34. Making 1000HP Audi’s, and Building a Successful Shop w/ Rathana Moua AKA Ratified Motorsport

All righty. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to the Minnoxide Podcast. I am your host, Harris AK. Minnoxide, man of many automotive ambitions, and I'm here with my co-host.

Hey, guys. My name is Sean. I drive a orange BMW and a blue Durango. Very neat cars, and if you ever see me around, say what's up. And this is the Minnoxide Podcast, where we take you beyond the meat, and kind of introduce you to some of the drivers of some of the vehicles in our community. And I think that's your cue to take it from there.

That's my cue? You know, you really sell those cars short, like the 1M and the Durango. Like, they're such limited cars. We did a whole thing on this, and he's always like, yeah, I just drive a basic-a** Durango. Like, you got to amp it up more.

Okay, sorry. Durango Hellcat, that's all you need to know.

Yeah, take it to the takeover. Today, we have a fantastic guest here, who by some miracle, I found out in the last two years is my neighbor. Today, we have Rat. I don't know how to say your full name.

Rathana, that's what everybody, the way it's pronounced, but...

Everybody just calls you Rat?

Yeah, for short, everybody calls me Rat. Just makes it so much easier.

Yep, so Rat here is the owner of Ratified Motorsport. That's kind of what we all know you for. You, I was just telling Sean this. I'm like, up until maybe two years ago, I did not realize that you can get double the horsepower of an R8 in an RS3. So just, I did not understand the world of Audis until I discovered you guys. So, just kind of tell us a little bit about what Ratified is, and then we kind of just go into, I guess, how you got to where you are today after that, so.

Sure, yeah. So Ratified was a little side project of mine that I started when I was working for another shop in Burnsville. And it was just a little side gig. I was fixing cars in the garage after hours, selling parts here and there online. And just literally it's just a side gig in the garage. Once COVID hit, it was, you know, it was my time to leave. We all got laid off. So I was like, you know what? Probably a good time to take it full time, take Ratified full time. So went ahead and did that. We started out with a little shop out of a good friend of mine, out of his shop. He had just bought a shop that had an extra bay. So I was like, well, s***, this might work. So I just went ahead and, you know, started working out of that thing. And then I had another coworker of mine that was at Nurtactic in Burnsville, where we worked together. And he came and helped me out. And from there, we just kind of blew up. And then eventually got up our way to Shakopee and Chaska area where another shop was shutting down. So, you know, I bought in that place and kind of stayed there and just blew up from there, too.

Heads up, just get this like a little bit closer. Yeah. Got that.

Hot dog.

No, trust me, the worst person we've had, and he knows this. I've told him this a million times. You know, Eric, Eric's garage, when he was on here, he's got the blue McLaren. When he was on here, he'd be way back here. And then he'd be way up here, like telling everybody, like, trust, like we've seen everything. But so then, wait, so hold on. Did you not have your own shop until COVID then?

Great. Yeah, no, we just, I started Ratified on SideGig at 2018. So they put two years by myself, just side stuff.

Oh damn, okay.

Literally went full time 2020. Okay. Within the last three years, we've blown up to out of the garage, to a one stall shop, to the shop in Chaska. And then now we bought a shop in St. Louis Park.

Okay.

So yeah, three years.

That is freaking crazy how fast things can blow up, dude.

Yeah, that's crazy.

I thought you were like around for like ever, for some reason.

No, well, I've been around forever in the car scene. Everybody knew me from, I know I used to do a lot of work for a nurse. So I built a few cars over there, did all the diagnostic stuff over there. So that's where I kind of got myself into the market. And my name went out from there. But you know, me living in Mankato, it wasn't really, no, there wasn't much of a car scene there. It was all up here.

So when you lived up in Mankato, were you commuting down to Nure?

Yeah, seven years.

That's like an hour plus drive, right?

It is an hour. An hour drive there, an hour drive back. So I mean, granted, yeah, it wasn't now two hour drive, not here and there, but it was my two hour like me time, which was really helpful. It calmed me down. But the stressful thing was I was never home. Really took a toll on the wife and the family. You know, I went to work in the morning, kids were out of school, came home, they were sleeping.

Yeah, we can see that with Trey.

Yeah, yeah, now you know why. But yeah, it's just like, like I said, it's a Mankato drive, two hours, but yeah, did that for seven years. And then, you know, like I said, we're down in St. Louis Park now.

Yeah, that's a good setup. Yeah, I like that location too. That's near like where I used to once upon a time have a job. But yeah, so I guess, are you still in contact with the people? Do you like have a good relationship with the other shops over there that you used to work with or?

As far as Nergo's, I would hope so. I haven't talked to him in a while. He doesn't reach out. I don't reach out. I mean, I mean, we're kind of on a...

Neutral.

Yeah, we're on a chat group together. We call it our Blacklist customer.

I've heard of that group.

Yeah, so it's a chat group for shops that have a Blacklist for customers who are really hard to deal with. And so we're in that chat group.

Yeah, like tire kickers, all that.

So we're in that group chat together. But other than that, we don't talk to each other anymore. I mean, I wish we did. I mean, I have no hard feelings. Hope he doesn't have any hard feelings, but you know.

Yeah, just, you're both busy. Like, you know, as a business owner, you kind of just forget to reach out to people, especially like, you know, the bigger you get in the community, it's like everybody all of a sudden has your phone number. I remember the best post I saw from you was like, stop hitting my line. Like just reach through the shop for shop stuff. Yeah, it's true.

Yeah, it gets overwhelming. Especially when you're laying in bed and your phone goes off and your wife's like, well, working again. You know, it's like 10 o'clock at night. It's like, I like to have a little me time. So that's when that hit, you know, it's like, I don't know if you know JWP. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a great guy, great guy. But he's like always, you're always able to get a hold of him, no matter what. He'll pick up at 10 o'clock, midnight, whatever the time is. And he likes that. I like my me time. So I was like, from five o'clock, I don't want to do any more work. You know, I've been doing it for God knows 20 years now. So it's like, there has to be a cutoff somewhere. And that's when I posted that, it's like, yeah, I need to set boundaries to where family time and work time. And that's kind of how that all went around.

There's something to be said about being like short in your responses too. And that's something that it's an art and a skill over time. But like, you can't, like everybody wants you to have this long answer, especially in Minnesota. You got to play the Minnesota Nice game. So it's like, everybody has a paragraph and it's like, yes or no, just, you know, simple as that. So you did seven years at the other company. So then what were you doing before that? Like what got you, I guess, into working on cars?

That's a long story in itself.

Well, we got a while.

Yeah, so we want to back up all the way to the beginning. My dad actually started a shop. Him and my uncle were gonna start a shop out and we're originally from Marshall, a small little town of like 12,000 people, whatever. And they, my uncle was from Green Bay and my dad wanted to start a shop and my uncle was already working at a Toyota dealership and asked him to move down and then those two make a shop together. That happened. They started, they bought a shop, started doing it, started renovating and getting ready to go all at the same time over there. Both my dad and my uncle still had a job, full-time job, nine to five, whatever. Went to work then at night, went to the shop and renovated. With all that stress on my uncle, he ended up having a stroke and lost mobility at half his side, his left side. And from there, it was just, my uncle couldn't no longer work with my dad. So that's where I kind of stepped in and was like, well, I'm capable of working. Let me see what I can do. So I just kind of, I shouldn't say that, I should say I've been in cars anyways. I was Honda guy, being Asian, stereotypically.

It's a rite of passage.

Right, exactly. So we all grew up in Hondas, and that's where I played around Hondas. Got my license. First car was a Toyota Camry my parents bought me. Lasted two weeks, broke. Well, a couple months later, got a Honda, and from there, the Honda just kind of grew up, or grew from there. But back to the story, so I ended up jumping in, helping my dad run the shop on after work, or after school, and sometimes during school, because I skipped work, or skipped school to go to work with my dad. So that just kind of went on, then when I turned 18, graduated, and went to school for it in St. Paul Tech, got my two year degree, came back to Marshall. At that time, my dad had shut down because it was just him. He couldn't run it anymore, so he shut down.

And it was like a regular repair shop.

Yeah, just a general repair shop, nothing performance or anything like that. But I mean, we still dinking around with our stuff. Here's a little story. I used to work at Jiffy Lube while I went to school in St. Paul, and I bought a Honda Del Sol, like a 94 Honda Del Sol. This was after one of my Hondas got stolen, and I got it back from insurance, and they had cut everything, stripped everything out, but they left the motor. So I ended up buying a Honda Del Sol from a coworker of mine, Jiffy Lube. Took it home on a Friday night, got home, Friday night, Saturday morning, swapped that engine out, took my engine, I did the manual swap all on the weekend, and went back to work on Monday, or went back to school and work on Monday. So it's like, let's just say I've been doing it for a long time, so I knew how to do this stuff quickly. So I mean, we still did that kind of stuff around my dad's shop, but other than that, it was mostly general repair.

So then were you learning, like kind of on the job, was like your dad the one teaching you?

No, I was, I'm all self-taught.

Okay.

Yeah, my dad didn't know squat about fixing cars. He just kind of jumped in it, and was hoping my uncle would be the one to teach him. But you know, with him out of the picture, my dad had to learn. He was fully invested at this point.

He was truly just like, hey, turning around to see what happens.

Yeah, so I'm all self-taught. And then obviously I got a little education out of school. I learned the basics from there, but you only as good as what you take in. So I took in quite a bit from there, learned quite a bit, but my diagnostic skills, I really learned from basically just buying a car, figuring out, doing what I need to do to get the run rate or fix whatever needs to be fixed. And that's how I learned. It's just buying my own car, doing it my own, selling it, moving on to the next. Because by the time I was like 20, I probably went through 30 cars. So it's just a matter of fixing them, buying them, flipping them. So that's kind of how that went.

So you're making a little bit of side cash, flipping them too. Yeah, that's something that's really hot right now. Like I remember I had a coworker at my, like two companies ago, they were just like, hey, we're gonna go fix this car this weekend. Cause they're just using like CrissFix and all these like online resources to figure it out. And it's like, I just made like five grand two weekends ago.

Yeah, it's a good, good passive income if you're good at it. But it's also kind of demanding cause nowadays with the internet, it's gotten a lot worse, where people will make fun of your pricing and all that stuff.

Everybody has an opinion.

Yeah, everybody has an opinion. So it's just like, I got really sick and tired of dealing with this. I can't deal with selling cars anymore because everybody just has something to say that, you know, should be.

Like Facebook Marketplace?

Yeah, that and also, you know, Facebook Marketplace, is it still available? Yup, no response. Also, it's just, yeah, I get tired of it.

The classic.

I've noticed that Facebook Marketplace literally breaks people. Like, they just can't handle it.

I refuse to post anything now. I'm like, hey Trey, post this. Or, hey Sean, post this. I don't want to deal with it at all.

Yeah, you're always posting stuff on Facebook Marketplace, aren't you?

When I feel like it, when I, but when my soul gets crushed, I stop, you know. I sell my few items. I'm like, I don't want to do this for a while. Like, I get so sick and tired of dealing with the hassle. You know, it takes time to sell stuff, you know.

It was so funny though.

You just sit there, but you know, you posted it on the first day and in like the first hour, people are already low balling you. They're already like, cut the price like 50%. And it's like, where are you guys getting this number from? Like I'm, I post stuff to, and I'm very fair with my pricing. You know, I'm not like, you know, over here trying to do like AMR on the, you know, BMW Z3, you know, add like 3K on it or whatever.

It just reminded me of Kyle. So we have Kyle Larkin or whatever on the, on a podcast, a few episodes ago from MAP. And he literally just goes trolling on Facebook marketplace. Like he's like, somebody's going to take it eventually. If I low ball everybody by 90%, eventually I'll get the guy that's going to be like.

Somebody's going to say yes. Somebody's just desperate to get rid of it.

Well, you go into rage selling fits. So we had a conversation about this a few weeks ago. He's like, yeah, sometimes I'll just snap, go into garage and just take pictures of everything and start listing it.

Yeah, it's that easy. You just take a couple of pictures, you post it online and then somebody sends you, you know, some crazy offer. And you're like, no. And then like maybe a week later, you're like, okay, maybe I will take that crazy offer, but like not in the first day.

We are not sponsored by Facebook marketplace.

Yeah. Do they sponsor people? I doubt that.

I don't think so.

No, the biggest company in the world, social company in the world, I don't think so.

Yeah.

I don't think they're worried about sponsorships.

But that's crazy. So you would just buy a car like the Honda Del Sol, and then you would do an engine swap in one weekend.

Well, that car actually made a s******* of money on. I bought it for like 1500 bucks, and I had all the parts to do it. I eventually added nitrous and then did a body kit, and this is the 90s, so the 90s body kits. Everybody loved that crap back then. And I listed it on eBay, actually. And I think I got, if I remember right, I got 13 grand for it.

Oh my God.

And I probably had maybe a thousand, $2,000 of my own money in it, other than the stuff that I already had lying around.

Yeah, so that's basically free.

Right, yeah, so I made a killing off that.

Guy math.

Yeah, so that's what kind of got me through life, because I didn't really hold a job back then. It's just me working late nights on cars, flipping them and working on my own stuff and tinkering with stuff basically.

Yeah, I don't think if you locked me and Harris in this shop for 72 hours, we could do an engine swap in that time. Even if you gave us all the tools, all the internet, all the parts, I don't think we'd be able to do it.

Okay, with all the internet, I suppose, but in the 90s, I would not have had a chance. Not a f****** chance. That's freaking rowdy. Okay, so then you went from the Dale Soul days. So then fill in the gap between that and then going to Nier Technik. So what were you doing in between then?

In between then, well, I started life early. I had trade when I was 16. So that kind of motivated me to get my s*** straight. Yeah. You know, being in high school, wife was 15 at the time. So like I said, we got in a lot of trouble, but it made us grow up really quick. So with that, you know, my wife had a job. I had to do stuff. I kept flipping cars. I jumped between jobs just to say that I had a job. And from there, after school, after high school, we graduated. I went to school, my wife went to school. She got an early childhood development degree at one of those local schools down there.

How's that time wise? Cause that's gotta be like, cause having a kid and then two, you know, two parents go to school.

Yeah, we were, well, my wife stayed back in Tracy because Tracy was the town that we grew up in. So she stayed down there and went to school and had Trey with her full time while I went to school up in the city. So I was up in the cities all week, weekends. I came home every weekend. So every Saturday, Sunday, I'd be home. Or if she wanted to come up, she'd bring Trey up and we'd spend the weekend up here. So we did that for two years. So with that said, once I got done with school, I ended up not getting a job, not doing anything for like six months. And then the wife said she wants to move. She wants to move to Mankato. I'm like, okay, let's just pick up and leave. Like we didn't have nothing. We didn't have jobs lined up. We just went there and like, she found an apartment by the campus, by a college campus. Like, man, if we're gonna have a family up by campus, awesome. So we moved up to Briar Gate is what they call the campus up there, the apartment campus. And we moved there, no jobs. I just randomly applied at the Volkswagen dealer as a lube tech and got the job there right away. They were looking for help anyways. So I was a lube tech for maybe three months because they didn't have any openings for a tech at that time, but they said they can just get my foot in the door. I started as a lube tech. So three months into that, I got promoted to a tech, and then I worked for them for about two years until the new owners took over. And then from there, I met a few people, Josh and Nate, that own Express Care. It was a valvling, quick lube place. I walked in there, worked for them on the side for a little bit. They were paying me cash, whatever, just to get me by. And then they had a fallout, and I bought in as a partner to that business. And with another coworker of mine that was at the dealership. So we both bought into that. Ran that for, I don't know, maybe three, four years, three years, I think. And that got overly tiresome, because that's literally the same thing over and over. Oil changes, general repair. And that's not what I wanted in life. It's very, very boring life. I wanted something more. So then that's when I met David at Nerdtechnik and then got hooked up with him and decided to just give up my ownership there and go work for him and help him grow his business. Because this was his first year, second year in business.

And how'd you guys meet?

We met to friends. We went on a-

Like a Honda show or something?

No, it was a, they call it a weekend of speed. We all just a bunch of friends got together with cars, went out to Sturgis. They had a cabin out there and we stayed at the cabin and we just rip around the roads up there in our cars. So at that time I had an E46 M3.

Sweet.

Yeah, I actually had two of them.

That's awesome.

So I had that and I met David through that. And we just kind of hit it off. And I eventually ended up working for him and help him grow his business. And that's kind of how I got the insight of what to do, what not to do. Cause I ran my own business for a little bit. Wasn't very profitable. It is now because new owners took over, but that's kind of where I learned the do's and don'ts through helping David and having my own things. And then, like I said, from there, seven years, COVID hit, got laid off, and here we are. That's basically my life.

So how would you go from being lube tech and techs at these pretty general maintenance repairs to building high-performance Audis? Where was that transition? Was that near?

No, so I really didn't start building cars at my level until I bought my RS3, and that was in 2018. And I really got hooked on the RS3 is because when we went to SEMA that year in 2018, and Hank Iroz is out there in Vegas, and so we went to SEMA, stopped at Hank's place. He gave me a ride in it and I was just hooked. I was like, from there, I'm like, yeah. This little ford can do this. Yeah, I'm hooked. So I was like, f***, I'm gonna go buy one. And eventually found one in New York, which was like 1,300 miles on it, two owners. Or I was the second owner, I became the second owner, but it was 1,300 miles, $52,000. I was like, f***, it's mine. So I put a deposit down on it and bought it. So, and now, which is stupid, because you can still pay the same price that I bought my car for nowadays with 50,000 miles on it. It's ridiculous how the market is with the RS3. That's how I started doing that. But yeah, as far as getting into the big builds, that didn't start happening until I started playing with the RS3s. And that was all just experimentation, buying parts, putting it on, following what other people are doing, what other shops are doing, and just kind of get the niche of it, and then showcasing, hey, Minnesota has a really fast RS3. It happens to be mine. So it's like people knew that, or people started seeing that. I started going to events, and people were like, damn, that's a fast forwarder.

Yeah, especially after Crown Rally, when I saw the video of you going on the Salt Flats. I think you won that year, right? On the fastest miles per hour?

Not officially, but I think I did have the fastest speed. I think I hit 196, 197 or something like that, officially.

Which is like sleet, by the way. Everybody that said that they did the Salt Flats, they said it was like literally like driving on ice.

Oh yeah, yeah, it's literally just ice. No, that's what it felt like. If you watch the video on YouTube, it's me on the throttle, off the throttle, on the throttle, off the throttle. Cause every time it felt like it was going to kick around, I let off, straighten up, get down on it again, and go straight again.

All the way up until 197.

That's insane. I probably would have hit 200 if I would just kind of stayed in it, but they said let off when you hit the flags. So I was like, I don't know how much distance I have, but I'm just gonna let off, who knows.

How long of a run or run way did they have for you?

If I remember right, it was a full mile of acceleration, and then a full mile stopping. But it was my first time out. I didn't do it a second time. I only did it one time, because it was sketchy as s*** the first time.

Yeah, I feel like it wasn't just luck, but there's some skill with you feathering the throttle and all that, getting back in control. For street cars, yeah. Yeah, but risking that a second time, you're like, let's do that again. It's like going on a roller coaster that's part of it's broken.

Did you see that video of the roller coaster that was broken a few weeks ago?

Yeah, one of the support arms were broken and they were running that thing. You literally see the tracks moving. It was like, yeah, that's what I imagine.

Yeah, miss me with that s***.

Driving down the salt flats would be like, I wonder what kind of tires they run on the, what do they call it? They're just like-

Like the world record cars?

Yeah, the like 300 plus mile an hour cars.

I don't even know.

Like the tires they must run must be like super sticky or they gotta be like treaded for that.

Dude, that is a Jesus take the wheel moment. You would never see me on that. I was going to ask, so okay. So you met Hank Iroz. So then since you started building Audis or getting into the Audi scene, who did you have as like, I guess mentors or is there anybody along the way that you just kind of relied on or asked for advice the most?

No, not really. I've always been the type of person who just do it myself. I mean, I have people that I can get support on, but it's like, I wouldn't say I went to my own horn here, but I felt like I was smarter than the people that I was talking to. So I was just like, do I really need their advice? It's nice to have it, but I mean, I already know the answer to it. Or you can figure it out on your own. Or they'll confirm it. Yeah, I already knew that. So stuff like that, because the diagnostic field, because that's where I kind of grew my trade really well. It was diagnostic because I'm really good at that, is I didn't have anybody to rely on. I was always the lead tech where I was. The only other resources that I had was the internet, all that identifix, whatnot, and the tooling I had. So, and the training, I did myself. Nobody paid for my training. Well, besides, nobody did pay for one of my BMW classes. But other than that, I'm all self-taught. Like, I just learned it myself. The only real way to fix a car, so say if you have a problem, is to know how the system works. And I teach myself that first. Teach myself, no, if the system fails, what's a byproduct of it? If, you know, power is out on this wire, what other effects it has on the whole system? So you gotta learn how it works, and then from there, it's easy peasy. So that's kind of where I've always been, is I do it all myself. I mean, don't get me wrong, I mean, I looked at the Internet, you know, got some ideas here and there, you know, as far as like building the car, the RS3, it's really not something that's proprietary to the RS3 world. It's Hank Iris has been like the leader at it. So it's, so my build, it's a very, very simple build. It's rods, pistons, IMS turbo kit. And, you know, bolt on stuff, intercooler, the supporting mods, the clutches and stuff like that. Other than that, it's, like I said, it's literally just bolts and stuff on.

And that's all it takes for 1100 wheel, huh?

Well, the tuning is a major part of it too. Okay. And using the right parts. I mean, I went through a ton of parts that was in testing phases.

Yeah.

Like fuel pumps. I went through maybe three different fuel pumps to get to where I'm at today.

I think I remember seeing you post something about this like a year or two ago, like you were testing some stuff or maybe it was Trey or something.

Yeah. So I did a lot of R&D for a few companies and we found out what worked, what didn't work. So, I mean, at that portion, yeah, I was relying on other people to kind of give me ideas and whatnot, but it's more so it's just taking a product, testing it personally with, and this stuff wasn't free. I had to pay for all this stuff. People seem to think that I got all these parts for free. No, I paid for every thing on this car. So, I mean, going through three fuel pumps at a thousand dollars each, even some at $2,000 each, it wasn't cheap to test these fuel pumps out to only find out they didn't work. So there was a lot of wasted money, but in the end, that stuff I learned, I learned what works and what doesn't work and what not to use. So there's a skill there to just not going out on eBay and buying the cheapest thing in the world and put it on your car and expect it to have the same performance as a $2,000 fuel pump, whatever the case be. So knowing that really helped out. Doing it right the first time, essentially, is what I'm trying to say.

Yeah, and that kind of gives your customers more confidence because, you know-

It's on your car.

Yeah, if it's on your car and they go, it works for him, I'm gonna bring my car, and then you can replicate that for them.

Right.

And they have that confidence because they know it's going to work.

Right. Yeah, I mean, for the most part, all the R&D stuff that we did on my car did translate to all the builds that we have done, maybe besides a few things that a customer wanted to try out that I didn't have time to do on my car. And at that point, he knows he's testing it out for us. So it's experimental.

Being clear in those expectations.

Right, he knows the expectations. It may or may not work. It may blow up your motor. We just don't know. But you don't want to take the risk. That's okay with me. So if you want to sign off on that, by all means, save me a motor. So it's just one of those deals where you sign off on it. I'm good with it.

Well, somebody is always going to be like, especially when you get into the higher horsepower builds, somebody is always chasing that dragon. You can tell I'm like, hey, there's a 95% chance we blow your f****** motor here. And they're going to be like, okay, there's a 5% chance that I'm going to embarrass this other guy at the track or whatever.

I have a customer that just, we just did that for.

I think I know who you're talking about.

He's like, give me more, give me more. I'm like, here's more. Yeah.

I mean, if they sign off on it. And you know what? At the end of the day, it's like, if they want it, it's like, oh, I'll give it to you. I mean, like, you know, just that one glory run, I think is what it's called. I wonder if that's what T1 did with that GTR when it beat the Lambo.

I don't know if that thing is Wicked Fast.

That just brought back a memory. That T1 run was insane.

It was like that one Super Bowl, like, what was it? Three or four years ago. I don't do sports ball, but it was the one where they were like leading by like 40 points or 30 points. And then the other team was the Patriots and the Falcons, right?

And Patriots, I remember that game.

I was happy that I lost money on that game.

I was so happy that the Patriots were going to lose the Super Bowl. I'm like, how do you f this one off?

But that's what I was thinking about. I was like, dude, that was such a good comeback.

Were they spraying champagne in the locker room half time? They were just they were like done over.

But seeing that, like, because we saw like when we were because you were at Texas 2K too. Yeah, like when you see that GTR, like and first of all, you GR plays dirty. We all know this. But when you saw that T1 thing, just blow by it, like I could just imagine being the UGR guy. Just be like, what the f*** is this? But yeah, the glory runs like you're always going to have that customer is chasing that. You know what? You kind of need those customers, too. I know of another company that built some very fast cars. I'm not going to say who it is, but at least not on air. But it's like their customer always wants to be number one in the industry. It's like, we'll give it to you, but you're going to be paying, like we're talking high six figure bills here. You know, just fricking crazy, but. And do you have any issues like dealing with those? How is the word I'm looking for? Like telling them upfront ever? Or they usually just fine with it? Like setting the expectation?

As far as?

Like just being like, have you ever had anybody say, be like, hey, send it? They blow their s*** up and they're like, well, this is your fault? Or you never really had that happen?

No, I mean, we're pretty cautious on how we do a lot of our stuff. Like I said, most of the testing stuff has been done on my car, so we know what the expectations are going into it. So we know like this car would do 800, this car would do 900, and this one might do a thousand because it's a little different, it has a little something different to it, what not. But expectations, they know beforehand what they can expect out of it, because it's like puzzles. But this kit together, this will make this. This kit together, it will make that. It's like, it just works. That's how it works. But we have been doing a little bit more tuning-wise, because I know Kyle was here that one from MAP, he mentioned that Brian was our calibrator now. So Brian's been doing all of my RS3 calibration stuff for the last year or two now, and he's been amazing at developing new stuff for it. So we'll get new stuff here and there that we didn't know we could do with these other cars, and we'll have them come back and revise the tunes for them, and give them a little bit of extra juice that still capable of doing. So with that, it's going into it, they all know the expectations. There's potentially some left on the table, and we don't build cars to the max, just because my name is on it.

Right, exactly. You don't want to be the guy that's just, you know, like...

Yeah, oh, there's another ratified car on the back of a flatbed.

Yeah, like I think the popular one right now in the Volkswagen community, I think is like APR, right? Like they just send it to the moon, is what I hear.

Yeah, so we're really conservative on our stuff. I mean, we'll turn it up, we'll give you a map that you can use to kill, you know? We'll give you a kill map, but I'll warn you, don't use it unless you have to.

I think Chaz had a kill kill map on his Porsche.

Yeah, so it's like, so we want it to last. We want it to, you know, you spend $60,000. I want you to enjoy the car. I don't want it to be on the flatbed back to my shop every week.

Yeah, and you get a lot of miles on your car too, right?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I went almost, my first build, I went almost 40,000 miles on it.

And that was 800, I think.

That was 900. 900, yeah, 900 on the turbo kit that came from RPC. I forget what the actual company's name was now. It's been a while. But that turbo kit was essentially identical to the IRA's 1000 kit. Same turbo, just different manifold. So yeah, that one car, that car or that setup was almost 40,000 miles of hard miles.

That's all R&D.

Yeah, that was the one I hit 200 or 190, whatever, on the self-lat.

We round up 200.

I was gonna say, we round up.

Yeah, so I mean, that car went through its paces. And I think I had one cash traffic failure, actually two on my car so far. One was the original clutch basket on power cruise number one, when it was still stock motor. The clutch basket, input shaft sheared right off the basket. And that was a known issue. Since then, we've had DCT, Deca, we've been using his clutch kits with the billet covered and all that, and not an issue. Those clutches are 40,000 miles on it now, of 1,100 horsepower at the last, I don't know, 2,000 miles or so it's been beating on. It still holds up to this day.

So when the clutch basket gives out then, so how bad of, because like, Sean's more technical than I am, so teach me a thing or two about a thing or two. So I guess when you say catastrophic, like how bad is that? Like what kind of bills the customer getting?

So it wasn't catastrophic to the point where it's like, oh, to me catastrophic is something that leaves you stranded. That's my description of it. So it will leave you stranded, and literally it just, you have no gears. Because the clutches aren't spinning, there's no friction grabbing, nothing like that. It's just stationary at that point. Because the input shaft is made into the flywheel, which spins at the RPM of the engine, and it spins the clutches. So without that spinning, you're a car ain't moving. So literally it happened at Paracruz the last day, taking Clarissa and them out on it, and it sheared off and we lost all gears. So that was the first issue that I've ever been told back to the pits. And then second time was this first Paracruz this year, PC1, I think it was in May or April or something like that, or Mother's Day, that's when it was. I broke a valve spring. Yeah, but that was literally, it wasn't catastrophic, I could still drive it, it just misfired. But no, I limped it back and we had it fixed within the next day. So just replacing the valve spray and going again. So considering my car now has 55,000 miles on it, and it's still together at the power level it is, I'm sold. So that's why I keep building them.

That's freaking crazy.

They're almost indestructible if you do them right.

So what's the secret with the five-cylinder? What makes it so different from, I feel like, are there any other Audis capable of doing this?

Well, they call the RS3 TTRS, the new gen, the EVO 855 is what they call it, the all-aluminum block. That one is essentially half of a Huracan engine, is what everybody says it is. Not only that, they come factory with port and direct injection. So you have all the fuel in the world. Like right now, all our cars are 1,000 horsepower plus, all run the factory direct injection injectors, just upgraded port injectors. We can go up to as far as 2,000 cc port injectors, but I think the most right now we run is 1,700, which is on my car. And it's just being able to give it all the fuel it needs. It's really the one missing piece out of all these other cars. You can make a Volkswagen super fast if you add port injection. The Ford Celeron, yeah, they're decent. They're very limited just because of how much air they can take in, being how small they are. But you can still see some in the 800 horsepower range, and they're still super quick. But you have to add port injection, and it's all in the fuel. That really gets it going that fast.

That one extra cylinder though between my car and your car. I mean, because the GTIs, I think they max out. Realistically, reliably, 550 is what I've heard, roughly. You've proven it. You can reliably max it out at least 900 with that one extra cylinder in yours, which is freaking gnarly.

I don't know who actually has the most horsepower. If I remember right, Hank probably does. I think it's like 1250 or 1260 or something like that.

Is he kind of like the OG when it comes to the RS3?

Yeah, he's been in it for a long time. He's been messing with it since the early 90s, I believe, with Sam's engine. He has a few of those that he's built. So he's been around for a while, and he really blew up with the RS3 and the TTRS, this platform in a way, and that's what blew him up really big.

Yeah, there's some guys that just find a platform they're really good at, and then they just make bank off of it too. So do you ever see yourself... So I know you're kind of expanding into Supras right now, and that, what is it, Ecutech, I think, is what it is. Do you see yourself kind of doing more and more platforms, or do you just kind of want to stay a specialist?

Yeah, I mean, you can't wear all the hats, especially when you're working on all these cars. And there's too many things you have to know of certain platforms, their weaknesses, their pros, their cons, all that. And I'm not going to memorize all of it. Knowing a handful of them makes me a specialist in them. And I think as customers come by, I think me having that knowledge on just that specific platform, whether it be the RS3, the Supra, and doing a little bit of GTRs now, just knowing that makes them feel more comfortable. Then me having to rely on other people to give information to me than I have to share to them. Because I'm not going to know the Mustang Coyote engines. I can't tell you what leader it is. I think it's a 5.0? I don't know. I don't know anything about them. But if you talk to Mike Johnson or Dave Rasmussen, they'll tell you everything about it. And I leave that to them. I don't need to know that because there's already people who really know it. So I stick to my little bubble. I'll expand out to other platforms that I see.

Some things are universal too.

Yeah, like the Supra, the P58. That engine is in the BMWs. So that in itself is worth it to me because I also work on BMWs. So knowing that, I can translate that into the BMW world too, which helps everybody else out. So it's got to be the right vehicle and to have a good following behind it before I say, yeah, I'll take that on.

Yeah, pre-invest a lot of time into it. Like there's a million Supras here now.

Exactly. So I think we had the fastest Supra. I don't know for sure.

In Minnesota?

Yeah, I think so, as far as I know, because nobody's ever said anything.

Yeah, I haven't seen anybody faster than you now that I think about it, power-wise.

Who's going to call you out? You got the fastest Audi.

Well, I don't have the fastest Audi. Well, in Minnesota. There's that sheep ERA.

Yeah, that's probably the only other fast Audi.

I'm not the fastest, I tell you that. But as far as being the fastest four-door, I think I got that. But as far as the Supra goes, like I said, I don't know of anybody making more than 800 in Minnesota as far as that goes. Just the Supra. I mean, the B50, I think there's other BMWs out there that are close to 1,000. But on the Supra, like I said, it's an untapped market in Minnesota for some reason. Being that there's a lot of Asian people here, they all love Toyotas. They all love the Supra. It's like, why don't I just tap into that market? And that's kind of where I'm at right now.

They're going to keep dropping in price once things kind of correct a little bit. That's one of the few platforms I've actually seen trending down in price.

That's like every platform, actually.

You would think so, but a lot of these dummies in the Viper forums, right? They keep saying like, oh, just wait till the price correction. It's like, no, that Viper is going to stay at $150,000, dude.

I don't know. I've got this eye on the market, and I watch it all the time because that's what I do. I don't just scroll through Facebook. I go on Marketplace and I look at cars all day.

Who needs Kelly Blue Book? We got Sean.

And I see prices, and I'm seeing people, you know, where it says, like, here's the original price, and then it'll have a line through it, and it'll be reduced because people aren't able to sell them for what they want.

I like it.

And they're reducing the prices, and you can see it, too, like, just going on, like, bring a trailer. You can look up, you know, any maker model, and they'll show, like, all the little, like, points where it's, like, sold, you know, you know, it was, the price was here, but it didn't sell. And you can see a lot of these cars over the last six months, they've gone down.

Yeah. I think it's generally just the whole entire market.

It is the whole market. It's going down with, I don't think there's a single car that's up.

Your collectors might be, but for the most part, your General, no Supra or even RS3s are coming down a little bit, but they're still holding value pretty well compared to other cars. At least from what I can see, I mean, I'm not in the market to buy any more cars because I have too many, but just from what I've seen.

Do you think when you modify RS3, does it go up in value?

No, no. Any money you put into a car for modification, you'll never get back.

Never.

No?

What about like a UGR Lambo?

They still lose their hair on it.

They still lose it. Because if you're looking like a 2000, 3000 horsepower UGR car, you're buying that Lambo two times over, three times over. You'll never get that money back. You might be able to squeeze 200k, 300k out of it after the fact.

What was the yellow one listed for? Do you remember?

I don't remember.

Some are ridiculous. I think it was like one and a half million or something. They tried to get for it.

Yeah, unless it's like a really collective car, they might be able to.

The one that was ran super hard at Texas 2K, they won a 1.5.

I think that was a marketing ploy. They are full of s*** if they think they're going to get one and a half million. I think they took it down or whatever.

They must have been clowned.

But at the same time, you have to think about what went into that car too. But you're not going to get your monies back.

I feel like there's no way that they pay... What was that? That car was probably like $500, $400.

About.

Could a UGR build cost a million dollars?

I could see it. Maybe three or four.

They could charge whatever they want.

Dude, if you knew what some of the invoices, some of these 2,000, 3,000 horsepower cars are, we're talking like good six into the six figures, but there's a price to be the best.

Oh yeah, I know six figures, but seven figures into a build?

Close. If it's an R&D car, I could see it. Because you're trying out again, two or three fuel pumps. And if you're talking about Lamborghini fuel pumps, that's a different story too.

I can't imagine UGRs just fronting that cost.

Oh, that's all clients.

We're looking for clients that want to be R&D.

Well, that's the thing. The hungry people, they're the ones that push forward. That's where the competition is. It's not the shops that are competing. I mean, sometimes it is. But you just need... I feel like every shop needs that one ego. The one ego that's like, here, take all the money. Let's make this b**** as fast as possible. And we've seen that there's some cars at Texas 2K that they had those egos, and that's why those cars exist. That's why 2,000 horsepower was the s***, like what, five, six years ago? Like that was the... Now we're in the threes, three and a half, and it's only a few years later, because there's money.

Yeah, even the street cars, if you're not a thousand, you're slow.

Yeah, Texas, if you don't have a thousand, we're not racing.

Oh, even like nowadays, like on the street, like you can get rolled up on a BMW, and it's pushing 800 to, you know, a thousand, and it's like, if you're not running, like, close to that four digits, like that's like the new, what, like the one percenters, like if you're not like, or even, I think it used to be like that was the one percent would have like that much power. Now it's probably like closer to like maybe 10%.

So many people have a thousand.

It's so easy.

You'd be surprised. I've ran into a lot of people on the streets and at the track, like you wouldn't expect this car to have a thousand horsepower, and they're like, yeah, it's got about 1200. It's like, no wonder you kept up with me, or no wonder you passed me. It's really subtle. You never know. Like some of the Evos, you never know when they're fast.

They all look the same.

They all look the same. It's like you race one, you're like, that one's going to be slow. You just look at it, I'll beat that. Next thing you run it, it puts a bust on you. You're like, holy s***. It's like you never expect, I mean you expect it, but you just don't know.

Yeah. Well, exactly. Like back in the day, like I feel like if you ever saw like an Evo and it had the intercooler, upgraded intercooler, you're like, all right, don't mess with that guy. But now it's like, he's slow or he's fast. I can't tell.

Well, how about when we're coming back from Texas, that dude who was missing third gear, remember the guy that raced us here?

Oh, he was missing, yeah, it was a Honda that was missing third gear, and he was just putting bus links on me.

This is middle of winter, this guy rolls down his window. I'm missing a gear, and we're like, you know, it's 800 horsepower Durango, 750 at the wheels, you know, on that gas, I think. But ridiculous. Speaking of street racing, though, do you have a history in that at all?

Not really. I mean, within the last couple of years with this RS3, I've gone out more, and, you know, but early on, not so much. I mean, when I, well, the thing is, remember, I lived down in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah, true. So you weren't part of some folks.

Tracy, Marshall area. There was no scene down there. If anything, it's when I came up here for the weekend or something to hang out with my buddies and cousins and whatnot. We go out to university, you know, in the big, the old Sears lot. We do that. But other than street racing, no, I didn't get too much into it up until recently with the RS3, with, you know, the Gap Abuse Group and all the other, you know, little groups that go on up here.

Yeah, the secret groups.

Yeah. I mean, we'll do a little bit here and there with them, but, you know, I don't make it, you know, a thing to go out every weekend. Because these guys are out till like three, four o'clock in the morning.

It's a lot.

I got a life. So I get up in the morning, I got stuff to do. So, I mean, I'll go out when I get called out, or I'll go out when I know there will be fast cars out.

Okay. Do you ever throw down money on some of those or not so much?

No, I mean, I do it for fun. I don't care if I win or lose. If you ask anybody, I am the least competitive person in the world. And Trey gets mad at me for doing that. He's like, I need you to beat this car. I don't care if I win or lose. I just want to see how it does. And if I beat him, great. If I don't, man, he's got a fast car. Good for him. So I am the least competitive person in the world.

You just kind of do it for yourself. You're like, let's see if we can turn it up a little bit more and see what it does.

Exactly.

I like where you're at with that. Did you listen to the episode with Trey by chance?

I listened to most of it, yeah.

Yeah. When he was talking about like, oh man, my dad's going to hear this or whatever, like his little street racing story.

Yeah. Well, yeah, he gets a lot of it from me. But I mean, I didn't get in trouble for street racing, but I got in trouble for a lot of stupid stuff. And he's a kid.

You got to learn along the way.

S*** happens. As long as he's not doing drugs and going to jail, I'm good. I mean, if he goes to jail for street racing, whatever. He'll get it. It's not like it ruined his life. He can be doing other things.

It's crazy when you think about in the grand scheme of things, how little street racing... It's not as bad as most people make it out to be. Now, granted, when we're talking about people weaving in and out and takeovers...

Yeah, takeovers are just stupid s***.

People get hurt at those.

Yeah, but what we do, we do in the middle of the night. Barely any car is on the freeway. And if it is, you hit somebody, you're going to hit the person next to you when you're racing. And that's really it. That's the risk you take. But I mean, I've seen some videos online where street racing, it does get a little dangerous because they're doing, they do like a stupid maneuver that they shouldn't do, or they don't let off when they're supposed to. You know, stuff like that.

When ego gets involved.

It can happen. Don't get me wrong. But the way the groups are around here that I've been with, I don't think I've ever had any incident where I felt unsafe. So I mean, I think for the most part, the people who host it are pretty adamant about that. You have your rules. And if you don't stick to the rules, you're done by the next time.

They have a good set up. I've talked to some of the people that run that group. It's a good set up. Because if you let everybody and anybody go, like, Sean, you have some street racing stories where you would go with your, what, slow a** cars.

Oh, yeah. I would have the most fun. I didn't care. Yeah, like you said, I'm like you. I'm super, I'm not competitive. I know I'm there for a good time. And if I get a run, that's awesome. I wasn't there to like throw money down or anything. It was all just for sport. So that's like, and getting to watch people do it and the crowds, I really miss it. And I think you and me should go out one of these weekends and go check it out with Trey.

Speaking of, I always, because again, Rat's six houses down for me. I know when you all are about to go out, have a good night, because I could hear your car start up. And even from my deck, I could actually see lights, I think at Trey's garage stuff. So I'm like, I'm gonna go out racing.

And I was just like, Yeah, usually if it's about 11 o'clock and you hear a car start, that means he's going out. On a Friday or Saturday night.

Yep, I always knew it. And you know what's funny? I always tell the story. It's like, because we got Enth Moto right over there too. And for the longest time, I was like, man, we got a lot of freaking R8s in this town or whatever. And then I piece it together. It's like, oh, the RS3s. And then I'd always hear the Vipers. I was like, there's a lot of V10s here for some reason. They sound super similar to an R8.

Yeah, they do. They depend on what exhaust is on it.

Yeah, true, true.

But wide open, they just sound amazing. It's a different town.

So, okay, so like we mentioned earlier in the episode, it's half an R8 block or whatever. Is it actually like exact same specs like stroke, bore and all that?

I don't believe so. I don't know the specifics of the R8 engine to a T. I mean, I'd have to look it up. I have the specs in front of me, but it's very similar in design. Like the heads are similar. Like you can take a head and put on one of these, I believe. You just have to flip it around. So the heads are similar. The block is a little different. I don't know if the stroke or the bore is the same. It most likely is the same because a lot of parts are interchangeable. That's how Audi and Volkswagen does it. It's a lot of legos. You can take something from another platform, put it on a different car and it will fit, especially the transmissions. Like you can literally put a 01E, it's a B5S4 transmission. You can put that on any of the engines as long as they have multiple bolt holes that you can use. There might be one that's undrilled that you have to drill and use, but otherwise they all bolt up. You may have to switch timing covers, because there's, like I said, again, bolt holes may not be there, but other timing covers will fit and will have all the bolt holes there for you to just drill and tap and you're good to go. So they're really, really universal. So I would imagine that it's probably really similar.

If you were to take your car up another notch, which I'm sure you're getting used to the new 200 horsepower you have in there. Actually, are you used to it already?

I don't run it much.

Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

I call it my map four is my kill map. I only ran it twice at bar cruises this last event. And that was against Joe at the R8 CP car.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I ran him at the Sunday's road race, and he got me by literally maybe half a fender. So I was very, very surprised. Wow. But you could tell he was creeping up up top. If we were to go further than the eighth, by the end of the quarter, he would probably be like a car or two ahead of me. But I'll take that. Considering how much money it takes to build an R8 to his level, and considering how much I have to mine, losing by that much doesn't make me feel so bad.

Right, exactly.

What is the price? So with the car, 50, 52, and then mods?

My car? Yeah. So if you want to build something similar to mine, you'll probably be in it right about, I'd say probably about $60,000 into the build. With the car, another 50-ish, it would be about 110-ish into it. That's if you drop it off to me, and we did all the work. So I'm gonna say if you can do it yourself. You can yank the engine out and bring it to me. I'll build the engine, and you can assemble it in your garage. I have two customers that do that right now. They just bring me their blocks and engines, and I build it for them, and he does all the work. It works out for him. So you can save a little bit of money by doing some stuff like that. But generally, like a big 1100 horsepower, 1200 horsepower build, you'll be in the 60th grade.

Which is kind of fair.

Well, yeah, that was actually a little bit more than I thought.

Well, yeah, consider, look at the RA. It costs 60 grand just to build that transmission. That's not even the turbo kit. So you have to beef up the transmission where you can add power.

Just the turbo kit is like 30 grand, I think.

Yeah, and the RS3, the only thing I've done in my transmission is literally clutches. Stock internals, stock axles, stock driveshafts, just clutches.

Right, and to be at the level of power that Joe's at in his RA, you have to beef up the transmission. What's the cutoff? I think Sam was telling me about this when I was at the shop last thing, like 900 horsepower is the cutoff before you had to start beefing it up. So it's like, damn. So there's money that has to go into those twin turbo Huracan and RA builds.

This basic build on transmission is like 30 grand. It's just ridiculously more expensive. Because you're at another level. When you're in the RA level, that means you have f****** money, basically.

Oh, dude, those guys felt poor at Monterey last week, though. If you saw an RA, you were just like, oh, damn, that guy's broke.

Yeah, that was a peasant's car.

Yeah, because I was like, dude, did you see the video that went viral? I think it was like nine or 10 Bugattis just following each other in after a cruise. Just crazy. Yeah, Monterey is like a dream event for me to go to. But I want to go to all of them. Are you going to go to, was it Sam telling us about GTR World Cup or whatever? The World Cup event in Maryland?

I kind of want to, but it makes it difficult for the whole shop to kind of go or to me to be gone. Maybe this year I might be able to, because I will have people who actually run the shops for me. I might be able to swing out there with Sam, but for the most part, I don't plan to unless everything kind of lines up, and I probably will. The shop itself, we do quite a bit of events locally, and then we do a few outside. So, I mean, to add another one on top of it is, I still have bills to pay. It costs a lot of money to send these guys out with me, especially the TX2K we went this year. It was like a $20,000 bill to send everybody out there.

But you had like what, 10, 15 people with you?

Yup. Yeah. So, I mean, I bought all their tickets. I paid for, you know, all the Airbnb and all that stuff, too. So, I was like, it adds up quick. It adds up quick. So, I mean, granted, it's a business expense. You know, I want my guys to enjoy working for me, not, you know, just, you know, work your life off for me. You know, I want you to have fun. We're going to go do events.

You have a good team over there, too.

I do. I keep hearing that. I keep hearing that. Everybody loves talking to Sam because he's a really personable person. And my tags, they just bust a** all the time. So I think it really helps having the right people around you.

Yeah, no, I mean, like I always say this, like I'm forever indebted to you guys because last year when I, you know, when I had my, when you guys had to reseal my bed play, like that was literally the second-brokest I've ever been. Right now is the first, but that was the second-brokest I ever was in my life. And I was just like, oh s***. And I was, you know, I had my rally to go on, I think literally 24 hours later, and I'm leaking oil into the driveway. And I had decided not to bring the car because I was just like, f*** this car, I don't trust this car. I was like, the last thing I need is for something to happen a thousand miles away from home. So that's why I rode Shotgun and Chaz's Corvette. But nonetheless, it's like, you were like half the price of what the other shop quoted me. And granted, you know, what other shop was way closer to the cities. And, you know, I don't know, I just kind of felt like it was very personable. That's why I love talking to Sam, because he's just down to shoot the s***, but he also gets work done, I think. It looks like it. And that's why I keep going over there, because you guys will tell me how it is. Like, hey, you need to get this?

Cool.

If you don't need to, we don't have to.

That's the whole motto. I think that's what separates us from a lot of other shops is we're very personable. You know, if you see me on the street, talk to me. If I see you at the shop, I'll talk to you. Being very personable is one thing that I loved about doing this. It's getting to know everybody, especially when I'm building your car. You're giving me $60,000, $50,000. I don't want you to be another number. Oh, he's customer number 205 with the RS3. I don't want you to be that. I invite you. Most of all the RS3 guys that we build cars for, all hang out with us at events. I invite them out. I take care of them while they're there. And I don't ask anything in return. Just bring the car back when it breaks or when you have issues or you want to go bigger, bring it back. That's all I ask for. But having that personal relationship with a lot of customers is, like I said, makes us really different from other shops because you're not another number. And that's what I feel makes us a lot more different.

It's tricky when you're putting out a ton of work. I don't know if that would change the more you scale because we have two shops, three shops, four shops. It's hard to keep up with everybody, but the people you do keep up with, you're able to.

Right, exactly. As you said, I'm growing bigger and bigger. It's harder for me to get to talk to everybody or have a one-on-one conversation with everybody. But when I do, Sam knows how I generally want the conversations to go or how I want things done. So he'll handle that, which is great. Trey is learning that. He's learning the ropes. So he's learning it and getting used to it. And he's starting to do it more and more. But like I said, if we're growing more and more, it sucks that I can't talk to everybody. But like I said, I try to a lot, and I also have that text chain that goes out every time you bring a car in.

That's not actually you, right?

It's me too. Sometimes? Yeah, most of the time it's me. Sam will jump in when I'm busy. Okay.

So somebody's actually texting me on those.

So say if you bring your car in, the text will go out the next day saying, hey, this is Rat. How does that work? Whatever. That's automated. But the reply back is usually either Sam or I. So that's how I kind of make it personable too. I invite you to bring it back or I invite you to tell me if we did anything wrong. Yeah. You know, because my motto is, you know, we're all humans. We all make mistakes. We're going to make mistakes, especially at the shop at this level where I can't control everything. When I have 10 guys running around and doing everything, you know, they make mistakes. It's how you handle all the mistakes that come through. That really shows who you are. And it's, you know, if you have a problem with the shop or if you have anything that goes wrong, I'm the one that handles it. You know, I personally reach out. I personally make it right or, you know. Like last week, we had a car that I had a new tech put together, intercooler and quilt overs and whatnot. And he picked the car up on a Friday night, like at five o'clock, calls me at seven, and it goes automatically to voicemail. Calls me at seven and said, hey, it dumped coolant all over the place. I don't know what happened. I was like, oh s***. Great, it's Friday night and it's seven o'clock. Whatever, I'll call him back. I called him back and this is like on my way home. And I called him back and he's like, yeah, I pulled into a Volkswagen dealer. It's just dumping coolant all over. I'm like, that's fine. Do you have a way home? He said, yep, he's got a ride. Okay, perfect. I'll set the tow truck for it. Set the tow truck for it. Tow truck brought it there Saturday morning. I went in Saturday, looked at it, and what happened is the coolant hose, one of the brackets that is secured by a bolt had backed out, and the bracket moved the hose back, and it got cut by the alternator belt. And then it spit coolant everywhere. And then what did I do? I fixed it, called him, said, I fixed it. Hey, where do you live? Dropped it off at his house. And, you know, cleaned up his car, gave it back to him. Super, super happy that I got it done in 24 hours on a Saturday on my day off. So it's like the things that you go above and beyond, like I said, really makes you who you are. And that's me to a T, because I will literally give you the shirt off my back if you don't have one. And that in itself, hopefully in the future pays me back tenfold. Right. Because I really believe in karma.

Well, I think that guy's definitely got some good words to say about you.

Yeah, because like for me, it's like I dropped my car off. I'm like, all right, I'm going to stupid f****** rally that I'm losing 25 grand on. And I'm just like, I'm going to leave this car and lose another, you know, whatever amount on it. And then I get a text, like I think six hours later, it's like, hey, your car's done. I'm like, what the f***? Like I couldn't believe it. Like I was just like, dude, it was leaking. Like I was thinking like in my head, like this is going to cost a lot. And you know, like I literally was thinking about selling that stupid Volkswagen.

I know who you bought it from too. I heard. You bought it from Kyle.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's a customer of ours. Yeah. I think one of my Nards, one of his good friends, has an artist that we built too.

But yeah, no, that's where I was just like how fat like you got me in a media. I was like, holy s***, like you didn't have to do this for me. So like, you know, and I don't know, it just kind of blew my mind, you know, and, you know, maybe that doesn't apply to everybody else. But from what it sounds like, it kind of does. Like, hey, we want to get you taken care of.

Yeah. And that's that's the way it should be. I mean, that's one thing I always hated because my wife said the same thing too. That we had a she bought a Acadia a couple years ago and it had some work that needed to be redone after she bought it. So she brought it back to the dealer and the dealer said, you know, drop it off at nine o'clock. Have it done to you by noon. Noon comes around. No call. Three o'clock comes around. No call. She calls him at five o'clock before they close. Oh, we had we didn't get it in today. Well, we'll have to do it tomorrow. It's like, where's the communication in all this? Like, tell me to drop it off at this time. I expect you know, you told me at this time it should be ready and I get no call. And that's one thing I will never do to customer. I mean, granted, some stuff might slip through.

It happens.

Yeah, it happens. And I'm not perfect by any means. But when that stuff does happen, I make it right. I'd rather lose a couple hundred bucks than to lose a customer.

No, because you never know what it can lead to. Like the way I described this to Sean, I think last week, just before we filmed with Jen, it's like you plant those seeds, and you never know what they're going to turn into. For me, it's like I always used to think like, hey, one of these days, I'm going to harvest the seeds that I plant today or whatever. But then I told Sean, I'm like, dude, I'm kind of growing a forest here. You never know. You just constantly expand. You want to water that because you never know what can happen.

Exactly.

If you don't take care of that customer, if they're pissed off, they're going to start. The last thing you want is a silent complainer. Those are the worst because they don't even give you the opportunity to make it right.

And you'll get those. Like I said, everybody can't be perfect. You can't please everybody either.

You get damn close though.

You can try as hard as you can, man. I don't know. I haven't met anybody perfect yet. And like I said, it's hard to please some people too. No matter what you do, you'll never be able to please them. And those are the ones you just cut ties with. It's just not worth the a******. So those are the, I mean, I have a few, the blacklist. So I have a few that I've cut ties with and, you know, and I feel much better about it.

So can you tell us a little bit about the blacklist?

I shouldn't say much, but there's a few people.

Well, you don't have to get super detailed, but I kind of want to know like what, what makes somebody get on the blacklist?

To be on the blacklist is making demands that are outrageous. Like, you know, coming in and making a price up for yourself. Like, this is what I need done. This is what I'm going to pay. I'm not paying anymore. And or just complaints about everything that you try to make right. Like you just can't please them. Those are the type of people that end up on the blacklist or the ones that are just super cheap and want things done next to nothing or for free. It's like I'll help you out where I can. But when it starts costing me time to have my guys do stuff for you and not get reimbursed back on their time, that's when I cut it off. I'll personally do it. If you need an air filter or something like that, or exhaust adjuster or something like that, I'm not going to pull my guys out to do it. I mean, I probably would if I'm busy, but I have the free time. If I have the free time, I'll do it, because they're busy doing their own stuff, making the shop money. I can fix all this little stuff. But it's just like the small little, or the big little things that keeps on stacking up to the point where they're just really difficult to deal with. That's when you end up on the blacklist. I mean, I can't really say for sure. The last one that I had on there, but it's been a while since I had anybody on there.

I think people are kind of smartening up too. Okay, so somebody said that Minnesota or Minneapolis, it's kind of like a little big city. Like we all know each other. Like today I was up at Lotus or whatever, and the waiter was, what's it called? Like knew some of the people that I knew. It's just like it's such a small, tight-knit community we have here. So it's like word gets around like, don't be an a******.

Yeah, especially in the shops, especially the people who try to help you. If you're going to be an a****** to them, guess what? You're going to get turned away from all of them.

Yeah, I feel like in any service industry, that's one of the worst things you could do, just because if you don't tip your waiter and you go to this restaurant often, they're not going to give you great service. They're going to come to your table the least, because the person that tips the most or more than you do, they're going to get an exceptional service. Or the same with your barber. If you're not going to tip your barber, they're going to mess you up. And that's the same with your mechanic.

Are you saying I got a bad haircut? Okay, I was about to say, because my guy took care of me this time.

Did you tip him?

Yeah, I tip him always. I actually texted him on Instagram. I'm like, hey, you in? I was in two hours later.

So you guys are like that.

Yeah, I try to help everybody locally. You guys get in the DMs. I want to get, and here's how I operate. I want to get to the point where I can shout someone out, and then I will never be able to get an appointment with them ever again. That's where I want to get in life. So then I have to find somebody else to go to because I made this guy too good and too big. That's my goal in life.

And so with my mechanic for the Durango Hellcat, me and him are like, yeah, Bryce, he's been on the show. Me and him are really good friends. He went to Power Cruise with me. I invited him to stay with me. I let him drive the Durango. It's almost more his car than mine because everything he's done was with his hands. So I'm like, I trust you. If anybody can drive this thing, it's you. So I trust him. Not a lot of other people I would trust with that. So I like to keep it. And it helps me a lot because he comes over here. I'll say, hey, just the other day, my thermostat went out and I keep telling him. Yeah, it went out again. Third time. So he's like, okay, you know what, dude? I got this new thermostat that I've been wanting to try out. Let's test it. Let's see how it goes. And he comes over. He puts it in. Even though on the Durango, it's a five-minute job, and I could do it too. I've done it before.

Yeah, we have at Texas 2K.

He wanted to see and make sure that it works and all this because it's a different filter or a thermostat meant for 70s Mopar engines, but it was a direct fit. It came with the gasket that came with it, fit right in, so it was perfect. We're kind of testing it right now, but it's just that service of, treat your mechanic right, and they'll go above and beyond for you.

Did you do house calls?

No, I used to back in Mankato when I was low, but not anymore.

Well, now you have two shops.

I just don't have the time. A lot of people specifically request for me to work in their cars, and I'm not going to lie, I don't wrench often anymore. So I'm still involved with the whole process, but I'm not the one personally touching the cars anymore. I mean, I'll usually tell them upfront, like, yeah, I'm not the one touching it.

Well, you're focused on the big picture.

Right, right. So, I mean, all the techs know what my goals are. It's do it right the first time so it never comes back, or find things that are going to be potential issues, just standard stuff. So they know what my expectations are, and they can usually get that out the way I want it to get out.

Dude, the list I got when I asked Sam, hey, can you guys just find everything that I need to get done? Like a general inspection? Because I was like, hey, I'm about to start autocrossing and everything, and the list I got back was like, holy s***, I got to take care of this car. But, lo and behold, I think this was like three, four, five months ago, you guys were like, hey, your water pump has this residue and all this stuff. I was just in two weeks ago to get that fixed. And it's like, yeah, I should have done that when I actually had money. So, okay, so as we start wrapping up, because it's starting to get a little late here. So what do you see Ratified going in the next few years? What do you have any specific plans or?

Right now, I'm just kind of testing out the two locations. It's not like 100% concrete that I might keep both. And the only reason I have two is because I'm still stuck in my lease in Jasko till May. So it's like, why not just run it out to see how it does. If it's profitable and self-sustaining, I'll just keep a crew down there and have that going. Most of the big projects, big jobs will end up being in St. Louis Park anyways, because likely I was fortunate enough to be able to buy that building.

Is it a bigger building and all that?

It is. It's 8,100 square feet. So we're adding a dyno on there too. So all the calibration, tuning, all that stuff will be done there. All the builds, the big builds that require tuning or custom stuff will all be done there. But right now, like I said, it's just maybe two shops, but hopefully more, to say. But I don't want to grow too big to the point where it's like a corporate thing. That's when you lose sight of what you really came from. And I'm super humble from what I started with to where I'm at now. And like I said, I don't want to lose that sight of being personable of all my customers, taking care of them, like one on one stuff. So, I mean, eventually I want to be maybe three stores max. But just have a team of each one, but solely focused on the branding of it, like the builds and stuff out of the St. Louis Park location or a different location at some point in the future. I don't know for sure yet, but it depends on how long we can keep the dynamic on there. We'll see how the neighbors like that. I don't know yet because it's not up yet. So we'll see how that goes. If the neighbor is complaining, b****, we'll move it down south somewhere. Because I like it down south here in the Shawcuppee Prior Lake, Lakeville area. It feels more homey because I come from a small town. I hate being up in St. Louis.

Yeah, I can't do it like Minneapolis and close to there.

I hate traffic. So I just can't do it. I like it out here because everything is within 10 minutes of each other. So it works out. So ideally, that's what I was looking for was a shop down south. I spent maybe six months, seven months looking for another shop because I knew my lease was coming up. So I was like, well, I'm in a position to buy now. I might as well start looking.

Would you ever consider starting to develop or manufacture your own parts or anything like that?

I mean, eventually. Brian is coming on board for that. So he's the calibrator R&D guy. He did it for MAP2. So he did a little bit of that. And we already developed our own little stuff here and there. I'm not going to go too much detail with it, but it's like a module that can do CAN bus stuff, can take inputs and output it to the ECU, the stock ECU. So it's literally a piggyback that works like a standalone. You can add all these safeties and the sensors in there that you wouldn't be able to do on a stock ECU. You can add EGTs, MAP sensors, coolant pressure sensors, whatever you want to. You can add it. It can even control nitrous and methanol injection, whatever you want. So it's the brainchild Brian stuff. It's his thing. And he's incorporated and I'm lucky enough to help him develop it, especially giving him my car and let him do all that. He says it cures his boredom. And so if I give him all the stuff and it just cures his boredom, he loves doing it.

Big puzzle solver.

So he loves doing that stuff. So he's doing that. And then we'll eventually start making our own hard, hard stuff, like exhaust systems and intakes and stuff like that. But at that level, I don't think I don't see it happening within this year or next, maybe in the future here when we might have like another location that is capable of doing it. Because right now, the shops that I have now are just strictly like auto repair based, or you know, just you can't do fabrication or production out of it. Right. So until we can get to that level, I don't see it yet. But but essentially growing the shop to be like you asked me how where I want to see myself is like I said, two or three shops at the most. But like a like a sysio type shop. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, he's expanding to Yeah, yeah.

He's in Florida now. Yeah. So it's just like something like that. You know, having cool builds come out and having fun doing it, you know, at that level and getting recognition from other shops. You know, we're still small in Minnesota. We're not big yet. But, you know, throughout the whole like enthusiast crowd, everybody knows Ratified. Right. They see a Ratified car, like, oh, s***, that thing's fast. Watch out for that. But, you know, I want to expand outside of Minnesota a little bit too, so we can get the gathering of all the other enthusiasts to say, hey, you know, not as big as AMS or T-Warn and like that. That's super huge. That's when it comes to corporate. You know, you're doing corporate stuff with corporate money at that point. You know, you're doing multimillion dollar business deals and stuff like that. I mean, maybe in the future, but like I said, that's like when you're preparing for retirement. I don't want to lose sight of providing, you know, the one on one of the customer stuff.

So I always said, man, I would love to have an Enthmodo Viper and a Sysio GTR. That's like that. That's in the dream garage mail and a ratified RS3. We'll get there. But yeah, that's freaking awesome. Should we put a ribbon on it?

Yeah. So if you haven't listened to the show before, we ask our guests a question, and we kind of want to get to know you a little bit better with your kind of like your taste, taste in cars might be. Some people it's like, who knows? Some people it's like very obvious. But the question is going to be pretty simple to answer, I think, for you. You got to pick three cars. One's a daily, one's a track car, one's a show car.

Sure. And you have an unlimited budget, so the only...

Dude, that's simple.

Yeah.

I'm super simple. Daily, I just want to pick up. Really, just any pick up. As long as it's a diesel. So I'm like my Duramax. I'm happy with my Duramax. Maybe I'll like the new Duramax. You know, something simple like that for a daily. Track car, 911. GT3, GT2, don't matter which one. It's one of my dream cars.

It's got to have the RS. I take it.

Yep. And then what was the other one?

Your show car.

My show car. You know, honestly, I wouldn't say it's a show car, but it's more of like a nostalgic car that I've been looking to get back in my life. I really, really want an untouched 92 Honda Civic Si hatchback in Milano Red. Like back, that was my high school car. And I want one that's 100% stock. And I've been looking. It's hard to find. We did find one on Bring a Chair, that went for like 13 grand or something like that. But that would have been perfect. But I'm simple.

Yeah, see, some people it's really hard. Some people, they already know the answer.

Some people are difficult.

Yeah, you know, I feel like I'm surprised there was no Audis in that answer.

That's what I was expecting.

You know, it's funny because my wife, like, picks on me for this all the time. I get asked quite a bit, like, if you were to buy a car for your kid or something reliable, it's never an Audi, or a Volkswagen, or a Mercedes, or a BMW. It's always a Toyota or a Honda. That's what I always tell them.

That's fair.

It's like, I might not be working on them anymore. Like, I might not know how reliable they are, but just from the past of having them, I never had to fix mine. I was always modifying them, yeah, but as far as leaving me stranded, never once. It's like, you can run that thing on one quart of oil and bring it to the cities and back. You know, Marshall is a three-hour drive, and I've done it on a quart of oil. So I was like, yeah, if you're gonna keep a car for, you know, something reliable, Honda, Toyota. You can't go wrong with either one.

Dude, they're hot nowadays, too. They're good-looking cars. How much, just because this reminded me, when my brother did his oil change, I want to say a year ago, how many quarts was he missing that one time?

Oh, he was missing like a full quart, maybe two.

Yeah, he was missing a lot of oil. He has the same GTI I got, except not tuned up. But nonetheless, we appreciate you coming on. I've been wanting to have you on forever, so glad we could make this work. As for, where can everybody find you?

Social media? Yeah.

Not your street address. You don't have to get that out.

I live in Shock. I'd be like three hours away from Harris. You can find me on Instagram, at ratify.men, or I think that's my only social. I don't know, honestly. Otherwise, Facebook. You just search Ratified. But otherwise, you can find me personally on Facebook. My name, Ratana, R-A-T-H-A-N-A.

Are you still looking for welds for the Supra?

No, actually, they shipped. They just shipped today. Oh, okay.

Great, because we were about to do a shout out. Like, hey, everybody has welds.

No, they literally just shipped today. I got the check-in number. I was like, f*** yes. It's been since April.

I'm excited. Maybe Mike will sell his Mustang because he's coming for you.

Do you have any events that you're planning? Because I know you guys just did a soft opening for the new location.

So as soon as the renovation is done on the St. Louis Park shop, because there's one side, there's literally two halves of a shop. One side was a frame rack area. They had a pit. So we filled in the pit and with laying concrete on top of it to level it out so we can actually drive and do whatnot and have our dyno put in there. So once that's all done, we'll have a grand opening. I don't know a date yet, but we're expecting maybe end of September, early October. I know it might be a little cold then, but hopefully, you know, cars will still out.

Get those hoodies ordered. I'll get a ratified hoodie.

So we'll see. Yeah, we'll end up doing a grand opening then, do a car show. I don't know if we'll be doing a dyno day just because we have, we don't know what, how the city is going to act on that yet or the neighbors. So we're just going to kind of play by ear, but we are kind of keeping the dyno strictly to in-house tuning or rentals to other shops that we work closely with. So fortunately, that's just kind of how we ended up going with it just to keep the wear and tear out of it. And plus, Moses is right off the road there, and I don't want to step on anybody's toes there. And I told him straight up, so hey, this is for in-house stuff. I know you spent X amount of dollars on your dyno, and he rents it out to the public.

Yeah, but I think they just posted a dyno day.

Dyno night. Yeah, we applied on that. So my bedtime is 8 o'clock. It's too late.

They don't have any neighbors over there, I don't think. Because you're kind of in the city with St. Louis Park.

Well, the thing is, right across the street is a whole apartment complex. So literally across the street.

No dino nights for you.

Yeah, so, and I think I'm bound by city ordinances that no noise after 6 o'clock or something. There's 7 o'clock.

Interesting, okay.

Street tuning is going to be a problem.

Yeah, we'll just do that in Chaska. Chaska's still got the nice roads. So we'll do that one on one.

Yeah, except for that area they're doing construction, which is freaking nuts right now. Oh my gosh. Sean, where can people find you?

Yeah, so if you guys want to follow me, check out some of my cool cars. You can follow me on Instagram at 1MNMopar. Thank you, Harris.

You never post them. I gave you 300 photos. You never post s***.

You know, I was going to post today, but then I'm so busy, man. I'm just running around. I got a family to take care of. I don't have time to be editing videos and posting photos.

You have nothing to edit. I gave you everything edited. Just post it. You know, just pay me a monthly fee, and I'll manage it for you, like for my other clients. Anywho, make sure you guys are following the newsletter. I tried my best to send those out weekly. I'm really horrible at that. But nonetheless, you know where to find me. Minnoxide, I think that pretty much...

Is there anything that you're planning? Any events? Oh, good point.

So yeah, I'm paying Sean for half of my ticket for the car community rally. I've talked about this many a times. I've done two of the three last 10,000 lakes rallies. Super fun events. I've always had a blast. We always end up getting s******** and smoking cigars on a parking ramp or something. With the cars turned off, obviously. So this year, we're doing the car community rally. We're just about paid up on that ticket, and we're doing a really fun theme. So we're not sharing anything about that yet. But get to the Bima.

Well, I think you just ruined it.

No, no, they'll find out. They'll find out.

But that was a terrible impression, so maybe not.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, whatever. Anyways, until next time, let us know who you guys want to see on this show, I suppose. Make sure you're following the YouTube, the TikToks, all that. And I think that's pretty much it. So thanks for showing up, and see you guys next time.