210. Motorsport Wiring, Honda and Porsche Builds, EV Swaps, and Judging Car Shows w/ Rywire

Well, hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the podcast. I'm your host, Harris, aka monoxide man of many automotive aspirations. And we are continuing this awesome California trip.

And I'm here with Ryan of Rewire. You're pretty known to Honda circles. Sure. Really getting deep into the Porsche side of things. Was that a fair assumption? Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, I mean, I always kind of think that I'm a little I dabble in a lot of things. Right. Like we'll do like some Nissan. We'll do a bunch of skylines, like wire looms and stuff.

But it's like, I feel like for the business, you have to bring an actual physical car to the table to, like, be known for something, right? So yeah, personally, I love Honda's. And I'll never stop loving Honda's from, you know, early on I had NSX, I have multiple S2000, and then just like a ton of civics, I used to build Carex 20 plus years ago, B series swaps, K series swaps.

So I'm 100% a Honda guy. But we do. I mean, we even do like off road truck stuff if we have to. Or we'll do wiring looms for aviation or you know, it doesn't really matter. Yeah. I mean, we get private label stuff sometimes we'll do EV specific with like EV clients and stuff like that. We've done engines that run, you know, to run as water pumps, like weird stuff.

So it's really wherever the clients take us. But I'm 100% Honda guy, and I started dabbling in the nine over 11 world, my GT3 that you probably could see a little bit behind me. I purchased that like over ten years ago when the prices were fairly reasonable. And then that kind of sparked an interest. And then I've kind of dabbled in a lot of clients.

A lot of my friends have nine over 11, so I've been doing like wiring looms with them, local shops like BB, we do, wiring looms with them. S.V. auto there's big guys in the nine over 11 scene that are building bespoke high end cars, and we do a lot of the wiring looms. So I decided, okay, well, I told my buddy Simo from SV, I said, find me a car and I'll build it.

And he's like, I got a nine, six, four for you imported from Japan. And it was like a good price. So I said, okay, actually. So you have the option in Japan, there's, you can specify whatever you want and there's actually not a lot of right hand drive. 9/11 I think a lot of people like a lot of the Japanese people thought it was a cool, you know, kind of like we like right hand drive.

They think like, oh, for this European exotic car, we're going to keep it left hand drive. So actually very few of them in Japan are right hand. So I think there's more left hand drive, old air cooled in Japan than there are left hand or right hand rather. Yeah. So when did you sourced that car. How long ago?

Recent December of last year. And then it arrived in like approximately February. Okay. So for context for the listeners. So that's a card of shooting ready for Sema. Yes. So CSF is where we're going to be displaying the car. Ravi is a long time friend and I've done builds with him in the past. This red this red EQ with a dual motor all wheel drive Tesla powered that was actually in the CSF booth a couple of years ago.

And yeah, if you form in EV form. Yeah, yeah. Prior to maybe some of the political craziness that people hate on it so bad now. But I mean, there are actually a lot of fun. I actually enjoy EV stuff, and I also like gasoline powered. Actually touch on that real quick. When did because like EV swaps were starting to become more and more common now, when did you start your first EV swap project?

My first EV swap project. That wasn't my car, per se. This was for a friend or with a friend, you know. BC Azari do you know of him? BC Moto engineering. He's really well known in the Honda Circle, but also funny enough, a lot of the nine over 11 stuff. But then now more so he's he's he used to be a big all motor guy.

Now he's a big turbo guy. He's also a big EV guy. He does everything right. So I always do wiring projects with him. And he said, you know, hey, I got this Tesla Power nine over 11. I'm going to try to do this for like a CES show, the Consumer Electronics Show or whatever. And I'm like, okay, it sounds boring.

You just I mean, this was like 2017 ish, maybe a little early, maybe 16. And he was just like, yeah, we're trying to run this Tesla motor. And we're trying to, you know, power it with these battery packs. And I'm like, okay, just kind of high voltage cables and plug it all together. And I was ignorant and didn't understand any of that stuff.

And then as we started getting deeper, I was like, Holy s***. There's a lot to this from the high voltage side of things, managing every single cell in the entire pack. So there's a whole computer system that needs to be monitoring the, the, the how close each cell voltage is from each other. There's a whole battery management BMS system.

And then there's also the motor management with the inverter and everything. I think getting everything to talk and being able to display with the gauges and whatnot, like can bus, a lot of can like maybe 3 to 4 can busses on those cars super involved? I was like, Holy s***, this is totally not what I was. I didn't I was like, PC, I don't have time for this, man, this is crazy.

So, you know, he did a lot of the wiring. I helped him with stuff we just learned together, made a ton of mistakes as far as, like, shouldn't have bought that. Oh, that's old tech. Oh, now this is way better. You know there was tons of that. So maybe 2019. So you know, a couple couple few years later I was like, I want to do a Honda.

So I did that S2000 that's on that second rack right there above that 993. And the 2000 was a large Tesla drive performance drive unit. And then I did two strings of 400 volt batteries. And so that gave it more density. But it also gave it more range. And it was cool. But there wasn't really like space for all those batteries.

So I changed the architecture from 400V to 450V, effectively less range, effectively, a little bit less power, but a bit more drivable and still fun. So that car has been rebuilt many of times now. But but that was kind of my first real dose of this is my car. This is a project that I'm undertaking. That was full EV.

What did it. What was it like when you were learning that? So, for example, one of the people that I've had on the show back home, they're not as patients. Metal fab okay, EV swap into a Porsche. I think it was in 1964. Yeah, probably. Or maybe an older G body is more common. But yeah, they did years ago at that point and they ran into the same thing.

It's like, oh, we got this. Oh, if we would have waited and got this instead, what was it like figuring that out? And more so like what were some of the biggest complications? I think M at some point was like acquired as well, right? Oh yeah. So the good news is that M was acquired by Holly a bit a bit after my car is kind of getting finished, so it didn't really affect me too much.

I also have some friends over there. You know, BC is really good at tuning and very capable with, you know, EV stuff, but he also just only knows. Here's the crazy part if you're deviated at all from your formula, you don't know what the hell you're doing. And the same thing goes with me. I got guys that would hit me up and just be like, hey, I want to do this EV thing, but I want to use the Tesla model three motor.

I'm like, count me out. I have, I'd be starting from scratch. Your bill would be astronomical. There's no way I'm going to do it because I've only worked with the model S motors, okay? And they are different in a lot of ways. There are different kind of motor. They have different inverters. BC for example, he does not use the M, he uses the Amcu which is like the vehicle control and it controls the motor and inverter directly.

However, he doesn't use the AEM BMS battery management system. He uses a different Orion and that was because there was there was nothing available from AEM back then. So it was kind of like a new implementation. So he was using the Orion to drive kind of the whole car, more or less. So he stuck with that architecture, which is fine.

But you know, one of my cars has that. He was able to help me a little bit and I can help him a little bit on that. And then with the with a full eight to my civics are full M so meaning they have the Am VQ and the BMS is from Adam. So the only help I really have in my circle is just directly with M.

So it's one of those things if you, if you deviate at all like and pretty much every EV guy will probably tell you this, they're like, oh what about this? Well, you could use a Motec to control. Okay, well, I can't because I don't know anything about that. Do you know what I'm saying? Right. The model S batteries, does it matter by year as well?

So actually let me let me start that. So the model S motor inverter is what I was what I use batteries are kind of easier because batteries are just a voltage and a cell tap. So you just need to see how many cells and what voltage each cells at. And then you can compile how much range you want based on the kilowatt hour, if that makes sense.

So hopefully talking about EV this early on in the podcast hasn't deterred half of the audience. But we'll get into gas engines probably soon. Soon enough. No, that's why I'm good at titles. Yeah. Like you know exactly what to expect. And you know, one of the things I started doing last year, just for context, is like doing a chapters in YouTube and Spotify.

So you'd be like, I was going to skip to this topic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure we'll switch over it at some point. I'm just curious for my own sake. So the motors though, does it? Yes. Like if I were to go get one out of a 2025, is that the same as doing whatever 2015 model? Let me think about that.

No. So they they change. Yeah I think like 2022 or 21 or something like that is where I is, where they change their in their actual motors or completely different. And then and then like I like to use the MCU and that Am only controls model S motors. There's another company that does the model three motors. I don't use them, I don't I've never I've never used it.

But I mean, it's motor controllers are generally a little bit easier to deal with than like some other. Anyways, I don't know about those. I only know what I know at this moment. This is a fun topic for me because like last year I had Louise from Fuel Tech on. They had that Fox body that had, you know, it was a five speed EV or whatever.

Sure, sure. It's just a whatever you want to say about EVs, like it's it is a cool project that it's. Yeah, it's kind of like this next frontier. Listen, I think it's whatever you want to get out of that vehicle, if you like the the smell of fuel and you like the sound, then like, obviously EV might not be a direction you want to go.

However, I know this, like, seems corny, but it's actually absolutely f****** awesome. Is Toyota did that 8086 and I got I got to actually drive that car and it's unreal. So what they did was they took a really small battery architecture and a really small little motor from like a tundra or something like that hybrid tundra. I don't remember what it was.

It was just like a Toyota motor. And then it's a full EV. It's an 86, right? Full EV now they added sound, they added a manual transmission. But then they also spent literally 2 or 3 years programing the drivability of this. So you actually engage a clutch. It's a synthetic clutch but it feels like you're literally driving like an old 86.

You get you get the right sounds. They spent massive amounts of time recording the audio throughout the power band. So you're literally being fed that that sound, which is awesome because if you are like on a racetrack or something like that, you have a reference point. So you can like clutch and do your shifting and whatnot, and you have that reference of your audible, okay, that's about 6000, 7000 RPMs I need to shift or I need to enter this turn, you know, and you need to like be on the brakes.

But then you're like, listening for the engine vacuum simulated sounds. So you have this reference of where to turn in and all your reference targets, like on the track, it's all there. So you have that engine sound, you have the the clunking of the gearbox. The car won't stall, but it'll like almost stall, like they'll give you that fake, like little bucking.

It's super rad. And it drives really well and it drives like an old slow a** 86 and. Yeah. So my buddy Sam do, he was with Super Street back in the day, and he does a ton of media stuff. He was linked up with the Toyota guys and he's like, Ryan, we're having like a little meet at the.

It's like the tofu whatever spot. I think that they're not there anymore. But this was probably about a year ago. And he's like, he's like, you should come out and maybe come like an hour early and we can get you, we can get you in the car. So like, you know, die. Yoshihara obviously. So die formula drift driver kind of retired now.

But he does a lot a lot of stuff like the drifter movie. He's the driver for that. And so die was there. And we got to kind of like drive drive it with him. And then Ken Gucci was there like a bunch of the driver got all the Toyota kind of friends and stuff like that. And then we were able to just drive, drive it around and get our kind of impression.

And I drove it around the block like a big long mile, mile block, square. So I got to rip on it a little bit and really got to experience it. It's a ton of fun. You got to shift it like you got to be. You got to be right with your with your clutch and everything. So yeah. Are you able to money shifted.

Like what does that feel like. No you can't money shift it. Yeah. If, if you, if you like mess up. It's not going to like give you a grind like whatever. But it's. Yeah but it is it is damn close to realistic. It's super cool. It's super cool. Well you especially coming from older Honda's as well, like you kind of have you're able to judge what's realistic as well.

Yeah I've driven my fair share of buckets for sure. Yeah. So obviously do some motorsport wiring and just wiring as a whole.

Was it always performance based? Did you always have interests going down? How did you get to where you are now? Yeah, so I was in San Jose. So this is, you know, at six hours north of

here, and I was going to San Jose State and I just was had always been into old like old, but I was into crises.

So that was the era, you know, the cars were not new. They were still kind of old a little bit. But this is like 1998, 99, 2000, like in that range. And I was going to college shortly after that. But I always like had a car and I was always like toying with cruises. And then there was like a car owners club kind of thing and we were like modifying him.

So I was doing ZC engine swaps, B16, B18 and then eventually, like K20, I did one of the first one of the probably the first three that I know of K20 swaps and the KR. And then I was kind of known for that. I was like the only guy in the area kind of thing, right? Going to college was at San Jose State.

Kind of just dropped out and then started doing wiring harnesses. So these old Honda KR, a lot of them were dual point fuel injection. So they had literally two fuel injectors. It was there like kind of phased from a carburetor system to a to a full EFI system. The Sis had four injectors and it was like a big deal because it has four injectors and it's a four cylinder engine.

But yeah, I was doing a bunch of the wire harness conversions. So the two injector to a four injector wiring harness, and I was literally doing probably one a day, one a day, and it was and maybe one, maybe two a day. And then eventually I just kind of dropped out of college because I was like, well, you know, this is something that I could I could get into, and it's obviously performance based at that, but it's a necessity performance thing.

And then it was just doing B-series swaps, case series swaps, and then the wiring harnesses for all these different Honda applications. Okay. So let's back this up. And so how far along in college were you at that point when you dropped out. So I went to I was I was living in Monterey. My, my, my my father lives like Monterey area.

So I went to like Monterey Peninsula College for a little while, like two years. And then I got up to San Jose State and I was there for probably two. But I kept taking like, like less and less and less courses, and I was really phasing my way out. So maybe this was probably I had been at San Jose State at that point for like two and a half years before.

I was like, yeah, this is not working out. So at this point, were you basically like, I'm guessing you were in a dorm at this point? I didn't do dorm. I kind of skipped the dorm. Like one of my buddies went directly to San Jose State, and I went to Monterey Peninsula College for a couple of years just because it was like cheaper.

And you can earn your credits and work your way into it. He did dorm life, and then he was ready to move out of the dorm right about when I was coming up there. So we moved in together. It was a high school friend, my friend Shane. So. So were you just knocking out wiring harness is like. Yeah, like I was literally just I'd go to a couple classes and I come home and we had like, you know, normally a pretty big apartment.

And then we just had like an area, multiple different houses that we lived just an area where it was just all these tables, and I would just be cutting up wiring harnesses, making a mess and, and like rerunning wires and then just sending these wire looms back to the clients, just like electrical taped add wires. It was really, like rough at the beginning.

And then I started figuring out that I could purchase these connectors brand new. And then that just, like, opened my whole world up. At first it was like, oh, I found a brand new terminal on a reel. I can crimp this instead of having to, like, solder it on. So then I started laying up brand new wire with new pins, and then me and my business partner at the time, we would go to the junkyard and he would this.

This is incriminating, slightly, but like absolutely hilarious. So we would literally where long johns and then baggy pants and we would just snip connector plugs and just stuff them. So our pants were just full, right? It was absolutely ridiculous and not something that you should probably do. And we would we would make jokes because we'd be like, oh, is that all the plugs we got?

Like, I know you got one stuck in your butt somewhere, you know, because it's literally we were like, just packing long johns and these, like, baggy pants just full of connectors and just, like, walk out of there like a like a marshmallow man. It was really bad idea. But that's how low Buck like everything was. It was just like, how can we get these connectors?

We got more orders to fill, like and then but if the junkyard was consistent, we would have been fine with it. Go to one guy there, a dollar a plug, like okay, a dollar plugs like I mean I pay like less than that probably like now, but because of volume. But I mean for brand new but like use plug a dollar and then sometimes they just be a******* and they'd be like five bucks, five bucks, five.

Like, that's a lot different. Yes. Right. So if it was just a dollar, we would just buy it. But we're like looking at it like this could be $5. This could be ten. Who knows? Whatever they wanted to charge. You remind me. I can't remember what the scene was from The Dictator. It's like, oh, and I'm the criminal.

Right, right, right right, right. Yeah. It's not just that real

If you had to guess. I mean, how much were you doing back then? Like, how often would you do those trips to go get those weekends? Weekends? Yeah, there's a lot of like 100 or something. Yeah, like hundreds of plugs. But there were like specific ones. So like a lot of, like the problem would be every, every car.

The biggest problem was the VTech. So there's a VTech plug. It's like it's trapezoid, single pin grade connector that like all, every single car had. Right. So I was to the point where we could only make wiring harnesses if we had those connectors. Right. So it's like doing a couple of harnesses a day and they're like a two $300 wire harness.

Right. And then it would take like, we got it down like an hour and a half per harness. Right. So but we needed the plug. So on weekends we go get plugs. Now not every single car has Vtec right. However, we found that that plug exists in different places maybe on different cars. So it'd be like oh, this car is AC and it's a 95 accord, okay.

It's going to have that same plug like I was to the point where my mom's 2000 Honda Civic, I switched the connector out to a different one because I needed her plug. So I literally like unpin it put like the old school one on that I had extras of. And then and then I like took her VTech plug because I needed to sell it to a client.

Like, that's that's how ridiculous I got. And then when I finally found that plug, my whole brain just like exploded and went, oh my God. Think about now we can actually run a production. So I got I linked up with companies local just, you know, at this point I was probably already moved down to Southern California. So at one point, you know, at one point I decided, okay, well, I'm gonna move to SoCal.

And then my business partner followed me down, and then I just focus on getting a shop before I even got any place to stay. And then. And then, yeah, I found a manufacturing place in Los Angeles that I could basically submit a design, and then they would try, try, try, try, try until they nailed it. So they were they were basically building the my like first article sample.

And then we're starting to actually make a product that we could sell on a website, keep it in stock and be able to sell it to a client. What time period was this? Oh man, I'm so bad with that. Let's just call it like 2008. Okay? So what did the business look like at that point then? Are you getting more client work?

Did you ever get down and dirty into like doing a ton of mechanical work as well at this point? Or the the mechanical stuff was always kind of fun for me. So I tried to do a lot of mechanical stuff when I could, but but we didn't. We were never like a repair shop. Sometimes my friends like, knew I could like fix a car or like The Wire.

I don't know. We tried really hard to keep the shop clean from just client cars. We would have friends that would want full builds, and I would do like one full build at a time. And sometimes it just would be like an R&D vehicle or my own, one of my own cars. Well, you mentioned R&D. What did R&D look like back then?

A lot of it would be going to, let's say like a higher level client or friend. Maybe that already has a shop. Let's say let's say they specialize in GTO. Let's just say, right, like Ryan, we need, you know, we need a wiring harness built for this car. Like, okay, so I would go to their shop and I do all the measurements and stuff like that, and I would try to come back with something that's more or less plug and play.

And if that, if that was the typical client, like they had all the normal parts that everybody seemed to have, like the same style manifold, the same ECU, like the, the modern like whatever coil packs it would be at the time, we would kind of develop something and then we would decide if that product can move forward. So we'd build like two, let's say.

And then if it was popular enough, we would have our manufacturing place eventually build those. Maybe we would build some in-house here and there to just see how the how it would, how it would go. But but a lot of the development would be done at our shop or at like a friend's shop doing a specific car that we saw as being a viable, like direction to go with it with, you know, a high profile car or a high profile market.

How many different platforms do you cover nowadays then? I mean, we'll kind maybe like ten different popular engines. Okay. And that's like you provide everything like a plug and play and all that sort of. Yeah. Yeah. And then we might only have like it's set up to run into an like a race car. So meaning maybe not a lot of chassis interface like let's just say for example, this is just a random thing, but let's call it like a two JS engine, a super popular.

And we can make wiring harnesses for two JS, right. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we can put the two JS plug and play into a, into this car, this car, this car, this car, this car. It's more like maybe a generic wiring layout that you would have like a bunch of loose wires. And then we could instruct you, okay, that's switch 12 volt ignition.

So in the car you need to find your switch to a volt ignition. That's an optional tachometer out wire. You can wire that out to your tach. Or if you have a digital gauge cluster it's over can. So then you just would abandon that wire. You don't need to hook it up. So in like everybody has a little bit different build even if everybody's built kind of the same.

There's all these little changes. So it's super hard to build something that's like streamlined for everything. We typically try to use like a fuze box or a PDM. So like we'd have the power distribution within the engine loom. So then there's less wires that you rely on on the chassis of the vehicle, and then it makes the installation a bit easier.

And you don't have to rely on let's say like your coil pack fuze is blown because when you, when you, when you, when you were doing your swap, you, you know, messed it up or shorten it out and then you go plug in the wiring harness. I'm not getting coil power. This is not, you know, well, if you have a fuze box or a power system connected to the engine wiring loom, now you're less dependent on these random like third party chassis specific things.

So we'll do like a wiring harness for like a two 2G, for example. But it'll have its own power up, on board. So it doesn't really need to be like for like you could put it in a nine over 11 or anything that you could think of. Right. And it's not it's less as dependent on if it's this engine for that car.

Right. Okay. What about on the support side of things then. So are you working with builds across the country or does somebody else handle that for you or how involved are you after it's sold? After it's sold? Typically the best way to like if you have a if you have a question, you just email, you email or call.

Right. We have there's three guys that work here with myself. So there's four of us and two of them are are like kind of tech support people and they'll get you like halfway there. And if it's a pretty involved, you know, issue question, etc., then I'll typically try to do that over email. And I can just, you know, lay it all out for, for you and give you maybe more information than needed so you can really, like, discover what where you're finding, let's say your, your, your coil fuze is, is blown.

And you know, you have to discover that. Or if there is something truly wrong with a wiring harness, then you know I'll support it from there. I'm curious. Right? Like, well, let's start with this. For example, what's your most common plug and play that the two most common is going to be the Honda stuff for sure. Yeah.

How difficult is it to get into something like that.

Like if I want to, let's say build one of these and the EV or like a gas powered one okay. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. A gas powered, you know, Honda from the 90s. Yeah. How difficult is it to just get your plug and play. Can I want to go build a race car out of here or a nice street car.

It's it's actually with, with our packages. It's so easy. I mean, ridiculously easy. Is that chair not comfortable for you? This is damn academy. Sure to sticky. Oh, yeah. You're sweating, I told you. Yeah, I need more lumbar support because, like, I have two herniated discs, so I'm always like. I'm, like, wondering if you're if you're having back issues related, by the way.

Oh, yeah. Like what? Lifting up things and being me being super stupid is just like, yeah, just blowing discs out like left and right. I always have back problems. But okay, so for your like for your Honda Civic with your K20 that you want to like, recreationally race on the weekend, dude, we have like plug and play solutions for every single, you know, classic Honda.

We have different ECU choices. So you could be like, hey, I got a link or a tech or an M Tron or whatever, and we have an engine harness that's, that's plug and play for that. And then we have even body harnesses that are power distribution specific PDM harness kits. So like any you can run race car electronics in your chassis or you can interface up to your factory body wiring harness.

And so like we have a bunch of options because that's like our bread and butter. Because people are literally coming full circle. I feel like like I'm older now. I'm in my 40s and I, you know, I think that I kind of like I don't I'm not going to say God out of it. But everybody did this. Their everybody was Honda guy when they were young, right?

Not everyone. But like, you know, like a lot of people were were like 90s Honda golden era enthusiasts. And then they maybe deviated slightly. Maybe they got the like 911 bug like I did for a little while. But then they're everyone circling back. So everybody still remembers me when they were young, you know? And then I'm still here.

So I'm getting I'm getting these guys twice for sure. That's such a funny way. Yeah, yeah. No, it does come full circle is like actually what is the common upgrade path. Right. Like one of the things that I'll see is like a lot of VW guys get into GT-R for whatever reason. Okay. Sure. There's something like that. It's like all guys go into Porsche's or into NSX or something like that.

I think that there is a little bit of truth to that. I think that there's a ton of guys that are in, like, everybody aspires to kind of like have a street or a track. Nine, 11 I feel like because it is a great car and I'll tell you, when I got my first 911 and then I had my track CRX with the K20 swap, I was literally like, oh dude, this Porsche just will do circles around this car on the racetrack.

I mean, it's it's night and day better driver, but a different a different style of driving. It's like fun in a different way. Right. So I feel like there is a lot of people in the Honda space that kind of went to the nine over 11 space, and then maybe kind of came back a little bit, another popular car.

Yeah, a lot of GT-R, classic JDM stuff, like you kind of go that direction. Oh, BMW is huge to a lot of these guys went, you know, go BMW and then they maybe come back a little bit to the Hondas to. Sure. Yeah. Yeah like an older M3. And then even some of these like newer BMW. These guys all maybe race them a little bit or they'll or they'll have really cool daily drivers and then they'll aspire then have a track civic or something like that.

I'm curious what when it comes to your customer base, is it a lot of circuit guys, streetcar guys, drag race all across the board? Like, what's that split look like? Everything okay, because I'll have a customer. I'll have like I'll look at an email and it'll be like a proper motorsport guy. And he needs, you know, like a high end loom, right?

When we do multiple of those a week, I mean, just like every day, we do like a standalone ECU to like a Honda. Right? So those guys are I mean, you know, you're you're spending probably 6000 bucks on electronics on your car. So you're a serious like track person, right? Probably circuit the drag guys. Yeah. We get we get those I would say circuits probably definitely up there and then a lot of streetcars.

So a lot of the cars that are just like, man, I just want to put, you know, a B series type R or a K series engine in my old civic. And I just want to be able to drive it a little bit, you know, track day every now and then. And maybe they're not like super serious about it, like being a track car or dedicated, but they kind of want something in between.

What about you though? Did you have any point? Get the track, bug. Yeah. Early on, and I've kind of moved past that because I realized that I'm not the fastest driver and I don't want to be. And it's like I have more fun, like working on the cars and building them to be like, I love theory on paper.

Like, I love to go, oh, man. Like, you know what you could do? You could put, you know, a gasoline engine in the front with naturally aspirated and ITVs and then a small electric motor on the rear wheels. And, you know, you could do I just like, love that kind of stuff. So when I actually get on the racetrack, I'm like, oh, this is cool, but I'm going to get I'm going to get like lapped, you know what I mean?

So there was a time where several years, a bunch of my friends, roommates, close buddies, we kept going to button Willow, we'll go to Button Willow. It was called Infineon. So like Sears, whatever, the NorCal track. And then. Yeah, I did a lot of button willow. So, yeah, we would go probably five times a year, maybe a little bit more than that.

And this is for a few years. So we were doing like a good amount of track days. Yeah. For years we were doing it anyways, kind of like I've been, I've taken my 997 once or twice to the track, once on the East Coast when I was out there, and then. Yeah. So turn 14, we work a lot with so we're distribution with them and I built actually that that electric S2000.

They was built in conjunction with turn 14. And so I remember there they had us out for this like turn, turn 14 was doing a lot of driving experience stuff. So they shipped my EVs to K and my 997 out to the East Coast. And we did like a big drive. We did a track day, and then we did a car show and it was all like all three things, all in like three days.

And my EVs to K was on display at the car show, and then my 997 was my driver for the long like multi-day drive as well as like the whole driving experience. And then the track day. Okay, so what turn 14 Pennsylvania? Yeah. Yeah. What is it called? The one that has the outfield in the infield. Pokemon Pocono.

Is that is that right? Yeah. It has like a has a it's a it's a it's an oval, but it has an infield. Gotcha. I think that yeah I think Pocono. Yeah it's Pocono but it sounds similar to. It's not but yeah. Yeah. Sounds sounds accurate. Yeah. It's like a triangle shape kind of thing. And then there you the I remember it was we would do the bank turn all the way around and then we cut in on the infield and do.

It was fun. It was kind of cool. I know some of those types of tracks, like sometimes they have like the bank in a transitions a little rough. Oh, yeah. Sure, sure, sure. Well, where you cut in? Yeah. You kind of got to watch it. Yeah. And then when you cut back out, like back into. Yeah, yeah. Just a weird, you said you worked in conjunction with turn 14 on that, though.

Was that sort of like did they like sponsored the build is maybe a good way to put it. But the owner of turn 14, I don't remember exactly where they're at with like their whole thing right now. But John was one of the owners at the time, and he was a big EV guy, and he kind of saw that as like space.

That could be kind of a cool potential. And then, yeah, friends that work there, whatnot. My buddy Darrell was like running turn 14 at that time. And Darrell was like, yo, let's get you on board. Like, John wants to back this car. And I saw my products on turn 14. So if you have a turn 14 account and you want to purchase rewire stuff and you want to get a good deal, your turn 14 discount will apply to all the right wire products so you can get a really good deal on our parts that way.

I'm curious because like again, based off of my day job, like, you know, we have like our distributors, but then also like we sell the rec. What's your percentage of like in the weeds like direct versus you know, it's probably it's like 5050. Yeah. Because really we're focusing on just turn 14 for the distribution side of things. They like kind of handle all that to our wholesale customers and then like because they're their wholesale customers and then web orders.

Yeah, that makes sense. Especially if you have like, you know, a shop on the other side of the country that needs a ton of these or whatever. Okay. What's next on the horizon for you, though? Actually, here's a better question. What's that last like? You know, what would be cool idea? Like what's the last one? You had one of those.

The last. Okay, so I see the nine over 11 space as something that, honestly, I look at the people that are like, I look at the, the builds and I'm just like, yo, this is not the way I would do it at all. Like, there's so many things. I look at it and I'm just like, oh, you guys do it like that.

And I more because because I've seen so many cool motorsport things in so many, like so that's why I think that I, and I kind of see on the same we're on the same wavelength with that. They're upgrades. So we're kind of like I'm working with them to, to create this EFI solution that I feel is like the best hands down.

It's going to run the engine the most modern, seamless with individual throttle bodies having, you know, like a rough startup or whatever. All that stuff's the thing of the past. There's amazing things that we could do with that. So I see, like modernizing EFI in those old air cooled engines is just an easy one because with dual electric like throttle control, with servos, the drive by wire strategy, stuff like that, like you can get the engines to run so smooth with modern day injectors, modern day ignition, all the sensors to be able to like, see, you know what's going on.

Modern ECU like we use the M tron and we'll use Motec and stuff like that too, but getting. But then also I more I look into it with this build that I it's not here actually it's at the paint shop but it's A964 and it's the one that's going to be at the CSF booth. Electric air conditioning.

I'm like, okay, I'm good at like 12 volt stuff, right. And voltage stuff. So let's, let's make an electronic power steering kit, electronic air conditioning kit. I got a bunch of ideas. I'm even, like considering potentially making something really creative with the air conditioning system where I can have, like it kind of act as like a heat pump because like the heat in a 911 is or is literally pulled off of the hot exhaust manifold and then blown into the cabin.

And I think there's a better way to do it, because I want to ditch that factory. And I got a bunch of ideas. So there's products that I'm basically like, that's going to be a good product to, to, to move forward with. So I do want to do some of these air cooled nine over 11 stuff, because the value of the car is high enough, where it's like you could justify spending more money and doing more things.

I think like Honda's are great too, because even though they're cheap, people will go absolutely outrageous with those cars. And same thing goes with 911. And I even think also like GT-R. I think like those guys will also do like yeah, like 32 to 34. I think that there's opportunity for that stuff too. So I want to do more of that because I could see that market as the people are spending a half $1 million on these resto mods.

Right. So so what I'm getting at is you got Honda Civics, they're not doing resto mods, but my market is so strong with that that I'm just going to continue with it. Right. Resto modded 9/11. There's people are spending big money and what I'm getting at is I'm not like, oh, they're spending money. So I need like I need to get that money.

That's not like what I'm really saying. Yeah, yeah. The people are going to care for this kind of stuff and like invest in the car, in top dollar stuff and not just like, buy something cheap, you know, like because my products are going to be high level. If there's a sensor involved, I'm going to use the best sensor.

So my, my, my cost is going to go up. So my products are going to be on the more expensive side. Right. So then you have to think about it as well. You don't want to sell that kind of stuff to a market that that can't support it. So I try to look at okay, well, I want to do really cool high level stuff and what, what what audiences are at that level.

So Honda's have always been and I think nine over 11 I think there's this. Right. Like you've been in this game long enough to where it's like you want to do, you can choose and reject your customers. Exactly. And it's like passion stuff like, oh man, that's a that's a cool a** thing. Like, I want to get on board with that, you know, because I like to have I mean, literally like if I could like, build cars through my clients things I've always wanted, like, I've always really wanted an, you know, and and to be able to deliver a nice wiring loom to a really nice seven is like, I kind of get a little

bit of that joy, even though I don't have the time and maybe the funds to build every single car that I've ever wanted to build. Right? Right. I started off as an automotive photographer years ago. It's like being able to drive some of my client cars. Oh yeah, just a little taste of that. I'm like, yes, you want me to move it?

Okay. You know? Yeah. A Viper ACR across the parking lot. I'm like, this is so cool. I have to take off my shoes because it was two. They were too wide. Yeah. Stupid tunnel. Yeah, I know, all shifted over pedals and weird stuff and, like, all these cars. Okay, so it almost kind of seems like I, I know I'm in California.

Be a tough one to say, but like, for example, like one thing that Rogan would reference on his podcast is like, he has all these restaurants, right? I like to listen to the car episodes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. And he'll be like, yeah. Have you ever driven a stock 70s car to honk a s***? Yeah. Like what he says.

Yes. So restaurants are amazing. Yeah. This basically getting into because like we're talking about 90s Porsches here is this kind of like that next generation of like, this is how we do these restaurants to make them drive better. Yeah. Yeah. So especially especially with this 964 that I'm building, everything that I'm doing is like, it's got to look good and but it's got to like perform amazing.

So I am upgrading things like, you know, the obvious stuff like the brakes and I'm like I'm like glazing over all that stuff because that's just what you do, right? So for me it's like, man, that like the power steering. Yeah. We're still good on that camera. Oh yeah. The power steering, for example, is a dinosaur tech that leaks all over the engine bay.

You got its mounted on the engine, the steering racks all, all the way in the front. So, like, I'm going to use a more modern electric pump with a nice short system. Get it out of the engine bay, free up some horsepower because it's there is a belt on the back. Excuse me. There's a belt on the back of that drive pump for the power steering.

So you know that that's that's literally taking horsepower from the crank to spin that power steering. So ditch that system. Ditch the electric. I mean, ditch the traditional air conditioning system. Get that off of the crank. The engine bay all of a sudden now looks a lot cleaner. And then you're implementing these these systems that are that are making the car just modern.

And the enjoyment factor is going to go through the roof. So I'm not going to go like super wide body. You could but I'm going to you know obviously your bigger wheels a little bit. You know, your bigger brakes a little bit. All the normal stuff, better seats, nicer creature comforts, maybe, you know, have some of that like Apple CarPlay kind of things in the interior just to make the cars that much better.

But the driving experience I have like adjusted arms for the uprights on the. So the the front suspension is getting slightly redesigned to be more modern. You know what I mean? They're they're adjusting for bump steer things and the angles kind of change. And yeah, so I'm doing all these like drivability mods and then also like back in the day, you know, I'm pointing over here because I have my engine that I'm putting together, but that one has individual throttle bodies.

And typically like when you have individual throttle bodies, you know, it's really hard to tune. It doesn't drive very well. But electronically controlled strategy with that. I mean, it's going to drive like a modern car. I mean, you just fire it up. It's going to sound nasty. It's going to be perfect idle, you know, you target idle, it's going to go straight to that target and it's just going to like drive.

So good. Okay, okay. Take me down this rabbit hole then. So is it difficult to tune individual throttle bodies compared to like a standard sort of commons or like what's the difference? It depends on control. So obviously you need them to be synced proper and you need them to be sized proper. So this is just like the fundamental groundwork of understanding how they work and where they need to be with engine displacement.

Because now think about it this like this. If you have a throttle body that's 80mm, right? Like it's a big throttle body or actually let's call it 60mm, I don't know. But then you have six of them that are like 45mm. When you target like a percentage of of of of like idle, for example, like when you're like, okay, I want to idle at this.

What you're doing is you're allowing a small vacuum leak because you're, you're letting you're opening the throttle blade. Just just a hair. Right. Well, think about it. You have a bigger throttle body, right. Because effectively you've got six. Right. So you have times times for now you have like a 240 millimeter throttle body. Like if you want to kind of think about it that way.

So a 1% increase on that throttle blade is going to be like a massive change in air volume. Right. So they are difficult to tune electric. Excuse me. They are difficult to tune it just in in in general because you have these massive throttles technically and you're just trying to request it's called tip and throttle. So you're just like trying to just get those to just tip in and then getting the fuel and the air and everything to kind of work.

That drivability kind of sucks on partial partial drivability throttle. But when you when you add electric throttle control to it, now you have numbers and request targets and you're using a servo, everything is massively accurate. So your idle control is way good and your tip and throttle is amazing and everything just starts to drive like a normal car.

So if you can tune it, you have the right ECU and you have the right like, you know, barometric pressure and whatnot. Like, so your strategies and your plumbing and you know, the vacuum system is proper, then you can get that car to drive like, like like a E46 m3 that has drive by wire, individual throttle bodies. It drives like a normal car.

Right. And that's just engine control. It's a lot of time tuning. Not a lot of time. But, you know, like you got to spend a little bit of time in that in that area on the map. And the car can just drive like, like a factory vehicle. So, you know, you throw these old, old nine over 11, it's going to sticky throttles and like all this old parts and then even you throw it on it, it's all cable driven.

It's going to run like s***. But now with electric throttles, like not, it's gonna run like, amazing. So is this kind of like a market that's just not even been capitalized on? No people doing it? Yeah, people are doing I mean, I've been I have been an advocate for drive by wire. I mean, I let's we can go way back.

I have a I still have it 8400 civic hatchback with a B series Integra Type R engine with Kinsler ITVs. That's like a bug right here. He's like right. Anyways, I'll try. I'll try to ignore him. B series individual throttle bodies. Kinsler ITVs right. I was like, I want this to be modern. This was back when it's like, oh, drive by wire.

You know, these new my Toyota Tundra in 2006 has drive by wire and it's laggy and I hate it. And you know that everybody's like, everybody wanted away from drive by wire. I was like, oh, but with a proper ECU. This is amazing. So this was back in like the M infinity days, you know, like early Motec gold boxes and stuff.

2015 era. I decided that I was going to try to put a electric motor. I basically took a throttle body and I chopped it and I retrofitted it to where the old throttle position sensor shaft was, and I adapted it. My buddy Gary made me like a little sleeve to, like, fit it onto the little chuck. And I made a little mount, welded it up, and I basically had like a half of a dry bar throttle body mounted underneath under my Kinsler motor.

And dude, one of my buddies from Japan came and I was like, he's like a big old school civic guy. Saw the ITB. As I said, I converted it to electric throttle and he's like, oh, what? So he started it up and instantly just started flipping that like, boop boop boop boop. And he was just like stunned. He's like, Holy s***.

This is amazing because my target idol is perfect. You don't have to, like, rev it for the cold start and try to keep it running like you just turn the key. Idles 1100 rpms perfectly at target, and then you could just instantly start just giving it blah blah blah blah. And he was revving it and it was cold and he's just like could not believe how good it was.

And so I was before any of these ITB companies had any kind of drive by wire strategy, I was making stuff and I was kind of known. I did like like 4 or 5 of them. And so I just kind of. But you have to have the fundamentals, right. You have to have a ITB system that can control that can that can handle it.

You got to make your own mounting. You got to like kind of mess with some settings and stuff. And then you have obviously like on the hardware side. And then on the software side, you need ECU that can properly strategize it and do the drive by wire, which they all can now. But that was super early on, and I was doing that and I was fitting those.

And like all my cars ran so much different than everybody else's. With ITVs What's Your Choice of VCU? I use whatever is going to work for the project so we can my oh, one of one of my daily driver S2000. I have a Civic Type R engine in it, so the it's the FK eight engine, but the fk FL five stars saying turbocharged direct injection.

Okay. So for example that has a Motec M1 42. The reason why it has a Motec M1 42 is because that ECU has internal die capability. Also, they have an FK8 plug and play package. I don't have that package on my ECU. I have a generic Di GPA package, but what I did was I grabbed the injector data so I can run the factory Di injectors.

I could grab that information from the FK bass Motec package. And then I also grabbed the dye injector pump, the pump data. So the high pressure pump, because those were like, I don't know what any of these values are, so I can't I doesn't even work. So I knew that that was an option. And I'm also a Motec dealer.

So I hit my guys over there and I said, how would you guys do this? And they're like, oh, let's do the generic dye package, whichever one you want, and then just grab all the data off of it. And I'm like, oh my God, that makes so much sense because I was just going to buy. I was like, what if I just do an FQ eight package?

They're like, oh, that has a bunch of canned stuff in it that you're not going to need specific. I wouldn't do it. I would do it this way. Okay. That makes sense. Is there a ways to use other ECUs? Yeah there is. But that was my like path of least resistance. I'm already Motec dealer. It makes the most sense.

It's expensive. I got mine specifically for my car when it was on. It was an additional 10% off and then I, I already get my percentage off. So I was paying I paid like half price for that ECU, which was awesome. So it made it kind of affordable. And it was a great solution and it did everything. And I daily drive it and it drives amazing.

The you don't even know it's a direct injection. Like it just it's port and direct. It's got E85 tune on it. It just drives amazing. Old 911. We use a lot of the M tron, ECU, ECUs. They can do everything that we need them to do. They got tons of IO. So the inputs and outputs we need a lot of we need a lot of bridge bridge control.

We need a lot of analog voltage inputs to run these properly. So I like that. It's also a nice price. The kVA is $3,200 list. It's not that bad. A Motec similar might be another $1,000 more because of the package and stuff like that. It's got two internal wide bands, so they work perfectly for that. That six cylinder engine, because I'm running to two wide bands, one on each side.

So I like to just use the okay, here's, here's the, here's the fact of the matter. Your tune. If you have a tuner that understands your software, your end result is, in my opinion, always going to be the same. You're going to if you if you planned properly, your tuner knows what he's doing with his software. He knows strategies.

He can get things done inside and out. You're going to have a properly tuned engine at the end of the day, so it really doesn't matter what you use if you can get to where you need to be. However, the system is, if it's a super simple Honda engine with a manifold plenum, single throttle body like not, you know, controlled by any electronics, you know, no drive by wire, anything like that.

You can get away with the most basic hall tech or link, or even some of the factory based ECUs could potentially work just fine. So it all just depends on what your budget is, where you see expansion in the future. And, and you know what the tuner that you're using, whoever is doing the back end and the drivability on the car, use something that they recommend because you're going to have the best success.

So if somebody says, you know, I just work a lot with link and haul tech, okay, well, maybe you should just pick a link or a hall tech. Don't give them an MRI on because they might not be able to, they might they might get stumped or not give you what you need out of it. That's one of the most reoccurring topics on this show too, is everybody's like, just go with what your tuner does.

Yeah. Why would you pick a tuner and then be like, all right, I'm gonna do something you've never done before. Yeah, like, that's stupid idea, you know? Yeah, yeah. Are you doing any tuning yourself a little bit? A lot of it is programing, so a lot of it's like back end programing. We sell a lot of PDMS. So if you're familiar with what that is, it's a solid state power distribution system that replaces all the fuzes and electronics in the car.

It's pretty heavy with canvas and and strategies for logic functions. So you're you're basically like as simple as you want your fuel pump to come on with your, let's say a can keypad as an override or an echo message or a hardwired input to the PDM. And your fuel pump will come on. I do a lot of that kind of programing and a lot of that kind of tuning.

I do do some setup. So back in like calibrating and putting in all the Io's and stuff like that, but I don't sit on the dyno, run the engine. I have friends that do that, so I don't specialize in that part of it. But I'll be like on the PDM ECU and then they'll be like on the engine management ECU.

Okay. And then we'll be kind of like tag teaming it. We've done that a lot. So I've been in the passenger seat on the dyno making sure that, you know, I'm PDM stuff changing allocated like you know how much how much amps each, each output is, is requiring. So all I dial in that that kind of stuff if we need to do can messages in between that then I try to do that kind of stuff.

But I'm not the best that can. I could do it a little bit here and there. But I just get by. I like to be well rounded. I know the wiring the best, and then everything else with car stuff is a little bit more secondary. Okay, back to the type R swapped cars. So real quick because I don't come from the hot in the world.

Sure. What series engine is that in that car. Yeah the D one. Yeah okay. So it's a it's a K20. C1 is what's in that. So don't be confused with the K20 like a of the RSX. It's not that engine. Completely different architecture. It's like flipped the opposite direction. Like everything is different. So I think that they were just they called it K just because people were so fascinated and loved the the K series engine that this is like the new K series and I guess you can call it that, but but let's just call it this a generic it shouldn't be really called a K because it's really not.

Yeah k k 20 C. Yeah. So it's a two liter newer style K and it is a direct injection. In my case it's die and port injection injection with a turbo. So factory turbocharged. Oh like like the stock turbo. Yeah it comes with the stock turbo and I'm just running stock turbo okay. So you're making. Yeah. Yeah 350.

Yeah. What inspired you to do to add the port again? Oh, for the port injection I wanted to do E85 and I know that like, okay, here's the thing. Direct injection injectors. You can't really upgrade them like you, you you can. But I don't go that route. Like, that's just it doesn't make sense to me if you add port injectors on top now you get all the things.

So here's what I love about port injection. It keeps your valves clean because direct injectors are normally typically there. It will actually always there in the head. So they're below your valve. So so all that gunk that comes in on that valve gets really dirty fuel cleans. So when I have my I have my port injectors come in, come in at like 5800, 6000 rpms.

Right. And it's just a short window. But that's when my injector duty starts to kind of run out. Because if I'm on E85 that day, it's going to require a lot more fuel. And obviously you can run a lot more timing, so you need more power. But like that that port injector comes on. So I have it 1050 x and it comes in, it cleans it cleans the top tops of those of those valves.

And it gives me a little bit more fuel. So it's not high pressure like you know, fuel economy drivability and power for die is all great. But if you throw port injectors on top now, you're kind of cleaning up the engine a bit and then you're getting kind of free extra fuel if you have like upgrades, like eventually if I do do a bigger turbo, you know, like one of these bolt on, I can do 500 horsepower.

Right. Then I'll be ready. I'll have my E85. I can I can keep it cool, super safe. I can have my ignition, like, not, as, you know, a lot less in the scary zone. And I can make a bunch of power. And then I'll have 1050 X's ready to go so I can make as much power as I want.

It's kind of my daily. I normally daily both of my S 2000 the eve and then the swap one and I just I'm weird, I don't, I don't have, I don't have a new car and I just, I like my old stuff, but yeah, my that S2000, I like 225,000 miles on it and the gearbox was good.

So that's why I'm like, should I just, should I sell the car, should I like I don't know what I want to do yet. And I just decided I'm going to get a brand new Honda crate engine and just put a brand new engine in it. I did it like a year, like I think it was. Yeah, I went to Tokyo Auto Salon in January and I couldn't wait to get back.

This was like a little over a year ago. I couldn't wait to get back because I wanted to get that engine done because parts were starting to arrive. So I think I did it in, but it was my kind of my daily. I wanted to get done quick, took a month, month to do everything and I rebuilt the whole car.

I even did suspension bushings. I did nitrogen suspension on it. I did like a bunch a bunch of upgrades at the same time. Interior. Some like refresh of my new seats hardtop. I did all that and I just smashed through it and like it was tuned within like five weeks. Yeah. So I've never been to Japan. What is that like?

Like if you've been to Tokyo a handful of times at this point, I think I've been in Japan like 15 times. Yeah, a lot. I try to go. I was going twice a year for a little while before Covid. I was going like twice, twice a year, but I tried to go at least once a year. Okay. Yeah.

What's the bucket like? For example, like my most frequent flier is, you know, Dallas or Texas. Okay. That's where I've gone to the most for podcast for Texas took all that sort of stuff. Yeah. And I have like kind of a list of things to do down there. What's your do you have a regular thing you do out in Japan?

Other than like eating and sightseeing and like, you mean like car stuff? More or less. Okay, so car stuff, I would say, I like to try to get in a car or rent a car, or have a friend with a car and go to the parking area meetups. Because there's always in the mornings, there's meets going on at night, there's meets going on.

It's like, you know, you seen the Diet Coke, PA or whatever the parking area is. PA so like there's all these different parking areas around the city, kind of on the outskirts of the city. And therefore like the truck, truck drivers and stuff to like, get some refreshments and stuff like that, but people go there and hang out and that's always a good time.

It's really I mean, it's starting everything starting to get worse now because there's just so many people coming. But I like to go during Tokyo Auto Salon because there's a lot of car meets and stuff like that going on as far as like shops and stuff. Sometimes it's hard because your accessibility. Right? Like so service level, you don't know anybody you can go to like this last time I went and stayed at the Mount Fuji Hotel.

It's all motorsport. They have a motorsport museum. It's freaking gorgeous hotel I love it, it was insane. You got Fuji on one side, Mount Fuji view. You got the racetrack on the other side. Amazing. Okay, there's a whole. They have all these, like, GTC cars. The second like one story down, they have a whole museum there. So there's a lot of museums you can do the the Honda at Motegi twin Ring.

They got a whole Honda museum. That is you. If you're a Honda guy you have to see that Nissan has a whole museum. Toyota has a whole museum. Like. Yeah, like just stay in the Tokyo area and then you're just a pretty close train commute to all those, like, racetracks and stuff like that. Yokohama is a good area.

There's there's all the tuners. So if you're into like minds, you can visit their kind of showroom. You can go to Mugen, you can see their little showroom. I actually got to a private tour of the whole Mugen facility that was like probably the like, pinch me. Like, I am such a Honda guy. And to be able to see like there I got to see there where they're building all their formula one engines for all these, all these different companies.

And it's like earthquake safe. So like there's actually springs underneath because there's so many earthquakes and their CNC are cutting like, you know, $100,000 engine blocks and stuff like that. So, so they have to be like earthquake safe. So it was this whole thing. It's so it's crazy, like there's crazy stuff going on. And then what else, what else, what else?

I'm going to miss so many things. But you got to see the museums. You got it. Just go during Tokyo Auto Salon if you can. So you can see all that stuff. Osaka. There's tons of tuning shops out there. Yeah. Try to visit racetracks. And if there's just like a random track day going on you're going to see like mind blowing stuff.

Like I went to Built by Legends was doing a whole thing this last year at Mount Fuji. So I got to do this whole. But there was always GT-R running on the track. A bunch of my friends were there, like tons of my friends were there. And then I stayed at the hotel just by myself. But there was friends staying, so we had dinner and stuff like that.

It was awesome. Dude, just driving around. They're going to events, seeing all the sights. It's it's a rad time. So you're saying, okay, again, hopefully in the next year or two, I end up over there depending on work in the podcast and all that stuff. Sure. Are you saying don't go for less than a week? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I think at minimum six days because you're going to lose a day. So it's like then it kind of turns into five. So I would try to have. Excuse me. Geez. This, this this coffee's getting to me. I'm skidding.

The milk. I was going to say. So the. What were we talking about? Oh. Six days. Oh, yes. Okay, okay. Of course. So six days is definitely going to be the minimum that I would go six days and I would, I would go to Tokyo and then at least hit Osaka at minimum. So when I travel sometimes I either decide whether I have a home base or do I just go all over the place?

Is that one of those like, say, at a different hotel each night sort of deals? You totally can. And if you can plan ahead, you can actually, like ship your stuff to all the different hotels. If you really if you're really good at planning, you can not ever have to really like carry your suitcase because like, the worst thing ever is having your bag of stuff that you're collecting, you know, your overflow bag of items, your backpack, and then your and then your suitcase trying to go like on the train through the, you know, crazy morning rush hour of train traffic where you're standing have all these bags like, that's like kind of the last

thing you want to do just to like, get to your to your check in at the next hotel or something like that. That's rough. Yeah. I mean, they'll literally it's, it's. Yeah. Like some. Yeah. Some of the really high volume Tokyo stations, they will push your a** into that train because they just stuff you in and you're literally just like, like a sardine in there.

I mean, it's not all the time, but like, in the morning, 8:00 in the morning at, like, Shinagawa Station or something. What's that? Or something? You're probably not necessarily. Maybe. Yeah. It's kind of a crapshoot. Like some or like, you know, people know the rail system so. Well, there might only be like one train within that hour to go to where you need to go or like, that's like the high speed train, right where it skips over a bunch of stops because you're trying to go somewhere far.

Yeah, you could be. You could be stuck. Like you can have some, some of it'll be like, oh man, it's really empty. And you can get a seat. And then all of a sudden you just see it fill in, fill in, fill in, fill in. You're like, Holy s***, it's getting crazy in here. Okay. Yeah, I think that's definitely on the bucket list.

So have you done a lot of traveling over the years then? Yeah. Beyond Japan I do, I do a lot of stuff. So a lot of car shows hire me out to be judges. So I do judging at, like there's a show called IMX in Indonesia, and I do that every year for like, since like 2019. So I go to Indonesia.

I've been to, I've been to Australia doing car show like judges for car shows. Australia I've been to where else? So many places. I just, I can't remember now, obviously like America's UK. I've been to, we went at at Nurburgring, I went to a car show and I got to enjoy Nurburgring in Germany. So I did a show out there, did shows, it shows in the UK, I did shows in France.

So the Honda Euro meet has me out. My buddy Dave Defender, he is from the UK but he does like European car meets and has me out to be judges at his his events. He does. He does a Honda specific one and then he also does like a Japanese one. Just general Japanese car show. So I've been out to that a bunch of times.

I did a show in Guam and then and then I also work every Sema. I'm actually, I bring a car, but I'm also the judge for the Sport Compact, the exotic and Euro kind of all those cars. Im the primary judge for the battle of the builders, for the for the Sema show. Okay. A lot to unpack there, but let's start with the Sema thing.

Is that like we had to would you have to walk around the entire show or is it just is it limited to like one area for that judging? Okay, I know why you're asking that, because they have one area for the they really want the young people to to participate, right. So there's a young guns division. And what we do is as we there's four judges and we get to pick who we want to bring to the show.

And Sema actually goes, listen, you've been chosen. Your car is great. We like your we like what you're about. Maybe you're trying to start a business or something like that, or you're just a really good at speaking. You could just be have a really good mouthpiece, right? And if your car is cool too, like, we want this guy to be representing the young guns, so we will pay for your car to get transported.

We will put your car on display in this little designated area. Okay, we will put you up in a hotel for the whole week, and you pay $0. And we will fund all of it for you because we think your car is awesome, right? Sema has this program. So that area that you're seeing is all the young guns.

But for example, I've entered cars and I've been in the Toyota Red pass. Right. And I've entered cars to, to participate. And so what I do as a judge, I get there early. So Monday is just a workday for me. And it's a disaster when I bring a car because I gotta load a car and I got to work from like 8:00 in the morning until freaking, you know, midnight, right?

It's a long day. But what we do is it's really well put together. Everybody that you enter, you know, you're kind of already sort of prescreened. We've like, we kind of know the cars. We, we look at your Instagram. So we kind of like see what you're building, kind of validate, make sure you're actually building the car. Right.

And then the battle of the builders staff takes us around strategically throughout the entire show, even back parking lots to Central Hall. Right. And we see every single car that we want to see. So like like I said, I'm doing my research. And if I'm like, yo, this car, like, this guy didn't even build it. Or this is because the battle the builders, you know, this is just a paint job or this is just a body kit.

You know, I could look on your social media and see that I'm like, it's cool. It's at the seams show. Great, but it's not at the level that we want as battle of the builders we want to build. So you know, full teardown chassis. We want it to be we want metal work. We want, you know, I'm looking for bespoke electronics, cool ideas, things that just are different than you're just throwing together thing.

Right. They got to run. They got to be proper drivers. They got to at least start up and be able to drive to, because we do the whole event and then we get all the cars together, the top, the top, you know, three in each category and then they judge each other. Right. So we're not judging it all the way to the very end.

We're just getting to that top 12 okay. So we go around that whole day and we look at every single car crawling under cars, like looking at some of these hot rod builds like I got to see them. I like I got to because I got to help the hot rod guys. You know, I could be the like icebreaker potentially.

Right. So I'm crawling under these cars looking at all their undercarriage. Like, s***'s wild, dude. It's really cool. Like the hot rod builders. They're multi multi-million dollar builds that take several years. Some of them are like, oh, we've been building this one for six years. Like it's wild. So it's really tough competition. So if you make it even to like the top 12 of your of your category you've done really well.

Okay. So day one basically. So the cars are spread out throughout the show. Yeah okay. So I'm understanding that correctly. And then again if I'm understanding correctly you there's like you bring all the cars together in one area at some point eventually eventually not all the cars the top, the top like three of each category. So around 12 cars.

But then there's also more cars around because there are the young guns that got the they got the free passes. So okay. And then you said you're doing just sport compact, right? I'm technically just a sport compact exotic and Euro judge. There's also trucks. There's also a young gun specific kind of category judge. And then there's also the hot rods okay.

Oh okay. So so you so young guns is a separate judging thing then. And then sport compact kind of sorta. It's kind of like turned into its own thing. But it is. It is all tied together and linked together like a young guns could win the whole thing in theory, but it's pretty much always a hot rod build, because like I said, you're talking, you know, $3 million and three years.

That's hard to compete with. Yeah. Is that kind of like, when you say horror, those are kind of like ring brothers. Yeah, like ring brothers could compete. Ring. I feel like some of the really, really, really high end builders are starting to like, not really enter because they I guess they've like one too many times. The ring brothers have run a lot, you know, they're they're quite the spectacle you know.

But then there's also guys that are, that have that have reached a level where they've literally like their business has completely changed because they've won the event. Okay. And then isn't there like an age restriction as well, an age restriction? I think you got to be like 18. So you got to be like old enough to be at the Sema show because we actually Sema doesn't like to have kids.

You know, you got to kind of be in the industry, right. So 18 so I guess you start 18 and then it's like 29 I think for young guns. Yeah. How old are you? No way. You're young. Holy s***. Okay. It's funny when I do like. Yeah, yeah. You've seen this TV show. I'm like, that was before I was born, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

We used to do a TV show for for the Battle of the builders and, like, it was like, chip fuzes is crew. You know, they would all, you know, the, the, the fuss, you know, people would be all like the hosts for it and stuff. It was really cool. They stopped doing that because, you know, TV is just not what it used to be.

So now we just like stream everything and they have like it's its own kind of like things all show and whatever. But, yeah, the Sema stuff's really cool. So like, I, I don't feel like that my, my builds are, you know, you could I'm doing like one year builds kind of thing. If I was going to really compete at a really high level, I would, I would need probably a little bit more budget, a little bit more time.

But I like that instant gratification. I can't I can't really wait more in like a year to get a car done. So I try to just go like, okay, I'm gonna start building and then and then I'll do. And then every other year I normally do a car, okay. When it comes to judging then.

Kind of explain how that works, right. Like is it like a scorecard? Like. All right. Yeah. We don't. Yep. Yep. That's the that's the funny thing about judging just in general. There's either the scorecard which I do not like scorecards. This is why. Because there's a scorecard with a section for audio. Well, maybe your car doesn't even maybe you have a Bluetooth speaker in your car.

And you it's not it's not an audio car. So now instantly you're going to lose ten points. Like let's say let's say it's 10%. There's ten categories now. Audio you got none. You're now you're starting at 90. Like every car is built for different reasons. Right. And I like to look at a car. I like to stand back at a car and go, does this car draw me in?

Am I feeling like I'm getting reeled in, like, do I if I'm ten feet away from it? Is that thing just sucking me in like, Holy s***, I need to see what's under the hood of this or oh my God, look at the look at that. We'll fitment like it's perfect. You know, the tires are meaty, but it's so low and like, you know, you're looking at angles or you're like, oh, man, this thing's all pitch crazy that you could tell it's not even like lowered properly the wheel fitment all off.

Right. And then you can know right away and like that that can make or break you as just being absorbed into this, into this thing that, you know, it's like it's art. You look at it from really far away and you're like, And you get closer and you start learning what what the artist did. And like, you know, it's the same.

It's the same feel. So to be able to be like, you look at an art, an art and you're grading it and you're like, well, there's there's a category for, for red and there's no red in here. So now 90% like, I don't like things like that. So we don't we don't judge that way at Sema. It's just the full build and it's the presence.

It's, the execution of everything. And then and then everybody kind of like, looks at different things. But I'm the sport compact, exotic, whatever, judge. And I'm really I need to see like if you're wiring harness looks like crap and I can see just electrical tape like, sorry, bro, you're not going to do very well, right? Everything has to be I'm very, very, very detail oriented.

So everything is super high level and I, I expect everybody to have really high level stuff. So it's funny because you said there's a chance because I'm under 29. Right? I'll tell you what. The young gun category is so hard. These builders are absolutely insane. I say, like, there's been years where I'm like, my category is kind of light compared to the to the judge.

That category, by the way. Yes. Yeah. I've always judged that category. I'm not a truck guy per se, so I don't feel as confident with the truck stuff. I don't like, know as much, like, oh, this is a hard body. Whatever. Super rare. This is. Chop top. Like, I could see some of that stuff, but I don't know it inside and out.

Right. I'm better with, like, the Japanese stuff, you know, exotic Euro. Like, there's at least there's not a lot of exotic. Like there's not crazy builds with exotics as much. But I guess you could say that like a really nice nine over 11 could be an exotic. Well, I can see exactly. That's. Sure, sure, sure, sure. So,

Yeah. Like some years it's all like exotics that are winning because some people decide to just do like open checkbook builds with like certain shops and then the shops there and they, they, they, they show you the build and you're like, whoa. This like we've had, we've had like the off road 911 builds. You're like, oh dude, these are, these are $1 million vehicle.

And then it's like, where do you, where do you put that category? Because it's almost like a truck because it's like this off road, you know. But so we just we kind of move cars around or needed. We've even taken Young Gun and gone, hey, you know what? We're going to put you in this category like you kind of because everybody kind of could fit in multiple different areas.

Like one of my favorite builds was a Volkswagen thing from last year. It was like fitted with a nine over 11 engine. Everything was CAD developed, everything was custom CNC billet, everything freaking amazing like off road kind of build. It was so cool. And then I was like, Jeremiah, he's the he's the truck guy. I'm like, give me that car.

I want him in my category. It's sport compact. He's like, no, it's a it's off road vehicle. I'm like, yeah. So it could be both right. And sometimes we'll shuffle people, especially if my category is a little light and he's like, oh my God, I have so many off road or so many truck builds that are just like insane.

And we'll be like, hey, let me get that one. Right. Okay? Okay. So then one of the other things you mentioned, it's not just you for your category, there's multiple judges within your category as well. Well not within my I'm, I'm it for my category. But we all talk. We're all. And then this year they're talking about doing a floater.

So our buddy Kyle he built a car last year did really well. Got like second place. He is going to come back to the judging circuit. But he's going to be the floater. And he's just going to help everybody and just kind of like judge be like a fifth judge okay. So then in this case so we're all helping each other.

You're doing sport compact. And then what is it like a like here's first place second place third place or what exactly is that. End result top three per category. So let's say you just have four categories three of our top choices. Now all those guys judge each other and kind of like they're all judging each other. So they're showing each other their cars.

They're putting up on a bend pack lift and then they're like, let's check it out. You know, this is this, this is this, whatever. Here's what I've done. And then they can be they can ask questions, they can critique the other builders, and then they get to put like their names kind of in a hat and they goes down to four and then it goes to the top.

So they work their way down from there. They, they do it. It basically is like, all right, here's the top three of the show. Is that what it is? Yeah we do it like that to top for the show you could say. But then there's a number one winner. Yep I'm curious. One winner. Is there anything in there clout.

Clout. Yeah. They get a lot of clients, bro. Like Kyle for example, our judge Calhoun Hausen. He he did young guns okay. Young guy. And he was building that year I think he brought a Dodson Z I think I think he won with or won the the young guns with a Z. And then that got him a build of a Corvette and literally like because you won that some guy was just like, yo, open checkbook.

Like, I don't know, it looks like it could have easily been a half million, maybe $1 million car. And he built that over a couple, two and a half years, I think. And I mean, this guy, this guy built the most insane Corvette. He got second place in hot rod, which is the hardest category. So this guy built this is this is a young gun and he got second.

I mean, we almost kind of gave him first. We were like, dude, these two cars are neck and neck. But his car was amazing. He did an amazing job. So well done. And that was because he won in the Young Guns category that somebody was like, build my car. And so it's it just kicks off people's like, businesses to build build vehicles.

Yeah. Well, it's like when you're talking to see money, you have some guys that's been that have been in the industry for, let's call it 20 years or they're passionate. And today you're like, all right, this kid's got something. No 100% makes sense. So she had an open checkbook type build. Yeah. Yeah. And he's and he's turned down a bunch of them because he's like, well I got to get through this Corvette and then you know.

So yeah. Yeah I mean he, he executed it to the end. And then that car, like I said, got second place in that in the hot rod category, which is amazing. All right. So how many years have you been judging now with Sema? I think this is like my fourth year. Fourth year. All right. I think for a second here, what are your what are your favorite builds.

What what has pulled you in the hardest. Let's see. Let's see like in my category, like throughout the years. Shoot one of my favorite builds. Well, it's funny, like I mentioned, the, the Jeremiah's category with that folks wagon thing that, like, I'm, I'm weird. Like, I need cool. Asil. I need really nice wiring. I need really nice plumbing.

If you come to the show with some Chinese a**, like, you know, all black an lines that I can tell were just like, you know, Amazon, Amazon to to you like the night before. You're going to get a lot less points because I just, I know, like, I want to see like BMWs, like I want to see like proper, proper high level, like plumbing, electrical, like all that stuff.

So that Volkswagen thing was like definitely my at my top. But there's been some stuff where they're like different kinds of builds. They're not like all motor sporty. There was let's see some exotic stuff like Austin Martin that was done and it was like all fitted out with what's the oh my God. I'm like having what's it called, mind blank.

But what's the what's the the the movie with the Austin and then the that like it's all fitted with like machine guns and stuff like that. Why am I like. Yeah. So it was like this James. It was this James Bond themed Austin that was multi-million dollar build, like high level stuff, smoke screens and like, machine guns and like, but it was like all hidden and super well done.

The car was insane, bro. It was like a 3 million, probably $3 million build. I don't know, I mean, you know, probably cost 2 million to build it. They charged 3 million or whatever it would be. But so high level, just next level stuff like it's kind of corny because it had like smoke screens and it's what the guy wanted.

But everything was done at the level where you're just like, this shop knows what they're doing. That's crazy. So that that really stood out to me. I have seen some like classic nine over 11 stuff like the Gunther works. They, they entered early on. This is like like my actually. Yeah. They entered and then also like the Russell built off road 911.

That one was so cool to see all like Motec electronics and like high level stuff, but just like a car like that. And then it gets dropped off at Sema, you're like, whoa, you know, and you get to judge. Something like that is really special. So those are probably some of my standouts over the years. Yeah. Okay. Now let's start talking a little bit about judging overseas and stuff.

Yeah. Indonesia's when it's stuck out Guam stuck out to me. Yeah. Pretty far from here. Like. Yeah. How did you get mixed up in that through Sema? Imagine. So a lot of it was just because of like, oh actually I think that the Indonesia guys, I actually I think the first year I went because my okay, my, my friend big Mike got asked because he was on a TV show where he built an old Dodson Z.

What was that show, the Gas Monkey Garage? They actually asked me, oh, because of Sema? Because we did. We both did really well. I got like top honors. I had a DC two Integra. It was orange, pneumatic paddle shift, full Motec, like fricking crazy a** build, right? And I brought it to see my show and I was like, I was with Chip Foose, Ring Brothers, and then, like me.

And ours was like the top builds of the Sema show. This was back in like 16 or something like that. And so then because I was a top builder, they wanted to do something JDM, so they like asked me and I was like the pay was too low and the obligation of being gone for like five weeks in Dallas or whatever were the gas monkeys.

I was like, I'm not going to do the show. It could have been cool. But big Mike, my friend Mike, he we entered his prelude and he did really well the next year. So like, oh, I got it back to back. We gotta so and that's why I became judge, you know, because I kept bringing like crazy import stuff to the show and like, not winning but like winning the import section.

Right. So with the Preludes you really well and then and then big Mike got asked to be on the Gas Monkey show. He built a Dodson Z. So he was like doing really well, like building his name up. And then and then they asked him, hey, can you judge in Indonesia? And he's like, yeah, like, well, we need another judge.

And he's like, you know Ryan, right? Like, yeah, yeah, I know Ryan. He's like, can you ask Ryan to come? Do you think you would go like yeah, I can ask him. I'm like, hey, you want to go to this? I'm like, yeah, I'll go cool trip. And like, you know, I could travel after I can get, you know, free.

Everything's free. And they pay me something. I was like, yeah, I can make that happen. Do like a week or something. Make it. Make it a vacation a little bit, you know, a little bit of vacation, a little bit of whatever. And then so they found me kind of through Sema, and then I started judging Simon and they're like, that validates it because now he's the Sema judge.

So they really ran that whole thing that, oh, we're bringing the Sema judges in for the show. And yeah. So that's how I kind of got linked up with Indonesia. But everything's just it piles up, right? Like social media posts got me to work with HPA for that one class like many moons ago. Right. We did the wiring course with HPA and it was all just through social media and post stuff, and they just find you people like I think Andre said, oh, we want we want you to do this show because you have the biggest, you're the biggest, like wiring Instagram account at the time or whatever.

I'm like, okay, so we want to do it and do a wiring electronics course. And then so I, I did that one. It's crazy. It was by the way like I know texted Andre and I'm like, hey, do you know anybody in California. This guy in New Zealand. Yeah. Tells a Minnesota guy who to talk to in California.

Yeah. Like it's just it's crazy. Yeah. Because he was just here and he, you know, he was I think he was doing like some tuning with like Honda or something like that. They flew him out and then he was like, I noticed that he was probably, you know, that was during the week and then weekend. They're not they don't normally work.

And then so I asked still on, I asked and I'm like, yo, you should go to this like cars and coffee thing. I'm like, I have actually never gone to this one before, but it's supposed to be pretty big today. He goes all, you're the second person that mentioned that. I'm like, well, meet up at my shop or whatever, and let's, let's head over there.

So he had an five that he was borrowing and then. Yeah. So then we we both drove out there, went to that, that meetup and just cars and coffee and hung out for a minute. So it was nice to see him. I normally only run into him in like pri or Sema. Yeah. He looks like he's going to pry this year like he was.

Yeah, I, I'm gonna make it out. I'm like, cause I had a booth last year. Why? I did all the interviews. Oh, cool. Oh, you were literally doing it, like, at, like, your booth was a. Yeah. So, like, you know where the was the J.W. Marriott, like where you come down from there 100%. Yeah. Was the first booth.

You got it. Okay. Nice. Go down that escalator and you're like, boom on the left or whatever. Yeah, yeah. And then you're just talking to people and they're like, oh, who's that guy? It's a good spot on that. And I, I'm going to see if I can do that again. I prefer to get two booths though, just because like the booth next to me had like those electronic jacks or whatever.

Oh, and you just click, click. Yeah. So I don't know, I get like a little more space. It'd be kind of cool to bring a car too. Yeah, sure. Well, yeah, I always want to have a car there just so people. It reels people in more. Yeah. So we'll see what happens. But yeah, Andre is like, oh I'm going this year.

I'm like, no I have. Yeah yeah yeah sure. Yeah that's cool. Actually no rabbit holes. Why not just get a type R y, put a type R engine in an SD? I mean, it's a valid question. I'm just. I'm weird. Like, I just love. There's different ways of saying I love wasting money. You know? I'm just kidding.

I love, well, shoot, it's cool because it's old car. I already have it. Right? If I just get a type R, I'm not learning anything. Right. And it's hard to justify, like chopping something apart or how are you going to. You're going to reinvent it better than the the technicians that designed it. Like, I mean, maybe you could like, add a turbo to a new car, figure out a way to, you know, get into the ECU before everybody else does and then like have like I understand that there's if I'm making body kits, you're always going to buy the brand new car and then you're going to make the first one on the body

kit, and then you sell a bunch. Like there's different ways of thinking about that, right? But for me, I like older stuff and I like tinkering. And I've always I mean, that's just been me kind of old. KR put a K20 in it, kind of old Porsche make it modern EFI, old Honda Civic, put a Tesla drivetrain in it.

Like I'm always doing crazy stuff like that. So it's kind of my formula. So I'm going to kind of stick to it. Like I said, I got no new cars. You can tune a brand new five. I've driven them the the Sema guys help. I had me go out and do a drive in the fly before it really came out, and it was awesome to be able to experience it and drive that car.

And it drives probably a little bit better than my last 2000, just because it's made and fully developed for exactly what it is, but it's just sometimes more fun than just cram a bigger engine. You know, you always go, oh, this is how it should have came from the factory. Like how many enthusiasts have said all this, how it should have came from the factory?

There you go. It should. Dude, you could have had this turbo. It could have had a little bit more. It could have been a dual cam. That's a single camera. Could have been dual cam. It could have been this could have been that. So for me it was just like S2000 doesn't really have a lot of talk high revving which is great.

But like they don't have a lot of talk naturally aspirated. What would Honda do now? They would do their most modern engine in that car and it's rural drive. So I thought it was like it was just neat. Interesting. How did it train? How did it change the driving dynamics of it? Did it change much? Not a lot, not a lot.

Just maybe a little bit more like boost around corners. So you have to kind of be instead of just like that flat out around the, around the corner, let's say with a little bit of boost, you end up kind of like not maybe quite at like it's a little bit more like rowdy, you know? And if you want to just like hit the gas a little bit and just do a little like slide like you could do that, you know, whereas if it's kind of like a grip monster, it's kind of a grip like.

Yeah, it's kind of like a grip monster. Naturally aspirated. It's high revving. You don't really like lose traction and stuff as much. Right. But with a turbo turbo spools in, you have like instantly you have a few pounds of boost in there and you're like, whoa, this is this is kind of a different car. What is the car like?

You get to guess. Oh man, I shoot. Why do I not know this? It's probably 2026 or something like that. 2,600 pounds. Yeah. Not that heavy. Yeah, but you're making, let's say 350 wheel. Yeah. That's a really fun car. Yeah. It's perfect. Yeah. I kind of want to talk a little bit. Okay. So you have these plug and play harnesses and all that.

You're also in the parts game as well, but no. Right. Yeah. Kind of yeah we do, we do parts. I like to do complementary parts. So like let's say we're we'll, we'll resale injector dynamics injectors. Let's just say because it goes hand in hand with our products, you know, you want high level injector when you're when you're doing that.

Right. We do like coil pack retrofits. So then we are selling other brands coils or factory, you know part numbered coils. And then we just complementary stuff. And I try to kind of dabble a little bit, but I don't want to just like sell like exhausts and turbos and I don't want to I don't want it to just be like a web store.

I want it to be like electronics focused sensors, engine control, power distribution, modules, that kind of direction. Is there any instances where you're making like some of your own kits as well in that space, like for like swaps and all that as well? Yeah, like we have this is just kind of a product that I could think of off the top of my head real quick.

We make a drive by wire pedal kit for like a civic for okay, so what that does, I wanted to do it forever, but then I needed to do it when I did my two EV civics. Right. So those two EV civics needed electronic pedal to control the motor. But also if you have a standalone ECU then you can control your electric throttle body with it.

So I made a bracket, got a pedal source to pedal, put together a little kit. So that's like a little kit. So we do these little kits like a we have like these like clutch lines and maybe some fuel plumbing stuff like little break line kits. Because over the years when I've built these like kind of like I guess cars that are impactful in the scene, people have gone also a CSF radiator.

That's a good example. We made these little tucked radiators that were common, like in the Volkswagen scene a bit, right. Like they'd like find a radiator that fits under the core support. Well, I got with Ravi from CSF. This is my first time meeting him back at the Sema show. And like, you know, early teens, whatever. 15 413 2013.

And I was like, hey, I got this idea to make these radiators. I'm kind of doing them through this other company, but I want to do them like orb, so you can go and like do an Ann line, or you can do a Wiggins clamp, or you could do like all these different options. I want them to be a certain size whatever he's like yeah let's do it.

So I private labeled those radiators with with with Ravi from CSF and those are a CSF. It's an exclusive to US product that is very universal. And so it's yeah like products throughout the years. Like I wanted to just tuck my radiator and my car and that's where that that product line came from. So it can be used for performance application or car show kind of deal or just packaging constraints.

There's a ton of different reasons why somebody would use a radiator like that. I think one of the things you mentioned in your interview with Larry Chen, this car, you could easily swap it back to ice as well. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. There's like two tiny little holes that I made. And if you really want I mean, I didn't even have to make those holes.

I kind of ran it through a different one. But, you could literally just put that back. What about when it comes to. Because this one's still a work in progress, correct? I mean, it runs, but but I would say that as far as like refinement, the S2000 and the egg are like refined and drivable, like good easy to drive.

This one's this one still needs a lot more sorting. It's dual motor. There's a whole much different strategy with motor controls and stuff like that. So it's right now it's one of those things where I need to tear into it a little bit probably, and I need a lot more tuning. I'm just I'm, I'm waiting until my nine, six, four is done and then I'm going to have some help from Am EVs, my friend Sam, that works there.

And we're just going to like refine the car. So and those these two I'm pointing egg and S2000. Those are California legal. They're they're barred. They're registered. They're streetcars. The red EQ I haven't taken that to the process. I haven't gone to the the DMV and done all that. I haven't taken it to the state referee or anything yet, but it's a pretty easy process.

I'm just looking at the tires. It's just a nice meaty tire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really good. Yeah. There's six teams on this one and then I have the fifteens on the egg like right up the street from here. Yeah. They're just they're just right. Yeah. There's right there I'm like yeah it's the corporate right there. Yeah yeah. Tuning wise what is it like tuning an EV.

Oh it's just a lot of like can strategy. Trying to get different devices to talk together is, is is definitely a difficulty. So that's why I kind of like the M eve stuff because they make so many parts. Like I said, they make a BMW's, they make a VCU, they make a power distribution thing, they make a keypad, they make like all these parts.

So you they it's or more it's more like software selectable to get them all to connect. Right. Whereas sometimes, for example, you have like, like I like to implement a lot of safety strategies. So there's like an isolation device to make sure that the high voltage isn't touching the low voltage. It's for electrical shock and stuff like that.

Right. You don't you want to have safety. So that system is a little bit different. You can order them specific for different can bus board rates and stuff like that, which is helpful. But it's a foreign part that you're trying to implement into this, like this like system. And sometimes they have them set up or it's just like software selectable.

Boom. But the there's a lot of tuning of can and that kind of strategy. Also the motor control torque requests and stuff is pretty easy. You just throw a torque that you want to hit and then it tries to hit that target. But thermal like thermal strategy, cooling, heating batteries like to be like where we're at in a comfortable a comfortable temperature.

If the if you're a little hot, you're a little cold, your performance is going to shift like crazy. So you need to dial in all that stuff. So the management system for the battery plays a huge role. And you need to send all that information to your VCU, which is your global controller. There's a lot of tuning, bro.

Like it's crazy. And then a car like I got like little I got a steering wheel that has all canvas space. That's that's tech one, and it's got all my lighting, and I press all the buttons, and I and I haven't set this up yet, but I want to do like regen on my little, like, paddle shifter things and like, there's ways there's cool things I can do, but I need just more tuning.

It's just time and then I get stuck. I could do it, and then I get stuck and I got to ask questions. So it ends up taking me forever to do that kind of stuff. Or is that you worked with the kind of sort of both, like, like just to get these, like motors going, because I actually built both of these civics for one Sema show.

Well, I use Sema as a basically force myself to get the car done. It's not like I'm building it for the show and then that's it, right? I'm building it. And then because I know a lot of people in the industry and people want to see it, I got opportunities like a Toyo Tires for the egg and then the CSF booth for the EQ, so I fight hard to get them done for that.

For example, they came in and I was like, just chicken with my head cut off trying to do two cars. And Sam came in and like, helped me get the motor spinning and stuff like that and get them drivable and then get like, I got. And then since then I kind of got the e.g. a bit more dialed in, so it's a lot more drivable.

S2000 BC came one day because I was having some difficulty with some tuning stuff, and he sorted that for me. So yeah, I mean, like I just work with with my friends and get it going. Like I said, I'm not like super, super smart. I'm just smart enough to get myself in trouble. Yes. I'm stubborn, thank you.

Just. Yeah. Just like I'm gonna get this done. Yeah, yeah. There's there's people that are in my field that are more experienced than I am in a lot of. I'm maybe more experienced in some stuff, but then there maybe more experience than others. So I don't try to take all that pride and try to, like, get it all done by myself.

Like, I definitely ask questions and ask for help. What I need to. All right. When you look at your career, let's call it a 20 plus year career. At that point, what are you most proud of? I guess I'm most proud of just still being here after all this time. And then I'm also proud of being able to keep a lot of my projects.

I've had to sell some, but being able to keep my projects and growing into the facility that we're at is really, you know, so I guess just never I never gave up. And I'm, and I'm and I'm just progressing upward and being able to just keep my cars and do what I love and, be creative. And, and I think that those are, those are, those are the things I guess there's a lot of stuff, but I'm proud of that.

What's next on the horizon? I mean, immediately, it's this 964. I'm super excited about it. I think that I think that it's going to be. I'm having a lot of fun building it. I'm having a lot of fun challenging myself and learning because I'm forcing myself to stand over this engine and recreate things and figure out how I can run things cleaner, better properly functioning, you know, planning ahead.

And I don't know, I think that the air cool 911 could be a direction that I could potentially go. So I'm excited about that at this moment. But I'm also excited for newer opportunities with like other other engines and other motors in the future. A big avenue for unlocking a world of restaurants for people. Yeah, I mean, definitely, I think that resto mods is literally what I'm doing.

Like, what I'm a part of every day is a small part of every single resto mod. So like every single mod needs this. I mean, it's a restoration and modification, right? And it's really just updating that chassis to what it, it could, should be like, let's take, let's take a old Nissan and you know, it's an old skyline or something.

And you look at all the everything on that car the 35 has has all this electronics stuff, you know. And so you're slowly like progressing that to that level even though the old body because you have connection with the old one. But then you understand that the newer one has this crazy stuff that makes it a kind of a better driver, you know?

So that's what a RESTful mod is. And everything that I do in my business, I feel like is like you could go, oh, well, if I'm doing a restyle mod on an old civic, you're going to you're going to buy my a lot of my like components could be the radiator, it could be the drive by wire kit.

It could be the the engine management thing, the power distribution stuff. And then that'll help you do your own resto mod and then I can work with companies. Maybe they're specializing it. Then they'll, they'll, they can buy those core products like I would love to have if I can do that air conditioning system the way that I want to, that could be something that maybe some of the local 911 resto mod companies could potentially be interested in, and then I could just kind of like private label it to them and maybe I'll never talk about it again.

But but maybe it's on all these cars and that happens. So a lot of a lot of times in my business was kind of private label stuff. And so I'm not like everything on my website isn't necessarily all that we're doing. Yeah, that makes sense. How did you get linked up with by their local? They hit me up a long time.

Oh, I think the first, the first thing I ever did with them. You're familiar with Jeff's wort? He does? Jeff sort. He he's really linked up with. He he does. He pretty much runs the, Sorry if I'm butchering this because I've never actually been, Pike's Peak event. Okay. So he, like, really is a big advocate of Pike's Peak, and maybe I don't remember what year this was 18 or something like that.

He gave his 907 GT3 Cup car to Beebe, and they did a bunch of modifications. But what they needed, they needed to run a Motec because they needed to add. Oh man, it's been so long, I don't remember. They needed to add something to the engine system. I don't remember what it was, but it was like, oh, the Motec could do it.

Like, okay, well, we need to put a Motec on it. Like we need a local person that can come here and help install this Motec ECU on this 997 GT3 Cup, Pikes Peak car, whatever. Jeff drove it and I think he won that year. So it was like a winning car and that put him. He's been on the map for a bunch of different stuff and I actually have never met him before.

Actually I've I have, but I've never had big conversation or anything like that. But it was his car is like, this is the car. This is Jeff's car is going to race in Pikes Peak. We need to get a Motec on it. And then so I did that job and then that's how I met them. And then I do like random nine over 11 stuff with them.

And then as we're getting more serious with this program, with the air cooled stuff, I've been kind of on board with them working side by side on that project with them for a couple of years now, but it's mostly there. It's mostly their deal, for sure, but I'm I'm kind of helping and then building the wiring loom. So it's part of the package for sure.

Okay. Gotcha. Okay. I'm caught up now. Well, as we start to wind down here, is anything else topic wise that we may have missed? Not really. How many years you got? You know, it's like I know so many things have happened. I know I always forget about cool stuff to people. Remind me randomly, I'm like, oh yeah, that was that was a monumental thing in my career or whatever.

But anyways, yeah, I guess just look out for this 964 build. It's, it's, it's a, it's an ugly Honda green color. Yeah, I like it. I'm excited. I'm inside of it. Yeah. There'll be plenty of pictures. I'm sure I'm sure we can get Larry to to feature it and put it on his video. But yeah, please go to Sima if you if you can make it.

We'll see you there. Let me. Rad. But I'm really excited for this nine, six four. So hopefully you guys just follow along with me as I kind of like post stuff. Hopefully I'm gonna get I got a bunch of YouTube content. I need somebody to help, just like edit all that crap because I don't have time to do it.

I don't really know how to edit. I never really tried, but I got a bunch of content that I've been shooting. I'd love to, like, eventually get that out there. And I think, just stay tuned for this build, because I think that there's going to be a lot of things that, that, that, that demographic of, of, of nine over 11 enthusiast has never really thought of.

And it's going to be a lot of like, interesting. This is cool, but the car's going to look mad simple. Like it's not like wide body. It's not this crazy arrow kitted out. It's going to be like very, very minimal narrowbody car. But there's going to be a lot of little things that make it very, very, very custom, very niche to me.

What kind of wheels are you of that? Are you allowed to reveal that? T37 actually, yeah. Two different colors. So the plan is to it's funny because I'm like, I don't really want to say all of it, but it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. I'm gonna do color matched on one side and I'm going to do another color on the other side.

Interesting. Because I, I'm like, it would look really good, like matching matchy match. And then it would also look good opposite kind of colors. So I'm gonna do I'll do one side one I can always easy enough to change later. But like I think for Sema it'd be cool because then you have the opportunity. You can kind of see it in once.

I don't really like it. Color matched. Oh, this looks better on this side. Like, I don't know, like and then it just doesn't matter. It's not like it's going to throw off weight or something. It's just literally a color choice. So I'm gonna do one on one, one on the other. And then after CML change it up or something like that, or maybe I even change the wheels.

We'll see. There's a photo of like, I think it was it might have been Seymour out there in like the desert or something. It was like a golf cart. I was like British racing cream. Then I also had British racing green wheels. That's interesting. Yeah. Well, that's this is going to be kind of the same thing. Like it's not British Racing green.

It's a bit lighter color but yeah same idea but but like 9/11 for example. They're notorious for having color match center center of their wheels to the paint. And then they'll even do the interior the same color. So I'm actually going to do I'm going to do green leather in the interior too. It's going to be a green on green on green.

I saw for like a custom Ferrari, like a newer one. I forgive my ignorance of not knowing the new fad, I think, or something like that. Ferrari. And it had, green on green on green. And I was like, oh, that's hard, I love it. F*** it, I'm gonna do it was a GT3 Rs I shot a few years ago.

I knew where 992 and it was red. And I also had like red wheels. And it was it was sick. Yeah. A while to grow on me, but, like, you don't see that often. Yeah. You don't see it a lot, like I said, 911 stuff you actually do. You see the faces that then they'll do the lip. Different color.

My favorite spec is or one of my. There's so many good ones when it comes to forces. But I love it when you do like the like the sort of livery, but it's like, white and the green wheels. Yeah. Like that is sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At least today. Yeah. There was a signal green 964 that I was looking at in Japan too, but it was a little bit too nice to just get torn down.

And then the price was a little bit higher too. But I was like looking at that one too. And it had the green on green. It was that signal green with the green wheels. It was pretty cool. Oh. Yeah. But like fully full face. It wasn't just like the the center. It was like the whole wheel was green, exterior was the signal green.

And then I think the interior was just black, but, Yeah, but that's a good color. Greens always good on greens, always good on nine over 11. So Porsches one is just weird ones where like they could pull off whatever they want. Exactly. Any color is going to go on nine over 11 or any Porsche is any like 944 is whatever.

You could do them any color. And they're good because, you know, it's because the enthusiasts are their noses are in the air. Oh, this is one of one paint to sample, right? So you can get away with doing purple and neon green and they'll be like, oh, this is this is one of one. So it's dope. And then you go, oh okay.

And yeah, it grows and grows on you and you're like, okay, it's acceptable. It's just kind of like even like, I love seeing like those. I think it's nine, six floors. Like when they have that old like Chrysler Pacifica Brown. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Sure sure, sure. And then the matching brown interior. Yeah, yeah, you can get away with it for sure.

Looks good. I had an opportunity when I was on the East Coast. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Sunder works. Sunder works. I've heard that name before, but I don't know. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And I that was my first experience. Like, around, like, you know, classic Porsches, like, you know, to that degree at least. Sure. This is freaking cool.

So, like, yeah, I kind of envy you guys on this in this part of the country because there's just everywhere. Yeah. They're everywhere. They're not rusted out there in good shape. All right. Well last question then. Sure. So at the end of every episode, I like to ask my guest to pick three cars. Okay. Like this. You have an unlimited budget.

You can swap, do whatever you want. Okay. Pick a daily driver, daily driver and a show car. You know, it's funny, I think like, I was watching, like I was listening. I listen to a lot of podcasts and I think, like the smoking tire. Somebody like, asked this question like the other day, was it? I don't remember what it was.

It was one of those podcasts. So I like thought about it. But then now I've forgotten what I was, what my answer was while I was listening. Okay, so a show car or sorry, like a date a say again, a daily driver, a track car, and then and then a show. Like a like a cars and coffee car, let's call it.

Okay. Let's do, let's do, the cars and coffee car would be a s***.

Let's do like an NSR with a Civic Type R engine swap. With all the with all the Moog and goodies, that would be my, like, cars and coffee car NSX r like right hand drive, imported like, you know, the Civic Type r K20 sees what kind of like how I have on that 2000 like Imola orange or something like super cool color.

That would probably be my cars and coffee car. Then my daily driver would be, I kind of want like a hybrid because it's a daily maybe like a tricked out Rivian. It's kind of weird, but I got to ride in one recently. But they're multi-use, multi-purpose, you know, they're there. Like you can go off road, you can tow, and then you can drive it like a few fuel.

Very, you know, it doesn't have fuel, but a very high efficiency car daily drive it and it's nice in the inside. So maybe but like kind of tricked out maybe like on like nice wheels or something like that. I don't know, something like, like that truck. Truck because I don't have like a bunch of kids or anything.

I don't have any kids, so I don't need, I don't need like, the pack humans. I would maybe want to more pack like stuff. So let's call it a truck. TT rt one whatever it's called. Whatever. So that one and then what's my what's my last choice? Like a kind of a track duty car, I don't know, maybe like a I would build my own Gunther works.

Let's if we just, you know, like it would be A9993. Probably because I like the 993 suspension geometry a little bit more than nine, six four. Let's call it 993. So I'm saying Gunther, because they're like, you know, you can associate with what I'm talking about, but fully done, like four liter crazy like probably twin turbocharged, classic air cooled, 911, but just like unlimited unreal like carbon.

Everything just freaking like basically what Gunther works is doing. But I would want to build it myself, right? And that would be my like track car. But it would be it'd be row legal so I could still drive it on the street. In theory, that would probably be my my lineup. Okay. On that note, what can I find you?

Instagram is where I normally spend my time. Wire underscore motorsport. I think that's what my name is right now on there. I do have a YouTube channel, but I don't really like I'm trying to get more stuff up, but like I did my my I did my build my freaking my blue S2000 with the K20. See, I did that like little build series.

I've done like a CRX with a k swap build series. So YouTube just rewire. I think that's all it is. And then I'm not really on any other platforms, but my website is rewire. Com and then my email. If you know my name is Ryan, you could probably guess what my email is. So yeah, that's that's where that people can find me.

Reach out to me. Well, thank you very much for sending down and making this happen. Thank you. Shout out to Andre from HPA. Yeah from from High Performance Academy. Not horsepower. Yeah yeah yeah not horsepower. It's a high performance academy set up with them. I think it's monoxide and I can't remember what. But if anybody wants to go and check out your sweet.

Oh, it's not up anymore. Oh, dude, that was like. It's like 11 years ago that we did that or something. Maybe. Yeah. They're still monetize off of it somehow. Probably. Which is good. But shout out Andre bringing us connected. And on that note, thank you everyone for watching and we'll see you all next time.