183. Pushing the Hurricane platform, Drag Racing and Drag and Drive's w/ Morgan Evans

This episode is brought to you by 6XD Gearbox. More on them later. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Minnoxide podcast. I'm your host, Harris, aka Minnoxide, here with my Ford loving co-host.

It's been a whole week since the last time we filmed an episode.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Day two of PRI, we're finally at the end. Yeah, no, I'm not going to stack this heavy next.

You live and you learn.

This is our first time having a booth here.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. You can't tell about how janky it is.

Yeah.

But nonetheless, today we are here with Morgan Evans. I actually discovered you because of the whole hurricane thing. Yeah. I can't remember if I followed you or the Viper guy first, but either way, I discovered. Oh, actually, no, it wasn't even Ford hurricane thing. Michael Narks.

He's driving me about you.

Yeah, because you're going to the same dragon drive that we were going to that got canceled earlier this year, right?

Tornado stuck it out.

No, we went to Sick Week earlier this year.

That might have been Hawaii.

He told me to. Yeah.

Yeah.

Because we were on our way to one and yeah, some tornado ripped through everywhere.

And I think I remember that actually. That was like mid year. I made a trophy for that, but we never ended up.

Oh, that might have been Hawaii.

Yeah, I made their trophy.

Yeah. Well, you're based out of Florida, right? Yeah.

Yeah. We're based out of like Cocoa Beach area, Florida.

Sure. So before we get to the hurricane and all that fun stuff, how do you get to where you're at today?

It's been a long, interesting journey. I grew up in a very car slash racing oriented family, so it's pretty much always been my life. It's been in my blood. Old trucks, muscle cars, everything you can possibly think of. But I myself had never actually been down the track. I had street cars and lots of builds and stuff like that, but not until about two years ago had I been down the track myself. And I basically had to rip that band-aid off because of Roadkill Nights, the first round of that. So ever since then, I've just been drag racing nonstop and it's kind of evolved and gotten out of hand.

Sure.

What was it? So what about Roadkill Nights that made you need to make that jump?

Well, basically the premise around Roadkill Nights is that it's working with Dodge. They provide you an engine. They tell you, pick any Dodge platform you like. For us, it was a rusty old pick up track because that's what we like. But basically, you do a little build series and at the very end of it, you take your car up to Detroit and race all the other grudge match racers. So that was the first time I had ever been down an actual track, was for Roadkill Nights, you know, in front of like 20,000 people. And all the pressure is on and all that fun stuff. So that's what I mean by ripping off the bandaid.

Right. How did you do?

I won.

Yeah. Yeah. Hell yeah. That's not bad.

I won both. So they originally invited me in 2024. And we, the rules around that were the engine had to be completely stock. And that's the Hurricane 3 liter that we've been talking about. So we went up there and we ended up winning 2024. And because we did that, they invited us back for 2025, obviously this year. And the rules were off. It was outlaw style. So we went a little crazy with the truck. It makes a whole lot more power now than it did. And this time it was on Woodward Avenue and we won that one as well.

Sure. So how much support are you getting from Dodge on something like that? Because they just throw you an engine and good luck or how's that work?

Basically.

Oh, really?

Yeah. So it was a little tricky because the Hurricane is such a new platform that in 2024, you know, we have tech support, obviously, but a lot of a lot of that, like we were all figuring it out at the same time kind of thing. So we figured out a lot of what we had to figure out on our own. But that's kind of part of the like challenge of the build series. You know, they they send you an engine. And for us, it was hard because it's, you know, brand new. And they're just like, here you go, build it, show up, race and let the best man or woman win.

Yeah, because those are are they still locked the Hurricane? Not a lot of tuning support or?

So ours is on a MoTek. So we do have that support now for the very first year. They had the ECUs locked because it was brand new. They didn't want everybody going out there and hurting them. So for the second year, they, they unlocked them and let us kind of go wild. It was pretty much their words was go wild, let's see what it's capable of and that we did. So.

Well, that's sort of similar to what Matt Zubrick had.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, because he's got all those whatever, hurricane and all that kind of stuff.

They did it in their Demon.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that was 2024.

Yeah, yep.

Okay.

Yeah, we got to know those guys last year, Seema?

Yeah.

Right, something like that. Yeah, so.

Yeah, I know that's what he did, but they didn't have, it didn't have its full potential at that time yet.

No, no, they were very nerfed at that time, because you couldn't really do anything with them. I think they put the turbos on there without being able to really tune it.

Right, sure, yeah.

Yeah, but this year we had a lot easier of a time, but it still is tricky because it's such a new platform, that it's like, okay, well, what direction do you go with it? You don't know where the limits are. Are we going to find the limits? You know, there's all these questions that come up along the way.

Sure. What happens if you find the limit? Just give us our broken engine back or how does that work?

No, it's our broken engine is ours to keep.

Oh, here's your boat anger.

Yeah, well, I make metal art, so I'll just make something cool out of it. Yeah.

So obviously, are you still the record holder? Yes.

So a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago, we went 889. So we were the first to the eights. And we've been a pretty consistent record holder with it. At Roadkill, we showed up basically around 800 wheel horsepower. Okay. And then we didn't really get to test it at the track before we go, because the whole premise of Roadkill is like you're on kind of a tight timeline. So we tested it, you know, where we could, but couldn't make any track outings. So we didn't really know what it was going to run. So we go to Roadkill and we came home from that and immediately took it to the track and we went like 930. Right off the trailer, basically, which is crazy. We were kind of mind blown by that. And then I made a couple of changes, went back to the track, went 900.

Right.

Three times in a row.

Yeah.

So at that point, the factory transmission decided it was done, which honestly was very impressive for the Hurricane and the 8HP75 that comes behind it. As we were doing that all, like the transmission was 100 percent factory, like on open.

So is that the new trains as well or not? It is new.

Yeah. It's just a different, like a newer generation of the 8HP75.

Okay.

Yeah.

Just like beefed up and all that stuff, I think.

Pretty much. Yeah. There's a couple of small changes, but yeah, the transmission at that point decided it was hurt. And we went over to Applied Torque Solutions, had it built, came back from there, took it back to the track and was able to go 889.

Oh wow. Okay.

At 149.

Well, when the trans finally let go, I mean, you probably had how many passes on it at that point.

I mean, we're well over 100 passes on the truck at this point, because we've been racing it for the last two years, and it's been the same engine and same transmission.

So still same engine as well.

Yes, same engine as well. And it's completely unopened. It's 100% factory long block. So it's doing all this stock bottom end, stock fuel system, stock intake, stock intercooler. So it's essentially just a turbo upgrade.

When you get to a certain level in a build, whether it be drag racing or drifting, road course, or just a b***** street car, you'll have to upgrade your transmission. And when we're talking sequential transmissions, there's no one on the planet with a stronger gearbox than 6XD. And the proof is in the pudding here, folks. Half the FD field is rocking a 6XD, and even 3000 horsepower Vipers have not been able to tame the best that 6XD has to offer. So if you're ready to take it up a notch, go to 6xdgearbox.com, and when contacting them to place an order, use code Minnoxide5 or reach out via socials to figure out how one of the baddest transmissions on the planet could fit in your build. Let's get back to the show. Tance, you've beat the hell out of this thing there. You probably got a good bit of miles over the course of two years too, right? Cause you dragon drive it as well?

Yes, we do dragon drive. So we are upwards of like 8,000 miles, which a lot of people say it's a brand new platform. That's not that many miles, right? But it's been hard miles. Right. So I think we've done three or four dragon drives in the last year and raced at a whole bunch of events, roadkill twice. So it owes us nothing.

Sure. And how much does this truck weigh?

This truck weighs about 3,300 lbs with me in it.

Right.

So that's race weight.

Is that 33?

33.

Okay.

That's not bad.

That's not what I thought, actually.

Cause like some people are like, Oh, well, I thought it was lighter than I thought, to be honest with you.

Yeah. Oh no. My brother's like, well, it's probably all gutted and light or whatever. And I'm like, I don't know, man.

No, it's not. It's actually still pretty factory. It's a hundred percent steel body still. We do run it like without the hood because that's a hundred pounds off the nose. You know what I mean? It's an old steel hood. So with me in it and everything, it's 33, but a lot of people expect it to be over 4,000 pounds. So it does catch people off guard sometimes.

Well, that's what's got me scared about the new charger. It's like 4,800 pounds or whatever.

It's pretty heavy.

Well, actually not what I think about you. You took that down to the Tail of Dragon as well.

Yes.

So for listener context, basically, and Dan's context, basically Dodge got a bunch of people together and they went to the Tail of Dragon with these chargers. Is that a good breakdown of it?

Yeah, pretty much. It was like a media day first drive kind of thing. We got to take the chargers, drive them around, go down to the Dragon and we also hit Knoxville Dragway. We were able to make some eighth mile passes with it. Yeah, it was pretty cool.

So how did you feel about it?

I honestly liked it. So I don't know if you call me biased or anything because I really like the platform to begin with, but I like the car too. I think they actually did a good job with it. I think the interior is good. The exterior is good. Obviously, it's a huge change which people are uncomfortable with. Sure. That's fair. Everyone is like, it's not a hemi, right? But I feel like they may not give the Hurricane the chance that it deserves because it's a really cool platform. And even though it is heavy, it kind of rips. It kind of caught me off guard when we were in it because it's got so much torque. That's the benefit of those small turbos down there. You have so much torque. So I was happy with it.

There's something about that inline 6 that's kind of a, it's been a tried and true secret sauce. I mean, it's been, it's a pretty good platform.

Yeah. I mean, you got 2Js. There's a test of time. They've been great forever. B58s, S58s, they're very similar to the BMW world and they've been killing it ever since they came out.

I think even one of Ford's most reliable engines is a 200 inline 6. I mean, nobody's putting turbos on them or doing anything fun. They came in trucks and stuff.

But you can't kill them. Yeah, it's true. So.

Minnoxide, I've only test drove the EV version. Is the interior the same? Do you know? I imagine it is.

Yeah, it is. Yeah, it's pretty much the same. Yeah, I think they did a killer job with that. Even the interior lighting and stuff like that. Yeah, that was neat. It's just those little features that you don't always get. So I liked them. I thought they put a lot of detail into them and they, you know, did a great job.

I drove one in the Wagoneer at the auto show. Yeah, it gets up in boogies for a big SUV.

For a school bus, right? It actually moves.

There's probably 1,500 pounds of screens in that car.

At least, yeah.

They're everywhere.

Yeah, for sure. But yeah, they're very impressive. I mean, when we first got it, to be 100% honest, we didn't know anything about it. We didn't know. We thought the truck was going to be like a low 11 second, high 10 second truck. And that's kind of the way that we built it. Never did I think we would be going eights with it. So it's blown us out of the water for sure.

So are you a Dodge enthusiast from the beginning, or how do we get here?

I'm kind of an everything enthusiast. We have Dodges, we have Chevys, we have Nissans, we have Fords, we have Pontiacs, we have some of everything. So we just love cars and trucks. I have a lot of old rusty trucks. That's kind of my thing, obviously, with the Dodge, all the patina and stuff, we love it. But I've just kind of grown up with everything. And I think every manufacturer has something that you can like. There's always those diehard, like Mopar, No Car, or Chevy guys, or Ford guys, whatever. We just like it all.

Dan is not okay, and he's just the bad guy.

I am also very much an automotive, actually anything with an engine, I am totally on board with. But I am very Ford centric. But yeah, it's a... My daughter is kind of the same, but she's very much into trucks. She's 15, she's here somewhere. But she wants to get into welding and all that kind of stuff. So how did you get started in all of this?

So on the welding side or just racing?

Just into this automotive stuff and welding and...

I would say it probably really started to... I don't want to say go somewhere, but something started to come of it about five years ago. I've always kind of been into content. I was always taking pictures of everything, videos where I could and whatever. So I've always loved that side of it. I was always posting my cars on Instagram before we even got reels or videos or anything like that. So I was always posting my cars. And like I said, we had my fiance and I, we've been building cars together for like eight years now. So we always have scraps laying around, parts from our own engines, unfortunately, and stuff like that. So I wanted to start learning how to weld because as you guys know, you're building cars, you're waiting on fabrication, you're waiting on wiring, you're waiting on whatever. So we've learned to do a lot of it ourselves just to save ourselves time and money and pain, whatever. So we have a bunch of scrap laying around. I wanted to learn how to weld. I started making some silly metal art and I posted on my social media. People are asking me to buy it. I'm like, really? Are you sure? But people kept asking, so I kept making it. And at the time, I was in a corporate job, like an accountant, didn't like it. So it came to a point where I was like, I've got enough money to try this for the next three months. And that was five years ago. And I just, in my mind, I was like, I'll do this until I can find another job. But it just never happened. The metal art took off, and now I make trophies for races all over the country. That side really boosted me, along with the racing side of it, which I would say the drag racing started probably about two years ago, officially with Roadkill. But yeah, it's just, if you wanna learn how to do it, just start doing it. That's what I did with the welder. We just bought a welder and we're like, we'll figure it out.

Yeah, we bought one. So I've always had like a Harbor Freight one or whatever. And we bought one last year from Lincoln here and she's gone right into, she's taking a welding academy. She's gonna be a junior in high school here. So she's already, she's super good. She's in basic metals now. And yeah, she's super pumped.

That's awesome. I love to hear that. Try and make some metal art. It's fun.

Yeah. Well, this, I have plenty of, I'm the, well, she's into cars too, but I have plenty of broken s*** laying around too. So it's not gonna be a problem.

It happens, unfortunately. We have parts from our own cars. We have parts from friends' cars. You know, it's always like a bummer when they blow up their car, but it's like, hey, what are you doing with those pistons?

Oh, I do it all. I'll have something done even. And when I had my oil pump gears done in a car, I couldn't get to it, so I had a shop do it. And I was like, I want all that stuff back. Cause that looks cool. I'm gonna make a Christmas ornament out of it or something, I don't know.

It's a ton of fun. And I can't believe where it's taken me. We've got to go to so many cool events and stuff like that, just cause we make the trophies on the back end and whatnot. So yeah, that's been awesome. I'd say that boosted me kind of more on the content side and it allowed me to grow more of the builds that we do and the racing and all that fun stuff. So it went hand in hand.

Okay. But the car enthusiast thing came well before the content.

Oh yeah. Like I said, I was kind of born into that with my family. And we had been building well before even the content stuff started taking off. I had always posted it just cause I love doing it. I love the cars. I wanted to show it off. It was mostly just the cars. I wasn't even really on the page, to be honest. I was just posting my cars. And I started posting more of us and what we were doing specifically to the builds and the races we were going to.

When you say us, is this your dad, your boyfriend, your fiance?

My fiance, my now fiance. We've been together for eight years.

Is that this guy here?

That's that guy.

Okay. We're talking about him like he's not sitting right here.

Yeah, he's over here, just hanging out. But yeah, we've been building for eight years and we had tons of stuff even before what we have now. So we've done some of everything.

How many cars do you think you got?

At the moment, at least 10.

All right.

Last guy that was on just before he's like, I got 42. I'm like, damn, something's wrong. Damn.

Okay. That makes me feel better though.

Yeah. No, it's very funny. You guys, we would get along very well. I have a very similar situation going on in my house. And it's mostly Ford's, but it's very random. So my daughter just picked up a 91 F250, 73 IDI, single cab.

Love that.

Yeah. It's great.

That's a good truck.

Yes.

Yeah. We've got, I have a square body. We have the D150. I just picked up a Ram Charger. I have an 88 Jimmy, like, you know, the little S10 Blazers.

I like those, the early 90s ones are my favorite.

Yes. Yeah. They're really good. I have a 240 SX with a VK56 in it that we've had forever. That kind of started my content. Really? Okay. Ironically. Yep. What else? I have a 2018 Mustang. You might like that. Yeah. Coyote Mustang. Yeah.

His years just perked up on that one.

Yeah. He's happy. And then I'm going to go back to Chevy stuff.

Sorry. Well, what are you doing to the Mustang? Are you just, is it a stock or?

That's been my daily driver for like seven years.

Oh, really? Yeah.

I've owned it since pretty much brand new. It's a coyote car. It's manual MT82. Got headers and it's on E85 basically. So it's just like a 500 horsepower fun daily driver.

MT82 is not bad. You get rid of the shifter though. Did you put an MGW in it yet?

I haven't yet. Actually, I'm still on the factory shifter.

Yeah. You need it. That thing feels like it's going to come off in your hand.

Yeah, it does. It feels very plastic. That's the one thing I probably don't like about the car is the transmission.

You put an MGW, they're like 400 bucks, I think, and it will change your whole thoughts on the car and the way it shifts. Yeah.

All right. Well, I'll have to do that when we get home.

All right.

I've been itching to do some stuff to it, but I've tried to keep it relatively stock because I know it can get out of hand fast.

Yeah.

We have enough race cars.

You get a shifter and you're like, oops, and it's a thousand horsepower.

Yeah, right. The blower fell on it.

The turbo fell in.

That's how it goes.

Yeah.

So we're kind of all over the place, but.

So you're spending all of your spare time on Facebook Marketplace then is what the problem is.

Yeah. Pretty much a lot of Hemings Marketplace. They've got, you know, good classic car stuff, Facebook Marketplace. Yeah. We, we find those deals and can't pass them up.

Yep. I hear you.

Yeah.

Do you, okay. So you're down here right now. Have you moved your location to here and looked while you're down here?

No, I haven't.

Okay. I do that every time I'm traveling. I got to look around the area.

You don't think yours yet?

Absolutely.

He did it on the airplane.

Yeah.

But we drove down here. Oh, that's, I have a truck to haul s*** home. That's why. Yeah.

We didn't have a trailer this time though.

No, I can rent one though. I have a fricking hitch.

True.

That's the spirit. I can rent one. Yep.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

You go straight to U-Haul.

I rented a U-Haul and gone one way and returned it back home once I hauled some s*** back.

Amazing. You never know what you're going to find.

Absolutely. Yeah.

You let me know because we're moseying back on site because we have to bring these chairs down. We brought these from Minnesota.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Quick game and I might as well put a truck in there, you know?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I was going to ask, so what's taking up most of your time then? Is that truck or you have other projects that take up most of your time or?

Right now, I would probably say the D150 is taking the most of our time just because it's it's been so good and we've had so much fun like experimenting with this brand new platform.

Sure.

We're among some of the first that have gotten to really push it which is exciting for us because we're all into like the new stuff and just seeing what it can handle. Obviously, we don't want to find the limits per se but we do at the same time, you know what I mean? But it's been fun experimenting with it. We've had a lot of events with it because it's gotten pretty good coverage just because of the events we've gone to and because of how kind of weird it is, you know? So that's pretty much taken up the most of my time. But my 88 Jimmy, we're going to start working on that pretty soon. It has an aluminum 5.3 with a TVS 2300 on it. So Supercharge LS, we'll be taking that to Sick Week along with the D150 here in a couple months.

So I just got distracted by the frat boys for a second.

Oh, yeah. Hooting and hollering over there.

Yeah, yeah. Hooting and hollering. Oh, tuning-wise, are you guys doing your own tuning then?

Kind of. We have someone that helps us on the MoTeC side, because MoTeC is everything else but 10 times harder. Everything's more complicated. So we do have someone helping us with the tuning on that. But we typically do all of our own tuning. We have holly stuff. We have, you know, holly tacks. And we've used pretty much everything. But we do everything at our backyard shop, basically. Paint, wiring. We do a lot of fabrication, engine building, transmission building.

Sure.

We've just kind of learned to do it all.

Is this turned into so the metal art is this? Is that making money or do you guys also build and sell cars or do you have customer cars or what?

We don't do any customer cars. We've got too much garbage of our own. To be honest, but the metal art, yeah, I've been doing that for the last five years and that's been what's paying the bills. Right now, the content side is kind of taking over, which I'm not too terribly mad about. The metal art, because I carve all of my pistons and everything by hand, it's kind of hard on my hands. So I've been wanting to kind of tone it down a little bit. And luckily, the content side is picking up pretty hard, like the racing and all the events we're going to and stuff like that. So I'm still doing my trophies for the events that I've been doing for the last five years, all the annual events. But other than that, I'm just doing content full time pretty much.

Okay. Yeah. And I apologize. I've did like, it's been a crazy two weeks for me with work and then doing this and all this stuff. So I've done like zero research. So sorry if I'm asking.

That's all right. He knows.

I've been following you for like, I think it's been a year now.

It's been a while.

You're carving out pistons up. So have you seen like mean mug pistons?

Yeah.

So it's something like that?

Yeah, he's great. Actually, I know him. He kind of helped me get started. So I was making metal art kind of on... They were... Pistons were incorporated and stuff, but I was making all kinds of weird stuff, sculptures and whatever kind of fun things that I could think of. And I saw the pistons and I was like, hey, I really want to try that. So I had talked with him back and forth and he was like, hey, this is what you need to get started. Give it a shot. He's a great guy. So I started and I kind of ended up more on the trophy side for events and stuff because we were racing at half of the events anyway. You know, so he does a lot of the individual pistons and sculptures and stuff like that. And I ended up doing a ton of trophies with him.

That's very cool though, of him to be, you know, he could have blown you off or whatever. You could technically be considered competition. No, exactly.

There's room for everybody.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, but he's an awesome guy. So I greatly appreciate him for that because I mean, I maybe would have tried it eventually, but I probably would have struggled more than I did.

Right. So what's what's so you got the Jimmy? Anything else on your guys' radar?

Yes. So we have the D150, the Jimmy. We have another project that we will be working on soon. Jason, my fiance has a 66 GTO that has been in his family since the early 70s. Wow. So it's a pretty special project to us, given that it's been in his family for so long. And we're probably going to put something in it that will upset people. Yeah. I mean, it's tricky. It's Pontiac based right now. It's just a 389, but it's tricky because those Pontiac engines are so expensive. We don't necessarily want to put an LS in it, because not that we're against LSs. They are great platforms. They're cheap, great to get parts for whatever, but not in that car.

You want to come and swap it?

I was thinking put a Coyote in it.

We had a guy in the show.

That had the Tempest with the Cummins in it. Yeah, I think that's Pontiac Tempest, right? You looked at each other like, I got it right.

No, I said Coyote and she said I was very close.

Oh, close.

It's modern, just a different manufacturer. No, but that would be cool. It's not Ford.

Okay. I was just thinking then you get at least a push rod and all that good stuff. Big displacement.

Yeah, we're going to put a Gen 3 Hemi in it.

Okay.

So Hemi stuff is really coming up right now. And we just want to put something very different in it. Like take the Mopar Purist and the Pontiac Purist. Just upset everybody, you know? Yeah. But I mean, honestly, like they're capable of so much that I think it'll be a really cool project for especially Dragon drives and stuff.

Are you talking about like the 6.2 or?

Yeah, like a 6.2 or 6.4, something Hellcat based.

Sure.

Yeah.

Okay. I was going to ask you earlier as well. Is this all self-taught? Is this YouTube University? Like how did, I mean, where did it all begin?

So a lot of it is self-taught. Like we have a YouTube channel ourselves, but we didn't, I mean, my fiance Jason is extremely smart and he is very good at everything that he does. And he's mostly self-taught too. I've learned so much from him over the years. I had pretty basic knowledge when first got started. But yeah, everything we do is at home, in our shop, pretty much self-taught.

Does he have a day job?

Yeah. Yeah. He still actually works a full-time corporate.

Okay.

But we're trying to get him on.

Yeah. Yeah. Corporate world sucks. Yeah.

I couldn't go back to corporate, I don't think.

No, you said I was in finance. I didn't like it.

Accounting.

I was like, I don't know, if anybody who actually likes accounting has to be a psychopath. Oh, absolutely.

I agree. It's full of psychopaths. Yeah, I couldn't. People were always surprised. They were like, you're an accountant? You have personality.

Yeah.

No offense to accountants.

God bless my accountant. Like I couldn't do anything without her. Exactly. So we need them. But I could never. Yeah.

Yeah.

OK, so you have all that going on. Oh, the tuner, is it anybody wanted to shout out or whatever? Who's doing all the mo tech stuff for you then? Or there's just somebody doing it on the side sort of?

Yeah, somebody doing it on the side.

Sure. Yeah. So how much further can you push the hurricane as it is? Like, what are your thoughts? Like, are you like happy with where it's at now? Wait till somebody else catches up sort of deal? Or what's the plan there?

Yeah, we're actually we're very happy with where it is right now. I don't think we'll ever push the truck further than like an 850 truck, because at that point, tech starts getting pretty wild. You need like a 25.3 cage and all the fun stuff that we don't really want to do to like a single cab pickup truck. So we're happy with where it is right now. We're going to clean it up some, because even like the 889 pass that I made, it wasn't the cleanest pass, to be honest. There's still a lot of things that we can do on the trans tuning side, cleaning it up. The engine's happy as a clam, like according to all of our data logs and everything like that. But there's certain things with the truck that we can kind of fine tune. The transmission needs a bit of fine tuning, because we're still on the stock calibration for the transmission. So we're looking into putting a turbo-alarmic on the truck, something like that, that gives us a little bit better trans control.

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Sure. Because we just got it built, but it needs some refinement.

Sure.

Did it have a different converter put in?

We did. We had a circle D converter.

Okay. I was going to say, because you technically went faster after you had it built, so there must have been a little bit of secret sauce in there, I would assume.

Well, when we went 9.0, the trans was blowing up as we speak.

Okay.

So those passes were a little messy because it was all over the limiter, it was slipping, it didn't want to make the shifts. So we knew how fast it was going with the transmission that was hurt, that if we got it built, came home and it was actually working properly, that it would go eights, because it was knocking on that door.

Right.

So yeah, I think there is still some left in it to go back to your original question. There's still some power left on the table that I'm sure we can find, but it is, it's making a lot of jam right now.

Well, at what point does it start becoming expensive?

Exactly. There's a certain barrier you don't want to cross or things start getting a little out of hand.

Yeah. Well, it's like, do you want to be the R&D monkey for that? It's like, that's where you start talking like six figures really quick.

Exactly. Yeah, we're not. I mean, like I said, we don't know where that limit is. I assume we will probably find it at some point. Sure. You know, we're looking to do like four digit horsepower at some point, you know, because no one's done it yet. Can it do it? We don't know.

Well, it's kind of like, if you look at the S58, like I think the limit, they finally found it. Like I think it was about a year or two ago. There was like the green S58 on a dyno. They just, it was making like 1200 something wheel. And then they whacked it with like a 200 shot of nitrous or whatever. And it's like, and it just boom.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

So it's like, you're at 800 wheel right now.

It's around 950.

Oh, yeah. So you're knocking on that door anyway. That's right. Yeah.

We're right there anyway. And it's showing all the signs that it's still happy and still sure fine where it's at. So, I mean, I think there's probably a little bit of room on the table. I don't know how long it will last like that, you know, because we're not naive to the fact that we're on the ragged edge.

Sure.

You know, so we know that it is probably coming at some point. And it is to no fault of the hurricane, because especially with that engine in particular, we've been beating on it for two years. So if something were to happen, what are you going to do? You know, it's proven itself. It's a little trooper.

So it's a little trooper. So cute little trooper.

Yeah, I don't know about Q. It looks pretty big in there.

Yeah, I bet. What's the displacement on it? You said three.

Oh, it's a three liter. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's funny because in the full size pickup truck, it still looks pretty big.

Right.

It's got all the accessories and all that stuff.

Yeah.

So my dad demos a Grand Wagoneer or whatever.

Okay.

So it's like my brothers launched it a handful of times. Like that thing gets up and going.

Yeah, it does.

Like we were playing around with it, and it's like this thing's not exactly tiny either.

No.

It has all that extra stuff in there. Have you taken it apart at all or you just get a crate and throw it in?

Yeah. It was basically just straight out of the crate. We haven't even had the valve cover off of it. It's never given us a problem. And I should probably knock on some wood right now.

These chairs have some wood in there.

Yeah. Just knock on something. But no, we haven't had any issues with it. We've literally driven the truck across the country. Our first drag and drive we did was 666. So we started in Missouri, like South Missouri, drove and raced the truck all the way down to Roswell, New Mexico, and then drove it home from New Mexico. So never skipped a beat, gets 24 miles per gallon. Stop at the track. Yes, it's incredible. Gets 24 miles per gallon, you stop at the track and go make a hit. Keep going.

What about turbo wise? What are you guys running there?

We're running a Precision 6870.

Okay, that's what I figured.

Yeah, which has been an amazing turbo on that particular setup, because it spools like an animal.

Sure.

We've tossed up the idea of going to a 72, 75 or something like that.

I'll get you to that thousand real quick.

Yeah, I will. Yeah, I will. But we're kind of torn on the spool side of things because it's so good right now.

Right, yeah.

What's your favorite aspect of all of this that you're doing? Would it be the drag and drive stuff or?

I would say yes. Yeah, we love drag and drives.

I was so disappointed when that fell through last year. I want to do one really bad. So what's that experience like?

I will say it is probably the most fun you'll have with your vehicle, but it is also the most challenging thing you'll ever do with your vehicle because there's a lot of things you learn once you do one, especially one of them like long haul drag and drives, that it's kind of brutal, you know. Typically, you race every day. Sometimes there's a drive day in between if you're doing like a week long one or something like that. But, you know, it's a lot of early mornings, a lot of late nights, and we've been very fortunate in the fact that we haven't had a problem on drag and drives, but we've pulled up to people doing an engine swap in the middle of nowhere, Texas, you know? And you just pull up to a checkpoint, somebody's got the hoist out, and that's just normal. You know, everybody's around helping, but I think the coolest part about drag and drives is the community. Because every single racer wants the other racer to get there just as much as they want to get there themselves. On our first day, we bent wheel studs on the truck. And within 15 minutes, somebody had donated us a set of extra wheel studs that they brought. And even though there's competition there, they still want to support you. But so I would say it's not quite as cutthroat as like typical drag racing would be. Just in terms of the like support, because everyone is just there for the long haul, there for everybody. And everyone's, you know, they're just great people. It's like a family.

Well, it's like I didn't even know what dragon drives were until I started talking to Michael Nark's PRI two years ago. Hey, it's our anniversary with him now, too. Man, that's crazy how that goes. And it just seems like it's like because we were used to road rallies before that, right?

Like, you know, part of the similar ish experience.

Yeah, but we didn't have all the track stuff, too, or whatever. Right.

Like, I mean, there's a track day normally, but yeah, to a degree.

But like, I've heard nothing but good things about Dragon Drives. That's why we were so bummed because literally like we found out as we were on the road that a car on the trailer, I was halfway there. They cancelled it. We were three hours to do a drive. So we had to turn around.

That's so sad because you're so ready.

We were so ready.

Yeah.

But what do we end up doing? We ended up doing a podcast some on the way back. I can't remember who it was.

I don't know. We've done, I don't know how many.

I don't know.

It's hard to keep track.

I think I'd be like 178, I think, if my math is right. I don't know. I give up.

It's wild.

Yeah.

But yeah, you guys should definitely do one if you get the chance to.

The thing about taking his 2015 Mustang. Yeah, that's why he knows all that MT-82 stuff.

Yeah, it's got a TR-66 in it now.

Oh, nice.

Yeah.

Good upgrade. You don't have to worry about that one as much.

No, I do not. But no, we're putting together another car, hopefully, too. I think actually might be better suited.

You think so? You think that would be the one? Yeah. That would be cool.

The car is a lot lighter.

I wonder if I fit in that car.

It's a box body.

One way to find out.

I know. Well, you're also not exactly short either.

No.

Like you came over and I'm like, I'm eye level with you. Yeah.

I'm like right at six foot. I can't tell you how many times people have said like, wow, you're a lot taller than I thought.

Right.

Yeah. Yeah. But I do have a car right now that probably runs mid-high tens. So I don't know. Is there still plenty of for a slow person? Is that still a good time?

I think there's so much room in Dragon drives. I mean, you'll have cars anywhere going like low fives in the 8th all the way.

I was going to say even at 8th, you're slow.

Yeah, I know. This day and age?

Yeah.

And 8th is pretty much just like, anyone can do that.

Yeah.

OK, fine. But yeah, you'll have super, super fast cars, and then you'll have like a 15, 16 second car going on the track.

OK.

Because there's all kinds of different classes, like with sick week, for example, there's like dial your own. So it's kind of like your own index race. You set your time for the week, and it doesn't matter if that time is an 8.0 or a 15.0. You know what I mean? And as long as you are on that number, you could win the class with the slowest car there. You know, so I think there's still a lot of room for any level of car. And we always try to tell people just get out and do it. Like, now's the best time. Just get out and try it. It doesn't matter what you got. Just go for it.

OK.

Yeah. I mean, also, for example, at sick week last year, we made it into top 100 with the D150, which at the time was running like 10-1.

Oh, wow.

So yeah, there's a huge variety of cars.

OK.

How much collaboration is going on between you and the other Heracrate people? For example, the guy also down in Florida with the Viper.

John.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Are you guys all collaborating like all the other people that got those or not so much?

No, I think it's been like a pretty friendly group. You know, we all try to help each other. Like, there's some secrets here and there. You know, people that necessarily don't want to share certain things about their builds or like their tuners or whatever. And that's OK. That's just, you know, racing. Whatever. Everyone's got their like edge. But no, we're all like very friendly. Like we we've tried to help people given that we've had a little bit more experience, like having it for two years and like they just got theirs and whatever. So we're always down to help anybody that we can. And yeah, there's there's been a decent amount of collaboration. Sure.

So then are you technically one of those Dodgebadassaders or whatever?

I am.

Okay. So I remember applying to that when they initially announced it. I think it was a handful of years ago or whatever. Maybe something like that.

I think they just announced it this year.

Might be the other thing. It was some other program. They even do Hickey. It's like, we'll give you a car and you go do something. I don't know. I can't remember what it was called. But anyway, so how did you how did that end up happening?

The Ambassador program specifically. They asked me to do it. So from the last couple of years doing Roadkill and whatnot, we've been very involved with Dodge, going to like their media days and different events and stuff like that. So, and we were always promoting the truck because we've been pretty much racing it nonstop for the last two years.

So it happened after you already had the hurricane. Yes.

Yeah. Because I think there's their specific Badassader program. They just launched that like this summer, this past summer. So that's fairly new. So they're just kind of starting that and figuring that out, figuring out what events we're going to go to and all that fun stuff.

OK, gotcha. So then I'm just back to piecing the story altogether. So then how did the hurricrate or how did the engine happen then?

Is that just how did you get that opportunity?

That is the grudge match specifically. So every year they obviously do Roadkill Nights and Dodge is a huge sponsor of Roadkill Nights and they do their direct connection grudge match. So like I said earlier, the premise of that is basically they select 6 to 7 people, they find them on social media, Instagram, YouTube, whatever. And they ask them, hey, do you want to be a part of this program? Do you have the ability to build a car like this? Do the swaps like this? Because it's very challenging, especially with the timeline that they give you. It's normally only eight or nine weeks, if you're lucky. Yeah, so you have to be able to build a full, ready-to-race car in a very short amount of time. So you go through all of that, and if you're a game for the craziness, then you're game. So they basically reached out to me through Instagram a couple of years ago and asked if we wanted to do it. And that was 2024. For 2025, they asked me to return to defend my title.

Sure, yep.

Well, never mind. I lost it. You go for it.

Oh, I totally lost my while I was waiting for you. No, I'm kidding. I know what I was going to ask. So you had already basically asked a following at that point then as well?

Yes.

Was that mostly through all the wild art and all that stuff or?

Those were two separate pages. Oh, really?

Okay.

Yeah. So I have my Morgan's Medals page, which is all of my metal art. And then I have the Morgan Evans page, which is all of my automotive content racing builds and all that fun stuff. So they found that page actually. And I was probably a little bit smaller at that point, but I had still gotten a pretty decent following by then through, like I started with my 240, the VK561, my square body, my Jimmy, all that fun stuff had kind of gotten me to that certain point. And what was interesting is I didn't have any Dodge vehicles at that point. Yeah.

Right.

So they kind of saw that, I guess, as an opportunity.

Sure.

Yeah. Change your mind, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Was there a stipulation as, and I got my question back now. Was there a stipulation of like, release so many videos or anything? Or they're just like, hey, here, cool. If you put out some content, cool, or if not, or?

There is kind of a content requirement through the build series part of it. So they obviously want to see parts of the build, because that's half the fun, right? Is seeing everyone build something completely different. I don't think anyone's ever shown up with the same car, which is kind of funny. Everyone's always built something completely different. So that's kind of the fun part of seeing how everybody tackles the project, what everyone decides to do. So there's content related to the build series and then content related to roadkill nights when you actually show up to go and race.

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So they didn't ask you to put anything Dodge specifically either though? So you guys went with a truck, a Dodge truck, right?

We did.

Okay, but did they ask you to do that? Yeah, like if you wanted to put it in an F100 or an F150, would they have been okay with that?

No. So it's a loaded question, I guess. So the first year, they specifically said it has to be in a Dodge vehicle.

Okay.

And honestly, it was easy for us because we had been wanting to build some sort of D-series pickup truck, D100, D150, whatever. So that was naturally our first choice. And then this year, they said all rules were off the table. And I don't know if some people took it as a gray area or if they, you know, said okay on other builds, but there was somebody who put it into a Fox body.

Okay.

And somebody who put the Hurricane into a Grand National. So there were a few different builds this year that were not Dodge chassis.

Okay. What did the Fox run? That seems like a pretty good...

I'm not sure.

That's one that broke down this year, right? That didn't make it to the event, I think?

No. Everybody made it. Yeah. Just some were very last minute to make it.

Well, that might have been it.

Yeah. Somebody showed up like five minutes before first round. Like last minute, last minute.

Yeah.

But that's, you know, all kind of part of the chaos of it. But yeah, the Fox body did really well. It was like 2,000 pounds or a thousand pounds lighter than our truck.

Yeah.

So I think they were like 2,500, like low 2,000s. And I actually had to race them for the final round.

Oh really?

Yep. They got the by run, like second round. So I ended up having to race them in the final round. But our truck is really aggressive on the leave. So if I can get out, it's pretty good, you know? So I just made sure I was like on it and.

What about the rest of the build then? Minnoxide, what are you doing for like, again, set up like coilovers and all that stuff, like all across the board, I guess?

Yeah, the truck is actually fairly simple. So on the front, really all it is, is Viking coilovers. We got some like drop spindles and Viking coilovers. That's pretty much it. It still has stock arms, everything in that. So you can imagine that's part of our weight. You know, those arms aren't light by any means. And in the back, it's still cal tracks, leaf springs. So we have split mono leaf springs from cal track or calvert and then cal tracks.

Okay. And I guess I'm surprised I didn't ask this earlier. How did the actual swap go? How long did that take to do?

I think we finished the truck in like 47 days.

Okay.

From start to finish, from rolling off of a farm in Georgia, just where we got it to completed and ready to go race was like 47 days.

Yeah.

Okay. Well, we could do ours in 46 days.

Yeah, there you go.

Well, we have a advantage because we're putting a mod motor in a Mustang that's been done a thousand times. I can literally buy a kit, a K-member. You guys were having to fabricate all of this stuff from scratch.

Is that what it was?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. So, I mean, obviously, no one makes a kit for a hurricane to go into a D150. So we made motor mounts. We had to notch the K-frame a little bit because the engine is huge. It's much taller and wider than people think it is. So even in a full-size pickup truck, we had to notch the K-frame. So pretty much everything fab that you can think of, we had to do for it.

There's tons of like even something that gets overlooked is even the oil pump, the oil pan sump. That can be in a, like it'd land right where the K-member is and it just totally screws you completely.

The tricky part about it was the oil pan is huge. It's probably like this deep in the back. Yeah, it's massive. And it's interesting because there's no dipstick. And that's a lot, one thing that a lot of people gripe about is that there's no dipstick on the engine because in factory configuration, there's a oil level sensor that is on your dash.

Oh yeah, let's rely on that.

Yeah, I know. It's not always great.

If it's knocking, maybe I should put some oil in.

Yeah, you just listen. But that oil level sensor is in an unfortunate spot. So that was tricky to work with and we obviously didn't want to break anything or whatever. So that's the kind of the part that needed to sink into that that K frame. So yeah, it was challenging for sure. We are very glad that we ended up with a vehicle with a lot of room. I can't imagine putting it into anything smaller and people have done it. But I don't know, we were thankful to have the room to swap it in to begin with. And also when we did the single turbo conversion, we could pretty much make the manifold however we wanted to. So that was nice.

So that first year when it was all Dodge vehicles, what was the craziest thing you think somebody showed up with it in?

It's probably the Demon we were talking about earlier. Only because of their turbo setup that was sticking out this far out of the hood. Yeah, that was Garrett.

Matt likes to go over the top.

Yes, he does. Yes, they always do. And actually something interesting too, Tom Bailey showed up with a Mexican RAM charger. Oh really? Yeah, technically like a second gen RAM charger.

Okay.

It's weird, it looks like a RAM and like a Grand Caravan like stuck together. But they were only in Mexico, so obviously that's something that's kind of rare and interesting to bring.

Oh damn, I thought you were winding up for one. So then what's the next year or two would that look like then? Or just keep campaigning it as is?

For the hurricane?

Yeah.

Yeah, we're going to keep racing it and keep seeing what it's capable of. I don't know, we have a couple of spare engines that we might do something with.

You mean hurricanes or other engines?

Hurricanes.

Oh really? Oh okay.

Yeah, so because we've done Roadkill twice, we were able to acquire obviously the first engine that's still in the truck, but we got a second one. Because I was kind of on the fence at that point, because I'm like, this truck is so good, I don't want anything to happen to it. So I asked very politely, if you guys are wanting us to push this super hard and that engine is already allocated for a sixth grudge match racer, can we have it for a spare? So that's how we acquired that one.

Well, then what the heck? Keep turning her up.

That's what I'm saying. That's why we're not super afraid to do it.

All right, all right. Let's put another big turbo on it.

Yeah, right.

Damn, I'm losing. Yeah, it's been a long day.

It's been a long day.

What's PRI been for you then? What's your whole purpose while you're out here?

Business.

Business.

Business. We're handling business. No. Well, basically, we run around and visited all of our partners that we currently work with. Okay. So we were running around like crazy trying to meet everybody, planning meetings for 2026 content planning, what events we're going to. We've had some people ask us to come to certain events that we haven't been to yet, like Hot Rod, Drag Week, Power Tour, all that fun stuff. We've never done a Hot Rod event. So next year, we'll probably hit at least one of those, if not both. So that'll be fun. Just stuff like that. Planning for next year. Things are starting to get serious.

Yeah.

So we're trying to keep the momentum.

Yeah.

No, that's why we're here with this booth.

Yeah.

This is the craziest thing I've ever done in my life, by the way, is get this booth. It is insane. The people that come through here.

Yeah. Yeah. You meet everybody at PRI. You just never know.

Any, you gonna stick with the drag racing stuff? Is there any other racing that intrigues you that you want, whether it be drifting, road course, burnout stuff? I mean, you guys got any other plans and breaking into another?

Yeah. Weirdly enough, I've been very interested in doing off-road type stuff recently. So kind of, you know, complete 180 from what we've been doing. Cause we've done drifting. We thought for a minute, maybe build a burnout car. We're like, that's possibly one of the most destructive sports you can do at this point. So we kind of abandoned that idea, but yeah, I've been really wanting to do some off-road stuff. I work with Mickey Thompson and that's something that they do a lot of, like all the rock crawling and stuff like that. So I think it'd be super fun to do something pre-runner-esque. And I just picked up that RAM charger. So I think where my head is at, we're thinking of doing like some sort of pre-runner type.

Some long travel suspension.

Exactly.

OK.

So I think that'd be fun. Go out to the dunes, Glamis, you know, Silver Lake, have some fun with it.

Speaking of that, so like, did you ever see the video a couple of years ago that the fake Cybertruck, that like pre-runner Cybertruck?

No.

Oh, yeah. He's out here at the stadium. I think his truck.

I think I saw a picture of it, actually.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's basically he took what is it?

It was a it was a Ford Ranger pre-runner, and he hand built, bent all the sheet metal and made it look like a Cybertruck. Oh, my God. And it is pretty. I mean, it's a pretty good rendition.

I wish I had accidentally lost the footage for the tour video. You remember we were talking about before this episode?

Yes.

One of them.

Yeah.

But no, it's it's super cool. Yeah. He's got like two seats in the front, one in the back. And he's always at Silver Lake. And it's just the coolest. That'd be a cool build.

Yeah, we're excited. We got to go to Silver Lake on one of our last Dragon Drives. It was Michigan Miles. We did that the day after Roadkill, because we're insane, built the whole truck over the summer, went to Roadkill nights. And then the very next day was the first day of Michigan Miles. So that was a week long Dragon Drive all around Michigan. And one of the stops, it wasn't a checkpoint. It was a stop that we personally made was to Silver Lake. And it was super fun. And that kind of like opened my eyes. I've always been interested in it. But after that, I was like, all right, we need we need something fun that we can come out here with.

Sure. I've not been out there either yet. I really want to get out there.

It's cool. It's like otherworldly. It's just huge sand dunes. And especially I think it's Lake Michigan that's right there up against Silver Lake. I get the lakes confused, but it's Lake Michigan, which I still don't believe is a lake. It looks like an ocean, but it was really cool.

My grandpa used to run a fishing char around Lake Michigan. You wait till you're out in the middle of it and you can't see land at all, then yeah, it definitely doesn't feel like a lake.

It's crazy.

Nope. Again, you know what? I really apologize for us. We are just completely brain dead today.

That's okay. I mean, it's day two of PRI and you've had a lot of podcasts.

And I just keep winding up for it.

Ah, no, no, no.

Yeah, just kidding.

Yeah, yeah. I 110% blame her, because you're very efficient at answers.

Yeah, no, I've been disappointing women my entire life, so don't worry about it.

That needs to be a clip.

Yeah. This is how the night's gonna go.

Don't worry. Yeah, yeah.

Eight more hours of this j******. Okay, well, so how do you guys end up working? Do you guys go to these events together then, or I should clear? You're Mike and Sharon here at this point. Yeah, that's a calibrated error on my part. But so how does that work? Do you guys each have your own cars that you race or what?

Yeah, I feel kind of bad because for the last couple of years, I've taken over and we've been building a lot of my stuff.

It's all about me.

Sorry. But he does have the 66 GTO that's up next on our list to build, and he'll be drag racing that probably drag and drive suited. But yeah, the last couple of years, we've been working on my stuff because we've been doing so much with Roadkill and all of that. But yeah, we both have our own cars. He's got a couple of cool trucks too. He's got a 97 K 3500 OBS Chevy truck with a Cummins in it.

So yeah, he's good at it.

Yeah, that's a that's a cool truck that he's got. He's got a what is an 06 Silverado 06 Cateye Silverado with a big Turbo 5.3 in it. Sure. Built for all 80. Everything we've pretty much built at our home shop.

So you guys mostly you guys are mostly Holley people, right?

Yeah.

OK.

Yeah, we work with Holley primarily. Yeah. So that's what's on my Jimmy. Yeah.

Sure.

How do you how do you paint stuff? Because you said you paint. Do you guys just like is it a tarp or you got a makeshift? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Sometimes you got to buff the bugs out of it.

But yeah, if you looked at it, you should see. I don't know if they got them here. They got those blow up paint booths. We really want to be a good partnership thing.

Yeah, actually. Yeah. I need to figure that out because the the GTO that he has, obviously, it's a 66. It's seen some things. It came from Michigan. So it's it's a little bit rusty. It's not horrible, but it's like, you know, the bottom of the panels a little bit. So it might need quarters and stuff like that. So we're going to have to do a lot of body repair and a little bit of restoration on that one. And we want to paint it. So that's something we're going to need to figure out.

And that's not a car you want to do a half-a** paint job on.

Exactly. It deserves the best kind of thing. And we'll paint like hoods and body panels and stuff like that on the front yard. No problem. But if you're doing a whole car, that's that's a bit, you know, extreme. So we definitely want to get a booth set up for that.

Yeah. I don't think they're horribly expensive, but I've been looking at it.

It's worth it.

Yeah.

It's worth it.

I don't think I could shoot paint. So I'm not worried about having one.

Yeah, no, it's definitely interesting.

What else you guys? So and again, sorry, I haven't watched a lot of your content or any of it. No, I am. I'm just sorry about everything. Two post lift, four post lifts. You guys got nice equipment, tire machines.

We've got a single two post lift that we do everything on. Our shop is like a three bay shop. It's probably, I don't know, like 1500 square feet or so. It's nothing like massive, no state of the art shop by any means. We don't have any tire equipment, but we've got welders and hammers.

Yeah. Hammers are very handy. Yeah.

And a torch. You know, you can get anything done.

Yeah. To be honest with you, anything can be a hammer though.

That's true. If you use it the wrong way.

And most of the time, if you have the one tool in your hand and you don't want to walk by tool bags, it sometimes becomes a hammer.

That's right. You get creative.

What are you running for welders?

To be honest with you, I've got a Harbor Freight MIG welder and a prime welder. They're great.

No, they're not.

There's no shame.

I just ordered a, God, it's one of those, like it's online on Facebook all the time. Super cheap plasma cutter. I want to say it's not a yes welder. It's another brand. It's a cut 55 pro. I don't know. I can't remember who makes it, but I even have a guy who's got a body shop. And I was like, I don't know. I bought this thing expecting it. It was like 200 bucks. It's going to be a piece of s***. And it's been awesome.

No, honestly, they'll surprise you.

Yeah. I've never had a plasma cutter before. It's one of the coolest things I've ever had.

We just got one of those too. We've done some weird things with it.

Yeah. I was like, I've been using a cutoff wheel and other s*** forever. And I'm like, this is way better.

Sometimes situations with the cutoff wheel just get a little bit too sketchy and it's like, all right, I got to break out the plasma.

Yeah. Because you got to take the guard off of the cutoff. Absolutely. Let's just get some of the way.

You take that off immediately.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

You don't need it. Who cares? You got your safety squints on. You're good to go.

My first time ever hearing that was the Scrap Life channel. I didn't see they're out here as well.

I haven't seen them now.

No. Yeah. We saw them at Fogaday Chowdy the other day, actually.

Oh, really?

Yeah. I wasn't talking about Vicegrip Garage. I was talking about Scrap Life Garage.

I know. I was talking about Vicegrip Garage. You got totally... I'm sorry. I'm sorry you had to see this.

We're having a marital dispute here. It's one of our tips.

Yeah. Speaking of disputes, has there ever been disputes between you two as to what takes priority car wise or anything?

Not really. I feel like we're both very logical people. Sure. Yeah. So we try to...

We're car people, so let's not take that too far.

Well, yeah. I'll take that with a grain of salt. But we try to prioritize what we need for the both of us because at the end of the day, we're a team. And I won't lie, some of the long nights and early mornings get hard, but we work well together, and we've been doing it for so long that we have a good system. We both just tackle little individual projects and come together and build things in 47 days.

Well, let's talk about that a little bit, because we traveled a lot of these things. You almost have to, especially in this content stuff, and you got to get out to these things. You're going to these events. What's garage time look like? Are you guys... I mean, is it a struggle to get enough time in the shop to get some of these things knocked out, or?

Yeah, it's tricky. We probably spend more time in our shop than we do in our house, that's for sure. We have an 800 square foot house with like a 1500 square foot shop. So, you know, that's where the priorities are for us. We pretty much just live in the shop and eat and sleep in the house. Sometimes we even eat in the shop, you know, it just depends. But yeah, we're out there pretty much 24-7, especially since this is not quite our full time gig for either one of us, I still have my business. He still has his 9-5. So we do what we can. Like I said, a lot of late nights, early mornings, weekends, you know, all of it. But that's not a complaint in any way. No, you know, we love it. We're blessed that we're able to do what we do and have the support that we do from our partners and stuff like that. So we're just grateful. It's a blast.

Sure. Any advice for us rookies are going to do our first build on a channel, a video wing one, at least.

Yeah, I've built something before.

He's got a lot of s***. He's broken a lot of s***.

Well, that happens. Plan, plan well. It depends on if you're on like a crazy time constraint or anything like that.

Not really.

No, I would say the biggest part is planning. We always say, everyone pretty much says races are one in the shop, right? So if you think about what you're going to do with the vehicle, think about your long-term goals or whatever. Are you guys trying to make big power right off the bat? Are you trying to kind of take it step by step and document every bit of the way? Because sometimes that makes better content. Right. You start small and step up.

The goal is to make it move under its own power. That's number one. That's usually a good first step.

It's usually good. But yeah, I would just say plan, because I think and we're even guilty of it sometimes that people have these huge ideas and they get into them so deep and they get like lost in the process. And they kind of like give up hope on the project or something like that. And, you know, it's sad. We've been there. Then you just, if you plan accordingly and kind of like take your time and figure out exactly what you want to do with it, I feel like that's your best place to start. Sure.

What do you do for when you're filming the content for it? Because this is one thing too, I was asking him, like, how do we approach this? Do you like you film some stuff as you're going through a step and then you release it or do you film chunks of it as you're going on? Because projects get delayed sometimes, right? So if you're and people are following like, oh, cool, I really want to see what you're doing with this Jimmy. And then all of a sudden, you have to take three months off to do something or do a drag and drive.

Yeah.

Do you just kind of hold content so you can release it at a steady pace or how do you normally go about it?

We kind of mix it up here and there. We try to post everything as soon as we can. But that situate, that exact situation actually happened this year because we were working on my Jimmy right after sick week. It went way too slow at sick week. Well, okay. Let me back up. My problem started when I raced the Dodge because it was like a low 10 second truck. Then we built my Jimmy, which I originally planned to just be like an NA LS build, drive it, have fun or whatever, but I was ruined already by the Dodge. I went out to sick week. I was running like 1250 every day, 1230, 1250, and I was like, now we got to fix that. We came back and I reached out to Magnuson Superchargers and we got the 2300 for it. So we started that build kind of trying to beef the Jimmy up and whatever, and then we got the call for second round of roadkill. So we kind of had to put the Jimmy on hold. We finished it with the blower and everything, but it had a 4L60 in it at the time, which if you guys know anything about 4L60s.

I know everything about GM transmissions. Yeah. Yeah, they spent a lot of time on the bench.

They do. I mean, granted, shockingly, the 4L60 that we built for it has taken 560 wheel horsepower right now. I don't know how. It's on hopes and dreams, but I never got a chance to really do any.

Funny, by the way.

She loved it. Thank you. I'll be here all week. But we wanted to put a 4L80 in it and everything because I can't, I don't really want to take it down the track and risk my 4L60 granating, you know what I mean? So that had to take a back burner. We built the D150 again for round two of Roadkill Nights and we're finally able to pick the Jimmy back up. So it is an awkward break in content. That's kind of hard to manage, but we just we do what we can. We're not professionals by any means, you know. We just are doing our best. And that's, you know, what you can do sometimes because you have to be kind of fluid with everything that changes.

I was going to suggest the usual three.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And wrap it up. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Well, actually, what else are you doing? You guys, what do you do? This stutter is gnarly. Jesus.

I need a drink.

I need to booze before these. I'll mellow me the f*** out. Yeah. So, okay. Do you guys do anything evenings at PRI too? Do you guys go networking parties as well? Anything like that? Or you just are like, we did all the business during the day. Let's just chill sort of deal.

I'll be honest with you. We were in bed by like 8 p.m. last night.

We tried to until we got a text, then we ended up hanging out with quite a few people.

Yeah, we got a couple texts too. And we were just like, it's snowing. We're from Florida.

We're not built for this.

We're from Minnesota. This is Florida for us right now.

It's warm out there for you?

Yeah, it's negative 10 this weekend. And this Sunday, I'm good.

We left Florida and it was like 75 and sunny.

Oh, that's so nice.

Yeah. So we're not built for this.

Clearwater or something like that?

It's like Cocoa Beach area. So outside of Orlando, NASA, Ron Johns.

I have a family in Jacksonville.

Okay, we're like two hours south of Jacksonville.

Okay, gotcha. Okay.

Yeah. So East Coast, Central area.

Okay.

We're always in Florida, by the way.

Were we always?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, both of us were actually born and raised.

Oh, okay.

We just travel a lot.

Sure. But yeah, like I'm like seeing you're thinking like you're going up to like Silver Lake and all this stuff. I'm like, geez, that's a lot of traveling.

Yeah.

August. Do you guys usually fly?

No. Well, if we're going to race or anything, we have to bring the vehicles and stuff like that. But yeah, we pretty much drive everywhere, which is...

Which truck are you towing with?

We were towing it with the Turbo Silverado.

Okay.

But it's not a great tow truck. So we've used Duramax before that we've, you know, borrowed because it's a much better tow truck. But our plan is to tow with the OBS Chevy Cummins truck.

Okay.

So yeah, it'll make a much better tow truck. But yeah, I think between August, we went to Roadkill Nights, immediately went to Michigan Miles. We were home for two weeks, maybe. Then we went up to Kentucky for LS Fest, stayed for the following weekend of Mo Party. And then we came back home, went to Texas to have the transmission built in the Dodge, drove out to Texas in my Mustang with the 8HP in the trunk. Oh, jeez. Yeah, you know? Okay. Came home, loaded up for SEMA because we had the Dodge at SEMA this year.

I'm so glad you brought that up. How did that, finish the story? So, okay, this whole trip.

It was mainly just rambling about all the events that we went to.

Sure, sure, sure.

Yeah, we came home, went to the media drive with Dodge, came home for another couple of weeks or so and out to PRI. So for the last like four or five months, we've been gone like every two weeks.

This is why I asked that question about the builds, because it gets to a point where this content stuff here.

We don't even have time to be home and be building. So we got to maximize our time.

I don't think we have dogs at home waiting for you right now.

No, cats. Cats are great. You just put some food on the floor and they're fine.

I hope they're there. Some sand for them to s*** in and they're good. Yeah, right.

Silver Lake will be perfect for them. Yeah. No, SEMA, how did that all go?

It went really well.

Did it just reach out to you or how did that work?

Yeah, so it was actually our second year at SEMA.

Oh, cool.

So when we won Roadkill Nights 2024, they reached out afterwards and asked us to bring the truck to SEMA. Okay. And then because we won again for 2025, they had it back. So it was our second year in a row in the Mopar booth, which was pretty cool. It's like, you know, bucket list streams made right there. But we like SEMA. Vegas is crazy. So PRI is a little bit more of our speed. We love PRI, but it's just a really cool experience to see something that you've built, especially like, you've had your hands on like every piece of that vehicle, right? To see it under those lights, it's just like, you know, full circle moment. It's really cool.

There's so many people. Yeah. Granted, it was a little bit weird where their location was. Like they were kind of tucked away.

Yeah. Yeah. They've been in that same spot, I guess, for a really long time. They just never moved.

Interesting.

But yeah, it is weird that that hall that they're in has kind of evolved into like wheel and tire hall.

Sure.

So I feel like they need to be maybe over in one of the other ones. But if that's their spot.

Did you, again, to bring it back to the hurricane for the 19th time, I remember like that first year of it, there was some like thermostat issues or anything like that. Is that any merit?

Yeah. No, we haven't had any problems with that. Allegedly, the thermostats stick and stuff like that.

Yeah, that's what I've heard. Yeah.

But we've never had any kind of problem with that.

Interesting, okay.

It's interesting because there's a lot of people on my social media channels that are like, I work for Dodge, this engine sucks, blah, blah, blah. We've got so many in our lots and whatever. And I'm like, okay, but these are owned by regular people that may not do their maintenance. They may beat the crap out of their vehicles. Who knows the last time they got an oil change?

Right.

You know what I mean?

So you can check the oil.

Yeah, you're right. Exactly. So I think a lot of like our success with the engine has come to like, we take really good care of it, you know?

Service every weekend, probably.

Pretty much. After every event, it gets an oil change with like really good oil. You know, we take care of it. We pay attention to what it's doing. We run good fuel, all that fun stuff. But I don't know. I mean, it's been really stout for us and we haven't had any problems whatsoever. So.

I want to dabble on those hopefully in the next year or two. Again, I thought about placing an order on the charger. But that's TBD. I just can't get past the weight of it. I love the rest of it. The problem is the truck is a race truck, right? It's not a daily driver, right? And it's like, I'd have to choose. Like, is this going to be a race car? Well, it's going to be a s*** race car. And then it's like, is it going to be a reliable daily driver? So it's like, I don't know.

We'll see.

That's the problem is the squirrel energy, right?

You got to pick a direction with it. But at that point, it's like, do you really want to order a new car and then like cut it up and turn it into a race car? Which, hey, I mean, I'm for it.

I love it. That's what Copart is for.

That's true.

That's what my plan is in around February or March.

Give it like a year.

Yeah.

There'll be plenty of those.

Yeah.

I don't got that TJ Hunt money. You know, I can't get a new car, cut it up. I mean, as cool as it would be, you know, it's like the cutting edge.

It's like, for sure. Yeah. So you got to decide a direction. It would be an awesome daily driver. And like I said, it actually surprised me with its quickness. I don't really know how to put it, but I, you know, they gave us these cars and they were like, hey, go have fun with them. You know, get the full experience, whatever. So, you know, you rip on them, you have fun with them. And it cornered really, really well, especially for its weight.

It's way better reviews than the EV one got.

Yeah.

For whatever reason, which is because like, I remember watching the Throttle House review of the EV one. And they said that the throttle was just really super unresponsive. Like, even though it's EV should be instant torque, it's like, uh, like, strange.

Yeah. We went to the media day for the EV one, too. OK. And it is. I mean, it's kind of weird with EV stuff because it's so touchy.

Sure.

I think that's a lot of the like, throttle response problem is because it's just it's way different. It feels like driving a big go kart.

Yeah. Well, they can't give it all it can have. Like, you know what I mean? You'll burn the tires off otherwise.

And it will. Like the 670 horsepower one. That one's like legitimately fast.

I wish I got to drive that one. I've only got to drive or shotgun in my brother test drove one because he thought about getting one during the lease deals. Yep.

But no, it's it's it's fast. I got to drive that one when we went to the media day a couple months ago at Knoxville Dragway. I got to drive the hurricane powered one and I got to drive the EV one.

Sure.

And it's it's a considerable difference. I'm like I'm not I don't care for EVs. Like I would never like own one. But I I like everything. A fast is fast. You know, you take it down the track. It's fun.

And I can respect it. Like, yeah, through this podcast, we've become honestly, we just kind of do everything at this point. We're freaks.

Yeah. Well, I mean, if you like going fast, you like going fast.

And he's got a Mach-E recently for his wife. So it's like, yeah. No, those are actually cool guys.

So, yeah, yeah, it's I don't know. I really was talking to several car people and they just kept beating me down because they would use them as a daily. And there's no maintenance barely of any kind. No gas, no oil, no. So she, I mean, she has a pro-charge Mustang. She drives otherwise. So it's we're, we're, we're definitely not offsetting our carbon footprint by any means, but balance. Yeah.

It's all balance. But yeah, no, they're, they're fun. And I think they make great daily drivers. Like I got no problem.

I actually really enjoy it. I don't know why, but I can just get in it. I can zip around. It's super f****** fast.

You don't have to think about it. You just drive it. So there is, there is something to be said for that. And like I said, we're not EV haters. We're not EV lovers. They, they have their place and yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

You want to rip the usual three?

Yeah. So at the end of every episode, we like to ask our guests to pick three cars. I need a track car, a daily driver and a show car. You have an unlimited budget. You can swap whatever you want.

Okay. For my track car. I didn't know the answer to that. I want like a late sixties Chevy Tunova. That would be like my dream.

No, there was only one.

Whoever they are, they have great taste. That's probably my dream car. Like if funds were ever unlimited at any point in time, that's probably the car that I would pick. That's probably the car.

You might know this a******, huh?

I know that guy.

Yeah.

This guy. Anyway, so Chevy 2 Nova would definitely be my pick if funds were unlimited. I just think the design, they're beautiful cars. As far as engine platform, I don't know. Could be anything. We like a little bit of anything, but probably something V8 powered. We love supercharged stuff. So something with a big Magnuson on it, you know? Just something ridiculous. But that would be my track car. So you said daily driver was another one. This is probably a weird take, but I really like my square body as my daily driver.

Yeah.

Yeah. I have a 1982 GMC 3500. It's a dually four speed, 454 truck. Oh, I tried that thing everywhere.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's not always the most comfortable ride, but it's all part of the experience, you know? And what was my last show car? That one's tricky because we don't we don't do a whole lot of show stuff.

Sure. But if you were to take a car to go get ice cream in, or like a date night car.

Date night car. That's a good question. Probably have to be obviously something classic. That's pretty much all that we own. Can I say our 66 GTO?

Absolutely.

I'm really excited for that car.

Sure.

It's a special car for us, and it's such an iconic car. It's a real numbers matching 242 car.

Oh, really?

It's the whole package. It's awesome.

You'd ruin it.

Yeah, I know, right? It's fine. That's what we're here for.

Yeah.

But I think that is just such an iconic classic, have fun muscle car, like true muscle car. We're going to actually paint that one and make it nice and everything. I think that's just going to be a great all-around car, big boat.

Oh, yeah. That's what I always think of when I show car. I think at one point in time, mine was like a 69 Continental 4-door drop top.

Oh man, can I change my answer?

Yeah.

I love Continentals, too.

Yeah, me too.

They're really cool. Did you? Well, you guys haven't been in the show. There's a beautiful black one in there. It's amazing.

Yeah, I'm just imagining it right now.

Yeah, so good. So good.

Keep describing it to me. But on that note, where can everybody find you?

They can find us on YouTube. Our channel is called Torque and Tungsten. We do a lot of build series and everything documenting our racing. You can find me on Instagram. My handle is Mergen Evans, M-E-R, even though my name is Morgan, nicknames. And it's pretty much the same on Facebook and TikTok. So, OK, cool.

Let's see. Well, first of all, thank you for coming on the show. This is awesome. We got to finally meet and talk.

Yeah. Thanks for having me, Dan.

Thanks for existing. And we'll see you next time.

Thank you.