141. 1J's and 2J's, Rotaries and Engineering w/ Henry Pitzer

And my phone rings, hey man, this is Rob Peretti. I'm like, hello, right? Like, how you doing? I'm sobered up really fast. Can you be in Florida on Monday? Yeah, I got a set of four of them in the back. Oh, they're still full. I was supposed to drive five hours the day it blew up.

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, Dan.

Yep.

Gunner Garage.

Gunner Garage.

I feel as weird not saying Mr. Gunner Garage.

Why wouldn't you say that? If you search it on Facebook, that's what comes up. I tried it the other day.

Search what up? Mr. Gunner Garage? It just doesn't make sense. Anyways, today we are with a rotary loving, 2J loving, engineer by trade, Henry Pitzer. How's that for an intro?

I think that was great.

I think it was all right. Something different.

We're here, we're having some fun.

Yeah, I'm not going to be that one podcast, but you know how some podcasts have audio effects, like brrrr.

Yeah, it's a lot.

No, it's just too much for my chimp brain. But anyways, go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself, what it is you do, the things that you're involved in, in, in, in, in, in, and we'll go from there.

What's up, guys? I'm Henry, this is my channel, The Speed Culture, and I am an automotive engineer, kind of, sort of, mechanical engineer by trade, or by schooling, rather. And just a hardcore car guy, by heart. I come from New York, Long Island specifically. I spent about 20 years of my life there, learning cars and everything around it, and life, all those fun things, surfing, lifeguard, all that. And then from there, I went to school in Buffalo, for mechanical engineering. And then I ended up in Georgia for a few years, working for a speed shop called Cicio Performance. And then after that, I spent a year at Hendrick Motorsports with the NASCAR team. And then after that, right now, I work for a company called Power Probe. If you ever heard of it, they are like electronic diagnostic tools. And I help engineer all their new products. I engineer and have some fun. Honestly, I try to just make products that I can use on these things. That's brief. I'm sure we'll get into more, but that's it.

Yeah. So what made you go the engineering route?

Okay. Realistically, I wanted to be around cars in any capacity whatsoever.

So cars were the reason for it then?

Absolutely. It was either I wrench on them and it came down to a thing. I just didn't really want to have to turn a wrench to make the living, which is a very respectable living to make. And I'm not saying that it's not. I was just in a situation where I had some options and I had the ability and I hunkered down and made it through the schooling and we made it through. It was an awesome experience. Engineering as a whole to me is interesting because it's all about collaboration. As a doctor, you have to make a lot of decisions on your own. Obviously, you still have a team of people that work for you, but a lot of stuff has to live in your head. As an engineer, you have a lot of strengths, but you also have weaknesses. And if you can jump or rather capitalize off those and say, hey, I might know a lot about this, but you might know a lot about this, we can come together and have a full 360 degrees worth of information. But coming from either side, you can't know, no one person knows everything. And to me, being able to lean on each other and collaboration in general, that's the beautiful part. I'm a people's person, so that's the beautiful part about engineering to me.

Okay. Yeah. So how do you end up applying that to your career then? So you mentioned Cicio, you mentioned Hendrick, you mentioned the place you're at now, which I'm blanking on the name. Pro something?

Power Probe.

Power Probe. Okay, there we go. So yeah, all these different pros this week.

Probe. Yeah. If you like probe like an alien kind of deal.

Maybe not that kind though. You guys don't make one of those, right?

No, but everything has a play on PP. Yeah. It's PP Probe. We just did a video called the PP Balls as a joke. Because like we make this product, it's called a draw monitor, where basically you put it into an OBD port and you disconnect the OEM vehicle battery and it inputs voltage to the OBD port and all of the vehicle's current runs through there. That's how you can find out if you have a draw. Basically, if the car is...

Oh, that's amazing. That's such a pain in the a** to track down.

People love that thing.

Yeah, I bet they do.

They're cool.

Awesome.

But... We'll probably continue.

Okay, I have to ask, and at the risk of losing our entire audience in the first four minutes, what's the alien situation down here? Like, are people down here believers? You said probes, I have to ask.

Oh, that's a good question, honestly.

Is it a common topic or not really?

No.

Okay, cool. So it doesn't matter down here.

Anyways, so back to you. Well, I guess you guys are in the Midwest, so you guys have more...

Oh, dude, we got those like what? Was it cornfield things? Okay, crop circles. Crop circles, yeah.

Okay, interesting.

Back to being a serious podcast. I say it again.

Oh, yeah, so the PP Balls was the video we did. It's just a silly, stupid thing, but that tool, the draw monitor, reads out how much current is going through the car. It gives you a quickie. It's like an inline test, but you can do it through the OBD port. It's a little easier. Also, for like changing batteries, you have 12 volt going in. It never sees a difference in 12 volts, so you don't have like reprogrammed cars and stuff like that, which is kind of nice. But some people just expect it to tell you, hey, dude, you're radio on circuit number three, wire number red, f****** whatever, this or that. That's what's wrong. Unfortunately, you still have to do your job in some way, shape, or form. And that's what the balls were. They were these all-knowing, you'll wave them over the car and they'll kind of, but yeah, no, those guys are, everyone at Powerpoint, they're all such great dudes, just all a group of all just genuine car people that put stuff together for people like us.

So how long have you been there now?

Almost a year.

Almost a year?

Okay, cool. I'm new at a Charlotte. I moved to Charlotte about two years ago, year and a half ago. First year was just heads down, trying to find a place and stuff. This place is pretty new to me. We bought it less than a year ago. And it's just been kind of figuring out life. I'm 25. So it's been a, we moved-

I would have an RX7.

We moved, we've moved kind of fast. There was a lot going on in life and I'm happy where we are.

Okay. So then take us a little bit through some of your career. For example, you were at Ciccio for some time. What were you doing over there?

So before we get into Ciccio, there's a cool story that got us there. Sure. Is so I was just a car guy. I had a IS. My first car was a 2003 Lexus IS.

Oh, cool.

Had to be a 2J car of some sort. I was just a giant 2J, just nerd, right? Like kid in high school, like what's your first car going to be? And like my brother's 12 years older than I am. So I got to hang out with his friends and learn a lot from them. It's just, which gave me a really big head start in life is that like I kind of listened to their mistakes and move forward with them. So car that I wanted had to be four doors because I wanted to lug my friends around and it had to have a 2J or the ability to have a 2J in it at one point, maybe with some ease. So we were looking at different Lexus, Toyota chassis and then the IS came up. It was like a drive to Formula Drift in New Jersey in 2007, whatever it might have been. We were like, that's the one. So I was obsessed with it growing up. At 15 years old, I bought the 03.

No way, okay.

Yeah, before I could drive, I was just, my brother was like, take every bit and every cent that you have from every birthday party, everything, and save up and put it and find something you like. And so I bought that car. Cool gray interior, sport design, 03, LSD, manual, the whole thing, right? Like best spec of an IS you can buy. Technically one of 11.

Oh, okay.

A Harvard professor owned it before I did.

A Harvard professor?

Yeah, I did a lot of it.

Was it just stock?

Bone stock. Yeah, nothing done. It was kind of neat.

No professing was done, okay.

Yeah.

Okay, do you know what kind of professor?

I don't.

No, I never got that far. Yeah. Actually, you know what I might have, I just may have forgot. Yeah.

You're going to text me at like three in the morning, be like, yeah, he was an English lid.

Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and... I actually still have the Carfax both pulled up so I can probably find that.

Okay.

Yeah. But, so we got that car. I'm still growing up in high school. I don't know if I'll send you pictures of these, but I had TE37s on it in high school because my brother, I bought them for my brother. He had a set that he had and it was just 2000. Every part from that car, at least from the beginning, were just hand-me-down S2000 parts. Recaro SPGs from his S2000. I actually ended up getting another cool set of Recaro's from Recaro because they had a stitching issue. So they let him keep the seats, so I got them. That was neat. And then Fortunato 500 Coil Overs and some TE37s. It was cool in high school. We drove that to prom. I have pictures of me cleaning the wheels with my fiancee, my girlfriend at the time, and now my fiance.

Okay, so you guys have been together for a while.

A while, yeah.

Okay, awesome.

So she's unfortunately had to go through all of it.

I'd say no, she's the one.

Yeah, that's for sure.

You just see what Dan puts his wife through. He's here with me.

Yeah, that's a tough one.

I'm a lot of guys' second girlfriend.

It's weird.

Travel buddies. I don't know what it is.

Oh, I feel that, honestly, though.

You got that one buddy that's just there, like the third wheel of everything in life.

Yeah, I got a couple buddies. But that's the best kind of people. So I had that car growing up, and that was always the thing, was just getting it ready for power in any way, shape or form. In high school, end of high school, senior year, we decided to swap it. I ended up buying a full swap from a wagon, a guy got ended up getting T-boned, and I bought a 1J, I bought a Trans, the R154, it came with a single turbo, it came with a Power FC, a Pexi, pretty much everything to put this thing in the car. And I spent $4,000 on it, which is like in today's money.

And in case the microphone isn't picked up, he spent $4,000.

Which is like, I mean, at the time, as an end of high school, going into college kid, that's f****** a lot of money. Well, yeah, 100%, yeah.

But in the grand scheme of things.

That is chump change.

Especially when it comes to the 2J world.

And this is what year? If I don't want to do the math quick. When did you graduate?

I, 2017. 2017. Yeah. So, right. So we got that whole swap and we spent an entire winter. So we didn't end up putting the swap in until freshman year, during break for like winter break, whatever it was. We just had everything ready. We went to my buddy's garage and we are just like, none of my friends know a ton about cars. I got a couple of friends that know more. And it was more of a situation where here's 30 beers.

Here you get one, you get one, you get one, you get one, you get one.

Here's some sandpaper. Here's a ratchet. Here's this, here's a cup to put the hardware into.

And we all just had a blast.

We pulled the motor from it. We had a great time doing it. And it was just a bunch of friends just hanging out and BSing. And every time we either pulled the motor or by the time we were actually putting it back in, the new one, it was raining and it was a dirt driveway. And every time I'm under the car, I'm just sinking lower and lower as the dirt's just, and I'm, it's, you know, it's just like working on a car in high school, right?

But you learn a lot that way.

It gives you some seasonings and some calluses, right?

I was telling this to Dan the other day. It's like, man, one of the things that like kind of spoils, well, not him, but me, it's like, I've been around so many of these guys on the podcast, it's like, don't do this, this, this, this and this, but you also miss out on the seasoning too, right?

Oh yeah, we were talking about the pains of learning through building and blowing s*** up.

It sucks. But, and like, the thing that's always funny is like, this is motor number six in the IR.

I was about to ask you how many is it?

Yeah, this is number six that'll be in the car.

And am I the problem?

Well, yeah, you get to that point sometimes, like you meet new people moving to Charlotte, right? And then just thinks you're an idiot. What is this, what is this, go stupid?

Yes.

But, I mean, at the end of the day, it's just, it's, you can learn a lot of other ways and you can also spend the time in the research, but you don't know until you know, right? And I'm here, I'm doing it for the love of it. I'm doing it because I get to work on the car. I've always had help from great friends, from people that, in the community, that just are always willing to help passion. And like that to me is worth every build, you know, every dollar, I don't care. It's just, it's about the fun.

So has it always been one J's in that car?

No. So, so the way, so after that first one, this ends really quick. So we get the motor in the car, everything's running. Finally, I finally get the fans going. We get the relays and everything running. And I go to take it out and I got two buddies in the back. It's kind of like, like I said, it's wintertime. It's cold out. It's New York. We want to see for Oyster Bay. We're merging on and I'm in like third year. And granted, at this point, I had not done anything to the tune. So this is, but basically the exact same setup that was in his car. However, I put a way bigger intercooler on it. And because I was like, I overcompensate, let's do it for all the power, right? So I put a bigger intercooler on it and that's obviously a lot more air, but not a lot more fuel.

Okay.

So I'm in second gear and I'm merging on, and one of my friends is like, yo dude, there's a guy recording in the car behind us.

Yo, let's do it.

Actually, it was in third at the time, so I downshifted to second and I'm like, let's go.

You know, I started rolling in, go, just everywhere.

Like, I thought, I'm like, my trans blew up. It was followed by an immense amount of white smoke behind the car. We pull over and...

Well, that means the Pope was announced.

Yeah, exactly.

Have you seen those movies? Yes, yes.

Yeah, I've seen like the Euro trip, freaking, you ever see Euro trip?

Oh yeah.

Where he's like, comes up at the top of the, Euro trip on my favorite movies, scoozie. But yeah, I've seen a lot, or the selection process where it's like the gorilla versus the pope. You know, the whoever survives the gorilla, they're the next pope.

Okay.

The Chicago dude got it obviously.

Yeah.

Anyway, but where was I? Obviously that dude behind is taking a video, right? So I have this all on video, which is the funniest part. This guy goes and ends up buying an IS and one day swapping it after me. Like who sees somebody blow up?

So if you pull over, so he pulled up behind you.

He's like, you guys all right? I'm like, yeah, man, we're all right.

I'm just my pride.

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Took two tow trucks to finally come because first tow truck is like, now you're too low. Four and a half hours later, freezing. I'm freezing.

Dude, this is my Pikes Peak adventure with Charles. The year I met Charles.

Oh really?

So we, one of our volunteer cars basically like broke going up Pikes Peak or whatever.

Yeah.

And they had to get a tow truck to bring it down to the bottom of the base. And then we had to wait for hours to get from the base to our hotel, to the hotel where they fixed it in the parking lot.

Oh God.

So that trauma memory just brought back.

That's always the, it's, I mean, but at the end of the day, I wouldn't trade it.

Dude, it was so fun. We had, okay, so we had cones on the side of the mountain.

Yeah.

And we're just throwing skittles trying to make it into the top of the cone.

Just the BS like memories you create just, you know, you're just, you're idle. You got, you have time.

Yeah.

We were clapping for everybody coming down the mountain. Like I have a video of Charles just clapping, just everybody coming down.

Awesome. You don't get that anywhere else other than like, it's just, and that's why I love cars in general. It's the shared hardship. Like you guys have been in the cars for as long as I have. It's just, you know, immediately I can bro down with you guys because you, we've talked about it. You've blown up motors.

You know how I'm good so far.

Okay. All right. That'll end up at one point there. Yeah. You know, God willing you don't though. I don't care for you.

It's okay if I can afford it. Let's do it all. Let's wait until that day comes.

I'm with you on that. This one unfortunately didn't do that for me. We'll get there. Yeah.

But yeah, like the shared heart, it's just an immediate connection. We can know nothing about each other. We can know, like I see you on the street. I could think you're a f****** weirdo. It doesn't matter. But then we have a conversation. I find out we have similar interests and that's it. You could be friends for life. Cars are great.

It's just you don't get that outside of this, right?

Like my fiance is always like, you're so weird.

Like, why are you that?

The fact we could talk to somebody across the country, like you're like, I know this guy in California. I know this guy over here. You know, it's crazy how well connected the car scene is.

It speaks volumes.

Yeah.

And it's, in itself, it is self cleansing in a way that it all runs off respect. And if you can't quite live up to it, you find yourself outside of the community of the guys that matter. When you're around and you've been around and you've been through the stuff, it shows and those are the meaningful relationships. Outside of that, you know, there's always going to be some BS and there's always, but like at its core, that's where you meet the best guy.

Well, we talked about that beforehand too. Some of those guys that have impressive collections can, a lot of them are really nice, but some of them can be real a*******, right? But you know, Then I want to like you.

I really do.

I know. Yeah, exactly. But then how many friends do they actually have?

You know, you're like, that's cool, man. I'm really happy for you, but I'm happier with my two cars and tons of friends. And like, that's what matters to me. It's about like, it's about where you can drive and chill, where you can go on a drive to Little Switzerland, wherever you go. We're blessed with some awesome roads here in Charlotte. And just like the surrounding areas, Blue Ridge Mountain, you have Little Switzerland, you have the Tail of the Dragon, not too far. To be able to just go with a group of five to eight guys, jump up, go up for a weekend or even a day, get a dinner, BS, go home. And that is just beautiful.

So how does this progress, right? So, white small guy films.

Yeah.

So what's next?

After that, obviously, cars down, and that was when I was a full one day. Went back to school. During that semester, I did pretty crap, because all I was doing was trying to source parts from around the country, trying to get this thing back going by summertime. And it was a very weird situation. Found a block in Florida. Guy actually had to just drive to Long Island for some reason.

Okay.

So he just drove my motor up to my buddy's shop. And I basically had another buddy, because I'm away at this point. I had another buddy, the motor, at his house. I would take the train home. I would take the bus home. I would get rides home on whatever weekends I could. Just to, and granted, Buffalo is not a neat, like the train system in America is awful. If you talk about, I'll do a quick little stat. About 11,000, I think it's 11 to 14,000 trains a day are dispatched throughout the US. France alone, it's about 250,000. It's a very different situation. Anyway, I get into that because of, I had to take the train from Buffalo to New York every now and then. And that would be about a 12 to 15 hour ordeal. Whereas you drive, it's about five hours. Why a straight train full of no traffic would be any different makes no sense. Anyway, I would do that all to go home and be able to put it together just a little bit more. And we finally pretty much had it ready. By the time I got home, I just dropped the motor in, my brother, and that's how that car sat for about four years. Made 440 wheel and it was just fun. I had the car throughout college. I used to drive it, so I used to drive it from Long Island to Buffalo, which is about five to eight hours, depending on traffic. Probably four to eight times a year. And then when I was there, my fiance, my girlfriend at the time, she went to Oswego, which is about two and a half hours from Buffalo. So I would drive the car, and granted, this is a one day swap, full AC that I got to do. It's bougie. Yeah, and we did this all ourselves, right? Like, it was just cool. Journal bearing, it was super laggy, and it was fun. So we drove the car from, or I drove the car from Buffalo to Oswego about every other weekend. I put 55,000 miles, 60,000 miles almost, on that motor. Just, oh wow. In a matter of like two or three years.

Put it through its paces.

Yeah, I did a ton. So Toronto Motorsports Park was about an hour north of where we were in Buffalo. So we did a lot of drives at just Toronto Motorsports Park. It was $80 USD for open lapping on Wednesdays and Fridays. But I got a lot of track time there in that time. It was cool. I remember being on track with like really, really, really legit like time attack Evo 9s that were just testing and stuff like that. I'm just like, I got to learn a lot doing that. Then there was like eerie Speedway had a ton of drift days. And I'm friends with a bunch of drift guys from up there. And they're awesome people. I love them all.

Eerie Speedway. I think that's what we did. Yeah.

It's like a weird oval bowl.

Yeah.

No, we didn't drift. We rented it for autocross few years ago. Yeah.

Really cool.

Yeah.

Solid setup. Everybody up there is always nice. It's a good group of people. So I ended up doing one of my first drift days there with the IS. I used to do everything with it. I used to just put whatever set of tires made sense for the setup. So funny enough, after my first, and this segues into a cool story, after my first drift day, that was a Saturday, drove it two hours to Eerie Speedway, drifted the entire day, and then drove it two hours back to Buffalo. After that, that was that Saturday. That Wednesday, I was in a class, Road Vehicle Dynamics. This was my senior year of college, or actually junior year of college, rather. Road Vehicle Dynamics. We had an awesome professor, and there was this Lancaster Speedway, it was an eighth mile track, about 20 minutes from where we were staying in Buffalo. On Fridays, it's $5 a pass. So you would get kids in Volvo wagons packing 10 people in the thing, like just doing passes before.

Jetta Rentals, yeah.

Like just fun, right? Like that's to me is just, it's like that's where it's good old fashioned fun, you know? And so we all went out for like as a field trip, right? Like and it was me and a couple of the guys had some cars. So we went racing and had some, so we did probably 10, 15 passes just beating on the cars that day. That was that Wednesday. And sorry, yeah, that was a Wednesday, not the Friday. That was the Wednesday. They also, $5 on Wednesdays and Fridays then trying to track back. That Saturday was my 21st birthday. And so I parked the car after the drag event, right? And then Thursday comes around. I was supposed to pick up a couple of buddies from the airport. They're flying in from different states, whatever it might be for the 21st birthday.

You see where this is going, right Dan?

Yeah.

Okay.

So the car is misfiring. I turn it on and it just starts missing. I make it down the block and like, damn it. All right, I'll go pick them up in the forerunner, pick them up, whatever. Before I left, I just ordered some parts. I ordered plugs and coils from Rock Auto and it was supposed to be here the following Tuesday. And I'm like, okay. I mean, I'm in no rush for anything. Yeah. I'm just having a good old time, right? So I go pick the guys up and now it's, you know, Friday. We're all hanging out. And at this point, I'm at a frat house in Buffalo, just drinking belligerent, you know, we're all having...

21 year old birthday s***.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just being a, you know, a bunch of sacks of s*** and just being a bunch of hooligans. So I'm kind of just like slouched on the couch at this point. I'm just hanging out, right? And my phone rings and I get to pick up the phone. It's like, hey man, this is Rob Peretti. I'm like, hello, right? Like, how you doing? I'm sobered up really fast. To backtrack a little bit, I had signed up for a, basically a Instagram came in and it was like, we're looking for homebrewed race cars. Do you drive your car to the track? Do you drive it home? And every word spoke to me. I was like, that's me entirely. I'm like, we could do that. So I was in Oswego at the time of my fiance and I looked at her and I'm like, I'm gonna be on this. And so I submitted my love letter, my thing. I'm like, you need me. So that's when this call come in. Hey, man, it's Rob Freddie, this and that. I'm like, yeah, can you be in Florida on Monday? And I'm like, yeah, like the next Monday? Like next Monday? Not, it's like, no, this Monday. I'm like, oh, huh, okay. Can I call you back? He's like, yeah, man. So we go throughout the rest of the night, guys are all like, yeah, like we're all at a dinner. I'm like, dude, do I do this? And this was kind of, I was in a good situation where a lot of my classes were online and I had the ability to kind of do it from far away. And I was like, do I do this? Like, you have no excuse not to. And I was like, all right, s***, let's go. If the parts show up, let's take it the next step. So Sunday rolls around and I'm like, there's no way, nothing's showing up. I'm supposed to be here Tuesday. I don't know what, it's a sign, right? At this point, but the parts from Rock Auto just show up on a Sunday. What? Doesn't make any sense. No, it doesn't make any sense. It's one of the situations I'm like, wow, okay. I guess we're going to throw these in. I go to my buddy Ian, I call him one of those dudes that's like always the third wheel. He's always down for anything. And just a genuine awesome person. And I call him, I'm like, yo, you want to go to Florida for a week? And he's like, why? And I tell him, he's like, all right, let's do it. And I'm like, okay. So he's like, bring the car over, let's throw the plugs in, the coils in. Throw them in, car clears up. And we're like, okay, I guess we're driving to Florida. So we wait till later that night, we get set up and we start driving at like 10 p.m. We make it like two hours in random Erie, Pennsylvania. I made my own splitter for it, I had a chest mounted splitter. Okay. Middle of the night, it's pitch black. There's no lights, Erie, Pennsylvania. It's just dark. And I'm like driving and this is like midnight at this point, I'm a little tired, but we gotta keep driving through the night. It's midnight and I'm like, you know, whatever. Possum just in the middle of the road, randomly. Just Mack it. There was just no way I could get around it. I feel really bad. But yeah, splitter, gone. Somewhere in Pennsylvania still, if you found that, yours. But yeah, no, just gone. So then we keep trucking. We're like, all right, actually took the splitter, didn't take anything else with it, which was pretty cool. Felt good about that. I was like, if it failed, it failed in the best way possible. Right, yeah. So great, that's gone.

Let's keep going.

So we keep making our way down and then another like three hours later in Virginia, three or four hours later in Virginia. Still now it's like three or four a.m., whatever it might have been, the hour's lining up.

Now I'm just picturing the map because I've never done an East Coast run yet, so I'm just like, all right, those things are now okay.

Eventually you get there and don't speed if you're ever in Virginia, not from experience, but I have a few buddies that, do you know?

I know Georgia's rough.

No, Georgia's not even close to what Virginia's like. You go a mile an hour over.

I don't know, man, have you seen the pit maneuvers they do in Georgia?

Sure, those videos are intense. Seeing some of the Hellcats they have to do.

Virginia might have been one of those states I got pulled over into for riding in the left lane. They're like, if you're not passing, get your a** in the right lane. I don't want to see you in this lane.

Interesting, that sounds very American.

They are very strict in Virginia, but regardless, we're going through, I'm doing speed limit, it's fine. See a gas station. Now, a plague with ISs that are swapped, it's just every single one of them, unless you have an aftermarket fuel level. They go down in steps, quarter steps, the gas gauge. So at this point, I'm looking at my, I'm pretty good at knowing how many kilometers, because the dash is in kilometers, how many kilometers I have until it's really start time to start gassing up. Mind you, I had raced a Focus ST, like an hour or two prior. That was just randomly on the highway, he's honking, I'm like, all right, I put buses on them. I probably shouldn't have, because we wasted a lot of gas and I didn't calculate for it at the time. So I'm like, I see a gas station and I'm like, nah, I'll make it to the next one.

That's a dangerous game to play, especially in the middle of the night.

Virginia, the next one was like for like, it wasn't for like 80 miles. And I didn't realize at the time and I'm like, oh my God.

Don't do that in North or South Dakota either, just an FYI.

Why?

Because I've done the same thing you're doing.

Don't do it in a-

Don't do it in the next one. Digging the next one is going to be 15 minutes, 30 minutes, maybe tops. Two hours later, I'm going, I'm sweating. No way.

Same thing applies. Don't do it in a TRD rental where the gas gauge breaks all of a sudden. Really? Dude, we're coming back from Texas and Dan ditches me. Brand new one, like TRD, like I- What is it?

Like a Camry, TRD?

What was it? Tacoma? Tacoma.

Okay, okay.

Dude, the second I dropped, we split up, right? Yeah, we split up and I go a few more miles, like I'll make it to the next gas station. And then all of a sudden it just kept saying, like my gas just wasn't filling up. I went to the gas station, it wasn't filling up. Like it was just, I was like, all right, I have no idea how much gas is in here. Right. All I know is that the last number I saw was one.

Mind you, he's trying to not put too much in it because he paid for the fill before he rented the car.

So like his gas gauge was working beforehand, I'm sure.

Yeah, he wants to like drift in because he's already prepaid for gas.

Right.

And the only reason we were separate is because I bought a truck in Kansas City on the way home.

Oh my god. That's too funny.

Yeah, I was like, because he split up, he picked up the pace. I'm like, I'm going to have to go 60 the rest of the way. Yeah.

It's a dangerous game to play. Yeah, that's a...

I could do it in my golf. Like I've gone 15 miles past zero in both of my golfs all day long.

I do it too often with that thing, honestly. If I play the game, I'm like, I almost did it the other day. The range just said zero miles. And I'm like, I texted to my buddies, I'm like, we'll see about that. Five minutes later, I pulled off, I'm like, I can't do it, I gotta do this.

I don't wanna be stuck.

Anyway, back to the night.

You have too many relatable stories, I'm sorry. It's way too relatable.

That's why I did well on that show, is because I was just like, I'll get to it in a second, but I was just one of the only dudes, right? The rest are shops and people that you can't really relate with. I'm just some dude that likes building cars and messes up as much as every other one else. But I'm getting over, so finally it just plugs in to the back seat, sleep in because we're taking turns.

And I'm like, yo, this is it.

He's like, what is going on? I'm like, we crest the hill. I'm like, we're out of gas.

It's like, oh, it's like coast.

My number, my favorite number is 23. I see it everywhere. Just perfectly coast to exit 23. It's just the weirdest story every step of the way. We ended up calling AAA guy. I ended up showing up at some 87. We made it. It was enough to barely make it to the next gas station. Maybe to the next gas station, the rest is less drama. We're driving, my alternator wire kept coming loose. So I had to keep pulling over randomly, like trying to get this thing to actually charge itself while I'm driving. This is a car that a college kid, high school kid that put together, right? Like, I don't know what I'm just, but it worked.

Just an engineer school, no big deal.

Yeah, and that was the biggest thing, especially because like when it came down to it, I may have not have gotten the best grades in that school. I still got through, but the experience side of things, I'd say more than anybody else, because it just came down to whatever I learned, I tried to apply.

Right.

And all these kids, like you may have a 4.0, but can you understand what it's like to actually apply this? Like at Hendrick, we've had situations where other engineering companies, they did some contract manufacturing. Other engineering companies would come in, kids that are green out of college, never designed anything for real, just like, oh, I like all these bends and stuff, and all these, let's put CNC metals here and this there. Turning a battery tray that should be 50 cents with three bends to a $12 part, because it's got multiple metals, multiple parts coming together, it has to be riveted. It's like, why? You made this heavier, you've made this more complicated, you've made this harder to manufacture, but all because you don't know how to apply it. So that's why I, yeah. And that's the sense of things you don't learn until you've had years of experience. It's nice to be able to learn those things from somebody that, engineers that have been in it, right? Like, you don't, you know, I love to be like, ah, let's make this as complex and cool. Simple, simple. Keep it simple, stupid. It's the core to everything. And anyway, finally get the car down, we keep driving, all the car's coming loose, I'm doing my thing. We keep going, we get to Savannah, Georgia at this point, and it's like parting the sea. Like I'm thinking, like it's downpouring. I'm thinking that legitimately, I'm going to hydrolock this motor. Like the amount of water coming through, it was obscene. And somehow make it through that, just white knuckled the entire time, somehow make it through that and keep going down. At this point, I knew nobody, I didn't know anybody of that was actually going to be there. So start getting texts as we get closer, I get added to a WhatsApp group. And then it just says Calvo, and then it says Cicio, and then it says, you know, Petreworks and all these like guys that I've, I've known, especially through like the internet. And I'm like, what, Calvo is a Viper there? It's so cool, right? Like, that's awesome. But I'm against what? So we finally make it there, I get to Palm Beach International and I pull up and it's just a line of, ZR1C7 was the, was the benchmark car.

Okay.

Then a thousand horsepower 991, which was the Miami blue Ciccio car. Oh, okay. Then there was Calvo's 1700 horsepower or so Viper, it was purple, it was Zach's car. Okay. Mr. Zachary on Instagram, if you've ever seen it.

Is that Zach Friedman or whatever?

Yes, Zach Friedman, yep, yep. So that was when the car was making about 1700 or so. It was not a billet block at the time.

Is that the one that's referred to as Barney or no? I think it's another car. So I don't know.

Is he from Iowa and just sold a bunch of?

No, no, no, that's a different guy.

No, he's from Georgia.

Yeah.

Okay.

Cool guy, honestly. Awesome group of dudes. Then there was a 135i that was making like 700. There was 700, 600, something like that. Completely stripped. That was his home track, PBIR. Then there was a S2000 with a J's racing, like off the shelf motor that was making like 700. And then there was a Supra, my buddy Moe actually, I think like 1100 horsepower or so. And I think, I'm not forget... Oh, there was an RS3 from these guys called Ratified out in Minnesota. I don't know.

Oh, they were over there? Yeah. So our studio used to be based out of there for about 50 episodes.

Yeah, Rat Mugna Thunna, right?

Or whatever it was.

Yeah. Those guys are awesome.

Yeah.

They were just killers. So yeah, his car was there. That's where I met him. And then the show was hosted by Amelia Hartford before she was really big, right? Amelia, Rob, and Matt Farah. Matt Farah was always like an idol of mine. So him being able to drive the girl was just cool. So I get there. And that's, you know what? That was one of the first times that I actually got to meet David. David was there just hanging out.

And Patterson.

David, okay.

So he was just hanging out. And I'm like, you're that guy. And he's like, yeah. And that's where we really started to bro down. But he was there, Matt was there, everyone was just drinking, hanging out. And it was a good time. So we get through there. Basically the show's premise was these cars were street driven. These cars were track driven. Then they were put to like, like liability tests, whatever they put them through. And it was cool. Matt loved the car. Amelia loved the car. Rob's very particular in terms of... The thing is, I forgot to actually... I frantically called Matt Farah when he was driving the car because at the time, and granted, again, I had no prep time for this, right? Like I just jumped in, we just drove down. Yeah, show on Monday. Yeah, it had a blown turbo gasket. It had, the fluid was old, multiple track days, lots of track days' worth, like definitely just, like watered down, like brake fluid, rather. So also it's got a aftermarket gauge cluster on it and 9K is not 9K on that thing. You have to rev it all the way down to like X for it to actually make it full. It's not actual, it's just calibrated wrong because it's calibrated for 3SGE in a Altezza versus the six cylinder in the IS. I actually have a Dakota box to fix that. I've had that for eight years.

It's the easiest thing to install.

It's sitting on my desk.

Oh, I know all about buying parts and letting them sit in boxes for years before you actually get them on the desk.

I keep putting it in front of me, so I keep remembering, right? But I keep blowing the car up. So anyway, it's not calibrated. And I'm like, oh s***, they're gonna think that like 9,000 or 8,000 is all it reads to. Like you gotta like bring it. I'm like, so I called Matt. I'm like, yo, see the X at the bottom? Just bring it to there. Once you hear it go bang, bang, bang, then shift. You have a lot of fun. It was just, you know, extra laggy because they've blown turbo gasket and stuff like that. An old journal bearing 62, I believe. I actually don't even remember what turbo was on it. I think it was a 62, 62, some Drift Motion Garrett internal thing. Journal bearing again. So it was super slow, laggy, but it was fun. And they loved it. Like I said, Rob was a little more particular about it. He's like, this thing sucks. But they loved it. Had AC, it was cool. By the end of it, they were like, this is the people's champion.

Yeah.

But it was, it was cool.

Relatable.

Yeah, exactly. It was cool. I mean, everybody trailed their car. I drove my car 23 hours and, you know, I built it with a bunch of friends in a garage with a bunch of beers. It's different. It's different.

The people's champ.

Yeah, man.

That's how it comes down.

I was happy with that.

Yeah, dude.

I couldn't care less. And then, so we went back up to New York and that was like the end of that. Couple months later, now I'm in my senior year of college, that's when Cicio calls me. And he's like, okay, hey dude, like I'm actually going up at this point. I'm going up to go snowboarding up in New York with a bunch of friends on a snowboarding trip, random like little quick break, I think we had, winter break, whatever it was. And he calls, he's like, hey man, I want you to come down and work for me in Georgia. And I'm like, hey man, I have six months of schooling left. I'm not about to leave, you know, I've got an engineering degree right here, right there. I'm not about to leave and just do that. If you can wait, sure, I can think about it. And he was like, make it work, whatever it does, like I need you down here ASAP. And I was like, I can figure it out. That's when COVID hit. So everything went online. So I was like, well, I guess again, one of those opportunities where I'm like, oh yeah, I have no reason not to.

Did the universe just correct itself for you?

Yeah, I'm like, gosh, I guess we just got to go with the flow. And that's all like, and again, these motors blowing up, things happening, they're not wants, but I'm telling you someone saying their need, you know, like, I may not have wanted these motors to blow up, I may not have wanted this thing to blow up, but it's going to create something out of it that is worth it.

Silver linings.

Always, I mean, you gotta look for them, because if you, it's just depressing.

You'll drive yourself nuts on the way there.

Yeah, yeah, I mean.

Keep going, I'm just gonna grab a flannel real quick.

Yeah, are you cold?

No, the mosquitoes are destroying me.

I was about to say, because it's like, it's hot. And it was a very weird time in life. During COVID, I actually went to like, I went to New York City, like, just to like drive, like everybody was off the roads, right? And like, we actually had COVID early. We like, we had the kickoff party. My brother's birthday.

You guys got hit the hardest, right?

Yeah, my brother's birthday party was the weekend before COVID hit. Every single person there got COVID. Every single person. Like, and so we had it early, so we weren't really scared of it as much, right?

Like, I got it pretty early on too.

So not working.

I got it three times.

Yeah, we, I mean, I ended up getting tested for the antibodies and I was all, I was clear and I was like, cool, we're, I'm in, right? So, but I would drive to like Times Square and it was like, I wish we filmed because like, there's a lot of cool videos that came out at time period. We had to spend millions of dollars to get it to be that empty. Like you could put a tumbleweed in it, just going through and you would think this is post-apocalyptic. It was the craziest thing.

Same with, we flew into Los Angeles, like peak COVID to pick up a car.

Oh yeah.

Like, it was crazy. Like no traffic, nothing.

It's the most mind blowing because we used to go, so Prime, New York City, these are the guys I grew up with in the car community in New York. You guys ever heard of like Sevens Day in New York? No. That'll be worth going to one of these years. Let me know where you want to go and we'll all say, that's an event that you would, you just need to go to. Okay, what's that? It's super fun. So we started it out. This was before I had this car, it was just always in RX7. But basically it was a showing of like East Coast RX7, people from Texas, Final Form, like FD, all those guys came out from Texas. Like you'd have cars coming from all over the country to just basically drive through Times Square, this very long planned out drive with multiple stop locations for photos and stuff like that. And it was invite only. And to me, that's what always created the best events. And like New York car culture in general, I guess East Coast for the most part, but New York more so has an off season. Whereas like in California, cars are always-

Year round, yeah.

You're like, and but like- We had that problem. With that is like, you're always wanting to get the car out. You know what I mean? You always have the ability to get the car out. So you're like, I got to pass that up. Let's go. Thing about New York is it really creates a really special build because sometimes when a car, and you'll get this too, when it's winter time, you're not going anywhere. So you're like, well, I guess let's do it, right? Let's powder coat this. Let's make this nice. Let's do that. And let's spend the time on it. When you do that, like it just creates these really special. There's a lot of those-

Like the iterations are bigger.

Yes. And there's a lot of those guys that hide out in New York. They don't bring their cars out. So like when you put together invite only events full of just the guys, that's when it would come out. So you'd have R34 GTRs coming out of the Woodworks that you're like, where did you come from? Like b***** old school, like rotary cars. You'd have b***** like Line 62 Porsches, like weird stuff just popping out of the Woodworks. And New York's got money, you know? So everybody's there and they pump it towards some awesome stuff. So anyway.

I gotta point out, you are very well traveled in this regard. Like, you know, you're talking about New York, you're talking about Georgia, you're talking about Florida, you're talking about all these various places you've been.

They, I guess, and I always sometimes feel like I've slowed down a lot. I, it is nice to hear that. It's cool. I always feel like there's more to do, but.

Well, I think it's for you and me, I want to be careful how I phrase this. I don't want to offend the old guy. For us, like three months is an eternity. Because that's such a huge percentage of like what we've lived so far. Whereas like as you get older, like the years go by quicker is what I hear from people. And that's very true. Because now you and I probably refer to everything as post COVID, pre COVID.

Yeah. And it creeps up on you. And it does. It gets to those points where you're now like three months past. I'm like, s***, like I was supposed to get married. I remember I was like, oh yeah, we're getting married forever. You know, and that's in two weeks. I'm like, wow, that stuff does fly.

So, okay, so where are we at now? So we, have you made it down to Georgia yet?

Yes. So I'm down to Georgia at this point. I circled back to New York for some reason.

That's the greatest city in the world, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It really is. It's awesome, awesome car culture. I love every person there. Awesome invite-only events.

We'll make it out there hopefully this year.

Yeah, that'll be a really cool one. It'll be cool. Actually, this car has been through Seven's Day. There's a bunch of stickers on it. This car has been through Seven's Day multiple times. I just wasn't the one driving it because I bought it from my buddy, Jared. I've been trying to buy this specific car for like eight years.

Okay.

Every time that I went to buy it, the IS blew up. Even the time that I bought it, this time the IS blew up and I said, f*** that car. You're going on hold. I'm going to finally buy my car and we'll get to that.

The jealous, the main.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. You're going to get the love, all right? But anyway, so I'm down in Georgia at this point. I end up making the move and I do the jump off of after COVID's hitting. And I work throughout the days and I finish school at the night. So I would go went to bed at like 1 a.m. every night and I did a lot of schooling to get it done. But I finished up and I finished strong, got my engineering degree while still working.

That was what your end of junior year and senior year, right?

Yeah, that was my end of senior year. So the past last six months of my senior year.

How long were you in school for?

Three years? Four years.

Four years.

So I skipped from after Sorted. There was another year before I basically was Sorted. And then it was six months until I heard from Cicio. And then that was the last six months of- Gotcha, okay.

Because like when COVID hit, it was at like the second half of my junior year.

Oh, okay.

And everything changed. So it's like everything went online. Like people don't understand like how much the world changed. Like I don't want to get in trouble. I know people who do a lot of ChatGPT now.

Well, yeah. And I get the ChatGPT has come a long way. My brother was like one of the biggest proponents and never do it. And now he's like, hey, ChatGPT, how do I tie my shoes?

My theory is, and I'm sorry, actually I'm not sorry for professors out there, make your stuff harder to cheat on.

Yeah, man.

Like don't do all this multiple choice stuff. Like teach lifelong learners. But anyways, that's a whole different ramp for a whole different podcast. I should really start a ramping podcast.

If that's the way that you're gonna go about school, then you're not actually gonna learn anything, and then you're gonna come out of it. You just paid for an education.

And that's why I loved engineering in college in general, at least the college that I went to, because it was like, and it was the attitude of most of my engineering professors. It was just like, you're either here or you fail. If you want to fail and waste the money you took to get here, by all means. I don't give a s***, right? Like who cares? It's your life, not mine. And I loved that. And I was able to collaborate, and again, this came in collaboration. We had a group of just a bunch of engineers and guys that we were all going through it together. And we just calloused ourselves. We studied all the time and we just, we got through eventually. And that's why I like math in general is like, there's no arguing it. There's no cheating. You either know the process or you don't. Usually those tests were four questions and they would be multiple pages worth of math to get there. Even if the answer was wrong, if you had did the right steps and you messed up one calculation, one decimal point, whatever it might be, you may lose a couple of points, but you're getting all the points for everything else. And that to me was like, that made sense.

That's so much more valuable.

I'm not arguing with a professor about whether or not Trump's a liberal. Whatever, you know what I'm saying.

Yeah, yeah, it's great.

Yeah, yeah, I hear what you're saying.

It's just a disguise red sort of deal.

Yeah, it's just it turns into a whole thing. Anyway, so I finished college up in Georgia, and that's when I started my career at Cicio Performance. So I was the director of marketing. When he first called me, I was like, dude, like, I'm an engineer, or rather I'm going to be an engineer. What do you want me to do in marketing? At the time, I shopped with Speed Hunters, and I've always done like car media in some way, shape, or form. And I was like, you know what? It's different. Let's give it a shot. Let's have some fun. I got to work on some engineering projects while I was there. Still got to scratch that itch. Just not quite as much as I would have liked. And that's where that move came in. But my tutelage at Cicio Performance, I learned a ton from those guys. Those guys are all incredibly smart in every way, shape and form. Most of them were stolen from either Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, a couple from Georgia. So just a bunch of good old boys. Like Brent, who is the shop foreman, he's, he taught me a lot about engineering. We ended up buying a Haas CNC machine and we got to go down. And he was a fully self-taught engineer. So this is one of the situations where you only learn off of application. And that's kind of smart, that's really valuable. So I was able to learn a lot from him application wise and just in cars. He helped me rewire the car. He helped me start appreciating wiring in the beginning. I used to hate electrical in every way, shape and form. Even in college, EE was just like, you know, no, I'm not about that. Brent opened my mind to that. And I learned a lot from him. So he does all the engine program there. He does all the CNC parts and he used to be an oil rigger in Minnesota, like hard, dude, like just, but awesome people. And they helped me through like the car build and stuff like that. I was able to use all shop discounts to get all my parts. And basically I would just work during the day. I'd get the car up on a lift during the night and I'd just jam. And it was awesome. It was, I was getting a ton out of it. I was getting to be able to travel a ton. We had a shop C8 Corvette. We had a shop C8 Corvette. We had a shop GTR. A shop Porsche. And then eventually shop R8 when we sold the shop GTR. We would drive these cars to most events because they would be like, the whole idea is that again, you'd kind of drive to the track, drive home. So the C8 kind of ended up being the, what's a good way to put this? Can I say slut?

Yeah, sure.

The C8 kind of ended up being-

I just said it like I know. Go for it. Is it like a, is that a bad one?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just, what a great way of putting it. There's very few naughty words that I've had to cut out of the show.

Yeah.

I'll give you a few.

It's usually accents that we have to edit out folks.

Oh, I see, I see.

But yeah, the C8 ended up really just being the shop slut. Like that car was, it was a turbo car. At one point, it was the fastest C8 in the world when it was NA. It just had a shot of nitrous and ran 10.5s. And then we put turbos on it. It was an ETS turbo kit. Super cool car. I got to drive that pretty much all around the country. I got to drive it when it was making 900. I got to drive it when it was making 1200. I got to drive it to like six hours to Florida, 12 to 15 hours to St. Louis, to Texas, to...

Damn, okay.

All the big events pretty much all around the country.

So no trailer queen.

No, that car, because the trailer, the R8 got the trailer or something else. It was one of those things like, oh, Henry hop in the C8 and go drive it.

And I'm like, dang it.

That's a fun car to drive too. Like I haven't driven a modified one, but I've driven like a Stingray and it's, they're comfy. I like them.

You'll never want to drive another Stingray after you drive a turbo one.

Oh, dude.

At minimum they make, they got to make, I don't know.

Double the power.

Yeah, they're so fun. I mean, it's fun. I really enjoyed like the 900 wheel version was just great. The only things is you kind of like, wait, how do I say this? Let me see. Let me think about this for a second.

I was just going to say, there's a pretty good threshold for a lot of cars. Like that's a good fun car, lasts a while. You don't have to like.

Oh, it's great. I'm just trying to figure out how to say this next part. Without increment. The C8 platform was all about trying to tune around the ECU.

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And basically, you couldn't crack it for a long time. I haven't been in the game since they've cracked it. And since it's gotten a lot, a lot simpler. But basically all the time, you were trying to trick the trans into thinking it's making less power than it is or was. And 1100 horsepower setup, maybe that should be running five seconds, 60 to 130s, or running six, five, sevens, whatever it might be. Because the trans is just not cooperating in the way that it could. And the guys, they used to work with HP tuners. We sent a C8 out to MoTec at one point, and that car just ended up getting bricked. Because basically, eventually trying to crack that ECU, got back to Corvette and they shut the car down remotely.

Oh really?

Yeah. So it was a really long process, and it ended up being that we worked with FuelTech, and that's how I made my connect with Anderson Dick and all those guys. So we ended up running a port injection intake manifold where we had secondary injectors that were hooked up to an E85 tank in the frunk that was controlled off of a FuelTech ECU separately. So the secondary fuel system was controlled by its own ECU. After 50% throttle, the other ECU took over, and FuelTech started saying, hey, start dumping the E85 into the port injectors, and this is where we're starting to make our power. Made great power that way, super clean. It's just, again, it's just about tricking. If the trans saw one torque spike or one, you know, vector that just wasn't there within spec, because again, these are all ratios that you're trying to make it think it's making less power. Sees one spike, it shuts it down. So you'll have...

Interesting, Lint Mode right away.

Yeah, Lint Mode, just pull power, stuff like that where it's like, like Taylor, our tuner, is just the man. Like, yeah, and he's an incredibly smart person. A lot of times you can't really talk to a tuner because, you know, tuning is a very, very specific mindset. Oh yeah. He's one of those guys where, like I've been on the boat with him drinking, and we're like, oh, we're sending it in Pocono right now. But like, and he knows exactly what he's, incredible. Like, I learned a lot from him.

Have you been to that track, by the way?

Pocono?

Yeah. That's one on the bucket list for me.

It's a cool one.

A lot out there, yeah.

Vinny, one of the cars that we used to support, he had like a 20, it was basically a kind of a carbon copy of our shop car, made like 2,200 horsepower or so, like 2,000. Our shop car ended up getting nitrous, so that car ended up making like 24 or 25 eventually. It was like 26, whatever.

Was that the green car?

The blue one. The green one is the R8. The blue GTR, which is now owned by 458 Destroyer. You know 458 Destroyer?

I've chatted with him, yeah.

So he has that car now.

Interesting, okay.

It sold in like 10 minutes. Yeah, it was a, that car was bad. That car is sick. But anyway, it would always frustrate Taylor with the C8s just because he's like, these cars should be faster. And by now, I think they are. And they're super cool setups. Even at 900 wheel, in the way they sat, that's just a fun car. Like I picked my brother up from the movie theater, from the airport in it. And we drove to the mountains and just I could, he got in the driver's seat. I didn't have to say a word to him. And he's just like, like, no problem. No problems whatsoever. Like that's just a fun car. But it needed all that. Yeah.

The e-rays are freaking sweet to everybody we've talked to, especially in Detroit, when you start modifying them.

If I had to get any C8, it would be an e-ray and I'd put turbos on it because it's still utilizing the same motor. And you do a clutch pack, you make like, you just do a simple twin-turbo system, air-to-water intercooler, probably just E85, probably make an extra 400 or 500 wheels. Yeah. And then on top of that have the electric stuff. To be able to like, back out of your garage in electric mode, and then turn it on down the block, that to me is the coolest thing. Yeah.

I remember my buddies NSX doing that, like the New World, New Worlds.

Yeah, I forgot about that.

Yeah, that was my first introduction to it, but that was before they had the weird, like all hybrids had that boooo noise, you know?

Yeah.

It was just silent.

Yeah. I really like those NSXs. Yeah. They're cool.

They're underrated just because when they launched, they released a little late, and the biggest thing that killed them was pricing, right? Because at the time, you could just spend, I think it was like 20, 30 grand more, and you're in a Ferrari. A little bit more, you're-

Right, in an Acura.

Yeah.

Then it's like- To me, you spend a little less and do a GTR.

I agree with you, though. I think the Acura's-

I would rather have, I mean, to me, I want an NSX in a bad way.

It just didn't have any-

But an older gen.

Direct competitors, right? Because for 30, 40 grand less, you can get a GTR.

Yeah. And the thing is, you can't really do much to the NSX.

No, they struggle. I know there's a shop out there.

There's no need. That's one of the cars where it's like, I'm happy with the way it is. I enjoyed that car. It was fun in the twisties.

Super low production too.

Yeah. It's kind of like, so I didn't know that the timing on that car ruined a little bit of the launch, but it is, it reminds me of like the LFA. The LFA was way ahead of its time. They would have won everything. They would have beat out every, that car would have been produced forever if they had dropped it when it was a aluminum chassis. But they scrapped the whole build and went to the carbon monocoque. And when they did that, it took them an extra four years. And all of the technology that was brand new at the time has now made its way into other cars and it was underappreciated and it is like my favorite car.

Yeah, it's like McLaren. Everything's carbon monocoque. It's like, who cares?

Yeah.

It's standard now.

And well, on top of that, you're talking like the electronic Speedos, like stuff like that that were cutting edge at the time. Like the thing, the reason why they went to the electronic Speedo on that car was based off of the speed of the actual analog, which was such a cool thing. It revved so fast. And the same problem with the four liter Porsches, the 911s.

I think the A12s had that same issue too.

Really?

Interesting. Yeah, I remember seeing a video from 458 Destroyer when he had a revved one of his A12s. That was just insane.

That's just cool. The A12 is a freaking cool car. There's a gentleman in Georgia that has one that I got to drive that was a cool car.

Okay.

I got to drive some cool stuff when I was in Georgia. That was, you know, we were friends with a lot of cool dudes. And I did all the photos, and everyone would just say, keys. Yeah.

I wish I took more of those opportunities. Like, here, toss the keys. All right.

Yeah. I mean, I've become more comfortable in other people's cars than I used to be. That's for sure.

Yeah. I remember I got the opportunity to drive a Demon, and at the time I was like, yeah, I don't know. Like, I don't think so.

Yeah. No, I would have. And that's how I would have been like, so I'll do it today. Yeah. All day. I mean, I'll go do a burnout in a Demon if you like. Yeah. But no, I'm with you. I mean, I'm and again, still customer cars I don't mess with. If it's a friend's car, it says, hey, you know, go have some fun.

Right.

Do that. Daniel, the one I was telling you about, the accountant earlier. So he has an LS7 swap 997. And again, another miraculous swap that to me is really cool.

We should have an LS7, LS7.

Yeah.

When you said that earlier, I was like that is it? Well, I was like, that's not a, that doesn't seem like a common swap over somebody. Why would somebody do that?

No, it's interesting. It was one of those situations where, so he had an STI at the time and car was super cool, but he's, you know, he's getting older. He's an accountant and he's making meetings with people and he's showing up at his bagged STI. And he's like, I kind of look like a kid, you know? Like I need to do something. So this guy in Maryland called Chavis Performance, that was, you know, LS swapping them, just basically a turnkey kit. Basically car gets back, it gets done. I was with him throughout the process and I got home one weekend. He's like, yo, dude, take the car out, go have some fun for a weekend. I'm like, great. So I take my dad golfing in it. And like, it's one of the situations, if I can hand the keys to a swapped car to somebody and feel confident enough that you can just get in it without any instruction and drive, no problem, that's a good swap. Yeah.

Does that define a street car for you then?

Yeah, absolutely. If I can tell, if I can tell, cause like when my brother came in for the week at one point, he's looking for something to drive. And I was like, oh yeah, go drive the RX7. I didn't have to tell him s***. You know, like you'll figure it out. I know you will. It's simple. And that again, always comes out to keep it simple, stupid. But if you're able to just throw the keys to somebody and get it and just drive, that's a car. So like this thing that's LS swapped, I'm having my dad in the car. We got two golf club sets in the back. We go to play Bethpage Black and come home. We're just beating the crap out of it. And just having a grand old time.

It's gotta be so rowdy, dude.

Oh, it's rowdy. It's cool. At the time, the suspension setup was a little, it was like a Coney yellow. It wasn't like a nice setup. We ended up putting it in some KWs, I believe. KWs or Ohlins, I forgot what we ended up setting up with. And I'm gonna, it's RWB'd now. So I'm gonna do a video on that and that's when I'll drive it next and figure it out. At the time, it felt a little separate between front and rear, whereas like I would move and I'd feel back move a little. It's not as compliant as like a 997 Carrera might have been. It was a lot more rowdy, obviously, but I think I chalked that up completely to the suspension setup. I'll be able to really give it my actual full opinion when I drive it again. Granted, now it's a lot wider, but it'll be cool. I'm excited. But again, genuinely just a fun car. Those are cool things. LS things, if you can go to any parking lot around here and pull the parts you need, that's off of whatever cars I'm saying. That's something that, zombie apocalypse, that's something that's far more useful than this. Yeah. Like.

Yeah, I guess reliability is like, that comes down to what car can you survive a zombie apocalypse with.

Yeah. That's a good point.

100 million LS is out there.

Yeah.

There's a lot of coyotes out there, too, just saying.

Yeah, yeah.

But I gotta seek it out. I can find like every accessory off of it. I just go to any Chevy or GMC or whatever. It is really the same thing.

Yeah.

But it's one of those things, is when I build a drift car, I had an LS S14 at one point. When I build my next drift car, it's just gonna be an LS car, especially because I'm just gonna beat it up. Like there's, I don't want to deal with, like the 1J parts, especially because I was building it during like after COVID and stuff like that. I ended up buying like valve seats from Australia, Japan, China, Taiwan. I was in another country, ended up London a little bit. All the Toyotas in the world were just completely out. So I'm just like, what if, what if, like why? You know what I mean? Like why am I doing this? I got through at this point and I'm happy with it. If you ever build a 2J or you build a JZ, just don't ever build a 1J head. Okay. They're just, it's wonderful sounding and looking to me. The 1J head is like one of the most like symmetrical and it's like a pleasing thing for me because it almost looks like one full valve cover versus a lot of the 2Js, it's just like, you see multiple colors, stuff like that. I don't know. I get them anal a little bit weird when it comes to it. And I, so the look of the 1J head is cool. The flow is not better. People will try to argue up all day. It's not. Mine's really built. So it's like plus one manly valves, GSC conical, like all the best head work done by this like 3,500 horsepower building or offshore boat motor building company, John Kaisy Racing in Georgia. So they built the whole head. And they built it for basically like piston to valve contact. So that thing's, that's a b***** build, but would I ever do it again? Absolutely not. It's because I don't want to find the parts for it. But I'm happy I did it the first week.

So in all your kind of building experiences, that been the most difficult?

Yeah, probably. Finding 2J bottom ends is easy. Like at this point, I'm like, so let's catch up to where we are now.

So now we're doing stuff at Cicio.

Yeah, so I have a great time there. I got to learn a ton. At the point where I felt like I was just kind of like not learning as much as I am hanging out and having a great time with the guys, which I was. Love that. We got the lake nearby sick.

But something was calling you more.

And especially because Amanda was here in Charlotte, we were trying to figure out which direction we were going to go.

Okay. So you guys were like separate at this point.

So we were like still together, but like, but she, cause I took the job in Georgia. Cause I was like, that's close enough. Cause she had a job in Charlotte.

Right.

So I was like, George is close enough. We'll try that.

So over the years, before she was in Charlotte, you were in New York still or?

So, oh wow. Well, actually, so the timeline goes like this. We're both in college together. I left college six months before college ended. And I went to Georgia because I already knew she had gotten a job in Charlotte. She ended up six months later coming down to Charlotte after college. And over the next three and a half years, we just switched back and forth of visiting each other on random weekends until we kind of figured out who was moving. She's Italian and she, you know, I don't argue. But at the end of the day, I was looking for jobs and I found something at Hendrick Motorsports. And so they actually have a defense sign where they do defense contracting. So that's actually how I got my foot in the door. And it was a cool experience.

This is where you said you were with Lockheed?

So actually, well, I had a job at Lockheed before I moved down to Jordan.

So you were talking defense stuff and then I heard you say Lockheed earlier. I was going to ask you about that.

So I was supposed to work for Lockheed up in New York and I had a job lined up for there and I was ready to pretty much go in right after college. And then Cicio called and I said, I'm going to do this instead. Which was a very, I don't know if that was a poor decision.

Lockheed is a pretty freaking big company.

Yeah, I'd be a different person.

Yes, I agree.

Which I think I'm happy with the person I am. And I don't regret anything. So I made it down to Cicio, we did that. Then that's when the Hendrick opportunity rose and I jumped on it. It was like one of those things was like, hey, I've been in motorsports. That's the creme de la creme, right? Aside from having F1, I'm an F1 guy. Right, yeah. But that's like, that's the best of the best.

You know what question I'm about to ask, right, Dan?

Yes.

Have you read Adrian Newey's book?

No, I haven't, but I've had it spark noted to me a little bit.

It's very good.

I'm going to have to actually-

We've had multiple guests on a show who've read it multiple times. So it's really good.

Okay. I'm going to have to give it a go. I mean, he's one of the most brilliant engineers in today's-

Can he save Aston Martin though?

Who knows? I mean, with the amount of money they spent, I would hope so.

Yeah.

I mean-

Anywho.

Yeah, just an absolute-

Whatever, nerds, let's keep going.

Yeah.

So- I'm sorry, do you want to talk about some Fox bodies? Oh yeah, this year. Oh, the seatbelt. Oh, the stitching on the-

Oh.

I'm in a notchback, so we could talk about some Fox bodies.

Let's hold off.

About as JDM as a US cargette, though.

Yeah, true, true.

That's my shtick.

Okay, so creme de la creme.

Yeah, so that was like the pinnacle, right, of motorsports.

Did you just take a sip from an empty cup?

I didn't. I tried and I saw it and I was like, what TV show is that from?

I think it was like a TV show on HBO or whatever. Did you just take a sip from an empty cup?

Wait, that's not...

It's the Silicon Valley?

It was one of the, like, the night shows or something. It's not on tour, is it?

I thought it was like Silicon Valley maybe.

So, yeah, it's the Hendrick Motorsports, and I got to learn a lot. It's just, it's a very, I mean, it's a huge place. There's so much going on at every moment. It's super efficient, and everybody's there to kick some a**. It's a really cool situation. I got to rub shoulders with all the drivers. The first person to, the first time I had a beer there, Jeff Gordon handed me the beer. That was kind of neat. They'd always be working on random, cool projects. I'd get to go through, like, Mr. Hendrick's collection. He's got some of the gnarliest, he's got like 37 or 38 Stingray Corvettes, 64 Stingray Corvettes, the big block. Once you've got every color version to ever come out, down to like Prince Leopold's car, Mary Kate's car, just like, you know, when you got money like that, you just, there's this one car that sat, it was a black C1, right? Yeah, hard top C1, not split window, single window. So I think those 64, 65, whatever year it might have been. Big block again, only messes with the big block stuff. Black car, pretty much one of the only cars to ever be optioned with factory blue pinstripe wheels or tires rather. And like it just sat in this like skyscraper in Chicago. Okay. At the top of it, it was just like a display piece. And Mr. Hendrick pretty much just wrote up a check every single Christmas and said like a blank check and just said, please, please, please for years. And eventually just got it, right? Eventually you just came in, yeah, take the car. I don't know how you're going to get it out, but take it, right? Like they had to do like a whole record, cranes, multiple. Yeah. They have the Transformers cars in there. The original Optimus Prime truck is in there. Okay. The story with that was kind of cool. It was like one of those situations. He was, he goes to the auctions. I don't remember one of the bigger ones and not Mecham, whatever it might have been. But Steven Spielberg was there promoting all the cars and all the movie and stuff like that. And nobody was bidding on the truck. Steven Spielberg was like, hey bro, like Mr. Hendrick, I'll let you.

Wait, you mean Michael Bay?

Michael Bay, yeah, sorry. Yeah, one of those situations. One of them guys. Yeah, so Michael Bay was in there and the truck wasn't selling, nobody was bidding on it. And he went to Mr. Hendrick and he was like, heard that you like the movies or something like that. And then he's like, listen, I'll let you put your kids, whoever you want, your grandkids in the next two movies as extras if you buy them. He's like, yeah. So he bought the truck. And that's in there. To me, that's just epic. I like seeing that thing is legit. They actually have a handbrake set up in it for the drifting they did in it.

Oh, yeah.

It's pretty sick.

There's this awesome 57 mil layer. It's like big block, like two-tone gray and black. You can't take pictures on the inside of this place because it's just like, every section of the collection is a different facet of his life. From the bank that his mom worked at, these are all small recreations, to a working dairy cream that he used to go to as a child with like ice cream and stuff, like the people that work there, the guys that work there, they just have ice cream ready for him at all times. He'll come in and be like, hey, why are there less Oreos? And they'd be like, you ate them, sir. But yeah, so he's got some cool stuff in there. I think they just got an AMG GT or AMG1 rather.

Okay.

Then he's got-

Is this available to the public or no?

No. It's one of the situations where it's like, especially when you're doing like car deals from the sales side of things, it's like there's a boardroom on the inside of that collection that has his original running gear from his first quarterback. And the table runs. You can run this table.

Really?

It's the most wild thing. But the entire running guts like rolling, like the entire chassis under this glass table, and that's where they have board meetings for some of the big wigs. And being able to walk somebody through one of that collection really sets a precedent. It gets you, opens you up. It's an incredible business tactic as well as just cool car stuff. You know what I mean? But at the end of the day, you're opening up another side of somebody's life and they're ready to open up. And that's, you walk them through and then you talk. And that was a cool aspect of it. He also had a ton of just a guitar room, like basically this giant humidor that's on the top, that's just full of original Beatles signed drum hats, like Joe DiMaggio's shoe, like the entire ceiling was a Ferrari fricking F50 or F40, whatever wheel. Just the entire wheel with one of the original Daytona winning engines, big boxes, a light hanging from the ceiling, like just a crazy, crazy, like a hundred, Jimi Hendrix played guitar, like every single Superbowl signed football from with the...

Is he tripping right now?

Like, no, but this is like the kind of rich guy I would be. I'd be buying all this stupid, there'd be tons of Star Wars toys.

Exactly, 100%. Like you walk into this place and the floor is just glass and it's just a guitar.

Yeah, that's wicked.

Crazy. Like, so everybody that, like, he's super friends, good friends with, like, Zach Brown Band and all them. So they would come and play, like, all, like, the random, like, like, events we would have, just randomly Zach Brown Band. Like, it's, yeah, it's a different kind of money.

Yeah.

But that was super cool. They'd have different events, Ferrari events. Like I said, a lot of cool cars in there. I'm trying to think what my favorite would be. Well, anyway.

We'll get back to that. That's foreshadowing.

Yeah, so anyway, there was just a lot of cool stuff in there. Engine program was incredible. Being able to learn and see that. And I just honestly learned a ton procedure wise in terms of bookkeeping and the stuff that nobody likes learning about. That's where there's no fun part of that. And that's where I got a lot of knowledge in terms of seeing how a lot of these big contract manufacturing deals are done and how to engineer most efficiently. The head engineering there, Diane Holt, she's super b*****, awesome lady. She is incredibly smart. She actually used to work for Ferrari under Enzo Ferrari for the F1 team back in the day.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, so like she's got some real seasoning.

Probably during the successful days too.

Yes, yeah.

Before, dude, Ferrari, what a drought right now, by the way. Actually, scratch that, they're- Oh, it's kind of- Not the F1, what is it? Are they referred to as prototype or IMSA cars or what is it? They're crushed, no, the endurance cars, the WEC cars are crushing it right now.

Yes, yeah, that's same series that runs like Petit Le Mans, right?

No, like Le Mans, Le Mans. Those cars.

I don't watch that as closely, but I have to.

No, I just try to- You can't watch everything.

I know, it's so tough.

It's impossible.

It's tough.

Yeah, sorry, we're speaking a different language today. I'm going to die. Ferrari, fast car.

I want the red ones.

You want the red ones? Okay, so how long were you over there for?

I was there for a full year.

A full year. Okay, so obviously, working for a corporation like that, you get to learn a lot of things. So one of the things that we noticed, especially on our last podcast that aired an hour ago, the switch from a large corporation to small business. What's that look like?

Coming from Cicio to that, it was a little bit of a culture shock. It's a different vibe. It's a different scenario. You have to carry yourself differently. It's not just throwing cuss words around 24-7. I was dealing with, especially on my side, I dealt with the guys that killed Osamu Bin Laden. Delta Force IX, they'd come through and we'd have events for these guys. I used to go to different bases around the country.

Oh, for real?

Yeah, Fort Irwin, NTC, Fort Stewart, Savannah, 3ID. I'd visit all these different bases for different events, stuff like going on. We used to build these payload enablers, which were called Steed Silent Tactical Energy Enhanced Dismount, where it's basically an electric wheelbarrow. You put about 500 pounds worth of stuff on it, and you could put MG guns on it. You could put three...

I think I've seen them run those things around.

Yeah, they're super cool. And honestly, it's like, it's just, it's a utility thing. It helps move things. And you know, you're dealing with the army. See if some of these older sergeants that are like, you're making my men fat. You know, like this and that. But the idea of it was basically to be like, help guys move stuff. The biggest, I think the number one cause of, like the VA, or the number one cost for the VA is musculoskeletal injuries. They get 70% of injuries in the army, all due to lifting weights and lifting too much weight outside of your boundaries. So that's where that came into play. Basically, just an electric transaxle with a couple of batteries, with an IP67, completely sealed, can be underwater for weeks, whatever it might be. Started as a Navy Seal project that ended up becoming like a... Because basically, Hendrick would... They've always had ties with the military in some way. You know, like the National Guard car back in the day, before any of that was not a thing. They would always have some affiliation with the military, so the military would bring them projects, because they've had the engineering ability to do stuff. One of those turned in was that steed, but it ended up turning into, hey, we should make this a thing. And that's when they started putting more money and building an actual squad around the defense side. Now they're doing all the contract manufacturing for like HD Suburbans, all of the ISV, Infantry Squad Vehicle, which is like a, they have nine person ones, they have other versions that I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about, so I'm not gonna. But yeah, they're all basically GM based, and they build different, they give them motors, and they build different stuff around and build all the chassis for it. Because obviously, after, and this is the change in the next gen for NASCAR, again, I learned this all kind of recently, I wasn't ever really super into NASCAR, right? I've grown quite an appreciation for it. But before the next gen cars, every chassis was made in house. You'd have multiple bays of chassis being built at all times, because you can keep producing more. There wasn't any limits to how many you can have, so if a car got crashed, immediately throw another chassis and let's go. Now you have a limit to the amount of chassis you can have, and also they're supplied by a different supplier. So you have to buy the chassis to level the playing field a little bit. So that left a large portion of the weld shop nothing to do. So instead of firing everybody, that's when other projects started to come in, and they said, okay, we will do all the contract manufacturing for the GM stuff and whatever it might be. So that's how they keep getting into different defense projects. So that's going at all times. They still make the Xfinity cars, they do the chassis for the Xfinity cars, but for the Cup cars, they're all, I believe it's like Roush Racing, forgot who makes them, whatever it might be. And I think it's like 20 chassis per season, something like that. And every time a car comes in after a race, it gets completely torn down to the bare chassis and it starts a rebuild process. So like every section of the shop is sanctioned to a different part of the build. It's always five cars being built in different sections. Some that are 20, zero percent, some that are 20 percent, some that are 40 percent, some that are 80 percent, some that are 100 percent going, leaving the next week.

Yeah.

That's intense, man.

Yeah, it's nuts.

It's a lot more into that than I thought.

Yeah, there's a lot of different groups of people coming together, engineers, technicians, painters. They used to paint everything. Now everything is wrapped. They still paint the toolboxes and all this stuff. They still find their ways to do that stuff. It's just funny how it evolves. But yeah, it's a lot to appreciate. The thing that from an engineering standpoint that you can really appreciate, obviously you have your mechanical engineers, but then you have your aerodynamic engineers. Those guys have the most important job in NASCAR. Those guys, because the underneath of the car is the only thing you really have control over nowadays. The outsides of the car are sanctioned by the OEMs, and NASCAR specifications.

So I was gonna ask you, how does that relationship work? Like when you decide you're driving Ford, Chevy, what? Does it have to do with your drivetrain? Are you getting support from GM?

Yeah, obviously Hendrick's had a long-standing partnership with GM, so that's where that comes into play. So you have a partnership, and then they have different engine programs. Usually your NASCAR team runs its own engine program, and you partner with different companies for your body. Now, the thing that changes over the years is like, you'll see these cars getting updated. Sometimes, like maybe the Camaro might be two years older than the Mustang body. Mustang body, you'll see the Mustang's going faster, because they've already got an update and whatever it might be, that they're just aerodynamically fast. All of your edge comes in aerodynamics and race strategy. So, you really only have control. The biggest thing you have control over is the underneath of the cars. So, and I can't even dive in as deep as these guys can. These are just stories that I'm regurgitating, right? Because I'm not on the aero side. Just incredible stuff. Even learning about how the flaps work. When these cars, you'll always see on the top of a NASCAR, you'll see two flaps, one that's sideways and one that's this way or whatever it might be. When the car is spinning out, they're meant to flap open due to wind resistance and get them back straight. Little stuff like that where diffusers give you crazy downforce that they have to work with. Different, like each track, they change every aero setup. Like a fender might look the same, but there might be eight different fenders. And what they're trying to do is basically, and they have these programs, they're saying, all right, I've got eight of these fenders here. I've run this at this track four times and I won this time. Let's take that design and let's run it here and let's try this.

Holy s***.

Yeah.

That's still the case like in modern NASCAR as well. Like, so Next Gen started, what was it? Like, how many years?

20, 20, 2021, 20, 21.

Something like that, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

Might be 2020, whatever it might have been.

So you're still able to mess with all of that still.

To an extent, yeah. And then-

Within regulations, I'm sure.

That's the thing. And they're very stra- And that's where- That's where some like controversy comes into play, because they have like this thing called the Eagle Eye, where at like each track, they transfer this machine to each race that passes or fails spec for each car. Basically, it's just putting up together this scan of the car, 3D scan of the car, and it sees high spots, low spots, whatever it might be. It's going to say, that's a red, that's a no-go, that's a yellow, and then green, you're good. Right. Interesting. So we had one at Hendrick, so we would run the cars through them before they left. Everything green, good. Sometimes you'd get to the track and they're not calibrated. There was a long process. Also, these things are getting moved around a lot, they're not calibrated correctly. There was actually a lawsuit because they found out at one of the tracks, forgot where, they just never calibrated it, ever. So cars are failing, that like shouldn't have been failing.

Interesting.

So sometimes you'll even get to the track and the car that passed at home isn't going to pass there. So you got to make modifications there. So within your guidelines, you have to, you can make your modifications. Every edge that comes in NASCAR is finding rules that aren't in the book.

Yeah.

It's kind of like a racing given, right? Yeah.

And like, and that's everywhere. But you got to fricking look hard in NASCAR. And that's why having the, I mean, they've got a room full of 10 engineers, where it's like the race home hub kind of deal, where it's like a ton of TVs. They're analyzing. There's one engineer that's analyzing footage of every car and how his suspension geometry is sitting at this turn. They're saying, oh, because now they have, they release all these pictures to every team during practice. So they're sitting there analyzing how each car is coming into each turn. And they're sending their, they're telling that information to the crew chief in the building. And then that gentleman is relaying that information to the crew chief that's at the track. You're only allowed one engineer at the track now, I think it is, one or two, something like that. So the rest have to stay home. So the cars that don't have, or the teams that don't have a team of 20 people, their own satellite, like, and the ability, because they, they have, we have, like Hendrick has their own satellite so that they can relay that information faster. Like it's, it's mind-blowing, the amount of money.

Like a satellite.

Like a satellite. And I mean, they may be-

Government defense contract.

Maybe they're renting that from somebody or something like that. I don't know the details on exactly how that works, but-

I used to install that stuff. You can get, you can lease or whatever. Yeah, there's companies that, like BP had, we were using certain satellites. Hughes Net is who I used to do a lot of stuff for.

Okay. So yeah. So what do you think the down payment is? And like the monthly payments are on it?

I'm sure it's- This is before, when I did satellite stuff, this was before Elon made it easy.

Sure.

So I was pointing satellites all the time.

That's crazy.

It's always so interesting to see how that applies in different fields. That's cool.

Yeah.

But yeah, in its whole, there's just like every facet of that company is just go hard. The motto was, we build good s*** fast. Mainly because you'd have OSHA people coming by and you have to be trained to say what you do. We build good s*** fast. That was the motto. It was awesome.

How did your team stack up in terms of throughout the season?

So like I said, I was on the defense side. So I wasn't necessarily, I wasn't really affiliated with any of the specific teams. I was just a Byron fan. Like I got to hang out with all those guys and we used to go to all the races and do the stuff. In terms of engineering on the cars, I don't know. No, no, no touch. I was only an engineer on the defense side. I just know what I got to see and hang out and do and be around those guys.

But you don't know anything about the specific NASCAR team, how it did? Oh, we won.

We win. Hendrick wins all the time.

Okay. I don't follow either.

So during my time there, and we all got to share all of our race bonuses and all that stuff. When you win a race, you get some extra money and stuff like that. There's a gym on campus. Oh, and this was always cool. We would hold a compound for the pit guys. All these guys are either ex-football players, D1 wrestlers, whatever it might have been that didn't have an injury or something might happen. So these are all built dudes. And the guy that's usually picking up the gas tank is like 400 pounds and a farm boy. Just all farmer strength. It's crazy. These guys are conditioned like hell. So there's an awesome gym on campus. So getting to use that was awesome. But yeah, no, Hendrick just wins. I mean, constantly. One, two, the 40th year was the year that I was there. One, two, three, Martinsville. Martinsville is like their hometown track. It's the backyard. It's the first race that Hendrick, that Rick ever won. And yeah, it was, I mean, that was really cool. So my year there, I think Byron won. Will he beat? Something like that. And yeah, so Hendrick's always, it's the most winningest team in NASCAR. So they have like all of it. Seven time champions with Jeff Gordon, seven time champions with Jimmy Johnson. And yeah, the whole crew. It's cool. I wish I got to be there during like the Jimmy Johnson Lowe's era. Like the amount of money that Lowe's would throw at like racing and stuff like that. Like they would bring out the entire team to Vegas after the last Cup race. And I'm talking like housing hundreds of people for weeks to hang out and like party. Like those guys were nuts. I only got the stories, but it was just like being around for that would have been crazy. Next Gen is a little different, obviously. The drivers say their fair share of crap, but there's a microscope on them. It's a different world, for sure. And I am appreciative and happy to have learned everything that I got to there. And I'm also happy to be out. It's just one of those things. No matter what in motorsport, you're just working late.

Well, it's part of the game.

I was gone a long time out of the year. Like, probably, I mean, four months out of the year of weekend's worth just gone. And of traveling and around, it's just tough. And then I get home and I'm like, I tried to do the YouTube thing, I tried to do anything else, I have no time for anything else. I don't have time to work out extra and stuff like that. It's just not cohesive for my white lifestyle. And I was ready to move on. And that's where the Power Probe thing came in.

Okay, gotcha. So then how does that happen? And when does that happen?

So about last August time, I'd say, is when I made the jump. And now I do all of the product development for Power Probe. And that taking what I learned, especially in the fast paced lifestyle, at Hendrick and obviously Cicio, taking that and applying that towards a product range that's still cars, that's tools, that's now like the appreciation that I learned and got of electrical from like Brent and all the guys at Cicio. I love electrical. Like it's come down to every problem is solved with three basic principles. And there's only three things that could possibly be wrong. And you're dealing with either resistance, amperage or voltage. And at the end of the day, you start boiling it down and all these problems make sense.

Okay.

So I've learned a ton, especially now like diving in from work and then applying it here in the cars. I rewired the entire IS recently, pretty much every single pin in the ECU was just changed. Cause mostly because we had to make some changes, swap into a different tuner for AEM V2 purposes. AEM V2 is an old setup. I really shouldn't be running that on the IS anymore. But it does everything I need it to do and it still has safeties. So, and I don't really want to fix what's not broken. But anyway, I've just learned a ton from the electrical side of things there. And I am continuing to learn also all of the project management side of things where I was able to like put together a lot of projects at Hendrick and apply it all at PowerProbe. And it's been great. So being able to just keep continuously kind of working on the cutting edge of electrical equipment. We're doing a lot with like EVs nowadays, which is an interesting world. But we're developing different like, like EV diagnostic tools, obviously multimeters and all that fun stuff. Then circuit testers, which has always been a red and butter. And then tools like that draw monitor I was telling you about earlier. Stuff to just anything electrical based around a car. That's the stuff. And I have my ears to the streets. I'm the guy that if you have problems you call and I get to go to shops and try to help dive, like dive in and find electrical problems. And I try to find easier or better ways to solve those electrical problems. Because again, I mean, mechanical stuff usually ends up being an electrical problem from the beginning.

Or it's controlled electronically anyway, so.

Everything nowadays.

You have to start there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's and I don't know, it's a really cool thing. And being able to like diagnose certain stuff that I would just call gremlins used in the day. It's a ghost. If this is an anime.

It just does that sometimes.

Yeah. There's a reason for all of it.

Right.

And at the end of the day, it's really not all that. All you're doing is basically, it's the same thing as plumbing, right?

Okay.

I mean, hydraulics is the same thing as electronics, because all you're doing is sending a signal, sending water down a pipe.

Yeah. I sent a signal, all right.

I need to connect this to this, and whether that information be based off of voltage, like translating voltage inputs via a voltage translator, or like a freaking X series controller, whatever. All it is, is just taking lines of data and translating it. Who was it? Is that Amanda?

Yeah.

Oh, I guess she went to her sister's. All it is, is just taking that data and regurgitating it differently, and just manipulating Ohm's Law in different ways to get different results. And when you realize that, there's so much you can do with ECUs, with tuning, with setting cars up. The IS isn't here right now, but I've got that ECU set up so that I can change everything on the screen and right in front of you. And that ability, giving a car this old, that ability to make changes on the fly, and that extra, what's the word? Customization? Sure. It goes a long way.

I've got a 95F150 right now. I've got to check engine light. And you know how mad I am that it's one year before ODB2? So I can just plug my scanner in. I know I have a scanner that'll do ODB1, but it's just like an extra pain in the a**, right? Like it's not quite the same. I'm like, son of a b****.

It's like this thing.

Yeah, oh yeah.

I mean, certain things that like, all right, I'll give you an example in terms of something that I kind of figured out with the IS. This is obviously before it blew up, we'll get to that story. But it's been a couple of years now, two to three years, where I've been dealing with this intermittent hot start issue, where when the car is a certain like probably 180, 190 degrees, just won't start, right? And I chalked it up to the crank sensor, you know, like gets hot, metal expands in the heat, gets further away from the crank, maybe it doesn't notice that the crank's there and it's not seeing the teeth, and it's not stat syncing. So in order for the car to actually have the criteria to run, both the cam and the crank signals have to agree and say, I see each other. Once those happen, then everything can happen. You can start sending spark, you can send power, all the things. So stat sync is criteria number one. So if that's not satisfied, the car won't start. So I kept dealing with that here and there. I put that issue away with a ton of voltage, basically with an Antigrav battery that was like a 30 cranking amp, DL35, whatever. It was a b***** setup. And, sorry babe, babe, you can come through if you want. All right. Cut. Like I got over it with just an extra ton of voltage so that it gave it enough. Basically, what was happening is it would voltage drop quite a bit on start from like 10, 11 volts to like 8 volts, which again would not satisfy the stat sync thing, which is another thing, another thing on the handle. What is it? Over the years, I'm like, yeah, I got over it. It's fine. It doesn't come back. It's not an issue. It's still come back every now and then. That would be a problem. That's when I started to dive into it. When I was at power probe, I start having ways to dive into it and more information and understanding that resistance values change a lot in terms of how voltage can flow and what kind of signals things are getting. So I'm like, all right, let's just ohm out the crank sensor. Let's see what's happening. So at rest, I think it was sitting at like 2,000, at rest meaning like temp, like how it would be right now, about 2,000 ohms or so. When that thing was hot, it would say, I think it was like 46K, which is an obscene amount. You're not going to let any voltage in. I went ahead and I just bought another crank center. And I was like, okay, let's give that a shot, right? At rest, 1,000 ohms and throwing it in the oven, you're looking at like 3,000 ohms. And the thing, it solved everything. Everything, every issue that I had been having for the past, however many years where I'd have to throw up, I'd have to get another car behind it to give it a little more voltage to be able to get through to start. I'm doing voltage drop tests everywhere between the chassis and the rear battery, the chassis at the front, the chassis and the alternator, the block to the actual block itself, trying to figure out where my voltage is going. Like what is happening? Am I, is it wired like crap? Is this because I'm doing all the math and I'm like, listen, I've got a battery in the trunk at this point. We've extended these wires. Is the gauge proper where it actually can flow the amount of energy that it needs to flow? I'm going through all of these things. Nothing is making sense. A f****** crank sensor.

See, no, this is the part where being an engineer probably hurt you in that situation because you wanted to figure out the problem. I probably would just be like, oh, let's try and replace the crank sensor. I just start replacing s*** until it starts to work. And then I'm like, all right.

Yeah, that's the, I mean, genuinely, that's the best way to do it. That's the smart way. And that's like the same thing with these EVs. Like some of these guys like are like, you know, you have like all these problems, you start fixing stuff. It's like, oh, how do you, you got to take it all apart to be able to get to the control pilot, to understand whether or not it can actually get the information from the charger, my car's not charging, you bring it into a shop, and all you have to do is to prove that it's not, or at least not the car, take another charger and put it in. Yeah. It works. Okay, my charger at home is broke. Got it. Move on. But it's similar situations like that. You just, you got to know when to stop diving in and make the play, make the change. But at one point, I don't know, I've changed a lot of crap and sometimes it just doesn't do it.

Yeah. Nope. That's when you get out the multimeter and you go, okay, here we go.

Yeah.

I got to start diving into this s***. Then I usually give up at that point. But yeah.

Yeah. I know now being able to like understand that the value is a little bit more is starting it.

Yeah. See, that's where I wish I knew. Like people say on the Ford's a lot of times the coil on plugs, right? Once it starts missing, I just replace all of them. You can technically go through and like own them out and figure out which ones are bad. I'm just like, f*** it, buy and buy eight pack. That's how it works.

Yeah, I get that. And I do understand. I really give all many of extras too, right? So like when the next one does go wrong, you need to know which ones are bad. OK, let's figure out.

I do. I will like move them to cylinders to see where the problem lies. But typically anyway, if you've got like, let's say you got one or two coil packs going out, you've got one hundred and ten thousand miles on a car, whatever it is. The other ones aren't far behind anyway, just like front hubs. When I have a front hub that's going out, I do both sides because I guarantee you in another ten thousand miles the other one's going to.

Yeah, I'm with you there, 100%. It's the same way with solenoids on RX7s and twin turbo setups. So there's a few, and how that works is basically there is, and I've had to really get intimate with this stupid car.

How intimate are we talking about here?

I'm a little too intimate.

This is why all the RX7 owners are a little off.

They are.

It's an odd group of gentlemen.

It's a cult. I think it's a Mazda thing.

Is it an FD-ish thing? The early RX7s are kind of looked down on a little bit.

There is an FD severity complex, for sure. You got a lot.

And then you all laugh at RX8 owners, right?

Yes, collectively. Collectively, yeah, yeah, yeah. Renegis.

Yeah, yeah.

Those cars are just, they're just, well, you know what? I actually am less of an RX8 hater than most, because if I looked around right now, if I went on Facebook Marketplace and went ahead and searched for an RX8, they are the new 240SX.

Okay.

If I want to go drifting, I'm buying an RX8. I can search up RX8 right now and I will find five within 50 miles under a thousand dollars.

Oh, maybe that's what you should buy while you're down here.

I like them. I like the way they look.

Bro, go buy one. You will find, there's one 20 minutes away for 800 bucks that actually has some random four cylinder in it. Sure, go ahead. There's an actual bone truck, like bone stock, just chassis, rolling chassis for 500 bucks, a little north. Every one of these cars, you put five to six grand worth of stuff into like an LS, maybe a Coyote, might be a little too small for a Coyote. Yeah, yeah.

Eh, eh?

Yeah, well, I would go push Rod 302 before I go LS.

I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that.

Anything to make Dan spend money on here for.

The Mazda has a Ford affiliation anyway, so like I like that together.

And that's the car that's okay to take the rotary out of. We don't really care too much about that one.

Although if you listen to episode Antonio, come on.

Ooh, I want to say that was...

They are well balanced cars with the rotary. I just, I don't...

There's ways to make the Renesys reliable. And we've got a friend of ours that builds them and he does good. And he's got one that he dailies and drives and tracks and he's not had issues with it.

Is it turbo or non-turbo?

It's turboed.

Interesting.

Yep.

That's pretty cool.

And he, but like there has something to do with like taking the irons from one to the other.

Oh, you know, there's always someone who's got some random coup coqs, you know.

But they work.

I'm not saying they don't.

I can't remember what the specifics of it were, but yeah, basically, yeah. You basically take things from three different generations and you could make like a really solid, like, interesting, some parts on there.

You just like take off right away and throw in the trash, probably some emissions.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was the problem. That was the thing that RX8 had to change, mainly was all based on the emissions.

Yeah.

So that's why those motors are terrible. And they let go like hell.

Yeah. There's why you can't use oil as fuel.

Well, they do anyway.

Yeah.

Just throw oil and fuel at them till they...

Well, I mean, this has a specific chamber to insert oil into.

Yeah.

That's why you can't... I mean, you shouldn't... You can technically run synthetic, I guess, but you shouldn't. You should be running conventional, so it burns.

Though our friend has the reservoir and he still dumps the two-cycle in the...

Yeah, I do too. I do the same. I have... Actually, it's a nice little setup.

The little squeeze bottle with the thing.

I got a set of four of them in the back. Oh, they're still full.

I didn't even get to use them all.

I was so ready to drive to... I was driving five hours the day it blew up. It's still in that state.

This is gonna be the best highlight ever. So let's real quick dive into this car. I know we didn't really talk much more about the IS. We can definitely come back to that. But what's the situation with Boom Boom Number 2?

So, this is kind of funny. So, again, you've heard the story of how many times they've blown up motors, things happening, whatever it might be. I don't have the best luck with it, you know?

Okay, he's great with electrical. Other stuff, eww.

It just happens, you know? But like, I don't know, it's always happened. And again, I've said this before, it's never a want thing. I don't want these things to happen. They always end up being a need in some way, certain form. Like I said, some sort of silver lining. But if this were to happen-

That was a rotary, a little backfire there.

But that's the thing, like what had happened was it was a Sunday, I was taking the IS out for Cars and Coffee and I spun a bearing. There's five quarts of oil in the car and five and a half, I had to find out after that most people are overfilling their 2Js. I have known that by now. Every single one of my friends said, how did you not know that? You've been into this for so long. I don't know. Nobody told me.

Anyway, sometimes when you go back to look for that answer and it's so blatantly in your face, you're like, why didn't I f****** see that when I, I know, I've been there, done that.

I had an oil filter relocation outside the motor. So there's more oil flowing to the oil filter relocation. It had a set of billet valve covers that weren't baffled very well. And the thing is, there's also two AN bungs right at the back. So it would send, it would fill a catch can full of 24 ounces worth of oil, good oil in 15 minutes of driving. So I have all that oil displaced out of the motor when it's running, even though my oil pressure is saying everything's fine, even though I check the oil when it's at stationary at rest, it looks fine. I it's fun. I mean, it was pure and utter trash. Like I have a video on that that we just took it apart and rebuilding another motor for it. So that happened a month ago. Right.

OK.

So I get married in two weeks. My main goal was to have both of these cars at the wedding. So that's Sunday. I blow the IS up. I'm like, great. I know that sound. I bet you it's a spun bearing. That sucks. So send it back to the shop.

Right. And it's fine. What does that sound sound like?

Horrible.

It's not nice. When you hear knocking from the bottom side, that's when you go, s***.

Yeah. It started usually a little higher and then it got lower. And I go, that bearings gone.

You always when you hear a knock or tick, you're like just you're kind of secretly hoping it's valentine related and it never is.

And I'm like, it starts faint and I'm like, okay, the cams, okay, okay. And then it keeps getting louder and I go, f***. And I was, of course, I was racing a C7Z and it was going to be a good race. He was making like 650 or so, I was making around the same. And honestly, that was going to be a fun race. And my car broke up. Actually it needed spark plugs. Car broke up and then it just let go. I'll give you the video. And so, okay, so that car is down. I have it sent to my buddy's shop.

The guy we're having on the show?

Yes, Jared Forward Performance. You guys will meet here soon. Awesome people, like genuine, just raced right home.

Yeah, and I'm gonna give a quick disclaimer. So he's a seven second Supra, stick shift still, who will be running at bragging rates a week before this airs, two weeks before this airs. But either way, he will be on an upcoming episode.

Yeah, he's great people.

I mean, you guys, unless we have a big falling out this week, and that's it. There's no episode.

It's impossible. He's the most easygoing, nice person you'll ever meet.

But he impossible. It's like he's challenging me.

No, but he's great people. And we have a great relationship. I actually met him five years prior. We in the day, two years ago, when my car blew up the last time, I ended up in his shop by chance, because my one buddy that I had known mutual friends is like, yeah, just have your car sent there. I don't know where to send it. I just moved to Charlotte, like, what's going on? And I walk in the next day and I'm like, oh, I know you. And ever since, we've just been great friends. So he lets me use the shop and we get to build the cars together. It's awesome. So I send the car to his shop and I'm like, that's fine, I got an RX7 at home. I'm like, great. So I grabbed this car and I have fun with it for the weekend. I don't do anything crazy. At this point, I had just been finishing doing all the Cerakoted stuff. Everything under the bay I showed you earlier.

It's really nice.

It's all Cerakoted. I brought it down to like nothing. I really brought this back. I rewired the entire car, put the V-mount in it. I was basically correcting the... It had a front mount intercooler and it didn't cool very well. So you would just see rising temps. And the main thing with the rotaries is don't overheat them. If you overheat them, you crack an iron, you're spending a lot more money than if you did something else. Housing are a lot cheaper, irons are expensive, especially because that's where your street port lies, that's where your peripheral port, that's where your bridge port, all that lies within the actual, those house, about the housings, the irons. So yeah, anyway, I corrected all that. I wired the entire thing. I threw speakers in it. I have Apple CarPlay now, all of that stuff. Yeah, dude, the thing's awesome. Like it sounds great. I'll show you before you guys leave. It sounds awesome. I'm really happy.

It still does that.

Yes, it still does.

Sometimes I'll legitimately sit in it.

Do you sometimes take old videos of the car running and play it through the speakers?

I should.

I should.

You're damn-

Dude, that'd be such a funny TikTok or something.

I swear on my life, I've sat in it going, it's really sad. It's really sad.

Dude, I'm begging you, please, sometimes we do that as a f****** TikTok. I will. I will.

Honestly, that's a good one. I owe it. Yeah, I got it.

I can't reach back. Can you pat for me?

But yeah, so I got this thing out. I'm really happy with it at this point. I was adjusting the suspension. I just wanted to be a little lower for the show. I was being timid with it when I first got it, and I was like, all right, let's just start sending it. So I started lowering it, some more messing with suspension settings.

What's your choice of suspension here, by the way?

It's also Fortune Autos. They've hooked me up on everything. I love those guys. So the IS has 510s on it. This is 500s. This will probably end up getting a set of 510s as well. Or like the two ways. It depends on what I end up really doing with it. It'll get something cool.

What do you do with it when it's running? Are you a road course guy?

Road course all day, all day. So like love mountain roads. Like to me, that's like where this car just...

How can you not be in this area?

It's incredible, right? And so I love that. I love cruising, but Carolina Motorsports Park is about 40 minutes south of here. And that is the perfect just open road track. You drive down. My ideal weekends are just gonna be filled of, let's take a Saturday, drive a car down, track during the day, drive it home.

Take it to L94. I'll tell you later.

No, I have an RV now that I got just because I was doing more track stuff. And it's like to go there, pull the trailer to the car, and like spend the night there and did the weekend at the track is...

It's the best.

It's my favorite.

And having things... I've never had something close by. Everything in New York was four hours away, three hours away, then you have to do a traffic, and it's six hours home back home because you have to traffic on through the city, all that, whatever it might be. That sucks. Here, like, I can actually do that and be home at a normal time and have fun. So the main goal with both of these cars eventually is just to get back on track. And just like the IS did the Super Street thing, I'm gonna get to really enjoy this thing while it's wrapped and still, because basically I'm gonna get this motor together and leave it wrapped for about a year, and just really beat it up.

What brand is this?

3M? It's 3M, yeah.

Okay, I could tell by the orange peel.

Yeah, exactly. It's pretty awful. It was also the 1080 series, so it's like a lesser... No, it's not great. And that was the idea of getting this car, is I can really set it up without any repercussions. It's not a perfect car. Drive train wise, it was, and it still is. It was a full, pedant racing build 12 years ago. So they're upgraded twins, off the shelf, brand new, blue printed 13B, everything was brand new. So it's a really solid setup. At this point, it needs Apex seals, obviously. But anyway, I pick up the car, I go have fun with it during the weekend. The week comes around, I'm messing with the settings. And then Thursday comes around, I'm leaving Friday to go to Chattanooga for Riverside. And Thursday comes around, I drive it to work to just shake it down. I drive it from work to this shop to talk some electrical stuff. And I drive it there, on the way there, merging under the highway. It just started sounding like, it just, in third to fourth, it just started sounding like a Subaru a little bit.

I was like, You remember, even a Subaru shouldn't sound like Subarus.

Normally, it sounds like a Briggs and Stratton, but yeah, yeah.

Exactly.

Our buddy got s*** like that all the time.

Now, at this point, I'm like, now it sounds broken.

Yeah.

And it's just, it was idling weird. It was just, and it's funny, cause it's like, it's still, it's still fine. It's interesting how that will work, but it probably sent a Apex Seal out the back, out through that exhaust, which could in turn have taken the turbos with it, the housing with it, who knows? I was good about it. At this point, I was like, yo guys, do I even drive it home? What do I do? And the guys are like, drive it home.

It's cooked.

Yeah, it's screwed. It's one of the housings, so it's the rear housing. Ended up taking the hit.

Okay, so you already went in there and looked at it?

No, we compression tested it.

Okay, gotcha, gotcha.

And the compression test is not awful in terms of there is some compression left.

So can you save something of it? Or is it just?

It's possible. It's possible that the housing is okay. So basically the way that it works is it's just basic, it's different sections of motor stacked onto each other. So the rear housing is what houses the rear apex, or rather the rear rotor. And that rotor has an apex seal at the very top of it. That seals two of the faces. There's three faces in a rotary. It seals two of the faces. When two of the compression numbers are down, then you know it's an apex seal. Typically that little metal piece will kind of peel up and send out somewhere. It's around basically a 60,000 mile job.

Okay, so it's a common thing and they're kind of meant to blow versus...

Because they're not going to last forever, right? And that's where the premix comes into play. You can make it 80,000 miles out of it sometimes. Sometimes people even more. And I will say some of the most reliable setups, sorry, the most reliable setups are always NA setups. And NA rotary will run for 200,000 miles. Like there's not much on there. But when this thing was NA for the time being, when I didn't have the turbos hooked up, it is the slowest goddamn thing I've ever driven in my life. It needs turbos. But anyway, it's like, so that happens four days later, and then I'm a little sad for a day, but I'm driving my truck home and I'm like, I just start laughing. Like almost like maniacally, just like, like, and I'm like, this would happen to me. Why wouldn't both my cars blow up before the wedding, a month before the wedding? So at that point, I had to take the choice of which car I was going to bring back and the IS is already built. You know what I mean? It's got a computer set up. It's got a fuel set up. Everything's already set up. All it takes is pulling the motor out, swapping everything over to another bottom end because we trashed, I trashed that bottom end.

Okay.

So it's got a non VVT-I GE bottom end in it, which there's a non VVT-I GTE bottom end right under there. Okay.

I saw that sitting there.

Yeah. There's also a VR38 next to it. Okay. Oh really? From Cicio, yeah.

Why do you got that?

We used to just, any block that was deemed no good, I believe something on that crank was this color, meaning that it enlarged and came back to, so they decided not to use that block. There's no cracks in it.

Oh, cool.

If somebody was brave, they probably could probably make a table out of it. Okay. That 2J will get reused. That's a zero mile GTE block. That's the one that I spun a bearing in and I feel awful about it. I just feel like a piece of garbage.

I love how he says it's like, oh yeah, we'll just put them up between commercial bikes.

I have a built blown coyote sitting in the corner of my shop that I have yet even just pulled the valve covers off of. I mean, it's been a year and a half and he's like, we should do a video, turn it down. I know, it's just a good video.

People like that's fun. That's also, it's cool to see. It's cool to see how it breaks down. I keep saying I need more content and then I blow up two cars. I got all the content I need.

Dude, yeah, you're basically going to get to a million subscribers just off two cars.

Right, exactly. And do a giveaway at the end. Yeah, exactly.

I have no idea. Like it's a $10,000 short block. So like I don't even like I should probably look because I might be able to save some s***.

You probably could save a decent amount. How did it go?

It wasn't well. It blew. So when I say I haven't looked under the valve covers, I saw under one because it blew off of the car.

Oh.

So what I believe happened is rings or cracked piston or something, putting too much crankcase pressure up on the other side.

Yeah, you got to deal with that.

Yeah.

Huh. You probably could save a decent amount in there.

We'll see. I mean, it had a lot of forged everything. Manly everything, diamond everything, total seal pistons, rings. Yeah. The whole gamut.

Yeah, that hurts. That really hurts. I get it. I get it. I'm as attached to that bottom end right there. So that bottom end will get rebuilt eventually. Yeah. But I threw a non-VVT-IGE bottom end, which are like that motor right there. You can buy from Toyota for like 3,500 bucks, 4 grand. I'm buying these non-VVT-IGE bottom ends for like 6 to 800 bucks.

Okay.

So I'm buying those bottom ends and I'm just throwing everything over. Obviously, new oil pump when the process goes, you gotta clean the motor to hell. You gotta do a lot of cleaning. Obviously, get every bit of sludge out of there. The oil was gray because it was just barren. So everything gets dropped over to that motor. You're probably in like 2, 2,500 bucks by the end of it. That's the secret. The secret sauce is the non-VVTi GE bottom end. They're higher compression. They'll hold 800 horsepower all day, every day. I was telling you guys before, Jared has the stock block world record on a non-VVTi GE bottom end in his S14. And I believe he ran an 814 at like 176, something like that. Yeah, and the car was jamming like 1,400 horsepower. So, and that car was jamming for a while. And it didn't let go until he, it probably made like 1,500 points at one point. And that was the point. But at 800, 900 horsepower, those bottom ends will last.

Yeah, so I was just thinking like, yeah, if it's doing well at that power level.

Yeah. So me at like that 700 horsepower, 650, 700, it should be money. These have been oiling issues completely on my end because. So at this point, we put together a motor that I'm really confident in and Jared's confident in. So we're feeling like this is just going to live. Swapped to OEM covers because obviously pushing all that oil beforehand is just, you got to keep more oil in the head, in the motor itself. When I had OEM covers, it would probably move about an ounce of oil every six months. It was probably moving an ounce of oil every six seconds with these billet covers. So going back to OEM covers, going to an OEM filter setup and just overfilling it, combined with a couple of stuff that we've done here and there, moving oil pressure sensor to a little more reliable location. Just get that information.

Mike, it's picking up your belly growls now. Cut in there.

But yeah, getting that information, being able to best set those cars up, I think it was going to be. So that, I'm confident in that setup. So now, the past couple of weeks, I've been obviously trying to spend as much time with my fiance, because we have the wedding coming up and all that. But I break out every as soon as I can to get that motor together. It's almost there. So next week, the plan is get it in the car, and then it's going straight to the paint shop, and then from the paint shop, it's going straight to my wedding.

Okay.

Yeah. And then this thing will come back after the honeymoon.

Anywho. Yeah. Okay. So on that note, is there anything else you kind of wanted to touch on before we start wrapping up?

Last thing...

I feel like we could be here for 14 hours.

Yeah.

You're a very... We spent a good bit of time at Vegas. I could talk a lot. Well, dude, you're a good storyteller. That's one of the things I like to tell people on the show. You're very easy to... It's like smooth jazz. I need to do awards at the end of this year for like easiest listens, right? Because I can listen. I'm also great at being a therapist.

Okay. You asked good questions.

That's unverified.

I'm all for one. But anyways, any final things you wanted to touch on before we pop our usual dream?

That's really much. You guys got to know me a little bit. Yeah.

We'll get you back for a round two.

Yeah. We got to hear about the cars.

I might be back here next month.

Oh, well, so that'll be cool. So let me know when you're back, because what I'd like to do, so I'd like to take you guys both out in the IS, because that's a fun car, so you can just hack everybody in it. And then when you guys come back, I'll probably have this thing apart. We're rebuilding it right here in this garage. So I'm going to learn along with the YouTubes, basically everything that I post every single week. And it's just about stuff that I build. So we're going to pull the motor here. We're going to stack it right here. It's getting, like I said, the Turblown 8474 kit. It's getting a FuelTech ECU. And it's all happening right here. We're going to paint the engine bay while the motor's out. And then I'm going to rock this setup for like a little time so I can really beat it up.

Right.

Like next time you guys are here, we'll take this to the track. That'll be fun.

That'd be cool.

And then after that, that's when it will be torn down, down to like all the windows are coming out, every interior panel is coming out, and that's when we're going to do it.

Really make it pretty.

Yeah, like full paint, rotisserie job, going through pretty much. We're gonna watch everything and doing like the upholstery and all that. But again, like I said, it's gonna be a project. Once I've seen through this phase and got my enjoyment out of it, and it's time to move that ax level.

I just realized, I don't think I've ever gotten a ride in a 2J car. Really? I've driven our beat, no, I've never tried that car, no.

You probably get one this weekend with Jared. And if you don't-

We'll see how tired he is.

Well, you'll see him Sunday.

Yeah, we'll see how good, because I know that these are going to be some long nights at this event.

They definitely are. But if you tempt Jared, just I've never driven in a 2J car. Oh, let's go, let's go.

I'm going to have to go through all my- because I used to, again, I used to be a photographer, so I used to take photos of the cars that I'd be in.

The IS will probably be, honestly, probably be more fun on the street because it just feels-

Planted.

Not that the Supra is not, Supra is sick.

Supra suck, bro.

I just don't know if it will have a seat in it. The IS, though, has stock seats in it, and when the car is making 900, 1,000 wheel with stock seats, you're just like, whoa.

It's like a standard sedan.

It's so scary. Oh yeah, there's no bulls- it's the OEM seats. It's like this. It's like you were to put this in a car and also make 1,000 horsepower, and you're going, you're like, whoa, and it's all on stock suspension. So it's like the rowdiest, scariest. I genuinely like-

It's on stock suspension.

I don't get scared a lot. And that car kind of scares me a little bit.

Yeah, I'll stick to the RB guys. They're a little more tame.

No, yeah, no, Jared will scare you a little bit, but it'll be worth it. My IS feels a little more tame, but it's just cause it's little, it's like, it's planted. It's meant for track stuff. Yeah, it cars like 255 square, which is big for an IS.

This is 285 square and it's just.

I will say I do like the fitment. Also, I never see these wheels in this color.

TI Silver is good. It's not bad. I want Reagan Masters. I love TEs. I have mold, I've had like six or seven sets on throughout the cars. These cars on the Reagan Masters are so good. I also got an Ari Amemiya, Ari Amemiya, someone's gonna yell at me for that butchering, bumper for it, like an old school one. And one of those situations, like on Facebook Marketplace, where I see it in the background of a post, and I'm like, yo dude, is that this bumper?

And he was like, I have no idea what that is.

I was like, how much do you want for it? He's like, 50 bucks.

And I'm like, I'm on my way.

I was like, five zero or five five five, like five zero zero zero. Like it's really an expensive bumper. I was like, we import that here, it's like three grand.

He's like, oh, it's 50 bucks.

I don't know what it is. I just went out with the garage. It was in Kentucky and I didn't even want to drive. So I went to, this was during my bachelor party. My buddy was driving down from Ohio and happened to just be perfectly 10 minutes away from his house as he's driving by. And he popped in, gave him 50 bucks, grabbed the bumper. It went to Nashville for my party. I flew there. And then my other buddy that lives in Georgia from Ciccio brought it home to Georgia. And I was going to bring it back for the wedding. Yeah.

When did this happen?

A month ago.

I need photos, that's f****** awesome.

It was, oh man, it was legit. Like I'm talking like, I'll send you the photo of it. I'm talking this bumper is being encased because they are the only ones that drove. They are driving back, encased in all of the leftover alcohol. So it's just like 10 Bud Light boxes all around an RE OG front bumper. That's like mega rare. Like you can't find them anymore. They were like made only from like 1994, 1995 or 1996. Holy s***. Yeah. It's like a, it's a weird one. And I like the funky weird ones. So that's what's going to, I have a gentleman in New York that's going to do all the paint or yeah. And he did all the stuff on the IS and he's like a fiberglass artist. He's doing like the, I forgot the, like the Garage Defender or whatever it was, that R33 Speed Wagon. That was in Tokyo Auto Salon back in the day. So he's doing all the restorations on like those cars. And he does just some incredible, like one-off stuff. So I want to just give him the car.

Okay.

Have fun.

Sick.

Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be cool. I'm trying to make it just, I feel like every FD out there has either too much done or nothing done. And it's, and that's fine. I think that's, I love FDs. I love them all.

Thanks for not having like a obnoxious wing. This is really clean.

I love the simple, the simple car.

I like wing cars, but it's kind of refreshing to see like a non-wing car. For example, like even like in the Viper world, I like seeing someone like the TA1 car.

TA's, I would get an orange TA if I had a gen five. That was always my, my, my.

They are a f****** mint.

They have so much money.

They, the TAs are stupid money.

My buddy spent like a, actually I think he spent 75 or 70 or so on his gen five right before like if they started going up. Man, that's a car.

Yeah. We just had a friend get one for 70, but it was a lemon.

Okay.

So you had to do a good bit of work on it. Cosmetically, you know, the lemon wasn't cosmetic, but anywho. On that note, Dan, did you want to pop the usual three?

Yeah.

And no one do a Minnesota goodbye?

Sure.

I want to see.

This is going to be interesting.

This is going to be so interesting.

Right.

This is going to be so interesting.

So at the end of every episode, we like to ask our guest to pick three cars.

Okay.

I need a track car, a daily driver, and a show car. You have an unlimited budget, make up whatever you want, swap whatever you want. What are you picking?

Holy s***. So a track car, a-

Daily driver and a show car.

Daily and a show car.

Have you ever noticed how people repeat the three and then that's them stalling for time like I am for him right now?

Yes, absolutely.

This is a really tough one. Holy crap. I put some thought at it recently, funny enough.

Yeah. Anything on your little hot wheels wall back here?

Well, an LFA is going to be one of them. I just don't, I don't know which one. I think that might be the daily. I think I daily the LFA.

Dailying an LFA. That's bold.

I think I daily the LFA. I don't need trucks. I can throw whatever I want in something. So then I have-

I can just imagine strapping a bumper to the LFA. To the roof.

So daily the LFA, then I have what? I have a race car and a show car. I'm pretty sick right now because I can't think of any cars. It's on this wall.

No, no, no, no, no. Cheating now.

You know what? There's some cool stuff you can do. I think I would have to have- I think I'd have to have this as a track car.

Really?

Four-roader, wide as all hell. Like, NA four-roader. Like just 10, 11,000 RPM, revving monster.

Okay.

Like super wide. Like, you know, Wise, what is it? Produce Wise, something like that.

Is that a grocery store?

Yeah, pretty much. No, it's a tuning house out of Japan. Okay. It's actually the car that holds, I believe, the record at Tsukuba right now.

Okay.

It's a four-roader car. That's just bad s***.

Oh, okay.

In terms of track stuff, it really doesn't get any more rowdy. So I'd say that for the track car. And then for the show car, this is out of left field, and it's only because it's in front of me, and I'm going to regret saying this.

No take, see, back, see.

Yeah, I know. I'm going to regret saying this because I'm going to think of something else eventually.

No, I think I'd have that car over an F1. I would say a Miura, a Lamborghini Miura.

For a show car?

I think.

So, fun fact, I saw one of two that were in that color.

Really?

Yeah, I think there's two in the world, a Miura SV. Sorry, it was a Miura SV, and it was, what is it called, like Tahiti Blue or something? Something crazy like that, but yeah, saw that in person. That was cool.

That's epic. Those, to me, I like those.

Next to one of those, what's the Alfa Romeo that they made one of 500?

Oh, not the, not the, oh, the, not the 8C.

No, not the 8C.

Oh, no, I'm thinking about the Project X.

Oh, not the 30, Type 33. What year, what year are we talking about?

We're talking like in the last decade and a half.

Oh, okay.

Kind of like that, like the recent Giulia generation. It's not an 8C. Either way, it's like one of 500. It was like next, it was really cool. I got a photo of it somewhere on my Instagram, but.

It had a Ferrari V8 in it, right?

Yes, something.

Yeah, I know a car. I think it's an 8C.

Have you ever seen like the.

Oh, wait, it's based off of the Viper. I think it was. Oh, okay, different.

No, no, no, that's a different one. I was about to say that there's a lot of weird like one-off Viper ones out there.

Yeah, I've seen that.

Yeah, I saw that on my feed recently. But anyways, on that note, where can people find you?

Oh, I'm on Instagram as HenryJZX. I'm on YouTube as HenryJZX slash the Speed Culture, whichever one. And I am on Facebook as Henry Pitzer. Cool. Yeah.

Awesome. Well, there's a lot more to dive into there and in the future, we'll learn more. Yeah, man.

I mean, we'll be around. We have SEMA coming up.

True.

I go to a lot of events, you go to a lot of events, especially over the next year. After the wedding, I'm going to have a lot more time to do this stuff. So let's get together and let's do some stuff.

Let's stop saying SEMA is coming up, because for us, that means the car season is almost over and it hasn't even started. So technically, it's not coming up.

Sorry, I'm sorry.

So cool your jets.

Cool your jets.

We've got time.

Well, thanks for coming on, Henry. I'm glad we made this happen. Dan, thanks for existing.

Yep.

I feel like I'm missing something there.

You asked me where to find me, I bet they know.

Yeah, they can find you.

They know where to find you.

At the place, right? The one place.

Yeah.

Is it kind of garage?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, cool. They can find you there.

Our Culver's.

I haven't had Culver's in a minute. And as for me, I made it this far to check out our sponsors, and we'll see you next time. Thanks again for watching the show, guys. Be sure to go into the description down below and check out all of our sponsors. They are what make this show possible. It allows us to travel the country and talk to some really cool guests. So be sure to check them out, support them just like you support us, and see you all next time.