202. Tony Palo on Injector Dynamics, 3000HP GT-Rs, and Twin Turbo V10s

This episode is brought to you by 6XD Gearbox. More on them later. We can kind of do like a 30,000 foot view here. Give people kind of an overview of who you are and what it is you do today, and then we'll go from there.

So we build race cars. We build Lamborghini Huracan, Audi R8, Nissan GTR. Basically, every aspect of it, besides paint and bodywork. So the engine transmission, fuel injection, fabrication, tuning, everything's done under one roof.

Then what about the Injector Dynamics side of things?

So Injector Dynamics is kind of the other half of the business. So in 2008, so I started this in 2005. In 2008 or so, Injector Dynamics came about, and we are half of Injector Dynamics. So any ID Injector that ends up in anybody's hands went through the shop at some point.

So other half, what does that look like? Because it seems like everybody who makes horsepower in this industry speaks so highly of you guys. Why is that? We're talking OEM grade sort of stuff. Is it kind of what I hear?

Yeah, I mean, we literally supply OEMs in some instances. So the Chrysler, the crate engines they do, the Helephant and stuff like that, those come with our injectors. So we work with a couple other OEM manufacturers in specific things. But in the aftermarket fuel injector industry, most of these guys are guys with a cheap flow bench in the garage. I mean, anybody can be a fuel injector salesman, right? You can buy injectors and run them through a bench and go, these are flow matched and now I'm the same as them, right? And when we came about, ours are not a static flow match. They're matched dynamically across the full pulse width range. And so matching something at static flow rate is very different than having a tightly matched set at two milliseconds on a big injector. I guess here's something a lot of people probably don't realize. You don't match injectors. They do what they do. And so the only way to have a tightly matched set is to have a lot to choose from. And so we have a very tight spec as far as if you buy a part number, say an ID1050, it's going to be the static flow rate that we spec plus or minus two and a half percent. So if an OE or somebody's doing a calibration for a 1050 for a known combination, we can give them a representative average set of injectors and they can be confident knowing that their calibration they provide will never be more than a couple percent off of an ID1050 part number that somebody buys. Now, we get a lot of injectors that fall outside of that range. And those on our end go as off-spec injectors. Now, we can have a nicely matched set of off-spec, say, 1050s. Maybe they're 5% high or 5% low. That happens. And we'll have somebody that we sponsor or a shop we work with, like, hey, I need something for my personal car. I'm like, we have these. They're just as good as the set. But if you were in that situation where you were working from a calibration, that was fixed, we don't want you to be 5% off.

Okay, I understood.

So things do fall outside of that range and it's not waste, but it is waste. I mean, we sell them cheap to help people out, but they're not trash. So the standards that we hold as far as that, and there used to be a portion of the website that was literally about no b*******. It's all real engineering data. Nobody was providing data before Injector Dynamics. Now, everybody's-

Because you guys provide a sheet with everything, right? Or like, how does that look like?

It's all on the website. So we have a support website, help.injectordynamics.com. And there's so many formats nowadays, right? So if you've got a GM or a Chrysler or a Motec or an AM or whatever. And so the data doesn't change with ECU, but the format does. And so we try to provide plug and play copy paste data for everything that comes up. And if somebody has an oddball application and I need data in this format, we have internally what we call data generator. And so you can plot, I'm looking for the offset, I need these axes, I need these breakpoints and it spits out copy paste format.

So I want to bring this back down to the average person real quick. So you said you kind of work with OEMs. What's the baseline from an OEM level? I think one of the numbers I heard was like plus or minus 6% from like OEM perspective or do you have an idea of what that looks like? Like what's average versus ID?

So if you buy an injector from Bosch, they have an injector that is marketed as a 1650 that flows about 1,480 cc's and Bosch does not provide data and they are the manufacturer. It's up to the user to generate the data in the format that they want. So when OEs buy injectors for any stock car, they're not relying on Bosch for the data. They have to generate their own data. And Bosch sells injectors, they don't sell sets of injectors. You could buy 1000 injectors. There's going to be a significant range across those. And Bosch doesn't take the standpoint that we're selling match sets. They're just providing an injector. But their range for a spec is significantly higher. I don't know exactly what it is, but it's much higher than ours.

Yeah, I've heard it might have been like 8% or something. I don't know.

I think it's actually bigger than that, especially for the big injectors.

Yeah, I think I did an episode of Greg Banish twice, which I'm sure you're familiar with him. I think he gave me the exact number. I'll have to look back on that episode now. But okay, why is it so important when it comes to a race car program though? Because if we're doing just a regular 800 horsepower build, are you looking for injectors like that? Or is this more so when you get into that crazy 1500 plus range?

Well, what's really important is that the set is matched properly. The thing we're doing is we're plugging in some calibrations somebody else did for a known combo and not tweaking it. So that's why when somebody's like, hey, I need a set of injectors for my personal project, whatever. Yeah, these will be 3% or 4% higher or lower than our norm. It doesn't matter, they're tuned in the car. But what matters is that the set is properly matched. And some people go, yeah, but the air flow is not the same in all cylinders. That is true, but how many variables do you want to induce? We can at least have the injectors matched. And you're not tuning individual cylinders unless you have lambda in each cylinder, which almost nobody's doing. You can't do it with EGT, you have to have lambda. So the best you can do is at least take the injectors out of the equation.

How do you grow with the industry? Are you releasing new products regularly? Are you improving things? How exactly are you growing the ID side of things?

So it's hard at this point with where we are. So we started as modifying stock injectors. Not stock, but off-the-shelf Bosch injectors. So ID1000 was a 500cc injector that was modified. That's where it all started. Then many years ago at this point, it turned into Bosch manufacturing injectors for us to our spec. So nothing's modified anymore. Every injector we offer is a custom-built injector for us by Bosch, which you can't do that. It took years and years to get to that point. So we're an authorized technical partner with Bosch, which is when it came to manufacturing these and them doing this, you know, they had to come see the facility, ensure that we're doing things to their standard to be able to put their name on our product.

This facility here?

In Arizona.

Oh, okay, gotcha.

So Paul's shop where I guess we could start with how this all works. So Bosch makes the injectors. They come to Paul, they do the break-in, they do laser engraving, they do the flow testing, and then they're matched in sets there. And then they come to me and then we turn them into whatever people order.

Okay. So is there any modifying or anything happening at the Arizona facility or is it just like ready to go?

No modifying.

Okay. So that's straight from Bosch ready to go.

No, not modifying, but we do, they run through a break-in process.

Okay.

So you're talking about a product that has a lift in microns. I mean, the valve lift on these is tiny. And so any little change with the valve seat will change the flow rate. And so we, you know, over time started seeing that a set of injectors would be matched, and then they would be run for a reasonable amount of time, and they come back and there's nothing wrong with them, but now they're not matched as well.

Okay, what is the... So it's kind of like when you like break in an engine almost, like I've heard that people like to use season engines sometimes. Is that sort of like a similar approach or?

No.

No, not at all. Okay, swinging a miss.

The engine break-in is more about seating the rings. You know, you've got a fresh cylinder wall and you want to take advantage of that, that fresh hone. So the break-in process involves... You don't want to just let an engine idle. That's not how you break it in. Like, you need to put some load on it because the cylinder pressure is what pushes the rings against the cylinder wall and that friction is what beds basically the rings to the cylinder wall. So you want that. But this is... You cycle it long enough at high pressure and, you know, things will just normalize. And so everything runs through a very intense break-in process. The break-in bench is actually really cool. I think it holds like 48 injectors and it runs them at 100 psi high duty cycle. It sounds terrible because it's... But they all run through this process before the flow testing happens. So that in the end, hopefully all that's normalized and your match set remains the match set for the rest of its life. You know, as long as you don't get trapped.

These are all port injectors, right? Okay.

We looked into DI a long time ago, but it was for the EcoBoost stuff.

Yeah.

And the problem with DI stuff, it costs a quarter of a million dollars to develop a part number of an injector-ish.

Currently for what? Okay. Yeah.

And so when we develop a part number, it applies to anything that's port fuel injected, right? DI stuff is very different. You develop a part number, it's going to apply to one engine. And so the market is significantly smaller. And in the end, the stuff we're doing, you know, there's kind of no limit to power. I mean, if one injector per cylinder is not enough, you just put another one in. But if you have something that's DI with no port injection, and you go, you know, I want to make a lot more power, you could put a lot of money into a pump, an injector, and you might be able to get 30 or 50% more, but that's it. The injection window is so small because you have to inject when the valves are closed. And so, you know, you can't get very much more flow rate. You can get a little bit more pressure, but I mean, you're already, you know, 200 bar. So it's not like there's a ton of room to go. And so that was kind of what shut that door. It was like, man, this is going to be a huge investment for a relatively small market. And people go, okay, I've got bigger injectors now. And in their mind, they're like, now I can make a bunch of power. You're like, well, not really. I mean, now you can go from gas to ethanol.

Right. Like your ceiling raised just a little bit. Yeah, okay. I'm curious, when we're talking to V10 platform, what do these come with? DI?

Yeah, both.

Both? Okay, so, okay.

And that's been great. So when DI came out, it's like, oh s***, now everybody's screwed. They did that for a little while, and almost anything with DI now also has port injectors. Because there are advantages to having fuel in the intake port. And so, that's been great. It kind of fixed that problem for most people. Like even the B58 stuff, you know, it used to be just DI. Now it's DI in port. And so, all of a sudden that roadblock is gone.

How tapped in are you with the OE industry then? Do you have any idea like where the next five or 10 years looks like, or not really, not to that level? Okay. I remember one of the things you were talking about on Street Alpha, which I always like to give Tuxtas flowers, you know, like, you know, guy's legit, I've hung out with him a handful of times at events, but where are you? I think you briefly mentioned something about hybrid platforms, especially with like, you know, Temerario now finally getting delivered. Is there any interest in development on that front, or what are your thoughts there?

I have a hybrid car. I think it's a great thing overall. I have a BMW XM that's the hybrid. And you do get a bit of the best of both worlds. So it's a cool thing. But when it comes to modifying in the aftermarket, I think it's going to be a big roadblock, right? You know, anybody can turbo charge an engine. It doesn't matter what car it is. That's easy. But making the electronics work is the hard part. And like, it was already hard on new cars, and now you want to throw the hybrid aspect in the mix. So for the aftermarket, I think it's going to make things tough.

Have you been able to dabble with anything? Like, have you plugged into any cars yet or anything? No, just holding on on them?

No.

Yeah, because I can remember, like, people are trying to modify, like, the 2017 NSX. And it's like, you have to get a mode, like, bare minimum, you have to get a Motec and all that. Like, you could do, like, if you want a significant powering races and whatever. So, but I think that also depends on the approach as well, because I believe, like, the e-rays, like, from what I've seen, it doesn't really impact anything, right?

Yeah, you know, I mean, my initial thoughts were, this is going to be a big problem. But, you know, I say that there's tunes for the BMW XM.

Right.

So, maybe it's not as much of a factor, but, you know, when you're talking about tuning a stock computer, like when you have a factory, a car with turbos from the factory, there's always a ton of potential, right? Because...

Especially BMWs.

Nobody's going to release a car that's at its limit, right? And so that's one thing. Now you want to put turbos on something that didn't come with? A whole different ballgame. And so, who knows? Maybe the factory turbo hybrid stuff won't be much of a problem from a standpoint where somebody who is able to tune the factory ECU, I don't do any of that stuff. All I do is Motec. But integrating a Motec on a car like that is going to be very difficult.

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 3000HP 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. What makes you wake up in the morning excited? Are you excited to come to work every day?

I am.

All right. Why?

It's been different things over the years and that's where like, you know, the race cars come in and lately for me, it's like, I got an email last week from Motec with some new update, updated firmware for the GTR and the Huracan. They're like, you know, this isn't, test it, let me know what you think, test this and that. And at this point, the shop runs itself pretty well. And, you know, I'm here, I'm still making decisions here and there, but at the core, the tuning is 100% my responsibility. And it will be because that's what I enjoy doing. And so like when something new comes out, I'm like, oh, now I get to go play with this new thing. And I like that. I like that part of it.

What do those like firmware updates look like? Like when they say go test it, what are you looking for?

So the, back in the day, a computer would run an engine, right? It did fuel and ignition. Maybe it did cam control, whatever. The Motec nowadays for these cars is so incredibly advanced. The traction control, the torque modeling, this new one has all these new anti-lag functions and strategies. And it's like, they'll completely change something because they found a way to do it significantly better. But it's like, you can't just migrate what you had. You have to learn this whole new strategy. And I'm okay with that. But for a lot of people that a lot of tuners just kind of landed on somebody's calibration and then roll with it, and then new stuff like this comes out, and they're going to be lost. But I like that aspect of it.

I'm going to probably hurt myself going into way too deep waters here. But can you explain how an anti-lag strategy would change? Like, how does it work? What's changing?

OK, so a traditional anti-lag from like a rally aspect years ago, right? It involves air going through the engine to keep the turbo spooled up when the throttle is closed. And so there didn't used to be drive-by-wire and everything. Now we have the computer has full control of the throttle. So you can have one kind of version of an anti-lag where you're off the throttle and the turbo is making boost. And so with that, you can have compensations based on brake pressure, steering, anything. And then in our world, the anti-lag is more a roll race type of situation where you're full throttle, but it's holding the car steady. And so the this new version, the old version would do the same thing in that, like a traditional style anti-lag, you're off the throttle, but the computer is telling the engine how much torque it wants. And so it'll open the throttle to make whatever your torque request is. On the old one, we would just have to go full throttle and retard ignition timing or cut enough to get it to kind of hold a roughly steady speed. And you could have, you know, throttle as an axis for the ignition retard to where you could make it to where maybe a 50% throttle would hold a speed. And if you gave it more, it would have a little bit less retard to where you could still speed up or you could still slow down. So you could have all that. The new one has an option for an actual speed limit to where it'll set a speed and hold it there.

So Texas 2K, you're not gonna be accidentally jumping sort of deal.

So this is what I was going back and forth with them a little bit about. Having a set speed is cool in some instances, right? Qualifying in 2X2K would be ideal. 65, car's not gonna go faster than that. You let go of the button, it's good. But in actual competition, that's not good, right? Because you're trying to pace with somebody and you're like, well, s***, I'm fixed at this speed and they're ahead of me. So it needs to be a variable deal. And we're gonna set it up to where once you hit the button, it'll lock it at that speed. And so, you wouldn't hit the button until you're there already. But if you had a set start speed of 65 and you can't catch up to the guy because that's the start speed. So it needs to be flexible. And that's how it will be.

Okay. So, when did you make the decision to go just all Motec? Did you play around with some stuff back in the day?

Yeah. I mean, I've tuned everything you can imagine. But being in 2011 or so, we went exclusive Nissan GTR. And so at the time it was just Cobb. So I've tuned a bunch of Cobb stuff. Sivax came out with a plug and play ECU before Motec did. So we did a bunch of Sivax and then Motec came out. And that's all I've done since. But it got to be a point where I would spend more time trying to get a stock ECU to idle. I'm anal and I know it could be better when it comes to like idle and drivability and things like that. And so if it's not as good as I know it can be, it bothers me a lot. So I would spend more time just trying to get the idle right with a factory ECU where I'm like, I would have been done with this in a minute with Motec. And I was like, I'm just done fighting this. But big injectors and bigger throttles. And I mean, it just throws everything off in the ECU. So it's just at the level of cars we're building, it wasn't worth fighting. And there's just way too many advantages. So I just said, if we're building the car, it has Motec and that's it.

So let's say you have a brand new build in here and it's ready to finally go to and or get it. Like you just finished wiring it up and everything. How long is that process to get it to be a full on docile street car?

So at this point, I've, you know, every car you do, you continue refining the calibration. And if it were up to me, the car would never leave. Because every time I drive a car, there's something that can be a little bit better. And so that's why I have a daily car with a Motec in it that I can tweak. And, you know, these new firmware updates come out and I've got a car to play with. But doing basically these two platforms for so long, the calibrations are really, really good at this point. And so the way the Motec is set up, you tell it, you know, your displacement, you tell it what injectors you have, you tell it what sensors you have. But the foundation stuff is, for the most part, the same across all the cars. So I can plug into a new build and fires right up, right off the bat, put on the dyno, do the engine break-in, and I can be done with the car in an hour. But it's because I've got thousands of hours in building the calibration to this point. So it doesn't take me long at all at this point, but it's because of that.

Is that the daily, by the way?

That is the daily.

That is a nice daily. Is that on Twin Turbo as well, then, I'm guessing? Okay. Okay, well, actually, let's go down that path. So Twin Turbo daily, how much is it making, roughly, for a?

1400.

Okay, so that's a dailyable Huracan.

Dailyable, yeah.

So is there any compromise to that compared to the stock STO?

No, and that's a really amazing thing about that platform. Now, the GTR, if, say, you went from 600 to 1200HP, engines built, transmissions built, it's got a big exhaust that runs under the car, they're gonna be loud. The transmission in the GTR, to be fair, it's old. I mean, GTR came out in 2008 in Japan. When did they start developing that transmission? Maybe 2005 or sooner, right? It's 20 years old minimum. And the technology is significantly worse than what's in the newer DCT cars. So the V10s drive, you wouldn't know it has a huge horsepower upgrade or built trans or anything. So these, they're loud, the trans is a little clunky. You can tell these have been modified. It really doesn't hold true to the V10.

That platform, because when did the last Huracan get made? 23, 24, whatever. Did the DCT evolve during its period or is it all the same?

If it did, it's not to any reasonable degree. I mean, there may be like little internal differences. Now, so that is something, the trans on the GTR, same deal. Like there's been some little changes, but really the big changes is that they've continued to develop the TCM calibration. So if you drive an 09 or a 2020, they drive completely different. It's not the trans, it's the calibration for the trans. So that has improved significantly. I know I don't do the TCM calibrations on the V10 stuff. There's not Ecutech like there is for these and it's through WinOS and I'm busy enough. So we use AMS for our TCU tunes.

Oh cool, okay.

And I know just from going back and forth with them, like a 15 Huracan versus a Perf, the cal is significantly different. These are kind of a b****. So that's definitely changed on those too, but I don't see that side of it because I just flash those.

Gotcha, okay, that makes sense. And are you working with them through every range of car, like whether it's a 1200HP, 2000HP Huracan?

Yes, as far as the TCU Cal.

Yeah, okay.

They're the only ones we use. Now, if we're doing, if you're doing like, say you want to make 1000HP without going into the trans, you can do it, but you're going to need a Cal to raise the clutch pressure because the clutch will slip otherwise. So if somebody wanted something where maybe it's a, it's got a nine plate Pro Max or something, and they want to make 1200 or something, you don't necessarily need a TCU Cal. The factory one works well. It's just whether or not you need more pressure.

Gotcha. Okay.

They do do some other things that the factory one doesn't. So if you're drag racing it, how it launches will vary. So if it's anything that's going to be a drag race, then no matter what, we're doing a Cal in it.

Okay. What's the most daunting thing that you've come across in the years? Any project or anything that was just like, I might be a little bit over my skis here?

You know, it's the development side of things. You know, we jumped into the V10 market and my R8 was the first engine we ever built. And I'm like, I've learned a lot over the years. If it's not broke, don't break it. And so on that build, I did do a bare minimum. Like, let's put pistons, rods, head studs in the same, see how far it goes. Valve springs. And I went 740 with the most basic engine combo.

It's crazy how far it can go.

Yeah. And but, you know, as we've gone further and further, you've got cars making over 3000. Now we're getting into built blocks and a lot more modifications and we're learning some things that I'd prefer not to have to learn. But, you know, that's part of the development. We've got, it's a long and hard and expensive road, but that's the only way. I mean, we did it all in the GTR too. You know, the first GTR we built coming from Honda is with a B series, like, you're not going to make a lot of power if you don't sleeve it, right? And so, you know, the first GTR block I saw, I'm like, it's all aluminum. Like, there's no way this is going to hold anything. So we sleeved the first one we built, put Darten MID sleeves in it, and made like 1200HP, cracked the block. And I'm like, and so it turns out, you know, now we know after taking a step back, well, let's just find out where the factory block fails. For the most part, it doesn't. I mean, I've seen a couple break, but you can make 2500HP on a factory liner, and it doesn't break. So when you put the MID sleeves in, removing so much material from the block that you lost so much strength, and then the block cracks.

What's the weakest part of those GTR blocks?

So the GTR, it's wild that they do what they do. There's only four main bearings in GTR. And so like they're sharing a lot of load, and two and three see most of it. And so with the factory block not sleeved, or it's still as rigid as it's gonna be, that'll be your first week link. And the block flexing and the main bearings taking a beating. And so we have a chromoly girdle that we put in, we update from 10mm mains to 12mm mains. And that is a significant improvement in that regard. Once you do that, there's kinda, like I said, I've seen a couple break, but there's kinda not a limit that I've found yet. But by the time you have turbos big enough to make 2,500 plus horsepower, the extra displacement you can get from a billet block, you go from a 4.1 to a 4.3, it really likes the bigger bore. And so our big, big stuff at this point is all billet block. And it's not necessarily because the stock block is not strong enough, it's just the better combo because it's a bigger displacement.

Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, I overheard, I think it was last year, Texas 2K, I think I overheard Terrence talking about it, like that's just the four mains in there. And that's like a big limit. Because like what do Hondas have?

Five.

Right. Yeah, so like when I overheard him talking about that, I'm like, oh, that makes sense.

Yeah.

So, okay. Is there any meat left on the bone with the GTR platform?

I wish. I mean, we're at a point where we could potentially make more power, but the engine longevity even at the big power we're making is not acceptable. I mean, we can go run an event and, you know, George's car went 6.1 at 242 or something. And we made a bunch of passes there and it broke the flex plate for the torque converter. And, you know, in tearing it down, like the main bearings are already taking a beating. Like, it was... I thought it broke a crank on the last pass. And because the Motec was showing errors for basically the cam crank relationship. And the crank is a weak link on those. So I was like, all right, it broke the crank. We got it apart, the flex plate was destroyed. And so the trigger rings on the flex plate. And so it was the same as the crank breaking. So had that not happened, it would have needed to come apart anyway. After every race, we do a post-race service, cut the oil filter open, just look for bearings or anything bad. And at that, that run would have been for sure the most power we've ever made on anything. So that was like 83 pounds of boost, 250HP nitrous, and you know, it went down, but it's not gonna do that very often.

Which car was that in again? I remember seeing it.

That's a Knight Terror. So the rear wheel drive car with the big tires.

Got it.

With the TH400.

Is that the only car of that caliber in your camp, or like, do you have multiple deep, deep in the six second cars?

So that car, that car is basically, it's the same engine combo as Knight Fury, which is all wheel drive car. They're both matte black, so it's not confusing at all.

Yeah.

Knight Fury's gone 640 at 234. Then that car went 6.1 at 242, I think. Same engine combo, just different driveline. We've got those, Billy's car is the same engine and turbo combo, the roll race car. And then the 68 millimeter cars aren't that far behind. The Precision 68, 85. Clay's car makes 72 or 73 pounds of boost. I mean, I think they're probably 27, 2800 horsepower.

So, with the top two cars, then what drove the decision to go rear wheel drive on the other one?

This transmission is great, but it's kind of a b**** to race with compared to a race car, right? You know, you have an automatic, you've got a torque converter. They're, I won't say they're designed for it because it wasn't designed for that. It just works really well, but they'll take a beating and they'll do it over and over and over again. And we're asking a lot of this thing, you know, it's a factory transmission with just upgraded guts. The fact that it can even do what it does. I mean, to put 3000 plus horsepower through the factory casting and transmission and it worked, it's cool, but it's not designed for drag racing. You know, either a proper, you know, any manual car that really drag races has a proper slipper clutch. Now, we've got the ability to slip the clutch a little bit, but we still have limited control because in the end, the TCM is controlling it. We have, there's going to be a limit to how much we can slip it without hurting it, because you've got, you know, like these, at this level have 13 plates and the steels in between the frictions are only a millimeter thick.

Yeah.

And so once those warp, there's no free play anymore and the clutch is trash. So it's, we're limited on what we can do. Now, Motec started a standalone M1 TCM a decade ago. And like I said, the transmission tuning on these comes so far over the years from Nissan. Initially, there was a lot to be desired. And so Motec started this development project. Well, over time of building this, the car kept getting better. And the, you know, we weren't making a ton of power back then. And so the project got shelved because there wasn't really a need for it. And so, you know, now there's a need for it. And it's almost ready at this point. So, Motec Australia was working on it. And we kind of got it resurrected. And then COVID happened and Australia just completely shut down. And so it's just been on a back burner. And so now Motec USA has taken over the project. I sent them a GTR. They've been just continually developing this. And it's very, very close at this point. So it's going to happen. It's actually going to happen. But it'll be a standalone plug and play TCM replacement. So this will give us full control over everything. And the V10s drive significantly better than these do. When you upgrade the clutches, you've changed the characteristics of the clutch so much from stock. But we don't have enough control in the TCM to really fine tune things. And so, you'll get on these things, sometimes, like on a 2-3 shift, we call it like a park. Like, it shifts and it's like harshly. And it's kind of just the exchange of clutches isn't smooth enough. And so they were able to fix that with individual control of clutch crossovers. So you have even odd, odd even, and we can fine tune that. So they're able to get rid of that. But we'll have full control over how the clutch comes in. And right now, we can lie to the TCM and make things happen that help the launch. But in the end, we don't have full control. It could be better. So there's that. Now, the other possibility this brings in is you can, but you can't drag race a DCT car on a pro tree.

Yeah. Yep. Because of the delay.

The ability is there to bump in. It's been in the Motec for years. We got that sorted. It's there. But what you have to do, you pre-stage, you hold a button, you get in the launch, you let off the brake for it to creep forward, and then you got to get back on the brake, then you get off the button, and then you got to let off the brake again to cut a light. And it's one of these things that I can't, I can do it in a parking lot. There's no way I could cut a light doing it. And so it's, luckily, everywhere we race is sportsmen tree, because it's just, it's what these cars need. But you go to some race that's not a GTR race, and you have to race on a pro tree, and you're like, s***, like, you just go in first and get in launch, and then you can focus on the tree and not worry about anything else. At this point, everybody knows that that's what you have to do so they can burn you down. So it kind of sucks, but there could be a clutch pedal. And so you could add a clutch pedal, you could stage the car like a normal manual transmission car, and then the clutch pedal in that regard would be more of a switch. You still have the computer control what the clutch does, but that's kind of your go button.

Right. Has there been any progress in that? Because again, I think your episode with Tuke's was a year and a half ago, two years ago posted, has that made some progress, especially with Motec USA and all that?

Yeah, because this was all, like I said, it was just a back burner thing. And we got them to resurrect the project and devote some time to it. And then it was back to the back burner. And so, I deal with Motec Australia direct on a lot of the, like when I get a firmware update or something like that, because Motec USA is great. They know anything there is to know about Motec. The old Motec was you just need to know the computer. There isn't a bunch of vehicle integration. But on this, like you have to know the platform specifically in depth. And so, the guy in Australia that writes all the code for these, he's the one that knows this. So, I deal with him direct when it comes to these new features or feature requests and things like that. But dealing with Motec USA, I'm like, look, we need this TCM and it's not going anywhere. And so, they were able to take the project over and now they have full control. So, it's functional and it's, I don't know when it will be something you can buy, but like I have the calibration and it's working and they've got a lot of miles locked on the car at this point. So...

Is it a customer car or a personal car? Are you sent over to them? Or is it like working both?

It's a customer's car that's been here for 10 years or something.

Okay. He's just like, let's party with this sort of deal?

Yeah. It's kind of one of those things that the bill never got paid and the car just never went anywhere.

Oh, gotcha. Okay. Now I understand.

So, it's mine, but it's... Yeah. Okay.

Fair enough.

I was like, it's sitting here. I'll sit here. You can play with it.

Who do you respect most in this industry?

There's a handful of people that I have a lot of respect for. There are so many aspects to the things that we do, right? You know, we use John Shepherd for all of our transmission work. I have since day one with DCT stuff. We do the engine stuff here. We could do transmission stuff, but we're all busy. I've got a full house. John's great to work with. I know that when I get something back from him, I trust that it's going to be right, and almost all the time it is. And so we work closely with him, my engine builder that I work with. When I got in this industry in 1997, we at Jotec, we were using this machine shop, and my engine builder worked there. So literally, I've been working with him since the day I got in this industry. And now he's right down the road, more or less exclusive to us, and he basically does an engine a week. So we sent all the parts over there, all the machine work, short block assembly, cylinder head assembly, and then it gets back here. Brandon does all the long block assembly. And so every week it's drop one off, pick one up. So just back and forth. So we've got a really good work relationship there. We manufacture a lot of parts. If you look at the parts we manufacture, it might look weird. We don't do intercoolers or exhaust systems or basic turbo kits. That's all out there. And so if there's an industry partner that we work with, AMS, BoostLogic, ETS, if somebody makes a good product, I have no problem using their product. And we make our money on our margin and move on. The parts that we make, we've got the mechanical fuel pump kit for GTR and just oddball s*** that there was a void. And so there needed to be a product. So we built it and we manufacture that. And when it came time to do our fuel system for the V10, I bought a Huracan gas tank, I bought an RA gas tank just in case they were different and cut them apart. And I'm getting into all this, how we're gonna do this. And I'm looking at AMS kit and I'm like, they really did it right. And I could have knocked off all the parts and call it my own. But instead, I talked to Martin and I'm like, I want my own fuel system, I want to do some things different than what you did, but what you did in the tank is right. And will you probably label these for me, rather than going around him, and they still make money on it. So there's a handful of products that we have as T1 branded parts that aren't T1 design parts, because the respect that I have for the people that did it initially. I've had enough of my s*** knocked off, and it's...

It's not fun.

I don't like it.

No, that's really cool. Like, AMS is kind of central to this market, it seems. They work with a lot of people, like I can't remember why I'm allowed to disclose and not disclose, but yeah, it seems like there's a lot of stuff with various companies where it's like, you can do like sort of like a white label or some version or whatever. So that's really cool, okay.

Yeah.

Damn it, I had a good one in there, lost that one. What are you currently knocking your head against the wall? Is there something that's just being a pain in the a** right now?

The GT-R engine lasting more than a handful of passes at 3000Hp. You've probably seen the Elmer Racing in Finland. They have what they call the Hell engine. And it's a five liter from scratch, full billet VR38 replacement.

Okay, I have not seen this.

Okay, it's very cool.

That's insane.

I paid for one two and a half years ago at this point. And it was supposed to be like six months. And we're getting close. But it's literally bolts in place of VR38. But it's not, you know, like everybody else's billet block is a copy of a factory billet block. This is from scratch, has billet heads, everything. The cylinder spacing, the bore stroke, everything is just a five liter V6. And normally you'd see somebody, you know, advertise something like this. And like, I wouldn't even consider it. This isn't the first from scratch billet engine these guys have done. They have a four liter engine they call Thor, I think, that has based on a, I think it's a Porsche 944. It's a, I think it's a four liter four cylinder, but it's one time attack multiple times.

That's insane.

So that's, that says a lot, right? You can't, you can't throw together an engine and win time attack races. So these guys, they do know what they're doing. It's a significant undertaking to build from scratch billet deal like that. That I'm hoping is what allows us to continue progression on the GTR. Because with where things are, I, I'm not able to make them live. I could make more power, right? There's always bigger turbos, but they, they just, they won't live. And so that's, we're, we're asking a lot of, of parts, you know, there's no, there's no room for a bigger crank and bigger rods and things like that. So I'm hoping that that takes us over that. Okay.

Cause I was going to, my next question is, is, and maybe you're not able to disclose it at this point, but what is that engine address? What, that, that you're not able to currently, or do you want to hold back on that?

Well, I mean, the, the power ceilings should go up significantly just from the displacement, bigger valves. You know, you can only cram so much s*** into a small hole. So the ability to make more power, but even if, if that wasn't a factor, if we could make the same power we're making now, I mean, we're making a lot of power. If we could make that same power for four or five times as long, that's huge.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure it's such a cheap undertaking as well, right?

And you know, it's funny, like, if you, if you buy our 4.3 liter Billet LongBlock and you don't provide a core, right? So we have to buy heads, timing covers, you know, all the, all the, all the OE s*** that does get reused. It's more expensive than this engine will be.

Oh, wow. Okay.

So it's, it's not even a situation where it's like, yeah, but nobody's going to be able to afford it. Like people are already spending that amount of money. Now, if it works like it does, I don't think they're going to be able to keep up with production.

That's the next problem. You mentioned something there, billet heads. Does anybody even do those for the GTR? I know Martin tried to pursue it years ago and decided, you know what, not worth it.

Yeah. It's like the TCM. There wasn't really much of a need. Now, as things continue to progress, the need is there more. So the deck surface on the GTR, again, the fact that they do what they do says a lot, but the deck surface will yield eventually. So once the deck gives a little bit, now you've lost your clamp on that gasket. And so, before, back in the day when we were running an MLS head gasket, once you would lose that clamp, you'd see coolant pressure start to jump up, and then with an MLS gasket, you've got, maybe it's three, could be four or five layers, whatever, but the middle layer would just start to compress out. And so you would take one off, take one apart that wasn't blown, but it was compromised, and the middle layer is wrinkled, pressed out. And so you've all seen the results of a blown headgasket, where it looks like a flamethrower went through there and torched the head and the block, and it destroys parts. So with our firing setup, it doesn't do that. It will leak eventually once you lose some of the clamp. But we keep an eye on coolant pressure. With where we measure coolant pressure, we're on the high pressure side of the engine, mechanical water pump. And so the coolant pressure, you could look at on a properly sealed engine. If you plotted coolant pressure, it will look just like the RPM trace. So it's going to follow RPM. So if you were to do, like if you do a scatter plot and look at coolant pressure versus inlet manifold pressure, and you see coolant pressure going up with inlet manifold pressure, you know you have a problem. But eventually, they'll start to leak. And you might see 35, maybe 40 PSI on a healthy engine that's sealed. It's not leaking at high RPM. If you have a race car, so like I use the PWR radiators that have the extruded fin core, and they're safe to 100 PSI. Where a normal radiator, it'll balloon if you get too much pressure. Like you blow out gaskets, it balloons, right? But they'll do it at a much lower pressure. So on our race car stuff, with the extruded fin, everything's either, you know, Wiggins clamps or AN lines or whatever, there's no hose clamps that can blow off in the cooling system. As they start to leak a little bit, I'm not concerned with it. It's a little bit of cylinder pressure getting into the cooling system. It's not the other way around. And so, as long as you can manage it, you can keep running it. I've run over 100 PSI, you know, you're at an event and yeah, it's not perfect. We could park the car or we could keep racing it. So, like, I've let them go to over 100 and then, you know, like, all right, this needs to be addressed, but we can continue racing. Now, if you had, say, a factory cooling system with, you know, the factory hose clamps and rubber hoses and stuff like that, if you try to do that, you're probably going to have problems.

Haltech has once again pushed the envelope. Today, we are talking GM. Sorry, everyone else. At the end of 2025, they announced their new transmission interfaces for our GM listeners, which is a solution for those with 4L and 6L series transmissions. So whether you have a drift car, drag car or a high-powered street car, you can finally rip out that rinky dink, almost two-decade-old OE setup and get set up with everything that a standalone ECU has to offer without the compromise. To learn more, go to tunebyseanshawn.com to learn about how a Haltech can take your build to the next level. And while you're at it, check out the various plug-and-play solutions for your platform as well, including some install videos. As always, you can use code Minnoxide for 5% off. Let's get back to the show. Are your customers as competitive as you?

The ones that have been... Some people get into this, they want to go racing. Some people have been racing for... I think my first... With Motec, it categorizes things by vehicle ID, which would be customer's name on my end, and then year and then month. And if I pull up George's logs, I think it starts in 2012. So, if you're gonna do it that long, it's because you're really competitive. Some people want to go race, and that's the other part of the problem. Everybody wants to go faster than they went last time. And when the knob's already at 11, that gets difficult to do. And that's where the GTRs are in basically every market. The 58mm class A-list car, we built that car around the rules for that class. And I forget what the record was, but it was significantly slower than we went. We went 7.1 like five or six times, one TX2K, and it was like, this is great. You know, and sometimes things go like that. And sometimes they don't. You know, sometimes ship breaks, or the car's not consistent, you know, there's issues. But now when you've gone 7.1, and, you know, I was all in already, and it's like, you know, why isn't it going faster? I'm like, the knob's already all the way. So it gets tough.

Is that the hardest? What's the hardest class for you guys to build a car for?

I mean, we've, I think we might have the record in all the classes at this point.

Okay.

So Christine's gone 6.7 in 68mm class. Ayla's gone 7. I think she might have gone an O. She won TX2K 25 and 26. That's the record in the 58 class. George's car in the unlimited class at 640. We can do it in any class. It's just the more power it makes, the less reliable it's going to be. You're going to go through more parts. The 58 class is nice, because it's only going to make 22 or 2300Hp. They can live a reasonable life there, but you had a thousand changes.

I think you mentioned you had a couple of couples. Do you have a lot of couples that get into racing here, or just a handful?

You know, I never really thought about it, but so George and Christine, Brandon and Alo, I think that might be it.

Okay.

Yeah.

Gotcha. What's next for the V10 platform then? Obviously, that's not like the GTR. That one has a little bit more meat on the bone, hopefully, than the GTR at this point.

A little, but we're closing that gap quickly. So we work with a shop in Germany called A9 Performance. They have a half-mile R8, and it's a red R8. I think it went 253 last time it was out. And they're racing next weekend with a new combo. It's our engine, and I do all the tuning on it. But I'm eager to see what that one does, because there's a lot of things. They did a really good job putting that car together. And the weak links that we found, they've come up with solutions for. So we'll see how that goes. You know, the AIMA is the half-model record. So that'll be cool. But yeah, the V10 knob is, it's a 10.5.

Okay. What's the limiting factor? Is it engine or trans on these?

For us, it's engine at this point. We're still working on.

Yeah, it's interesting to see, especially one of my favorite things before Texas 2K is everybody's posting their dyno charts and just seeing everybody's different approach to it. I'm like, all right, let's see who's gonna, be out to party this year sort of deal. Is there any other platforms you want to dabble with or is this going to be the foreseeable future for a while?

This is foreseeable for now, for sure. We'll do Porsche, McLaren, like full bolt-on level stuff. When it comes to anything beyond that, I have no interest in doing it unless I can tune it. So whether or not there's a Motec kit for it, for us to do our own Motec kit on a very advanced car like that, there's a handful of people in the world that are capable of doing the reverse engineering and building a package for that. And I'm not one of them. So people know us for record-setting cars and things like that. And I've had people, like, you know, will you do a Porsche Format or a Viper? And it's like, I know what the road looks like to get to the record-setting level. And my hands are more than full with work as it stands. So to start over with a new platform while this is already here, it just doesn't make sense.

Yeah, like if you wanted to go, for example, chase Kratos' record, you know, in the Viper world, you're just going to dump so much time and money into it.

But Aaron will just tell me everything to do and I'll just start from where he knows.

Yeah, because everybody just shares. Well, actually, touch on that. Well, you already mentioned, you know, you had Shepard, you got Martin, you ETS, all these guys. Is there a lot of sharing when it comes to being at the track still within this industry?

I can't speak for other people, but yes, I have a very good relationship with everybody that I deal with. I was on the phone with Jason Heffner for an hour yesterday, you know, working through something. I have no problem sharing with those that I know aren't just leeches, you know, like I go back and forth with Martin and Lance on engine stuff all the time. Yeah, it's, look, we all want to be able to deliver the best experience for our customers. And look, there's a lot of hard lessons to be learned. And like I said, if somebody's not a leech and we're sharing, then it's better for all of us to advance. So yeah, I have no problem with that. And I think that's the way forward.

Okay. What's the hardest lesson you had to learn? Either business or car wise or whatever.

We're very specific on who we allow to be a customer at this point. And there are bad customers. When it comes to builds specifically. You know, somebody's buying parts, whatever. But we by now do a really good job of feeling people out and knowing who's going to be a problem and who's not going to be a problem. And if you want a car like this, you're not going to buy a 2500Hp GTR and have a warranty or it not break. That's not how it goes. So I'd say the hardest lesson was the mistakes in allowing the wrong people to be customers. It hasn't happened a lot. We had one a little while back. And that just reminds you to be better at that.

Yeah, be cautious. What about, obviously, one of the things you mentioned off air was a lot of the customers here grow with you as they continue to progress. I turned a dial from 11 to 12, 12 to 13. But do you ever, like for example, is there ever somebody that comes in here is like, you know what, I want a 1600 or 2000HP build. Are you the one coaching them or do you go on to track day with them? Is there a coaching session for some of this stuff?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. If we do a build, you're going to end up, you're going to get a notebook that's got documentation on maintenance requirements, how, there's so much stuff in the Motec, like how the functions work, how the maps are set up, how to change the maps, how to do this and that. And then when it comes to the track, we, I think maybe more so than anybody, provide an amazing arrive and drive experience for our customers. So, we had 15 cars at TX2K26.

And you're tuning all of them by the way?

Yes.

That's insane.

It is. It's not, don't do it. It's not smart. But the problem is, you know, we build these cars and the customers want to race. I can't tell them, no, you can't, no, I'm only selecting 10 of you or something. And so we just have to deal with it. It is what it is. And so we accommodate, you know, when it comes to techs, there's usually roughly three techs will take care of two or three cars. And, you know, everything's grouped, Stuart manages all that, does a great job of keeping everybody on track. And this is your responsibility, this is yours. There's a checklist for every car, every pass. And so the customers go run. There's always one of our staff with them in the burnout on the line, just to make sure that, you know, by now, most of them know what to do, but it's still just there, take entire pressure, lining them up, you know, put them in a burnout box. But it's a surprisingly well-oiled machine for that level of work. It's wild.

Well, that's one of the things I've heard from other shops too, is like customer support is super difficult when it comes to a track event. And like when it comes to Texas 2K, you guys have one of the biggest tents on the property with the amount of customers that you bring out there. How are you able to do that, right? Because like for a lot of these shops, it costs them money to go there. Is it more so just it's important for your brand to go out there to support customers? Is it actually like, are you burning money at that point? Or what are your thoughts?

Okay. So it's not an option for us to go.

Okay.

It's in our backyard. It's the biggest race of the year. It's specifically for the cars we build.

Yeah.

And so I can't not go, right? And so we're going to go. All of our customers want to go. And we just deal with it. So, you know, I have a handful of techs, but I've got a bunch of guys that handle assembling parts, building wire harnesses, all this stuff. Basically my whole, we have 22 employees. We probably have 16 plus at the track. And, you know, everybody's able, you know, you don't have to be a mechanic to be able to, you know, fill a car with fuel and drain and catch can and check tire pressures and torque wheels. So we've got guys that aren't techs that are able to come and assist. And so, you know, everybody does all that. It's the longest week of the year by a month. But if you do, I talked to Martin a lot and he was part of this Ferrari road race thing. And they basically have an arrive and drive thing for customers, but it's $25,000 for a weekend. And those cars don't require any work. You know, they're not like, they go out and run a session and they come back and, you know, check the tires and whatever. What I do with my guys, and it's nice for us that it's local because we don't have to fly people out, but we take the sum of all of our expenses to be there and divide it among everybody. And for 15 cars, if you raced at 2K26, if you raced the six days or whatever it is, I mean, it's...

Yeah, straight up week.

Way too long. It was roughly $6,000 in track support per car. And to have that level of support for that many days, for that amount of money, it's ridiculous. I don't want to say we're... I'm not making money on it. I'm just not losing money on it. And so I'm okay with that.

That's the good stuff I hear from everybody.

That keeps... It's our business. That's what we do. If we don't go race, then people don't want to build these cars. Most of what we're building isn't for the street. And so if we're not racing, there's no point. So if we can do it and everybody have fun and we're not losing money at it, I'm good.

Okay. Are you doing events as well to that level of support, like Bradon 10 for FL2K or anything, or not as much?

So TX2K has been for 10 plus years and it's always in Texas. So that's always been easy. We used to do... Well, for maybe five years, we did World Cup finals in Maryland. And that's not our race. That's a race that we can go to. Track conditions are amazing. The track's great. We go there, set records. And when we go there, I have to fly all the crew out, the expenses go up. Not as many people go. So the per car cost, it's still six days. The per car cost goes up significantly. And it's not a race that we're going to win. It's just to go and try to set records. So the novelty wore off pretty quickly on that. And so we haven't been there. I've actually never been to FL2K. We were going to go after we decided we're not doing World Cup Finals. And it was the year that the hurricane was coming right across our driving path. And I had a transporter set up, $20,000, transport all the cars and everything. And we're watching the weather and it's like, it was, it seemed very unlikely the race was going to happen. And it was like, if we call it now, we get our transport money back versus if we chance it and then go, I mean, it would have been a huge loss of money. And it ended up, I think they raced a little bit here and there, but the race didn't.

Yeah, I think it was like two, three years ago, I think, right? It was a messy one. Like I think it was like right between something like that.

Yeah. And so now we have GTR Festival and in Ennis at our home track in November. And so it's like, all right, we've got we've got March, we've got November. I it's going to be hard to get me to travel anywhere if those continue happening.

Okay.

They are for the foreseeable future.

Speaking of GTR Festival, any interest in going to the other ones around the world?

Yeah. We we want to go to the one in Australia. We want to bring George's car there. Brandon wants to go with with his GTR and A-list. The problem is the transport time to get there, basically the cars would not be able to race TX2K.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

And so if they like left TX2K, got on a boat, it would probably make the race, but not guaranteed. And so it's like, all right. Like now that George has multiple cars, that's kind of the plan. At some point, well, one of them won't race. And they have a lot more interest in the all-wheel drive car being actually GTR. So that one hasn't been put back together yet from the fire at TX2K25.

Oh, that's right. Yeah, I forgot about that.

Yeah, I had a fuel line, like literally just broke apart. And so it wasn't terrible, but it still, you know, fire's nasty. It's gonna be a lot of work. So at some point, the plan will be for that car to not race 2K, but go there, and then he can race the other one at 2K.

Yeah, cause I can't imagine flying a car out there is very cheap.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think it was like to go to the Nuremberg Ring, one of my friends went like seven or eight years ago, I think it was like 40 grand there and back. Or no, just one way actually, it was something stupid, but 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 to 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. Okay, what about you? You do any racing anymore?

Not anymore, no. In, you know, from the day I opened the shop, I had the Integra, like I always had my race car. And then my GTR, I went 6.9 in 2018.

Oh, wow.

And then I took the car apart. I was like, all right, I'm done with this trans. Took it apart. Initially, it was a six second car with like an 850 roll cage. And I was like, let's put a proper cage in it. And then when you go into, let's put a proper cage in it. It's like, you know, how far are we going to go? Should we back half it so we can put a bigger tire on it? Okay, well now do we put a four link in it? Do we keep it IRS? Then it's like, all right, we'll just, we'll back half it. It's like, all right, well, I don't have any rules to play by. So why not just get rid of the firewall and shock towers and go full tube frame? Because it's almost easier to do that than to back half it and integrate all the OE front half. And so I was like, fine, we'll just do that. So full tube frame, four link, big tire, it's got a Liberty seven speed air shifted trans torque converter. And so that one is actually on, that's what that Elmer engine is gonna go in. So it's been on hold waiting for that.

Okay, yeah, it's crazy how quickly it snowballs into something just absurd. Like you're already absurd and it's like, all right, let's just go to a whole new level.

Full retard.

Yeah, exactly. What's it called? So yesterday, actually on the flight down here, everyone's gonna like to throw on a little bit of Rogan. Anytime he has somebody that's a car guy on, like, you know, Shob, for example, car guy, Tom's a car guy, right? So I'm like, all right, this is gonna be a fun episode. And they started talking about the various cars out there, like Zero One X and then, you know, like Shob had this car that was like, I don't know, some 1400Hp TRX that was just constantly a problem. And basically, like, they both came to the conclusion that 1000Hp cars or 1200Hp cars are problems. Is that true or can, like, can you put on thousands and thousands of miles on a car like that?

Depends on the car.

Okay.

Like, what are we starting from and what are we going to?

What would you recommend?

At 1200?

Yeah.

A V10 with a factory engine and factory trans.

Okay.

Twin Turbos, Motec, Fuel System, TCU Cal, make 11, 1200 all day long. It's not the trans is the weakest link in that. But if you're just enjoying a car as a street car, you're not drag racing it, you'll probably, the trans probably last your full ownership of that car.

Yeah.

I mean, that's not a car that somebody builds and it's like, I'm never going to sell this, right? It's not a collectible like that. It's not your first car that you're never going to get rid of. So, you might have it for one or so, our builds all have numbers that come with a badge. Build 007, which is pretty cool to get that number. But that was a 1500Hp stock engine built trans. And the guy beat the piss out of that car for three plus years. And he just sold it, the new owner bought it. And to not have to go into an engine, to not have to get, it's not a cheap build once you get into the trans. Here's the deal. If you don't touch the trans, there's no cost, right? So that's zero. A full built trans for a 3000HP car is over $80,000. It's a significant price difference. So, you know-

Is there any in between there?

There is. So you can do, Dodson has just a second gear upgrade and just a third gear upgrade. Those are the weakest gears, but it's like, how deep are you going to go in this thing and still half-asset? So, we don't do anything like that. If we're either going to be stock gears or it's going to be a full gear set.

So you don't do like the second gear upgrade or whatever too often or-

No, not often. Just because it's not really that weak. If you're drag racing it to where there's going to be a one, two shift because that's the hardest part. And also at this point, the TCU calibrations are really good. And I can call Jake and go, look, this one's got stock gears. I need a softer crossover. And we have ways to help that in the event it has, you know, stock or weaker parts.

Interesting.

But really, if you need a second gear upgrade, you're going to need the third and then you're going to need the rest of it. Just do it all.

And you don't do any stock ECU stuff with these either. Okay. Did you at any point do it though? Okay, gotcha. You're just like straight Motec. No.

You know, on the GTR, Cobb made an interface that made it easy.

Yeah.

And gave enough control for, you know, reasonable power levels. You know, if you were trying to make, back then, if you were trying to make over a thousand the injectors that you needed, and, you know, there wasn't good traction control. Like, there was lots of reasons to upgrade.

But the V10s, I mean, is that a different story?

Now, the V10, with the GTR, it was a car that came with turbos.

Okay.

So it was all designed around that. The V10 didn't, and you can do it. There's DS1, there's the ability to go in there. There's, I forget how many tables, when I looked at it, it's unbelievable how many tables there are in a stock ECU. So the ability is there, but it's not easy. And it would be, when there is a solution, it's like, why would I beat my head against the wall trying to do this? So it can be done. There are limitations. There are definitely advantages to a full standalone. And so I just never bothered.

That makes sense. What do you think is hurting our industry right now? Is there any players or anything? Or holding us back?

So the guys that are doing the hard work in developing the parts, we're the ones that get copied and stuff gets knocked off. And if that continues happening and we stop what we're doing, then the knockoff guys don't have anything to work from and the industry stalls. And so it's really frustrating to me to see the people that that's their marketing approach. Like, hey, it's just business, bro, you know? I mean, you don't have a patent on it, I can do whatever I want. Like, there's a lot of those guys and I don't associate with that at all. And it's, they're making money and they might be providing a good to the industry by bringing costs down, but they're not helping the industry.

I see what you're saying. Do you have self-patent? I imagine, no?

No. I mean, patents are so specific. Like, if you have some new technology or something, it might be something to patent, but the stuff we're doing, the volume on it is so small and you can have a patent. That doesn't mean nobody's going to copy it. It just means that when they do, now you have to spend money to fight them on it. And it's just.

Yeah. It's not even worth it at that point. I also read somewhere that when it comes to anything that's like ECU or tune-related or whatever, you can't patent it whatsoever because it's such a gray area.

I would imagine that to be the case, yeah. Patents are incredibly specific. So you can't patent a tune. Somebody else, though he did it first.

That was the argument that people are making. And I was like, all right, fair enough. You're modifying something that already exists. It just gets so messy. It's not even worth pursuing. 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. One of the things we didn't finish talking about earlier was the break-in process, I don't think, when it comes to the injector side of things. So kind of explain that. So how long are you breaking stuff in for? And then once it's done breaking in, is it basically thrown in a box, sent it to a customer, or is there more sorting that's required or anything like that?

So the break-in is the second step in the process. So they all get laser engraved because otherwise they're all the same injector. Right, so they get laser engraved with a serial number, and then they go through the break-in process, and then they come out of there, and then they all get flowed. And so we'll flow a batch of injectors is between 500 and 1000 pieces for us. And so they all get flowed, and then the computer spits out this part number or this serial number goes with this serial number. And sometimes you might have a group that only makes a set of four. Sometimes we might have 20 that make still a tightly matched set. So our set is plus or minus 1% across the pulse width range. And so they'll come to me in groups of four, groups of six, groups of 20. And we can break those up as needed. But I can't take a set of six and a set of four and put them in a V10. They won't be matched that way. So the break-in happens first so that everything's normalized, so that the flow data is relevant to the real world.

How did this process come about? Are you involved with that quite a bit? Your partner, when you started this, how did that partnership happen in the first place?

So I mentioned earlier, nobody used to provide injector data. Nobody knew what it was. It wasn't really a thing. In the early Motec days with the M800 or the M4, the old gold boxes, there was what they called the Injector Battery Offset. And in the M4, I think they had maybe four or five Bosch Injector presets, but if you didn't have those, then it was up to you to get the data. And so, initially, I had an M4 on the race car with the old 160-pound Bosch Injectors. Terrible, but it's all that was available in that flow rate. You know, and you had to have... You got to have a certain amount of fuel.

Yep.

So, I later upgraded it to an M800 ECU where I could go to eight Injectors. And so, I called RC Engineering, I bought 8,000 CC Injectors, and I said, I need the battery offset for these. And they were like, what computer are you using? And I was like, Motec. They're like, you need to call Motec. And I was like, I asked Motec, and they said, they don't have the data for your Injectors to call you. And like, well, we don't have the data. And I'm like, okay. And so, talking to Simon at Motec, and he goes, so one of our dealers, Paul Yaw, ran into this and it pissed him off enough that he developed a flow bench and offers this service. And so, I send the Injectors to Paul to get them characterized so I could get the off-site data to do things properly. And he does them and he's like, you know, these are 1000cc Injectors. They were peak and hold Injectors because there weren't high impedance Injectors that big back then. I had Motec on my car but I was still doing a lot of Honda data stuff with stock ECU. And with the stock ECU, it won't drive peak and hold Injector properly. So you had to put an Injector Resistor on, which is another c********** of making things wrong. And he goes, you know, I've got a 1000cc high impedance Injector and I'm like, that didn't exist as far as I knew. And I'm like, so he sends me a sheet with some info on it and I'm like, send me a set and I'll try them. And so I put them, I put them in the race car, which, you know, a lot of times when, when say a good versus bad Injector, the biggest area you'll see it as an idle.

Okay.

You know, air fuel is moving around. It's, you know, kind of missing or whatever. And on a race car with big cams and open downpipe, it's like, it already does an idle good. And so I put them in, I'm like, I mean, they seemed like they're doing well, but like I'm not sold yet. So then I put them in a stock Integra motor and I was blown away. Like the air fuel ratio is just, you're used to just seeing the gauge do this and it's f****** rock solid. This thing idles like it has stock injectors. So I'm like, holy s***. Like there's something to this.

And what time period was this roughly?

2008-ish. And so I'm like, send me a few more sets of these. And so I put them in a couple of other cars and I'm like, OK, there's something here. So I call him and I'm like, how many of these can you get? Because he wasn't in the injector industry to sell products. He built this to characterize injectors. That was the service he offered.

Was it just like him by himself at this point?

Yep. And I'm like, how many of these can you get? He's like, I don't know. I mean, he's never tried to buy them in any kind of quantity. This was, it was a Ford, it was a Mustang injector that was modified. So he calls Ford dealership. He's like, I can get like a couple of hundred. I was like, send me a couple of hundred. He's like, OK. And so he sends them to me and I put them in the hands of other tuners that I know who would, you know, I can sell them to customers. They're not really going to know the difference. How good they are. When you drive a car, things can be pretty off and it's still drive OK. But people are getting these going, holy s***, like this is way better than anything that's been available to us at this point. And send me more, send me more. And so they start selling. And then, you know, I just was selling them as a Bosch 1000cc injector. Like Paul wasn't a part of this. Nobody knew where they were coming from. Eventually people started figuring out who I was getting them from. And people started reaching out to Paul. And Paul's like, he calls me. He's like, these people are calling and they're wanting these injectors. He's like, I was doing these injectors for a long time. Nobody wanted them. He's like, you came into the mix. Now everybody wants them. This, like you started this. He's like, I don't want to deal with all these people. Paul's the engineer that wants to, you know, build a slow bench and sit in a room and make data. And so he's like, how about, you know, I'll do them all. I'll send them to you. You handle everybody else. He knew that I had the knowledge to provide the tech support that is required and make sure that people get the good results. And, you know, I have the customer base, I have the staff to be able to sell these. And so that's how it all started.

Okay. Well, so then, how did you guys go into business together? Is it like that end up being like a 50-50 sort of like you deal with the marketing side, I'll deal with the engineering side.

So basically we had that one conversation in 2008.

Okay.

And a handshake between us and we do millions of dollars a year together on nothing more than a handshake, you know, 15 years ago almost.

That's awesome.

And so it's been a great partnership. He handles his side of things, I handle my side of things and everything works and has worked for a long time.

So at what point did you guys start working direct with Bosch then?

The ID1300 I think was our first piece. And at the time, so Bosch, they have a production line where all OE injectors are manufactured. They can do something silly like 10,000 injectors a day. The capability is significant, but the volume also has to be significant to get it there. We weren't doing enough volume for that. And so there's also the sample shop where custom pieces can be made. So when you're developing an injector, the sample shop is building it to your spec for valve lift and spring rate and this valve and the screen. And so we can get custom pieces there. So the 1300s were all built at the sample shop, which raises the cost significantly from production line stuff. Once we got those and that was rolling and smooth and doing well at the time. So the ID1000 was our first part number. It was a 48-millimeter length injector, which at the time almost everything used. Then GM came out with a lot of the LS engines used a 34-millimeter. So it was a shorter director. Making a short injector taller is easy. Making a long one smaller is not. So there was a need for a shorter bodied injector. So then we did the ID850 because there was a shorter core that we could modify the same way we were modifying what the 1000 was and it would end up at 850. So we did that and then we did an ID725 that was also the longer body. The only reason we did that is because back then people were still like they're like a 1000cc injector could never run well. And so the people were scared of it. They're like, well, I don't need an injector that big. It's like, maybe you don't. But think about it this way. If you did need an injector that big, an ID1000 will run an idle like a stock injector in almost anything.

Okay.

And so yes, maybe you don't need an injector that big, but at idle, the engines all consume basically the same amount of fuel, right? But whatever the displacement is and what fuel you're using, if the engine makes, if it's a five liter V8 that makes 400HP or it makes 1500HP, they're both going to use the same amount of fuel at idle. So people are still scared about that. So we did the 725. And so we had three part numbers that there didn't need to be, but they all served a little bit different purpose. And so the ID1050 was and still is the only injector to come off the production line at Bosch. And we were able to get our sales volume of those three part numbers combined was enough for us to deal direct with Bosch on the assembly line side of things. And so since the ID1050 is a shorter body, it could do what the 850 did. We could make it longer. And at this point, nobody's scared of a 1000cc injector anymore, so we didn't need a lower flow rate. There was no need. So that one is on a production line. The rest are still sample shop, except the 2600. So what we had as what we called ID2000 was a compressed natural gas injector that Bosch makes. So it's known as the 2000 or 2200, whatever. It's a shelf part for a CNG engine, not for liquid fuel. Because it's not in liquid fuel, there's nothing to damp the valve when it opens and closes. And so it can beat itself up. And so the valve goes through an extra hardening process to prevent it from killing itself. Well, that hardening process changes the characteristics of the metal and it can now rust. And so if you're running ethanol or methanol, those would have a problem if they were in liquid fuel all the time, it wasn't a problem. But, you know, your car is parked for a long time or something, the ethanol absorbs water, or the bigger problem would be you took the engine apart. You had it apart. These injectors that were in ethanol are now out in dry air and they'll rust. So that was one problem. The other problem is the it's a very unique design. All of our injectors are like just a ball valve seat. And so it's all stainless, you know, there's nothing weird. These have a flat face valve with a polymer face.

Okay.

And that polymer face is how they seal. And, you know, it works well for compressed natural gas. Now, they're with the 2000 and the 2600, they both have that same valve face and they're not compatible with all chemicals.

Okay.

So some of the things in fuel, MTBE, ETBE, nitromethane does not play well with this polymer. And so what will happen, again, we're talking about a piece that has a valve lift measured in microns. They're still, you know, it's not like the valve moves a ton. And so if you have this polymer valve face that swells a few thousandths of an inch, now your flow can be drastically reduced when you run one of these fuels. So we didn't really realize it when we started with the 2000. And there's another CNG injector by Bosch that's about 1600cc. That injector runs amazing, but it has the same valve face with less valve lift. And so, fuel gets hot, or you run one of these fuels, your flow can be reduced by 40%. And there's people that still sell this injector for liquid fuel. Bosch doesn't sell it for that, but in the aftermarket, people still sell this injector.

Oh, you still see these games sold today?

Yes.

Oh wow, okay.

We sold probably, I think it was probably a couple hundred of them before we realized this was a problem.

What made you realize that was a problem?

Cars running lean when they get hot or with different fuels, like to an unexplainable degree, like what the f***'s going on?

Was that easy to diagnose or were you chasing your tail for a bit?

Well, it was easy to see that there was a problem, but it took us a bit to figure out what the f*** was going on. And we recalled all those injectors and gave everybody their money back. And there's still people selling those. They just don't say anything about it. Now, the 2000Hp is susceptible to the same thing, but by that point, we learned what the problems were. And we sell them, saying, hey, this is not compatible with this fuel or this fuel or this fuel. If you choose to run it, that's on you at this point. But Bosch has not been happy about any of this CNG stuff being used with liquid fuel. It makes the injector look bad. It's not Bosch's fault. They built it for a certain purpose, and we're using it for something other. And so, at one point, they were like, you guys can't keep selling the 2000. I'm like, we have to have something. We need this amount of fuel. It works. We know what the stipulations are. We know that if you don't take proper precautions, it can rust, there's trash. It is what it is. And so, that's what led to the 2600 being made, was that one's manufactured in Germany. All the rest are manufactured in the US. And that was Bosch saying, okay, we want to provide you with a solution. And so, they were like, we want these CNG injectors off the market for liquid fuel use. We're going to build you a proper injector. And so, that's what the 2600 is.

Gotcha.

So, it's from the CNG architecture with changes internally for liquid fuel. Now, it still does have the incompatibility issue with MTB or nitro-methane. Okay. But it won't rust. That problem is fixed and it's manufactured for liquid fuel by Bosch for us. We're the only one that has it. So, that was their solution. We're like, give us something and we can stop using these. And so, that's how I came about.

So, real quick on the 2000s when you were still using them, was there a different service interval? Like, hey, you can't use this, don't park the car too long? Like, what was the… How did you approach that when you were using them?

So, basically, you know, they all came with a warning card and it had, you know, specifics. Like, if the car is going to sit for more than a month, it depends on the climate. You know, if you're in Arizona where it's dry, it's less of a concern. If you're in Florida, you probably don't want to park that long. So, if it's going to sit for a long time, put gasoline in it because the gas wasn't a problem. If they're going to come out of the engine, pickle them, we just basically run WD-40 through them. I have a little injector, it's a diagnostic thing from Amazon. You plug the injector in and hit a body and it goes zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz The other end of that is probably, if your engine's apart for something, it's probably a good idea to send your injectors in for cleaning and inspection anyway, just to make sure that they're all still in spec, because the contaminants that can cause fuel injector problems are smaller than the eye can see. So, you know, it doesn't take much. And that was actually another funny thing. When I built the Integra with those RC injectors, it was a whole new fuel system. The lines weren't clean enough, which just flushed all the s*** right into the injectors. And so literally while I'm tuning the car, it starts running like s***. I'm like, what the going on? And so I ended up sending them back to RC, and they were down between 20 and 40% in flow. And they're like, there's rubber in them. We could see it from the fuel lines. And you know, initially I'm like, oh, this is b*******. You know, these injectors suck, whatever. They clean them, I put them back in, everything's fine. I'm like, okay. So, I did it. And at least weekly, there's somebody who has an injector problem. And they're like, it's a brand new fuel system. There can't be a problem. And I'm like, that's where your problem's most likely. Versus a car that's been running for a long time and you just changed the injectors. Right? So you put all these new parts in there. And you know, how good did you really flush the fuel lines? And you know, really most idea would be you put a new fuel system in a car, you disconnect the fuel lines, put the filter in and run the system, let the filter catch all the s***.

Oh wow, okay.

And then pick it up. But yeah, a whole new fuel system is not the right answer when you're like, it can't be an injector problem because it's all new stuff.

I never would have thought about that. Like, yeah, just kind of like, well, it's kind of like, for example, some people would get like a new machined part or whatever. And it's like, just make sure you clean it for that sort of deal. Yeah. I never would have thought that there'd be stuff in the system to gum it up right out the gate. And so many Mustang owners just had their problems solved.

Every car has a fuel filter, it has for years because s*** ends up in fuel. And people are like, what's the service interval? How much s***'s in your fuel? You could go 100,000 miles without having to change your fuel filter, or you could go 1,000 miles and the filter is full of crap. So, there's no right answer. And that's a neat thing, the first fuel filter that we offered. Well, we started making fuel filters because of so many people having injector problems. So, when ethanol came about, most fuel filters are like a paper filter element, and it doesn't play well with ethanol. And so, the filter manufacturers go, yeah, you have to run our stainless element for ethanol. The problem is, the stainless element's not fine enough to protect the injectors. So, it covers the fuel filter manufacturer, like, yeah, no more fuel filter problems. Now you have injector problems. So, that led us down the path of developing a proper fuel filter because we only service our injectors, but we service our injectors, and there's a lot of them out there. So, it's, we service a lot of injectors. And so, you know, you get the flow test back, and it's like, all right, now you're talking to the customer, like, all right, they're all over the place. Let's talk about your fuel system and try to figure out why. And a lot of it came down to people not having proper filtration. So, we developed our fuel filter. The IDF750 has a differential pressure indicator on the front of it. So, it's cool. When the car's running, you just look at it. Like, if it's time to change the filter element, this indicator's moved over. And it's a spin-off canister, more like an oil filter type thing. Take it off, change the element, put it back in, good to go. So, everything that we offer under the ID brand was to fill a void. We don't have a bunch of fuel rails, and there's a lot of fuel system parts we could do, but kind of like my mentality on an intercooler for GTR, there's tons of good options out there. I don't need to be just another one of those. So, I'll support the people that I feel are doing it right, and I think that's better for the industry that way.

How many injectors are you servicing a year, if you had to ballpark or a month or whatever? Do you even have a ballpark?

So, the process works, we have a Google form you fill out, got all your contact info, injector serial numbers, you know, what's going on with them, whether or not you need a pre-clean test, like if an engine failed, then you're like, I want them tested as they are, so I can isolate, maybe that's the cause of the failure or not. And I don't handle any of that side of things. And when I go and look at that form, there will be 15 plus forms filled out a day.

Oh, wow.

So, you know, and you figure, for the most part, at a minimum, there's going to be four injectors that come in with that set. So it's a significant amount.

It adds up pretty quick. Yeah. Okay. Oh, how big is too big when it comes to an injector? For, let's say, a street car.

Is there one? Depends how big the engine is.

Okay.

The bigger the per-cylinder displacement is, it's going to use more air, so it's going to use more fuel. And so a 2600 in a GTR as a primary injector with a Motec, I can make it run really, really good.

Oh, wow.

A V10 with 2600 primaries runs like s***. It's the cylinder displacement is significantly smaller. And so it kind of comes down to that. Almost everything we do at this point has staged injection, so smaller primary, bigger secondary. When you're not having to idle or cruise on it, you know, where the real small volume requirements are, you could have a really big injector. It doesn't matter because you're using it in its happy place. But trying to get a very small amount of fuel out of a big injector consistently, repeatedly, that's the hard part. So that's why so much of it comes back to idle. You know, if a car runs and idles really well on whatever injector size is in there, then it's fine. But that's where you'll see the downside of too big.

So obviously, you're big on the tuning side. Was there a stage in your career where you were making the wrong combinations work? Or were you always trying to get people to, hey, this is the particular way you want to build your car, go for it? When did that get standardized?

Things are always progressing, but I don't think anything's changed in my mentality or my decisions as to this is how we're going to do a combo. The parts have gotten better and technology's gotten better. So the end result might be better, but at least as long as I've been doing this here, I don't think, like I was doing things wrong and now I look back and go, I can't believe I did that.

Oh, you don't have many of those moments then?

No.

Okay. Well, that's a good thing to be proud of, which that's actually a good follow up question. What are you most proud of in your 20, 30 year career at this point?

I'm pretty proud of what we've built today. The name that we've built for ourselves in the industry, the reputation we have, the cars we're putting out. I've got 20 plus people that get to have a pretty awesome job and support their families. I'm really proud of that.

Sweet. As a business, what's next? Do you ever have any ambitions to help people with road course builds or anything like that? Do you do anything like that? Because I know Coda's not that very far from here.

Yeah, we've done a little bit. We had a pretty cool project come about. The Daytona Prototype cars. They're really fun. I mean, it's a little bit below F1, but I mean, they're very high level race cars. And there was a team, I think it was probably about 2016, that had a handful of Daytona Prototype cars with a GTR engine in it that Nismo did the engines on. And they raced in Emsa and the rules with all that, they could make about 650Hp. With Emsa, there's the BOP, the Balance of Performance. So if somebody is going faster, they can penalize you. And there's all this stuff that's integrated in the ECU to check, you can't run over this amount of boost for this amount of time. Like, it's very, very specific. And so those cars, I think they had, I think it was a Cosworth ECU initially. And they got with Motec in Australia. And Darren, the guy that does the packages for these two platforms, was in charge of that project. And he ended up putting Motec in it and writing the package. And so, years go on, comes about that a local race team bought two of these cars. And now they're racing it in a vintage series where there's no rules. And so he was like, they reached out and were like, you know, can you build a motor? Can you tune it? Can you support it? We want to make like 1200HP. Easy. And so we did that. And that was probably the coolest car I've ever worked on.

That's insane. Yeah.

It was neat.

I mean, how different was it to work on something like that? Like, was it just a standard GTR engine?

More or less, yeah. So we built the engine and I tuned it here, but they did all the install and everything. It's, you know, it's rear wheel drive, and so it doesn't have, the GTR has a front axle going through the oil pan, so it didn't have any of that. Daily Engineering makes a really, really trick dry sump kit for the rear wheel drive version. It's panned, the pump's integrated, like, it's really nice. And it had, NISMO had made full billet front timing covers, didn't have variable cam timing anymore, because the engine was, like, pushed against the firewall. Like, there wasn't even room for the VTC covers. But in the end, it was just a GTR engine. So, it all worked, I mean, it was.

Did you do any, like, tuning? Like, is that all just on the, was that remote, was that on a hub dyno?

They brought it here, we brought it on the hub dyno.

Gotcha, but you're not going out there, like, you're not hopping behind the wheel or anything like that?

No, I couldn't even fit in that car.

Yeah, no, that's what it is.

It's one of those cockpits, you know, you wedge yourself into and you're laying down. It was cool, but yeah, I didn't drive it on the dyno, I was just tuning in on the dyno. I did go to the track with him a couple of times, you know, get everything dialed in.

That's craziness. Have you been to Daytona?

No.

Gotcha, do you pay attention to any of that stuff or not really? What's a weekend look like? Are you watching F1 or anything?

My weekends for the past handful of years usually involve soccer tournaments. My son plays soccer and he plays for school and for two club teams. So a lot of our free time is there. We live very close to a lake. I have a boat.

We drove over it.

Yeah. So it's hot in Texas. If you're going to be outside in the summer, you probably want to be wet.

Yeah.

So I have a boat. Boating is probably the one thing my whole family likes to do together.

Okay.

So on the weekends that we're not at soccer, we're usually out at the lake.

Have you tuned the boat?

I tuned a lot of boats actually.

Oh, okay.

So again, I don't want to mess with it unless Motec has a kit for it. Motec has a plug and play ECU for the Mercury 450 and 500 outboard motors and for what they call the QC4V, which is the twin turbo inboard motor for the big boats. And so the lowest horsepower QC4V offering is 1100HP, the highest one is 1650. So this is a huge Twin Turbo V8. It's so easy to make power on these things. I mean, I'll make 1300 on pump gas without blinking an eye. And so I've got a friend that's got a 40-foot skater with two of the Mercury engines and that one, we're putting it back together right now with bigger turbos and ethanol, but it made 1800 per motor on race gas last time out. And it's silly how fast those things are.

Is it a race boat? Yeah. OK.

And then he's also got an outboard boat with two of the 450s. They're 650 or 700 right now. And so that market's been fun and interesting and new. The outboard, it's a supercharged V8 stock. So you can put poise on it. They'll run about 10 pounds of boost stock. You can get it up to 17 or 18 is about all we've seen. But it's enough to break a factory engine. So now they're getting into building the engines. And now, fuel on the lake is not good quality fuel. And so these engines have to be built to run on s*** fuel. Now, when you, just like any other turbo, factory turbo car, like they have to account for the worst scenario and the things to live. Now, when you tune it and you turn it up, you get rid of some of that safety margin, but you know you have to, you know, you can't run it when it's, you know, the coolant temp's 250 degrees and you're trying to drag race it. So if you, when you tune something, you know, okay, look, I have to put 93 octane in here, but they're like eight, I think they're 8.71 compression and they run 10 pounds of boost. Like that's, and they could do it probably on f****** water. So if you, if you build it and go, okay, look, 18 pounds of boost is about all we have to work with. If we're going to run ethanol on this thing, there's no reason it couldn't be 10 or 11 to 1 compression easily. So that market's still very young and people are starting to play with that now that we have a good computer. So yeah, the boat market is actually new and growing fast.

What's the strangest thing you've tuned?

I did an old, it was called a champ car. It looks like a, like an Indy car.

Oh yeah.

And it had a V8 engine that used Hayabusa cylinder heads.

Oh, okay.

I don't know who made it. We put a Motec on it. I tuned it. Those things, this was at my first shop and I had a Dynojet 248, the big roller one.

Yep.

And there's so little rotating mass in the engine, you know, it's not like they got a big flywheel or anything. And they've got a long first gear because they're not launching these things. To get that thing going on the Dyno without stalling it was, I mean, we had to like roll the tires and like get it moving and then almost launch the thing on the Dyno for it not to stall. But that was a unique one for sure.

No helicopters, any aerial things yet?

No.

Okay.

No, I don't think I want that responsibility.

No, no, yeah.

I do my best, but sometimes s*** happens and I don't want somebody falling out of the sky.

No, yeah, we had a guy on the show, he tuned a Gyrocopter on a Haltech ECU.

That's ballsy.

But the Gyrocopter is apparently like, because I think they're like some weird design, they can glide down on a helicopter where it's like, it's a whole different thing. But yeah, as we start to wrap up here, do we touch on mostly everything? Do we catch up on it? I'm sure there's people screaming at the windshield right now like asking this, but.

I mean, nothing comes to mind.

Sure. Well, at the end of every episode, I like to ask, yes, this one question and it goes like this. You have an unlimited budget. You could pick three cars and go, you have to choose a daily driver, a show car and a track car. Build whatever you want, mod it however you want. Any type of track too.

The daily, I'm a Porsche guy. You wouldn't think so.

Yeah, that caught me by surprise.

Looking here, but I have, my daily, daily is a Taycan.

Okay.

And it makes 900Hp.

So are those, they come stock with that much HP, right?

So the 25 and newer, the Turbo S model from launch mode makes 940Hp. Otherwise, I think it's about 800. There's a company called MapEV that has a tune. So hardware wise, the Taycan 4, which comes with 435Hp, it has the same hardware as the Turbo S. So you can go from 430Hp to 940 just by reprogramming. And so for $3,000, you pick up 500Hp and they give you the launch horsepower all the time. So it's the 940Hp electric car. If you ever drove an electric car, you could say what you want. I'm a f****** car guy. You can't be an electric car as a daily driver just for how it drives. Yeah. Look, I like the noise and I have cars that fill that need too. But this is the third Taycan I've owned. There's no other car I've bought that many times. I really like the car as just a daily. I have a GT2 RS that's my favorite car to drive. Porsche just f****** nailed it with the 911. It's the car that does it all. It's reliable, it's comfortable, it's a great car. Now, if you want to make 3000HP, it's not the car for it.

Fair enough.

But I want to buy a car that's comfortable to drive, that I can drive anywhere all the time, the 911. And the Turbo S would be my first choice in that. The GT2 RS, it's a lot more racy, but it looks so much better. So there's that one. If I wanted to build something, say, 1000 plus horsepower that I was going to use a lot on the street, it would be an R8.

Okay.

I love the Huracan, it looks great. It's not comfortable to drive. You can't f****** see anything out of it. You're at a stoplight and you have to duck down to see the roofline so low, but it looks really good. So I think those.

So Taycan was a daily, the GT2RS was a track car?

That's the other daily that you can do anything with. But you don't want to drive it daily because it's going to put miles on it. Then I guess when you say track car, for me, having a car that's devoted just to the racetrack, you don't get to use it very often. And so I'd rather have a fun toy. And that's where the R8 or the Huracan comes in.

Oh, so that would be that kind of, that filled that gap. So then which one's the show car then?

See, when they're all good looking cars, it's hard to say. Daily, the nice car you can do anything with would be the GT2. And then the Huracan or R8 is the, it's not a car you want to daily. It's not a car you're going to, when you drive it, you're going to drive it with a purpose.

Okay.

You know, you take out the Twin Turbo, 1500, 2500 horsepower, whatever.

Fair enough.

That car has a purpose.

Yeah. Okay. I like those answers. I, man, that's like crazier than down piping a tune with a Taycan.

It's, it went, the 60 to 130 went from, it was either 12 or 14 seconds to 5.8. I mean, it's just, it's silly how much it improved for $3,000. Yeah.

I think that actually, I feel like you, did you post that online a couple of years ago? I feel like I've seen this before.

That would have been my last one.

Yeah. Okay.

And so, and so what happened, the first one I had was a Turbo S, the second one was a GTS, just a regular sedan. And then in 25, they upped the power capability. And so the new one's a Cross-Trisbo, the wagon. And so it was just like, all right, let me get something different on this one. I wanted the newer one to get the more. But the GTS with the tune was like, I think 800Hp, so 800, 940. Like they're both fast.

Stupid. Well, on that note, where can everybody find you?

t1racedevelopment.com is our website. On Facebook and Instagram, T1race. Yeah, we're easy to get hold of.

Awesome. Well, Tony, I'm so glad we made this happen. This has been a long time in the works. I'm glad I made it down here. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Everybody, thanks for tuning in and listening, and we'll see you all next time.