82. RB26 Swap Into PONTIAC GTO, Cummins Swaps, and Custom Trucks

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Minnoxide Podcast. I'm your host, Harris, AKA Minnoxide, man of many automotive aspirations, and I'm here with my co-host, Dan, Mr. Gunnigaraj, man of many Mustangs.

Yep, your average Ford enthusiast.

Yeah, average, that's pretty much everybody, Ford. Yeah, and today, we are going Beyond the Meet, so I usually do this for the episode. I always ask, how do you pronounce your last name?

Kurzhal.

Okay, that was going to get that right. And then we're going to call you Ben from here on out. But so actually, one of our mutual friends on Facebook reached out to me and Thomas Kelly. He's like, here's two people you got to get on. I should probably reach back out to the other guy, but because I've been looking for people that are like in the diesel scene or just do cool swaps and builds in general to come on to the podcast. And I think you fit the bill because you got the Rb26 Swapped GTO, which is sacrilege. Yeah. Every red blooded American's like, what the hell is that? And then obviously some diesel stuff as well. So I think that pretty much sums up the introduction. You just do cool s***, go fast. Does that sound about right?

Yeah, that's about right.

Yeah, so you get three different builds, I think, right? Is it three or two?

I gotta count. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, there are always stuff done on them. You always gotta do more to them. So I don't know if any of them are actually done, but yeah, I think I got the GTO. Tempest still needs some stuff. And then...

Well, you gotta put a depth system in that Tempest so that you can do it. No, uh-uh. No.

No, I'm not gonna say that I remove them, but they definitely don't stay on the truck for too long.

Yeah, well, if you want your truck to run right and actually run forever, then yeah.

Not break down all the time?

Yeah.

Gotta get rid of that. Yep, but yeah, other than that, I mean, I got an 07.5 Megacab that I'm stretching into a long bed dually, so that's the most recent project right now. But a little bit of everything. I just picked up a 68 C20 that I plan to diesel swap or do something cool with, so we'll see where that one leads, but.

You just don't leave an original engine in anything, do you?

No, I like to have something different, you know what I mean? You go to a car show and you see the same thing, and it's just like, I don't know, I like to have something that you don't see all the time.

No, I like it.

Car shows get boring after a while, you know? It's like, oh, another LS swap.

It was tough in this scene too, right? Cause like we have such a small scene. Like if you go to Texas, like any city in Texas, like there's always, you're gonna see something new every single time, just because there's a way bigger population. Here the up, I mean, our scene's growing a lot recently, but you definitely start seeing a lot of cookie cutter stuff too, which, you know, no, not to knock on it, but it's cool to see the unique stuff too. So what's the, okay, so we didn't talk much about the Tempest, what's the deal with that?

It's a 66 Pontiac Tempest. I got it when I was still in high school. And then like the year after high school, I was gonna LS turbo swap it, and I had all the parts sitting there, and I was just like, I don't know, everybody's doing LS swaps now. And this was, this was back in 2014. And I was just like, I wanna do something different. I didn't have a welder at the time or nothing. I was just like, you know what, I'm gonna sell all this LS stuff. I'm gonna buy a 12 valve Cummins and a welder, and I'm gonna make it work. And it's pretty much, I haven't done a whole lot since then. I mean, maybe a little, I did air ride the year after, but other than that, I'd just been driving the wheels off of it. So, I mean, it's cool, it's fun to drive, and it's not fast by any means, but it leaves a cloud of smoke behind you.

How's it, is the body in good shape or?

Not really.

No?

No, everything I got, I'm not like, the GTO is one of the first cars that I have that actually like really pick you with the paint. It has to be perfect, but I like driving stuff where like you don't have to care about it. You know what I mean? You just drive it and whatever happens, happens. And that's kind of where this ended up. So I'm not much of a body guy. I got friends that do that. And I mean, with the GTO or with the Tempest, it just, it needs so much body work that I'm not even, it looks okay the way it is. So I just drive it the way it is.

We gotta have a car like that too. Like if you're constantly worrying about it, it's not fun. It's like why buy more things so you can worry more? Yeah, that's just one. So what's that make it like power wise, Ralph? Any idea?

I had it on Maps Dino at one point. And that was before I even had a tack in it. You can't read horsepower without tack. So I could read torque values and it was like six or 700 foot pounds of torque. But I've done injectors and water meth since then. So honestly, I have no idea where it's at.

You just know it's fun.

It's fun to drive. Yeah, it's got a five speed in it. So I mean, it's not fast by any means. You're not getting anywhere fast, but I mean, it's just fun to drive. That was the main goal for it. So it does that. But it's an old project now. I haven't even gotten it out this year yet. So my biggest problem is running out of space now. I got too many projects, not enough space.

Well, a Tempest, a truck, another one that you're stretching, you should pick smaller vehicles, man. Yup.

Yeah, you should get into Datsuns or something.

Yeah. That's where the GTO is kind of nice. It's a little bit smaller, but it still takes up a lot of space in the garage because I don't like to leave it out all year while I'm waiting for parts or whatever it may be. But it's just space. But we'll get there.

And you just store all these out of your place then?

Nope, friends.

Friends, yeah.

Parents' place. I mean, wherever I can find a spot to park it for the winter, mainly. Otherwise, the streets got plenty of parking. Just park it on the street.

Somebody isn't an HOA, I'm guessing.

Nope, nope. I'm not around any of that stuff. No way.

Yeah, I know you got into some issues with your neighbor about your truck being outside or whatever.

Yeah, well, I'm not even in an HOA, but I'm a Fox body guy. And so for every one Fox, you need three or four parts Fox. So I had them, or Foxes, FoxEye, whatever. So I had them in my yard, in my backyard, and my neighbor was b******* and moaning that, they go, oh, you see the cars outside. So I bought shipping containers, and now they get to look at China shipping.

Really?

Yeah.

They full-size ones?

F*** yeah, 40-foot high cubes, dude, absolutely. And I didn't even clean them up. They just say China shipping.

By the way, that highlight, I think it's like three or 400,000 views on YouTube.

Oh, really?

Everybody's like, yeah, f*** the HOA. It's just like, you know, neighbors.

There's no rule on it, because I even, the city, I was talking to them, and they were like, we don't like, shipping containers is kind of a new-ish thing for them. So we don't even know how to classify that. I was like, technically, it came with license plates and titles. They're trailers. So if I want to technically license it as a trailer, I can leave it parked there, if they give me any hell.

So. Then they could give you s***, though, for not having it on pavement, though.

I have it on a Class 5 pad, so.

That's good enough, that's pavement. So I know there's been issues with that, and people just put pavers underneath each wheel and be like, it's parked on pavement, you're good to go.

Yeah.

There's always a loophole.

Absolutely.

Well, it's like, it's not the intent of the law. It's just you gotta just, you can get messy with it. Yeah, the loopholes are fantastic.

The key to this is be careful if you think your neighbor's doing some s*** and you're mad about it. Go have a conversation with him before you turn him in on a city, because they may find a loophole that you're less happy with. So.

Yep. I know, that's why I've told people, like, I won't say who, but it's like some people are getting chickens, and I'm like, you sure this is a war you wanna start? Like, be careful, because like you said, they can find a loophole that's gonna be even more annoying. Yeah, no, that's fun. But yeah, so you store everything at your friend's house. Well, if I ever need to store anything, I could just hit you up. You got a nice spread over there.

We could just throw it in the pile of s*** and you won't even notice it.

There you go.

Yeah, just ridiculous. So okay, so what made you go down the Cummins route? Like you just grew up wanting that, or why not? I mean, we got a Ford guy right here, so.

I like the simplicity of an inline-six. Just about everything I own is an inline-six right now. So it's just, I like the ease of working on it. And that's the biggest thing. I guess Cummins got a good name going for him, so that's kinda where I got turned on to him. But I've worked on my fair share of Duramaxes and Power Strokes, and I'm just, a four or five hour drive to do a water pump just doesn't sound fun to me. So, yeah, a Cummins, you can have it out in 20 minutes and replace. So I just, I've always liked that about it. Just simplicity, really. But I don't know, if GM would put a Cummins in their truck, I'd be all game for that, too. I just wish they would do that. But I don't know, maybe four, two, we'll see.

You know, I had a 6.0 truck. I've had a couple of them. My one, yep, so I get that reaction most of the time, right? It's like when I tell people I have four kids, I either get aw or oh. So same thing when I talk about my 6.0, almost same exact reaction. And my blue truck I had was great. I had it deleted, I did all the stuff, ARP head studs, did everything you were supposed to do, and it was great. And the power it made was phenomenal. The sound, it just sounded like a jet engine just sitting there idling, like I loved that truck. I ended up getting rid of it. Maybe it started to have a head gasket issue again, I don't really know. It was, they have, 6.0's have a magic reservoir where coolant goes and it never comes. You don't know where it goes. It doesn't leak out. I don't really see it go on a tailpipe, it just disappears. So I didn't know what was happening, so I got rid of that truck, and then I had another one, my work truck, and it was just, I mean, I probably put 30 grand into a $10,000 truck. So, you know, I moved on to 6.7s. I've since then been happy, no problems. Yes.

They're a lot better.

Yeah. I skipped 6.4 altogether. I heard that was just a dumpster fire.

Yeah. I can't dog on 6.7 power strokes too much.

No.

I haven't worked on a whole lot of them, but I haven't heard a lot of issues.

You don't usually need to. Yeah.

That might be why.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I remember I was like, I'm in this one Colorado group chat or whatever, and they were just talking, oh no, it was Unpopular Carpinions on Facebook. I don't know if you're part of that group, but they were talking about what are the worst cars to work on. Somebody put, yeah, 75% of what I work on is Mopar products, and then the other 20% is Hondas or whatever. But there's so many Hondas, so it makes sense.

Yeah, it does.

So what do you mostly work on, then?

Anything. I mean, seriously, I got people that will just be like, hey, can you fix this? I mean, generally speaking, I touch a lot of things that I don't touch a lot. I guess I should reword that. I'll work on anything that comes through the door. You know what I mean? And even if I'm not too familiar with it, I feel like it's all nuts and bolts. Yeah. It can't be too hard to learn.

If you have a mechanical ability of any kind, usually you can kind of figure out, when you get everything down to its core, they're all the same on the inside. So.

Yep. It's all, yeah, like I said, it's all just nuts and bolts, parts, and it's not too bad. But I like getting more into this custom stuff, engine swaps, and stuff like that. I got a buddy who's gonna be bringing a Fox body to me, probably mid-summer, once I finish up all these other projects I got, and he wants to coyote swap it. So that'll be a project coming up. But I like doing stuff like that. It's a lot more time consuming, but the end result's just a lot more worth it. It's just cool to see stuff like that going down the road. So I don't know. It's mainly a lot of everything. I mean, I do a lot of general repair too. Just anybody has an issue, they bring it through and fix it. I mean, seriously, it's a lot of everything.

That makes sense. I mean, it's all, like you said, kind of the same.

Yeah.

To a degree. Even if it's not. I know a shop recently, they had to get a $750 manual or whatever just to figure out how to work on this one particular car. And it's just like...

That's what YouTube's for.

Well, yeah, there's YouTube too. It's like, yeah, you could just figure it out. If you had that general know-how, which is not me, that's him. Like that was always my biggest thing with the podcast. And if I have a co-host, it has to be somebody that's more mechanically inclined than me because I'm in a learning phase.

Yeah.

But, so then, so how many projects do you work on? Is it just like buddy projects here and there? Or do you have a number of big projects at a time?

Not really. I mean, I don't work out of a big shop. I mean, I just work out of my garage.

Exactly, yeah.

I pretty much take on as much as I can out of there.

Do you have a lift?

Nope.

Oh man.

It's on the list.

Yeah.

But I do fine without it. I mean, generally speaking, unless I'm doing something more major, but I seem to get by with what I got right now. But I just wanna outgrow this to the most I can before I go and either invest in opening a shop or a bigger property or something like that. So, you know, small steps, big steps.

Well, it's all location, too, right? Like some of my friends that have shops, they'll get like three months or six months or a year's free rent because they're trying to get more stuff in that area. So that's one of those sweetheart deals you just gotta look for, too. Because that would really offset some of those costs. But so then do you see yourself going full time with that at some point, too?

Hopefully. I like what I got now because this is all side work, just extra money coming in. We usually fund my projects. But I like having a steady paycheck, too. So what I got going on right now seems to work. But right now, I'm still overwhelmed with the work that I have, and the amount of time that I have to work on it. It's just limited. But I don't know. We'll see where things take us and go from there.

Well, people like, one of my friends recently opened a shop, too, and mostly works on LS stuff or whatever. But he's always constantly flipping stuff. So it's like, when he told me how much he was able to make, just like flipping, like getting cars, like, oh, I buy for this much, fix it up and flip it. I'm like, really? It's crazy, dude. And I'm like, yeah, no need for college.

It's nice doing that because then it's all on your time, too. You know what I mean? You buy the car, you're on your time. Somebody's not begging for the car back in two days. So you got plenty of time to work on it, put time into it, and then just sell it. But at that point, you need a dealer's license and all kinds of other stuff to.

Yeah, you can get by winging it for a little while. Especially if you can get. You might wanna cut this out. If you can get people to not make you sign the title when you pick up a car, that's always a nice one.

They call that, it's not title flipping.

It's jumping.

It's title jumping.

Yeah, yep.

I know guys like that, too. And it's like you can get by for a while, but it can become a problem.

What else out there are you paying sales tax on every time you friggin buy it? That's dumb, you paid sales tax on it the first time.

I feel like that's where having a dealer's license helps, because then it never really touches your name. I don't think you have to pay sales tax on the salary.

I think it's wrapped up in your dealer fees that you pay to the state or whatever.

We had AJ talk about that on episode 35, and he kinda touched on it. There's a benefit to it.

It's just. You have to have a certain volume before it makes sense.

Yeah, there's that, too. I remember, oh my god, the comments sections were like, blah, like it was crazy. But Uncle Sam's gotta get his. That's just how it is.

It's never enough, though.

No, it's never anything.

What I didn't like about work, so when I first built my shop at home, I was like, okay, I just spent money on this. I'm gonna roll some cars. So I was like, I'm just gonna do, you'd be, like, just doing break jobs and oil changes and just simple s*** hub assembly, stuff like that. You could be booked up all day long with work like that.

Quick work, too. That's really nice. I like that small stuff, that you can get in and out right away, because it's a quick payday. And I feel like some of that stuff pays better than something you'll put 10, 12 hours into. And then it takes you however long to do it, depending on what your schedule looks like. Sometimes it's nice to just get those quick jobs in and out.

Well, it's like every shop, literally every shop owner I've talked to, yes, they love their huge, big projects, their crazy four-digit builds and all that, but they also like the routine maintenance stuff. Because again, it's just, you crank it out. That's your bread and butter for a reason.

That's what the whole other side of the shop here is for, just keeping the lights on.

Yeah, I guess I didn't even notice that downstairs, because today, for example, I think I can disclose, they're working on a G80, right, on one side. They're doing some cool stuff with that. And the other side, it's like, all right, cool, just regular maintenance stuff for the most part. All the crazy projects are on this side of the shop, and it's, yeah, the power crew stuff.

You gotta have that separate space, though, because if you have just a small area and you got one project that's taken up all your space and it's a big project, you're not making that money on the small jobs. You just don't have space for it.

Well, the worst is when you're waiting on parks, too, right?

That is, yeah.

Like when a car is just taking up a lift for a few months at a time, that's problematic, because that's money.

It is, yep, definitely.

Yeah, that'd be cool to see you. I just like, there's a lot of people that have opened up shops or upgraded shops these last two or three years. I think for the most part, business has been booming from the outside looking in, because I think two or three of the shop guys we've had on the podcast have all doubled in size in the last year or two. Just, yeah, you went to the wrong location today. Before we get too far into the show, I wanted to take a moment to talk about Razorhood. If your daily driver's having issues, AKA your beater you got off Craigslist, Razorhood's telemechanics and AI tools can help you diagnose and solve the issues you may be dealing with for a fraction of the cost. All you have to do is add your car to the Razorhood garage to get started. You can provide the AI tool, also known as Gus, with the specifics of the issues you're having, and it'll help you narrow down what the culprit is. It's a great way to bounce ideas off of to figure out what actually might be the problem. You can then select from a variety of solutions to explore the cost and difficulty of doing the repair yourself versus taking it to a shop. If your car doesn't have detailed solutions yet, that's totally fine. Just go ahead and add your car to the garage for free, and that'll let the Razorhood team know what to focus on as they continue to develop and grow. If you want to try out Gus or chat with a telemechanic, go to razorhood.com and add your car to the garage to get started. Use code MINNOXIDEFREE for a one month free subscription or MINNOXIDE20 to save 20% on a 30 minute call with a telemechanic. Let's get back to the show. So okay, so what inspired the Rb26 to go into the GTL though? Like, how does that even become an idea?

I've always wanted an Rb26. Just from, you know, as I was like, like when I was a kid and stuff, I just, I always wanted one. And I was sitting there on the couch one day, and I was just like looking at rolling chassis, trying to find something. This is back when Arby's were reasonably priced. And I was like, I gotta find something. Just a rolling chassis, slap that motor in there, it'd just be so cool, you know? And I'm scrolling through like good chassis to start with. You know what I mean? Rugal Drive, preferably manual. And I came across GTO, and I'm sitting there, and I'm like, wait, I have a GTO. I was like, I wonder if, I was like, I could sell the LS out in there to help pay for the Arby build, and then just swap it out and just drive the wheels off of it. And that's what I ended up doing. I said, screw it, we're gonna do it, you know? And I ended up selling the LS too. And then I bought just a dropout, Rb26, and I had that shipped in from a engine importer. And the day I got it, I'm scrolling Marketplace and the forums and stuff, and I find a built Rb26 for sale in Tennessee. And I was like, I messaged the dude, I was like, man, I wish you would have sold this like a month ago. I would have bought it, you know? And he's like, dude, it's not too late, just sell the stock one. And I was like, all right. So I sold that and drove out to Tennessee, picked up this whole swap. And the only downfall was he was selling it pretty cheap because it had a crack in the block, but he had a brand new Nissan, like Rb26 block in the box, in the Nissan box, never been touched. And he's like, all you gotta do is bore it out a little bit, swap everything over, and you're good to go. So I was like, all right, sounds easy enough. I messaged Dan over at Precision Race Engines, and he's like, yeah, that's no problem, you know? So I dropped all the stuff off, and as he's looking through it, he's like, dude, this motor needs a lot more than you think because they installed the pistons backwards.

Oh, s***.

They interfered with the head. When I got it, he said it was a running motor. It very well could have been, but it wasn't built right.

Might have been why there was a crack in the block.

The crack was just leaking coolant. He said it still ran great.

Oh, really?

So, and I was even debating on just like welding it up or something and just seeing what it would do, you know? But I'm glad that I took it apart because it would have just led to issues down the road.

Well, especially if you're going for power.

Yeah. So I ended up having him bore out the new one, and then I went with new pistons, new rods, and did some head work, had him reassemble everything. Good to go. I did, I mean, I tried to do everything I could to make the Rb as reliable as it can be. They're not really known for that, so.

Yeah, I was gonna ask, because I've heard that they're not exactly the most reliable.

They have oiling issues. That's one of the biggest things you gotta fix. And then, like, your oil pump drive. So, like, I went spline drive. It's just right off the bat. Kind of gets it up to par with 2J. So, I went and did all that. And paid him, picked it up, and mocked it up, built some motor mounts, slapped it in. But now, I shaved the engine bay and everything, so I gotta get paint done in the engine bay. I got my buddy doing that for me. Down the line. I'm gonna have Sean Christensen do all the wiring for me. And...

That's from 2mashon?

I think so, yeah.

That's the guy that Dave Vapselt is with as well. Yeah, we gotta get him on the podcast. He does a lot of cool stuff. Are you gonna do a Haltech on there too then?

I already got a Haltech.

Okay.

Yep, yep. So, a Haltech, I went all out on fuel. It's dual fuel rail, 12 injectors, and carbon intake. Carbon intake, I did just about everything you could do to get it to run as good as you can on the street, and still have power when you wanna get on it. So, it's just one of those things where it's just like, you wanna upgrade one, then you gotta upgrade 10 other things. Yep. You know what I mean? So, it's just, it's a long process. I got most of the hard parts, but right now, it's just waiting on dumping a ton more money into it to finish it up. But, it's on the last part, I'd say. It's rolling. So, I just gotta get a driveshaft made up, I gotta get the transmission built, which I already got a gear set for. I got a clutch, but I wanna upgrade that. But, I mean, I had a lot of the fab work done by my buddy Chase Bird. He does no coast fab. I don't know if you've ever heard of that, but.

I don't know if I have.

I'll have to look it up. You should. He does really good work.

What is he based out of?

He was based out of Southern Minnesota, but he just moved to Tennessee.

Okay. Well, he's dead to me now.

Yeah.

No, we want to go to Tennessee this summer, but. Yeah.

No, he's good s***. He does really good work. So I had him do all the intercooler piping. He built me an intercooler, catch can, full exhaust, all stainless, so V-band everything. And it turned out really good. So I had him do all my fab work. So really all I got left is like plumbing, electrical. And some driveline stuff and paint. But hopefully the next year should be done. But I'm not trying to rush through it because my whole thing is like, I like to do things like very thoroughly so I don't have to redo them again.

Yeah, buy once, cry once.

Yep, so that's been the idea behind this whole build. So that's why it's taken so long. It's just, and it sucks too because when things start taking longer, it's just like, you buy all this stuff that's relevant at the time, and now you're sitting on it, and they come out with the new s***. So now it's like, now you gotta sell that, buy the new thing. You know what I mean? Hopefully it's still relevant when you finally get it done. But that's the issue I've been having, at least with Haltech, the ECU, the display. I had the IC7 and everything set up for that, and now they came out with the bigger display. I can't remember what size that one is. But it's just like one thing after another. I was gonna do cable throttle, then I was talking to Sean, and he's like, no, you should do drive by wire. We can tune it up real nice. So then sold that intake, and that's when he talked me into 12 injectors, so I ended up getting a different intake, throttle body, and now I'm looking at it like, I should do electric water pump. I wanna keep AC in it, so electric AC compressor, then the whole fuel system. It's just, I'm running through, it'll be three fuel pumps in there.

You're gonna need like three batteries in that thing, man, to run all that electrical s***.

I know, I got a bigger alternator. I don't know how well it's gonna do, but fingers crossed, hopefully it supplies all the power I need, but it's just, it's never any project really at this point. I just hope at some point it will get done, but yeah, I'm thinking maybe a year or two.

I think that's reasonable though. We talked about this with, I can't remember how many episodes ago, but we were talking about Michael Morgan's project, right? Where these YouTube or like Cummins mechanics, they're like, oh man, I would never send it to a shop. I'm gonna build it myself, one of these guys. And it's like, Dan made a good point. He's like, yeah, but then if you have a day job, it's gonna take you six, seven years to build that, and it's gonna be more expensive because you're always gonna be, again, trying to keep up with what's the new thing.

Yeah, you could not work, stay home and work on it, or you could go to work, make money, and have a shop where people help you do it. I was doing the same thing you were doing, where I was buying parts, and then they'll sit for a year or two, and then my other problem was, if I put this in and it's bad, I don't have warranty now, right? Because usually it's a year, let's say, and I've been sitting on this part for 18 months, I go to fire it up and be like, what am I supposed to tell them? They're gonna be like, dude, you bought this a year ago, we're not warranting this out. So that always scares me too.

I just see it as like, if I can bring it somewhere and have somebody do it that does it all day and night, that knows their s*** really, really well, they can probably do it better than me. I mean, just, it'd take me months to wire that thing. And I know Sean can get it done in probably a month.

Dude, it's crazy how fast those guys work. That video we just dropped, them working on a 1967 Camaro when they literally took out the Holley and put in the Haltech harness, same day, I was like, Jesus.

Yep, that's kinda how I see it. It's like, you can have some cars. Like my old Pontiac, I did just about all the work on that. I mean, I had a little help with the floors. I was terrible at sheet metal work, but I had a buddy help me with the floors. But other than that, I did it all. And it's great, but it could have been a lot better if I had helped, you know what I mean? So that's kinda my whole idea behind this GTO, is it's like, I could do it all myself, but I'd rather have somebody do the work that I don't do every day, you know what I mean? Because it's just gonna turn out better, and it's just gonna meet my expectations.

It's gonna be a rowdy car, dude.

Well, every time you do a build, it should progressively get better, right? Like you learn things as you're going along.

So, but yeah, no, I'm excited to get that thing done. It should be a lot of fun.

How much of the work are you doing yourself on that, then? Still a sizable amount, I imagine?

Yeah, I mean, I shaved the engine bay. The motor I had built is a long block, so I didn't do a whole lot with that, but I mean, transmission work I'm farming out, but getting the motor in there, mounted, all the plumbing, fuel plumbing, stuff like that, I did all that. Yeah, shaved the engine bay, I did that. I guess, I don't like the, not super major stuff. I'm not a huge transmission guy, so I don't even want to dig into that because I don't want to have issues when it gets back together, but I mean, the more I go through it, the more I'm learning and the more I can do. But I mean, yeah, I mean, the fab work for like intercooler pipe and exhaust, I had Chase do that. He's just, he does amazing work, so I had him do that. I got a buddy who's gonna be building the transmission for me. I have all the parts for it. I just, I don't know how to tear them apart and rebuild them, so I'd rather not be, I don't want to do it the first time. Yeah, especially with something like this, you know.

And that'll bolt up to using the T56 still?

No, so I sold the T56. I'm running a Z32 trans.

Okay.

So, and then I bought SpeedTex. They have a dog engagement gear set. It's supposed to hold over 1,000, so I bought that. And that's gotta get installed. I'm gonna have my buddy, Oli, from Shine do that. I don't know if you've heard of him either, but he's really familiar with those transmissions, so I'm gonna have him do that.

Where is he from again?

Southern Minnesota. I don't know exactly what city.

What was the name?

Oli.

Oli?

That sounds familiar. I've dealt with a lot of Southern Minnesota guys. He's a drip guy.

Yep. But, yeah, he's real familiar with these, so I'm gonna have him build that. But, I mean, I don't know, I guess, like, I'd like to say I do most of the work, but like I said, with this project, I've been farming out a lot of stuff. I just kinda just wanna get it done.

Well, the collaboration's huge.

Yeah. And I mean, if you can bring somebody up with you, you know, when it's all done and they can be part of it, I don't know, I just feel more value in that. I'm not like a huge, I did all this myself and nobody can do it better than me. I know there's people out there that can do it better than me, and I'd rather have it done that way, so.

Well, the way I see it is like you're helping, I think you shouted out like two or three different people already. It's like, all those people, like, you're helping their business, you know, hopefully, and I don't know. I believe there's power in collaboration. This whole, I didn't me, all me, me, me.

I always tell people, I'm like, everybody who's touched any of my cars, I'm like, get me a sticker, man. Let's throw it on the window. Like, my car's been dipped by Jamie at Dipworks in Chippewa, and it's like the number one thing. People hit me up on my car all the time, and I'm like, I can't give out enough business cards. I'm like, dude, you need to make me a decal or a window sticker or something so people can see it.

Yep.

So.

Yeah. I don't know, with that project, yeah, it's been a lot of farming up, but I really wasn't into like really high horsepower stuff when I got into that. So it's all been learning experience.

So where did that change? So before we get into that, what are you aiming for power-wise? I mean, do you want to share in that?

I want to make like a thousand. I built a motor that it should handle as much as a stock block can handle. So they say right around 1200. I don't want to push my limits. I just want to have a reliable car. So I mean, if I make 900, I'd be happy with that. If I make a thousand, I'd be even happier. But I know I'm limited on the air side of things, too, because I'm running a BorgWarner 9180 EFR. So I'm hoping that that will, sorry, not EFI, EFR. BorgWarner 9180 EFR. And I think that's where I'm going to be limited. But fuel wise, I can get up to 1200, no problem. But I don't want to redo the whole turbo side of things right now. So we're just going to see wherever that maxes out, is probably where I'm going to be happy with for now. So turbos are spendy to replace and rework everything. So I'll just leave it where it's at, and hopefully we make good power. I don't know. I have high hopes, but.

Could you have gotten that LS2 to 1000?

Definitely, but it wouldn't sound as good.

Yeah, that's true.

Those RBs sound insane. Yeah, my buddy, he got rid of his Silvio and he pulled. So, okay, so we had Eric on the podcast, episode three, and I want to say 26, and he was initially going to put a Ferrari motor in his Datsun truck, like his mini truck, and it just wouldn't fit or whatever. So then I think he pulled the RB25 or whatever, and then he's, I think he's putting that in there. It's hard to keep up with all these different projects, but like when that motor was in his Silvia, I believe, it just sounded insane. It just crazy. So they do sound good. So I always hear people debate which one sounds better, the 2J or the Rb's.

They're both good motors. They both sound good. I don't know. I've just been partial to the Nissan side of things.

And you mentioned that earlier, right? That you were browsing the, so what got you into the Rb in the first place? Like, did you just see, I don't know, Fast and Furious? You're like, oh my God.

Probably. I don't know. I've always liked GTRs, you know, and I've always been just, I always wanted one, especially like R32, R34. I mean, who doesn't want one of them, you know? And I just thought that they were so far out of my reach that I probably never had one at the time, you know? And I'm just like, I can make one, I can make a car close to it, you know? And like I said, motors were cheap then. I think I got that complete dropout. I think it was like four grand, $4,500 with trans. And that was, I mean, that was a few years ago, but now prices are just astronomical.

Probably like double.

Yeah, big time. So it's just like, I don't know. It's, I'm glad I got into it when I did, but now if I blow it up, I'm pretty much screwed because I'm looking at a lot of money for a new motor.

Yeah, well you also weren't expecting to have the initial issues as well, because you had this fresh thing just ready to go, and then you get the built one, and it turns out it's screwed up. That's not the first time I've heard of people putting stuff in backwards, by the way.

Yeah.

So it's like, oh.

That's the problem with the Rb26s is most machine shops, especially around here, they're not familiar with them, because they're only imported, you know, at the time. I mean, seriously, nobody ever really touched them. So I don't rag on, you know, I don't want to rag on them too much, but I feel like putting a piston in backwards is pretty big.

Well, the steering wheel's on the wrong side. Everything's backwards over there. Yeah, yeah.

They probably thought it would work better that way.

Yeah.

But no, I don't know, originally when I got into this, I wasn't planning for a ton of power, but then when I came across that on Marketplace, I was like, maybe we can make a little bit more power. And then it just expired from there because it's sitting there at the machine shop, and he's like, yeah, well, now your rods are weak. I had Eagle rods in there, and he's like, yeah, those really aren't much better than stock. So then I upgraded that, I went to Manly Turbo Tough Rods, and then the pistons need to be replaced because they interfere with the head just ever so slightly. So then it was like, at that point, he's like, go with higher compressions, so I bought a new set of pistons, and then the head needed port work, and some awesome machining just because of the piston hitting it. I mean, I have no doubt that the thing ran, but it was just like...

Is there anything you salvaged from it?

The head is salvaged, the crank is salvaged, but I mean, it's really a new block, and I'm still using the cams that I got with it too. So, Crower 272s, and the turbo kit that I got with it, that's about it. Everything else is new.

Yeah, so you didn't really come out ahead.

No, I did not come out ahead at all. I should have just built the stock one, but it wasn't my intentions, it just happened that way.

Well, I was kinda thinking when you first said it that way, where you were like, it was cracked, but you had a brand new block, I was like, oh cool, at least then you get to go through it, but you're thinking you're gonna be all right, because if you buy a built motor from somebody, you never really know unless you crack into it, right? So I was like, good, this will be a good chance for him to really make sure. Well, you rolled those dice and you lost.

Lost, but I still had, I mean, at least I had a brand new block. So, I mean, that was a good starting point. And then, I mean, a lot of the parts, I mean, crank was good, thank God, but I had that machine too for the swine drive oil pump set up. And I mean, everything was kinda gone over with the fine-tooth comb, so I'm hoping that it will last.

Maybe it forced you to build, and you maybe wouldn't have any of that. Yeah, that's, you know, sometimes that's things nudge you the other way.

Yeah, yeah, it's been a learning experience. It's been a lot of trial and error, but I feel like there's still a lot more to go, but hopefully it's tapering down a little bit.

Yeah.

We'll see.

We should have a section of this show just being like where we go through people's finances. Yeah. Be like, all right, how much debt are you in? What's your credit score?

I'm not going to that one.

Yeah, you can't do that. You can't do that on any build. But I think there should be a guys who build cars support group for guys that have gone down some rabbit holes. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm in the tens of thousands of probably money wasted on s*** before.

Well, that's what comment sections are like, especially on the Michael Morgan post. Yeah. Like everybody's like sympathizing. Like there's a few people calling them like, oh, you should not have taken it to the shop. But the people that were sympathizing with them, they're like, yeah, I get it, man. I've sent, here's my crazy two year project that just got burned. So there should be a support group for Car Guys.

Yeah.

I'm gonna start that.

Yeah.

I think I'm gonna do it. So it'll be a Facebook group.

Yeah. You should. Yeah.

But no, that's gonna be a crazy. So then what, do you have any like plans like once the build's finished? Like are you gonna take a drag racing, non-Mexico stuff, just have fun with it basically?

Maybe like road course stuff.

Oh really, okay.

Yeah, but I guess mainly just as a fun street car.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, I like something that I can get on and have fun with on the street and not go too wild, you know, but it's really just for fun. It's nothing I really build on. I'm not really a huge into like racing or anything like that. I just like to build cool stuff and drive it, you know.

Did those have a solid rear or independent rear?

Independent.

Oh really?

Yeah. And they are, some people say they're good, some people say they're terrible. I haven't had any issues with mine yet, but it's in upgrades in the future.

Yeah, you'll find it once you hit a thousand horse on that bad boy.

Yep. So I feel like it would break a lot faster if you start doing a lot of dumb s*** with it though. Yeah. Clutch drops, stuff like that. Probably gonna be running axle issues and diff issues, but.

Later problem.

Yeah, yeah, that's a problem down the road.

Yeah.

Yeah. But I don't know. I kinda wanna, like I said, with the whole idea behind the build is I wanna build it right the first time so I'm not redoing s***. So hopefully, I find a good option for a built diff for that thing, but kinda wanna do something different, too. Cause everybody does like a 488 or.

I was just gonna say a 488.

But the downfall of those is that diff sits a lot lower, and then I'm already pretty low in that, so your axle angles just look like s***. You probably go through CVs like crazy.

Oh yeah.

So, I gotta do something different. I wanna have something built different maybe to reposition that back there and try to get it as.

Maybe need some more GTR parts.

Maybe.

Oh my god, that reminds me of when we had Tim Roman on, cause he was looking at GTR parts, cause he did a all wheel drive Mustang, like the new S550s, and he was looking into like everything. I think he, did he end up deciding on the GTR parts? I can't remember.

No, I think he got, it was from a Toyota Hilux is what he ended up with.

Real.

Yeah.

It was a really interesting episode. I think that was 60, yeah, 66 before Jason. Yeah, just crazy. Huh? It's such a gnarly build. Cause like nobody's done like an all wheel drive S550s the first, like that video went viral on YouTube. And the whole first, like, I want to say hour and a half of the episode when we had him on here was him just explaining the whole build beginning to end. Like I think I said maybe 10 words that first hour. Like I was just like, this is genius. I'm gonna listen. Just crazy. But would you, you should go all wheel drive with the GTL.

Too late.

Yeah?

Yeah. I thought about it. It's crossed my mind. I should have done that before I sold the the GTR trans that I had, but it would have been cool. It definitely would have been cool. But I just passed it up. I said no. Keep it rural drive.

Well, there's something unique about that trans that made it easy to do like all wheel drive conversions. Do you know off the top of your head what it was? I can't remember.

Well, the Rb26 only ever came all wheel drive.

Right.

So the front diff was built into the oil pan. So that's what's nice is then your driveline can sit super low, you know what I mean? Because you don't have like a diff hanging down underneath your oil pan.

Yeah.

So that would have made it a lot easier, but then it's like, what are you gonna do for knuckles, front wheel bearings, stuff like that? You know, you don't have to do a custom K-frame, custom axles. And I mean, looking back, I definitely should have, but it's just one of those things is, I don't know, I like rural drive too, you know.

Where you wanna swap it back, we'll hook you up with Tim, because that guy had, he spent like two years having to like go into the junkyard and buying four or five different axles and going back and going, no, that didn't work, that didn't work, yeah.

It's about how you have to do it too when you're pioneering that all wheel drive setup and like something like that, yeah. This chassis actually came all wheel drive overseas. Really? Very, very rarely, yeah. They didn't make many of them at all, but they set up.

Overseas, like Australia?

Yeah, Australia, you know, other stuff over there.

Yeah.

But, yeah, it did, but I mean, very, very few built. But getting your hands on parts like that would be tough too.

Yeah.

So, like getting front knuckles for off of that, good luck. Because, I mean, the ones that still exist are in one piece still, so it'd be tough. But, I don't know, you have a lot of other options too. It's just a matter of how far do you want to dig into it.

It's a bigger and bigger headache.

Yeah.

Right, it starts being, it stops being fun at a certain point, or it starts being very expensive, or both.

Yeah, and now you just added a whole other set of parts too that can go bad on you and ruin your day at the track or whatever, you know?

Yeah, it's not exactly easily replaceable. Like if something goes wrong at a track day, it's like, all right, well now I got, this is back on the lift for three months, or six months, or whatever. Yeah, so that's gonna be a really cool build. What color is the car again?

Black.

Black, wasn't it? Yeah, that's gonna be rowdy. I can't wait to see that done.

Yeah, I'm really excited for it. People keep talking to me about it, and I'm like, yeah, it's on the back burner right now, but just wait, you know, worth the wait. But.

And you also got a truck too, which isn't exactly slow either.

I got, it's an 06 5.9 Cummins. It's, I just had it on the dyno last year. It made 801 to the wheels. And I mean, it runs good. It's a good truck. It's got a lot of miles on it, but it's clean. I got it out of Alabama. It's pretty much just air and fuel. I did studs on it last year. Vowel springs, push rods. And then yeah, I had it tuned. And it makes good power. It runs every day.

Bigger injectors and stuff to you.

100% overs, 10-mil CP3. I'm running an S369 turbo. But other than that, it's pretty much just air-fuel studs and a tune. And it's got a built trans, too. It's full manual valve body. So I want to crank that up a little bit more, but I gotta start focusing on...

Pick a build.

Yeah, that's my problem. I look at one thing, I'm like, all right, let's do that. And then I look over here, and I'm like, yeah, let's do that. That's where it gets me into my MegaCab project. It's just like, that was not really planned. And it just so happened that, I don't know, it just sparked in my head one day. I was like, yeah, that thing would be cool. They never made a long bed MegaCab. And then why not make it a dually and have a good toe pig? So that...

I always thought a dually with some super singles on the back would be super sweet. You never see that, yeah.

I wanna slam it, put Alcoa's on it or something, but we'll see, they're spendy.

Those mega cabs, I was doing some work for the pipeline out in North Dakota. We were doing satellite communications for their switching stations. And one of the big hot dog oil guys was out there and it was raining or something. He's like, get in my truck, come on, man. So we hopped in the back seat and I'm like, what in the hell?

Yeah.

I'm like, this is fricking awesome, man.

It's like a minivan. Yeah, it is. It's crazy.

It's nuts. And I look outside and it's only another four or five inches but inside it's like, holy s***.

The doors are longer too.

Oh, are they really?

The doors are longer and then you got the extra, yeah, it's like six or eight inches behind, but I mean, god.

You could put a twin mattress back there.

You could.

Yeah, no, it's a lot of room.

Yep. Yeah, that truck's all stock, aside from apparent stuff. I mean, really, it's mainly stock, but it's just, yeah, another one of those things I wanted to build something that you don't see every day. That's probably gonna be coming in the shop probably in a week or two. Start cutting it in half.

Yeah, so what goes into that then? So what's the to-do list?

So with that, it's like, so the wheelbase on the MegaCab short bed is the same as a quad cab long bed. So same wheelbase. So one way you can do it is you section the frame right underneath the cab and you section it with a long bed frame. So I went down to Texas and got a long bed frame, and then you literally just cut it, slip it in, weld it around. You have the long bed portion on the back. Lengthen driveshaft, exhaust, brake lines. The harness, you actually don't have to lengthen. It will reach. And then you run a long bed fuel tank and swap the bed back on there. It's a pretty simple project. But, I mean, it sounds a lot easier than it is. And then I bought a dually axle too, so I'll swap that under there.

And those long bed dually beds are probably easy to get, because you can go get those, because they take them off and put those boxes on all the time. So probably a dime a dozen.

Yeah, I found one down in Texas, same color and everything. Yeah. Picked that up just about a month ago or so. So.

Sweet.

Yep, so I'm looking forward to it. I think that's gonna be a pretty quick project, aside from waiting on the driveshaft, because that's gonna be a long driveshaft.

Yeah.

But, yeah.

You're gonna have to go two piece or anything? It'll be a two piece.

Yep, so it'll make the wheelbase 20 inches longer than it is now.

Jesus, it's gonna be like a school bus.

I know. And I bought a two wheel drive frame, so the spring hangers are actually higher on the two wheel drives, make it sit lower. So, I bought that because my whole intention with this thing is to get it as low as I can and still maintain four wheel drive. So, we'll see how we can manage that, but yeah, I'm hoping to get that thing done fairly soon.

So, that's gonna be rowdy, dude.

Yeah.

Yeah. I bought a NV5600 six speed four two, so it'll be getting converted to a six speed manual while this is all going on.

You just love manuals, huh?

They're just so much more fun to drive.

No.

You don't have to rely on an auto.

I do appreciate manual transmission, but in my truck, man, I just know things. Plus, usually those transmissions in the trucks are like, the first three gears are worthless, you know? So I'm like, nah.

Yeah.

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Yeah, I don't know. I have, I mean, in my quad cab, it's all, it's auto, but it's full manual body. So, I mean, I got the best of both worlds there.

Oh yeah?

Yeah, still picked the gear, but you know it's gonna go in it. You don't have to worry about a computer shifting it for you, but I know they've come a long ways with like built autos and stuff. It was like an actual auto when I got it and ended up having it full manual. Putting in the full manual body, but I like that a lot better. It's definitely not nearly as fast. I mean, people say you can be just as fast, but I mean, you rely on you shifting exactly when you need to. So I feel like a truly built auto is definitely gonna be faster. But I just, I don't know, I have more fun driving manual.

I still don't think those trucks need to be, I mean, you're not looking for like three seconds zero to sixties in trucks like that. I mean, it gets a little, that's a little too ridiculous at that point, because then you're, they don't handle like a f****** sports car. That's for sure. I'm happy with, you know, I like the diesels to be in that six, 700 range. I feel like it's a nice spot, but.

Yo, I'm pretty happy with the 800. I feel like it's a little bit more, but I never drive around on tune five anyways. So it's just, I don't know, it's fun when you want it to be fun, and it's still reliable, still stock bottom end.

Yep.

And it's holding up just great. So I feel like it's best both worlds at this point.

I do have a tune like that on my truck. Of course, I haven't done injectors or anything like that. Everything is stock on there, but I do, the lady I got my tunes from was like, she's like, I'll put one kill tune on there, but it like pulls power from everything else, and it gives it like all the beans for like, if you just want to do a pull, and I'm like, no thanks. You're training them like you. Yeah, probably not.

That's the worst part about building diesels is everybody wants all the power, but they always.

There's not a lot out there that can handle 1,200 foot pounds of torque, man. You turn up that horsepower where the torque goes way up.

Yep, yep.

What are you at torque-wise?

On my quad cab?

Yeah.

1,352.

Yeah, that's insane.

Yep, so I want a six, seven swap that eventually, but I don't know.

Again with the swaps.

Too many projects. Too many projects.

Well, I was gonna say, so for the mega cab then, when do you realistically, realistically, once you have everything, when would that hit the streets? What are you expecting?

A month or two?

Really?

Yeah.

I was thinking a couple of months of what you explained. Doesn't seem horrible.

Doesn't seem too bad. I mean, I only really work on stuff on the weekends, so I feel like if I crammed on it, and depending on how long I gotta wait for a driveshaft, probably shouldn't be too bad.

So you're not really talking about body work or anything. You're gonna be swapping beds on and off, which that's like four or five bolts, and those things come right on and off. I was reading somewhere, some guy was like trying to do a fuel pump or something in his Ranger, and a guy was like, just pull the bed instead of drop the tank. I was like, when pulling the bed is easier than dropping the tank, then they're really not that hard to get off.

Yeah, they're super easy. So yeah, hopefully that thing gets done pretty soon, and then on to the next project.

You sound like somebody that keeps their projects so you don't sell stuff.

I have a hard time selling things. Because I just regret them. Right after you sell them, you just regret selling them.

Is there something you regret selling?

I was into DSMs for a while. Like back in high school and stuff. And I had a couple of them that I wish I wouldn't have sold because they're going for gold now. I mean, it wasn't super mint or anything like that, but that's where I really got my taste of cars and modifying them and stuff like that. So I wish I would have never sold that, but I've still been looking at them to see if there's one for a reasonable price so I can get back into them. But I guess I just like unreliable s*** at this point. DSMs, Rb's, I mean.

Yeah. Well, that's a Matthew who we had on, like we had the fab guys on, Jose and Matthew. Like that was the same thing, DSMs. Do you know Matt?

Yep.

Yeah, oh yeah, I guess if you know Sean, you know him as well.

Yeah.

Because they're in the same shop. But yeah, no, he was like, yeah, man, I built that thing too much. I just started being unreliable. Just lots of fun. Now that's a really cool platform. I got to ride on my buddy's Talon, and that thing was making, I think it was like 500 wheel at the time. And that car weighed like 2,700 pounds, 2,800 pounds. It's a light car. What's the GTO weigh?

3,600, curb weight.

Yeah.

I'd say it's probably heavier.

I don't know what it is now, but that's what I think that's what they call it.

Oh, it's probably lighter than the LS2, right? Probably.

Hard to say.

Yeah.

Interesting. We'll get it, we'll take it to one of those truck stations afterwards.

Yeah.

Dude, I would weigh my cars all the time. Like, it's just so fun to go to those stations. Like I do photo shoots at them sometimes, and you get the car's weight in the background, and it's pretty bang on.

Yeah, yeah, I'm hoping for less weight, but we'll see. I went with a 2K frame on it too, so that sheds some weight. I mean, simplifying the engine bay and stuff. I'm hoping that at least, if I didn't shed a lot of weight, I'm hoping to move a lot of it to the trunk, get it more, like distributed. So we'll see.

We probably weren't able to get a couple hundred off.

And you shaved your own engine bay?

Yeah.

You must be pretty decent with a welder then, huh?

I hate sheet metal.

Yeah.

I learned that big time when I shaved it.

Yeah, there's a lot of little holes and, yeah.

Not my thing.

No.

They use like pop can like material too when it comes to that. I mean, it's just thin, thin metal. But I got away with it. I got it to look pretty good. I mean, it's definitely gonna need a little bit of bodywork, but it's all smooth. So, but yeah, I never, bodywork's not my thing. Yeah. So, I'll bring that to somebody else. I just don't know if I have the patience for it. But yeah, I'm hoping to have the engine bay pretty tucked on that and keep it pretty minimal. So, we'll see.

You know what's pretty cool is those like single disconnect or whatever things, like when, like with like the really nice engine base, that's kind of cool. Would you ever do anything like that?

Yeah, yeah, they're like a Deutsch connector, like bulkheads. They just pop right off. Yep, that's the plan for this, so. Yep.

Well, you could really make those look really pretty too. Like I can't remember, there used to be like a wide body R33 we had around here and had an insanely beautiful engine bay. Like it was just clean. So, this is gonna be show car status too then?

Yep. That's the goal. I mean, we'll see. I don't plan to drive it like every day in the summer, but you know, nice days and stuff like that. I like to drive what I have, so.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't like to leave things sit for too long, so.

I like it. You just like to acquire things.

Yeah.

Acquire and build it.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yep. Until you run out of space. And money. And money. And then you're really questioning life. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, that's where you just start getting storage units and crazy stuff like that.

Storage units suck though.

Yeah.

I don't know. I just, I don't trust them, you know? I mean, I guess depending on where you got it, but it's just like.

I built a Menards pull shed. Every time they were running, this was back when they didn't have 11% like every day, like they do now. I would, every time they were running 11%, I'd go spend like another three or four grand just buying parts and pieces to build my shop. Then when that 11% check would come in, I'd go back and spend another three or four grand, like bits and pieces together.

But yeah. Get this a hair closer, by the way. You walked away on me.

We'll fix it.

But no, yeah, we're cooking along, I think we're about an hour now. So it's like time flies in here, dude. Like we thought about getting a clock for the studio because sometimes we'll end up at like almost three hour episodes. And it's like, yeah, we're probably gonna do that again. But no, it's super fun. I mean, you have a lot of awesome builds going on. I mean, what's something that you... I'm sure you're constantly on Facebook Marketplace.

Always.

Always.

Yep.

So, okay. What's one thing that you're concocting? Like let's say you finish this mega cab, you finish up the Rb build. Like what's something ridiculous you're thinking about?

Kind of wait to see what comes up.

Fair enough.

But...

Yeah, I'll do it.

I usually like... I have ideas for like everything I end up buying. You know what I mean? No matter what it is, I'm just like, I could do that to it. I could do that to it. You know what I mean? And that's kind of why I bought this, the 68C20, cause I was like, we'll just put it on the back burner. When the other projects are caught up, then maybe we'll do something with it. But for right now, it runs and drives, so just drive the wheels off of it. But kind of have something on the back burner for that. I want to do, I don't know, my mind's in so many different places with that, too. I want to do another diesel swap, but everybody does come in swaps now, so trying to find something else in the inline six family, cause I just, I don't want to do like a Duramax or Powerstroke swap on it, cause it's just, I don't know. I like the simplicity of inline six.

They're always right. We were just having this discussion the other day. People are up in arms over this straight six that Dodge is doing now, too, right? It was like, they're f****** tried and true. I mean, the Ford 200, all of these, they're just unstoppable. BMW's been just knocking out of the park with them. I mean, I don't know why everybody's getting all upset about it.

I know, I like them. Yeah, and with this new one that Dodge is coming out with, Twin Turbo. Yeah, I'm really excited for that.

Well, did you see, so my brother told me, apparently they just did a JB4, I mean, JB4, but they did a JB4 tune on it, and it's like they got it up to like 630 wheel.

Really?

Yeah, it's like, it gained up, it picked up like 130, 150 horsepower or whatever it was, just the JB4. It's like, imagine what a proper tune would do, and then think about, you know, doing all the other extra stuff and then, you know, bigger turbos and then, I don't know. I think if they throw that into, well, actually, I think the new challenges or chargers might be coming with them, maybe.

So I thought, yeah.

Probably, I don't think they're all gonna be EV or whatever, got it, f****** hope not. But, cause like, this is a whole separate discussion. Like I don't mind the whole hybrid thing, it's kind of cool. I think there's a place for it. But like, I like the straight six or inline six stuff. I don't know, it's just, that hurricane's gonna be a, I don't know, I don't wanna call it yet, but it might be like 2J level of notable.

We'll see.

I don't know.

I'm excited for it. I think it's gonna do good, but I don't know. We don't really know that much about it yet. You know?

Yeah.

But it's quick though, cause like they have them in the Wagoneers.

The grand Wagoneers.

Yeah, my brother, he's a Lattec or whatever, and he like Florida, he's like, yeah. It's quick, even in that heavy a** car.

Well, they have such a reputation of doing some crazy s***. I can't believe they're just gonna go full b**** right out the gate, right? Like they have something planned. They got to.

Yeah.

Well, I think that's what that RHL is, right? The new one, the TRX replacement or whatever.

I've seen that.

I think that's what's in there is the hurricane, I think. I'd be wrong on that. But yeah, everybody's up in arms. I remember one of my friends, I reached out to him because he had a story on Instagram. He's like, oh, just stupid, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And I was like, oh man, but that's a pretty awesome motor still nonetheless. He's like, yeah, I like V8 and big tits. I'm like, all right, fair enough. Fair enough. You got me. Red blooded American, I get it. I don't disagree. So I don't know, we'll see. I'd love to see what happens with that though. Because if it's anything like these B58s, S58s, it's gonna be a competitive market.

Maybe that's what you need to swap into then.

Maybe.

It'll be a couple of years before you start seeing a lot of wrecked ones out there, but.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Yep. Yeah.

So you like classic cars much? I know you got the Tempest, but.

Yeah, I don't know. I like, like I said before, I like seeing things that you don't see all the time. I feel like with classics, you kind of run into that a lot more. So, yeah, I mean, mainly old GMs.

Yeah. Well, especially that Tempest, right? Everybody, because it basically is a GTO without the GTO s***, right? So people aren't, not a ton of people are collecting a Tempest, they want a GTO. So I think it's kind of cool.

Yeah, the GTO grill definitely sets some of the boomers off though.

Yeah.

They think it's a GTO.

Is that what you got, a GTO grill in it?

Yeah, I came with it when I got it, I mean, years ago. But, yeah, there's people that are like, oh, how could you cut that up? I was like, dude, the thing was, they had a small block Chevy in it, it was a Pontiac when I got it. Yeah. So like, it was already cut up. I just helped it a little bit more, that's all. But.

They'd have been more pissed off if you'd done that to a GTO though. So like, I mean, it's a Tempest, so.

Yeah.

Yup, just Tempest.

Have you gotten any like, like I guess, lash back? Like, has anybody ever really given you s*** for your builds or not really? Yeah.

Fair share. Yeah, there's a few people that hate on the GTO.

Yeah.

But.

It's sacrilege.

What's weird is, as far as I know, I haven't done a ton of research in this, but it's, I mean, it is a Holden Monaro. Like, the chassis is a Holden Monaro. It's imported from Australia. They just threw Pontiac GTO badges on it. Well, back in the day, like early 90s, they actually had an Rb in a Holden at one point. So, like, it came in a Holden at one point. So, I mean, it can't be too far off, because, I mean, you are talking in an Australian chassis. I'm putting a Nissan motor in it. They did come with them at one point. So, I mean, it's...

I did not know that.

It's, you gotta dig pretty deep, but they did. They weren't ever, I don't think they were turboed or anything like that, but it was a Nissan inline six, an Rb motor. So.

Oh, that's cool.

Did you know about this? You're an old guy, you know this stuff.

I don't know, I know about the cool Ford Australian s*** they got, because for some reason, Australia gets all the cool s***.

I know, right?

They still make the Ford Falcon over there, and it was like, fast as f***, three, five. I don't know if they did EcoBoost on those or what, but they were pretty cool. They did that forever.

I just love the Ford reference, but it happens so.

That's what I know, man. It's what I live, eat and breathe, so I know.

Those Berras are b*****, though.

The what?

The Berra, Ford Berra.

I don't know if I know that one.

Really?

Yeah.

Oh, this is that six? Is that the inline six that they put in over in Australia?

Uh-uh. I don't follow the Australian much stuff.

You gotta look into them. You gotta look into them. They're b*****. They make some good power. I don't know a whole lot about them, but they're really popular over there.

What's it in? In a sedan chassis, then? Or is it like a?

Couldn't tell you. Couldn't tell you. I just know that they exist over there, and they are the Ford inline six, and it's got me excited.

There's your swap. There's your next swap.

I can't. I've never owned a Ford, and it's been years. I mean, so I just, I don't know that I could.

You're just scared you're gonna like it too much.

Maybe. Maybe.

That's an argument for other things.

They have all got their thing, right? Like right now, we've got this Coyote thing going for us. That's pretty damn awesome. You can put them in anything, and they make good power. They're easy to tune up, but every platform's got their thing.

Yep.

What about like a factory five Cobra, and you put Cummins in it?

Oh, geez.

It's a little, the weight imbalance might be a little too much, though.

Later problem.

Yeah, yeah. They're starting to make aluminum heads for those now. What's that? The common rail, common rail five nines and six sevens, they're starting, there's a company that's starting to make aluminum heads for them, so.

Really?

Yep. So, little bit better with the weight imbalance, maybe.

Yeah.

I can't imagine they're very light.

Yeah, nope.

Well, they, with how a diesel works, and why you can get three, 400,000 miles on them really easy is they have to be more bulletproof for how they run, right? So, it's, they tend to be pretty damn heavy.

That's crazy. I remember seeing a Tesla hit a million miles recently, so I don't know.

Really.

Toed on a trailer.

Did you guys see this, did you see this article? Uh-uh. Yeah, that was an article. I think it was in China or somewhere, it was somewhere else. But anyways, this guy, I think he hit like a million miles on a Tesla or whatever, some crazy mileage. The kicker is he, I think he went through like five batteries.

Yeah, I was gonna say.

So it's like, did it technically? I don't know, you know.

The chassis did.

Yeah.

But.

But.

I don't know.

I think they stopped warranting it after three, I think, or something like that. I don't know, something crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah, the guy put on ridiculous miles. I don't know, the article's somewhere out there. I think it was a million or 500,000 miles.

It was a lot. You're just bouncing around the charging stations.

And $75,000 worth of batteries.

Yeah.

Yeah, just nuts. So I wanted to ask you this earlier on. So where does your skill set come from? Did you go to school to work on cars and all that, or just?

My dad used to wrench out of the garage growing up, and I feel like the rest of it was all self-taught. I've worked at a few just general repair shops, and that's where I learned a lot of the stuff. And then the rest is just kind of learning as I go.

Like YouTube University?

I don't really watch a whole lot of YouTube.

Really?

No.

Forum guy then?

Yeah, mainly forums. Most of it's just like trial and error, you know what I mean? It's just like, I don't know, I guess I was just born with the mechanical skill. I don't know, but.

I use YouTube a lot to see the parts that I'm going for. So let's say I'm trying to get to a water pump bolt or something that I can't see and I'm coming in from the top side, I'll go like, you'll watch a YouTube video and somebody's already had it all tore apart to that certain spot. I'll be like, okay, that's the s*** I gotta take off to get that off of there. So that's usually, I'm usually skipping along in there to figure out what the hell's going on there. But I do use YouTube a lot.

All data helps a lot.

All data? Okay.

It's just like old Chilton and Haynes manuals, it's pretty much that on a computer though. So you can, it's cool, because it'll tell you like labor hours and stuff like that for certain repairs and stuff like that. That's what I go off of for all my billing, billing customers and stuff like that. A lot of it's all that, unless it's like custom stuff, then it's just build per hour.

Well see, that's where I use YouTube, right? Because you can't go pick up a Chilton manual anymore. Right. And that's why they got exploded views, all this stuff, it was freaking great, man. Yep. Yeah, so I'll have to look into that all data for sure.

It's expensive though.

Is it?

If you're only buying for like one car, like your car, it's not too bad. But if you're paying for it for like shop to where you can look at as many cars as you want, it's spendy.

Any idea what it is off the top of your head?

It's over 200 bucks a month.

I'll f*** it and I'll stick to YouTube.

How much is it for like one car?

I think it's a one time fee for a year, like 50 or 60 bucks for a year.

Interesting. It seems like a cool way to learn. So, it's pretty awesome.

Yeah, I mean YouTube helps too when you're trying to figure out how to like take dash panels apart and stuff, and you're trying to have to break clips. YouTube helps you a lot with that too.

Oh, I've taken two where you like, I took out three bolts that I didn't need to. I was like, son of a b****, or a whole bunch of other stuff. Especially with dashes, that's really bad. You take, oh, I gotta remove all these screws, and you go and you're like, what the f*** didn't it move?

Yep.

But.

Well, it seems like if you know enough to be dangerous, right, like if you're wrenching with your dad, like you get, you learn like the process to learn. You know, if that makes any sense. It's like you could just kind of figure it out.

You had the point where you're showing your dad s*** now?

Oh yeah.

Yeah, that's right. It was like my dad taught me all this s***, and now he's like asking me questions when it comes to that crap.

My dad doesn't even touch s*** anymore. He just brings over to my house and says, all right, have fun with it.

Yeah.

So.

Was he, did he own like a shop, or was he just like?

Just out of the garage.

Weekend mechanic kind of deal? Okay, big car guy too?

Yeah.

Kinda.

He fell out of it for a while, and then I just talked him into getting a channel, SRTA Challenger, so.

Okay, like that 13s or 12s or whatever?

It's an 11.

11, yeah, yeah.

Yep. So he's like, I don't know, maybe I'd be fine with, you know, just one with the five seven. I was like, if you're gonna buy one, you better buy one of the, you know, a six four or a six two. I mean.

Well, that's a six one, I think, in those, I think, right?

2011 actually came with a six four.

Did it? Yeah, okay.

It was just before that they were the six one.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

But yeah, it took a little bit of persuasion, but I got them talked into it.

Those are fun cars, man.

They're heavy as s***, though.

God.

That's usually the...

But something that he's probably used to, I mean, like, for the cars that he drove, yeah. Like, that's actually...

And you sit in that, and the dash is so tall, and like, you look out the back windows, and you got like this much back window. Oh my God, it's just, it's, I don't know, it's a fun car, but not a whole lot of fun to like, drive in normal traffic with, in my experience, I don't know, but I came from the GTO, you know, and I feel like you have a lot more visibility and stuff out of that, and it feels like a lot lighter car, that thing just feels like a boat.

Yeah.

And, I mean, I lowered it for him, and he's on Hellcat wheels, and just got really exhausted under it, but other than that, it's pretty much stock, but it still handles way different than like a GTO. Those things are just so heavy, it's a lot of weight to throw around. Yeah. But, I don't know.

Did you get those off Marketplace?

Yep.

Yeah. Wonder if they're stolen.

I don't know, cause I bought them from a guy out in like, I don't even know, some weird town in Wisconsin, and he said he bought it for like his work loaner car or something like that. And then he said he had to give it back to work, so he took the wheels off of it. It was in a decent neighborhood, so I don't think they're stolen. Maybe, I don't know. I'm far enough away from it though, I think we're good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But, yeah, I don't know.

Either way, it's not like you stole them.

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, I mean.

Sir, is this your cinder block? We need to see your receipts from Home Depot.

Yeah.

Yeah, just crazy. Those are fun cars. I mean, when I drove my first Hellcat, I'm like, this is fun. And that was before I discovered, like my GTI, super light. And it makes like, I think, 340, 390 torque of them. And it's really, really fun. It's just a different type of fun. But the Hellcats, as heavy as they are, like they're rowdy. I don't know, I would still want one.

Yeah, this thing just spins the tires anywhere you go.

What's it have on there, 265s, 255s, probably? I don't know if it actually has Hellcat ones, supply 275s on it.

Yeah, something like that. I can't even remember. But I thought for sure that would have helped a lot better over what he had on there, but he still just spins them like crazy. Yeah, he's in the market for some tires pretty soon. So maybe that'll help.

Yeah, I enjoyed driving the Nitto, the Triple 5s or whatever they were.

Triple 8s?

No, no, that's Triple 8s. No, no, no, there was like these...

The 555 G2s or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are pretty comfortable.

They are good?

Yeah, I like them.

The treadwear, so they're not as sticky as like a Michelin Pilot Sport or something like that, but if you want something, for like your dad, it'd probably be perfect because you get caught in the rain, you don't have to worry about it at all. And the treadwear doesn't go down as fast as the rest of them do.

Not a super expensive tire either, like AAAs.

Yeah, they're a really good performance tire. If you want kind of like an in-between commuter tire, and a performance tire, yeah.

Yeah, because like the, I think they initially, like on the widebody Scats, they came with Pirellis and they were pretty meh. Like they literally like broke traction all the time.

I think that's what he's still got on there.

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, then my buddy got those like Nittos or whatever, and they were pretty good. But yeah, and it changed, like the ride quality was a little different too. It was interesting. Yeah, but then again, we went from a shot tire to a brand new one.

So yeah, those are fun. Yeah, definitely.

So was there anything else tying up your time, even to boats, snowmobiles, dirt bikes, four wheelers, anything like that too?

Friends projects.

Yeah.

Yeah. Cool. I got, it's been a long project, but I got 88, 81 Toyota Helix. I'm putting a one nine Volkswagen TDI in it. So, that's probably gonna be done in the next couple months too. So, but fun little project, you know, turned up fuel, slightly bigger turbo, but I mean, nothing crazy, but it'll blow smoke and it'll be fun to drive. Yeah. So, but yeah, that's been a long time project, but it's been on the back burner too. So, but it's making its way sooner than later, so.

I always get pissed off when I'm pulling in. So, you got diesel trucks, so you know my pain. And there's usually just the one in the center on either side of the gas island, right? And there's always some little f****** cars sitting there. It's like, you have a thousand other pumps to choose from, stay the f*** away from mine. And then I look and it's a Volkswagen. You're all right, bro.

Half the time it's not.

I know it's not, but if I see TDI in the little tailgate, I'm like, all right, it's all right.

All right, we cool.

Yeah, yeah.

That's a good thing on deep badge then, nobody knows.

Yeah, yeah. Sometimes there's like this quick trip over by my work and there's only one diesel pump there, there's one. And every time there's a car sitting there and then they look at me like, what are you waiting for? I'm like, that's the only pump I can go to. And you decide to walk in and get some hot snacks, you know?

Yeah, I can push you out of the way if you want me to. Yeah, yep. I'll straight up get up and ask sometimes. I'll get out, as usually in my work truck and my dad's driving, so I'll hop out real quick and just be like, hey, because if they just pull in, I'm like, hey, will you mind moving another pump? This is the only one I can use. And they're like, oh yeah, yeah. Usually they're pretty cool about it, but.

Yeah, I always pull up one there like mid-pump though, so.

Oh yeah, that's gotta wait. Then you just sit there and sulk for a little while.

They should make those just diesel, because then they can't even pull up it to them.

Yeah, yup. Well, then you still get someone to block some time to time.

And you can go to the truck island, but sometimes that's A, too far away, and then the, sometimes it asks you 14 questions, because once you put in a truck number, do you want to buy reefer fuel? Do you want to do this? I'm like, dude, I just want to go to this one so I can go in and get my roller grill items and get back in my truck and get the f*** out of here.

I had a friend get rid of his diesel within like two or three weeks. He's like, that's right, I forgot, I hate this. It was the whole pump thing. Saying that, I'm just getting a TRX. He's just like, yeah, nope, can't do this.

Yeah. Until you tow something, though, then you can't, there's no way I could go back to a gas. I switched a while ago. As soon as you hook a trailer up and you don't even know it's there.

That's crazy, isn't your RV a gaser?

It is, because I didn't want to spend $140,000 on the cheap side for a friggin Class E.

That's crazy, you went back to a gaser after you said you never would. I'm just saying, just an astute observation.

That V10 is all right, but I just couldn't, it's literally double the price. It's so dumb, because if I went from a gas F250 to a diesel F250, there's what, maybe 20, $30,000 difference? Let's just say 30. If I want to go from a classy RV, I got $70,000, or $140,000. That's a huge gap for just drivetrain difference.

How's resale, though? Do the diesels resale a lot better?

Yeah, I'm sure they resale a lot better, yeah.

You got the power, you know, if it's newer, you got more emissions on there. I guess you have issues with that, but I mean.

Not in my case, because that s*** would go bye-bye.

Even better.

And you do come from the E450 chassis to the F550 chassis, so I know it's a little beefier. And they do tend to make the insides of them a little bit nicer, but I just like, dude, give me a cheap looking one, but put a diesel in it.

Just swap it.

I almost flew down to Texas to get a 7.3 one. There was one down there that was an E450 with a diesel with the 7.3 in it. Although I have that in my Excursion and that f*****. I've been fixing oil leak after oil leak after oil leak. Now my HPOP is filling the valley, and then it's running down the backside of the engine and making puddles in my driveway. So that's the next thing. Once I swap out the HPOP, I'm about got everything replaced, I think. So we should be good.

They were good motors.

They are great. I'm at 270,000 miles, as my wife's daily. And it's great. I love it. Because we live in Hudson. It's kind of in, you know, like it would be like in Chanhass or somewhere. It's kind of an upper neighborhood, right? So, but we go to school and I pull up, you know, dropping the kids off in the excursion and go, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. Everybody else is driving like a new Denali SUV. Yup. I enjoy it.

You're so extra.

I know.

Everything is loud.

It's gotta be, man.

I feel like I'm getting to that age now where, like I used to have everything just be insanely loud. Now it's just like, I've gotten tired of that drone.

Yeah.

On the highway. I don't know.

What about the Rb? Are you going to just make it like a, like are you just gonna be able to two-step everywhere or?

That's what it was built for. When I told Dan to build that thing, I was like, I'm gonna be on the limiter a lot. So he did everything he needed to. I think that will make it hopefully reliable on that aspect. But that's, it's four inch all the way down, four inch oval underneath the car, and then dual three and a half inch blast pipes coming out the back. So that thing's gonna be a little loud.

Yeah. But as you just said, I'm getting too old for loud s***. Your race car needs to be loud.

It needs to be loud. Yeah. Yup.

So that one's probably gonna be your pride and joy out of your collection then.

Yeah.

What's gonna happen with the Tempest? Any future plans with that?

I'd like to redo everything I did on it. Cause I've got a lot more years now of experience, and sometimes I look at that s*** and I was like, damn, I was an idiot in high school. I wish I would have done it different, you know.

But dude, you still in high school, you put a 12L Cummins in the Tempest.

It was just after high school.

Yeah, it wasn't close enough.

Yeah.

You weren't matured yet by then, I'm sure.

No, no, absolutely not. So, I don't know, yeah, I look at that, I'm just like, man, I should just redo it all. But at this point, I'm just like, it still runs and drives onto the next project and build the next one better.

You were in shop class and everything too in high school, I assume?

Yeah, I took a metals class and stuff, but I mean, I didn't pay a whole lot of attention.

Well, I'm just thinking about the s***, the build. I remember being in shop class, and I already knew more than most people in shop class, right? And I look over at this kid, and he's drilling holes in his Cadillac Convert because he wanted his Ranger to sound louder. And I'm like, dude, you're such an idiot. I was like, first of all, you probably, this is in early 2000s, late 90s. I was like, you probably still at that time ruined a $300 part of your exhaust by drilling holes in it. So anyway, you're doing pretty good for high school builds.

Yeah. Yeah, like I said, there's a lot that I wish I would have done different, but just build it better than the next project. It's about all you can do. Yeah.

You should make the GTO a drift car. No, it's too nice for that.

I don't want to wreck it, no. Things only got 48,000 miles on it. Holy s***.

That's brand new for that.

Yeah.

That's brand new.

So that's going to make some people really upset, but that's OK.

I like that it's black.

Yeah, I hate that it's black.

Really? Well, I guess GM black.

Well, maintenance on black paint is just not my favorite.

Especially GM.

I don't see a lot of black ones, though.

I feel like there's quite a few out there.

Is there?

Yeah.

Maybe I just don't notice the black ones as much.

Yeah, probably. You think it's a Grand Prix or something. Yeah. Yeah. But I don't know. Yeah, that's going to be the one that I hope I don't get caught in the rain, because keeping that thing clean and I don't know. We'll see where it ends up.

But don't worry. We'll hook you up with some Lunatech products.

I was going to say you just need a trunk full of Lunatech, and you'll be good once you get to where you're going.

Yeah, yeah, like ceramic coating and stuff too, or what?

That was OK. So the shop themselves have a citywide PPF, guys. They do like ceramic PPF, all that stuff. But they also make their own product as well. So it's like as slippery as ceramic. Because ceramic kind of fades after a while. That's why every year you usually go in for a maintenance or whatever coat. But with this, you spray it on every two weeks, and your car stays slippery all the time.

If it is something, though, that you want show quality often, if you're in with a black car, for sure, getting it ceramic coated and then using the other products to just maintain it after that, the ceramic coat is worth it, especially on a car like that. Because you could get, if it gets munched out, you could literally just spray it off, and it's like you washed it.

It's crazy.

I've had it ceramic coated once, and it was really nice after. But I feel like the upkeep, too, because there's certain washes you have to use after ceramic coating and stuff like that. I feel like maybe I didn't keep up on it the best, but.

Well, I'm a simple guy, right? Some guys live to detail their cars. I'm not one of those guys. I am the laziest bum ever when it comes to upkeeping my car. So that's why I like their products. I spray it on once every few weeks.

Yeah.

It sprays right off. My car is the whitest it's ever been in a year still. So yeah, I don't know. I actually got a bottle of the graphene stuff for you, too.

Sweet.

It's actually got two different types of detail sprays. They got their aqua bead, which is like the, help me out here.

Like, I don't know, they're gonna be mad at us if we screw it up.

I know, I screwed up every time. Yeah, no, so they got like two different types of detail sprays for like kind of different purposes, but a guy like me, it's like, I don't care. They both work great for me. It's a spray.

Yeah.

I got a bottle for you. You'll need it for them.

Sweet. Thing hasn't had a wash in three years, so.

Dude, I literally went like, I think nine months about doing GTI, like through winter.

Really?

Yeah, dude. I'm a, I'm an animal. It's hard to call me a car enthusiast sometimes. Because I, well, okay.

Maybe you just have a car you're not enthused about.

No, no, no. I love that car, but I, priorities are elsewhere. But no, like, listen, if I had money, that thing would be like a f****** rally mud truck.

Really?

I think so. I, I, I don't know. When I had the Jeep Gladiator, dude, like I enjoyed that thing being filthy. It just felt natural. So I think I just need to, like, I'm like a fish trying to climb a tree, you know? Like I, I need something that is for me and a filthy car just suits that, I think. I don't know.

I get it.

I just feel like if I had a different upbringing, I would definitely be like, like one of those like mud truck guys. Like I think I was just like a few genetic strands away from that.

That stuff's fun too, you know? I never really got into it a whole lot, but it's, it's fun stuff.

Yeah, I don't know, I just, this podcast, I've talked to so many race car guys, and they don't, they like to like upkeep their cars, but they don't get upset about imperfections, right? Like it's just part of who they are, right? Like it's a race car. That's kind of like what I've kind of morphed into, I don't know where I get. I just don't like to stress about keeping stuff overly clean all the time.

Yep, I feel that.

So, I don't know.

Yep, it's nice to have like a little bit of each too, you know, like the GTO, it's just gonna be really, really picky about it. But like I have other cars that it's just like, if it rains, who cares? If it gets dirty, who cares? You know, use the trunk lid as a bench every once in a while. Doesn't matter, you know? So, I mean, yeah, I definitely get it with like the anxiety and stress over a nice pain. It's tough. It's tough.

Yeah, well, especially again, starting with GM black.

Yeah.

That's, yeah. You only have so much life cycle in that thing on how many times you can wax a detail and all that, too. But I'm convinced he's gonna have probably one of the craziest pick threes, by the way.

Oh yeah? You think so? I was wondering too where this is gonna go.

Pick three. What's that?

Yeah, well, why don't you just-

Should we just go ahead and nail it?

Yeah, let's do it.

All right, at the end of every episode, we like to ask our guests to pick three cars, a track car, a daily driver, and a show car. Obviously, you can swap whatever you want. Money is no object. You can pick whatever you want, but you gotta pick three cars from each category, or one car from each category.

Yeah, unlimited budget.

That's tough. Yeah, that's tough.

It's okay, we'll have you on a second time in the future, too. That's the other thing. Some people are like, oh my God, this is gonna define me for the rest of my life.

I know, I might have to think about that. There's so many options out there.

Yeah.

Which one's gonna be the hardest for you? It's gonna be daily.

Well, especially a guy like you that takes a little bit from everything. It puts it like, you must be, there's endless combinations going on in your head.

There is.

I bet, yeah.

I don't know, I guess solid daily. I was never really a truck guy up until like, I don't know, I got an old LB7 once, and I was never really even into diesels. I had the Tempest, but like I wasn't really a huge diesel guy even when I did that. And then after I got the LB7 and I put a tune on it, I was like, damn, these things actually move out. And that kinda spiraled into getting it more into Cummins and like Dodge and stuff like that. But I don't know, I just, I'm more of a truck guy for a daily now. Even if, you know, I don't have to.

A car guy, you're picking up parts, you're trailing your car to places, you're doing s***, yep.

Yep.

It's a must.

So yeah, I'm definitely more of like, I don't know, I wanna be that guy that daily's a diesel and doesn't tow every day, but I just, I don't know, I like the power on demand and I like the, I don't know, the room. So I'm definitely more of a truck guy for a daily.

What are you thinking, what truck?

A Cummins, probably, I mean, see, like, people rant rave over like the fifth and fourth gens, and I'm just like, I'm just a third gen guy. I just, I like the simplicity to them. They're not, yep, they're not crazy, you know what I mean? And I don't know, I'd probably pick what I daily right now is the 800 horsepower 06 third gen Dodge. I'm pretty happy with it, but I mean, there's other s*** out there. I just try to stay realistic, I guess. I don't know.

Simple.

Simple.

Yeah, I like it. All right, so daily, kind of that third gen Cummins.

What else did you say?

It'll still be modified, I'm guessing.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, okay, fair enough.

You can't rock around anything that's stock though. You can't look like normal traffic.

No, absolutely not. Okay, and then track and show car.

See, that's where it gets tough.

All right, let's start with track. Would it be a car?

Yeah.

Okay.

I don't know. I guess the... I've always wanted like a Viper, like an 07, 08.

So 4th Gen?

4th Gen. Is that 4th Gen?

I believe so.

I'm not huge into them, but I've always liked them. Maybe that for a track car. It seems like a fun track car.

It's like an ACR.

Yeah, you're talking big budget there, but yeah, maybe.

I think they're going for about a buck 30, buck 40 for those 4th Gen ACRs right now.

I feel like the ACRs have gone up quite a bit, though.

Well, the 5th Gen ones, yeah. Those ones are in the upper 200s.

Are those the brand new ones?

Yeah, the 13 to 17 generation. That's the 5th Gen.

I like the 4th Gen, then.

4th Gen, the previous one? Okay, because the 3rd and the 4th Gen look somewhat similar. Yeah, same, same, but different.

One came with an, what was it, an 8.1? One came with an 8.3 or something like that?

I think it was 8.3 and 8.4. I see that. That's where I started mixing it up.

Yep.

But yeah, basically 4th Gen is the better one of the two.

Yeah, I agree.

Yep, because I think the 4th Gen and the 5th Gen, I think they share a bottom end too as well. So like if you wanted to like get some 5th Gen like stuff. Sure. Yeah, it's interesting. We're gonna, we'll have a Viper expert here soon.

Sure, sure.

Okay, so 4th Gen Viper ACR?

Probably. Just throwing it out there right now. If I thought about it, if I had enough time, I'd probably come back here with 6.

We'll come back in three minutes. Would you have modified? Like a stroker sort of deal?

I mean, go out at that point. Yeah, twin turbo, just go all out.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Okay.

More power, the better.

Yeah, okay.

But, I mean, if it's a race car, you know.

Absolutely. There's unlimited budget. Yeah. So you could have two, weld them together.

You're getting the gears turning.

So you're thinking like drag strip race car with that level of power. Road course would be pretty hard. I like twin turbo.

I don't know. I'm more of a road course guy.

Okay.

I mean, I never really got into drag racing and stuff like that. So I just figure if you can only go on a street line, it's kind of boring, because I like driving s*** on the street. You know what I mean? And driving a drag car on the street isn't a whole lot of fun.

If you're taking a car through some twisties or hills and things like that, then yeah, that's a whole nother level of living.

So it might get a little dangerous with a twin turbo, Viper, around some turns and s***, but I don't know.

It's okay, just keep it. Don't let it spool.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, lock that in. So twin turbo, Gen 4 Viper, okay. And then show car.

Show car.

This is gonna be a bastard.

Let me think.

You just like, I see like a slot machine in his head. All right, we got the, you know, like Euro, and then like the Asian and the American, and you just see like ding, ding, ding. It's like Euro motor in an American car. Blah, blah, blah.

I like those, those old like OG GTRs. Like old.

Like R31 sort of deal.

Is that what they are? I think so. I'm thinking like, like.

Kind of like the boxy looking ones, right?

Yeah, like 60s, 70s.

Yeah.

Like the first generation GTR. Always want one of them. Those things are stupid expensive too, but I'd probably rock one of them for a show car.

All right.

You gonna do anything crazy? LS swap it?

No, no.

You should have a GTO with a brick of GTR engine and a GTR with an LS in it.

It's crossed my mind.

God.

Throw like a VR38 into there or something.

Yeah, that'd be cool. Probably, I don't know, probably an Rb30 build or something. But.

Where are the Rb30s coming?

So the Rb30s came in like a Nissan Patrol SUV.

Oh, is that the one that they got souped up that beat that Chiron? Or no, I think it was a VR38 swap. I don't know.

I can't remember. The Rb30 never came, I don't think they ever came turboed.

Yeah.

I'm not an expert. But yeah, I wish I would have done Rb30 on the GTO too, but it makes that deck heights like an inch taller too. So I was a little worried about hood clearance and I don't know, they're torque monsters though. I liked that about them. But yep. Can't go back now. We're vested, but yeah. I'd probably do something like that, I think. I don't know. White, it's gotta be white.

Of course.

I think that's all they ever came in. Well, I think they came in silver or gray too.

I'm picturing a silver one in my head for some reason.

Yeah, I think they did.

White was the first thing I thought of.

Yeah, I've always liked those though. So yeah, probably something cool, something with power, not crazy though.

So Rb30 Swapped Gen 1?

Yeah, why not?

Okay, I like it.

Yep, probably. I don't know, like I'm just pulling these ideas out of nowhere right now too.

You're gonna be driving home with something else that's gonna come to mind like, oh, I should have said that.

It will, yeah, as soon as I walk out that door, I'm gonna have something different.

When I was a guest on this show, I prepared for it. I actually wrote it down and took notes, and immediately after I drove away, I thought about three or four other options too. So I did get a chance to update mine later on, but yeah.

Yeah, maybe I'll get that chance, we'll see. I'm gonna have a list like a mile long. Cross that one out, next one.

There's so many ideas, dude. So many.

I was just gonna say get that car done, and then let's get back on here and talk about it.

Oh yeah, pretty much. Yeah, that'll be sweet. So where can people find you? Do you have a shop, Instagram or anything like that, or not really?

Yeah, I go under Kurzhal Customs is what I go under. I'm on TikTok, Facebook, I'm not super active on that. I'm not really on Instagram. I do have an Instagram, but otherwise, Snapchat and stuff too, it's all under Kurzhal Customs. So that's where everybody can find me.

Sweet, damn.

You can find us at Gunnit Garage. It's with two N's. I'm looking at possibly picking up something off the wall, Oddball Ford here, over the next maybe week or two. We'll see how that goes.

No, what we need to do is get your official Mustang GTD application, which is exactly what this is, by the way. This whole episode, we got to get your GTD application in.

It's in.

You're going to sell everything that you own because you have too much crap, and you're gonna get the GTD.

But then I get the regrets, man. I lose the stuff and I can't replace it, and it's not, no. I'm gonna get rid of some stuff first. There's some cars that are gonna be the last thing. I'll be crying as they drive away.

Well, the one you're not gonna get rid of is the McLaren.

Yeah, that's for sure.

Yeah, that one's fine.

The McLaren and my Teal Cobra are the two ones that I really, really don't want to get rid of.

I'm glad we narrowed that down. Sell everything else, get the GTD, we're good to go. And then, this is an intervention. And then, as for me, you guys are an hour and a half deep, so you should probably know where you're at. Make sure to sign up for the track day we have coming up with Brainard. That'll be cool. We have a performance driving school up there. That covers pretty much it. Check out our sponsors, Raise a Hood, and thank you, Ratified, for being our host.