know, go past even what RPM you want or whatever power level you want. So you still have to do that today, but I mean, it's still a much better product than what you had from the old 302 days, when they split it 500 horsepower. Now you got two piece block.

Yeah.

So unfortunately, I mean, they went through some small block Ford issues, but stuff happens, you know, you know, it's just the way it goes. But every all these manufacturers, they're still making stuff and making improvements on it. Unless they're going to ditch the platform like the 8-speed, you know, it was here and now it's gone, and it's not here to stay. So it's going to be hard to duplicate stuff like the 4L80 that was around forever. It was a reiteration of a 400, you know, since 1967. So technology wise, people are going to start having issues or want to run more power than what the stock transmissions are good for, or have problems running the electronics, and they're going to have to go back to a 4L80. We do it all the time. Just a swap, you know. Even with resto mods, it's cool to see that people don't want a million horsepower, and they're satisfied and realize that 800 horsepower nowadays works just fine. You're not going to go light the world on fire at a racetrack, but 800 horsepower at a street car, you'll have fun. I guarantee it, you know. And to have something like a resto mod truck, 50s truck, or whatever it is, put a complete takeout from one vehicle, or an express van, and put it in something else, and have it work fine with a six speed is all you could ask for, you know. And it has more power and performance than what something would have been 20 years ago if you used a takeout from a 4.8 or 5.3 Chevy with a 4.0 60.

Well, doing all of that, and still getting like 15 miles of a gallon or more, right? That stuff from back in the day was like 400 horsepower and two miles of a gallon.

And it had to be loud and rowdy and obnoxious. And not very reliable and dependable. So you build it up, and you still have to make... You want a 700 horsepower 4.0 60, you'll still have to spend $7,000 to do it. How many times do you want to do it? We can make it work on the Dyno once, and I could probably use a lot of stock components to make it happen, but you want to actually make it shift and hold power while you're actually using it, it's a little bit different story than just make a pole in a third gear. So it depends on what you're doing there again. What are you doing with it, and how much abuse are you really going to give it, and how long do you want it to last? So if you want to cheap out on components, and there's places to do it and places not to do it. So yeah, and like I say, the factory stuff, it's great to see all this stuff. It's just progressing, just continually, just goes to 10 speeds. And I don't think it's going to get any higher than that, but I mean, some people have 12 speeds, Chrysler had a 12 speed, and I wouldn't want to try to make it for performance. It's not really designed for it or anything, but I guess it works really well. But it's got its limitations like everything else. So are you going to dedicate your build or whatever your rest will mod into like a Mercedes swap? Or some people do the Hellcat thing and put a Hellcat into something, want to use the 8-speed transmission from it? I wouldn't. 4L80. Just be done with it. Just get rid of the complexity of it all together. But like I say, Shawn, he's really doing the setting the world on fire with the Haltech stuff with that. It's good to see.

We had a good conversation yesterday about some stuff that's coming down the Corvette pipeline. So that's gonna be really cool.

And like I say, it comes back to the engineers, the designers. If they're able to build a transmission that's more efficient, more effective, holds more power, and it's more reliable, everyone's a winner. You can't go wrong. Unless parts are $10,000 for an overall. So there's standpoints of it. But yeah, it comes to the realization that hopefully you pick a platform, and you can stay with it. It's not gonna be around for just two years, and then go to move it on to something else. And by the time people are pulling this stuff out of the junk yards, and you just go buy one for, we used to get these for like 50 bucks. Not anymore. Everyone knows what they're worth. So you can't get a good car hardly anymore, especially around here. But if you choose to go with a platform, that's you're gonna transplant something or wanna design something to have just a hot rodder. Something that puts it in a Willys or whatever. If you're gonna dedicate that vehicle to that platform, hopefully it's a good platform to stick with. So it is tried and true for LEDs, there's a good platform, 400 is a good platform. So across the board, there's a mini platform. I'm not an import guy. So I'm sure there's a lot of transmissions out there that work well for them. The 400 horsepower transaxle or whatever, there's gotta be a ton of them. And also somebody else is using it. I mean, you're not gonna put a 400 in something that's front wheel drive. So I know there's something.

We'll find a way.

I know there is something, but like I say, it's a whole other world around with it. I don't even get involved in.

Is there anything, whether it's OEM or aftermarket, is there anything coming in the near future that you're excited for?

Not really. The concepts are there. A lot of stuff doesn't stick to paper. I still drive the Loser Cruiser or the Crown Vic out there just because it's an old, dependable, reliable vehicle. I try not to buy anything that's just new off the line. I don't want anything that's not proven. There's a lot of stuff that I put some thought into, like getting a vehicle. There's escorts I wouldn't buy. There's fusions I wouldn't buy. But what I bought for my wife, it's a great platform, great engine. Everything else across the board fits the bill. But yeah, there's really not... Some of the stuff is so technologically advanced, I don't want it in the first place. I should have ordered a new Super Duty a couple years ago.

But I mean more so in your world, like in the transmission world, is there anything from the big names that they're coming out with that is interesting or not really?

No, I'm not, no. There's nothing that I really care about.

Okay.

That's even C. Okay. What's here is good enough to me.

That's what I say.

I have the EPA down my back, trying to get every bit of economy, all of these things. And I'm not using it for the intended purposes anyways. So we're turning it up a bit.

Off road use only over here.

Yeah, exactly. So but from, it's just the sand point of like the 10 speed.

Okay.

It's a great transmission. Like I say, I've never built one for performance for the Camaro guys or whatever they're using them in, in the trucks and everything. We haven't gone down that avenue yet, but there's no reason not to. It's a great platform. And I don't know what's coming down next. I have no idea. I'm sure it's coming down to like the electronic b******* or the electric vehicles and just the transmissionless wonders. So there's not gonna be a lot of drivetrain stuff that's gonna be like revolutionary. I can imagine. The CVTs were here and kind of still here. I don't know who's still using it today. I don't know, probably Honda is.

Yeah, I think that's just about it.

Is Nissan still? I don't know.

I'm not sure if they've given up on that yet.

Nissan, they think they're really struggling.

I know that the Honda CVTs, it's in the, what's it called, in the Civics or whatever. I think that's still around.

I've never done one.

I know they're still playing around with the concept of CVTs with gears. I watched a cool video on that recently, but we'll see what happens with that.

There's always ways to maximize something. Have you ever driven a CVT vehicle?

No, I haven't.

I mean, other than a side by side four wheeler.

Yeah, it's the same thing. You put the pedal down and the RPMs go up and just stay there. You're expecting it to shift, but you just keep accelerating and just going. It's just a weird sensation when you expect something to shift. And I don't know how they're more efficient. I still don't understand that. Just because if you're going to be doing straight consistent 3000, 4000, 5000 RPM to get to a point when RPMs drop, I mean, you're changing gear ratio. Yet, I mean, there's only four ratios to change infinitely. You know, there's thousands more gear ratios to choose from with it, but it's not a perfect application throughout all of it. So, you know, once you change it, you're not going to race a CVT transmission in a vehicle. I've never heard of it. I mean, I don't know if anybody makes a high stall converter for a Nissan. You know, a Nissan CVT or even a Honda. So that kind of defeats the purpose. You know, it's meant for efficiency and economy. You know, it's meant to go from gas station to a grocery store or home.

Right.

It's not meant to be performance or beat on or anything. And I can say that's kind of why I don't think they last very well either or longer either. So, I mean, when you have a transmission that's prone for failures, I think the earliest one I ever did was 70,000, 65,000 miles on a CVT.

Geez.

Oh, yeah. I mean, some of the times at the dealer, they don't even leave the dealership, you know.

Basically brand new. Or is brand new.

Yeah, right. You know, and that's the problem. These really probably shouldn't have come to the public yet. You know, it happens a lot.

It does blow my mind sometimes like how crazy, like how well developed some things are. And in other things, it's just like, oh yeah, just put this garbage out there. How does this happen at a level where it's costing them hundreds of millions of dollars?

But they just all of a sudden realize it. Like they probably wrote, well, most of the big wigs probably don't even realize it when that is happening. And all the bean counters behind there, counting costs left and right. But like the 6T70, for instance, is three five hour wave plate. If they chose to decide to save a tenth of a penny per unit, that's, I mean, how much did you actually save? The customer didn't save anything. Well, I mean, you didn't save anything either, with all the lawsuits and everything, and the transmission that was prone for failure. So I mean, it happens every single one of them, every single transmission off the line. I don't care if it's, every vehicle off the line has got inherent problems with it right before it even takes to a customer. So, you know, everyone's a guinea pig, everyone. You can't buy, so I don't buy something, first thing off the line, I refuse to.

First years are never a good idea.

No, you know, even like used, I choose to buy everything, you know, at least one year old. Last vehicle I bought, that was brand new. What was it, 2000? No, 1999, 1998. So everything else has been, you know, one year old, or sometimes got 10, 15,000 miles on it. I don't want to be the schmuck to take the dive on it anyway, it's just what I knew. You know, if I got the opportunity.

What did you buy in 1998?

I was an XCOR ZX2. Oh, okay. Yeah, so after that, I was looking for a fuel economy. Actually, no, that was a lease. Yeah, that was a lease car, but it was new, nonetheless. I was working at Ford at the time, I was like, I need one of these. I was driving my F-250 10-inch lift, big 40-inch mudder tires on it with a 460 and a C6. Great high school truck, just to get pulled over all the time. And Stillwater Cops had it all for me. I mean, they see you coming. How do you miss a truck that 10-inch lift and 40s and low and obnoxious? But that was my high school truck. And then, yeah, once I was driving it back and forth to work out of high school, I was like, I need something better than this. Twice a week, filling up, what is it, almost 80 gallons a week, just driving it as a high school kid. No, we're done. So yeah, I was working at Ford at the time, and I was a mechanic, and then, yeah, just they had it sitting there, I was like, s***, this will be perfect. So but yeah, I was just two years, lease on that deal, and then about my Thunderbird. So back to fuel-efficient kind of cars a little bit. But still, it's one of those things where you gotta have a necessity for it. I always wanted to try to choose something where it wasn't gonna be brand new. It's not the state-of-the-art something or other. My dad's done that quite a bit. You buy something like, what the hell was it, the Fiero. What a mistake that car is.

Yeah, I know, right?

And then what was it? The next car that he bought was a Levin, and it's not very practical for kids. And somebody without kids, a Fiero would be great. Or somebody doesn't have to drive it with four passengers, perfect. So they didn't have that very long, but then they got an 87 Grand Prix. What was it? Grand Prix something. But it was a Levin. It was actually a Levin buyback. That car, it was in the dealership more than we owned it. It was just nothing but problems, electrical issues left and right, because it's a GM product. GM and electrical, they don't really do very well.

Well, Pricer doesn't really have a good deal for that either.

So yeah, either way, I mean, it's overly complex. There's buttons everywhere. You know, it was a state of the art, whatever the hell it was. And everyone back in the 80s was always about buttons and features and lights and all this other s***. And so that car didn't last long, but it was always a brand new car. This was a brand new car, that's a brand new car. And you have to live through the problems too. So I don't wanna keep dropping the thing off at the dealership or let somebody else work on my car after I just bought it. So no, I'll buy something that's already proven, used, maybe has a transmission in it. So just like the Crown Vic. Somebody else's problems, not mine.

You know they depreciate anyway, so if you just wait a year, you're gonna save tens of thousands of dollars a lot of time.

I saved 10,000 on this one. Just a year and a half old or whatever. It's like, yeah, I'm glad I didn't go new just to get the 2% less on my loan. It's like, yeah, just ridiculous.

Before I had that Super Duty, I had a 2015 Lincoln MKT, the touring version, a cool car. It was great. It fit all my airplanes in there and everything, and the kids, all-wheel drive, twin-turbo, 3.5. So it was a great vehicle. What was it? It was a 15. I bought it in, seven, seven? No, I bought it in 19, because the truck is 19. I bought it in 19. It was a $55,000 car. I paid 24 for cash.

Luxury vehicles, they take the biggest hit.

It was crazy. Some elderly couple had it, and it was in mint condition, had 26,000 miles on it. I got rid of it with 55, because I was scared of the timing chains and the water pump. It's a 10 hour water pump. Holy crap, I don't want to deal with this. So even all the mixture valves and all the stuff in the dashboard, it was an awesome car. I love that car. Great amenities and everything, but yeah, I just don't want to work on the high end maintenance side of it too. So got rid of it, just got my super duty and said it because I needed a truck to tow the camper. But still, it used. I think it was two years old or three years old, and it was less than the sticker price on the vehicle. I stole it, and I still sold it for 22,000. So I traded it on the truck on that, so it was perfect. It cost me $3,000 to own the thing, including title and all that stuff and taxes. Perfect. You can't lease a vehicle that cheap. Plus I had a ton of fun in the car.

It was a lot of fun.

So 5,000-pound vehicle, but still we turned it up a little bit.

Well, that one, those had the 3.5 EcoBoost in them too, right?

That was two-turbo. Yeah, yeah.

So yeah, the same thing in my Navigator there. We were looking at MKTs too, because they had the third row.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I love the car. I would like to find another one. Probably not. They had a different engine in there too. It depends on the year too, but it was a great vehicle. I mean, it was a really good car, but very complex. It had more amenities and stuff in there that I really didn't care for. When I order a truck, if I spec a vehicle or something, if I go that road, I'm not going to look for something that has all this other b******* in there, like the lane assist and all that stuff. I almost got in a wreck with the Lincoln in that, because somebody in front of me, I was gradually turning, doing 65 miles an hour down the interstate. There was a gradual turn. Somebody turned off to the left in the left turn lane. My yaw sensor obviously didn't realize that there's somebody over there and they went over this direction. I'm in my lane doing just fine. All of a sudden, I'm cruise control was on. All of a sudden, all these lights and everything started blinking on the dashboard and it like almost locks up the tires for me. I couldn't turn. I couldn't find the disabled to turn the cruise control off fast enough because I thought it was in a rear end somebody. They just turned over here in that lane. So I didn't really know that they were over there. You could sense that there was a vehicle there. That's why it went through this b******* and conniption fit. But the people behind me, they're damn near locking up their brakes and had to change the reaction because my brakes, I'm just cruising around the highway.

Been there, done that with mine too at our little friends rally last year when I was coming up on a bright colored R8. I almost went into the back of it because it locked up my tires on me. I'm like, I got decent tires. I can control this.

Sure, sure.

Let's lock up and freak out now. Yeah, but anyways, as we kind of start to wind down here, we've, that was a quick two hours, man.

Really? Two hours?

Yeah.

I was cooking, but-

I'm about to put you guys to work. You got other stuff to do. I'm going to learn how to build a transmission.

Yeah. We could obviously go on forever here, but as we start to wind down, is there anything that you think? Because you mentioned at the beginning of this episode, it's a very small community that you guys have in a transmission world. I mean, how do you get more people involved on that side of things? Because it seems like everybody wants to go on YouTube and learn how to do an LS in 30 minutes. How do you get more people on to this side?

Just get your hands dirty. Somebody has to be personally accountable for it and want to be able to just get their hands in it. Buy a transmission. Some people have just went to the junkyard, found a Turbo 350, gone through it.

What's the best one to start on, to start learning?

Anything. GM, it doesn't matter. 400, if you have a 400, you have an actual application for this transmission, you have an actual reason to use it. Use what you're going to put in the vehicle and see how it works, see how it does. And then take it from cradle to grave. Just get involved in it and get it done. Take as many YouTube videos as you can to understand the process or get it by, what do they call it, the ATEC, not the transmission rebuilder book. Many of them are available, but if you had a lot of resources at you and actually just follow an instruction manual, it's really hard to go wrong. There's some stuff in there that it's technique, it's feel, it's experience, but if you are meticulous and you have the skill set to do it, it's really not a complicated ordeal. It's not. Pistons or engines, they have eight pistons or pistons going up and down. It's just as simple as that. There's a lot of parts in there that have to intermingle and coincide with one another, but if they're fit right, there's no reason that it wouldn't work. If they're assembled right, there's no reason it wouldn't work. So I'm just meticulous and be very thorough and clean about how you do stuff.

Okay.

Really, I mean honestly, they're really simple.

They seem super complicated to me when I look at a valve body. It reminds me of like if you pick a paver up off of the ground and you see the ants running with it is all they do. Sure, running around, yeah. I'm like, oh, I'm like.

So I mean, but there's instances where stuff is very simple, a manual valve body. It takes the circuits where it looks, would normally look like it's very complicated. Yeah. It's not. There's nothing to these things.

Okay.

You got a separator plate and what, eight different?

Oh, yeah. That's way more simple than the last one. I looked at it.

It's just A to B, A to B. So you have third clutch, reverse clutch, second clutch. It's very simple once you break it down. Some of this stuff is obviously not in every transmission too, but no check balls. And this is a Transbrake application for L80. But still, the stock OE application is just the same. It just looks confusing. So if you actually studied the circuits of where everything went and how it looked, all it is is fluid pressure. It has to go from here to here or here to here or here to here. So that's all it is. It's nothing more. So you just got to make sure everything gets there. That's part of the problem of it. So some of the black science of it and some of the technology of it, it all just goes in hand in hand with it too. So you put something like that valve body on any four L80, as long as the surface is flat, as long as you built it right, it stands to reason it'll work. So if you're going to make an omelet, you got to crack a few eggs. So if you really want to get after it, you really have the technical in cleaning for it, it could be for anybody. It really could. It's not very complicated, but it's complicated. So there's a lot of stuff that goes on. You have to try it first to make sure it works or see if it actually functions, you know. So I used to lose a lot of sleep on the... So, when I buy these things, I build them, because I want to make sure, this is done, that's done, it's all right, it's proper, it's to spec. And so, even as a builder, taking my first crack at these, mom and pop shop, I went through 75 transmissions before I had the first problem. I mean, that's cradle to grave. I mean, that's, I would say, industry, a really good reputation. So, some people, if you have to redo every other transmission you build, you should probably take up basket weaving, you know, do something else. So, there's a lot of times where it's not for the technically, somebody who's not technically inclined, but anybody can get it done, too. I mean, it just depends how thorough you are, how meticulous you are, and how much of an understanding that it really takes to make them work and function.

So, my dad did when we were a kid. What goes in a mid 90s, like S15 or S10?

700 R4.

Okay, so he did that, and then we didn't have reverse after that. But it did move forward. Oh, so yeah. He fixed some of the problems with the last reverse.

Yeah, it could be like 300 different things. They are very complicated. It's not, like I say, it's not the easiest thing. There is a lot of catch-22s. You could flip a bearing over accidentally. I've done it. If it's possible, I've messed it up. We're all human. You are going to make a mistake. Something is going to get slipped through the cracks. At some point, you take it apart, and you're dealt with 500 pieces in front of you. It hopefully goes back together the way it came apart. Or a lot of times, I mean, this stuff is, I could build these blind, but we're talking like 20 years ago and stuff. More accidentally, all of a sudden, I just did it, Dave Rasmussen, one of Dave's. Unfortunately, I accidentally flipped the pump gear over. I asked them, I put them, I look at these things, I could have been on the phone, I don't know what I was doing. All of a sudden, he couldn't get the converter in all the way. Huh, I wonder what the problem is. So, inner pump gear got flipped, I go over there, pull the pump out, take it apart, flip the inner pump gear over. It happens. I mean, as much of a professional as you are, as many thousands of transmissions you've ever built, you're still gonna, you just still botch something. You know, there's still gonna be a problem, no matter what, unfortunately. But as simple, as stupid as that is, I've done thousands of them. I've never made the mistake. Not once. I don't know why. And it's a 4L80, I mean, how do you mess that up? Every pump I take apart, I scribe it too. So there's an axle there, put the axles facing up. Hard to mess up. But all of a sudden, you just, you missed a system, you missed a step, you missed something in your rhythm, off, done, whatever. Now it goes out the door and had to get redone a little bit. But you know, so unfortunately, I mean, stuff like that, it was gonna happen no matter where you are, who you are, how much you put into that big block, if somebody else built it, they didn't put the right main bearings in it. Guys have been building engines since the 60s. How do you miss that step? So unfortunately, I say some stuff.

You know, sometimes you have an off day, you get hit by a garbage truck.

Exactly. Yeah, that's what we call that. Yes, exactly. It happens. So I mean, if anybody's gonna want to do it, just get one, do it.

You just have to go for it.

Exactly. If you have a use for one, build something. Even if you have like a project car, just get up the program and start tearing one apart and get the books and everything. But it's the only really honest way to do it. I didn't go to school at all. I'm secondhand taught, but I'm also self-motivated enough to make sure that I'm gonna do it right, and it's gonna be done properly. That makes sense. So, you know, I never had, like I said, I never went to an ASA certified, but not transmissions. I mean, I've never built one before. I was even ASA certified. One of those things that anybody can pass a test. I have a diploma on my wall, but it doesn't mean that you're, you know, really have what it takes to actually do one, but to be licensed to do it. But it's a passion, it's like anything. You don't have to go to school for half the stuff that's out there, as long as you have the wits to do it yourself. So, get one, get one and do it. Go get your CVT or DCTs. Give it a whirl, see what happens. I mean, I've done this, the focus ones, the focus transmission had the little dual clutch things, and it worked out very well. The factory tooling wasn't available and all that stuff. And I mean, the first like three or four worked fine, but then it got to the point where we couldn't even get parts for it anymore. So, you had to like synchronize the DCT motor. So, there's two clutch motors on the thing, and the last one was a catastrophe. I haven't done it in a sense. That was probably like 10 years ago, but then Ford went to the class action lawsuit, and they're all under warranty now. So, almost 10 years ago now, yeah, they went through a rash of s***, cause they're all junk. Every DCT Ford transmission that was out there only lasted maybe 20,000 miles. That had major issues. So, they finally got erectified, or just even quit making them all together. So, I don't know whatever happened. Most people were like trying to convince to trade your vehicle that it had a problem. Get something else. Hey, we got this Lincoln on the wall.

We can't fix that. How about this? Exactly.

So, that happened quite a bit. But, yeah, they're fun.

So, one more before you pop the usual three. Who do you respect in this industry, whether it's locally or abroad, internationally?

Who or what?

Who?

Who do I respect? Any builders. Anybody who's doing the stuff, anybody who's doing it on the transmission side of things, but anybody who's doing the performance stuff. Anybody who's, could be somebody in the garage. Could be a big business, a big industry. Let's see, I mean, even like a personal, a personal, I wouldn't say coach, but a personal, a guy with, who knows a lot what they're doing. Hutch, Hutch's Transmission in Canada. Runs the yellow bullet form of online for drag racing, high performance stuff, but he is the most intelligent person I've ever met for transmission stuff. The dude, he knows everything, you know, and he's a really good resource for information or building a 3,000 horsepower power glide or something. I haven't seen him. I used to go to, when we were at PRI, I used to go to the TSI dinner party kind of thing. And it was, for that one year, it was John Kilgore. He's the guy who pretty much invented the Turbo 400 performance world of it. Like that Sonnax drum module they just came out with. He did that 25, 30 years ago. And making a Turbo 400 work better. He was at the table. It was Chris from CK Performance. It was John Hutchinson and Joel from Joel's On Joy. Joel, they're all in Michigan, but he's in Michigan. He built all the transmissions, the C4s, the Powerglides, the C2s. He had the contract for all the drag packs, the Mopar, the drag pack, it was the drag car they called it.

Yeah, I think it wasn't a drag pack. I'm blanking on the name. I know what you're talking about.

And then the Copo Camaro. His shop, Joel's on Joy, had the contract to build all their transmissions for their race cars. So I'm at the table, just to fly on the wall. We're at the dinner table, just hanging out in the same room as these guys and they're legends. They've been doing it, they're pioneers, they've been doing it for 40 plus years. So yeah, anybody, like you say, great motivators, stuff like that, or great resources and stuff, but there's a lot of people in this industry who are really doing it well. But anybody who, from the performance side of things, the shops, the local tuners, I build transmissions for a lot of shops and a lot of people, and having the access that they do to be able to do, on the forefront of the installations, the tuning, the driving, all that stuff, to make these things actually work, anybody is doing that stuff, great resources. And the performance side of it, I know that the government's trying to shut a lot of it down too. But on the racing side of it, there's still many, many, many stuff years to go on anything, technologically advanced stuff. But it's not going to go away. If we're still using Powerglide stuff 60 years later, it's probably not going to go anywhere. And when the aftermarket world starts creating cases and parts and stuff to continue that, it's here to stay. Yeah, I don't know. There's a lot of people who are really making things happen, too, in the industry. They're making advancements. It's also ultimately driven by the EPA stuff, too. But at the same time, it's also given us high performance transmissions at some point.

Okay. Well, sweet on that note, Dan.

That note what?

You want to talk to Usual 3?

Yeah, I was waiting for that part of the question.

Yeah, okay.

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 have an unlimited budget. You can swap whatever you want. You can put a TH400 in anything you want. What are you picking?

God. Can we change track car to strip car?

Any kind of track. That's a track.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah. I'm like an autocrosser, a road course guy, but Fox Body, you know, I kind of have what I want, you know, with the Fox Body there. So eventually we'll get, I want to do a low four second pass, an eighth mile. Okay. Pretty simple. Or even like the Thunderbird, that's the big block is for that. So kind of same thing, you know, kind of working on what I want in the first place, but my, the loser cruiser right out there, the Crown Vic, you know, perfect daily driver. Okay. I don't want any complicated stuff, just AM, FM radio, heat, AC. That's it. Nothing too fancy.

My Crown Vic, or my town car has been my first Panther car, and I absolutely love that car. It does everything. Like you said, what you need it to do is got plenty of power to it.

Just does it. Yeah. It's a good reliable. If cops use it, taxi services use it for decades. It's been around forever, unfortunately. Kind of a cheap piece of s***. I mean, the car is kind of, it's not very classy, but the blend door motor goes out on the time and it's got just AMF and just basic bench seats, leather, whatever, but they're not the, no frills kind of a car, but great daily driver. I prefer real drive myself, but. So, a track car, let's see. Yeah, or the show car. I don't really have any preferences, only because I've got an uncle, he's really had several Willys vehicles. I never knew what a 41 Willys was until he's had a couple of them. Yeah. And just in particular, it's a cool looking car, it's nostalgic, and probably a Willys for a show car. Okay. I can say, I'm not sure. There's a lot of them. There's a ton of them.

All of those picks are very simple.

Yeah, no, exactly. It's by concept alone. It's bold and just straight to the point.

So, when you say Fox, are we 4i notch, particularly, or what? Like you got over there?

Yeah, I've always been a notch guy. My grandpa ordered that car, brand new, in 82.

Oh, really?

Yep. So, unfortunately, it was winter driven. But, you know, that's always been my thing, is that I've loved notches. I've always loved, like, notch back. But, yeah, particularly, like, a 4i, I like, because that's an 82, you know, 4i, so I do like the 4i. Unfortunately, there's not a lot to do aerodynamically until you put, like, you know, plastic over the headlights and everything, but nobody makes a really good front end for it. With Shonac, it would make something.

What about doing, like, the pace car front end on that one, that would be a... Now we're off on a Ford tangent, sorry.

Yeah, no, well, I mean, not...

I'll throw you in the river for it. It's right there.

There's, I don't know, I kind of like to keep it the way it was, you know? If I was going to do something and put, like, an outlaw bumper or something on it, you know, throw some Shonac stuff on it, it would probably be, obviously, an 86 up or whatever it is, because all the parts fit. Nobody really makes anything for that. It's just kind of unfortunate, but I'm going to keep it the way it is. You know, I want to leave it alone. If I put a chin spoiler on it, there was a, I think it was either a Capri, I forget what it is, but there's a little small little chin spoiler that they put underneath the car, underneath the bumper. I would rather have over what it has. But I like the scoop on the front of the hood, on the top of it. I'm going to leave that alone. It's non-functional. You could probably turn it functional, but I just like the way the car looks the way it is. Eventually, I'll probably put a 17-inch wing on it, strutless wing, but nothing to light the world on fire. My kid was welding the sheet metal in it this morning, last night. It's a project car, so that was this year's, this winter's project, but it's just something to tinker with and get running. We want to keep it running. Let's leave it that way. So I drove in here in the fall, sold the engine transmission, all the stuff that was in it, and now we're on to doing something better. Upgrades and all the basic stuff. I'd like to see the thing slammed, big tires in the back and just slammed. I like a Fox body that looks low on the ground, low and mean. Like a Thunderbird, I'd probably lower that car like four inches. Stuff's a 315, I could almost get it up to the wheel, or the lip of the wheel itself. So it's a back half car, so the world is limitless when you back half a car and do all the stuff to the front. So the car looks nice and warm. Is the car here? It's in my garage, yeah.

Oh, okay.

It's all covered up. Half the interior is sitting on top of it. But yeah, no, it's...

I call them shelves.

They're storage cars.

Yeah, yeah.

So no, it's just in cold storage over there, just waiting its turn again. So I should have put the engine in there before I put it down, tripping over that thing. But yeah, either way, fun stuff to deal with.

Well, sweet. Where can people find you? Do you want people to find you?

Yeah. I don't build everything. I only build certain things. If there's a right application, I'll build it. Sometimes I'll do favors for manuals, depends on who's asking, but just depends on what it is. I'm busy enough. I'm three months out to begin with, for most of it, year round. So there's a lot of times, there's a lot of stuff I simply can't even do. Somebody has constraints, I need to done three weeks, I call somebody else. But I have a Facebook page, and it's more or less just so people can see what these things look like. I don't advertise, but it's there, just so somebody wants to see a pro mod transmission builder, whatever it is, there it is. But it's on Facebook, Performance Trail Train Solutions. I believe Carey set it up for me, because one of the cars that went down to PRI, one of the Dray Week guys, Josh Norris, built his transmission, and he was going down to PRI at the Hillbarn injection booth. So Carey made some, whipped up some decals for me, and I really don't, I'm not on the forefront of social media. I'm not really, I'm just a guy in a garage whipping these high-power power transmissions up.

Well, to your point, it's like, you don't have much of a Facebook presence or profile. You know you're not involved when I have to start calling around. I'm like, all right. So I reached out to two or three different people. I saw who liked your page. I'm like, all right, yep, okay, I'm piecing it together. I'm like, all right, cool, we'll do it, you know? So, dude, some of the best guys are just completely off the radar, too.

Yeah, yes.

It is crazy.

There's a lot of times, I mean, I call on people for doing stuff left and right, you know, and machining the part or having it, for whatever instance, it doesn't matter. And some of these guys, I mean, my uncle is heavily involved in the racing industry. So some of the circle track stuff, dirt car, he's over south of Baldwin, I guess. And so he builds his own chassis, does everything, cradle to grave and stuff. So he knows people in the area. And when I needed roll cage tubing for my Thunderbird 10 years ago, I ordered it through him or bought it through him. He used to call these people, SW, I think it was somebody, is it SW race cars? But anyways, they're maybe SSR race cars. They're over down in like Elm, Emerald, Wisconsin. Maybe it's Spring Valley. I had no idea this place, it was a barn. It's just a barn. And I had no idea this place was there, but I walked in, there's marble floor, there's tile everywhere, there's trophies everywhere. Walk in, there's nobody up there. I walked in the back, I see there's yellow curtains. There's probably 30 cars, chassis, chassis, chassis. Curtains all the way around, being in fabrication, it's just circle track cars. And I was like, I would never have guessed it from the street. And you find these local places, mom and pops stops everywhere. And it's cool, the community is such a small world. It is a very small world. I built transmissions for people who've, even just last week, I've known this guy's dad for a last year, and he's passed away, he was 94, he passed away in 2014, but I used to fly RC airplanes with this guy. And this guy comes over, this is the second transmission I built for him from over here. I couldn't believe it when he said what his last name was. And he just identified himself as Camaro Jeff the whole time. So I write down, just Camaro Jeff, everyone knows him, he's a local legend, he was racing a red rock since the 80s, been around forever. And his dad, I used to fly RC airplanes with him, he was old back then, and wow, I couldn't believe it, that's Jeff's dad. So it's come such small worlds so many times, but transmissions that come back to me from people that bought it from somebody else, I didn't even build it for it, but it still comes back to me, that happened once 10 years ago. Built a 1500 horsepower transmission for a guy, 4L80, and he had, he apparently sold it, but the guy, some guy, he wanted me to do some F-body stuff, and did the suspension, built a 9-inch, and did the installation, put the 4L80 in the car and everything, some can't I, a can't fish, like an old three or something, maybe Camaro, forget what it is. But so I do all this stuff, and he says, oh yeah, I quoted him for this and that, and he says, oh I found a 4L80, I'll bring it to you, and I want to put a trans break in, and I want to powder coat it, and it's pretty much it. Okay, cool, bring it over. You know, I was like bringing all the stuff, his car and everything, and so I come to find out that it was a transmission I already built, but the guy he bought it from wasn't the guy I built it for. So it's already gone through three hands, at least, you know. Unused, never even used once, so it never had oil in it, just like the day I built it. I take it all apart, but there's one of mine, you know.

How do you know one's yours? Do you mark them somehow? Yeah.

I know. So they're indicated. Everything I build is blueprinted. It's exactly how I want it. And so 3,000 horsepower car brings a transmission back to me, 80 passes later. When I take it apart, I see where the specs are, where the clutch clearances are, see how much wear is on it. Every time I go into something, I'm making improvements on something. Like I say, nobody's taking power away. We're always adding, everyone's adding more power every year. So, we have to increase this and that and this and that. So, every time I go into one, that's a refresh. Like I say, 45 passes maybe ago. Every year, I'd probably do a 30 of them a year. It's just a refresh. I just did last year, and then we're maximizing this or changing that and altering this. We're trying to go faster and faster and faster. Every shift has got to get, try to get quicker and stuff and work better. So, there's always something to do, but yeah, like I say, it's come full circle so many times. It's just all of a sudden, it has when I already did. Dude didn't even know it was me. I had no idea until I took it apart. So, I do, because I kind of gave it up five or six years ago. I used to scribe in the things, who it was or what number it is. I used to have an identifier for it, and I just give it up. I know what they are anymore. I know what they are, so yeah, they're fun.

Well, sweet.

Dan?

You can find us at Gunna Garage.

How's that snowmobile content going?

It's starting a new channel or something?

No, I have one that we've been trying to do, but it's not great.

I mean, winter.

I know.

He's like, what's your idea this year?

I do a lot of snowmobiling stuff in the wintertime too, and I was trying to get some content. I got to go out one weekend this year, put 200 miles on and put the sled away. You go out west? I haven't yet. I want to. I'm not a mountain rider. I'm too old and fat to do that s***. Plus I ride Yamahas. They're heavy.

Power those things nowadays.

Yeah, no, it's my sled. I have a sidewinder, which is great. It's a lot of power, but I trail ride in Wisconsin. We bar hop and hang out. I'll go out west to trail ride though, but I've heard the Yellowstone, they open the park up to snowmobile riding in the wintertime. They don't pay the roads and stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

So I've heard that's really cool.

There's so many trails out there, all the walking paths and everything. I mean, there's probably some snow showers and stuff out there, you know, but just mind them, but it'd be really cool. I never knew they did that. I never, I mean, we had snowmobiles back, you know, it was 13, 15 and stuff, and we never went out west or anything, but I got, you know, many people who do, but that'd be a lot of fun. I never knew that they opened up the Yellowstone for that.

Yeah, that's what I've heard. I have not, I can not confirm or deny at this point, but.

Yeah, I mean, we don't get snow to even justify owning the things.

Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, I saw a guy who's got 10 of them at his job. Yeah.

Yeah.

No, it's, yeah, it'd be fun, but it's just one of those seasonal toys. You know, I've had race quads, I've had dirt bikes growing up, and it's just, unless you're totally dedicated with it and you're out racing the things, going to the motocross track and hitting the triples, and otherwise, it's hard to own, you know? Just to own it. But yeah, no, it'd be a lot of fun. I wouldn't mind having a hopped up race sled and actually just balls to the wall, just climbing a hill or mountain, but you do that once a year, and it's all, it's it, you know, you're rebuilding the sled again.

It's an expensive hobby for all of you to do, but so is race car s***. You only do that half the year, so.

Yep, no, exactly. If you need to justify another expense or something, I'd rather do something local, personally. You know, instead of driving out, you know, a thousand miles west and back, just to have a broken sled again. And I've seen it. I've seen friends do that all the time.

Well, that's why I ride Yamahas.

Bring three, because one might last, you know, but whatever, you know, it's something to throw money and time at, so it's fun.

I like stuff that works. Fords and Yamahas, I'm fine with.

Yeah. No, I was my race quad, too. I like my 450. My YFZ450, that's a fun bike.

Yeah.

Four-wheeler, but... No, I like snowmobile. There's a guy who built the transmission for at Yield's Axtol's. Garden.

Yep, yep. I know what you're talking about, though.

Brian, I built this, did a lot of work to his Corvette, put a 700R4. He had a big block in, a 454. Big one, a big block, Shawn's engines, and then I built a 700R4 for it, but he was a huge mountain guy, a sled mountain guy. Bought a brand new, I think it was an Apex. This must have been like 2012 or something, 2011. Bought a brand new Apex, and he already had like 30 grand worth of parts to throw at it. It was in the back of a truck, you're just checking on the build of the car once, and just gonna go home, rip the whole brand new sled apart. Should have just kept it by the crate. I mean, I don't know why he would have put it together just to take it back apart again, but he bought a brand new sled, and he was going through that Yamaha Apex.

My wife rides an Apex. That's one of Yamaha's best sleds they have.

Is it? Yeah, okay.

It has a Yamaha R1 street bike motor in it.

It's a four-cylinder?

Yeah, it's a four-cylinder, yeah.

Oh, cool, okay. Yeah, he said something about, I don't know, 145 cc or whatever, or 145 cubic inch.

Yeah, I can't remember what it is, but, I mean, you could, they'll go 30, 40,000 miles without any kind of hitch.

Okay, cool. My MacTule guy, he had, his wife, I think, had an Apex, too. There's a phaser, too.

Phaser, yeah, that's the-

But it has a two-stroke?

The older phasers were, the newer ones, there's like a 500 four-stroke version, too.

Okay, so I think it was a four-stroke, as far as I know it, but it was a phaser, and it was years ago. They used to go up, Northern, in the UP, they used to go up to Idaho and stuff, and so he had, I forget what he had, but yeah, his wife, it was a Yamaha, too, and then he sold his, because of how reliable hers was. So he got himself a Yamaha, too, but yeah, it can be good stuff, and bikes, I guess, are really good. My dad's got a Yamaha, my mom's got a Yamaha bike, so it's a metric important.

No, that's the one, I got into Harley's. Those don't run well all the time. I don't know, they've got a lot of hype, but I would go back and get a Yamaha V-Star or something like that that actually goes.

Metric cruisers, I guess, are really good, too. So I don't know, I guess I don't, once I sold it, it was an old five YFC 450, and it was the last fun toy I had, minus all the airplanes and stuff and all the other stuff. But for seasonal hobbies and stuff, I mean, that was a fun, fun bike, but I did my research on it. And I chose Yamaha. My last dirt bike was a Yamaha too, but the Hondas are good.

Yeah, Hondas, you can't pocket that either.

No. So as much as a domestic guy as I am, but you can't argue it.

No.

There's still, Japanese bikes are still really good. So, you know.

Sorry, we went off on a sidekick.

No, yeah, no, yeah, anything, yeah.

We're about to start talking about Ford stuff, you know.

No, I'm a four wheels guy. Anything besides that, I don't understand.

Skiing, track, yeah.

But, perfect. Well, I'm glad we made this happen. Thanks for coming on, Adam. We will definitely do a round two at some point. There's a lot more to learn.

Yeah, no, we could do a seminar, taking one apart, going back together.

There's definitely more to do. So, well, I'm glad we made this happen. Thank you very much. Dan, thanks for existing, and we'll see y'all next time.

Thank you.

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