27. The slippery slope of building an 800whp 90’s Audi w/ Sam Morain

Dude, it's gonna be one of those episodes.

I feel like-

Please, no.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to the Minnoxide podcast. I'm your host, Harris, aka Minnoxide. I'm a local Minnesota photographer who talks to a lot of people about fun stuff. And I'm here with my co-host.

Hey, guys, I'm Sean Bryant. You may know me as the guy with the 1M or Durango Hellcat. And today, we're taking you behind the scenes with Sam over at Radified. He's going to tell us a little bit about himself. Go ahead.

Your build and yourself. I'm more interested in the build.

My name is Sam Morain. I am 27 years old. I drive a 1992 Audi S4, fully built, makes 800 wheel horsepower. And I work at Radified Service Advisor. I don't work on cars. I just work on my own.

Podcast over. Talk to you next time.

Yeah.

No, so I kind of wanted to get you on this podcast because we've spent a good bit of time talking. I brought my car over to Radified. I've known Rad for, I think, a year now, a year and a half. And I got to talk to you quite a bit the last time I was in for service. And I was like, it'd be awesome to have you on the podcast. You have a lot of fun stories. You've, that S4 is a fricking monster. I remember seeing your dyno video, and I showed it to Sean immediately. I was like, Sean, this fricking thing just made 800 horsepower.

Yeah, you don't see a lot of cars from the 90s doing that.

It is so unique. What year is that thing?

It's 1992.

92.

So it's 31 years old.

The only cars from the 90s I could think of that do ridiculous power are like Mark IV Supras.

And Vipers that have been touched.

No, it's usually post 2000. I've never seen a built gen one, actually.

I think, doesn't AJ have a built gen one and gen two? Well, those are still from the 90s.

We don't talk about that one.

Semantics.

Yeah, but no, so I actually speaking of Vipers, it's only been what two minutes and I'm already talking about Vipers. Wasn't part of your car like done by the Enthmodo team or something?

Yeah, so Clay, they're the machinist that does all the machining for all their builds and all this stuff like that. They operate as a machine shop. So I was told, this guy Clay does work on five cylinders. He's a big Audi guy, he drives the RS4, B7S4, all that stuff. You gotta hit him up, have him build your engine. I was like, okay. So I found him on Facebook and it said, machinist at Enthmodo. I was like, oh, okay. This is probably gonna get pretty spendy. So I just messaged him on Facebook. He messaged me back. I got his phone number. We chatted a little bit about what I wanted to do. He said, sure, drop it off. I was like, okay. Dropped it off, relatively decent turnaround time. And yeah, I mean, believe it or not, a five-cylinder is half of a V10. So it works.

Oh yeah, that makes sense. 10 divided by two.

Yeah. And I always joke about how my car sounds like a twin-turbo Viper. When you think about it, when they have the side pipes, you only hear five cylinders and one turbo at a time. So when my car is super choppy, you can hear a little bit of whistle at idle. It sounds like a twin-turbo V10.

That's crazy. I heard you coming down the street. I'm like, what is that?

I was wondering if you were going to bring that out today.

Oh, of course.

I was so happy.

I always like driving it when the weather's good.

Yeah, smelled the corn. I was like, oh, it's been a while. You know, now that I think about it, I don't smell as much corn nowadays as I used to. I'm just not around enough people anymore to run a corn. It's fricking gnarly. But no, and you're showing me, so that thing isn't as light as I thought it was while we were talking outside. I'm so sad you didn't see him pull up, because we were chatting for a bit. And it's like, see, that thing weighs quite a bit still, actually.

Yeah, so it's pretty much full interior. It doesn't have a headliner, but it's old steel. So with me, I weighed it at Proven Grounds. It was 3,700 pounds. So that puts me in the caliber of CTSVs and Hellcats and stuff like that, so I'm still heavy.

Oh, I don't know about that. Hellcats are f****** heavy.

Yeah, true. They're over 4,000. But I basically built the car for power crews. It's a four door. You can have four people in the car, five people if you want, but four people in the car, that's what it was built for. So then, 4,200 pounds, 4,300 pounds. But yeah, still just works.

So how did you get to that point? When did you start building it? Or when did you get the car, I guess?

So I've owned, so it's kind of funny because not a lot of people know about this car. I would say it's pretty rare. 1992, they only made like 200 or 300 of them for the country.

Yeah, I didn't even know that they had the S class or S line back in the 90s, or at least that early. That must have been like the introduction.

Yeah, so 1992 was the first year. That was more so the street class, or street car for the old Sport Quattro. So the Sport Quattro, short wheelbase, turbo five cylinder, relatively the same platform as mine, but they wanted to market to the luxury class. I mean, back in 1992, the MSRP was $48,000, which in today's dollars is like $82,000, which is more than an RS3 or something like that. It competes more with an S6 nowadays, although it's a little bit smaller. But I don't know what you're thinking. But yeah, so I've owned five of them, or six maybe. All of them, except for one, was purchased in Minnesota. But it's weird because I personally have never seen another one on the road while driving mine or anything like that. So it's weird, like it's just, you know, I mean, I know pretty much everybody in the state that has one. So you know, you're kind of in the know. So when you want to buy one, they're readily available. But yeah, I've owned five of them. I ended up buying one in Virginia, and it was just pretty low mile, really clean. I didn't want to daily it because it was my only car. So I traded it for a 2003 Audi RS6, the twin turbo V8 ones.

Nice.

But I was like not mechanically inclined at all. Like I could do spark plugs and that's about it. And then on that thing that doing plugs was not easy to me. I was like, I don't feel comfortable owning this. So I sold it and just daily-ed my sport wagon TDI. And everyone was like, oh, well you've always been in cars. What are you gonna buy next? And I was like, well, only way I would buy another fun car is if it's a black on black S4. I like the S4s over S6s of that year. They look a little bit more boxy, look more aesthetically pleasing to me. So, I spoke it into existence because about a month after I said that, one popped out for sale, I missed it, and then a year and a half goes by, it's back up for sale for $2,000 over what it was listed before, and nothing changed. And it had body damage and all that stuff. It was a basket case. But yeah, ended up buying it. I found, it ended up coming up for sale. I talked him down to what he bought it for, because he sold it to me, he's a really nice guy, is still in touch with him. He's crazy to see, or for him to see what it's become today. But yeah, I didn't plan on building it to be fast. I want it to be like a kind of like a stance car, because I didn't really know what I was doing to make them fast. And I knew I was like, that's a lot of money. I don't want to do it. So that's where the carbon fiber wide body came in. It actually had quarter panel damage. So when I bought it, super cheap. Basically, there's a whole process. A lot of people just drop it off at a body shop. They do the welding, body work, and then paint it. I was like, well, if I'm doing all that, it's going to be a lot of money. I want to do the body work myself. I'm kind of thrifty and don't want to spend a ton of money on stuff I don't need to buy. So I was like, well, I want to do it all myself, but I know I can't make it perfect. So I was like, the only way I can make it perfect is if it's like carbon fiber, because then it at least looks more exotic than, you know, just painted steel. So that's when I did carbon, you know, finally got it done with my nice, you know, three piece wheels and all that. I was taking it to a car show, put about a hundred miles on it, and the head gasket blew. Oh, man. So I was like, okay, so, you know, I spent all this time and money making it look cool. And then, you know, it's basically down. So then, you know, I found myself in a position where I either fix it and it's stock again, or I build it. And then that's where, you know, I fell down the rabbit hole of building it. And yeah, it was here today, which again, you know, whoever is out there listening and wants to build a car, there is a slippery slope. My advice, find where you actually want to go. Find one that's like unrealistic and shoot for that, because you'll find yourself spending the same money twice, buying the same thing twice. I did that and I spent, I probably could have saved five to $6,000 building the car if I did it the way it is now first. So basically, spent the money twice.

Yeah, instead of going for any shortcuts or not taking advice or going lower quality, I'm guessing.

Yep, and that's where a lot of the experiences of going to events like TX2K, half mile events and World Cup finals, stuff like that, seeing what other people are doing that works, and then applying that to my car. So it's like a accumulation of everything that I've learned, I guess.

When you initially started going, did you, I mean, you didn't shoot for 800 right away. What was the tier process along the way? What was the first, I guess, high power level that you did?

So I was a forum kid, and I found in the forums a reputable tuner said, these cars can make 600 wheel horsepower on E85 stock pistons, upgraded rods. I was like, oh, sweet. I like hearing the word stock. If I could keep it unmodified, I can save money. So then that's what I was gonna do. I was gonna make modest 600 horsepower. I did, I started out stock piston, upgraded rod, and then I went to a half mile event. This is when my engine was with Clay at INTH. I went to a half mile event in Kansas, actually this one two years ago, for those that can't see, I'm wearing a shift sector Kansas shirt. But it was two or three years ago, and on our way back, there was a guy in Kansas that I owe a lot of the reason that my car is where it is today and sounds the way it does with the cams and all that stuff is a guy named Jeff Gerner. He lives in Kansas City. We had always known each other online, talked on the phone a couple of times. He tried to guide me in the right direction, but I messaged him when we were on our way back, and I said, hey, can I swing by? I want to see your race car. He said, yeah, sure, just make sure you have a mask. It was 2020, so everyone was COVID crazy. I saw his race car, and he asked me questions about my build. I was like, I'm doing stock piston, upgraded rods. He's like, why? I was like, save money. End was just save money. That's the only reason. But I was like, but since it is a rare occurrence, I am here in person. If you have a set of pistons in stock, I will buy them right now. He's like, yep, I do. I was like, okay, here we go. So then that's where the slippery slope started. Is I bought pistons on my way back, then I called Clay and I was like, hey, where are you at on the engine build? He's like, oh, I'm starting it next week. I was like, perfect. I got some pistons I need to drop off. Slight change of plans. He's like, okay, sounds good.

Right, so you started at 600 and then you got pushed towards 800.

Yes, so that's the thing. My goal was, so it's another side tangent story. When I originally met my tuner, I asked him, what can I do to make 700? 700 was my goal. Like that was like the end. I was like, I was told once ago, like when I was 18 years old, every car over 700 horsepower, that's a small engine, has problems. I was like, okay, so 700 is my goal. I don't wanna go past that. So he told me what to buy, yada, yada, yada. So I was like, okay, start at six, because I had never actually driven a fast car. My fastest car I've ever driven made 350 wheel horsepower. I was like, I don't need double that in a manual car. Too much stuff going on. 600 is my goal. So then that snowballed to seven, because aftermarket pistons can handle a little bit more power, but I didn't wanna spend the money on a ported head, cams, valves, valve springs, anything like that. So then 700 was the goal. That, I achieved that goal relatively easily. First time on the dyno last year made 715 wheel horsepower. And I drove throughout the whole year. Everyone questioned the build, because I had stock valves that were 30 years old. They're like, how have they not just disintegrated? I was like, I don't know. And then I made it through the year, luckily, I guess. I kind of ended the year shortly, because I didn't wanna push my luck, because you drop a valve, it takes out the whole bottom end. Well, not the whole bottom end, but enough of the bottom end to not make you happy. So then that's when I sent my head back out to get poured in, and that's where it is today. So that was a slippery slope. If I didn't spend the money on redoing the head, that's a thousand bucks right there to refresh a head, valve seals, deck, all that. I would have saved money there had I just shot for the end. But yeah, so yeah, first goal, 600. Ended up buying pistons, made seven, and then sent the head out to get poured in, got eight. And it's a type of thing where if you're familiar, I don't know the set up on your Durango, but when you get to a level and you drive it often, you get tired of it. So like go to Power Cruise by Sunday, I'm like, this car is slow, I hate it.

I get used to it. Yeah, it's that you feel like you're just arriving at this plateau and then you're on that plateau for a while and you're like, okay, should we change this? Should we go up some more? You know, obviously there's no going down.

Exactly. You'd be surprised. There's a point in time when you get old, it's like, okay, this is enough. I need a little bit. I need to tone it down a little bit.

Well, you know, we're both in our 20s. You know, that's not going to happen for a while.

We got some time.

We're going to push it to our limits. Except for old man over here. He's got back problems.

Oh, whatever. Dude, it's crazy though. Like there's some people that just keeping wilder, the older they get. I met a guy down in Tampa and he had to, he had this like silver Viper back in like 2006 or whatever. And this thing was one of the fastest things on the planet. Like just ridiculous. Like, you know, wheelie, hoppin Viper, whatever. Nobody knows who this guy is. He's so off the radar. I love these off the radar guys. They're the best. And now he just has a mild tame 1600 horsepower build. Like, you know, so it's like, some people, you know, they dial it back when they get older.

Yeah. And it's fun. It's like when they say like, you know, when you work out or not the energy drinks, but pre-workout, they kind of give yourself a break from them, that when you go back, it's like, okay, this is crazy. You know, you build up a tolerance. So like those weekend of like trips and events and stuff like that, like you get, you build up a tolerance for the power. So it's like, okay, I need a bigger turbo, build the engine for more power. You're just wanting more and more and more. So I take, you know, couple of weeks off, drive the truck a little bit, you know, kind of humble myself, go back to the car.

I love doing that, but I can do that with the Durango too. I can drive that thing just normally, and then if I'm at a stoplight, and I put my foot on the brake, and I start giving myself, you know, like launch control, and I take off at a light, that gives me the adrenaline, like, oh yeah, this car... Yeah, like I did that yesterday. There were a couple of bikers behind me, and they're like pointing at my license plate. I got a new license plate, it says Drag Cat on it. And they're like, oh, it must be a Hellcat Durango too, because I got the Hellcat badge on it. And then I was like, all right, I'm just gonna give it to these guys. So I just did like a 1500 launch, and I think I did a 0-60 in like three seconds on my street tires. So I was like, oh yeah. I don't normally do huge launches like that either, because if I'm not putting that stress on the drivetrain by putting the brakes down and tightening things up, there is a risk that I blow my drivetrain, and I don't want that. So it's not like every time I want to launch this thing, I don't want to have to launch control it. So I'm pretty easy on it. I want this thing to last.

Yeah, and that's what's nice. I mean, you have the world of map switching with all these newer mods.

I'm so jealous of all these European cars that can do it.

Yeah, just play with the cruise control stock, you get one through five or whatever you want. All these MoTeC cars, they get map one through nine. Individual, like this one's two PSI higher than this one and all that stuff. That's why I kind of make jokes about how my car is the Hellcat because it's a four-door car, it makes 800 wheel horsepower. But even with Hellcats, you get black key, red key. So that's why you can't really see it on camera, but I got red key because it's always in fast mode. I don't have...

Or I guess it's a SRT, but you retrofitted it.

Yeah, I bought a key fob off eBay of a red key because I only have one tune.

That's awesome.

It's the high horsepower tune only.

Yeah.

That is amazing. I'm so glad. That is hilarious. That's fricking gnarly. No, it's not. I don't know. I thought you were gonna keep going, Sean.

Keep going with what? On the Durango?

No, I don't know, but that's the nice thing about like turbo cars, is like you have boost weather. Like in the mornings, it's so much more fun to drive than like on a hot day or it's 95 or whatever. So that's kind of like, I'm in that generation where my attention span is so short that I forget how fast my car was four hours ago. So it's like, you know, by the time it gets back to cold again, it's like, whoa, this is the best thing ever.

Right, right. Yeah, I really love turbos. And especially like my job as like a service advisor, everybody at Ratify loves turbos. Superchargers are cool. We work on a lot of S4s, like supercharged three liters. They're cool, but there's a limit. There's only so much you can do. Like, I'm sure you experienced it with a Hellcat. You know, heat soak is really, really bad versus an intercooler car, like, you know, turbo. It's, you know, it's, you can start low and then turn the power up later. For supercharger, you can do the same thing, but it's still limits. I actually had a, it was after Power Cruise last year, there was a Gen 2 R8 that emailed me about putting a supercharger kit on his R8. You know, he was tired of getting beat by all these like faster cars that, you know, aren't as exotic as an R8. He messaged me about a supercharger kit, and for those that don't know, these supercharger kits, they're about the same amount of money as a twin turbo kit. With a twin turbo kit, you know, one that makes 800 horsepower can also make 1400 horsepower, which is more supporting mods. So, I mean, I don't know. I like the sound of them, and it's just the...

No, that is true. I see that so often in like the Lamborghini, on the Huracans, people that just throw a supercharger on it. And it's like, why? Like you're really limiting yourself. And, you know, VF Engineering, they make like a really good supercharger kit for them. But...

It's great, but it's boring.

You could do twin turbo, like you said, for just about the same power. And later on, if you decide like, I need to go bigger, you can. Whereas like, you're just doing that thing where you're gonna be spending twice the money in the long run of things. If you decide like, I want more power, well, great, you got the supercharger, but now you gotta go turbos. So, and you gotta get all the supporting mods.

You spend 30K once to get the supercharger, you want more than 850 horsepower, gotta spend 30K again to go to turbos.

Yeah, so whenever I see like these supercars with the supercharger set up, I'm like, well, that's nice if that's where they wanna be. And like, they don't get that like power creep, and they're not like wanting more.

That next owner is just gonna be kind of hard to sell, right? Like a twin turbo, like twin turbo cars get flipped all the time.

Yeah, especially to like, your customer base that wants these cars and are throwing these kinds of mods on cars, they kind of know a little bit or should know before they get into something like that. And getting into a supercharger, it's a lot harder to sell than twin turbo setups.

I mean, look at Chicago motor cars, how many freaking cars they flip through. Every once in a while, you get a VF car. No knocking VF, it's a great platform, but it's like, I'd rather have twin turbos. Like it's just, I think everybody would. I don't know.

I mean, you look at Texas 2K, the top 10, all those cars have turbos.

I don't think they can even do a supercharger build on those cars for that high of horsepower, would they?

No, that's the problem with superchargers, unless you're pro street mod cars with the biggest pro chargers.

Yeah, not knocking them. They can make crazy power. I mean, all NHRA guys and stuff like that, they're putting these massive superchargers on them. They can do it, but that's a completely different level.

Yeah, they're not driving it on the street. They can't. It's just not possible to drive that on the street. It's only on the drag strip, but you get the twin turbos. You see the Enth Moto cars, they're constantly driving around with the same turbo set ups that they are at the track.

It's freaking gnarly. I remember when we went down to go test some stuff with Minneapolis Mopar or whatever. This is a few months before Texas 2K last year, I think it was. And literally, he did nine hits that day, went out, or I mean, nine runs on a track, sorry, and then just went to dinner, took it to dinner. It's like pure street car. We were cruising for an hour, hour and a half after. Can't do that with a lot of different race cars or even other Viper platforms, but yeah, it's fricking gnarly. You're known for the Hellcat, by the way. At the beginning, I just had, this came back to me, cause like at the beginning of the podcast, like he's like, oh, you know me for the 1M and possibly the Hellcat. I'm like, nobody knows you for the 1M.

Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen the 1M.

Everybody messages me about the Hellcat.

I take it out about 50-50. I'm pretty generous with both of them, but I think the, I definitely notice this when I'm in the Durango. It gets way more looks and it's just a bigger target, I feel like.

Yeah, it's a big f****** target.

And people just notice it way more, and I just don't know if the 1M's just too obscure or what.

But it's one of those platforms where it's like, if you know, you know.

Yeah, well, I guess that's the same for the Durango because I've had people go, they didn't even know that they made it Hellcat Durangoes.

But the badge is so f****** big. It's like a dinner plate on the side of it.

It's ridiculous. I know, so and it just surprises me. But yeah, a lot of people really love that Durango. And I definitely feel, it's crazy. It's a three row SUV and I'm getting, you know, all these people like staring at me. I'm like, why don't I get feel like this in the 1M? Like I know if I'm driving the Durango, people are gonna stare.

What was the name of the guy that you bought the Pistons from again?

His name is Jeff Garner.

So what was his car making power wise if he's like this guru?

So he has two cars. He has a street car and a race car. The street car probably around 700-ish, 750. It's a 60 millimeter turbo, like 40 pounds of boost. And his race car is actually like a land speed car. So if you Google, world's fastest sedan, it's a 1993 or 1994 Audi S4. It's fully guarded, 2.5 liter, massive 80, I think at the time had like a 82 millimeter turbo, something like that, made it 1150. But he went 260 miles an hour at the Bonneville salt flats. So that's the fastest four door car in the world. No one has gone to Bonneville and gone faster than that.

That's insane. 260 miles an hour in a 90s Audi, tin can? Oh, I couldn't even imagine.

Yeah, so he's, I mean, he's been in the platform, I don't even know how long, but he, this guy, he's a long history of racing, like, you know, CRX back in like the late 80s, he was, you know, road course racing them in like the early 90s. So, you know, these cars are pretty much brand new, and he's, you know, gutted, turned into a race car. Like he's been racing for a while, knows his stuff. So yeah, that was, he's kind of like the king of the old five cylinder stuff. He is getting old, he's 68 years old now. He still does like standing mile and standing half mile, stuff like that. I think in the standing mile, he did 228. And then the standing half, he did 191. And for reference, my 800 wheel horsepower car did 166. So he's about 25 miles an hour faster than me. It's pretty significant. I mean, that's up with like 1200 horsepower R8s.

Yeah.

That is fricking gnarly. Well, that's something to be said about those old guys who, or he's not even that old, 68 is kind of like the new 40, but like compliments on the podcast.

Yeah.

What was I going to say? There's a testament to these guys that have been in the scene forever. Like if I were to go to a car show and saw him, I would have no f****** clue who he is. But then again, it comes back to if you know, you know.

Yeah. But I'm sure if you saw his car, you'd be like, what is this guy into? This guy's insane for driving this. Like is crazier. That sounds crazier than most of the cars that we see at car shows. It'd be like going to Cars and Caves and checking out all these garages and then coming by his and going, this is crazy.

He's very similar. When you go to Cars and Caves, the older guy that has a, I think he has like three or four Porsche, like old school, air cool Porsche race cars, always working on them. He's very similar to that. He's very hands on, older, but very still, he's still doing it.

Yeah. I hope we're like that at 70.

That's the guy I was talking to last time, by the way, when you walked away. That's the guy I was talking to who races Porsches regularly. He's put more miles on an 86, I think it was 86 Porsche than anybody else in Minnesota or whatever. He just tracks the s*** out. Those air cool cars, they're like 260 horsepower. But they also weigh like 2,200 or whatever, something ridiculous like that. And he's like, yeah, that thing is, it's a blast. Like it's no traction control systems. There's just no tech in those cars. Just, I want to experience that one day just to see how scared I'd be. Cause like some cars, I can just jump in. Like the Supra I drove yesterday, I can just jump in, rip it. But then get in a car like that. I haven't been scared driving a car yet. Let's put it that way.

Yeah, I think those cars are more meant for like qualified drivers, you know, people who put themselves through the ring.

F*** that, my biggest thing that I'm nervous for is to get into like a 90s or earlier manual because like, there's no nannies.

Yeah, well even like my car, like it's very like, it has quirks. You know, you can't just get in, start it and drive. Like there's a starting process. It doesn't start the greatest. You got to kind of feather the throttle a little bit, turn the ABS off, and then you're good to go.

All right, so if somebody wants to steal your car, run us through the process of what is the starting process?

Nothing crazy, you just get in and start it. Yeah, like Eric's Roadster.

So I don't know if you saw Eric's Roadster that he just got back, the 67 Datsun.

I think I saw it out last night, yeah. Yeah, that's right, yeah.

Frickin his start button, or whatever. He has a sequence that he has to do. He has the ignition.

It's super simple. It's just two steps. You just flip a switch, and then it's got push to start, and then that's it.

That's great, except if you don't know that, you're gonna be f****** fiddling around with it for a half hour, and by then the cops are there.

He doesn't need anybody to know that, only he needs to know that.

And the several hundred listeners are gonna listen to this too.

No, because I didn't say what switch to flip.

There's four f****** switches. We just figured it out.

They all need to be at a certain sequence.

I freaking love it. So then, okay, are you a power junkie now? You don't care about the Stancey Boy stuff anymore?

Yeah. That's the thing. I'm not so much power where I'm big into sloppy mechanics or anything like that. I like clean. So if it looks like it's a show car, but it's fast, I enjoy that. I like stuff that's executed well.

Yeah, best of both worlds.

Yeah, so every event I go to, I walk around and it's like, oh, I like how this person did this. It was really clean, super tidy, all that. I kinda wanna replicate that on my build. I don't like junkyard LS, big turbo. Yeah, it works, but I like it to look clean.

Just a rat's nest of wires.

Yeah, yeah, I have had my fair share of wiring problems. And I know that it may work now, but something is gonna happen later and you're gonna be chasing it versus a car that's done well. It just works. You get in, it works. You don't have to worry about it not starting one day or breaking down the side of the freeway. So yeah, I care more about, I mean, if I used to be like, you know, like slam coilovers, nice wheels, it's cool to look at, let's move on, versus there's engine bays I've seen that I've lingered around for a half hour just looking at every little intricate detail versus a car that just has wheels and coilovers. It's like, yeah, it gets boring, right? Like it's cool, like as a whole, like going to like Gatlinburg or slammed enough or whatever, just like walk around and see, it's like, yeah, it's cool. You know, he's bought $6,000 wheels, nice coilovers, tint, cool. Then you move on. It's a cool, like walk through those events, but like, you don't want to just sit on a car and just stare at it for however long.

That's valid. Yeah, cause like, even like last week at Buck Hill, like there's this guy had like a 2J build, and it's just like, it's an incredible engine bay. And like the car was still showy, looked amazing. But I spent more time just looking around in there. I'm like, this is a really clean engine bay. Like, yeah, that's a good point. Like shows like, again, slammed enough, you just kind of, it's the collective that you care more about rather than the individual cars. Like I saw some of the cars that were, what was the one that was last weekend? Was it slammed enough?

I think it was slammed enough, yeah.

And I saw some of the posts, so I'm like, oh, that's cool. Next story. Like I don't care. Like I didn't stop, zoom in. I don't give a f***. I see that's a wide body with a wrap, whatever.

Yeah. So like, yeah, that's the type of show that you can go, like you can look at pictures and like you went to the show. There's nothing you need to see. I've seen like pictures of engine bays and stuff. Like there's, I don't know if you've seen the, I think it's an Evo 8 or an Evo 9 wagon here.

Oh, there's one here?

Yeah. So it was, I think it was not a giveaway car, but it was recently sold. Guy bought it here, makes like 900, 950 horsepower, dog box, hood dump. Like it's very well done. Like it's the type of thing where you stare at the picture for half hour, 20 minutes, just wishing you were there to see it in person. But yeah, you'll have to, I don't know. He goes out to a few local events, but yeah, you'll have to see it sometime. It's very, very, very well done.

When did it come here? Any idea?

I want to say May, right around there. So it's been here for a few months. I've only ever seen pictures of it at like three or four shows though.

Is this a gray one?

Black.

Black. I thought I saw one on the internet recently. First of all, I forgot that EVO wagons exist. So that's just another one of those things. Like you forget, like for example, R32 sedans exist.

Yeah, only in Japan though.

There's some that have been imported here though.

Well, I know. Yeah, I've seen some on marketplace, but they're usually not very well taken care of.

A handful of clean ones out there, but yeah, they're usually not taken care of nicely. Which is wow. Like I'm so excited for all these R34s to start coming in. Like I just see like rich dudes on my Instagram being like, all right, this is coming this year. It's like, what the f***? I didn't even know you had that. They just bought it for cheap or just waiting, but yeah, it's freaking gnarly. So how much time have you spent personally like working on that car? Like, I mean, I'm sure you've learned a lot along the way.

Mm-hmm, I mean, I can't even put an hour figure. I mean, into the, like, I would say, I can't even guess. But it's a lot. I've always wanted to like change things. Like I said, you know, I'm trying my hardest to, you know, when I go to events and stuff like that and I get bored with the car, I don't try to just reach for more power. I try to change some little thing, like I've had it since, you know, I've had this thing done on the car since I started. How can I change it to make myself like it more? Or prevent a future problem or something like that? But yeah, I mean, it's hard because I mean, it's just a few hours every weekend. Every now and then I take weekends off because, you know, you have to be sane, but yeah, I mean, it's a lot. Like even this last like winter, you know, pulling the cylinder head off of my parents' garage, you know, I don't have like a, I didn't have like a shop or anything like that. Like obviously I've worked, but like I don't want the car to be down at work for that long. I have to push it in and push it out. So just stuff like that. Like, I mean, I mean, at least a hundred or probably three, four or 500 hours, something like that. I mean, it's a lot. Like it's anyone that's like built the car themselves, like knows it's labor of love to like want to do it, but it just means more in the end. Like I get a lot of customers that, you know, drop the car off, pick it up, and it's 900 wheel horsepower. It's like, you always want to like go more and more and more. And like I get a lot of customers now, like granted I love it. Like I love the fact that they love the car. They want more power, but it's like something about like me where I built the car myself. I just, I enjoy it as is. Like every noise that it makes, every creaks, every everything is all, you know, me and obviously the people that have helped me, coworkers, friends, stuff like that.

The good and the bad, that's all comes on you. Like when you say creaks, I'm like, yeah, I know what you're talking about. Like when you lose a little like nut or whatever, like inside your hatch, and then it's every time you open it, you f****** hear it. You hear it every single time. Yeah, the creak, yeah, the good and the bad. So I guess, what are some things in your car where you're just like, f*** it, I'm having somebody else do that. Like that is so outside of my realm.

I mean, as far as like fab work goes, like I told you earlier, I do want to learn because I don't like to be reliant on other people. But all the fab work when it comes to majority of like the intercooler piping, exhaust manifold, full exhaust on my car was done by my coworker, Blake, like I told you. That stuff, I want it to work, and I don't want to have to worry about problems later. I don't want a manifold to crack. I've seen it a thousand times, manifolds cracking because they get hot, and I just want it done right, and I don't want to have to redo it. I had a problem where, anyone that knows the car all last year, I had silicone couplers on every single connection, on the intercooler, throttle body, turbo, I could do probably three or four pulls and a charge pipe would blow off. So I hated that. So that was one of the winter project things that we did was switching over to Vibran HD. So I don't have to worry about couplers popping off, but always in the back of my head. It's like last year, car was great. And then every three or four pulls, I'd have a coupler pop off, but then in my back of my head now, I've always thought that that was my problem last year. Okay, so I fixed that problem. What's gonna be the new problem?

Right, yeah.

So yeah, I've always thought it's like last year, had a coupler not popped off, and I finished that pull, what would have happened?

That's right, I'm mad. Again, I'm not even a fraction of the power that you are, but for example, last year, I was leaking oil, fixed that. Then, actually, before that is when I had a hose blow off and coolant, just dropped coolant, stuck in the middle of the road. You know, in the winter, on our way to a concert.

It's fine, you can drive, it's winter. It won't get that hot.

No, it was ridiculous. And it just like, oh, stop now. So I would have to drive it 30 seconds just to get to a decent spot to stop. It was sketchy what I was doing. I was just like, f*** it if the motor blows. But it was a bad situation. And then I texted John Wayne at JWP, and I'm like, hey, who should I hit up for a tow? Because I got an Uber to this f****** concert. I got to figure something out here. It was just ridiculous. It's like, oh man, this is how long ago. But now I'm just kind of waiting. What's the next thing? I hear a rattling. And by the way, Sean, I'm not full of s***. It's rattling.

Is it getting worse?

It gets worse, and then it's gone. I can't figure out what, for the first 10 minutes of driving my car, just this weird rattling. And it all started after I f****** went, I'm convinced I was airborne.

You probably did go airborne. You probably got maybe a couple inches off the ground.

Off the ground is airborne.

Yeah, but you came straight back down.

F****** slammed, so I was over here on like Flying Cloud or whatever, headed to that Summer Nights event at Chan House or whatever. F******, I'm ripping it. You know, twice the limit, nothing. Oh, nothing crazy. And then I hit this bump or whatever that's never been there before. I've been on this road a million times.

What road is this? So I can write it down? Not to go down it?

You know, like when you cross the 101 bridge and then there's the roundabouts, then you take a right into like the forest area?

Yep.

Yeah, over there. Again, no issue, but I think I was a little too far right or something, and I must have hit a pothole or something. But either way, all I remember is I was looking straight and then I'm looking slightly left. That's why, like, and then just a whack off the ground. And then when I started driving home after the event, because like I was playing with music, I'm like, whatever, but I was driving real, I don't know if you remember to Sean, he's used to me driving like a lunatic. I was driving slow the rest of the day. I was just like, all right, that was scary.

It was one of those moments where you had to like re-examine everything that you've done up to that point.

I started thinking like, oh, s***, I really should work on this driving habit of mine.

Yeah, I was right behind you too in the 1M, and I was like keeping up with you. And then I was still giving you distance just because I don't like to ride your a** like you like to do with other people.

I don't ride anybody's a**.

Oh, really? You didn't ride the a** of the GT 500?

The rallies are a different story.

Yeah, it's a different story.

Yeah, so here's the, okay, very few people know this story. And they're gonna think I'm full of s***. So let's start with that. So we did like seven or eight people, like mini-rally last year, right? We called it the Lumberjack Rally. It was hilarious. One of my ralliers put it on because I canceled my North event when I shut down Whiplash. So we did this and we had Mark's 1000-wheel Mustang, Dan's, I wanna say 700-wheel, whatever. Fun fact, he had some issues with that car. I'll tell you that off air. Side note, if anybody has suggestions on cars within a certain price range, DM me. But anyways, I was following a GT 500, and because I typically I don't drive with like music or whatever, nothing on events like this. And every time he would downshift once, I would downshift twice. So like, obviously this thing would just blow the doors off me in the straights, but I was on his a** so hard in the corners. Like I was literally scraping because I would take corners so hard and so fast. I was very proud of my, for reference, my driving. I would hit bumps at 120, allegedly, and my f****** wipers would turn on. Like I was hooking on this. I got some high praise on that event from Mark because Mark does a lot of track days and whatever. But anywho, how do we get into that story? Oh yeah, I had people's a****.

Well, I was going to say, I was right behind you. And when I saw you take that air, I immediately got on the brakes. I was like, I don't want to do that.

Dude, it looks sketch, dude. And that's when I had almost bald tires. One of the guys on the mini-rally, you remember Chase? He was on f****** cords.

Oh yeah.

We're like three hours away from anybody's house. Like, it's like, oh man, whatever. Have you done events like a rally or anything before?

Not really, no.

Doesn't really interest you much?

No, I just have a fear of getting stranded. I don't want to have to deal with that.

Yeah, it's kind of scary in modded cars, heavily modded cars, that's for sure.

Do not rally with modded cars. Carissa, who was one of our volunteers and regular rallyers, she makes a point of this. First of all, you never want to rally on corn, because there's no f****** corn anywhere. Even locally, I know Katie got stuck.

Oh, it's hard.

Yeah, she was up north or whatever, and she was having to deal with that. It was just a catastrophe. She made it work, but that's also because it was a short rally. Yeah, no. Well, even f****** Dan, what is it? Two years in a row, he had to fix his, what was he fixing?

It was a wheel hub.

Yeah. Dude, that dude's done more parking lot fixes on a rally than anybody else, and I know he's listening to this, so he's just laughing to himself. But.

Yeah, that's the last thing I want to do.

Yeah, there's a lot of pictures and evidence to prove it.

You remember, a Niagara Falls to Niagara Falls rally? He literally opened his trunk. He's like, I got every f****** tool I need.

Yeah, and extra parts. I mean, that is one thing that you should plan on bringing on a rally is like, you know, if you know something might go wrong, it's just good to have that with you. Like a spare gas can is always nice. And bringing like a small mechanics bag so you can like, if a coupler comes off, you can put it back on.

You probably take all this to you for racing events, don't you?

Yeah. See, that's the thing. It's kind of a completely different mindset because I've seen, you know, 13, 20, they always do it. Like, it's different if it's like Rocky Mountain Race Week or some other kind of drag week or something like that. Obviously, you need the parts to complete the event. But like this, like Kansas or TX2K or anything like that.

You wanna start that again?

I didn't bring any, you know, spare axles or diff or anything. Pretty much the motto was, if I broke, putting on the trailer. I mean, it depends, it's kind of like a vacation. So I don't wanna be like working on cars. There's no, you don't get a trophy for being the manliest man for replacing a rear diff, you know, in Texas in a driveway, you know? If it broke, I'm done. That's it. And I know a lot of people, like my friend Joe did that. He went to Eighth Mile, no prep event down in Omaha at I-29. Didn't bring anything. He brought a socket and a ratchet for spark plugs, and that's it. He's like, if I break, put it on the trailer. He's like, I don't wanna slave. I have shop at home, I can work on my car there. I don't need to be a macho.

Try to enjoy the event. You know who actually got the bad, the s***** end of the stick was Brian, when he had a CTS-V down in Texas. Yeah, poor guy.

He did the exact opposite of what you were just saying.

He was trying to make it work, and I think he finally started enjoying the event. It was like halfway through Saturday or Sunday or something like that.

I was gonna say like Saturday night.

Yeah.

When it was like, there's just no way.

When we went to the Euro Charge down there. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I think we saw him down there at one of those events.

Because otherwise, he was like trying his damnest every night.

He was trying to get that fricking car working. And then when he came back up here, I think he sent it off or whatever. But yeah, that's a pass. Yeah. Old caddy day.

I mean, it was like a little bit of stuff. Like, it's like a small problem. Like I did have problems in Texas with like wiring and fuel system stuff. You're so close. You know, try to make it work and try to fix it, try to find the little problem just so you can, you know, car works and runs and drives. You're just trying to make it a little bit more enjoyable. But yeah, if anything like big mechanically broke, I'm not doing it. There's no point. Like I said, at the end of the day, I'm an advisor. I don't work on cars. I work on my own, but not at, you know, not in the driveway. Not going to get that dirty. I'm going to get, you know, everything in place to do it right. You know, I don't want to band-aid because, you know, usually when you band-aid something, you have to go back in to fix it right. I didn't want to do that.

Yeah. The band-aid cost me an extra 400 bucks on the Honda GTI. I should have just brought it to rat right away, but yeah. Yeah, he forever earned my business when he fixed my GTI up. And then, you know, you further, like, again, I love working with you because you're just a straight shooter. It's like, what do you want? I want this. All right, here's your options.

Yeah. And I don't know, some people view that as aggressive. Like I get, a lot of people don't like me because, you know, like I said, like you said, straight shooter, tell it how it is. Not a lot of people like to know the truth, but you know, at the end of the day, I'd rather not tiptoe around the problem.

I remember looking at my sheet or whatever, I was talking to you or whatever, like, you know, to suggest the things to fix. And I was just like, Jesus f****** Christ.

Yeah, we nitpick. Also like you can look at it two ways. Like you can look at it as like shop, you know, just trying to make money. You know, you can look at it that way, or you can look at it as, hey, I want to tell you everything wrong with the car. If it's, you know, urgent, we'll tell you.

Yeah.

If it's not, you know, you can hold off. But it's like, I don't want you being like surprised to be like, oh, you know, I wish I'd known about this, you know? So that's what we...

I do like how you operate in that regard. Cause I remember, like, I think we even talked through some stuff on the phone, again, with all the things I needed to get done for the GTI. And it's like, all right, this isn't really urgent. I'm like, all right, cool, next paycheck, you know, that sort of situation. And now it's like, I got a number of things on my radar, just waiting for things to f****** fail. But at least, you know, I'm aware of it versus like, oh, tough s***, you know, pay up. So no, I, again, I like the ways, the way that you guys operate.

I've been to like one or two other shops and it's just like, eh, yeah, we tried, I mean, at the end of the day, like we're all car guys. We all work on our own cars. We all have fun cars, race cars, whatever. We're just like the customer. I tried to, I've said that like a hundred times to new people that come in. We're like, you know, get the question, what sets you guys apart? We're not professional. We are professional in the sense that we operate as a business, but end of the day, we're cool. I'm friends with a lot of the customers on Facebook. You know, we go to car shows every Saturday. We see each other, we say hi, we, you know, we BS all that type of stuff. I'm not, you know, you go to like the dealership and, you know, service advisor, you know, say it's an Audi dealership. You go to service advisor drives, Toyota Tundra. You know, he doesn't own an Audi, so he doesn't really know. Like, he knows like the brochure, but he doesn't really know, you know, hands on.

He's not invested in the brand, the car, the cars that you guys work on, yeah.

Right, you gotta be able to dumb it down for some people. Like, you know, they drive Audis, they don't really know much about cars. You kinda gotta find a better way to explain it versus just reading what it says on the paper to them. You know, you gotta kinda make sense of it.

That's what I always tell people. It's like, if your car's out of warranty, take it to a specialty shop. If it's in warranty, take it to the dealer you bought it from.

Right, and like, yeah, I get invoices from BMW all the time. I mean, like, oh yeah, they said I need this, this and this. I was like, okay, let me just write it up. He's like, okay, this is, you know, $4,000 cheaper. Then they come to us, we own their business forever.

Yeah, yep, and that's why I just love specialty shops. That's one of the things that I've noticed in the car community in the last three or four years. Like once I started like getting to meet business owners and just people who work at shops, like, oh, this is really sweet. Like that's where I love supporting local business. You know, sometimes not so much. I don't care. I want to go to f****** Amazon. But when it comes to like our stuff, like it's just, I don't know. I will till the day I die. Well, unless something catastrophic goes wrong, I will support Ratt. So.

Yeah, and it's fun. Like you go to events like Power Cruise. I don't know, have you been to Power Cruise at all?

Not Power Cruise. I've only been to Proving Grounds once or twice.

Power Cruise is really fun. This new one, I think it's first weekend of August. It may be worth it to go for a day, or if you want to camp, I will go for a couple days. It's a lot of fun. You can pretty much hop in any car, like if you know them. Like, hey, can I go out for a ride? You go out for a ride. It's like the full track at BIR. You know, you hit it on the short straight, hit it on the long straight. You know, you do three or four laps depending on the car. It's a lot of fun. And a lot of people, it's kind of cool being, you know, part of a European performance and repair shop because, you know, you get, it was super funny. I raced a C7 Z06. He said it was long tubes, E50 tune. And I beat him both on the short and the long straight. And later on, you know, I overheard him. He was like in our camp, just chatting with one of his friends. And he was like pointing at my car. And he was like, oh yeah, dude, I'm selling my Corvette. I'm buying a GT 500. He's like, I don't want to keep getting beat by all these cars. Like, people know us. Like, they see a sticker on like, I mean, it could be even on your car. And you'll get people that would be like, oh no, that's a ratified car. I'm not touching it.

Right.

Yeah, it's fun.

It's kind of cool. Yeah, no, I love seeing like when you have like, what was it? The Battle of the Brands. Didn't you guys win like, what was it? Four out of five trophies or something?

Yeah. I can't remember what the one we didn't win was, but yeah, it was like fastest shop, fastest Audi, fastest JDM. It was a lot.

That's fricking rowdy, dude. Like I saw, I was like, that's awesome. But I also heard from one of my friends who was at the event, the track was basically prepped once and just like, you only got a few good runs in at the beginning, right?

Yeah. So I mean, it's like, it was a small event. It wasn't that big. If you're in the Rock Falls, usually on like a test and tune day, the whole place is full, but it's all like muscle cars, stuff like that. This was a dedicated event for us. So it was all Europeans. We didn't really fill the parking lot. So there was maybe 20 to 30 cars racing. So it wasn't a lot, but they did drag racing in the beginning. And then I think about like two o'clock, they switched to roll racing. Roll racing at that track is kind of interesting. It's not that great. So then everyone was tired of roll racing. It was just two cars that just kept hot lapping race after race after race. And everyone's like, okay, should we go back to drag? The event's done at seven. And it was like 4.30 at this time. He's like, we have a few hours. Do we just shut it down now? Or do we reprep the track and go back out for drag? Which is what we ended up doing. And a lot of my customers and Eurocharged customers were going back out there. And I mean, not, I mean, there was one or two of people that were customers of ours that hit new personal bests. Even like customer, like Drew, I probably won't be listening to this, but you know, it's just street RS3. It's the matte gray one. I don't know if you've ever seen it. But you know, it's the IMS 1000 in-house build. IROZ turbo kit made like mid 900 wheel. You just 19's PS4S tires just went out there. This is like how he drives the car on the street. But then he took it to the track. He ran a 10.01, which is, you know, mind boggling to him. You know, this is just a car he drives. Right. Ran almost a nine. It was close. But he ended up breaking a drive shaft. But yeah, they re-prepped the track. So it was super sticky for, you know, those that actually needed the traction. So it wasn't that great in the beginning of the day, but a lot of people were setting personal bests and actually getting out on the track without the pressure of, you know, a small block Ford Mustang that just, you know, hops a pop cam or runs a 10.5 at 110, you know. So it was a really fun event.

Yeah, that's pretty... So do you think that event's going to happen again?

We're trying. We need more rules. There was a lot of back and forth, a lot of drama entailed. I won't get into it, but they're trying to set up more rules. So it's actually shop versus shop, but it was enjoyable. A lot of people had fun. A lot of people was their first time on the track, so it was a lot calmer environment, so it was less intimidating. We want to get a lot more people, a lot more... I mean, it's battle of the brands, shop versus shop. So I mean, a shop like Enthimoto could come, and they would win, but like end of the day, it's a shop. That's what we're hoping for. And it was supposed to be like a Midwest thing, which would be insane, getting people like AMS or Rata Race Lab or something like that, like another big shop that could come to the event. But yeah, we're hoping for a fall event when it's a little bit colder. It was about 80, 85 degrees, so it was pretty hot. But yeah, hoping for another event. It was a lot of fun.

Well, if you get AMS out there, maybe you get 1320 too.

Right.

And that'd be huge coverage.

Yeah, it'd be a lot of fun.

Do we have any big Midwestern event anymore? We used to have meet in the middle, but not anymore. Yeah, that's a fun story.

Yeah, we won't get into that.

Yeah, why not?

But yeah, not really. I mean, there's like street car takeover in Kansas, and that's about it. Which, I mean, I-29, like Ice Cream Cruise, it's not really an event. They have like eighth mile drag racing and roll racing and a car show, but like that's about it. There's really not a lot of big tracks here anymore.

Yeah, otherwise, like kind of Power Cruise, that's our big event up here.

Which is like surprisingly, like it's a small event, like it feels like it's a small event because it's Minnesota. Minnesota is not really known for much, but it's the only other Power Cruise is in Australia. So it's like-

Yeah, we're the only one in the United States.

Right, it's like the event, and not a lot of people come to it.

Yeah, and Power Cruise is very well known, I feel like because of 1320, they do a lot of coverage. So it is very well known in the car community. So when they hear like, oh, Minnesota has Power Cruise, maybe we head up there. Do you see a lot of people from out of state?

You get a lot of North Dakota, South Dakota, a few Iowa and Wisconsin, but that's about it. It's just Midwest.

Okay, so it's not like Texas 2K where you got everybody coming from Florida, California, New York, like all walks of life.

That's such a gnarly event. Texas 2K and Florida 2K, and again, some of those other big ones like Shift Sector. Those are such a different breed of event.

I will say, I will say, I don't know if you guys have gone to this before. If nobody's been to TX2K before, it is a great display of money. World Cup finals in Maryland is a great display of skill and talent.

Okay.

So I would say World Cup finals is a way more fun event to go to as a person that likes cars and likes walking the pits and seeing people. Because like TX2K, you see a lot of GTRs, you see a lot of Lamborghinis, R8s, stuff like that. You don't really see them working on cars. I mean, unless you saw ETS pulling the engine on Giddy's car because timing chain snapped or something like that. So replacing a billet engine with a billet engine, that's super cool to see. But you get that at World Cup finals in every single camp. They were pulling billet Ford G63s, billet B18s, stuff like that. I mean, everywhere. And there's, so like you mentioned, TX UK, there's people from every single state that come to one event. World Cup finals, there was, I think, 13 or 14 different countries there. So there's people shipping cars on containers for this event. Very heavy Dominican, Puerto Rican presence, listen to Bad Bunny in the stands, like Puerto Rican people dancing, eating food, drinking beer. It was a very, very good time.

What time of year is that event?

I think it's November 1st is the first day. It's a-

Right, hopefully I'm employed. I'm going.

Tuesday or Wednesday. Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

Yeah, I've never even heard of this event.

I've heard of it, but I thought, I was thinking about the GTR World Cup or whatever. Isn't it like one that's just GTRs only?

Yeah, I think it's DCT World Cup now. So you get like TTRSs, RS3s, some BMWs, and then GTRs.

So this is a different event than that?

Yeah, this is huge. I would say it's a lot bigger than TX2K in the terms of like attendance. And if you're a fan of rotaries, civics, I mean, it's a huge shot. So it's like 13B, like two rotors with GT55, like 88 millimeter turbos. They're making well over 1,000 horsepower on a two rotor. They're running mid-sixes, like the final for, I forgot what class it was, because there's so many classes, but it was Cletus versus a two rotor with a giant turbo. They both run six second passes. Like it was insane, Speed Factory reset the world record for all wheel drive stick shift. Like it was insane. Or maybe not, yeah, all wheel drive stick shift. I think it was, H-Pattern, something like that. But yeah, DA is like the super cold, super dense air. Like this is where people set records. Like that and TX-2K, but Maryland's like the same dude that preps TX-2K, preps World Cup finals.

Jason Miller, okay, how far of a drive is it to?

About 17, 18 hours.

So same as Texas. Well, to be fair, this year for TX-2K, it's only gonna be 14 from here, which is nice. Just straight shot it at this point. Like 18 is a tough one to straight shot. I mean, you can do it, but 14, that's a breeze.

Yeah, I used to drive out there with a few friends, but then I flew last year and it was so much nicer.

Yeah, that's true. We'll get out there and wait to say, oh, I was gonna say if there was a tribe of five, they were nearby, but they're not. Damn, rent a GR86 or something. Sean, we're going.

In March next year?

No, no, no, November.

Oh, to World Cup.

Yeah, definitely go to World Cup finals.

What state?

Maryland.

Maryland, okay.

I've always wanted to go to East Coast.

That's that really tiny state, yeah.

I wanna meet some people from Maryland, too. Like the guy who has the Sal with the green Viper, and then he also has the black one from Enthamon. You've seen the cars. Yeah, I'd love to meet him out there. Cause that's his territory. I'm just trying to meet people everywhere around the country.

Right, yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's very enjoyable. I mean, it's fun. I mean, the event is World Cup Finals, import versus domestic. There's big block Mopars, big block Chevys, LS, Coyotes, it's all there. If you like cars, you will have fun at that event.

That's our next event, Sean.

Yeah, it is.

All right, that's fricking gnarly. Okay, well, I'm running out of steam here, but I do want to ask you, or Sean, ask him the regular question.

All right, yeah, so I totally forgot that we do this part. Just been so entranced with everything that you've been saying. It's been awesome talking to you.

I gotta say that you are, that's why I wanted to have you on the podcast. You're so great at talking. That's one of the things that differentiates from a good podcast to an amazing one is how good of a conversation we can have with our guests. So, hats off to you on that regard.

But it was a knock all through all the jobs that I've had growing up from when I was 16 to now is I talk too much. But now that I have a job where it's a good thing that I talk too much, it's a good trait to have.

Yeah, you don't wanna tell a fish to climb a tree. So it's like, yeah, you're perfect.

So I don't know if you've listened to the show before, but we, as our guests, at the end of the show, they gotta pick three cars. One's gonna be their daily, one's gonna be their track car, one's gonna be their show car. You got an unlimited budget for each of these cars, and your imagination is the only thing holding you back.

Built and everything.

When you say track car, what do you mean?

Track car, like what would you take to- Drag strip, or road course? Whatever your preference is. We've had people that do track dedicated builds, people who want straight line speed for the drag strip.

Or road course.

Or road course, time attack, anything. Pike's Peak Hill Climb, if that's what you're into.

I would say the daily is just gonna be a, probably a, I mean, I really enjoy, I have a Escalade, 2010 Escalade. I really enjoy that. But Duramax specialties, some of that, they make like Yukon, like Yukon XLs that are Duramax swapped. So you can pull well. But I would say one of those, probably, a Yukon XL that has Duramax in it.

That's a cool daily. I think that might be one of the more unique dailies that we've gone for an answer. Usually it's an Audi RS6 or something along that line.

Those are fun, but if you have a track car, you got to get it there somehow.

Yeah.

Well, that's a separate thing. We used to actually have a hauler option as well, I guess a fourth option and something else, where it's like, all right, f*** it, that's a later problem. Yeah, right.

So yeah, then I would say track car, probably be Gen 2 R8 with a turbo kit. Okay. Some 2,000 horsepower, fun. You could drive it to the restaurant, and then you can go 200 miles an hour in the quarter. And then, what was the other one?

That's your show car.

Show car. Probably gonna get a lot of flack being an Audi guy, but probably like a G80 M3 comp.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. They just look good. We had a customer that came in, he had a blue one. We put lowering springs on it, and it just looked so good. He had like the carbon front grill, like the, what, the CSL grill. It was like carbon fiber. It had every carbon fiber accent you could possibly think of.

The CSL grill definitely makes that car look so much better.

It just looks so good.

I'm so glad you said that car, by the way, because I, again, if I get to a certain point in life, that is one of the cars that I'd want, because like the BMW platform right now, they're just crushing it in tunability.

Right, the B58, S58 is just insane.

I will be the first person on the wait list, and I've said this multiple times, if they put the S58 in a Supra. I don't know if it's gonna happen. I hope it does.

Supposedly it is, the GR Supra MN or something like that. I don't know what it stands for.

Yeah, Grim.

Yeah.

Yeah, we'll see if that happens. I don't really care if it's a manual or the automatic. I'll probably take the automatic anyway.

Hopefully it's automatic. Automatics are faster, end of the day.

It is, I don't know. I mean, I don't know, I love manuals, and this is always gonna spark a debate, and I'm pissing somebody off right now, but I don't know. It's a tough one. It's fun to drive a manual.

Yeah, it's really enjoyable.

How do you feel about, because you're driving a manual in your car, and you're pushing 800 horsepower, would you keep pushing it on the manual, or at some point, you go with sequential transmission? When do you switch out the transmission when it's just too much power?

So it's kind of, there's no in-between. I mean, I could try to figure out a way to swap it. There's people overseas that are putting ZF8s, like the G80 transmission, they're putting those in old jazzy Audis. It's insane, the billet adapter plate and all that, you can make it work. But they do make dog boxes for my car. I think it's about 6,500 with the proper shifter. It's about an extra $2,000. So you're looking at 8,500 bucks, almost $9,000. When you factor in a clutch, 10. So to get to the next step is a lot of money. So I'm kind of happy where I am right now. That being said, I did that shift sector event like three weeks ago or four weeks ago. People asked how to go. I didn't have any problems, so I had a fun time. Like you're saying, would you go more? How do you like the manual, all that? I love it because I haven't broken a transmission. So everything is good when it's good.

Yeah, so ask you again in a couple months and see where you're at.

If I turn it up and blow out fourth gear, then I may not like it, but I've been pretty lucky, so I have no complaints so far.

Awesome, yeah. So I think that's the answer. You want to go big power, so you obviously wouldn't want a manual. I think manuals...

I could f****** never. Talk about, dude, those guys that can build 1500 horsepower, 2000 horsepower cars and still go freaking manual, like I could never imagine. Like I start panicking driving your 1M, and that's only like... To be fair, it was a slipping clutch, but nonetheless, like...

Oh yeah.

It's like if I'm going for a pull, like, and that, to be fair, that does come with practice, too. Like being able to shift fast. Like I'm a granny shifter, dude. It is not pretty, like... But I also don't have the practice. Like that's why I'm gonna go take the Drive-ify cars out for a rep. Practice. So I don't know, but I got respect to those guys. Like those guys are real drivers. Well, I guess you are too, since you are manual.

But yeah. And it's enjoyable. It makes the driving experience more fun. My car would probably be boring if it was an automatic.

I can see that. Yeah.

And then even like your car, DSG? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so your car, if it was a manual and you put a stage two tune on it with a downpipe in cooler intake, all that would slip the clutch.

I've heard, yeah.

Versus your car won't have problems. So like that's a huge thing to think about.

Yeah, I was, we need to get them on the podcast one of these days. Derek Stinton, maybe you know the name. He just got the manual, whatever, Golf or whatever. And he's like, yeah, I have to do this if I want to go stage two. I'm like, eh, sucker. But I remember him texting me beforehand, asking me like, will it be an issue? And I'm like, maybe, I don't know. Like I don't care about the manual Golfs. Like, that's not my problem, that's you.

Right.

Yeah, he picked it up same day after I told him like, yeah, it's a great platform. Just hilarious that it worked out.

Yeah, it is enjoyable having both a manual and automatic. If you want to have fun, there's not going to be traffic or anything like, take the manual. And then, if you sit in traffic a lot, yeah, automatics do help. Like someone that has both, automatic does help when you're in traffic.

And then there's somebody with the Tesla going, oh, well, if you want an easy drive, you just turn on autopilot and take a nap. Gearbox.

Or like, oh my God, how about those f****** CVT cars or whatever?

Oh, those are trash.

They're like just, just here in like, just.

You can't drive those here in Minnesota, the cold weather. Choose that CVT.

Oh, speaking of, I know we're trying to end here, but I saw one of those new Priuses again in person today. And I was thinking, man, first of all, I was a grandma driving, and I was like, God damn, Ema, you're looking good. Like, I don't know. It's a good looking car.

We don't have to talk about this anymore.

It's a great thing to end on, everyone's talking about Prius's.

I won't entertain him on this. So you take it wherever you want.

I'm just thinking, like, God damn, Ema looking good in that f****** thing.

All right, and that ends the show.

No, hold on. Where can people find Sam? Where can we find him?

Instagram, it's at S4 underscore hova. That's another side tangent. Jay-Z, greatest rapper of all time.

I was gonna ask you about that. I was listening to that song, and I was like, yeah, it's probably from this.

Yeah, but yeah, I just call it hova. I always like eighth mile drag cars or quarter mile drag cars, something like that, that have a cool persona or something like that behind them. So I just chose hova, greatest rapper. Anyone listening outside, read the book or listen to the audio book, Empire State of Mind, gives you a little bit of backstory on Jay-Z from when he was 15, 16 years old selling drugs in the street and how he kind of stayed low key so he didn't get caught. And then, you know, he's a great businessman now, a very wealthy human being.

Who was talking about this? I was listening to this on a podcast. Oh, I was listening to the Flagrant podcast. I don't know if you ever listened to it. It's one of the funniest f****** things you'll ever listen to. But they were talking about Jay-Z would probably not be as good of a businessman as he is today if he wasn't dealing drugs. But then the debate started turning into, it's like, well, no, great businessman or great drug dealers. And just like all this different thing. Oh no, it was the one where the tall white dude went to prison or whatever, that he was working for the cartel. Just look it up. It's a fantastic episode. It will be the best use of your time. Like I learned so much about the drug world.

It was amazing.

All the younglings listening to the show, you know your role. Sean, where can people find you?

Everybody can find me on Instagram, 1mnmopar. I guess I'll just post all Mopar content since the 1m is just seemingly fading into obscurity and everybody just knows me for Mopar now.

No, we need to figure out like a name. We've been trying to figure out like a YouTube name or whatever for Sean. Cause like, you know, we want to, or he wants to get out there, show people, you know, just do cool stuff, you know. So if anybody has any ideas, send it to our boy. ChatGBT is f****** worthless sometimes.

All right, Harris, where can everybody find you?

Well, in case you haven't figured it out, you're on the Minnoxide channel. You can find me right here. Instagram is Minnoxide. Everything is Minnoxide. Thank you for listening to Minnoxide. Thanks, y'all.