174. Founding OTL, Subarus and the GR Corolla, Product Development and Engineering w/ Justin North

So Bob goes, you're taking those back. So I've got a suitcase with 50 vibrators in it.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Minnoxide podcast. I'm your host, Harris, AKA Minnoxide, back in the same scene as the last episode with my Ford loving co-host, Dan.

This is a week later, though.

This is a week later, yeah, I won't post it. And we are here with Justin North of Off The Line Performance. So funny enough, we were only going to do one with Grayson. And then I was like, is there anybody else over there you want us to talk to? And then then you shot me a message. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right. I was supposed to have Justin. Yeah, I'm glad this worked out then. So first of all, thanks for having us and letting us use your space.

Yeah, thanks for coming.

But go ahead and tell us a little bit about your story, how this all came to be. And we'll just kind of go from there.

All right. Well, I guess I don't know how far back you want me to start, but I graduated college and I was a lost soul at that point, which most people are, right? So I started working at a Nissan dealership as like a service manager. And I learned rather quickly that I enjoyed like the modifying of the cars, the car culture, and that was like right when the 350 Zs came out. And so it was really on an uprise with the tuner market, you know? And I had a 200 SXSER first, which had the SR20 in it, graduated into a SER spec V, built that car, and then I realized rather quickly that if I was going to make something fast, it probably needed to have turbos. So I started looking EVOs and STIs, ended up in an STI, and then shortly thereafter, I left my job at Nissan to be an engineer, a contract engineer for Subaru of America. And so that would have probably been like 2004-ish. And so I started out, that was my first engineering position.

Is that what you went to school for? Sorry to interrupt you.

Yeah, I went to school for CAD engineering, so computer design stuff. And I'd been doing that since I was like roughly 14 years old.

Okay.

So I'd been doing CAD drawings and 3D modeling and stuff since I was about 14 years old. And so I did go to school for it, but all the jobs were just terrible. So that's how I ended up in the dealership. But I eventually landed my job at this company called DZ, which if you guys know truck accessories, you'd be familiar with them. But DZ's primary business is OEM contracting. So they make like the step tubes for Ford, Toyota, toolboxes, whatever. Anyways, Subaru was one of their contracts. And so I was put in charge of the Subaru contract. And we started out with dog guards, diff plate, diff skid plate covers, things like that. The engineer at Subaru knew that I had a passion for the cars and wanted me to come up with some unique ideas for their OEM performance line, which was titled SPT, for Subaru Performance Techno, something like that. Anyways, I grew that program from, I don't know, one part number maybe to like 20 or 30. And we were ripping. We did really good. So and a lot of these old OG Subaru guys will recognize a lot of the parts I designed. I did radiator shrouds, turbo heat shields, strut bars, chassis braces, cold air intakes, all the basic bolt-ons that you would expect on a tuner car. I did that until the automotive economy crashed. And that was like, what, 08 or something like that. And then I had to tear off and do other engineering projects from that point. And I ended up doing weapons, medical, off highway, RF control, electro-mechanical engineering, all kinds of random engineering projects that were in the automotive, the medical stuff wasn't, but the other stuff was all in the automotive field. And so I went down that path and I worked with a good friend of mine that is a Optima Series racer and he has a machine shop and electronics manufacturing facility here in town. I worked with him for about 10 years and we built SEMA vehicles and race cars and hot rods and all kinds of random crap while I worked with him. And he's still up to it to this day and he has some incredible vehicles that him and his son race and build. And so I worked with him for 10 years until I started Off The Line. Off The Line original was a I'm going to sell parts to fund the hobby. Sure. You know, I wanted to race. I wanted to build cars. I needed the side cash to do it. So I started selling parts out of my garage. I had an old business partner back then that helped me start the company. And we did that for we started that in 2014. So I did that for probably about a year. And then I realized I had about 25 cars in my yard and the customers were kicking my door in. And I had no free time and no free space. And it was time to look into, you know, getting serious about it. So at that point, I was still doing two jobs. It was not full time yet with Off The Line. And then in 2015, I got my first facility. So I went from my garage in 14 to 15 to a facility. It was pretty small, it was one lift. I don't know, maybe 2,500 square feet or something. It wasn't very big. And I rode that out for a couple of years. And I ran out of space real quick. And I ended up in another building that was 5,000 square feet. So that was building number two. And then in about, and I ran that building for years until about 2018. And at that point I needed help. And so Cole joined the team. And Cole joined me originally as a mechanic. And then eventually in like 2018, 19, Cole became an owner. And then the old guy, he kind of stepped away. So then it was Cole and I that owned it together. And we were running into space issues again at that building. And we looked at expanding on a rental property, but the lease was just going to be, we could buy a building for what it's going to cost to lease something like that. So we started shopping for buildings and we got a good deal on this place.

Sure.

Which I mean, I know now it seems like a lot, but when we got it, it was really not good. It was a dry storage for a roofing company and it was just a empty blank concrete box.

Yep.

But it had good bones and there was no demo because there was nothing here. So it allowed us to have a blank canvas to design what we have here. And this is kind of a brainchild that I had. You know, I do the CAD stuff, so I was able to lay it out, kind of decide how I wanted to do it. And working with Cole and his family, we were able to come up with what we have here. And so we moved, it took us about a year of construction from 19 to 20-ish. And then we moved in and we've been here since. Sure. And then once we got in...

Was it just you two then still at this point?

Yeah, just me and Cole are the owners. Okay. Just the two of us. Yeah. And so then, you know, the big thing was is there was only four of us when we moved into this building. It was me, Cole, and I had two mechanics at the time, Grayson being one of them.

Okay.

So there was two mechanics plus me and Cole, four guys into a 40,000 square foot building. And we all just kind of looked at each other and we're like, we're gonna have to grow this. Like if we're gonna fill these shoes, it's gonna take some work. So the work that we decided to take on was this manufacturing department. That's what my history's in is automotive manufacturing and aftermarket part manufacturing. And of course the OEM manufacturing that I did when I was with Subaru. So that was right in my wheelhouse to be able to figure this out. My manufacturing, my lead manufacturing guy, Eric, is an incredible fabricator. He's come from the world of Subi Speed, FT-86 Speed Factory, Grim Speed. He helped them do all of their manufacturing processes, their welding, their development, their design work. He's a huge player in all of that. And when those guys sold, he was available. So I brought him on. We designed this wonderful manufacturing space. And then the next project was we have to figure out what are, what is it that we're going to manufacture? Obviously Subaru stuff was a part of our wheelhouse. So we started with a few Subaru products, but we were kind of a little, I would say late to the game on some of that stuff, because a lot of it had been established for years. And it wasn't that the products weren't good, but there's so many options. It was so saturated that trying to get started in that industry was a bit of a challenge at first. And so we thought we need something fresh. We need something new. And I said, you know what? This Corolla is coming out. You can't buy an STI. You can't buy an Evo. It's the all wheel drive stick shift option. It's going to be the next car that I believe these guys, these Subaru and Evo guys are going to want. So I designed an entire catalog of parts for that GR Corolla. And that got our manufacturing department really, really kicked off. And another thing that really helped me grow from the first shop to the second shop and then transition into this shop is I developed a Subaru ignition coil.

Okay.

And those ignition coils, I've sold now to date 12,000 of them. And they've been all over the world and they've been selling since 2015. And that's that was kind of my bread and butter product that was consistent. It was a regular cash flow, it was expected. And I knew that that would help us drive to get to the next point. So that's kind of what we use to get there.

You know, I can see exactly why you and Martin get along now, by the way.

Yeah, yeah. Martin and I have a similar background. I've known him for a long time. You know, I would say he's probably a little more advanced than I am now. He's doing all this cool GTR stuff, which, you know, at the time, I actually kind of talked to him about going over there to work when the GTRs came out, but I had just had a child. And so I wasn't going to bail on that responsibility. So I, you know, I have got to stick it out. I got to stay in Iowa. I got to figure out what I'm going to do. So this is what I figured out. This is what I've done to, you know, kind of make my way all these years.

So it seems like you have a very sort of like, we're going to do a parts approach.

Yep. Yeah. I mean, working on cars is great, but like it's challenging, you know? The margins are slim. The timelines are tight. And you've got a lot of customers to deal with. Where are the parts? They're repetitive. They're consistent. You know, and I really enjoy myself. I really enjoy the business to business relations, dealing with the other shop owners, selling my products to people, getting them in people's hands, seeing them, enjoying them, hearing the feedback. That's the passion that I really have is with the parts.

So you're saying so far, when it comes to that side of things, the most success has come from the GR Corolla then?

Well, that's really where we've put most of our effort. Honestly, I have more aspirations. I've got more designs. I have more parts. However, we're so busy doing the Corolla stuff that I really don't have the time to dedicate it to anything else. Even though I have these designs, you know, it's really like each new product costs roughly $50,000 to develop.

Yeah, okay.

So once you figure the tooling costs, the upfront, you know, minimum order quantities and material costs and all that to get the ball rolling, it's a pretty big undertaking. So once you're all in on one platform and you've got a couple hundred, $300,000 dedicated to development and tooling, it's hard to take on too much more, you know, especially until you know that those products are successful.

Right.

So once we got one successful product with the Corolla, we came with another and another and another until we had a catalog.

How are you deciding what needs to be next? Are you trolling Facebook groups or are you just kind of what, hey, this I think is a weak spot. I think this would work. Are you asking opinions of people before you roll something out or how do you make that decision?

It's really, the only answer I can really give, which is probably not the greatest one, is my experience in the industry tells me what people want.

Okay.

I've seen over the years what products people like to buy, where demand lies, what the high movers are. And you can tell by other companies that make parts for not the same cars, but like, for example, when the STIs came out, what do you think the number one product to install on those cars were right from the gate?

Mud flaps.

Possibly. But if you want a more performance, cold air intake, it was a cold air intake or a downpipe. Right?

Sure.

So what's the first thing I made for the Corolla? A downpipe.

OK.

You know, that's going to be the easiest way to unlock extra power and gauge the market. You know, how many of these can we sell? Is it going to be popular? How many of these cars are available? Are the guys that buy the cars, they going to modify them? So you come out with one product is gamble. It's total crap shoot. And it might flop, you know, and then that's up to you. If it flops, do you want to come out with another product? Or do you know, do you keep focusing on that or do you bail out and try something else, you know? And we did do a few Subaru products and I wouldn't call them flops, they're slow movers. It wasn't something where you released the product and you got a hundred of them sold.

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You know, the Corolla downpipes were very much the opposite. We released them and they just started flying off the shelves. We couldn't build enough of them. So that told me the market's there. So now that we knew that the market was there, okay, what else can we do? Catbacks, intercooler piping, intercoolers, all the basic bolt-ons that anybody's gonna buy for a turbocharged vehicle. And if you find a vehicle that you know the aftermarket's gonna be heavy for it, it's almost a guarantee that those hard parts, their easy bolt-ons, as long as they're designed correctly, they fit well and they function, you're gonna sell them. It's just a matter of getting it in front of people's faces. And that's when my marketing team comes into play.

Okay.

You know?

So who's all doing the design? Is it just you at the moment?

I do all the design work.

Okay. And then, so what was the number one seller on the Corolla? Then right out the gate?

Well, the downpipe was the first one.

First thing?

So obviously it's gonna sell the most because it was first, but I would say the cat-backs probably are a close second-corner. Cat-backs are nice because you don't void your warranty to put them on.

That's what I was gonna say.

Anybody can put that on and it gives you the sound and performance. You don't have to gain any horsepower, but it sounds good, looks good. Go to a car show and ours has a controllable valve. You can open it up and make it sound like a race car, whatever. People enjoy that. And you don't void your warranty. So if you go to the dealer with an issue, they're still gonna take care of you. Or a downpipe, not quite the same story. They can sometimes void warranties with downpipes.

Are you using an off-the-shelf muffler? Or did you guys design your own baffling and muffler?

Our mufflers come from a manufacturer in Asia that also manufactures for vibrant performance. So we used a vibrant muffler on the initial prototypes and then went to the manufacturer for vibrant and said, okay, let's rip. And so our mufflers have our own logo on them and everything that are made for us by our specification.

Yeah, I mean, that's how most of everybody does any of that anyway. I was just, I just didn't know you went that far into it because that's kind of a specialty all on its own. Right.

And then the really unique thing that we did on our Corolla Catback, God, we almost tanked the project over it, is we designed a really unique center tip that fits the opening of the bumper. And we had one company make them for us. We got samples, we approved them. They sent us the first load, all junk. Like 200 parts junk. Really? They were warped, they were misshapen, they were not sellable. And so at that point, we had to decide, do we scrap this project or do we retool it with another company and do another investment and start over again? And that's what we chose to do. We thought, man, this Catback, I think it's going to hit. So we did, that one was a big gamble, you know, because that first setback was huge.

Sure.

And the company that made those tips for us basically told us to pound sand when we asked for a refund.

I was going to say, can you go back to them at all? No.

They gave us a bit of a credit, a little bit. But it wasn't enough to matter.

Yeah.

You know, and so it was like, damn, we have to start all the way over with this. And we have the whole rest of the Catback designed. It was literally a center tip. It was our setback.

So you just scrap them at that point and just throw them in the dumpster?

Throw them all away.

Yeah.

Throw them all away.

Can't cut them up, make keychains, nothing like that.

No. I thought about it. We're like, what can we do with these things? But they were just, they were all, they were terrible. I mean, there was no use in them. And me and Eric both have a really keen eye for quality. And there was zero chance we were going to let something that crappy out our door.

Yeah.

Now, and there's a lot of other companies that probably would have let it slide, but not us. You know, that's not what we've come from. That's not, I'm come from the OEM world. He came from GrimSpeed. And everybody knows GrimSpeed's quality is to be respected. And so we're like, there's no way that we, as a manufacturer, can release something like this and be respected in the industry for what we've done. So we're like, absolutely not. This has got to get thrown away. And we started over.

That's usually the key to success in anything like this. Anyway, if you're if you're putting out a quality product, you're going to have obviously way better success than trying to just dump out a bunch of cheap s***.

Yep. And we make sure that everything that we make is tested, it's proven. We have numbers to back up our claims. That's why we have a dino and we hook sensors up. When we did our intercoolers, we had pre and post temp sensors, pre and post pressure sensors. We did dino runs, we did street runs, we did everything we could to try to gather as much data as possible to prove, yes, this intercooler works and yes, it is an improvement and this is what it's going to do for you. Okay.

Oh, that's another one, a cute one. So, okay, so then how long does that beginning to end, right? Let's say like downpipe, right? On paper, it looks kind of easy to do. How long does it take to actually make sure that it works beginning to end with the project before you sell it?

On the fast side, six months.

Oh, wow. Okay.

On average, eight to 12.

Okay.

If you want it right, like, right, you know, I could rip it out and sell it in probably three months, but it's going to be untested. It's going to be unproven and I'm going to be just going, yeah, buy my s***. There's no way for me to know that it's going to be right. And consciously, I can't do that to a customer, you know, I've been on the building my own car, end of things, and it's so frustrating. The hardware is not there. The gaskets aren't there. The parts don't fit. Nobody wants to deal with that, you know, and then that's a customer service nightmare for us to have to deal with that. So, you know, by the time you do a design, 3D print your samples, test fit, send the samples off for manufacturing, whether it be casting or forming or whatever you're doing, like we'll hand build samples and then send them off. Like if we're going to do like a catback, it might take 10 pieces to make that mid pipe section. We'll send it off to a bender to have it all made in one piece so that there's less weld joints, less labor, less time. It's the only way you can make it cost effectively, you know? By the time you do all that and your materials start rolling in, I mean, there's normally 90 day lead times on any material orders. So you're talking two, three months to development, 90 days lead time on material orders, and then you got testing. And then, you know, after that, you can start releasing product.

Right.

But I mean, that alone that I just spoke about, that's like what? Six months minimum right there. So you're not going to really, I mean, to push it any faster, I suppose you could.

Sure.

Maybe you could pay some expedite fees and stuff like that. But I just don't know in some cases if it's really worth it.

Right. Well, yeah, that would be tricky at that point, too.

Right.

Like to actually see a return on it.

Yeah, your development cost is higher, right? So it's going to take you longer to return on your investment.

What is the split between? So you do that. What does Cole do? Do you guys split the shop or anything like that? Like, how do things operate here on that front?

So I do I do like the design work, the engineering work. Cole does a lot of accounting and a lot of like the business management, like behind the scenes stuff. OK, so he does like a lot of the backside stuff where I do more of the like, I guess, the design and visual side of it.

Sure. You know, the shop side of things.

But Cole has been transitioning more into kind of getting involved more in the like day to day operation stuff. And he's got passions like I do parts, right? Like, that's my thing. I like to do parts. Cole likes drift cars. He likes to do stuff like that and where that's not really my wheelhouse. But like, hey, if that's his thing, like, let's do it right. So we had a drift event here. We've got an event that we're sponsoring in June with a local Mustang club that's going to be a drag drift event that's over in Illinois. And so stuff like that is kind of where Cole starts to get integrated. Now, like ice cream cruise is kind of my wheelhouse. I deal with that. We just kind of split tasks throughout the business. But as far as like the manufacturing and engineering stuff goes, me and Eric work closely to do that. And obviously with Cole from a financial and the accounting side of things.

Sure. What's the name of this Mustang event?

Uh, they're changing the name and I don't think they've released it.

Was it IMU?

IMU is doing it.

Okay. Okay. Okay. I've been invited. I've tried to go twice and had a car blow up two times going down to that.

We're going to be one of the main sponsors for it.

Oh, really? Okay.

It's like June, June 13th.

I want to say you started talking mid June, Iowa Mustang Club. I'm. Yeah. Yeah.

That's those guys.

Okay.

And they did a meet here like a night meet at the shop. And there's 1200 people here. It was insane. Yeah, absolutely insane.

I think it's like one of the Midwest's largest Mustang gatherings or whatever.

Yeah.

I get Nick or whoever the main guy hits me up.

And they do all automotive now. It's not just Mustangs.

Okay.

So they kind of do a little bit of everything.

I'm scared.

So when they had that night meet here, I mean, there was Lamborghini's, there was Mustangs, there was whatever, you know, a little bit everything.

Okay.

But it was, I mean, 1200 people. And in this building, that's a lot.

Yeah.

I mean, it was packed. It was a little nerve wracking, to be honest, but it went smoothly. We had food trucks, you know, no major drama, like everything went well.

So awesome. What's this respectable Mustang owners? And yeah, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I know that those guys have had some crazy meats in the past, like they had one at Bass Pro. And the takeover guys got a hold of it. It went chaos. Nothing on those guys. But you know, when you open the doors up to the general automotive community, to let them kick your door in, you never know what you're going to get.

You start letting the hellcats in.

Yeah, exactly. You never know what you're going to get. You never know what you're going to get.

What's it take with R&D? So if I remember correctly, was there kind of a hype when this car was coming out? Were they kind of difficult to get a hold of? Like how important is it for you to get an R&D car? And are they difficult to get a hold of when they're kind of just coming out?

I mean, that's tough because if you ask most people, they were hard to get. But I got three of them.

Okay.

So I don't know. I mean, maybe I know the right people.

Yeah.

I've got some friends at Toyota dealerships and I know some TRD engineers and stuff. Maybe I was able to get lucky, but I got three of them.

Okay.

So I don't know. I mean, and that was within the first year of the car's release.

Yeah.

So I don't really know. I mean, allegedly they were hard to get, allegedly.

Yeah.

But I got the first one right away and it was a Cor model. And then I put three orders in, thinking, well, one of them will hit, right?

Yeah.

Like certainly if I have three orders in, one of them will hit.

Yeah.

And I got the first car and it was a Cor model. And it was a pretty, those were the first ones that were released to the United States. They really want a Cor model. I wanted a circuit because they had the carbon fiber roof. It's a more cool car, in my opinion.

Yeah.

But I took the Cor because I wanted it for development. So I got it right away, had it for maybe a year. And then another dealer called me and said, hey, your circuit's here. And I'm like, see a Cor.

Right.

So I traded the Cor in for a circuit. And then the blue circuit came in. And that was a third dealer. And I'm like, damn. And Cole had a S650 Mustang that he had bought. And he thought about doing some development with it. We looked into it, decided that it really wasn't going to be a good decision for us.

Yeah.

We're not really into Mustangs. We don't really chase the Mustang community. It's a cool car, great car. We had some ideas, but we're like, dude, we ran it. We would have to reinvent ourself to do this.

Yeah, that's another one of those markets. It's pretty saturated with the Subaru market was our bread and butter.

Right. So all those guys are the ones watching us. So it's the all wheel drive, turbocharged Japanese car community that is our our main focus group. So getting into a Mustang, that's a different world.

Yeah.

You know, and we were like, maybe we don't want to do this. So we dumped the Mustang, bought the blue Corolla and we decided, hey, that market's hot. We're doing well with it. We might as well add another one of those to the fleet if we're going to add something.

Yeah.

So we ended up with two Corollas then.

Well, the strong, like a good healthy aftermarket is good for those OEMs too, right? Because then it builds hype around the brand and there are going to be a lot of people out tuning them, doing things, changing them, things like that. It's going to be, you're going to want to go get one. Nobody wants to buy a car you can't do s*** to.

Yeah. And the Subarus are popular because I didn't, I mean, it's kind of general Subaru knowledge, but Subarus have one of the highest owner to modification ratio out of any car that's available. Even more so than the Mustang community, if you can believe it. So, and that's because think about it. Back when we were doing Subarus in like 05, 06, when it was hot, when I started on it, we would have thousand car meets and they were modifying Outbacks, Foresters, Imprezas, STIs, Bajas. They didn't care. They were modifying every Subaru that existed, you know? And if you go to Ford, what do they modify? Maybe a Mustang.

Yeah.

Okay. What else? That's it.

An F-150, maybe.

Yeah, an F-150, maybe. Subaru had like six cars that these guys were modifying. Their wife had a modified Subaru. Their mom had a modified Subaru. You know what I mean? Everybody was messing with them. And so that community just grew and it took off. And I didn't even know what I was getting into when I got into them. I just thought, oh, this is cool. It's turbocharged, right? It's got a six speed Brembo brakes. This is cool. I didn't know that it was going to turn into what it turned into.

Yeah.

You know, and now I guess I'm one of the old guys that's been doing Subarus since they hit the States. So, I mean, and then I've had more than I care to count at this point. But the RS was the car that I kind of was like, as a Subaru guy, that's kind of the holy grail of Subarus. Like, if you're going to build one, that's what you build. And so I bought about six of them until I found the right one. And I was like, yep, this is the car. This is the one that I'm going to dump the bag onto to turn it into what I want to turn it into.

What made it the one?

It was low mile, one owner, rust free, never been painted, never been, it was completely stock when I got it, never been molested. And so I'm like, if I'm going to put, I knew I was going to put a ton of money into it, you know? And if I'm going to do that, I'm not going to do it to a rusty, crashed, Bondo filled car. You know, I wanted a clean example to start out with. And so that's what I started with.

Well, if you went through that many, there must have been some nightmare ones in that mix too.

Bunch of them. I had some, I'd pull the carpet up and you could see the floorboards were wrinkled, rockers built out of Bondo, replaced panels, cut panels, rust, you name it. And it was just like, look, I'm not going to put, at that point, you're talking, this was like 2006 or seven when I'm doing this. And the US STIs had only been out since 2004, so the three years old, you know, at the oldest three years old. So I found a car that was an 05 and it was smashed on both the front and the back. And it still cost me 10 grand.

Holy s***.

And this is back in 06 or whatever.

Right.

You know? And so I knew I had to spend $10,000 on the donor car to build this car. I wasn't going to do that to some junk car.

Right.

You know? And that was to make it a stock STI. Not what I wanted to turn it into. And so that's where I started. I swapped it stock. And back then, it was pretty difficult because there wasn't a lot of people that did the wiring merges. Like iWire wasn't around back then. Brian that owns iWire is an old friend of mine. And he was working at the shop called Garage Tuning. And he was just like a lot boy at that point. And he slowly transitioned into being the wiring guy there. But other than them, there was nobody else that did wiring merges on those cars. And the reason that those cars are so difficult to swap is unlike a Honda or a Nissan or anything else, the body harness and the engine harness are not separate. They're one and the same. So when you do an engine swap on them, you have to de-loom and rip apart the entire vehicle harness from headlight to tail light. And you have to replace and re-pin all the wires in it and then re-loom it and put it all the way back together in order for the car to function.

So for somebody who doesn't really know what this thing is, so are you saying you basically had to build something that wasn't available here in the States? Is that kind of... So there was a stock car, but not here?

Correct. Well, not even necessarily that. So we only got non-turbo 2.5 liter single overhead cam in a Impressus back before 2002 when the Bug Eye came out. So that's all you could get, right? Those RSs were Subarus test to the market to see if the United States had an enthusiast market for a Subaru. Because in Japan, they have those things, turbo, they're racing them in rally. They were super popular.

Yeah.

But over here, not so much, right? All they had was outbacks. You remember the old outback commercials with crocodile dundee and that was what Subarus bread and butter was back then.

Okay.

So they dropped these RSs, thought, let's see if people will buy a rally looking car, right? They were pretty successful. But unfortunately, all of them were non-turbo, boring, 150 horsepower cars. So I took this US STI that was a great car and I took the bones that made that car so incredible and put it into that car.

Okay.

So it's lighter weight. It's two door, which is, you know, super cool because a two door, all wheel drive, turbocharged car that, I mean, what else exists? A Celica maybe. I mean, there's not many of them out there that, that were all wheel drive, turbocharged manual transmission and two door.

It's a lot of boxes.

Right. You know what I mean? So like it was, it was very unique to be able to do that. And at that time I went to Chicago. I used to go over to P&L Motorsports quite a bit back in the day. They were like one of the big Subaru shops in the Midwest. And that's where I had all my tuning and stuff done. And a guy over there was like, dude, you got to drive my swapped RS. And he was like one of the first 10 in the United States. He had sent his out to California and had it done. And I drove it and I was just like immediately like, yes, this has got to happen. Because those cars, even with a stock STI swap, are significantly faster than a stock STI. The weight is way lower. It's just the chassis, the way it feels, it's just a unique experience. And so I'm like, yep, I need to do that. And I had an 05 STI at the time and it made like 450 horsepower, which back then was a big deal. You know, I was like, I think there's only a few guys that were in the 500s. But other than that, I was one of the higher power ones, which is ridiculous to say now. But I'm like, I need this in this car. So that was the original goal, right? And then it just kind of snowballed. I started chasing power and it ended up mid 700s and it ran like low tens in the quarter mile.

What does it take to get to that level in that generation then to get to that power level? Like cost wise or part cost wise and parts wise?

Yeah, I cost, I lost track a long time. Sure. But I mean, and then the argument is different too. Like what would it cost today versus what it cost me back then is nowhere near the same conversation.

Sure.

You know, there's parts I bought back then for a few hundred bucks that are now a few thousand.

Yeah.

You know, so you couldn't re-create that car today. Some of the parts wouldn't even be available.

Sure.

You know, it'd be very hard to re-create it. But I don't know, over the years a lot, at least six figures.

But it lives at that power level happily.

It's turned down now.

Sure.

So my history with that car is in the 2010s, like 2010, 2012, something like that. I did a lot of street racing with it.

Sure.

And I was successful. It was one of those cars that people weren't ready for. You know, it was all wheel drive. I had drag radials on it. It made 600 horsepower and it would take a thousand plus horsepower real wheel drive car to even give me a run for my money because I'd get so far out on them that by the time they were ready to reel me in, I was already done, you know? And I did a lot of street racing, which is where I met Kyle, which he's one of my best friends ever now, you know? And I met Kyle like back in like 2010 to 2012, we were doing cash days together and traveling all over, doing street racing. And I mean, it was a good time, right? And back then a 600 horsepower Subaru was quite competitive. You know, you could do a lot of damage with one of those cars. Never won any of those big cash day races, but I also never lost in the first round.

Okay.

So, you know, I did pretty well. And then it got to the point to where everybody's, these cars were getting faster. And all of a sudden a 600 horsepower Subaru was not going to hang anymore.

Sure.

And so I decided, well, there's other things I can do with this car. It's a beautiful street car. It's not a race car, right? So I turned the power down and I did the Optima series with it. And I road raced that and I had, and it was great. I did really well with it. I did a TV show with Rob Freddie, Amelia Hartford and Matt Farah. I did that TV show called Sorted and that was fun. I blew the motor up on it. It wasn't the best showing, but it was 130 degrees out.

Yeah.

And the Subaru didn't like fifth gear going 130 miles an hour.

That's fair.

So that's not what it's made for. It didn't work out.

There was such a wide variety of cars on that show because I think that was Calvo on that season too? Or is that the first season?

He was on, so my season was split in two halves. There was an East and a West. I was on the West.

Okay.

And I don't remember all the cars. There was a Supra, an IS 300, a twin turbo.

Our first one had an IS 300.

Yep. Another Subaru, but you know, it was awesome to have real automotive professionals that are enthusiasts, that are reviewers, drive this project that I've had for all these years and go, my God, you've built an incredible car. And they're like, this is one of the best Subarus we've ever driven. This thing is memorable. This thing is incredible. And that made me feel great to know that I built something that not only I was proud of, but other people that are professionals could look at and go, wow, you've done something here. And so, you know, that was that was really rewarding for me to be able to do that. And so, you know, after I did that, did the Optima thing, you know, it went to Vegas, I raced it out there for the Optima series. I was like, you know what? I've done my work with this car.

Yeah.

And there's so many rare parts on it. And it's so like if somebody were to hit it, I would I would just die. There'd be no way for me to repair it. You know, I wouldn't even be able to get parts for it. So I shelved it. There's nothing wrong with it runs great. I drive it every once in a while. I'll probably bust it out to some car shows here and there. But otherwise, I really just look at it and have the memories of the last 20 years that I've had with that car. So I built the 07 Limited. And then I still wanted to race. I saw this passion to drag race, right? The popular cars to drag race are V8 Twin Turbos. And I saw these Hondas were just ripping. So I'm like, I need one of those. So I built an EK Civic that's all wheel drive, K Series swapped, makes 1400 horsepower. It is a blast. And I finally kind of got all the bugs worked out of it over the last couple of years. And I think next year, I'm going to start trying to race it. Like not just testing it, but actually go to some events and do some work with it. And that thing is a rocket.

Is it still stick shift as well?

Yep. It's an H pattern. It's got strain gauge. You know, it has a delay valve on the clutch. All the cheater things you can't put in the Subaru, the Honda's got it. It's got wheel speed sensors on it, front and rear. It's got a Motec in it, Motec dash. I mean, it is literally a competition, all wheel drive drag car. And that car has so much potential. Last year, I had a boost control issue, but on a half a** pass, it ran like an 850 at like 160 something, blowing up the motor. So once I get that thing dialed, it'll for sure be a sevens car.

Are you still cast block then?

Yep. It's still a cast block, which is why with the boost control issue, I had to split the block.

Oh yeah, okay.

65 pounds of boost on a 74 millimeter turbo. This cast block was unhappy.

What are you running for a turbo on there?

It's a Precision 7485.

Okay, gotcha.

Which is a class legal sport front wheel drive turbo.

Yep. It is an all wheel drive one too, right? Yeah.

It's got a WAGO all wheel drive system in it.

Sure.

All the diffs have been built, PPG dog box.

Okay, yep.

You know, aluminum rod motor. It's I mean, it's got it's got everything that it would need to be successful.

Sure. Which what's it got for a MoTec in there?

M150.

Okay, as I say. Yeah. No, we recently had a all wheel drive Honda guy. He was actually in the top 10. Jonathan blanking on his last name, that green one. Yeah, we had him on or whatever. And now he's he's he's chasing to say the least. So he'll be at 2K, I believe.

I'd like to get to 2K with it. I've got a little bit of work I need to do to it before, but I think it's ready. So my goal is to try to get there.

Sure.

So I've got the qualifying time to make it. I just, I probably want to do one testing day to make sure that I've got all the bugs worked out of it. That's hard to do before Texas 2K where you live because I might just take it down there and hit the track before I go to the track. You know what I mean? We'll see. My dad lives in Texas. Oh, maybe I'll go down and visit him.

Yeah, makes sense. Which part of Texas?

He's in, they call it West Central.

West Central. He's West. Landman area or what?

Yeah, he's a land manager out there. He does guided hunting and land management for ranches.

Oh, sure.

The helicopter thing's coming in to play.

The helicopter thing, yeah. Hog hunting, the Audad sheep that I got, it was from there. They do whitetail, they do zebras, they have all kinds of exotic animals that you'd never believe that they have in Texas, but they raise them to do these huge, big money guided hunting tours. Turkey season is really big for him too, which is where he's in the middle of right now.

Oh, sure. Yep.

Well, we might need to talk after this because I've been wanting to take my dad out to go do something like that. I'm trying to push him out of a helicopter so I can get all the inheritance.

Let's go.

Yeah, yeah.

All I can tell you is that everybody told me when I put my seat in that helicopter, and I had my AR with the drum bag on it. And they said, be ready because this is the most fun you'll ever have with your clothes on. And I'm like, okay, let's give this a rip. And they weren't wrong. It is a hell of an experience. I've gone two or three times now to do the hog hunting in the helicopter.

Okay.

And it is...

Each time is as fun as the last?

It's on my bucket list. I've seen it the first time I saw it, I was like, I gotta do that.

Yeah, it's worth every cent. It's worth every cent. It is... I know there's a lot of people that criticize it, but to let everybody know, those hogs are extremely invasive.

Yeah, most of those people don't live in the Midwest.

They kill other animals. And in their gestation periods, only three months, and they generate 12 pigs per gestation period. So in one month and one year, one sow can produce 30-something babies. So if they get onto your property, they're like cockroaches. Sure.

That's insane.

And we can only get, like, when we go out, the farmers pay you to get rid of these hogs, and you can only get a small portion of them.

Just adjusting.

Oh, you're good, yeah. You can only get a small portion of them in one trip.

Okay.

Like, there's thousands of them per property, and you might get a couple hundred.

Yeah.

Which sounds like a lot, and it is when you're up there.

But, like, you're only getting rid of such a small portion.

You're just controlling the population. You're not eliminating it.

That's insane.

And that's all you're doing.

I was looking at, okay, so I was talking to our Australian friends at SEMA about this. Is it like, I think, 10 grand or whatever to hop up in a helicopter? Or is it something like that?

Oh, no, it doesn't cost that much.

Oh, okay. So it must have been a particular one I was looking at then.

10 grand would be if I wanted to take a group of eight guys, pay for the lodging, pay for all the ammunition, pay for everybody's dinners.

Sure.

And I'm catering the entire trip.

Okay.

That would cost me 10 grand.

Gotcha. Okay. So like for you, but if you split it amongst a few dudes, sure.

It's not 10 grand.

Right. That makes sense.

And you can only do 30 minute rotations in the helicopter because you run out of ammo. I mean, I'll have my pockets full, my pants, my coat. And up here, mags everywhere. You got your vest on and you'll burn through all that ammo in 30 minutes. You can't carry enough.

That's insane.

All right. Sold. Yeah. So I mean, you only get 30 minute trips in the helicopter.

Sure.

So you need six guys or so so that the helicopter will land, three jump out, three jump in. He's back off again.

Sure.

You know, and you just rotate throughout the day that way.

Okay. You bring your own firearms or?

I have my own. Yeah.

Okay. Well, I say everybody's got their own, but yeah. I don't know if they made you.

They do. They do provide them.

Yeah. Yeah.

The helicopter comes with a shotgun and an AR.

Okay.

And they have ammo.

Okay.

But five, five, six, not a very effective round on the hogs. No, it works ish, but it's got to be a very well placed shot.

Sure.

So I have an AR-10 with a suppressor and that that does the job. That's a lot better. I also bought this sick shotgun and it's a Rock Island. I think it's Rock Island Arms is what it is. But anyways, it's an AR platform shotgun with a 20 round banana mag.

Oh, sweet.

And it's semi-automatic and that thing just rips.

Yeah.

And shotgun is really good. Buckshot is what you use on them. That's really effective.

Okay.

So a helicopter. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Because you're only 50 yards away.

Oh, really?

Those helicopter pilots are skilled. They get that thing. Like if the pack of hogs is running, they'll get it down sideways and just chase them.

Okay. That's like fishing a barrel.

And then as soon as you're done, these guys are empty. They flip that thing around and they're back on the other side and you have a shooter on the other side and they're chasing them again. And it is, I've got YouTube video. Like I clipped a camera onto the side of the helicopter.

Yeah.

But I'm like, apprehensive to put it online.

Yeah.

Sure.

I feel like I'd get a lot of hate for it.

Yeah.

Well, I share it amongst friends, but you know what I mean? Like if you don't understand the land management aspect of Texas, it looks very violent. Well, yeah.

Well, same thing with like the Colorado thing. Did you hear about how they're like basically trying to bring all the coyotes back or the wolves back or whatever? And it's like, yeah, it's going to f*** up your whole ecosystem.

We like when we're in Texas, I get what they call as a predator license or an exotic animal license.

Oh, sure. Okay.

And there's animals you can hunt, hogs, coyotes, armadillos, red fox. There's a list of animals that you're allowed to eliminate because they're considered pests or invasive.

Sure.

And coyotes are one of them. They're a b**** to get. They're hard. I got a big one when I got that sheep on the way to go get it. I got this huge one and I have incredible video of it. It was so much fun. I was the only guy that had a gun and we were on the way to the sheep and this giant male coyote pops out and they're like, you have to get that. And I magdumped it, chasing it because coyotes are...

Yeah, they're crafty.

Yeah, and they'll get into the bushes and they'll hide. So I magdumped it, chasing it through the brush because I didn't have a clear shot at it because it was in all this brush, you know? But I knew if I kept shooting at it, it would keep running. So I have this video of me just magdumping this thing and it gets into the clearing and I just, one well-placed shot and that was it. But again, I'm apprehensive. Yeah. You know what I mean?

We've had other people on the show who've had similar experiences in Texas that showed us stuff off camera.

Yep.

I'll tell you about it off camera. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, once you understand the ecosystem and you understand the whys and the hows, it makes a little more sense. But from the outside looking in, it's like, oh my God, this is brutal. Yeah.

Well, it's by the millions.

It is.

Yeah, well, you can't, anytime you, if you've ever walked in and ordered a steak or eaten a cheeseburger, I don't want to hear about any of that stuff.

Yeah, but nobody wants to know how it gets there.

No, absolutely not.

You know what I mean?

No.

You know, but like the pigs, right? Like I'll say, oh, we got 200 of them. Oh my God, 200 of them. Yo, that one property had 4,000.

Yeah.

That's just one property too. Yeah.

That's one property. That one property had 4,000.

Yeah. That's only 3% of what was there.

And we got 200 of them.

Yeah.

Cool story. You barely made it dead, you know? And they have to go over two or three times a year. And they have to plan it around other hunting seasons because they don't want to scare the deer, they don't want to scare the turkeys, you know, because those are the animals that make them money. So, you know, they got to get rid of them, though. But the coyotes will get, they'll eat small cows, they'll eat sheep, they'll eat, I mean, they eat all kinds of crap. And the hogs, they're just, they'll eat anything, dude. They eat each other even.

Yeah.

I mean, they're just-

Go let your kids go play out there for a little bit.

Oh, dude, they're brutal.

Yeah.

And the pigs are, you can't do anything with the meat. It's all diseased and it's tough and it's, I mean, there's nothing you can do with it. It's just trash.

Yeah.

So unfortunately, it's not really anything you can keep.

That's a bummer.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The middle size to smaller ones are in a little better shape.

Sure.

But like the big ones, they're disgusting. Like they don't look like your average farm pig. They're huge, tough, hairy, dirty. I mean, they're disgusting.

Yeah. Yeah. I've seen some photos and videos of it. It's rough.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I get.

What are we talking about?

Cars.

Yeah.

Cars.

Honestly, I kind of like picking your brain about this. I've never actually talked. I think I've talked to people who have done it, but they don't talk about it in such detail typically.

Well, my dad's a land manager, right? So every time I talk to him, it's like, oh, here's just, you know, it's a hunting story.

Yeah.

But he gets to take NFL players, like they'll bring their kids, right? For example, you're an NFL player. You have how much time off to hunt? None. A weekend. Right. Well, they want their kid to go get this big white tail deer that they can brag to all their buddies about. It's got a huge rack on it. So they go find my dad.

Sure.

They go, hey, we want a white tail. He takes him out to a property and he goes, look, they run through here. They got trail camps. They run through here at this time every day. You know, you set the guy up, set his kid up, say, okay, here they come and they come running and they can get their deer, brag to all their buddies. They pay a bunch of money to do it. And that's the end of that. And they raise those deer though. You know, they have breeding facilities and everything over there. So it's just a different world. You know, it really is. It's a different world.

That's Texas for you.

And they do, and anything that they hunt outside of the past animals, they do process. So those guys end up, you know, getting all their deer meat and all that from them, you know?

Yep.

It's just kind of a whole, I mean, I grew up in a sportsman family. I mean, I do it right now. My kids, like we were hunting all this week and it's, you grew up in the Midwest. It's just part of how you were raised up, I feel.

Yeah, it is. I mean, we have a, we have pheasant and deer here that.

Yeah.

Pretty, I grew up on a farm too. So I guess, you know, when you grow up on a farm, your outlook's a little different.

Yeah.

You know?

That's how I learned about the birds and the bees growing up on a farm.

That's right. That's right. The school bus rides from the farm were always.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He told me that story last week. That one.

All right.

Well, so how do we get into all this? Right. So when did you first realize you were into cars? Right. Like, or what would you wrench on?

Oh, my God. So that story goes so far back.

Sure.

So my dad was a professional go kart racer. OK, starting at 16 years old. And so I was born into having a father that race go karts professionally, and he would travel all over the United States and the world. He went to Europe.

Oh, wow.

And he had sponsors like Cookies, Barbecue Sauce and Maxis Tire. You know, we had lifetime supply of barbecue sauce when I was a kid. But I traveled all over the country with my dad going to go kart races when I was less than 10 years old. You know, by the time I was eight, I was in go karts. And, you know, by the time I was 13, I was working on cars. You know, I worked on BMX bikes. I raced BMX and rode BMX when I was 12, 13, modified those even, you know, modified RC cars when I was 12. And then by the time I was 13 or 14, my parents got me my first car was a notch back Fox body Mustang. And you better believe I was in the garage wrenching on it.

Yeah.

You know, and I remember at one point, my mom walks out and she was like, what in the hell are you doing? And I'm like, I'm putting brakes on this car. How do you know how to do that? You're 14 years old. I'm like, you take the bolt out, you put the bolt back in. It's pretty simple. You know, it just does what it does, you know, like this isn't that bad, you know? And she's just like, I don't even know what you're doing. You know, and so I grew up working on cars. My dad, obviously, he used to street race challengers in the 70s.

Yeah.

You know, so he street raced challengers, he raced go-karts, he raced snowmobiles, he raced all kinds of random crap, motorcycles, enduro, I mean, he raced everything. So obviously, it was kind of in my DNA that I was probably going to end up working on cars. And so, you know, I built my first car at 14 years old. And I remember rolling up into high school with it, and everybody's like, where'd you get that? And I'm like, well, I built it. And they're all like, no, you didn't. Well, yeah, I did. You know, nobody believed that I knew how to do that because I didn't go to any formal schooling. I just did it.

Yeah.

And, you know, that that transition did a one car and another and another and another. And before you know it, other people asked me to build their cars for them. And it just, it just turned into what it turned into. So, I mean, how did I get started? I don't know. I was born into it.

Sure.

You know? And I started in high school, probably as like a freshman, I started doing CAD drafting.

Okay.

And I was involved in a club that we did competitions where we have like a three man team. I did the design work. One guy did the CNC programming and then the other guy was a CNC operator.

Okay.

It was called a, I don't remember what they called that, automated manufacturing team, AMT team or something like that. But I traveled all over doing competitions with that and went to national competitions and stuff. And so, you know, and I was, they threw a college book at me in high school and said, I don't know kid, we don't know what else to teach us. See if you can figure this out. And I had completed the book inside of a year. And I'm like, well, now what? And they're like, that was college level CAD work. I don't, we don't know what else to give you. And I'm like, well, I did it all. And now I've designed my own parts too. I did all the tutorials and learned how to do stuff. And then I started making my own stuff. And they had me teach in classes in high school, other kids how to do CAD. And so I guess, you know, when college rolled around, I'm like, well, I obviously like modifying cars and I know I'm good at this crap. So I just, that's what I did. You know, like my college final was an intake manifold for an SR20. And so, you know, I just that was that. And so when I worked at the dealership, I really wasn't using my CAD skills, but that dealership paid so well. You know, starting out in engineering, you only made like 35 grand a year back then. You know, but at that dealership, I was commissioned. I was killing it. You know, so it was hard to give up a huge job at 20 years old. I mean, I was making more money than anybody I knew at 20, 21 years old. And it was hard to give that up to be an engineer. Well, they cut my pay. They brought some consultants and decided we made too much money.

They always f*** things up, don't they?

Dude, they f***** me. I went from like, I want to say back in 03, I was clear in almost 100 grand a year. Holy s***. Which is a f*** ton of money. I was completely reckless with it. Threw keg parties, filled cars, bought all kinds of crazy furniture that I didn't need. You know, modified cars, like put 50 grand. I was reckless with that money. I had nothing to show from it, nothing. It was completely reckless. But I had a lot of fun.

You got this story.

Yeah, I had a lot of fun. So, you know, they chop my legs out down to like 40 grand a year. And I'm like, no shot. I'm not working seven to seven for 40 grand a year. I was working seven to seven, six days a week. For 100 grand a year, it was worth it, right? I was 4% commission off everything I sold, parts and labor. It was ripping, warranty jobs included. So I could sell a warranty engine job and I made 4% of that.

Oh, wow.

You know, I was killing it. And they chop me, dude. They chop me real bad. Probably, maybe they needed to. Maybe I was making too much money.

You're like, this guy's too powerful.

I was making more money than salesmen. They didn't, salesmen didn't like that. You know?

Yeah.

So.

No, I get it though. I got, I left my first college job because my commission got quartered from one month to the next because everything just changed. And I was like, yeah, I'm out of here.

But bro, it's a percentage, right?

It's a percentage.

And that was my argument. It was like, look guys, if I'm making too much money, that means you're making too much money, right? Like this is fair as fair, right? Well, no, because I was making more money than everybody else in the building and the HR ladies and the salesmen. And they're all b******* about these huge checks they're having to cut me.

Well, hold on, I have to tell the, if you look at the camera real quick, that kids is how communism works. Yeah. Sorry.

I mean, they got sick of writing me $4,000 to $5,000 commission checks. You know, sure.

Sure.

They're like this 21 year old twerp is making way too much money. You know, but I was good at it. Yeah, because I knew the cars. It's easy to sell something to somebody if you can be honest with them.

You know what breaks my heart? No, it's not the 2% female demographic. It's the fact that 80% of you guys are not subscribed and following the show. So go ahead, hit subscribe or follow. And of course, if you're on YouTube, hit that bell so you are notified when we drop a new episode. Let's get back to the show.

You know, yes. And I always played the long game when I did that job. The guy brings his car in with new brake pads in the passenger seat and says, hey, put these new brake pads in my car. And I send him back with the brake pads back in the passenger seat said, sir, it wasn't ready. Bring it back in two months. Oh, two months. He brings it back in two months and you say, yeah, now you need your brake pads, but also you need tires. And there's this other stuff that's needed. Well, this guy knows that you didn't burn him the first time. So you're not going to burn him now. So now when you pitch him all these other services that he needs, he just goes, okay, cool, no problem. I trust that you're telling me the right thing. I trust that it needs it. Let's do it. And I built up a reputation like that and had customers. They would only see me and they would spend whatever I told them they needed, but I'd never sell anybody something that they didn't need. Which at a dealership, that's hard to come by. Some of my other service riders were trying to keep up with me and they'd burn people just to try to keep up with my sales. And it's like, look, if you were honest, you just schedule these people four months out. You're not going to get the sale today, but if you can get it in four months, who gives a s***? That snowball roll, you know? And I had that snowball just rolling really well for me. And it sucked. It sucked that they chopped me, but that was my passion. I didn't want to do that forever. I didn't want to be stuck at a dealership for the rest of my life. It gave me a lot of information on how to run a shop though. You know, how do you know how to run a shop? Well, I worked at a dealership and I had to manage all those mechanics. And I was doing 40 jobs a day. You know, in the summer, I was 40 cars a day is what I would manage, which consultants said I was only supposed to be doing 20. I would have been bored out of my mind to 20. I like to grind. You know, I was doing 40 and I was doing well at 40. A lot of the other guys couldn't handle 40. I could. And that's why I made the money I made.

Sure. You know, exactly.

But when they chop me, the engineering opportunity came up. And again, it was 35 grand a year. But I said, you know what? If I'm going to make 40 grand a year and I'm going to get my get my nuts kicked, I might as well go do something that I'm passionate about.

Well, those are probably what? Five days a week and half the hours, probably.

Yeah, nine to five, eight to five, five days a week. But dude, that Subaru job still to this day, one of my favorite jobs. I got to travel all over the country. I got to go to Subaru racing events. I got to go see the new cars in the ports before they were even released. I got to meet the Japanese engineers. I got to meet Subaru engineers.

Well, how did this job come to you across your desk anyway?

I begged, I chased that job.

Okay.

And I begged the guys to give it to me. I promised them I could do it.

So, cause like, again, this is back then, there's not exactly a LinkedIn or indeed easy apply.

No.

So how did this come to the table?

So, how did I get into that job? I somehow-

Was it Yellow Pages?

No. I somehow had a contact that had said, hey, they're looking for, oh, here's how it went down. DZ had a private label brand. It was called PIT, Performance Import Trends. And they were basically doing repop Chinese s***. They were getting Chinese exhaust system and had China making everything. And they were basically subcontracting all these parts to China and then private labeling it and selling it under the DZ brand, under the PIT. And it was an import. There was a guy, a guy there, a salesman that was into import cars. And so he's the one that kind of pushed that, pushed that brand. And I said, dude, hire me. I said, I will help your PIT brand. I will help you develop some parts that we can have China make for us. I'm like, please hire me. And he's like, well, we don't really have a budget for that, blah, blah. If we hire, you're going to have to do DZ s***, which is like toolboxes and step tubes and s*** I didn't care about. And I'm like, whatever. I'll do that s*** if I have to, but I can help you on the side in the meantime. So I started doing the PIT stuff. I watched a few other engineers trying to do the Subaru stuff, like initially get the performance parts off the ground, like the air intakes and stuff. And they're really struggling. They didn't understand cars. They were intelligent Iowa state engineers. They didn't know anything about automotive performance. And they were making some very green automotive performance mistakes, like, for example, on the air intakes, they were making them all kinds of f***** up diameters. And you can't do that with math scaling, especially if you want to do it without a tune. And they wanted these to be bolt on, no tune required parts. And they went through like 15 renditions of these air intakes, couldn't figure out why none of them would work. And I'm like, guys, seriously? I'm like, let me do it. And they're like, who are you kid? You don't know what you're doing. I'm like, let me try. Let me just do it. And within two different versions, I had it nailed. And they were like, okay, fine. F*** you. You run the Subaru stuff that if that's what you think you want to do. I said, cool. Let me have at it. And I grew that business to like 20 something part numbers.

Sure. Did you love Subaru at this point or not quite?

Dude, no, I never, I started out Nissan guy.

Right.

Right. I wanted a Z car. I ordered a 350Z, but I drove it as too slow. What was I going to do? Put a twin turbo kit on it. I'm 21 years old. I do the math. That's 15 grand. Nope. Thanks. Not doing that. Not going to happen. So I'm like, I need a turbocharged car. I went to look at EVOs. They wouldn't even let me sit in it. They had it roped off in the dealership, and they're like, nope, you can't even sit in it.

It's not a Ferrari, guys.

Yeah, I'm like, f*** you then.

I'll go look at the Subaru. It's got a six-speed anyways. Back then, that's all I cared about.

Sure.

And I'm like, it's got a six-speed anyways. I'll go look at the Subaru. They let me drive it. And they let me trade my spec V in. They gave me a screaming deal. I actually traded it to a dealership group that had a Nissan dealership, and they used my spec V as a demo car. It was a Nismo R-Tune car.

Okay.

So I had the whole catalog of Nismo parts on it. And so they used it as a demo car. And they gave me really good money for it, which helped me get into the STI. Was I a Subaru guy at that point? Nope, still not. It was just a turbocharged car that I knew I could make fast.

Yeah.

You know, I wasn't partial to it. Actually, I had a second gen DSM in college, and I really wanted the Evo.

Sure.

But they burned me on the Evo. So I'm like, screw these guys. And that's how I ended up in the Subarus.

Sure.

And are Subarus my favorite car now? Still not. But I'm good at them, and I've been doing them for decades now. You know.

Did you do much with the DSM when you had it?

Blue head gaskets.

Okay, I checked sound. Yeah. This survey says.

This is a college commuter car. Love that car. I still would like to get a clean example of a 99, 98, 99 GS.

That was a white one for sale down here.

Is it rusty?

It looks clean. I think it was. I'll see if I can pull it up. It was that what did I send to Alex? Hold on. I stopped the podcast once.

I got to pull this up, though.

I think it was something. It was nice. I do.

It's got to be a 98 or a 99 in the GSX for me to have interest in it.

That's fair.

The 94, 95 don't do it for me. They have the different front end on them.

And I don't like to do it for you. OK, that's why I was 95.

Those are ugly ones, in my opinion. I had a 98, so I'm partial to the 98s. OK, you know, mine was a 98. It was like the dark green.

Sure. Sure.

Yeah. Mine was a 98. And so I'm partial to the 98s. And I had a buddy, the street race to 98 GSX back in the day. And it was awesome to watch him race it. And so I thought, man, I need to get one of those. So I'm looking for the right deal.

Yeah. Right.

I do have an Evo that's on my list. And a buddy of mine's got it. And whenever he's ready to come off of it, I'm going to get it from him. And it's, I can't wait to show that car off. It's a clean example.

So it was like a four, five, six.

It is an Evo 8 MR Yeah.

Ooh.

And it's the dot. What is it? Whatever the gray is.

Okay. Is that the one that- Steel Mike Gray. What's his name has it?

Arnie? No, that was a four.

Was it?

Okay.

Yeah.

No, the MR, that's the one from, I think that was on top gear when it beat up on the Mercy a logo.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's my buddy. Unfortunately ran into some health issues years ago, and this car has been sitting in his garage for like 12 years.

Holy s***.

And it's Lomile. He's the original owner. It's never been touched. It's got some mods on it, but they're tasteful. And he basically said, yeah, when I'm ready to come off of it, it's yours. But it's one of those things he doesn't want to let it go. It's like a dream, you know? Yeah.

Yeah.

He used to be a driving instructor and he he took that thing all over the country road racing and doing driving instructing and stuff with it and was only a track car. He never street drove it. So it's got low miles. And it's just one of those things. It's a sad story, but he doesn't have any siblings or family or anything to pass it down to. And he's one of my oldest friends. And he's just like, yeah, I want to adopt.

Huh? I can do adopt.

He's like, when I'm ready, you know, it's yours. And I'm like, OK, fair enough. So I've got an Evo on the pipe. I don't have at the point now where I just like to collect these old JDM cars.

I was going to say, well, that thing's low mileage, though. Would you be terrified to drive it?

No, you just road race it, dude. It's been thrashed.

Oh, OK. So OK. So it's been loved.

Yeah. Yeah. It's got a built motor in it. Shep trans.

Oh, nice. OK, so you probably go way back when to like when. So I was going through some comments on a recent highlight I made, right. And then I did a little I went down the rabbit hole. Apparently, like Shep was really big into the DSMs early on.

Yeah, that's what he started with, for sure.

Yeah. Did you dabble in that world much? Or you just basically fell into?

I was late to the DSM game. So I had some friends at Street Race, first gens, had a couple of friends at Race, second gens. But I myself never really jumped heavy into the DSM game. Now I did meet Martin. Oh, my God.

I was going to say they had that game on lock.

I met Martin when he first started building EVOs and like they would have been like 0405, right? He used to do these swap meet things at his shop.

Yep.

Where everybody would hang out and trade parts. And that's where I met him. I went to the one of the swap meets at AMS, like way back in the day. So I've known, I've kind of known Martin in the industry ever since then.

Yeah, that's cool. So at this point, so you're dabbling at Subaru. Yeah. How long were you there for?

When I did the Subaru thing?

Yeah.

Four-ish years.

Okay.

Until the economy tanked.

Yeah, yup.

In like, oh, seven or eight or whatever the hell that was when the housing market and everything fell out. And dude, that was eerie as hell. I was sitting at work one day, just doing my thing, designing parts. I've got all these new designs come in. I've got prototypes that I've been working on, like whatever, I'm just doing my thing. And my contact to Subaru calls me and he goes, hey, what are you up to? So I'm working on this, this and this. And he goes, stop everything you're doing. And I go, what? And he goes, immediately, right now. He goes, stop everything you're doing. And I go, what do you mean? Stop everything I'm doing. He's like, no more. He's like, we can't get a single bill from you. He goes, we can't get, he goes, nothing. We're pulling the plug on every project. He goes, no more. And so I'm sitting there, I get off that phone call and I'm just like, oh my God. I still have a job, right? Cause I don't work for Subaru. I've worked for DZ. DZ was a subcontractor for Sherriam. And I'm just like, what the hell do I do with this? It's like, oh, my boss at DZ. I'm like, hey, what am I supposed to do? He's like, oh, you can help the other guys out. I'm like, yeah, but if Subaru just called me, Ford, Chevy, Dodge, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, all the other brands that each brand had its own engineer. So we had like 20 something engineers, right? I'm like, dude, there's no way. If I'm done, they're going to be done, right? Like there's no shot that they're going to keep all of us around if none of us have anything to do. Well, I had a job opportunity on the table to go to the electronics with my friend that I was told you about, Bob, that builds those cars down there. He has the electronics manufacturing and CC company. He was the president of SPAL USA at the time or president. He's in charge of engineering, I think, whatever director of engineering, whatever he was, he's in charge of engineering at SPAL. He's one of the higher up guys there, which is based out of here, by the way. Italian fan company. And he had worked with me on some side projects through DZ and PIT and said, I really want you, you're a good engineer. I'd like, I need you here. And he was on his way out of SPAL to start his own company. And so he hired me on to head up all his development at his personal company. And so I left DZ knowing I was going to lose my job, which is probably a good idea because I want to say like not more than two or three weeks later, everybody got laid off.

Is DZ even around anymore?

Oh yeah, hell yeah. They're a huge company still.

Okay.

They're back up ripping again. They got a thousand employees or something.

Okay. Cause I've seen like, you know, London, all those, I mean, they're, they're kind of make the same similar.

We have two main companies here in town that are primary competitors is DZ and Putco.

Okay.

And Putco, the guy that owns that was one of the founders of DZ and he split off and then did his own thing.

Okay.

So, but DZ, was a private company. When I worked for them, they were corporate. And then one of the guys that started it, bought it back. And so it's back private again.

Okay.

But yeah, they're still around. They're still ripping. They do great. Those guys are all great guys. I haven't talked to any of them in years, but.

I just, it was like on every nineties truck I've ever seen or so.

Still are.

Yeah.

I mean, DZ's primary business is OEM accessories.

Yeah.

So if you see a Ford truck and it's got a chrome step tube on it, that's DZ.

Okay.

If you see a Honda, a Nissan, a Toyota, they have tubes on them, that's DZ. They have toolboxes in them, probably DZ. Anything Diamond Tread, DZ.

Okay.

Like at one point, this is crazy. Well, at one point when I was at DZ, I'm sitting in my little engineering desk and I look out the window and there's like 15 semis lined up outside with Diamond Tread reels on the back. I'm like, what in the f*** is going on? And I go and ask the owner up front. I'm like, what the f*** is all this? He goes, well, there's this new bid coming up. And I go, yeah. And he goes, is the Ford, it's a toolbox contract. And he goes, all these guys are beating me up on the prices. And he goes, I was going to make no margin on it. Like you're talking like 4% margin on these toolboxes. He's like, f*** that. So what I did is I bought all the Diamond Tread in the United States. Now they can't make it. And I'm like, okay. And he goes, now I get to set my price. And he goes, and those guys can try to bid against me, but they won't be able to make the s*** even if they want to. And I'm like, brilliant. Okay, got it. So yeah, Diamond Tread, that's DZ's bread and butter.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah, there's like, I probably have four or five of those toolboxes laying around in my yard from like trucks that I bought and moved things around or whatever.

And I'll do some little design projects in those.

Okay.

You know, like we came up with this plastic label system, you know, because they used to hand place them with stickers on there.

Yeah, there wasn't always peel on the corners and sort of come on.

We came up with these new plastic labels that had like indexing holes on them. So you can smack them on there really quick. Same time, save money. There was a welding process that I helped develop that stiffened the toolboxes. So you could use a thinner gauge material, save cost.

Yeah.

And made them stiffer, more rigid. There's some dumb s*** that I did. None of that stuff really interested me. You know, I helped the other engineers with some stooped projects like that here and there, but.

You didn't have anything to do with the little round push button that never seems to push in and actually open the door, did you?

I was there when they did that, but that was not me.

Okay.

That was not me.

That was not me. It's like always your thumb hurts because you're trying to shove that bad boy in there.

We made a lot of private label toolboxes too. Like, oh God, I don't even remember. Like Bass Pro wanted a toolbox, right? With their label on it, we would build it for them.

Okay.

So they just did tons of contract engineering, tons. I mean, I can't even begin to describe all of the contract engineering projects that I went through when I was there. It was ridiculous. Grill guards, step tubes, bumpers, toolboxes, they had their own powder coating assembly line. I mean, dude, it was pretty extensive, but it really got my feet wet because these guys are TS and QS certified, right? It's for OEM supply. So it really got my feet wet on how do you set up an OEM level manufacturing facility? And I knew the ins and outs, the quality control side of it, the assembly line side of it, the manufacturing side of it. How do you structure it? What people do you need? How do you place them? How do you go from making one part to a thousand? Like what's that process look like? And that's what I really learned while I was at DZ. And I had to see all those processes from conception to a thousand parts going out the door. You know, and that, and I was part of that process from beginning to end till I handed off. And so that really, and that gave me the passion. Like, look, I know how to do this, right? And if I ever want to make any real money, I have to do this for myself because doing this for other people, I can't even begin to tell you how many millions of dollars I've made for other companies while making a $40,000 a year salary.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? And I'm like, dude, look, if I'm ever gonna make any real money, I got to do this for myself. I can't do this for somebody else. And so that's why I started my ignition coils here. That was my first personal engineering design project. Electronics have good margins. I knew the supply chain because I've worked with my old boss, Bob, doing the electronic manufacturing stuff. So I knew the supply chain well. I knew how to work internationally with Asian companies and what that process looked like. I've been to China, I've been to Taiwan. You know, I know, I know how this works, right? I know what those factories look like. I know how to communicate with them. I'm like, I know I can successfully do this. And so that's why I started The Coils. And I knew that that would help me springboard my way into other engineering projects.

Has there been anything not automotive that you've thought up or want a part or a widget or something that you're like, you know what? We need something like this.

Some s*** I probably can't talk about.

OK, sure.

It'd be a little not rated for the channel. I've done some weird s***. Not that I've wanted to do it, but I've had people ask me to do it and I'm like, yeah, f*** money's money.

Stuff in the night dresser sort of stuff or what?

What's that?

Stuff in the night dresser sort of stuff or?

So I've got a story that I probably can tell.

I can cut this too, by the way.

If it doesn't work, you guys cut it, right?

OK, sure.

So when I worked for Bob, my boss over there, we had this guy in Florida and he was in the sex industry. OK, right. And he's like, I want a premium line of vibrators. So we're like, OK, well, like, what the f*** do you mean? High end vibrators? Well, you know, like when you buy wine and it comes in a wood box, it's got all that that packing material and I want a shiny vibrator in there. And I'm just like, dude, are you serious? And the guy's like, yep, I've got a high end market down here that I need to appease. F*** it. Fine. Let's do it. Right. So I designed like six different vibrators and we first 3D print them and we just straight, I don't know, one of the, one of my manufacturing guys over there distribute them.

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Sure. And let them give us feedback on the designs that I came up with.

Yeah.

And they're like, this one's great. This one, not so much tweak this one. I don't know. I don't want to know the details.

Yeah. Sure.

Okay. You know, I don't want to know how that happened, but we ended up making them out of billet and it was hilarious. Watching us crank these things out on the lathe and you got the old guy polishing these things. We take pictures of them and harass them. Dude, it was hilarious. But the funniest experience I have at these things were, of course, the electronics had to come from Asia. You got the vibrator motor, you got the batteries, they're USB chargeable, they had selectable modes. You could plug them into the computer and you could set up your vibrating patterns. It was sick, right? We had a good design. We really did, but they had to be manufactured in China.

Sure.

And so Bob and I travel over to China and Taiwan to pick up our initial product samples. And it's cheaper and faster if you can just bring them back with you, right?

Sure.

So Bob goes, you're taking those back. So I've got a suitcase with 50 vibrators. And of course they didn't have my billet ends on them, but they had these nice tampon shaped, spin on, you know, plastic ends to protect the electronics that were inside of them.

Yeah.

Fair enough. So I'm flying back and I'm going through immigration. And I don't know where I was. I was trying out Taiwan. Guy couldn't speak a lick of English. And of course they flagged my f****** suitcase. Right. It's got 50 round things with bat. It looks like bombs. Yeah. You know, like this isn't going to go over well. You know, Bob stands out of the way just with this s***** great on his face, knowing I'm about to get the third degree from these immigration guys, right? They open up my suitcase and he looks at me and he looks at those things and he's like, really? And I just go, and he goes, slides the suitcase, kicks me over, Bob's in tears, dude. I'm embarrassed. I'm bright red. You know, I'm just like, no way that I just went through customs with 50 dildos. Like, seriously, like, come on, you know? And that was one of my, like, really ridiculous engineering projects. Sure. It worked out. We sold a bunch of them. I don't know what happened after that. We did like one big run of them and never again. Maybe the guy didn't make any money on them. I don't know.

Yeah, he's still got like 80 of them in his.

Yeah, God knows, dude. But what I mean, so, yeah, and I've done medical stuff. I worked for a company called Cateco, and they were the world's largest defibrillator pad supplier in the world. They made 98% of the world's disposable defibrillator pads. And so I did all kinds of weird, like, medical products there. Their big thing was this hydro gel is what they call it, which is like the sticky gel that's on those medical products, like on those defibrillator pads, like that sticky gel. They formulated that, a chemist that would formulate and mix their own gels. So they made all these products that would encompass these gels. And so I was an engineer that designed these products that had these gels on them, and I did that for two or three years. Bob's, the economy for Bob's business took a hit, and so he laid me off, and I had to go do that. And then he came back, offered me another job, I went back to him.

Sure.

And then we did weapons. He has an arms company called Creative Arms, and we did silencers, AR lowers, AR uppers. I designed a unique weapon called the ARK, which is a blend of an AR and an AK. It used parts from both guns, and we made our own hybrid weapon, which is super cool. So I got to experience doing some weapons. But for Bob, our main industry was wireless control for high current motors. So like worn winch, you know, there's a wireless remote that runs the winch. I designed that. I designed the key fob for the Indian motorcycle. I designed the boat lift controller for Midwest industries that does all the main boat lifts around the lakes. I designed all kinds of weird key fobs and wireless control devices. Track tractor trailers like Tim T trailer company actually got into some sort of a patent battle because I designed this sick remote that could try to get stolen and try to claim they designed it. I almost had to go to court over it. But yeah, I mean, I've designed like my engineering background is just all kind.

Can you go contract for Volkswagen next? Because they f***** up the key fob for that one. That's the other reason I hate the Marquette. If I sit down too fast in my car, the alarm goes off. It's in my pocket because I think it's like haptic or whatever. It's just stupid. Yeah.

So I'd love, dude, whatever, you know, I mean, I still Bob and I work together even now. He's down the road. He's only like two miles down the road and him and our great friends. He's also a pilot. And so him and I fly and we've put a lot of miles together in his planes. And he always encouraged me to get my pilot's license, which is ultimately why I decided, yeah, like, hey, I need to pursue that. Bob always wanted me to do it, you know? So I'm like, I got to do it. And, you know, him and I, you know, enjoy talking about the aviation stuff now, too.

Sure. So do you have a plane yet?

No, not yet. You guys like that? I'd like to get one. Yeah.

You know what you got? What do you got your eye on?

Well, I am rated to fly Cessna 172s.

Okay.

Bob's got a 182 and him and I have kind of talked about doing a rental agreement thing, maybe with that.

Yeah.

He used to have a Cirrus and he'd like to get back into a Cirrus. That's what your Martin flies. And I'd like to get into a Cirrus as well. Obviously, I'm not checked out in one of those yet, but to get checked out in a type like that's not that difficult.

Sure.

I'm rated for a single engine, single prop, four seater plane.

Okay.

Different types. You have to get checked out in that type. But my my license will allow me to fly anything like that. Okay. So it's pretty I mean, it's pretty wide open as far as what you can fly.

Okay.

You know, it's a passenger and weight limitation and single engine. That's pretty much it.

Sure.

Otherwise, it's kind of a wide open world.

Something about this, one of our mutual friends over here, he just started doing going down. He's trying to become a commercial pilot.

Oh, yeah. That's a lengthy process.

Yeah. And I've been talking to him. I'm like, man, this if I get the funding for I'm like, it'd be kind of cool.

Like commercial pilot like to fly jet liars.

No, no, no, no, no, no. I want to do commercial, but like just have my private pilot.

Oh, yeah.

It's like that'd be kind of sweet. It's like, again, I want to go pick him up in Green Bay a couple weeks ago. And I'm like, man, it'd be kind of sweet to just rent a plane. Like, yeah, it'd be spending, like, you know, I think to rent it, it's like a couple hundred bucks an hour or something like that to rent one. And I'm just like.

But if you own one, your operational costs are much more reasonable.

Oh yeah, I guess so. Yeah. You know, make sense.

Like, I want to say, if you own one, your cost dry is going to be somewhere around 100 bucks an hour.

That's not true. That's not bad.

You know, that include boarding. They're storing it.

100 bucks an hour is going to include. That's that you split your maintenance fees, right? Your annual maintenance fee gets multiplied out. Your oil changes, your consumables, all that stuff gets spread with that 100 bucks an hour. Fuel isn't the only thing excluded from that. Okay. Every plane is a little different. You know, some are cheaper, some are more, whatever.

Sure.

But around that, you know?

Interesting. Okay.

But you think that, but like an hour, what does an hour get you in a plane? You know what I mean? Yeah. Like you say 100 bucks an hour and you think, oh yeah, it's kind of expensive. But okay, you want to drive to Chicago.

It's a two hour flight.

Right?

Yeah.

That's two hours. It's 200 bucks. How much do you think it costs you to drive to Chicago?

Well, is it in a Marque GTI?

Because probably 50 bucks, 50 bucks and 50 bucks in a day and a half. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

And then if it's any further and you got to take a hotel stop, now you just blew the bag. You know, you spent two, three hundred bucks on a hotel stop.

Yeah, it looks like we're going to have these, Dan. All right. You want to do lessons together? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, and you can get into some sasanas for a reasonable price.

Yeah, we'll see. Well, I'm kind of in that, like, just talking about stupid plans phase. Like, you know how he had those, like, I want to do this. And then you just start. Yeah.

You really just start. I flew two days a week, which is aggressive. Some people don't even fly that much in their two hour sessions. So four hours a week is what I dedicated to it. And it took me, you know, a little over a year.

It's not bad.

But if you want to fly a day a week, you can fly a day a week.

Yeah.

This might take you a couple of years.

How much the lessons cost?

I think it's about 10 grand, right? I'll send them all in.

They say get in your P. I don't remember. I don't know what mine is. You know, I'd have to math it out. But they'd say they say all in your PPL is between 10 and 15.

Yeah, that's pretty on par with what I've been hearing from people I've talked to as well.

It depends on the school, depends on the rental rates. You can now you can test out as early as 40 hours. And if you do that, it's going to be cheaper. But not everybody can test out in 40 hours. That's the minimum, but not everybody can do it. You know, I'm at like 100.

Okay.

So and that's only because like, I don't know. Sometimes you just take some flights just for the hell of it. Maybe that doesn't really count towards your instructional time, but you still learn.

Right.

And to get your commercial license, you have to there's a set of hours you have to get, you know, in your in the milestones are all based on flight hours. So it's never wasted.

Correct.

You know, you ever do any simulator time then too? Is that part of it?

You can. OK, but I have not.

OK, sure.

We do have one at the airport that I go to. They do have a SIM and I could do it. But like, I don't know, if I just go fly the thing, you got to go fly the thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When you get your instrument rating, which I only have a visual rating, when you get your instrument rating, they do use more SIM time on that because you have to build a bunch more hours. OK, so they will use the simulator more with instrument ratings than they will with with visual ratings.

Yeah. And weather plays a factor as well as getting hours and all that, too.

Yeah. Yeah. And right now, that's really my then my hold up is the weather.

Yeah.

Because it's got to be not I don't want to say perfect, but damn near, you know, clouds got to be sparse. Winds got to be low. No precipitation. You know, I flew out like what days today, Wednesday. I flew yesterday.

OK.

I went out.

Well, thanks for picking us up.

No, I could have. Yeah. You guys to get you down here would be like a two hour round trip.

Yeah, yeah. OK, so you do see Bob, they leave Bob and you go back to Bob.

And then and then from Bob, I started off the line.

And then what year was that roughly?

Twenty fourteen is when I started off 2014.

OK. And then I remember.

So you and then cold and cold join me eight, eighteen, nineteen, sure. I think eighteen.

Sure. But up until that point, I was pretty much just you.

I had another business partner.

Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Until Cole joined me. And then he I don't really know how to go into that story. It just it just didn't work out.

No, you know. Yeah.

It was just. My my his workload was more on the administrative side of things. Sure. And at that point, there just wasn't really a need for it.

Sure.

So it was more like he was didn't really have anything to do.

OK.

You know, he got replaced by QuickBooks.

No, not even that. He was supposed to be doing the QuickBooks. But I we I really need somebody to work on cars.

Sure.

You know. And he didn't he wasn't a car worker guy. You know, I mean, he kind of knew how, but he wasn't like a mechanic. So it just didn't really fit. And when Cole came on, he helped me work on cars, which is what I really needed help with. And so that's where Cole started with me. He was working on cars. And so him and I were kind of able to attack the business from a different direction. Sure.

You know, and then it looks like things kind of grew rapidly for you guys. Again, going from warehouse to warehouse or shop.

Yeah. I mean, we went from the 6000 square foot building. And this place looks ridiculous, right? Like you'd say that. But honestly, it wasn't that expensive, right? You know, I mean, the renovations were a little bit. But the building itself was a fairly good deal.

Sure.

It was a piece of s*** of a building. So we got a good deal on it. You know, we were looking at other spaces that were half the square footage, and they cost just as much.

Yeah.

And at first we walked into this building. We're like, no way too big. Not doing it. That's just ridiculous. We went and looked at a few other properties and we're like, well, why would we spend the same money to have half the square footage? What would be the point in doing that? You know, so we ended up in this building because it just financially, it made sense at the time.

It gives you room to grow.

Nobody's ever complained about having too much space.

Yeah. And we thought we'd never fill it and look at this place now.

Yeah.

You know, it is if we almost need more room. And that's dumb to say, because there's no reason why we should need more room.

You know, it looks like BendPak likes you.

Yeah. You know, they didn't do me any favors on them.

Yeah, I've heard they don't really cut many.

I wish they would have. Yeah, they didn't.

How do you like these triple stackers?

Well, they're not for working.

Yeah.

I mean, but they work to store the cars.

Yeah.

You know, but they you can't like lift them up and down and use them like an actual mechanic lift.

Sure. Yeah.

Really cumbersome to use. They're honestly just storage.

It's probably takes a while to get the top rack down.

Yeah. There's like a valve that you have to adjust to drop. So you have to do it incrementally. You have to drop the middle and then the top.

Correct.

And then bring the top and then the middle, you know, and you got to be careful about which in our ceilings fairly low in here. So you have to be careful about which cars you place that you can fit three.

Sure.

If you've got a tall car, you're not going to fit three.

Yeah.

Yeah, I had a friend, I was looking at one of these for a storage unit, and it didn't make sense for him at all.

No, the double stackers are in most cases best for most people, but...

Sure. But in this case, it kind of makes sense.

Cole and I have a little bit of an unhealthy automotive obsession, so we needed the space here.

I have three, four posts in a pole shed. So yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. And another one up north. So...

Yeah. I mean, it makes sense for storage-wise. It takes, you know, the square footage gets, it's eaten up and hurry without them. And that's kind of the situation. We have this whole back room is filled with cars.

Yeah.

And we were like, well, if we're going to do manufacturing back here, we got to fix that problem.

Yeah. So what's next with that then, right? On a manufacturing side, are you guys scaling that up as things?

So yeah, we're doing the GR Corollas now. And you know, we've done pretty well with those cars. I've got a few more parts with those cars that we'd like to release. You know, I don't know. That market's starting to get a little bit softer. So I don't know how much longer or how much harder we'll continue to chase that market. But I do have a Celica in order, which is supposed to be the next GR platform. We do the GR 86s as well. You know, the GR line has been great and I'd like to continue to follow it. There's rumors of Subaru releasing another STI. And if they do, I'll jump on it.

Sure, yeah.

You know, so it just depends on, you know, what comes.

Yeah, a STI like that, a whole model or whatever that Grayson was talking about with us. I don't know that there's any, oh yeah, there's a Celica. I forgot about that one.

Yep.

Well, we talked about, what are your thoughts on that car?

The Celica?

Yeah, because we were talking about-

On the prelude last episode.

Oh, was it?

The Celica looks like it's going to be an incredible car. It's got a two liter, four cylinder engine. It's based on the same architecture as this Corolla engine, which it's a great engine, but three cylinders, it's really strapped.

Oh, I didn't know that. They're doing a four cylinder.

They're supposed to be doing a four cylinder version of that engine.

Okay, that makes sense.

And it's going to be all wheel drive and it's going to be two door.

Oh, sweet.

So if it comes to fruition, like they say it's going to, I think it's going to be a huge hit. The price point is going to be the only concern.

It's probably going to be what, 60?

Mid 60s, I'd guess.

Yeah, same thing with that Prelude. It was like 60 or 65 or something.

But to be fair, what do you think a new STI is going to cost? 55, 60.

Yeah, dude, when I was looking at, somebody priced out the new Golf R's, right? The Mark 8's, I saw them were in the 50s. And I'm just like, jeez, dude. I saw one selling for 60, it came out in a Kropovich exhaust. And I'm like, who in the right mind would pay 60 for a Golf R?

Yeah, I mean, mine was, I bought my 2019 in like 21 or something like that. And it was like 35 grand for a used car. It had 20 some thousand miles on it. It was still 35 grand. And I traded it and I think I got 30 grand on trade on it. Yeah, so I held its value well. But it was an amazing car. Don't get me wrong. And they are more expensive than the STIs always have been. Yeah, you know, but the fit and finish is a little nicer on them. That performance can be argued both ways. It doesn't matter. I mean, pick your pick your car. That can be argued.

Yeah, that's my performance. It's really, again, depends on what Calabrian. But fit and finish, though, I test drove a 23 WRX in my gulfs at 23.

Yeah.

And again, I got a lot of f****** gripes about that golf, but I hopped out of the WRX and I'm like, it doesn't handle as well. But this GTI does feel kosher and nicer.

Dude, the seats in my gulf are are probably some of the best seats out of the plaid ones, too. No, mine was leather, leather.

Okay. And my brother's got the same ones.

They were incredible.

Yeah.

And I did road trips, like 10 hour road trips in that car, and I had no, no butt fatigue.

Butt fatigue, yeah.

And that car had like the lane correction s***. I will say the Corolla is a very similar car to the Golf R.

Okay. Because I was going to ask you about that at some point, too, because these have come down to low thirties.

Yep. Incredible cars.

Really? Worth it?

Incredible cars.

Like if I were to get rid of golf, what should I get one of these?

What do you want to do with it? You want to road race it?

I'd probably keep that stock.

Then it'd be great.

Really?

You could do bolt-ons on those cars and make good power and they're reliable.

Yeah. I was in one with a downpipe. It was one of the first years. It was actually an R&D car for a company. I was like, this thing's kind of nice.

Mine made like 350 wheel. Yeah. And I got greedy with the power and I took it to the road course and floated a valve.

The Corolla? Yeah.

Kapuf went the engine. And the new engine is supposed to be here soon. We're going to be doing an engine program for those cars.

Really? OK.

Nobody in the United States builds the engines for them right now.

Sure.

Everybody's going to Australia for those.

Yeah.

Because they had the Yaris over there first.

Yeah, they got that dialed in.

So they've got that locked in. But I have been working behind the scenes with a lot of the major industry people, ARP, GSC, Corolla, to get parts built for those engines so that we can start doing a program for them here in the US.

So what does a program look like?

So you got to be able to release engine packages.

Sure.

Like assembled short blocks, head packages, long block packages, things like that. But in order to get all that done, you got to have the componentry to do it.

Okay.

And Australia has their supply chain, but it's a little different than what we have here. So we've been working with the partners here to get that engine developed so that we can release the parts for it. So my engine, when it comes, it has bucket loads of prototype parts on it. Prototype rods, we're going to do a long rod engine. So it's going to be long rod engine, which reduces piston speed, should help with higher RPMs. It will have forged pistons. It's going to have a full ARP bolt package, flywheel bolts, crank bolt, main bolts, head bolts, everything. And as of now, ARP doesn't offer any bolts for those engines. Nothing, not even head studs. And then head gasket is another thing that there's very few options available. So we had to develop a head gasket. You know, cylinder head packages, GSC didn't make cams, they didn't make springs, they didn't make valves. So I bought a wreck car engine and I sent the parts off all over the United States to have parts developed for it. So I've been working for about a year to get all of these ducts in a row. And my engine, when it shows up, will be kind of the first prototype engine. We'll be able to use it for photos, we'll be able to use it for installation videos, we'll be able to use it for testing. And then we can really see what it can do. And I have an Artech G25 turbo that will be going on. It should be able to make 400 or 500 horsepower with it.

Sure. So in that case, then, is that a matter of then you just had to hire a few people to start assembling those at that point?

No, so we use OutFront Motorsports out of California to do all our Subaru engines. And he and I have partnered to do this Corolla engine.

Gotcha. Okay. That makes sense.

So he'll be doing this Corolla engines for us.

Gotcha. So somebody who already knows and is established in the industry.

My belief, and a lot of people will argue this, but my belief is that if you're going to assemble an engine, you need to have a machine shop. I don't feel like assembling an engine without machining equipment is the greatest of ideas. It may work, you may be able to make it successful, but if I'm going to sell it to people and I'm going to guarantee that it's good, it's got to come from an assembly room with a climate controlled chamber. It's going to be blueprinted. It's going to be measured. It's going to be machined to specific tolerances that I know are going to work. Otherwise, I'm not going to guarantee it and I'm not going to sell it. Because do you know how frustrating it is to buy an engine from a guy that you trust, you put it in your car and it explodes? And then the guy goes, sorry, dude, s*** happens. Because there's no warranty on stuff like that, right? And if you do want to warranty it, you're really putting your neck on the line. That's a lot of liability and a lot of money you get sued. You know, what if a guy's car blows up going down the interstate? It could start on fire and cause all kinds of problems. You know, if you window a block and the oil comes out and hits the exhaust, that thing's on fire. You know, and I don't want to be responsible for any of that. So I use trusted partners like Outfront that machine tolerance and develop these engines and work with all the component manufacturers that they work with on a regular basis to make sure that everything is how it's supposed to be. So that when those engines are out, I know without a shadow of doubt, they've been done correctly. And even then, if there is a failure, I'm not liable for it.

Sure.

I go to Outfront and say, hey, this is your engine. You've got to take care of this.

Right.

And for the little bit of margin that I give up to have somebody else build it, to me, it's worth it.

That makes sense.

If I was going to do them here, I'd want to buy boring, honing, CNC equipment. And all that's a pretty large investment. And unless you're going to be doing thousands of engines a year, it's really hard to take on an investment like that. So I, and Outfront's been good to me. I'm one of their longest, biggest dealers. And so partnering with them is really been key on stuff like that. And same with the Subaru engines, you know, I've sold hundreds, if not thousands of Outfront engines over the years. And I've had very, very few issues. Sure. So I mean, I know that I can trust those guys. And so that's why when I got into this Corolla platform, I approached them to do that.

That's going to be awesome. I'll do good for that platform then.

Yeah.

What's that look like? Because that's an affordable sports car, right? And small displacement, three cylinders, right?

Yep.

Does that make it easier or is that going to be a more affordable engine package than two? I mean, does that make other than you having to basically do it from scratch here now?

Yeah, I don't know. I wouldn't. It really isn't any cheaper.

OK.

You know, it really isn't because you would think that you're only buying three pistons and three rods, right? Save you some money, but it's lower quantities.

Yeah.

You know, so the prices are higher now.

If that makes sense, it's an LS one.

That s***'s cheap. There's a million of those out there. But these cars, there's only a few thousand. So you're not you don't sell as many parts. The price is higher. That makes sense itself, you know. But these cars, like like going back to the Gulf, our comment, the seats aren't quite as comfortable. I'll give them that. They are not quite as comfortable. What is a damn Toyota? You know, it's not a VW. It's not an Audi. Outside of that, the creature comforts are there. You know, the lane keep assess the wireless phone charging, the wireless Apple CarPlay, the brakes are incredible, the handling is amazing, the steering is tight, they look cool. They're great cars. They really are great cars. I've been really, I'm sad that mine's been down for a year, but at the name of Research and Development, it's been down for a year. I'm glad we've got two of them and this one's not down, so.

Is this one yours as well then?

This one's Cole's.

Cole's? Okay, gotcha.

The red one's mine, blue one's Cole's.

Gotcha, gotcha. Oh, just trying to think on what else we want to touch on. There's got to be something.

What else is left?

Everything else to note? Like anything other cool? I mean, you got all these parts, all this s***. How's the build stuff going here? Is that you guys keep doing that?

Yeah, I mean, we stay busy doing builds.

Do you do much with that hands on stuff or?

I build my own s***.

Sure.

So I built my Civic. I've got a vintage VW race car.

That's what I want to talk about that.

Yeah.

What's that about? I walked in.

That's kind of a wild story, dude. So I have a friend and he flips houses and he calls me up one day and he's like, dude, I bought this house and he goes and it's got this car trailer with this car and it's he goes, I don't know what the hell I'm going to do with it. It's got no keys. It's got no title. I don't even know if I can sell this thing. You know, do you want it? I'm like, what the hell is it? He's like, I don't know. It looks like some old race car. And I go, OK, send me pictures. I'm like, whoa, that's b*****. And I'm like, yeah, I mean, like, what do you like? What do you need to do with it? He's like, dude, I don't know. Kick me a little bit of money. You can have it.

You're probably going to need to ship your car soon or know somebody that will. And as someone who used to work in freight logistics, I understand the difficulties of finding reliable transport, especially when trying to make it to rallies, racetracks or the warehouse to hydro Corvette, because you're going through a messy divorce and when she says everything, she means everything. Anywho, Nick Shearer is the proud owner of SureThing Logistics. Having traveled much of the country with every type of vehicle you can imagine, he's got the experience and reliability that you want to ensure a safe journey for your pride and joy. If you want to find out what it takes to ship your vehicle, go to surethinglogistics.net, fill out the intake form and be sure to let him know I sent you. Let's get back to the show.

You know, and he goes, I don't know what else to do with it. So I buy this thing. It's got no key. It's got no title. The distributor is all busted apart. But it was all there. So I'm like, OK, well, I got to figure out how to get this thing running. So I've got a buddy from Scotland. He likes to come and visit in the summer. He knows Euro cars, right? I'm like, hey, dude, guess what you're going to do. We're going to get this VW running. So we put a switch panel on it. We bled the cooling system, wired it, got it running. And then after we got it running, I'm like, OK, well, now what, right? NASA has a vintage series, and there's also ice racing. And so I'm thinking, I'm going to race this thing. There's a damn logbook in the car. It's been a race car since 1985, and it raced until 07. And the story goes, the owner of the car had a stroke, a heart attack, something like that, and he lost his vision and his hearing. And so he just abandoned the car, because I mean, what else is he going to do?

Right.

And that's where it sat. It's literally like when I got that car, it was like he took it to a track day, parked it in the trailer, and then never touched again. It's got spare wheels in it, had spare fuel tanks in it, full of fuel. It had the logbook in it. I mean, it was like he just got done racing it. And it is a pretty cool pick up. I don't know what I'll do with it. Vintage racing likely. I've got a buddy with an old Datsun 510 that does vintage racing, and he really wants me to go. So I thought, man, if I can just get this thing going, I could hit a couple of vintage races, be a time car. But I'm helping Parker finish his car. It's an 18,000 mile 06 STI. And since I've been around those cars since the beginning of time, I'm probably the most qualified person to make sure that every bolt is in the right spot. Every clip is in the right place. Every clamp is where it belongs. Every hose is correct. And I've helped him get that car back to complete OEM stock condition so that he can now use it as an investment car and sell it. So when I'm not doing my, you know, whatever business stuff I'm doing, I do still work on personal projects. I've got that Fox buddy I want to work on this winter. I've got that GF wagon that I'm working on that I'd like to finish. You know, it's just I think after that car, the Corolla probably will be up on the chocolate block next to get the motor back in it. But yeah, I try, you know, I work on like just personal crap like that. I've always enjoyed working on cars, but I do not enjoy doing it for a job.

Yeah. Yeah. You're saying that's just where we started.

And I'm good. I'm honestly I'm pretty good at it.

Sure.

But it's just not something that I want to do for work.

Sure.

You know, I like to do it as a passion project, not as a means to the end.

The more so your day to day consists of designing and making stuff.

Correct. Doing wholesale. I deal with the wholesale vendors, all of the business to business contact stuff. You know, that's that's kind of where I put myself at this point.

That was the other thing I wanted to ask you earlier was how difficult is it to source good vendors, especially like in Asia, because I imagine that's where most vendors are sourced from nowadays.

Nearly a nightmare. Nearly a nightmare. Sure. There's more bad ones than there are good.

OK.

And it takes a lot of time to vet who is trustworthy and who isn't, because they can take your money. Or they can do like the one company where they f*** the whole parts up and we have to scrap a whole pile of them, and then they take the money. You know, so that process can be difficult. And having people in the industry like Martin, and I have some people in other like power sports industries and stuff, having those guys in your back pocket to call them and go, hey, who do you use for this? Or who did this for you? Or who does that for you? Those are the guys that are important to talk to. And we do share that information amongst ourselves. You know, if Martin called me and said, hey, man, I saw that you made this and I'm struggling to get something like that, trying to find a vendor for who you use and I'd give it to him. You know, and we do work together to do that. Because obviously, I don't make parts that compete with Martin. Same thing, he doesn't make parts that compete with me. So we're able to work together on stuff like that. And I have friends in the power sports industry for like side by sides and dirt bikes and stuff. And they use suppliers that are silicone suppliers for hoses and exhaust suppliers and stuff like that. And we are able to share those people back and forth. And that's based on just years of, yeah, this guy's been working with me for 10 years and he's done me well. And you can work with those people. But to just go into it cold, good luck. You better have a lot of money because you're probably going to lose some in the process.

Yeah.

Was that just you kind of through the various things you did over the years, just kind of picking up names along the way sort of?

Yeah, like my ignition coil supplier was really difficult for me to find.

And that was the first thing you did.

Yeah. And initially they sucked.

Sure.

I had to work with them a lot to design a lot of components inside of those things so they wouldn't keep f****** up. You know, I had a lot of trouble with them at first, and it's because they just try to make s*** cheap.

Sure.

And you have to tell them, like, look, this has to be better.

That's the other thing I've heard is, like, if you tell them, like, hey, make it quality, they don't know what that means. Right. But without going to cheap route.

Right.

Yeah.

But quality to them is cheap.

Right. Yeah.

You know, so that and that's a problem that you have with those Asian suppliers is they want everything to be cheap, cheap, cheap. And if you tell them, look, I want it to cost more. I want it to be better. They just look at you like you're insane. Like, what do you, why do you want to spend more money? You're a d******. Why would you do that? You know, and it's like, look, you let me worry about that. Make this s*** better. And so for like my ignition coil supplier, it's taken years of work with those guys to get them to where they are at this point.

Sure.

You know, to keep your failure rate at an acceptable level.

Sure. What is an acceptable level? One in a thousand sort of deal?

Well, it's a percentage, right? And right now I maintain a little bit under one percent failure rate.

OK, one percent is always the number that I have. That's like the cutoff.

Yep. And I maintain a little bit below one percent failure rate.

Yeah, that makes sense.

So, I mean, you're going to have failures, right? There's no way to not have any. The idea is to control it.

Yeah.

And it sucks, dude. I hate failures because every time there is one, I could sell a five thousand good parts. But if one of them f**** up, that'll be the loudest guy in the Internet.

Oh, absolutely.

You know what I mean? And so it's always a constant. And like I had a batch of coils for my supplier in the very beginning that had bad circuit boards in them. And I had to deal with like f****** a hundred failures, you know, and that was a nightmare. And people hated me for it. All these are junk. These guys don't know what they're doing. You know, and it's like, f***, guys, we figured out the problem and we solved it. It's gone now. But that stain followed me for probably five years. You know, where people are like, all the s***'s junk. And that was an issue that was like three batches ago that we worked through. And I warrantied every single one of them with no questions asked. I never gave anybody a hassle over that, you know, but my God, the people that have parts go bad, they throw a fit. And so it really is managing that, you know? And if, and let's say you find a bad Chinese vendor and you do have a batch of bad product, that could end your s***, period. People could go, these guys make junk, don't ever trust them again. Yeah. You know? And it's hard to say that all Asian suppliers are good or bad because they can be good or bad. And even a bad one can be a good one if you coach them right.

That's kind of, that's changed my entire perspective. I like this because again, for the last year, the big conversation has been tariffs and, you know, suppliers outside of this country. So like, I started talking to a lot of people on this show where it's like some of them are American made, some of them are both or a combination or whatever. And one thing that we've learned is, like you said, it's like you could coach a bad one. But also, like the way I started envisioning is like, imagine somebody from like, let's say Taiwan, called someone to US in Louisiana, and they're a great supplier, but maybe in Iowa, they're a dog s*** supplier. Like, you don't know.

Yep.

They're a massive country over there too. You know what I mean?

Yep.

So, makes sense.

Yeah, and I mean, it's, the communication is hard. It's difficult, you know, it really is. And they do have reps that speak English almost in all cases, but some words don't mean the same s***, you know? And sometimes there is confusion. And to do it remotely is a little more difficult. You know, when I was with Bob, it was a common practice for us to just fly over there. You get s*** done way faster. You can draw pictures. You can explain things thoroughly. You can inspect the products when they're on the assembly line. And it's a more effective way to get a good product faster. You know, if you want prototypes, fly there, get them, bring them back. Otherwise, you could wait a month for the s*** to show up. You know?

That makes sense.

And you know, it's just, yeah, doing that, the Asian supply chain thing, it's definitely a niche. Not everybody can do it. And in order to be cost competitive in this import car market, you have to use a blend of imported goods and domestic.

Sure.

There's no way that you can be cost competitive in the United States in an aftermarket performance company without imported goods. Argue me all you want, can't happen.

Sure.

No, that's been a common thing we've heard from everybody.

Especially like castings, there's zero chance you can use a domestic casting supplier for a low quantity product. You've got to be into the thousands in order to justify that.

Sure.

And now, then again, maybe we start in Asia, right? And we make a couple hundred and they rip. And we make 400 and they fly. And now we're up to 600 and we're doing 600 a month and those are cooking. Now you get up to the thousand quantity. That's when you start pitching the domestic suppliers, you know, because domestic suppliers piece price isn't expensive. The tooling is what kills you. And so if you can absorb that tooling cost, then the piece price is going to be the same. And now you got better quality. You got a domestic supplier and you're on your move. But when I say the tooling, I'm talking it's four to five times higher than Asia. Sure. It's not even anywhere in the ballpark of competitive. And when you're doing these gamble projects like, oh, this is a new car, we're going to make a downpipe for it. You don't know if you're going to sell a thousand of them. You might not. So you can't justify spending 40 grand for tooling at a domestic company on a park that you don't even know is going to sell. Now, can you afford to invest two or three grand Asia to do it? Yeah, f***. It's worth the gamble. You know, go ahead and try it out. If it doesn't work, you're out five or six grand. Not a big deal. But if that gamble fails with the domestic supplier, you're out 50 grand. You know, so the domestic suppliers primarily supply OEMs and large and high quantity products. And in those cases, it makes sense. But for like the stuff that we're doing on these niche cars where you're making a few hundred parts, it's hard to justify. Sure, it really is. So in order to keep the parts to a competitive price where people actually pay for them, you got to do that. You know, there's just no other way. There's no other way around it. And our solution is we use materials supplied sometimes from Asia, but all the quality control, all the welding, all of the assembly, everything is done domestically so that we can take those parts and make sure that what the customer gets is a product that we're proud of. Yeah, you know, and that's really what it comes down to.

I always like having that discussion. I think it's a very important discussion to have, especially in this day and age. So yeah, that was...

And that's why using a good trusted company, like I think we are a trusted company, to use a company like us, you know, if I get it from them, it doesn't matter where it comes from. I know that they won't sell me something that's gonna suck.

Sure.

You know what I mean? And that's very important to build that reputation because otherwise, why would people trust you with their money? They want to know that if they give you their hard-earned money, that you're gonna give them something that they know is gonna do, you say it's gonna do, you know? And there's a lot of companies out there. I won't name names, but they literally just rebrand Chinese junk and they sell it to people and peddle it off as a performance part. In reality, it's worse performance than the stock s*** that's on the car.

Well, and then if you come go reach back out to them, a lot of times there's no support there either.

Or they'll give you the s*** for free. And the reason that they're willing to do that is because their margins 200% on the product.

Right.

So if you b****, they don't care. They've already made their money four times over from you.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

So I always base mine off of how is a company respond when I have an issue.

And sometimes they don't even have a domestic customer support system.

Yeah.

Or if they do, it's like one guy, right? Like it's like one guy that's the domestic rep for this big company. And you think, how does that big company only have one guy? Well, because everything's done in Asia, and all this guy does is pedal the product and do marketing. And there's a lot of them out there like that, you know? And I'm not saying it's good or bad, but I'm telling you that the products that come from those companies aren't the same as products that come from like me and AMS and Cobb and a lot of these well-known brands. Sure. You know? And Martin runs his company in a very similar fashion to what we do. And he is very strict on his quality control as well, just like we are and makes sure like you've seen Martin's engineering.

What's insane?

And so I mean, he makes sure everything is thoroughly tested just as we do before we release something. Because again, we don't want to release something to the public that we don't stand behind.

Yeah.

You know?

We'll see. We're coming up on a two hour mark.

Yeah.

Was there anything else that you wanted to touch on on your end before we wrap it up on our end?

No, I think I mean, I think I've covered the story.

I got one more quick one. What's anything else? We talked about a few things. You got the engine program for that. Anything else coming down the pipeline that you guys that you want to talk about at all?

I have an inlet pipe designed for it. There's, I have some few casting projects. Let me put it that way.

Okay.

I've gone through the prototyping. I had one casting factory that attempted to make them and they f***** them all up like four times over. And so I've had to like find a new factory. And I think, I think I've found a factory.

Okay.

I think I got a good one that can do my castings. And I have some casting projects for those cars that I'm working on. And also I have an EJ Subaru downpipe designed that I'm, that I would like to release because Cobb discontinued theirs and a bunch of the other companies did. And I think that I have a design that can be cost effective and would be really good for that market. And those cars have been around for 20 years. So I know that that's going to prove it's going to live the test of time.

Sure. So do you run any risk of again? I know things are getting into a more relaxed phase right now, but do you have any concerns about like carb and all that stuff too with that or?

That's a tough question, right? Maybe.

Right.

We do everything in our power to make our products EPA compliant.

Sure.

Now, there are some weird government caveats to the EPA that will allow products like the Corolla downpipe to not be EPA certified, even though they meet all the EPA standards.

Sure.

So we make everything that we do as far as our our catted products. We make them meet all of the EPA standards.

Well, it'd be a it'd be a catted downpipe.

Yes.

OK.

There is really no in our testing on the Corolla. Specifically, there's really no power gain doing a catalyst. There's no drill. There is zero difference. The only difference is cost.

Sure.

And it's a big cost. You know, it's like the cats alone are like 600 bucks.

Sure.

So you could make a lot cheaper product without the cat. But then also you open the door to having the EPA chase you down.

One of the things I'm not sure if you saw, we did an episode of Greg Banish last year, whenever we talked about Jezzy. I'm very familiar with them.

Yeah, I've had a really good contact to Jezzy. We have a manufacturer's contract with those guys and we buy a lot of cats from them.

Yeah. No, because like that's one way where you can kind of go about their whole story is like they basically bailed a bunch of like OEMs out of issues and trouble from my understanding after talking to one of the guys there.

So Jezzy's story, and I know this because the guy is a good friend of mine, right? Jezzy's story is there was a bunch of suppliers of using Chinese, a bunch of manufacturers using Chinese suppliers for their cats. These cats weren't up to the quality. And like initially, they'd get like a good sample from them. They'd be like, yep, we approve it. It's good to go. Sure. China does what China does. And they pull the quality back. They cheapen it up and they send you a cheaper version for manufacturing. And then when you get that cheaper version, it doesn't function the way it's supposed to. And so then Jezzy has to come in with their high quality materials and save the day.

Sure.

And so that's Jezzy bailed a lot of people out because they had sub par cats and Jezzy manufacturers their own cats to their specifications with their materials to make sure that it will meet the standards required.

Sure.

Yeah, that's yeah, that'll be a fun one. That's because like my my head immediately went to Catalyst. I'm like, oh, but now it's cat. OK, that's much more catalyst.

You know, back in the day, I was the same way, right? I was like, oh, yeah, you got to go to Catalyst. But when we've done all of our power testing, it doesn't make a difference.

That's what Banish was saying, too. Like he did. He actually managed to get the same power as a straight pipe running through Jezzy Cat's. Yeah. So that was on the Corolla.

We did one with and without just out of curiosity, made no difference.

Right. Yeah.

So yeah, adding the cat's more expensive, but it keeps us EPA happy. Yeah. I mean, at least we're trying right.

Exactly.

Like they're not going to certify a car that's not more than eight years old, period. End of discussion. So if it's newer than eight years old, it'll never be certified no matter what you do.

Sure.

So all you can do is try. You got to make it as good as possible and then hope that that keeps them off your back.

Sure. That makes sense.

You know, we're a small enough manufacturer right now. They're probably not going to get us. Sure. But there are a lot of manufacturers that are larger than us that they still haven't gotten.

Sure.

So it's always a crap shoot. You know, so there's a concern. Sure. But if it happens, you deal with it when it happens.

That makes sense.

You know.

Sweet. On that note, you want to wrap the usual three?

Sure. All right. So at the end of every episode, we like to ask our guest to pick three cars. I need a track car, a daily driver and a show car. You have an unlimited budget. Build your own car, swap whatever you want. What are you going to pick?

Wow.

Yeah.

Man, for a track car, I think I'd get an Ariel Adam with a K-Series and a turbo.

Awesome.

I think that would be that would be my right down my alley. I think like an open wheel car with a turbo K-Series in it would haul a**. Daily driver, dude, I can't I can't s*** on my forerunner. That thing does it all. Yeah, you know, I can go off-roading with the boys, I can haul the family, it goes through the snow.

What generation?

I have a fifth gen.

Fifth gen, that's the outgoing one, right?

Yep.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, it's not the current one, but the one before that.

Yeah.

Or the Lexus version of the 4Runner. But dude, those 4Runners, incredible vehicles. Now, they're not the most luxurious, they're not the fanciest, but that thing will run 400,000 miles and never give me a lick of trouble. And it'll get through anything I want to put it through. So it's hard for me to hate on the 4Runner. I have to pick a 4Runner for the daily. And what was the other one? Show car. Show car, man. That's tough. I feel like I'd pick something classic for a show car.

Some classic JDM.

Nobody knows those.

Yeah.

You know, a classic JDM car would be great going to a JDM based car show. But if you want to show up to like a small town mom and pop car show, you got to have that Fox body.

Yeah. All right.

You know what I mean?

Like Fox body, huh?

The Fox body would would it would turn heads at a local car show. Well, actually, let me change my answer. Sixty nine GTO judge.

Oh, OK.

I've always had a like dazed and confused. Yeah, I've always had a love with those old GTO judges. So I think if I had to pick any show car, I'd do a sixty nine GTO judge and then build it however I want it. Do a Hellcat swap in it.

Oh, sacrilege. I like it.

It'd be fast. It'd look good. I don't know. My dad grew up with Dodges. I feel like that'd be a kind of a way home to him.

You know, you wouldn't put something like an LSX or something in there. I was thinking like C6 or one.

Yeah, people LSX swap everything.

That's fair.

You know, those Hellcat engines will make 900 with a pulley and a two all day long.

It's such a bummer during such a heavy a** car.

I know that Magnum that we built for David, though, it weighs 4000. No, is it even 4000 pounds? I don't think it is. I think it's less than 4000 pounds. That thing holds.

It is a Magnum out there. Yeah, like a Dodge Magnum.

We built it for the dude in blue, David. Yeah, it's got a Hellcat Redeye engine with a fuel system and a pulley. And it makes like, I don't know, seven something wheel. And it's a stick shift in a Magnum. It hauls a**. He just hasn't picked it up yet or is it done?

Are you still working on it?

That's a tough story. OK, that's a tough story. We did it for Dodge. It was a sponsored Dodge deal. OK, and he kind of got burned. OK, and so he has a love hate relationship with that car and he doesn't know what to do with it. OK, and just so everybody knows, don't swap a modern Dodge. Don't do it. Can't do it. Won't work. It's undoable. So the CAN bus systems in those cars are nightmares. Yeah, oh, I've heard. And that car is like an 07 and so nothing works. No power steering, no HVAC, no tail lights, no brake lights, no headlights. The power windows work. It's got daytime running lights, but that's it.

I watch a YouTube channel called Scrap Life Garage as well. And like they always run into issues with like the Dodge stuff.

They can't do it. If you're going to swap a Dodge, it's got to be pre-CAN bus, which I don't know what year that cutoff is, but 07 is too new. I know that. I know that. So that's also David's gripe about that car is it's not really a car.

Sure.

No air conditioning, no heat, no power steering, no brake lights, no headlights. What the hell is he going to do with it? If he did a that dude in blue video of it, he'd be like, this thing sucks. He's done several. And that's exactly what he says, is this thing sucks.

That's all about that car.

Okay.

Nothing's getting there then. Well, sweet man. On that note, where can everybody find you?

You can find me everywhere. I guess all the social media platforms. JNorth8500 is my Instagram and everything else handle. I've been on the NASIOC forums for Subarus since the beginning of time as JNorth85. Same with all the other Subaru forums. I'm on JNorth85. So, if you see a JNorth85 or 8500, it's probably me.

Sure. Okay. And then Off The Line Performance, everything?

Off The Line Performance, yeah. I'm behind all of those two. Obviously, the team manages most of the Off The Line Performance, but I still watch it. So, I'm still there.

I'm still there. Dan? You can find us at Gunna Garage. And you said you're going to PRI, right?

I will be at PRI with Kyle from 1320 and John Cundy from 1320.

Those two guys aside, you moved to the top one. I want to get a drink with you at PRI List.

We'll be there. Kyle, Kyle, Cundy and myself have made it known that we are going to be there on Wednesday night, Thursday night and Friday night.

Okay. Yeah, we roll on Wednesday because we got to set up the booth and all that. I was actually at the same bar as Kyle last year. Again, I'm in like within two feet of the guy all the time, but I'm just nervous.

Kyle is one of my best friends. So I will be more than happy to make the introduction. All right. He's one of the greatest guys ever.

You could be our wingman.

Yep. Kyle is one of the greatest guys ever. I cannot say enough good things about Kyle. I've not heard anybody like ever say a bad word about him. If anybody hates Kyle, they're the problem.

Actually, one more question before I turn off the cameras. What's your best experience you've ever had with Kyle? What's your best memory with Kyle?

Oh my God. So last winter, yeah, last winter, Kyle and myself and our significant others took a trip to Xtapa, Mexico.

Okay.

And we spent a week going deep water fishing, four wheeling, hiking, everything you can imagine in Mexico. And that is honestly one of my fondest memories with Kyle. And in addition to that, we like to hit a lot of music concerts. And we go to like EDM shows and stuff together. And we've had some great times at those EDM shows. So I just, I spent a lot of time with Kyle. He's an awesome guy. One of the best friends I've ever had. I just can't say enough good things about him. And anybody that, like I said, if anybody has a problem with Kyle, they're the problem.

Yeah. Well, sweet. Thanks for tuning in, guys, and we'll see you all next time.