205. 2000HP Trucks, Choosing Types of Boost, and LS vs LT w/ New Era Performance

This episode is brought to you by 6XD Gearbox. More on them later. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Minnoxide Podcast. I'm your host, Harris, AKA Minnoxide, man of many automotive aspirations. And now for my first time back in California in six years, but first time doing podcasts, I'm here at New ERA Performance. And a few weeks ago, I had Brandon and Tiana from ARS on, and they're like, you gotta get this guy. They've been trying to get you on the podcast for like two years. Since I met them, they're like, you gotta get our boy Alex on. So go ahead and tell us a little bit about your shop, what it is you do, and of course, some of the race cars that you got too.

I mean, we're just your standard late model. I say late model as we're sitting here with a 57 Bel Air, but we do a lot of late model stuff. We were known for late model stuff. Originally came into this working on trucks. That's kind of how I got my name out there. 1000-horsepower all-wheel drive truck. Once we opened up the shop, obviously we get into what's out there, which is all the... At that time was all LS, but then we got into the LT's and we've done a lot of LT's since they started coming out. So we kind of focus on all the late model stuff, 99 and up. My market is pretty much all makes and models from GM. We pretty much do everything. So anything Performance, LS, Performance, LT, that's what we do.

All right. So when did you open a shop though? You said something like 10 years, 15 years?

2015.

2015? Okay. Before you had the shop, were you just kind of doing stuff on the side or what were you doing at that point?

I was going to college. Okay.

What were you going to college for?

Construction management.

Okay.

I went there, got my first job in the construction field doing rebar.

Okay.

I was there for a year and I didn't like the 905. It was a simple, not my thing. So I went to college for all these years to then to realize that I had to work 905, I had a one-hour lunch, and by then I already had a race car which was that truck that I had. It wasn't a race car, it was more of my hobby. But it got to the point where I had already bought the tuning software and everything needed, and I was already kind of messing with my own things, and I was messing, you start from nothing, and cousins, friends, and eventually I started charging. So when I had this job on my lunch break, I would make more money in one hour doing a bolt-on Silverado at that time. Then I would do it all day at work. And that's all it took for me to kind of just think about it and say, why would I want this? Why would I want to work eight hours for something I can do and make it two hours or an hour? So that happened, and I quit the job, and I stopped going to college.

Okay, so you didn't finish college then?

No, I have one class left.

Oh, you have one class left, okay. But at that point, you were just like, you just made a leap of faith into tuning at this point, or?

No, I made the leap of faith of quitting my job and working on cars, because I knew how to be hands on. So I started working out of my parents' house.

Okay.

And I was doing side jobs, you can call it, out of my parents' house, and in a week, I would make way more than I would make at my regular job that I had at the time. So that's when I decided that I wanted to be, back then, I wanted to be a mechanic. You know, I did that. I worked out of my house for two years. I kind of saw that there was money to be made, and somehow I got convinced to getting a shop, and here we are. Still the same spot I started 10 years ago, but at a much different level of what we do now than what we did back then.

So then, obviously you went to school for construction management. Did you learn some business skills along the way? Or is everything you've done here, just all kind of like learning as you go?

Everything's learning as you go. Once you own your own shop, everything just goes out the window of what you've learned. It just doesn't work like that anymore.

When does New ERA, is it an LLC and corporate? When was the day that New ERA became the name?

On my birthday, September 29, 2015. That was the day that I got all the paperwork. It was an LLC then, it's a corp now. We switched it over. Don't ask me why, my accountant.

Yeah, you let them handle that.

I let them handle it now. Back then, I did everything. The first thing was you got to get an LLC. Okay, cool. Went online, figured out who could help me out. So, September 29, 2015, is exactly 10 years, is last September. And it lands right on my birthday. So, that was kind of like my birthday present. Like, you're gonna take it, this is what you're gonna do, well, then let's do it. Plus, obviously help from parents. At that time, I was much younger, and I didn't have the money to open a shop to buy toolboxes, lifts. I mean, I spent a good penny, and obviously it happened with the help of the family, I guess you could say. So, yep.

Were you by yourself then? You had the space to yourself at that point, or did you have somebody helping you, a hand?

No, so I've always had help, I guess you could say. When I was out of my house, it got to the point where I had help, but I was doing a lot of the work. I was doing the cams, I was doing any type of work, I was doing it myself, and then on the weekends, I had somebody that would come down and help me, which is actually one of my cousin's employees. He's owned the business for 20 plus years. He has an employee that was a lot younger, more of my age, that knew how to work on cars, so I asked him to come down and help me. I would pay for his gas. It was a two hour drive, but he would come out here. We would wrench Friday, Saturday, Sunday nonstop, and then he would go home. So he helped me. When I opened up the shop, obviously Monday through Friday, he wasn't available. So I wrenched for probably three years by myself, working on cars, tuning the cars, giving it to the customer, and just doing everything on my own. Eventually, I started having to do, learn the whole, needing an accountant, manage books, QuickBooks, doing estimates, invoices. You had to be more on the legal side. But I did that for like three years, seven days a week. And then two years after that, I was six days a week. And then after that, we were back to five days a week. And then right now, we're five days. The six days-

Now it's nine to five, right?

Yeah, right. That doesn't change. So I used to work, honestly, I would be here till midnight every day back then. Now I'm still here, but I have two employees now. And thankfully, I'm able to get work done from nine to five. So they leave at 536. They do stay late, and we do knock out things when we have deadlines, Texas 2K, any sort of Texas race, any sort of race out here in California, we stay late, we wrench, we'll go pretty late. After this, we're going out and doing some support for some customers. So we'll be out late tonight, but I love what I do. So I don't, and I don't really have to go home. So it kind of works out.

Let's talk a little bit about the racing side of things, so like when you go, when did you first start modifying cars? Let's go far back to that point, like 18 years old. 18 years old?

The first time I got my first truck.

Okay.

It was intake headers, I don't know, cam heads, converter, stroker, turbo. It just kept going bigger and bigger. So I was the guy that was spending every paycheck on my truck at that time. So I've been modifying cars for, I don't know, since 2012. So I've been after this pretty hard, probably sooner. The truck was actually a lot sooner. 2005 is the first truck I ever got from factory, from the dealer. And since then, I've been modifying it ever since.

At that point, though, with the truck, I mean, you mentioned turbos and all that stuff. How does that evolve? Did you start doing some street stuff at that point, or are you going to the track? For example, in Texas, they got XRP and Yellow Belly. Did you have an equivalent over here in California, or not really?

We had a local track. We weren't fast enough. We were more of the meetups late at night and go street racing. So street racing was kind of popular. Street racing is not what it is now. Back then, Supercharged, Silverado, and you were fast. Nowadays, you're a nobody. So it just really depends. But we started doing this years ago. It just happened that we would be out on the street races and doing all that stuff. As time goes by, things get faster. Eventually, I sold that truck because 1,000 horsepower back then. It was fun until it wasn't. So then you just want to go bigger and better. And after that, I've built three trucks, I could say. Since then, a couple of cars, mostly sedans. I've never been the type to build a Fox body. You know, just like everybody else.

You don't like going fast or what?

No, I just don't like being like everybody else.

Yeah, yeah.

So if you've noticed, most of the cars I've built, G8, CTS-V, Chevy SS, Silverado. I mean, those have all been full-size cars, you know, street cars, you can call them. But as time gets crazy, things just evolve. And this last truck that I had was no longer a street truck as much as we want to call it.

Do you still have that truck?

No, just sold it.

Just sold it?

That's the one, I don't know if you were a Texas 2K, but that's the one we had a Texas 2K.

Oh, like the maroon red one, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Of those, of all the various race cars and trucks that we had over the years, which one was this? Was there any of them that was like the scariest, the fastest one? Or are they all kind of in the same caliber?

Well, every single one of them has gotten faster. We went from tens in the extended cab to nines in the G8 and the CTS-V to eights in the Chevy SS, to sevens in the truck, to sevens in the Chevy SS. So I think that I've been around horsepower and speed for some time now, that it doesn't really scare me anymore. I think what I get scared more of is safety at that point. The adrenaline rush is there. And I think that when you're done making a race and then you go, I just went 160 in the eighth, I just went 165 in the eighth, then you're just like, oh s***, I don't have a fire suppressing system. The cage is not set for, it's not a 25 two cage. So then that's kind of what's changed in the years. Not more, not the, oh, I went 200 miles an hour. I don't think that scares me anymore. I think that I made a 200 horsepower mile an hour pass and I didn't have a fire suppressing system in case it caught on fire, what's gonna happen? So I think that's what's changed more than anything.

When did you start thinking about safety more?

When I started going faster.

Okay.

I mean, out here in California, it's hard to go fast. I started going to Texas and I started going faster and that's when you kind of just find out how fast you really are because out here, you go 150 and you need a parachute, you need this, you need that. They're really on your a** and California has been known for that. Out in Texas, they don't, you give them a tech card, you sign your name and go race, you know? But then at that point, it's on you to make sure you're on the safe side. So, I don't know. I guess maybe when I got older, maybe that's just the answer, you know?

That makes sense. So are you more of an eighth mile? Are you doing much quarter mile stuff?

We're not really. I love quarter mile stuff. Now that I've been building more in the 2,000 horsepower range cars, eighth mile is already fast enough. I can only think of what a quarter mile car would do. And just the fact on how hard you have to push your motors to go that fast, mostly in LS, if you kind of know about LSs, yeah, there's 3,000 horsepower LSs, yeah, you can make 3,500 horsepower, but at what point does it become like, not unsafe, but I don't even know the proper word I'm looking for, but you just, you can't just go out there and make it without knowing that something might happen.

Yeah, just like a liability.

It's like, yeah, so at that point, now that you're building bigger horsepower cars, you have to just kind of realize that a quarter-mile hit is a lot harder on an engine than an eighth-mile hit. So we do a lot of eighth-mile stuff, and then California doesn't have the prep. I keep going back to California because we just don't have the prep. We don't have the tracks. And when you go to Texas, you get all that. So you start going real fast in such a short distance that you're just like, there's no need to go quarter-mile, you know? And almost all the fast cars just go eighth. Just because they're trapping 200 miles in the eighth nowadays, you know, what are they going to trap in the quarter? So it just depends. I like the eighth-mile stuff. I feel like it's safer on engines, safer on everything. And at the end of the day, building a 2000-horsepower car is a lot more expensive than it was back then building a 1200-horsepower car. You know, you can't do that on a stock block. You can't do a lot of things. Has it been done? Yes. You know, there's a lot of controversy as far as how far you can push a stock block. But once you start going into aftermarket blocks and stuff like that, I mean, it gets pricey.

So it does kind of change everything, doesn't it? When you're dropping, what's an aftermarket block cost? If you want to go to that level.

I mean, if you order a short block, you're going to pay $18,000 for a short block. You order a long block, you're going to pay $25,000, $30,000. It just depends. I mean, you can build a budget motor and people can go on there and be like, I can build you a dark block for $427,000, for $13,000. You could, but at what power, you know, what's the power rating on that motor? What rods are in it? What pistons? You know, you can go, although I can get some $3,000 heads, well, what intake valve and exhaust valve is in it? What springs? Is it a solid? Is it a hydraulic? So it just really depends, but you can build stuff from $15,000, $20,000 to $55,000 blocks for full billet long blocks, you know, from oil pan to manifold. So are you willing to blow up a motor or hurt a motor for whatever reason, anything happens, not your fault, you know, and put another $55,000 motor in there or, you know, it's a lot harder versus you have a 5.3 with, with rods and pistons and you hurt it and you go get another junkyard 5.3, put rods and pistons, you're back out on the road. Yeah.

Cause like, that's one of the things that you see in every comment section, it's like, oh, I can just go build a LS for 500 bucks or a thousand bucks or whatever it is. Is that a reality still? Can you do that?

Yeah. You can do a thousand horsepower, six or block with the right internals and a gen four, six or with the right cam, right turbo, you know, right tune. It'll make a thousand. It'll live at a thousand. Will it be a reliable solid every day? No, you might early shift and shift into second early and bend the rod. So things can happen. We ran a stock LS three at 1260 wheel for the while, for a long as time and with no issues, eventually it bent a rod. You know, you do that at on a dart block at 1200 horsepower, you can run that thing the rest of your life.

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 3,000 horsepower Vipers have not been able to tame the best that 6XD has to offer. So if you're ready to take it up a notch, go to 6xdgearbox.com and when contacting them to place an order, use code MINNOXIDE5 or reach out via socials to figure out how one of the baddest transmissions on the planet could fit in your build. Let's get back to the show.

So it just depends on what level. Can it still be done? Yes. Do people still do it? Yes. Is there a 5.3s out there that make 1200 horsepower? Yes. But then you got to get into what block? Are you going to sleeve it? What rotating assembly? What cam? What manifold? What converter? It just gets crazy. And at the end of the day, to build something out of a 5.3 that makes 1200 for whatever price it is, is it just not worth putting a Dart and make 1200 reliably? No problem. But it just depends. A lot of people have the ego of, I can make a 5.3 do the same thing. Yeah, you can. I'm not going to say you can't. It's still possible. People do it all the time. I'm more of the, why start with that? When you can start with this and be safer. But at the end of the day, it ends up being money.

Were you always like that? Or are you kind of like the kid early on doing that?

No, because when you're 22 years old going to college and you have $20 in your pocket, you're going to look for the 5.3 in the forums and all the people online talking about, my 5.3 makes 800, no problem. And you're going to want to do the same thing until you heard it. And then you're like, well, should I do another 5.3? Well, that's all I can afford. We're going to do another 5.3. So I guess it just depends now that I own a business, do I want to go out there and try to compete with these small tire cars at XRP that are making, those guys make 3,000 horsepower all day. What am I going to do with 1,200 horsepower out there? But you see 1,200 horsepower common on the streets, no prep stuff. That's standard. You can't put 3,000 horsepower on the street, at least not that easy. So 1,200 horsepower is common.

Give me an example like a 2,000 horsepower car that you've had. What is it running the 8th?

The Chevy SS made right around 2,000. I don't know if you ever remember that one, blue Chevy SS twin turboed E85 radiator. We went 450s at 158. That was 3,700 pounds.

And then for context, hold on real quick. Why did you sell that truck, by the way?

The red truck, the moon truck? I think I opened my mouth and I shouldn't have. The motor was out after Texas 2K to get a clean fresh because I don't know if you remember, but after Texas 2K, I pulled the motor, freshened it up at LME, put it back in the truck and finished the race or the weekend. After the first pass on Tuesday, I nicked the piston. I had an injector driver go out and I took out a piston, torched the piston, hurt the cylinder wall. So we went, we put new pistons, honed it, boarded the whole nine yards, put it back together, put it back in, finished Texas 2K. When I came back, it was more of a rush job to get it to finish. We came back, I pulled the motor. While the motor was out, I made two posts in a matter of like three weeks of me just waking up being bored one day and posted the truck for sale. And I put a pretty good price for all the work that had done to it. And it's old. The thing about it is that I had the Chevy assessed for sale for like a year. And I just kept on getting low ball offers. So I just, it sat here for the longest. I just didn't have the time to work on it and finish it and get it back up and running. Plus the truck was running and I really liked the truck. I've always been a truck guy. So when that truck sold, it's hard to sell things when you want to sell them. So when the opportunity came, I said, money talks, done. And the funny part is that the truck sold and a week before the car had sold. So both cars left in the same week. So now I'm completely carless.

So now you got that money burning a hole in your pocket.

That's exactly what it's doing.

Okay.

It's burning a hole in my pocket and I'm looking for something else.

What are you thinking?

Something that nobody has.

Would you do a truck again?

Yeah, I'll do a truck again.

I just love fast trucks, man. You're familiar with Nick Coleman, right? The stick shift. Yeah.

Purple wheels.

Yeah, dude. That thing is nasty.

It's fun. It's nice to see him go down. And I think he was probably the, I don't know if he was the only truck at Texas 2K in the stick shift, on the stick shift side. But then again, I remember I was on the other side and I just got a, what's his name with the blue F-150?

David Van Vorse? Yes. Yeah, yeah, it's him, right? Yeah.

He was there. We were the only trucks there. So is it pretty cool to see two trucks, a truck or three trucks go down at Texas 2K when y'all you're seeing these Camaros, Corvettes, Fox bodies? I mean, that's Mustangs. That's all you see. So I think it's pretty cool.

It's different. That's one thing I love about drag racing is like when you're not niched down to it, for example, how many times can you watch a GTR go down at Texas 2K? I love GTRs. They're fast. They're awesome. But man, it's like we just saw 75 GTRs in a row go down to track.

The GTRs, I mean, the Audis, the BMWs. I mean, they're fun. They're cool. I think it's a pretty cool platform. I think it's b***** on how fast you can make them with whatever it does.

But it's cool to see something unique like a truck.

Everybody has one. Everybody's got a Mustang, you know? I mean, how many trucks were there?

Yeah.

That's what I like. When I took the Chevy SS, I think I was the only guy with a sedan. Well, I think there was a BMW too. Might have been. That was three years ago. That was a blue Chevy SS. We I think we went out the night before and it was like four in the morning and we showed up to the lanes and we were tired. And there's a picture on 1320 video of one of my employees in the backseat sleeping of the car. How cool is that? You have a full interior Chevy SS and somebody's sleeping in the lanes because we're tired. But you don't see that in any other car because they're all two door cars and they were all tin can gutted. And even if they're not gutted, regardless, they're not sedan. So it's something different. So I took that three years ago. And then two years ago, I took nothing. And then this year I took the truck. And I think the truck has been probably my favorite truck that I've owned. And I've had, you're good. I've had a good, a fair amount of cars that I've owned. And I think the truck has been the favorite one.

Okay. Would you still stay GM though?

Yeah, I won't. I can't.

What can you, like, let's say you wanted to go to Truck Crowd. Would you have to go with something older still? Or what would you do?

No, I'd probably go something newer.

Like, what's this one? Like something that's out there? Like that single cab over there?

Yeah, fun story. I just bought that truck.

Oh, so it's your truck going in? Okay.

So I just can't see myself doing something crazy to it.

Okay.

It's a four by four. So you might see something on the, not at the track because four by fours just aren't needed at the track. I mean, they're fun and all, but you got all that extra weight. So I'll probably have that one put together, just have some fun on the streets. But would I build something again like a truck, 100% I'll build a truck. I've always liked that GT 800, the 99 through 07 trucks, the same one I had. Those have been my favorite. That's just been a thing since I was younger.

So let's say you did the same thing again. Would you do anything different in the build?

Yeah, more powerless weight.

More powerless weight. Yeah, I guess that's the formula.

I mean, it's the formula for everything. You know, weight is your enemy and power is your friend. So would I build the same truck at a lot lighter? Yes. Same combo as far as the motor goes. I already know what works. So when you get a platform, you get a combo that works, there's no need. The car and the truck had identical motors. One was single turbo, one was twin turbo. They both ran pretty much identical times as far as eighth mile times. So I already know what works, but they were also the same weight. They were 3,700 pounds. So if I were to do anything different, I would have to do maybe similar motor, better rod. The rod was only rated for 2,000. So it got, I think I bent two rods at one time from trying to push them pretty hard. And the rods just said, no, cars are too heavy. So you end up hurting parts with the weight. But if I could just get a car down to like 3,200 pounds, I think it'd be pretty b*****. And it not being your typical car that's out there racing. So that's what I would do. I'm thinking another truck, just lighter.

I think, again, it goes back to the unique thing, right? Like it's just, it's so cool to see those. It was cool, like even at Texas UK, like you don't really see that many Vs either, no. I mean, just a few, but-

No, I think I didn't see any. I think there was one or two on heavyweight.

Yeah.

Yeah, you don't see the CTSVs back then. And those are pretty fun cars, but again, all these cars are heavy. I mean, that class does have a weight limit and you're kind of limited to superchargers at that point because you can only make so much power. So I think Turbos is the way to go. And then you're limited on turbo size because they limit you. But I think you can do a lot more with Turbos than you can. And I think that the CTSV platform is a good platform. I think the transmissions, the OEM stuff is definitely a limiting factor for a lot of people. I know there's a lot of people out there going really fast with 6L80, 6L90 stuff. And I give it to them. I mean, we've been 8 with that stuff. But the headache that comes with it is just at another level. Now if you own your shop, it's not that bad. I did 6L80, 8 seconds 6L80s before. I had a 6L90 on my Chevy Assess, we went 8 seconds. But when it goes out, you come home, you freshen it up, you rebuild it, you get another one, you put it back in. When it's a customer's car, it's a different story. So when customers come to me and they tell me I want to start going fast, and that's a whole different conversation, but TH400 is just the way to go. And you can talk to a lot of people out there right now, the grudge game and the OE transmissions is big. And there's a lot of people out there really pushing those eight speeds, 10 speeds. But not a lot of people tell you the headaches that they give you when they break and...

Especially behind the scenes, yeah.

Yeah, I guarantee you, and my people might not agree with me, but I guarantee that every fast 8, 10 speed out there, even 6 speed, has a backup transmission in the trailer.

Okay.

Because try doing a four or five shift on a 6L80, you're gonna, it's not gonna be happy, you know? Same thing with 10 speeds, you know, you try to get up there in the 6, 7 shift and not gonna be happy. So making them live at high horsepower, quarter mile is definitely a lot harder than making them live at eighth mile. Just like it goes for engines, you know? And quarter mile is just a lot harder on parts in every way possible.

Speaking of quarter mile though, you were racing a truck quarter mile at Texas 2K, right?

I was.

Was that your first time doing that with that or?

It was.

Okay.

I've made quarter mile hits, but you always kind of just feather it and lift early and kind of just cruise it. I think I made one full rip on the truck because after we put them, I hurt the motor. I put a hole in a piston on the first pass at Texas 2K after the truck had been running great for, I don't know, for a year. We freshened it up and then I was fighting an injector driver, which we eventually figured out right before we jumped into eliminations on Sunday. And when I figured that out, I made a hit, but I was far ahead of the other guy that I lifted, like, 1,000 feet, 1,100 feet. So I never made a full, full quarter mile rip, but that would have been like the first time I made full, full rips on the truck. I mean, it still went 740s. I'm not complaining.

Right. Yeah, when you put it that way.

So I went 740s at 184. I mean, I'm thinking it would have trapped something more in the 190 range based on the eighth mile, because I think it went 472 at 155 to the eighth. So I know it had a little bit more in it, but I mean, it's hard. And trust me, every time I make a quarter mile hit, I'm just waiting for, see what's going to give up.

You said, and you were lifting at that point too. What did you say?

I lifted on every pass at Texas 2K, including the last one I made right before the 1320. So I was just more on the keeping it safe. I was looking over data. I was making sure. I mean, at that point, I think the last two hits, the data looked fine. I could have stayed in it, but when I looked over and I didn't see a car next to me, I pedaled it at the end just because if I did win the round, I didn't want to lose a motor for whatever reason. And once you start building your own stuff and knowing how much it costs to replace a motor, you definitely start taking care of it.

Okay, so you say you're looking over data and stuff. What's your standalone of choice then? The truck is on a standalone, I imagine, at that point.

Yeah, the truck is on a standalone. Anything that's no longer a street car, and even if they're street cars, they make systems for them now. So it just depends on what power and what level you're looking to play with, I guess you could say. Like CTSVs, Chevy SSs, 6Gens, just like GTRs and Audis that have full Motecs, there's full Motecs for all these cars. So you can put a full Motec, do we recommend it to the customer that's making 1,000 horsepower? No, is it smart to put it on a Motec at 1,000 horsepower? Yes, mostly if you have like a direct injection motor that's requiring port injection, you can do a Motec, you can do, there are a couple companies out there. Motec would be the choice for a lot of us, but not for a lot of the customers because of the price point. Gotcha. But as far as like my personal stuff, I've had Motec on the truck before, that truck was actually 4X4. It was on full Motec. Then I pulled it all off and I went on FuelTech. People always ask, why do you do certain things? Because FuelTech was starting to get really popular at the time. What better way of learning something unless you have it on your car? So the car was on Holley, the truck was on FuelTech. They're both great systems, they both do what they have to do. For a full blown race car, people are going to have their own preferences. I like FuelTech for A to B. I like Holley for stuff that you're going to swap, you want to drive every day. There's a couple of things that I prefer on Holley over FuelTech. There's a couple of things I like over FuelTech over Holley. There's things I like on Motec. It just really defends Holltech. All these systems are great. They all do what they have to do. It just comes down to the end user, to the tuner on what you're looking for.

Yeah, that's one of the things that, for example, I've had Luis from FuelTech on the show at 1.2 and it's like they're talking about how they developed everything. So when it comes to, I guess, what was appealing to FuelTech? What made you go try it out? Because what were you doing before FuelTech? You said Holley?

Holley.

Holley, okay. And that was like, how many years ago?

Well, I've been playing with Holley for maybe, I don't know.

No, I mean, like the FuelTech, like when did you make the jump to FuelTech?

That was two years ago.

Okay, so like FT600 then?

Yeah, it has an FT600.

Okay.

And don't get me wrong, I actually got it. I ordered a 700 for the truck. But at that time, there was still issues with boost control and updates.

They're still working it out.

They were still working it out. So I think I went out a few times and it was nothing but struggles, no boost, ECU kept on doing weird things. So we went back to a 600. And that's one thing with FuelTech, I can contact FuelTech tomorrow and they'll work with you. They'll make sure it's right. So that was pretty cool. And we went over to 600, we got the truck working on the 600 and I took over and I never looked back. I mean, 600 does exactly what I needed to do just to go down the track.

Yeah, that's what I've heard as well. It's like the 600 is pretty dialed, but the 700 are like dropping like a firmware update like every week or whatever.

I mean, that's what they're doing. But they're just trying to make it better.

Right.

But I think last week I logged into the 700 to kind of just pull their latest update and check it out and it's 10 times better than it was when I tried it a year and a half ago.

Okay.

And I wouldn't hesitate to try it again. There's already people out there running the 700 with no problems. So that might be an option in the future. Holley's always there. Holley, we just understand.

It's so reliable.

It's just everybody knows how to work it, use it. You know, you can ask for help. A lot of people know how to tune it. So at the end of the day, Holley's just there. FieldTik was good. I learned it. I feel like I know pretty much what there is to know. You're always learning. So I can't say I'm an expert. But when it comes down to tuning and stuff like that, like I know these platforms pretty good that I can get around to doing what I need them to do.

I've heard various opinions on this. When it comes to like you get guys that know five, six, seven different systems, like Motec, FieldTik, whatever. Are you able to be proficient in all of them? Do you think so? Or do you think people bite off more than they can choose sometimes?

I think that comes with experience, with time and just with time. Just like, for example, stock HP tuner stuff with all these platforms. I know LS, I know LT. Can I say I'm the best at both of them? No. Do I feel like I know a lot? I can close my eyes and navigate HP tuners pretty much top to bottom on both platforms, and they both have different tables, and I can tell you where everything's at. But at the end of the day, I learned this with 12 years of experience. I've been tuning LT since they came out in 2014. So that's been 12 years now. I've been doing LT since I started in 2008 or whatever it was. So I think it just comes with the experience. If you do too many platforms, I feel like you do lose a little bit of what you can gain in a different one. But the aftermarket computer systems, I feel like they're all identical when it comes down to what you want them to do, and how you want them to do it. That adjusting fuel and timing on a Holley and a Fieldtik is the same thing versus acting like you know how to tune Ford, Dodge and Chevy, that's a lot more than five computers. Because if you get five cars, they all have a different operating system, whether it's a V2, a G8, and a Silverado. One's a P059, one's an E67, one's an E38. That's all three different operating systems. They're all different. But it's three complete different ones.

Got my Red Bull delivery. Yeah, that's a big one. Yeah, not sponsored by Red Bull. This is a wrecking energy podcast, but they haven't sent it to me yet.

But yeah, the platforms are just, I think that there's a certain amount of things you can learn. And I feel like I've only been, I only have experience where fuel took for maybe two years. So I'm always willing to learn. But for drag racing, you don't have 5,000 tables like HP Tuners does.

Oh, true, I guess, yeah.

I mean, at the end of the day, once you set up a car at the drag, at the drag strip, you're only adjusting timing, fuel, traction and control. Although it's very minor versus you bringing in a, I don't know, a Dodge Demon and trying to tune it.

Right.

And it's different than changing injector data than it is to doing it to a CTS VV3. I just feel there's a lot more in the different platforms of GM and Mopar and Ford cars than there is annoying for four different ECUs because at the end of the day, the Coyote motor on methanol is going to shoot for certain timing and fuel. And then you're going to have the LS and then whatever other platform you're tuning. They're all pretty much the same concept.

So what you're saying is basically like, you're an LS, LT guy, right? You could do all these different types of standalones, no problem. But let's say you're a hall tech guy, but you're doing it on all these different cars, is that where it becomes a struggle? If you're trying to do too many different platforms?

I think it just depends. Race car stuff, I feel like has a lot less tables. Now, if you start doing a Motec that's integrated with CAN, kind of like what Brandon's doing. Exactly, now you gotta play with, your cruise control button does this, your tap up does this, your paddles do this, and you can change all that on Motec, then you're really like, holy s***, this is a lot more than me going down on FuelTech and just adjusting fuel timing and traction control to get down.

Gotcha, okay.

So, it just really depends.

When you're trying to keep kind of like a little bit of that street car sort of stuff.

The knowledge for street car has to be there, that's what I rely on. My business relies on Monday through Friday, 1,000 horsepower modern cars. That's where most of my time and money goes into and just time and work and everything is all the modern stuff. The race car stuff, I do it because I love it and I do it because I just don't street race, I don't drive 1,000 horsepower cars on the street anymore. That was back then. Now that I can afford something a little bit faster, I'm at the track. So I do that, but then you start getting the customers that start following, and then you have to learn how to do that as well. But most of my stuff is just all the LSLT general everyday driver stuff.

Are you seeing, because obviously it's 2026, right? Are you seeing less and less LS stuff or you're seeing more LT? Is it about the same as it's always been?

No, LT is taking over 100 percent.

Okay.

If I were to go back from how I started the shop to where I'm at right now, I started with LS only, LS only. Even though LTs were out, they weren't as popular. Now, LTs, 90 percent of the things we do are LTs. So we work on Corvettes, Camaros. Right now, Blackwings have been very popular. So I love that car, the Blackwing. So we get there and then right now you saw I just got a LS 5.3 Silverado get dropped off. I still work on all that stuff, but I feel like everybody's buying these newer Camaros. They're faster. The LT platform is more efficient. It makes more power. It's why go buy an LS3 Camaro when you can get an LT1 Camaro that's just faster and better, you know?

Oh, actually, that's a good question right there then. Let's say I want a thousand horsepower Camaro. Thousand horsepower Camaro is the goal. What should I buy? Should I get me like an SS? Do I get me a ZL1? Where do you land on that?

It just becomes a budget thing.

Okay.

Do I like the... Do I like a stock motor, stock tranny, thousand horsepower car? The Camaro ZL1 is one of my favorite options. Mind you, this is what I build. I'm a GM guy. Can you make a Hellcat make a thousand every day? Sure. But as far as like what I work on, I love the ZL1 Camaro with the 10 speed and the LT4. You can make a thousand on that car Monday through Friday. Drive it every day and it's fun. You got to add a port injection, heads and cam, 2650. You're going to drop, I don't know, 20, 30. I don't want to give a wrong number, but you're going to drop some money. Now you can go to LS, big injectors, big fuel pump, big turbo, half the price than building the LT and make the thousand horsepower as well. LT is just the fueling is the problem. So once you add port injection, you add a good amount of cost and then you can shoot for whatever you want. So what would I do if I was building something right now? I'd do an LT. What would I do if I was 22 years old in college? I would have started building an LS.

No, but real quick though is like when we're looking at like the SS, like a LT LS or sorry, I'm stuttering like crazy.

No, it's like if you look at like a Camaro SS LT1.

Yeah, there you go. If you do that versus like what's the LT4.

That would be, I'd do LT4 all day.

All day? Okay.

I'd finance the LT4, put it into my monthly payment because I'm starting with a better motor in general that will handle the power. The LT1 is a good car. We have cars out there making 750 horsepower. The problem is that that motor is known to break a piston or a ring land at 650. It's just a much, much weaker piston than the LT4 combo. So if I'm going to spend the money, you're going to take a lot more money to make that LT1 as fast as an LT4.

Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That's what I was going for. So that's the main weak point then is when, wouldn't you just be able to do pistons in an LT1? You can do pistons and rods, but it's just not worth it at that point.

I mean, if you're going to open it up to forge the motor, I mean, it just depends. I wouldn't.

Yeah.

Do we do it here all the time? Of course we do rods and pistons on cars all the time, but what would I start off with? I'd start off with the LT4, but then again, it just depends. You get these 6Gen Camaro LT1s that is like a gutted car from the factory that already comes with no speakers and half the interior in there. They're already, I don't know how many pounds lighter, but you get that car, you put a rod and piston combo in it, you make it 3,000 pounds and you go fast on the motor. And you can't do that with the 2SS Camaro just because they come with leather interior, they come with all the bells and whistles, and now you're just trying to go fast with so much weight.

Okay. When do you start, because Magnusson's in your backyard over here, right?

Correct.

What does that conversation look like with customers? When do you advise them to go from an LT4 to a 2650?

The moment they bring it to my shop.

Okay.

The problem is that you're gonna go back out there and you're gonna hear a lot of people, the stock LT4 will make 950 horsepower. We've seen people make a thousand horsepower. No doubt about it. Change the snout, go crazy on the port, put a big motor behind it, high compression, you're gonna make it. But you're always fighting intake air temps, you're always fighting a bunch of things. Now, can you solve all those problems? Yes. But by the time you're done putting all these money and time into that LT4 blower, which a lot of people will brag about and I have nothing against them, you can put a 2650, make a thousand horsepower, and if you look at a log without changing anything on your car, you look at a log going down the quarter mile, it'll start at 150 intake air temps, and it ends at 120, 110 out the back of the track. You try to do that with an LT4, there's not one time that I've ever seen an LT4 go down on temperature. So can it be done? Yes. You can put an ice box, put a chiller, do whatever you want. You can get the LT4 to make that power. But the 2650 just makes it easier, you know, less stress, nicer cooling. Everything else just works. So I tell customers, save up your money.

So explain it to me like I'm new to cars, right? Like, what is the big, why does the 2650 better? Like, why is it able to do that? Is it just because it's a bigger blower at that point?

It just has better cooling, better, better brakes, better design. You know, overall, you know, it's a 2650, so it works less to make more power. Now, is there a, do I tell people, if you're not spinning it hard enough, will you lose low-end power? Yes, that little 1.7 liter LT4 blower, it's nasty from a dig. Once you pour it, you turn it up, it's a mean machine. The 2650 is great, but it just, it shines out the back, not on the front, you know? And you'll start seeing mile an hour differences when you start comparing 900 horsepower LT4 blower to 900 horsepower 2650 cars, you'll see the difference by the 330, and then at the eighth mile, you'll see the mile an hour change. You'll know that the 2650 is just gonna shine out the back.

Wow, okay. Well, that's a good explanation. Cause like, again, you're in the same forums I am, probably like the Draggy forums, the LS forums, and you always have the hero cars, right?

Yeah, of course, they're all out there.

Yeah, I did this for a shoestring budget, and I, you know, it's like, why, you know.

Everybody does it, and I mean, I probably would have been one of those guys, you know, back then.

Right, it comes with age, right?

It comes with age, it comes to the, am I gonna put a 5.3 with the 76 mil turbo, or am I gonna put a Dart 427 with the 98 mil turbo? You know, we're both gonna make a thousand horsepower, which one do you wanna put in there? You know, ideally the 5.3 might make a thousand horsepower, cause it's so and so mated, you know, with rods and pistons it will, maybe not with the single 76 and need like an 88 mil turbo, but if it's my car and I'm gonna do it once, I'll put a, you know, little Dart block, six bolt head, 98 mil turbo, it'll sneeze a thousand no problem, Monday through Friday. That's what I want, that's reliable and fun, and it just comes with the age and, I don't know, I hate pulling my motor out every fricking, that comes with time too. I hate pulling my motor every three months, because I hurt it, even though I hurt them all the time, because now I'm not making a thousand, I push them at two thousand horsepower. So you hurt them also, so the next step is step up to a big block or something, and then make two thousand horsepower reliably. So just depends, that's why there's the pro lines, that's why there's the big blocks, all these motors out there that are seventy five thousand dollars because you can make two thousand horsepower. But once you have that motor, you're not going to want to make two thousand. You're going to want to make three now.

So that's a fair point. OK, let me see if I remember correctly. So the truck was twins, right?

Truck was single.

Oh, no, that was single.

And then the car was twins.

That was twins. You said they were making about the same power, though, at one point, right? Basically, like same set up besides that. What was the reason between twins versus single? Any preferences there?

No, I think the car was always been twins. And then the truck, I think I came up on a deal on a single 1998 turbo when I was first putting it together. And I said, I'll try single. You asked me what I like now, I like twins.

Okay.

You know, they both went same mile an hour. The truck went a little bit faster with the single, but I was also pushing 36 pounds of boost where the car was pushing like 30, 32. So it took a little bit more boost out of the truck. It did mile an hour a little bit more. We went 160 in the truck. We went 461 at 160, and then I went 458 at 158 on the truck.

Okay. You said you kind of lean towards twins now though. Is there any benefits to that over to single?

I think I just like how it looks.

Oh, yeah. It does look cool. It does look cool.

I think twins make more power.

Okay.

They make more power. I do like the way a single turbo sounds versus a twin turbo. I feel like there is a difference in tone and sound, and I feel like the single is laggier to spool than a twin, but I feel like the twin is just mile an hour better. So I don't know. Maybe it's just me. I don't have hard data to back this up.

Fair enough. Speaking of data though, let's talk about, let's say you're racing on a bad surface. We'll just call it that. What are you looking at data-wise? Are you able to make, I guess, you have a lot of experience in working with bad surfaces, I imagine.

Not really.

No? Okay.

I've never been, we do, no, not bad surface. I guess I don't, bad surface is a bad track for us here in California where you can walk on your hey dudes on the track and that's a bad surface for me. But as far as like street street racing, we do some here and there, but I don't have big experience. Sure, sure. But I mean, I know what I'm looking for. You know, you're looking for, you need to make sure you have the proper data, the proper sensors, and then you're looking for, you know, what's causing it, suspension changes, wheel speed and power management, power managing all that stuff.

That makes sense. Do you have a, speaking of suspension, do you have any preferences on who you work with or just kind of all across the board?

Personal preference, all my cars have been on stand tough.

Okay.

Coilovers and struts, whatnot. I work with people that work with me. So I can call Chris right now and say, it's doing this, what do I do? I've never had this happen to me before. He'll answer, there's other companies out there that you can't get ahold of them. So I work with companies that they're easy to get ahold of, people that I can work with, people that help with their, with setting up their equipment, their product. So we work, stand tough has been great for me. I'll put that on any car that comes in and that's what I work with.

Let's just cut back in. So me and my brother are talking off camera for a second here about NA builds. Do you do a lot of those? Or is it all boosted in here? How's the boost?

No, we do a little bit of everything. I don't have a, I'm known for NA builds or I'm known for boost builds. I feel like we have a little bit of everything. We have Fast 6Gens on the motor. We have Fast 6Gens boosted, C7s boosted, anything else. I've done turbos, superchargers, pro chargers. So we do a little bit of everything. I kind of feel like I do a little bit of everything, but we don't do big horsepower of everything because I just feel like people in California don't spend all their money on their cars because they got to spend their money on the living to live. So it's kind of hard to get customers to drop $100,000 on a fast car. We boost a lot of stuff. I love boost. People tell me, what would you do? I'd throw a supercharger before I throw heads and cam in a car. Oh, but you can do 600 on heads and cam and you're going to make 600 on a supercharger. Yeah, but when I go to the grocery store, I'm not going to sound like I'm fricking over here all crazyed out because I need headers and loud exhaust and high ram and all this stuff to make 600 horsepower when you can make that with the Maggie on E85 and sound bone stock and take the kids and the family and do everything you got to do at the same horsepower level. So, I mean, it just depends. I love boost. I don't think I would ever go back to building an A car, but again, it comes down to age and budget. As a 40, 50-year-old older person, you're not gonna wanna have a car that you can't even sit on because everything rattles and shakes and it's an A build like these crazy cars out there that are, oh, we run eight seconds on our NA car. Yeah, it's a tin can and...

It's always a Fox body, too.

And it's a damn Fox body. But you know what I'm trying to say. I'd rather have a full-way, full-interior, 1200-horsepower car that goes nines, reliably. Quiet with the AC on. So, yeah. But we do a little bit of everything. Like I said, I mean, I got a freaking 57 Bel Air here that we're putting an LT4 in.

I was going to ask you about this next, yeah. What's the story with this car? Nothing.

It came in as a roller. We dropping in motor, tranny. It's an LT4 with 10-speed. We're going to wire it up. We're going to do fuel system, brake system, get it all running, make sure you can move it in and out. And then it's going out for paint. It'll have radiator, AC condenser, heat exchanger, the whole nine yards. So we do a little bit of everything.

Do you guys do the paint and body or no?

That's one thing I asked them to do. So if you can see the insides painted red, nice and clean, because that's going to be kind of final when we're done with it. The outside, I said, don't even touch the outside until I'm done with it, because I don't want to have to deal with it, scratch it or anything. So I said, let me get everything going. You'll leave with this car running and you can take it in for bodywork and finish the rest of it later. So, but we do a little bit of everything. This is an LT4 swap that we're doing. I have a truck outside that we just did a 416 LSA blower, 4L80 Holley that we just finished not too long ago. And then on top of that, we have 2650 LT4s, 2650 LT1s. We have a twin turbo Camaro on the other bay.

Is it like a gray ZL1 that we saw on there?

Yeah, the gray ZL1 is a twin turbo.

Okay.

Camaro, we have a white 2650 C7 outside. I just finished the heads cam 6th gen. Like I said, we do a little bit of everything. At the end of the day, the LS and the LT, that's all there is to it, no matter what car it's in.

What was your favorite build that you've done out of the shop in the last 12 years that you've been in business?

I don't think I have favorite builds.

Okay.

I think I just enjoy all of them. I did a 2650 Chevy SS, 416, built tranny, 1200 horsepower. The things that it's fun. It makes great power. It runs. I think those are pretty cool for sedans, and we've done C7s that make, I mean, we did a single turbo C7 that made 1400 horsepower, and that one was pretty cool too. It's like Motec, that one was on Motec, so that one was fun. We've done all kinds of stuff. We've done full blown race cars. I don't know, I like everything I do. That's the cool thing about it. I don't like one particular thing. If it's getting a supercharger, I like to do it this way. If it's getting turbos, I like to do it this way. But I think the only thing I don't like are pro chargers. Other than that, I'll build anything.

Any reason you don't like pro chargers? Or I guess, is it just centrifugal blowers across the board?

Yeah, they're loud. They're annoying. You can hear them from a mile away.

I get, well dude, I'd go f****** insane with this traffic here too, with the blowers. I'd go insane.

I just, I guess, when you get older, you want something quieter and fast. Why do people start buying these expensive cars that are thousand horsepower, but sound stock and run stock because you get to enjoy all that without having this crazy a**, loud, annoying 600 horsepower car.

That's fair. I can see that.

I don't know. Everybody's different.

Okay. Who do you respect in the industry?

People that do things out there for others, I guess you can say. I mean, if we're going to start naming names. I think Dave, we were talking about that earlier. I think he's done a lot for what we do. We own a shop. He's done a lot for us as far as helping us do things with cars that we couldn't do without him.

You're talking about Dave Stack?

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

DSX. Right. Stack, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got confused for a second. I feel like GPI Ryan, I've known him for, since before I opened up my shop, I've known him since forums days back in the days. I feel like lately, in the last couple of years, he's really gotten into helping get into the background on HP tuners and helping us develop and find new tables, which besides keeping things to himself, he puts out there a lot of information for us that we can use and benefit from. So I think that's helpful for us. And I don't have the time to sit there and make some weird code in the background or play with certain things, but he's done that. And I respect him for making posts and outputting out information that can help us as a shop owner, as a tuner, to better customers' cars in general. So any YouTuber out there that actually has valid information is pretty cool, not just people that make it for click baits and for stuff like that.

Oh, so you're watching a lot of ChrisFix in here then, huh?

No, what do you mean? Wait, what? I don't even know who that is. I just like people that just kind of help the industry. And there's a lot of names out there that I can start thinking.

It's a long friends list, yeah.

Yeah, I mean.

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In general, there's just a lot of people out there that help us. Mike at Too High PSI, that guy is amazing. I have any issues, I call him. He's smart. He knows his product. You know, there's just people that help me make my job easier and better and faster. And in general, that's people who I who I respect, you know.

What makes your job harder being in California, probably being step number one?

Well, California is definitely the number one list. Customers that don't listen, customers that spend their time on Facebook and Google and doing their own research or listening to everybody else or customers that don't understand. We're going back to the 5.3 subject. So-and-so made a 5.3 at 1200 horsepower. Why doesn't mine live at 1200 horsepower? Why won't you make my car make 1200 horsepower? People that are just hard headed, people that don't understand, you know, what it takes to do that at that level, you know, that that makes our job difficult. If I tell you tell me you want 1000 horsepower and I give you the Heads Cam 2650 port injection combo and I tell you it will make 1000 horsepower and then you come back at me and you go, but so and so, that's what makes our job difficult, you know, because as a shop, I know what will make it, I know what will be reliable, I know what I can send you out with and send you for the next five years with no problem. Versus so and so did it with this combo. Well, yeah, well, how long is it gonna live? You know, are you willing to mix 37% ethanol content to make sure you make that 1000 horsepower when you're at E20 and you detonate and break a piston? You know, are you ready for the consequences? So, it just really depends on what it is, but customers, California. That's it. Honestly, it's just California. It really sucks out here.

Do you guys have pump E85 out here?

I do.

Okay.

Our pump E85 is decent. We make 1200 horsepower with the no problem.

Okay.

I'm sure we've make more. I usually switch them over to drum fuel once they're up in that power range.

What's your choice of a drum fuel?

Whatever I can get faster and easier. Again, it's hard to get stuff out here. Right now, ethanol 1R.

Okay. Gotcha. Okay.

So, before Ignite Red, except I started having a hard time getting them out here.

Oh, wow. Okay.

Ethanol 1R is probably the easiest we can come around. So, we'll do 1R. We'll do X-98, you know, it just depends. But ethanol 1R is probably my choice of fuel to push up in the... I've been probably 2,000 horsepower with ethanol 1R.

Okay. Yeah. I see a lot of people running that at this point. Like all the twin turboviper guys, because we're from Minnesota, right? So, twin turbovipers is kind of like our backyard thing. Yeah. So, it's like all on one ethanol. Okay. Do you ever see yourself phasing out LSs? You just like keeping that customer base?

Well, I mean, I think LSs is just going to continue and not die.

Okay.

It hasn't died since, I mean, it's an old combo. It's an old LS. It's been out there for years. So, I don't think that's going to die. And honestly, what keeps us in business is people that keep going back to wanting their cars LS, LT swap. So, we still see 90% LS swaps, 10% LT swaps. Okay.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. When it comes down to that subject, I don't think LSs are going to die. I'm not saying I work on LSs a lot. I actually work on LTs more than anything. But the LS platform is common. It's out there. And there's still people out there that want to go fast. And the LS is just proven.

This is kind of like resto mod country out here too. Do you see a lot of resto mods or like people just doing swaps over here?

It's common. It's hard to find the fancy expensive swaps, but you do see a lot of LS swaps. It's just common out here.

That makes sense. What's the weirdest LS swap you've seen? Like a VW bug with an LS or something crazy like that.

I haven't seen a VW. I've seen, I mean, I had a 1932. What was it? It's, I forgot the name of it. It's some sedan looking old school car that was sitting on a C4 chassis. I actually did that earlier today.

Yeah, so you post about that, yeah.

That one was pretty cool. I don't know, I've done a lot of LS swaps. I've tuned swaps in a boat. So nothing surprises me nowadays. People throw LSs on everything.

That's fair. Let's say I do want, a common thing I'm starting to see now is some of these older Porsches, you could throw an LS7 in there. If I wanted to get an LS7 swap into something like that, would you do entertain a project like that? Or is that just too out there, too many issues to figure out?

No. That's a good question. I take in jobs that customers are willing to spend the money in doing it right. So would I take a swap like that? Yes. There is parts for them already. So it's not like it hasn't happened. As long as you're willing to properly wire it, properly do this and do that, I have no problem.

Okay. That makes sense.

We swapping, I just don't like the customer that shows up at the motor and goes, hey, can you swap this in here? The guy in the backyard quoted me $3,500. That's what I don't like. I wouldn't entertain that. Now, if you tell me, hey, I have a swap, I instantly shoot you with, it's gonna start at this price range and it can go up to this price range. If this is within your budget, I'm willing to do it. So I'll do a swap on anything as long as they sell the parts that doesn't require me to go custom make every single piece. I can custom make certain things. Exhaust are usually a thing that needs to get either made or modified. But as long as there are motor brackets, there's tranny mounts and stuff like that. As long as I can sit a motor in a car, I can take care of the rest. That's not a problem.

Are you doing fab work out of here as well, then?

We started doing fab work maybe a year or two years ago. We'll build anything you want. The craziest thing we've done has been full on custom headers and full tool and turbo kit from scratch. That we don't do often, but I love doing them because when they're done, it just makes the product look so much better. We're not really known for having a full blown fab shop, but intakes, exhausts, any sort of fabrication that needs on cars we're working on, we can get all that done.

Gotcha. Okay. That makes sense. So you're more so, yeah. Okay.

So it's not like I bring in cars and I go, yeah, that's, what do you need for fab work? No, it's more of a, this car right here is going to need an exhaust done. I can get it done. We're going to probably do a custom expansion and overflow tank, sorry. Yeah, overflow and catch can and expansion tank. And we're probably going to tuck them in the corners. That's going to get all custom done. We'll do all that instead of ordering like your standard catch can. We'll do custom stuff like that, but for whatever's already here. I'm not, hey, I got a job. Can you bring it in just for fab work? No, but when it's here for a motor swap and we have to do something custom, that's where my fab shop comes into place where we can kind of provide that service without having to send the car out.

No, that makes sense. Yeah, this thing is shiny, man.

Yeah, he bought the whole chrome polished accessory drive. I'm more of a black type of guy, but.

You can appreciate on these older cars, I feel like chrome looks good on them as well. More than modern stuff, at least.

Yeah, I don't like it on the modern stuff.

Yeah, it looks a little, yeah.

Customers like to have their own taste. I don't say no. It's your car, it's your money.

Yeah, for example, how long is this thing expected to be here for?

I'll probably hire it for like two months.

Okay, no problem.

I need to do brakes, fuel and wire the whole engine.

And is somebody else going to take care of all the interior and stuff? They're going to send it off to the next shop?

After it leaves here, it's going to leave here running. That's goal number one. After that, it goes for interior, body, all the other things that are missing. That was the whole plan. Originally, I was going to do more wiring on it, but he wants to kind of do other things to it. It's his long-term project, so my goal is to get it running, get it driving, send it out. He continues with the rest.

That makes sense. Are you doing all wiring in-house typically though?

Yeah, all my wiring's in-house.

Okay.

Everything we do here is pretty much in-house. If it has to leave in, I'll probably just recommend another shop to do whatever is missing. So the fab work, the wiring, the brakes, we do all custom brake lines, all that. That gets done in-house. Then obviously paint or anything else that needs to get done, we'll just recommend them or he might have a shop already.

That makes sense. Well, let's go back to racing for a second here as well. Because if you have to do anything at a track, I mean, can you even do anything locally or do you just have to go to the next state over sort of deal?

We have one track two hours away. I try to go with customers when there's like test and tune on Fridays. But again, it just depends on the type of customer, what they're trying to do. If you have a 500, 600-horsepower car, they want to hire you for track support, I'll gladly go. If it's a 1200-horsepower car, test and tune on a Friday night at a local track isn't going to cut it. So what I try to do is I try to convince all our customers to go to these events that are happening. We have one happening on Saturday locked in. It's going to have good prep, or at least better prep than your average Monday through Friday. We have one in Sonoma called Race Wars coming up in two months or one month. Same thing. They'll have better prep. They're focused more towards the racer than just your Friday night college student that wants to take his car to the track. So I try to travel when there's events. When I had a race car, I was in Phoenix, NorCal, the local track and Texas. I've been to Florida. If there's events, I was scheduled to go to, was it Bragging Rights? Not that just happened, but the truck was, it was sold. So I couldn't make it.

So you'll go anywhere in the country.

I'll travel to race. I love racing. I invite my customers, but again, leave the job for five days. You gotta leave on Tuesday, be there Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday to come back Monday and figure out how to get there and how to get back. Some of these people just aren't cut for it.

Are you trailering everything yourself? Like if you go to Florida, for example?

No.

Okay.

Florida, I'll probably send the driver. Okay. It's more convenient for me to stay and work three days while they're on the road than it is for me to be on the road and not work.

Okay.

So it's just a situation. If I'm traveling 10 hours away, New Mexico, Phoenix, Tucson, I'll drive. I'll leave at night, get there, race, leave in the afternoon, get back to work on Monday. If I'm leaving Texas, sometimes I drive, I'll run through the night. I'll leave on a Friday, get there on a Sunday, or leave on a Monday, depending. Texas, okay, I usually-

It's a long event too.

Well, that one I usually send somebody with the car and truck and trailer, and what will happen is they'll get there, and then I'll just fly in the next day to be there because I'm trying not to lose so many days of work. Because at the end of the day, I call it a one-man shop, although I have two employees that help me out. But the e-mails, the phone calls, the text messages, the tuning, everything is done by me.

Yeah, no days off.

So at the end of the day, if the guys don't have anything to do on Friday, they're not going to go on and see what customer is next. They're not going to call them to bring it in. I have to do all that. So I make sure that the guys have work if I leave or if I don't leave, I make sure I have everything scheduled for them to do to get things done around the shop, you know?

Okay. What's next for you then? So what's the next one, two, three, five years look like? Does the shop change at all? Are you going to be doing more the same? What's the plan there?

I think the work is based on what's coming in at the time. I don't focus on one platform. Like I said, I'll do LSs, I'll do LTs, I'll do swaps. We pretty much do a little bit of everything. We got a hang of a little bit of everything. So I think it just depends on how the market goes. I feel like eventually it's going to start being more black wings, escalate Vs. All these newer cars are going to start shifting in, and we're going to start pushing more of the older stuff out. What do I see as far as the building and the shop? I'm trying to leave this building. I'm trying to get my own building. I'm just trying to expand. I think that's what every shop owner eventually tries to do. Even though I've been stuck here for 10 years, I feel like it's time to grow and time to expand. And I think that in the next five years, it'll be a whole different ball game, which might attract a whole different type of crowd. And we'll see what crowd that is at that time.

Yeah, that's something that I talked about with Brandon on their podcast. It's like that changed, the builds are just entering a different type of caliber. I mean, they still do a lot of the bread and butter stuff, but yeah, you never know. Would you still stay in this area? Would you try to go on at the different part of California or to be determined?

It's to be determined. Honestly, out here, it's just expensive.

Yeah.

So have I thought about moving?

100%.

The problem is making that change. We're all scared of that change. I think, I mean, other people might not be scared. I'm scared of closing out the shop and leaving 24 hours away, 1500 miles to start the shop all over again.

No, I mean, that's for sure. But you also just sold two cars. You got that money burning all in the pocket.

I'm not.

That's still a listing, so I'll have you updated by tomorrow morning.

I mean, I've been going pretty crazy on looking for something to race. I love racing, so.

I really hope you get a truck again, man.

Me just sitting here, I love working on cars, but I would like for me to go racing and take three customers with me. And I've been to Texas 2K with three customers and myself. Like, I've done it, but at the end of the day, it doesn't happen every year because not everybody can afford to leave their work for a whole week. So they were able to do it this year, but they can't do it next year, you know? I kind of plan Texas 2K every year, so it's like already on the calendar. Like, that's my vacation. I call it a vacation because I'm not necessarily working. The emails are not even being answered during that time. The guys are here for like a day or two, and then I fly them out to Texas, and then they're out there with me the whole weekend. You know, we kind of shut down the shop. So it's already in my schedule and my plans. So that's what I keep on doing, and I'll keep on doing. I just love the racing scene. I love... I just like going fast.

I think that's got to be every shop then. So there's probably what? 60, maybe 100 shops at Texas2K? Yeah, there's thousands of emails not being answered.

Yeah, I have customers that will email me and be like, hey, so I was going to go to this shop, but they're not answering because they're at Texas2K. I was wondering if, then I get back and I go, by the way, I just got back from Texas2K myself. Do you still need to bring in that vehicle or whatnot? But a lot of shops closed for a whole week that week. And it's like PRI, PRI, SEMA, Texas2K, any big event that's for racing, I think the bigger majority of the shops closed down. Shops that have cars that can compete at that level, because going to Texas2K doesn't seem like a lot until you realize that you gotta be 850 or faster. And then you go, well, Jesus, half 80% of the cars at my shop don't go 850s or faster. Then you're just like, well, certain shops that are going is because they build cars that go that fast. And they're there with their personal cars. I mean, I can name two, three shops that take their customers and take their own personal car to go racing because they want to have some fun. And then there's people out there that just don't care for it anymore or are much older and they did this 20 years ago, so they don't care to be out there with their personal car. I guess I'm still in that stage where this is all new to me. That truck was probably the fastest truck I've ever built. So I get excited when I go race it. How fast can I go? Will I go faster? Maybe if I have that truck for six years straight, I just wouldn't have the feel like I've already been to six Texas 2Ks with the same truck. But I think I've been to two. I think I've had like three, four different cars at every Texas 2K. I think all cars I've had, I think the SS went, I think the CTS-V went, the Chevy SS went two years, and then the truck went one year. I've been going to Texas 2K since it was in Houston, which it's been five years or so by this time.

That's why I started going in 2021 or 2022.

I think that's right around when I started going. When it was back in Houston, I think it was there for two years or three years before they closed it.

Yeah, I went for two years in Houston, and since then it's been Dallas. Yeah, which I do like Dallas, but Houston, it was different.

I think Houston had a nicer, crazier street scene.

Yeah, it was fun.

Street racing, all that stuff was crazy back then. Dallas, it's just, I mean, you leave Texas 2K and you gotta watch your speed, because there is just people just waiting for you to speed everywhere.

I do like Dallas, though, as a city, though. It's fun to stay in. I've liked that.

Oh, over Houston, 100%, personally.

Yeah, it's just a little nicer, a little more stuff to do outside of car stuff. Yeah. But, okay, let's say you get this next truck. Are you going to start, I'm just gonna pretend it's a truck.

I'm trying to figure out what truck I'm gonna buy right now, because you got me thinking of one.

Yeah, I mean, you're limited to your options. It's GM. It's not like you're thinking about doing what Manuel's doing.

Imagine I do a Coyote. Just kidding. I'd have to call Manuel. Can you come down here? I don't know what I'm doing. Why are you running 62 turbos? These things won't work on anything but 76s. Those guys run small turbos, lots of boost. Those small engines just don't need 110 mil turbos to get up and go. He does a lot of crazy stuff. I respect him for what he does. Yeah, he's got a lot. He's pretty big in the no prep out there. So I'm focused more on the track stuff. I don't even know if I could build something that's crazy fast to compete. Those forges are just hands down to them. I respect them in every way. I won't build one. I won't. I won't say I won't buy one because the tow truck is a Ford.

But every shot has got a Ford as a tow truck.

Dude, they're great. I've had Denali's and AT4's and I don't know this Ford. I really, really like that Ford for towing.

What do you got for a Ford truck?

That's an F250.

Like a newer one or?

2022.

OK, yeah.

10 speed. It works. Yeah. I put the limiter at 98 miles an hour with the Gooseneck going to Texas. And I'm over here like, I ain't going faster, but it tows amazing. It's stable. It tows. It's strong. It's I haven't had one problem since I bought that truck.

That's awesome. And everybody says the same thing.

They're great. Would I build an F-150 four by four twin turbo combo like Manuel? No. Do I like what he's done? A hundred percent. That green truck he just finished.

Yeah.

Love it. That is like a beautiful truck.

So you're getting a four then?

No.

One of the things I've noticed is with those F-150s is if you don't have them dialed in, they kind of like to skate the four by fours. Is it the same thing with the Chevy's?

So I don't know what it is. I can't sit here and tell you I've looked into it, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with their whole front suspension on it. Those things don't, they don't bunny hop. They don't do no crazy stuff. The Chevy, I've been, I think the four by four I had was making like 1600 horsepower. At one point I was thinking of putting it out, street racing it. Then I realized I want to shop. I don't want to go to jail, whatnot. We never got them to leave that smooth. We tried everything we can think of. I think without doing some major work in the front end, I just don't think they work as good as a Ford. I could be wrong. Maybe I'm missing something. I have seen a lot of four by four GM trucks out there that are fast, but I feel like not one truck works as good as the Fords do. They got down. Ford got down with whatever they're doing. I don't know if they're swapping diffs. I don't know if they're what they're doing, but whatever they do. I know they're skating around, but when you're pushing 1,800hp or 1,600hp, you're going to have traction issues.

Yeah, and they get a good bit of weight out of those too. I mean, it's just fun to watch those things race.

I love watching all those races.

I want to go back to this truck of yours though. Okay, so you got the very... Would you stick to that one era? You said, what was it, the 97, 2008 or something?

Yeah, I'd stick to that. I feel like it's a lighter platform.

Okay.

The 07, the 08 to 2013 are heavier, and the newer ones are even heavier. Okay, so I'd stick to the earlier platforms. If I were to build a truck, and we're just talking if...

Hypotheticals.

Hypothetical. We'd be looking at building it off of a 99 through 02 chassis.

Okay.

It's a lighter, smaller chassis to begin with. The truck I had was 4X4. It was just factory beefier, stronger and heavier. So what I would do would be early chassis, newer body, and more roll cage, fire suppression system.

When you say newer body, what do you mean? You're talking about...

The 99 through 02 bodies are a little bit different looking. Well, the bed's the same, the front end looks different. I don't like the bubble eyes, silver autos. I don't like the cat eyes, even though that's newer stuff. I'm a GMC type of guy, but I don't like... I just like one particular front end, which is the GMC 03 to 07.

Okay.

So it would have to have that front end, which can be swapped out super easy. The rest of the body is the same, but it would be off an earlier chassis, or I'd probably just go full on tube chassis at that point. You know, it just depends. I honestly don't know. It would... I would want to race it in truck classes, but I would also be able to... I would want to be able to race it in particular osteoglass, small tire, and there's rules to follow. So I would be more focused in building a truck to follow rules than just building a truck to race.

Yeah. Well, and that's the tough part too, like when you kind of limit yourself to one class, it's less fun, probably, right?

It is. I mean, the good thing is that the truck itself is a truck class. So we already got one to walk, to get into. And then popular stuff is the osteoglass stuff, the little gangster stuff. But once you start... Yeah, that's a cool class. It's a cool class, but at that point, I'd throw a 5.3 Silverado to go 530s, a 5.3 motor with the turbo, because you don't need 2,000 horsepower to go 530s.

Yeah.

You know, I thought we did back then, but there were also 4,400-pound trucks. We're at 37. We're already 700 pounds lighter. So maybe I'll build a little gangsters car.

That'd be cool.

With the 5.3 and some China turbos and just go 530s. That would probably be something fun to have, and the payouts out there are amazing. I mean, it pays more than half these other classes. So I think the next car is going to be focused on a class. Something that I can say, I'm going to travel to these events and race in this class when I go, versus the truck before I had a carbon fiber doors, couldn't use it on osteolog glass. It didn't have front suspension. They couldn't run it in street class. Maybe I'll build a truck for street class, put a radiator back on it, leave the stock suspension and see what it can do. You know, it just depends.

Yeah, that's the thing. So little gangsters, okay. Well, like you said, you wouldn't need 2000 horsepower for that, right?

No, not at all. Mostly if you put it in a Fox body.

Yeah, I mean, that would be kind of a fun class to just kind of play around with. You don't need to go all out, crazy $100,000 build or anything.

Yeah, no, I think that's a fun class. I'm trying to get customers to get into that class just because it's something that you can have fun in without dropping an arm and a leg on. Once you go to Texas, you start realizing how fast cars are.

Oh, it's stupid. Like I just had Tony Palo on the show and it's like you have these million dollar GTRs, you know, it's like, it's insane.

It's crazy. The amount of money you can throw at a car is crazy. And being in California, I don't get customers that are ready to drop 100 grand build. So I think offering, I think that would be a good thing to offer.

Some sort of like, what's a little gangsters package look like?

5.3 rods and pistons on twin turbos all day, every day. No problem.

And a Fox body.

Sure. Fox body. What is a S195? All those combos. Those things will work great with factory suspension. You know, put it on a, you put it on a fifth gen Camaro or stuff like that. You probably need a little bit more power, a little bit more, more stuff. But I mean, I think a 5.3 is super easy to do on, on light cars and budget friendly.

What's a, what are the rules for low gangsters? Do you have any ideas what the class restrictions are?

I think there is no rules. I think it's a small tire type of deal, 28 inch tire and there, I don't, can be faster than a 530. I mean, the rule is the limiting factor in the, what's the proper term? Not thinking, but at the end of the day, it's 530s.

Yeah, that makes sense.

You can have a 2000 horsepower car, you go 490s, you lost. So, and I think that gives us something to look for as far as like customers on what to build. I get customers that build cars and then they go to the track. They go, well, what do I do? Or what do I set it up for? Or what class do I register for? Well, we never built it for any of this. If you would have told me you wanted to go 530s, I would have had a goal on what to build and how much power to make. If you tell me you want to go in the 6.0, you want to tell me in the modern class, modern class is a big thing in a lot of places. Out in anywhere, California, it's a little bit hard because not a lot of people have, it's kind of hard to compete with Hellcats that run 840s on bolt-ons and tune when you can't do that on a goddamn Camaro or a Z01 with bolt-ons and tune.

Oh, you can't?

No, not 840s.

Okay.

I mean, you really gotta throw some money at it. Heads cam port injection, you know. Can you go 8s? Yeah, you can go 8s, but 840s? So then you get in this modern class where you got these Hellcats running 840s on bolt-ons and whatever they run, and you can't keep up with them, so people get scared, you know? But I don't know. I think at the end of the day, GM also has those issues with the transmissions not holding, where Dodge has transmissions that hold the power no problem.

Right.

So that's another limiting factor. And then you put a TH400 and nobody wants to take you in because now you got a TH400 and you don't qualify for the modern rules.

So that's the weird thing with all the classes again. You know what one thing that road course people kick drag racing people's a** on is, you can just go buy a kit car. You can go get whatever kit car for whatever class, whatever series you want to race. What you're talking about is like if there was like a standard like, you know, little gangsters kit that was offered like, oh, just go to New ERA, get yourself a 5.3 Fox body, like here's the cookie cutter sort of thing.

Yeah.

I mean, that'd be kind of cool.

I'm sure it could, but I don't think people are also ready to drop or buy a car and this is the package. Yeah, true. Maybe, but when you buy a car and you try to put a 5.30 combo in it, which would be a 5.3 or a 6.0 and Rod's Pistons and a Turbo and this converter, this suspension, you're also not talking $10,000. At the end of the day, you're still knocking $40,000, $50,000 combo to get it to run. Obviously, it's a lot cheaper than building a $50,000 billet motor. But I don't know if a lot of people are ready to drop, hey, I got a Fox body, can you give me the little gangsters package? Yeah, it's going to be $57,000. I don't think a lot of people are ready for that. I think people will be like, hey, can I start with an LSWAP?

Yeah.

Now it's LSWAP. Can we do a Turbo?

We slowly build up to it.

Yeah.

True.

I don't know.

Maybe in Texas.

Maybe 100 percent. Maybe in Texas or anywhere else in the world. The East Coast, I mean, these guys built cars. They got it down. I feel like being out here in California, we just struggle. I mean, there's a lot of shops out here, but I feel like there's a lot more shops everywhere else.

It's a music across the country. It's just every space has their niche. You know what I mean? I don't know. It's weird. But what's your favorite thing about what you do? Why do you not go back to construction management?

Because I love racing. And me building cars is a chance for me to go to the racetrack with the customer. At the end of the day, my hobby is my job. So I can be here till 10 p.m. and not feel like I have to go home. Where in construction, I couldn't wait till it was five o'clock and go home. Do nothing at home, really. Go find the way to hang out with friends or find the way to go online and buy car parts to go work on my car. But what I do right now is work on customers' cars, make sure that they're happy, you know, order parts for my car, stay late and work on my car. So I still do it because I enjoy what I do.

Okay.

So to me, this doesn't get old. It hasn't gotten old. People say, oh, you're going to get over it. Maybe I've been doing this for 10 years out of this shop. And in those 10 years, I've seen people come and go. I've seen people that are dedicated, spend thousands and thousands of dollars on working their cars. And then one day, something happens, they disappear and they're by a house. And now the car is not a priority. I've been from going to college to having my own place, to not being home 90% of the time. This still hasn't changed. I'm still here.

If you ever get bored, you can just go to work on Ford's. No, that's where you draw the line.

No, I draw the line on that one.

If you had to choose, would you go Ford's or would you go work on Hemi's? Or Mopar?

Ford.

You would do Ford over that? Yeah. Okay.

I don't know if I can... I think I feel like I understand Ford's better than I do Hemi's.

Oh, but the Mopar clientele is the best.

I wonder. It's probably like the Corvette clientele. We're not gonna get into that.

I gotta ask now. Is there anything special about the Corvette people?

They're special.

Okay, we can leave it at that.

Every C7, C8 owner. And I hope they don't kill me for this, but they're just extra compared to your standard.

All is made on Friday at 2 p.m. by Billy Bob and has the yellow seat belts. That's sort of.

Yeah, they're just different. I mean, they're the premium. They're premium, yeah.

They're premium.

They come in and they do a walk around around their car before I do the walk around around the car just to make sure that it still doesn't have a scratch or a nick on from the drive here. Yeah, Corvette owners are a little bit on.

Particular.

Yeah. Yeah, that's what it is.

You're being real premium today.

The I think everybody has a, you know, I don't know if a Hellcat owner is different than a standard, you know, charger or whatever, but we have our customers that are a little bit special and different, you know? Sure. I don't know. Everybody's different. I've had Blackwing owners that are just chill, fun, happy, you know, always happy with the results. And then I've had C7 basic model owners that are just like, hey, this line wasn't clipped on. Well, I didn't touch that line. It was like that when you brought it. No, it wasn't. And it's like, oh, f***. All right.

Here we go again.

Let me, let me plug that in, but let me push that back in for you. Like I didn't touch that, but it's weird. Different customers and different everything.

I feel like, correct me if I'm wrong. I feel like Cadillac owners are just chill for the most part.

I think all the, most of the Cadillac owners are definitely a lot more chill than, I think I just have a thing against Corvette owners, to be honest with you.

Fair enough.

I think I really just do. It's just the Corvette owners. The Cadillac, the Camaro, Silverado owners, love those guys. Those guys just want the thing to chop and sound great, and they're the happiest people ever. I love working with them. They have a big smile on their face every time we work on their cars. They're just happy. People actually appreciate you getting their cars worked on and done. If we go to talk about customers, there's great customers out there and then there's total pieces of.

Yeah. I'm losing you by the way. Just pull this a little bit closer towards you.

I'm right here. Yeah.

You're all up in there.

I'm all up in here. But yeah, there's definitely a lot of different customers and different everything.

Sure.

It is what it is. Some people understand the concept of transmission is not living at a certain power. Some people are, but so-and-so's transmission is still working. Yeah, I tuned both of them. Why did his go out? Can't blame me for it. How do you drive your car? How do you abuse it? What kind of maintenance do you do? Are you roll racing it? Are you banging limiters? Are you doing burnouts? It just depends.

Yeah, it's so different. I can't remember who I was talking to, but they just kept having transmissions go out. And it's like they had three friends in the back all the time. And it's like just that extra weight.

Yeah, weight kills transmissions. Power kills transmissions. Rev limiters kill transmissions. I mean, ask any fast, fast car on an OEM transmission. Six-speed, eight-speed, ten-speed. They've all killed transmissions. But they know about it. And like I said earlier, they keep a spare. Or they know that they're going to go and have to repair it. Ask any person who's dealt with stuff like that, that doesn't want to deal with it anymore, what they do. Here we are, TH400, baby. Won't skip a beat.

When is the time to go to a TH400?

When you're tired of swapping transmissions out.

If we're talking, for example, Twin Turbo 6th Gen over there, is that going to be on a 400 right away or no?

That's on a 6-speed manual.

At what power level would you consider?

If you're going to ask me, I say 1200 horsepower is a nice cutting point for swapping it over. Do we have cars at 1200? I got 4,400 pound, 1200 horsepower, 690 transmissions. Don't skip a beat. I have 6L80s at about 1000 horsepower in stock form, haven't skipped a beat. I have transmissions that just don't live at that power level for whatever reason. It could be a valve body problem, it could be a transmission, it could be a bad build. Sometimes things happen. But I tell people, once you've done two transmissions and they're done, just save up for that TH400. I just don't like telling people we're going to make 1600 horsepower and have their transmission live. Can it be done? I guarantee you there's cars out there that make 1600 horsepower with stock 6L, not stock, but OEM transmissions in the 6, 8, 10 speeds that are living. And I guarantee you they've came down more than once to fix them. Now, at this point, it just becomes how deep are your pockets. Do you want to keep on doing that? Or do you want to put a TH400 with the right gear ratio, the right converter, and not have to swap it out in the next five years because 1600 horsepower is not going to hurt a TH400.

Right. What's the go-to for TH400? Like, what do you usually go through to get them? Because there's only a handful of companies that make them, right?

No. I mean, I feel like there's a lot of companies. I actually use a local transmission shop here an hour away. They build the tranny, they ship it to me, and I put them on.

Oh, no. Sorry. I was thinking about the crazy, what is it? Is it M&M?

No.

Who am I thinking about?

M&M makes transmissions.

Yeah.

Yeah. They make great transmissions. I just, let's say something does happen. And TH400, it's rare that it does. But let's say something does happen or you're at the track. No, just in general, something happens. You got to pay to ship it there. You got to pay for them to fix it and pay to bring it back. I have nothing against that. We work with LME for engines, which we do the same thing. But I found the transmission shop that I've been working with for the last 10 years, local to us here. And my truck and my car both carry the transmission. They both made 2000 horsepower. And I did have one fail at one point. He found the weak point. He upgraded it. Ever since then, I haven't had it fail. The difference is that my transmission fails today. I have an erase tomorrow. He's at the shop right now. I'll call him, I'll drop it. He'll fix it. He'll bring it. I'll give it right back to me. And we're back up on the road. So that's why I choose to work with people that work with me. Like I said earlier, Coilovers, Chris Santuff, great person to talk to, great person to call if I have any questions. Transmissions, MP Transmissions, local to us takes care of me. Converters, Circle D takes care of me. I send the converter. Brady, I have a race in a week. The converter, something's wrong. Can you check it out? I got you. Ship next day right back to me, taking care of. So we choose companies that work with you. And I think it goes for every big shop out there. They have a preference in particular parts because that's probably the company that works best with them. And you know, everybody, just because it's not the same company I use, doesn't mean it's not a good company. It just depends on, you know.

You got your circle.

I got my circle. They have their circle. When you go down the track and they're faster, it's not because the product is better. It might just be finely tuned better or things are changed, the combo, the weight, you know, things. But the product is probably putting out, putting the same amount of work as it does as a different brand, except that product, I don't have a relationship with the customer or with the business as the product I'm using.

That makes sense.

Turbo's, we use FIS.

Okay, yeah, I forgot to ask you that earlier. Yeah, FIS, okay.

We use FIS, Jose.

What made you go that way?

Been working with Jose since the extended cab truck days back 12 years ago when a lot of these companies, I mean, Circle D wasn't big back then. You know, FIS wasn't big back then. They've been known, they've been around for years, but I can call Jose. The Turbos went out, I next day ship it, he next day ships it back fixed. You know, I talked to Logan over at it with FIS. One of the guys that works there. I can call him right now, he can answer, I can have some questions. You know, again, we work with that. You know, I've worked with other companies before. Oh, so and so makes a great Turbo. Yeah, but last time I sent the Turbo in, took them two weeks to take it apart, give me a health check, tell me that it needed a rebuild, quoted me to freaking pretty much rebuild the whole Turbo and charge me crazy amount of money. And it took three weeks to get it back. Sometimes you just don't want that. If you want FIS, hey, something shot the... You don't have a restrictor, you don't have a... Something's not right, change this, change that. Here's the Turbo, just pay me for parts, get it out there, let's make it happen.

That's awesome.

So every time I'm out there, FIS, you know, big shout out to FIS for taking care of us. Same thing with all the other companies we work with.

Well, before I wrap up my usual last question, is there anything that we didn't touch on? Was there anything in particular that you wanted to touch on?

No, I'm sure the comments are going to roll and I'll slide in there and I'll answer what I can and whatever I don't like, I'll just block it out.

I just ignored. Last year, January and February, I was getting like 10,000 to 15,000 comments a month. It's like you can't argue with everybody. It's not possible.

Again, everybody's going to have a different opinion. Everybody's going to tell you why a 5.3 is better than a Dart 427.

Or a Coyote is better than them all.

Or a Crewe is better than... You're going to hear why Ford or why... You're going to hear a lot of arguing on Ford versus two Jay-Z's versus LS's versus LT's.

ZR1 versus GTD at the Nuremberg Ring. Are you in a draggy group? You're not? Okay, that's good for your mental health.

I don't get into it. I don't even watch the Facebook draggy groups because people will post the dumbest stuff ever over arguing on a car they don't own, something they can't afford, and there's always something they have to say. Just like the B58 versus the, what's the Audi, what's that other platform?

Daza?

The Daza, yeah. The comments are crazy when I go in there. I look at it as like 268 comments. Jesus Christ, who wants to argue about this? Let them do their thing.

That's the same four or five people every single time.

Same post, same everything. But now, I like building big motors. There's no replacement for displacement.

What's the biggest motor you build?

454. Okay. Big stroke, big bore. Sure.

When you go street outlaws, do like a big 500 cubic inch.

No.

No, you don't want to do that?

I'm honestly not a fan of it, but I can't say never. If I build a crazy LS and it still can do what I want it to, I'm putting a big block in my next car.

Okay.

But I don't think I'll ever do a Ford or a Coyote or whatever. But I might just go big block. Those things are proven. They make great power. I try to keep everything LS because LS is what I do.

What would you do? Like a typhoon or a cyclone maybe?

I don't like small cars.

No? Too small for you? Okay. Okay. It was worth the question.

No.

Okay.

They're nice. It's like building an S10.

Sure.

Think they're cool. Wouldn't build one.

Okay.

There's already thousands of them out there.

That's fair enough.

I mean, how many fast Silverado's have you seen? I've seen a lot of them.

I don't see any because we're from Minnesota, so we don't see s*** out there for trucks.

But I guess I can't say I've seen a lot of them. But you see them out there. I feel like they've got it more and more popular. And I've always been a truck guy. And then I started going to Texas, and there's trucks out there. And then I showed up, and it was like, oh, I want to party. So that truck was my favorite truck. If you guys haven't seen it, Texas2k had a couple of videos on it. I'm sure my Facebook, my Instagram page has a couple of posts on it. I don't think I ever made a crazy truck video. I mean, I don't have time for all that YouTube stuff. But there's videos out there. I know I have videos from Texas2k. Love that thing, man. It just looked different. And it's nice when you get a shot and the damn truck is in front of a full blown Corvette Mustang. You know, just putting a gap on it. I just I think that's so b*****.

Plus whippin on the R8s and Huracans out there is kind of cool, too.

I don't get to run with them in the class because they're all in the DCT.

Throw a DCT in a truck, why not? Let's get you a DCT.

Now you're asking for me to figure out how to keep another Transit live. I hate struggling with the regular OEM stuff now. Trying to do a DCT stuff, it's a big no. But I'm pretty sure it'd be nice to have a... I mean, there is a... Well, it's 2JZ versus the world, so that would be against the 2JZ. I don't know, maybe they'll do some sort of different classes where we can race GTRs and R8s, you know? And then they're going to complain of how the tree is not a pro tree or not a sportsman tree and how they need to figure out how to get on the trans break and hold it for only 1.5 seconds, because if not, it doesn't work out. I don't know, I like my pro tree. I like watching the three drop and just go. You have your program and that's it. But I don't know. But yeah, truck is b*****. Might build something else. I'm going to build something else. You guys will hear about this soon.

You're going to be ready by next Texas 2K, right? I'm going to see you with something new next year.

I will have something at 2K, I promise. Okay.

That's all I need to hear. Well, then on that note, I'm going to drop my last question. It goes like this. At the end of every episode, I like to ask my guests to pick three cars. You have an unlimited budget. You have to pick a show car, a daily driver and a track car. Build whatever you want, however you want to do it. Oh, s***, I broke him.

I never thought about it that hard. Build whatever I want for drag racing. It'd be, I'm sticking with truck. If I had an unlimited budget, I'd build the craziest, baddest truck you can build out there. That's just keeping up with whatever is out there.

Sure. You still go kind of like early 2000s with that again? Yeah.

The platform wasn't gonna change. That's been dream for me. I've always liked them. That's just who I am and that's all it is. Show car, I really like, wait, it was a show car and what else?

Daily driver.

For a show car, it would be like a 69 Camaro. Okay. You're going to hate me for this, but a fastback Mustang.

For the daily?

For a show car, like something, maybe even a daily. For daily, I wouldn't drive an older car. I drive something new, something luxurious, something, I don't know. I can't tell you what I was driving.

Like a 2022 F250.

Like a 2022. No.

Build tough.

Just something fast and reliable, an Audi, a nice BMW.

I'm not fancy with cars. Would you do German or American?

Probably German.

German?

Okay. But it wouldn't be anything like, oh, I need some sort of Bentley car or anything crazy.

You don't want a Maybach or nothing?

No. I'm not interested at all. I need something sporty, something fun, something you can still put a thousand horsepower with.

Oh, S63. Mercedes S63. No? Would you an RS6? I'm more RS6 or RS5. Yeah.

I mean, I had an RS5 already. Those were fun. That's why I said something like in the Audi range.

Okay. No BMW? You wouldn't consider like a M3 or something?

The problem with the M3s is that I wouldn't know how to leave stock because that's a thousand horsepower, though. M3s, you have to modify them. You can do an R8 and make a thousand reliably without stressing.

Okay. Okay. So we got truck for the track car. Show cars.

Something basic. I don't really care for it. You saw what I drive for a daily driver right now. I don't think I'm too crazy on what I would drive as a daily, as long as it's quiet and smooth and nothing crazy.

So we'll lock you in like an, what did you say, RS5?

No, I'd take a 7 for sure. I like a full size car.

Okay. RS7.

I like a nice little full size RS7, just comfortable twin turbo, you know.

Okay.

And then probably for a show car, it'd be the 69 Camaro.

Okay. On that note, where can everybody find you?

Instagram, Facebook, social media is pretty much everything that we rely on where we were based off of neweraperformance.com. If you need anything, Alex at New ERA Performance. That's about it. I mean, can't be that hard to find me. You can go New ERA Performance, you will find me.

If you're this far in the episode, people already looked you up at this point, if you're two hours or almost two hours in. But on that note, man, thank you so much for making this happen.

No, thank you for coming by.

Yeah, no, it was a great way to kick off the California trip and everybody, thanks for listening and we'll see you all next time.