90. Ratified Motorsports - After Hours Edition w/ Rathana Moua, Trae Moua, Sam Morain

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back to the Monoxide Podcast. I'm your host, Harris, AKA Monoxide, and I'm here with my co-host, Mr. Gunnick Raj. And today we're going beyond the meat with, people have already been on this podcast, some of you, multiple times, for whatever reason. And today we're gonna call this, I guess, the Ratified After Hours special. I don't know, we'll figure out a name, but I think between all the episodes we've done together and from early on, I think we've done, talked about a lot of cool stuff from the RS3s, the Supras, GTRs, everything you guys have done. So, obviously we're quite a few episodes down the line since the last time we had you guys on, so why don't you just kinda introduce yourselves from the get-go and we'll go from there. So we'll start with you, Rat.

Sure. Rat, I'm Ratified Motorsport, one, I guess, the owner. I was about to say one of the owners, I don't know why, but the owner. Yeah, I own Ratified Motorsport and we build fast cars, I guess.

Sweet, Sam.

My name is Sam. I work at Ratified Motorsport. Essentially, by the time this video airs, I will be the GM of both locations.

Okay.

That's pretty exciting.

Congratulations.

Yeah, thank you.

That's awesome, well-deserved. And then Trae.

Yeah, just me, you guys. Yep, I'm Trae.

I think everyone knows who you are.

Every customer tells me they know Trae.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, he's like, yeah, I know Trae.

Trust me, I'm known as Trae's dad.

Do you get it?

I wouldn't call that for him.

Do you ever get that a lot, like people coming in being like, oh, I know Trae. Have you ever put a discount or anything like that? Or not really?

No, not really. They're just like, oh, I've never met you, but I heard a lot about you from Trae. You must be Trae's dad. Like, yep, yep.

Yep, and then just let the conversation die right there.

Yeah, pretty much.

I've gotten a couple that were, it seemed like it was implied. You know, they're asking for a quote, and you're like, yeah, you know, I know Trae. I was like, me too. I do too.

You're the best at shutting that down, by the way. Like anybody hinting at anything, you're just like, yeah.

Yep, yep, that's nice.

Yeah, so okay, so each of you had a series of fast cars. Now, yours is under construction at the moment. Well, I guess yours is as well. Literally all three of your cars are under construction. It's a slow summer for everybody here. So I guess we'll start with you. Where's your RS3 at? All right, what are you allowed to disclose on that?

My RS3, if you follow us on Facebook and Instagram, well, I lost my motor back at Ice Cream Cruise, I think September, that was, of last year, and I just haven't had time to put it back together. We got my motor together, I got my transmission and all that stuff. Everything's all ready to go. Which is literally zero time to get back to it. I mean, you can see it's in the background, it's all covered in dust, but it's customer stuff first before any of my stuff.

So, I think this is well before, because the last time you were on was about a year ago, I think. Where are you at in the build? What's the plan for the build?

Well, the plan is to obviously make it faster. With that comes some top secret stuff that we're doing right now. I can't really disclose much of it until it's done, but we're just doing something different, different than everybody else. I mean, I think there's one other car out there, which isn't in the US, that has done something similar, but we'll probably be the first ones to do it. And we'll, I mean, we'll see if it works. I mean, it's all trial and error, so we'll just see.

So, I'm curious, right, because your Audi S4, it's an S4, right? Because that's also an inline five, and that's 30 years older.

Yep. Yes, that was, that originated back in the mid 80s, back in like the Group B era. That was when they first started that. And then it was so popular back then. I mean, they had four or five different ones. And then they took a 20 year hiatus, and then they brought it back. They brought it back in like the Jetta's and the like the Rabbits back in like 2005, 2006. And they used that as like a kind of a test bed to see how it would work with more modern technology and variable valve timing and all that. And then that's when they released the RS3. They had them overseas, but they weren't like as crazy as they are, you know, with the Dazas now.

Cause like Audi and Volkswagen and literally that entire group, they're just known for taking one thing and running with it. Like apparently there's so many different like engine codes for like the two liter, for example.

Like 17.

Yeah. It's ridiculous. Yeah. Like it's, yeah. You Ford guys got to nail down. It's just five-oh.

Yeah. Gen one, two, three.

Yeah. It's ridiculous.

Yeah.

Oh, is it on Gen four now? Yeah. Oh, the S650.

Oh yeah.

I guess it is. Isn't it? We're not going to turn this into a Ford episode though. Sick of those.

People are working on that right now. So we're, we've got the same problem you guys do.

But where I was going with that question, right, is in that 30 years, like how different are the motors?

Significantly.

Okay.

Yeah.

Is there anything that transfers over?

So under count, that's about it. So under count the amount of valves, that's pretty much it. I mean, there's a timing belt motor in mine. There's timing chain in the new ones. I mean, it's variable valve timing. They make significantly more torque. The heads flow more. I mean, you name it. It's just better.

So I know that you're trying to build the Evo to be faster than anything else. Where are we at on that?

Honestly, I'm skipping all the steps of doing it myself. So I don't know where we're at with it, other than the few pictures I've gotten of the engine being assembled.

Where's it at?

Like what shop? Yeah. It's at RS Motors, now in Lakeville. Originally when I dropped it off, it was in Burnsville.

Yeah, they just, he moved shops.

Yeah, so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt because obviously the shop was a big move for him. So it's taking a little bit longer than we were hoping, but I think it's getting pretty close now.

So yours isn't gonna be done until next summer, realistically speaking, because you're getting what done with the engine?

Everything. Yeah, basically rebuilding the entire thing. So it didn't have a failure at the end of last year. I just wanted to take it apart, see if there's things that we could learn from, redo, change, upgrade, and then in that build it for more power and do a lot more custom stuff. Similar to like what Rat was doing, he essentially had a off-the-shelf kit. Like if you were to buy a thousand dollar tubular manifold, at least for my car, it lands a turbo in the same location as every other one and you buy an intercooler that's just a generic intercooler. You route the charge piping exactly like everyone else does. I wanted to change it up a little bit more so it's unique, more efficient and just all around better. So yeah, I would say I'm changing ECU, custom intake manifold, custom exhaust manifold, custom charge piping. I mean, it's everything from the ground up, harness, ECU, everything. Like it's changing a lot.

There's that compressor you were telling me about earlier. Yeah, and the reason I bring that up, right? So you're hoping to get yours back this year then, Trae? Is that goal?

Hypothetically, theoretically, it is supposed to be done by Power Cruise next month.

Really?

So we'll see, but I mean, as far as what I'm seeing on the pictures and what I'm hearing as of yesterday, it should be on par for being done next month.

Nice, well being messed up on Power Cruise then. And for those that haven't heard about Power Cruise, most of our audience is Minnesota, I think like 30% and then the rest is around the country. So Power Cruise is basically an event where it's kind of like street legal, like it's like legal roll racing, kind of, right? Is that a good way to describe it?

Yep. Yeah, I always say legal street racing is how I explain it.

Yeah, yep. So that's basically one of the big events up here in Minnesota. Those Australians put on a good show, but so yeah, hopefully we'll see you at that one, you next year and then we'll see what happens with yours because there's something that comes with being a business owner. As anybody that's watching the video, they can see the car in the background. It is dusty because it's on the back shelf.

It is.

Because sometimes you see that with shops, right? They put their own projects on the priority list and then they use other people's cars as shelves sometimes.

Other people's down payments as funding for their own builds.

Right, like here's your proof. Like here's why I'm not happy. I'm working on your s***.

Oh yeah, dude. My car right now is missing a ton of parts. It's on other people's cars. So when it goes back together, we're gonna find out what I'm missing because I don't remember what we gave away. Because I know for sure part of my fuel system is missing, my fuel lines are missing. Actually, I gave a front strut to another customer because KW took forever to ship it. So I said, hey, just take mine. Oh, we're gonna do it for mine. So it is what it is. I mean, it's usually customer stuff way before my stuff. I mean, my stuff can wait. I got other cars to drive.

Yeah, I mean, because like you, the Supra is a shop car too, right?

It is, yep.

Yeah, is that one still the same kind of power level as it was last year?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we haven't done anything on that one other than switched it to MHD tuning versus the boot mode software. With that, I think the car, I think we just got it off. What did it make, Trae? Like A-Double?

Yeah, it was like a little bit more because it made like 740 before or something. Now it's gone 815 or something.

Yeah, I made 800 in it. The drivability is much better with the MHD software. It's just a lot more capabilities are offered on it with live tuning and all that as well versus making a change, flash it, see what it does. Well, whereas MHD is all live tuning, so you can just make changes and adjust it live.

I was gonna ask, oh, so what's the limiting factor on it currently?

It's stock motor. Yeah, we just don't want to turn it up anymore just in case something lets go. I mean, we could potentially push it more and more and more and find the limits of it, but I mean, what do you stop, I guess, before you blow a motor? Use your ride. Yeah, you'll bend a ride or shoot a ride out.

I hope. So you guys, I think one of you, I can't remember who said it before we started. It has a stage three trans in there though?

Two.

Stage two, okay.

Yep, yep.

And that's from Pure? Yep. Okay, gotcha. So I want to talk about the G80, right? Because Sean just got his done. That'll be out of Power Cruise and there's only a handful of shops here in the cities that have kind of started putting in work on the G80s, you guys being one of them. I think as of right now, I think you're one of the fastest, if not the fastest in Minnesota.

That's all the TLAs that went on at Power Cruise, I think, if I remember correctly.

Yeah. Yeah, that one hurt a lot of feelings at Power Cruise.

Especially as you turned up the, because I think you guys were already hurting feelings on map one.

Yeah, well, it wasn't even on, there wasn't no designated map on it. It was just, it was on lower boost, so just, I guess, breaking it in, making it drive and just see what it does out there and then just gradually turn it up throughout the whole weekend. I think at the end, I'd say we were probably close to like 850-ish, I think.

Not even, not even close. I think on the last day of power curves, we were still like not even touching 800 wheel yet and it was beating up a lot of people.

It's a fast car, so Sean made, I can't remember, I think it got disclosed on Moe's page, I think, the horsepower figure.

Yeah, yeah, I think I saw it. I don't remember what it did though.

Ah, whatever, come get some. So it made 890 wheels, or 890 wheel, on Dynojet, you know, which whatever transfers over to Mustang Dyno. But it's, I got to drive it last week to Buck Hill when he was in town. That car made me a little nervous because it was on stock tires and it's rear wheel drive. You're, the one you guys is xDrive, right?

Yup, it is.

The right way to do it, sorry Sean. I'm just saying, if you're gonna spank people, you might as well really like, full send it. I don't know, what do you guys thought, xDrive or a rear wheel?

I would say, if you got balls, the rear wheel drive is fun, but if you want comfort, like making it real comfortable down the pass, all wheel drive, the whole way.

I'm never gonna hear the end of it from Sean now.

It depends what you want. I mean, the ideal spec that I would buy is probably like a manual rear wheel drive for like the fun driving experience, because I have a fast all wheel drive car. You know, I don't need that. But like if you're looking for a fast dig car, auto all wheel drive all day.

Dude, those xDrives from a dig, like even like Roros, what is that, X3? Like we saw that thing at Texas 2K and it's like at the street stuff. And it like, it makes, I think like five wheel, 550 wheel or something like that. I don't know.

So you're telling me you guys have the itch for real world drive manual cars. That's what I've been driving my entire life. The only reason I would switch platforms is because that idea of all wheel drive.

Yeah, I mean, the grass is always greener, you know, in the car that you don't have. I mean, yeah, it'd be fun to have a, you know, an NA V8 car, but the feel of a small motor that's making high boost is also fun.

I'm just getting tired of, so I know they have the R8, which looks really cool, but like I see these at like my kid's school, you know? They're four door sedans, and then I'm out of power cruising, and there's smoke in my GT500, and it's really pissing me off. X3s.

Yeah, the X3, like Joe Devito's. Dude, I posted some of those power cruise videos. There's no way to make people angrier on this planet than power cruise videos. They're just like, no, he wasn't even on it, bro.

Yeah, like big name people are being like, what is going on? This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. Like even videos that I've posted, just doing like a solo pull down the middle, and they're like, why are you going down the middle of a drag strip? It's like, slow down, slow down, slow down. It's fine. You know, it's approved.

Well, like I posted one of Joe Devito racing the GT500, right? And I put soccer mom or whatever, you guys have seen the caption, soccer mom gaps GT500. First of all, she wasn't even driving. She's in the passenger seat, but just barely covered Joe's face. That's fair.

For sure.

And then they're like, oh, he jumped, or the GT500 was raining him in. And it's like every excuse under the sun. Because I can't remember which one he has. It was an X3M.

It's an X3M. So it's a S58, like a G80 M3.

Yeah, downpipes and a tune.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, pretty often.

Well, I'm curious, right? Is downpipes and a tune like a gateway drug?

Yeah, I mean, it's... Yeah, I mean, I had a friend of mine ask me, this is gonna be a complete shock. But he texted me and he was like, you know, my budget's between 50,000, 60,000. I wanna buy an Audi, what would you recommend? I was like, you're gonna be shocked. Don't buy an Audi. Buy, you know, a M340i or something like that. And he's like, why? And he's like, downpipe in a tune and you're making close to 500 wheel. Like, why not? You know, you can't really, you can get that with an Audi, but you know, it's splitting hairs. You know, what has better interior? What's more appealing to see, you know, to look at and stuff like that. But you know, just from what I've been seeing in the BMW world, that's just easy. You know, you need significant modifications in an Audi, like an RS3 to make 500, 500, and then in a, you know, M340i to make the same power. It's downpipe in an E52, and that's it.

We'll have to go walk around the shop and look at the interiors, be like, ah, no, Audi. Because I think like the infotainment is, I've heard it's outdated. I'm not sure if there's any merit to that.

Yeah, I mean, you can, it's kind of difficult. Some of the RS3s and stuff come with like analog dash or digital dash, which can be kind of cool. And then the new like M340i's and stuff like that have the digital dash like all the time, no matter what.

Yeah, I would say they're kind of lacking on the infotainment system, just because my RS3 don't have Apple, like wireless Apple Play.

Oh, no way. Well, yours is a 17?

18, but again, I don't have power seats either, but you know, that's a different story.

See, I don't care for power seats. I never like, I like it when like the top part is powered because I don't want to look for the strap or whatever. But like if I'm trying to go forward or back, I'd rather just grab the thing underneath and just slide.

Oh no, this one's all turn a knob, turn a knob and move your seat back.

But how often do you move your seat?

No, it depends how many times I take it to the shop. Right? So the G80, right? So is there any more plans for you guys to develop that current one that's out there or are you guys gonna see what that does?

I think I'll let Trae take this one because he's working close to the customer on this one.

Yeah, I was chatting with the customer as well. Like he was kind of telling me, he's like, yeah, we could turn it up. Before we get too far into the show, I wanted to take a moment to talk about Razorhood. If your daily driver is 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 could 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 MONOXIDEFREE for a one month free subscription or MONOXIDE20 to save 20% on a 30 minute call with a telemechanic. Let's get back to the show. Long time listeners of the show know that I don't like to peddle BS, whether it's my own merch or the people I represent, I want to make sure that my listeners are getting the best quality stuff. That said, we had the Lunatech team on a podcast on episode 57 and they talked about their awesome detailing products, my personal favorite's AquaBeat, just because it really makes it easy to not have to clean my car again. But I also enjoy Skeeter Deleter and Lemon Tech because I got a lot of brake dust from riding people's a**** and having to slam on the brake, don't worry about it, okay? That said, you want to use Code Minoxide, save 15%, give it a shot, I promise you won't be disappointed.

Yeah, he wants to, well at first he was, I wouldn't say afraid, but he was intimidated by the power of it, so he didn't really wanna do anything too crazy. But now I think he's already gotten used to the, I think what we stopped it at on the dyno, on our dyno was 860 or 870 wheel or something like that. And I think now he's like used to the power, so he wants to eventually do a built trans and then pretty much max out the stock motor, see what the stock motor does, and then if that ever goes, then build a motor too.

Which is crazy, cause that motor maxes out, like we all saw the video that went viral like a month or two ago, the guy that blew it up, the green one, I think it made like what, 1360 before it finally blew.

Yeah, big turbo and nitrous, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're crazy.

So like when you say max out the stock motor, like obviously you're gonna be tiptoeing that line. Are you thinking like, take it up like the Trance and then take it up to like 1200 wheel or something like that?

I don't know if that turbo system will do it, but it's, I would say like a thousand wheel on the stock motor with a built Trance would be probably like a happy number on it for a little bit of time. And then again, he'll probably just get bored and be like, let's just build the motor at that point.

That's usually how it goes. Yeah, cause like, I remember like when you had, we had you on the podcast the first time, Sam like, yeah, I was supposed to be like, you know, what a stancy show car.

Yeah, originally stock motor, stock turbo, all that.

Yeah, like three, 400 horse or whatever.

Yeah, 260 ish right around there. And then, you know, the next goal was 600 and as I was building it, then it was 700, then 800. And it's just, you go to a, like a power cruise weekend and by Sunday, your car feels slow. Yeah, you're used to it. You know, you do.

You live in where you just said it's a thousand wheel and they're bored.

Yeah. That's probably one of the most difficult parts of like my job when it comes to customer builds is it's so like add to cart with most of this stuff that they pick up the car and they want more after a month. That like, you know, you get used to it. You know, you turn it up a little bit more. They have fun for a couple of weeks and then they want more and then want more, then want more. That's just, it gets to a point where it's just like, enjoy it for what it is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a gateway, gateway mod.

You gotta humble yourself and drive a piece of s*** too. That's what I do.

Yeah.

Well, that's why, like, you know, like my car, like it's kind of nice to just putz around in the winter, you know, not speeding and come springtime, I get a ride and somebody's like fast car I got used to. It's like, oh yeah, I forgot this is actual speed. Cause like, imagine like the shock I went through, like when I go from a 340 horse GTI to riding shotgun in a 2000 horse Viper, it's like, oh, okay. This is scary.

Yep.

And you're aiming for four digits, right? With yours.

Yep, that's the goal. There's not too many of that, like type of car in the four digits if, I mean, I think there's maybe two in the country. Maybe there's more that are not on social media, but there's only two of them in the country. I would say of like 61 30s, mine's top five in the country. I don't know of anyone else that's really doing it.

Like currently you mean?

Like currently.

Outgoing setup?

Yep. Yeah, with no engine in it. It's one of the top five, but no. So yeah, my old setup, based on what it would do in the horsepower numbers, I mean, there's plenty out there that just pop up every now and then that aren't on social media. But like, that's what records are for. Like there's, I'm sure there's, for whatever record there is, I'm sure there's somebody in a cave that has something faster, that just doesn't post about it. You see that a lot too.

Like I know a lot of, I'm not quite to the point of being super national. I know all the national secrets, but I do start hearing like some of these rumors, like, oh yeah, we ran like three tenths faster, but it, you know, than the record holder, but we're not posting it.

Yeah, and there's, yeah, there's people that would be like, oh yeah, you know, we had a track day and you know, this is what we're, this is what we're comfortable sharing.

Yeah. Yeah, there's a, and it's like, you guys are in like a little bit of a niche, at least with the, with the Dazas, right? Cause it is, it's not as common of a platform, like from what I, from my understanding, cause we were talking about Becca and Steven, not, or Stefan.

Stefan. I've made that mistake once, and he corrected me and I haven't made it since.

I know. I know, he's not here to correct me though. Otherwise I would have got a smack on the wrist.

I'll probably get a call after that, if he listens to this.

Yeah, yeah, you know, he'll text like, what the f***, here's, but yeah, it's like, it's not like a super like wide platform where there's thousands and thousands and thousands of them out there that are being pushed beyond the limit. I mean, is that a fair assessment?

Is it just the TTRS and the RS3?

Yeah, with that engine, yeah.

Yep. But yeah, I mean, I would say that's relatively fair. I mean, it's, there's, it's hard to say. Like it's, you know, a lot of people, not a lot of people are posting about them. It's similar to like the like 911 community. You know, those people are business owners that, you know, don't have social media. They don't have time to comment on a Facebook group. They're horsepower numbers, you know? So it's kind of difficult because like the RS3, at least when they first came out, also fell into that caliber. They weren't like tuners that were doing this stuff. And now it's like, you know, the STOs where, you know, you see Underground Racing posting a new twin turbo STO every other day, you know? It seems like when you're in the groups on Facebook, you know, there's 20,000 people. It's like, did they make 20,000 RS3s? And like, it seems like all of these people are wanting to put big turbos and build their motors and stuff like that. But it, yeah, I would say there's quite a few that, you know, make over 950 on like sleeve motors and big turbos and stuff like that, that are just roaming around. And you'll never really be able to tell. But yeah, it's...

It's an old guy car. Like, it really is, at first. Like, no offense to you Audi guys. But like, who was the first owner of that car? Like, now the enthusiasts are getting a hold of it, right? But when they first came out, I guarantee you it was just kind of like an upper trim for some guy that works in an office.

Yep, and it's weird to think about that, like probably the RS6 and the RS7 is probably gonna get to that level too, once they get to be like 80 or $70,000.

Yeah.

Or even, you know, 2001 S8s used to be 140 grand, now they're $2,000. It's weird to think about, but they will get to that level at some point, and then, you know, maybe there'll be a new upswing of people modifying them.

Yeah, for example, like Vipers, I mean, there was a handful that were like, you know, fast or a good handful, but then for whatever reason, in the last like four or five years, just exploded in that whole realm. And I don't know if that's just the back and forth or whatever, but is there a lot of competition in the space? Cause like you're primarily, I don't know how to phrase this, right? Cause you also do general repair. That's obviously a big part of your business, but you kind of name your name on the Daza platform, kind of, right?

I would say so. I mean, as far as the Minnesota, yeah. I think we're the only shop that has really done anything significant in both on stuff on that platform. You know, nationwide though, I mean, there's plenty of other shops. You know, you have I-Raz, you have Rada, you have a couple of shops in the East coast. You have a couple in Florida. Yeah, Miguel down in Florida. And I think what Sistio is getting into them too now. So yeah, there's a lot of shops, like big shops that are doing them. So I don't know like the actual, like build numbers on the cars. I'm assuming most of them are getting done already because it is kind of dying off on our side just because I think there's not a lot of them in Minnesota because we would pretty much done them all. I think this year we had one and we're doing a couple of them. So it has died down a little bit, but I don't know, like I said, I don't know what the numbers are of how many were out there.

So do you do a lot of collaboration with these other shops to see like who's doing what? Like I know like Iros or Iroz, I don't even know how to say it, Stefan messed me up. He said Iroz on the podcast.

Technically it's Iroz.

Iroz, okay. Great, I'm gonna lose his number now, thanks.

We lost him after the first time you said it. He's not listening anymore.

But yeah, is there like a lot of collaboration there? Like figuring stuff out or not really?

Not really. I mean, for some reason, this platform, a lot of people gatekeep a lot of information. I don't know why. I mean, I'm an open book. You ask me a question, I'll tell you what it is. But I mean, as collaboration goes, no. But a lot of us shops do use like other people's parts and whatnot. I think IROS is basically the supplier for most of all the turbo kits. And then you have Rada who's making their own. And then us little shops here, we're just using all the other parts. So like I said, with mine, we want to be a little different. And that's why we're making our own kit. But I think it might be a one off or if it takes off, maybe we'll make more. But I just don't know what's left in the market as far as how many cars are left out there.

Well, especially locally, like you said, how many people want to build an older Audi? Which I mean, it is starting to get to that older stage, especially now that we have this next generation of BMWs coming out. You guys work on those too and have had impressive results and that's Brian tuning them, all of them, right?

Yep.

Your in-house tuner.

They made the 8Y and that one, that's another platform or not a platform, but just another year of it that hasn't opened up yet. The only thing that's available on it is the Cybex and you're not seeing people right now dumping $8,000 for an ECU just to be able to tune a stage one, two car.

That's what I was going to say because that is a pricey, pricey piece.

Yeah, it is. And then it's going to get bigger when the ECU opens up because I thought I saw something on Facebook about a few shops that have gotten access to.

I thought I saw something about that as well.

Yeah.

So you might not be, yeah.

An unlocked ECU, but I can't confirm anything.

Yeah, that's going to be a fun one. But that's pretty much, I mean, the TTRS got killed off.

Yep.

Right? So that's pretty much all that's left. And again, you kind of go back to there's not a ton of them out there and they're not exactly cheap either. I think once they, you know, after three, four years, once they kind of plummet, okay, maybe we'll start seeing something. And is there a lot that you think is going to transfer from the previous generation to the 8Y?

I know most of the hardware and the engine is similar. Software wise, obviously is all different, but I think the turbo kits now do fit them. Intercoolers require a little bit of tweaking and whatnot. I think that's really all that really transferred over. I know the intakes transfer over too. So like the basic VOTON stuff engine wise should all fit. But like I said, software is completely different and I know that won't transfer over at all. And there'll be all new stuff obviously. But let's see. Other than that, I don't know for sure, to be honest.

What about like the Mark 8 Golfs? Have you guys done any of those yet?

No, I'd love to. No, nobody has asked us anything yet on those. But I've been seeing really, really awesome numbers come out from other tuners out there. And it's going to be a pretty neat platform.

What have you heard about it? I heard something in one of my group chats, but I kind of skipped by something relating to like the turbos and like, you know, what you could basically do with like a basic tune. Have you heard anything impressive? I got a gnarly stutter today.

Honestly, I have not been paying attention to it a lot. I've just been focused on the back end of the shop. And, you know, if I have free time, I usually poke into like Facebook groups and get some information out of that or, you know, read some self-studies from Volkswagen and whatnot. But I honestly have not seen, I mean, I've seen stuff, but I haven't paid attention to exactly like what is done to achieve it or how much power and gains are from what and whatnot.

Yeah, I mean, I think we've, I have tuned one Mark 8 on Unitronic and I think, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they have like factory port injection. You can run full ED5 with no fuel upgrades at all. So, you know, just exhaust, intercooler intake, full ED5. I think they're making like 430, 450ish right around there, which is like bolt-ons in a tune, which is great for a two liter. I mean, compared to like your car with, I mean, you can run maybe E30 and then your maybe mid 300s, you know, with like a Golf R turbo on E30, E40, you can get to like 400, you know. That's kind of like the limit, like the max a turbo could do. So it's cool that at least with the new generation, they're able to at least get another 60 wheel horsepower on it with upgraded fueling.

That's just crazy. I mean, honestly, like, I think we raced one in a GT500 up at power cruise. Like he got us on the jump, but you know, obviously you were gone at some point. You remember that little black one?

Yeah, dude.

No, no, no, no. Was that Nez? No, no, no, no, that wasn't Nez. That was some other, some silver BMW. He's like, nah, man, I hear the pulley in there.

I mean, it has a pulley, correct. Technically has a pulley.

I mean, I have a cold air intake. I was supposed to add like 30 horse, but that doesn't count, right? That's the car guy rolled that stock.

Yeah, bolt on.

Yeah, I don't know. It was, the GD500 has really long legs, right? So a lot of times I'm racing some of these things that aren't willing to go into that corner at 140. And I don't give a s***. That thing will, I can stop like now. I can corner really good with it. So I usually catch them towards the end. But once they let off, I just already count that as I lost. So I don't care if I pull ahead of them at the very end.

By the last cone. We're racing to the final cone, yeah.

So have you guys had any good races at Power Cruise? Or in general? Like what are some, like, I guess we could probably start with you. Do you have any like good races you've had over the years in this Hoopti?

Over the years? It's hard to say. I think I've, I haven't, I mean, I've lost two, obviously, you're not gonna be the fastest car out there. So I've lost to some very quick cars, but I've also beat a lot of cars that I didn't think I would.

Such as?

I think the 720S. I mean, I didn't think I'd walk at four cars, but I did with the RS3, but you know, it's just stuff like that, that, you know, you're looking at it as like, what are they like a $400,000 car or whatever they are?

I mean, half that because, you know, depreciation because McLaren.

New, whatever, but you know, whatever it is. But you know, you're just thinking about how much money you have involved into it, and you're just like, wow, I walked it pretty far. But I would say the most funnest race I had at Parker's, it wasn't even one of the sessions. It was more of the, I think it was a road race. It was a road race against, what was his name? Is it Joe with the R8? Yeah, yeah. Joe with the R8. The sheepy one? The sheepy R8, yeah.

I think that one's gone.

We were the finals on the road race a couple years ago, and I didn't think I would lose by, well, first of all, I thought I would lose by a lot, but I lost by like half a fender or something like that. I was like, right at the end, he caught me at the end. That's about it. But that's probably one of the closest races I had, and that's probably one of the most fun.

You guys are pretty close on power, though, right?

I honestly don't even know what he made.

I'm trying to think what it was, what he said he made.

There was rumors and stuff that it was like 12, 13ish.

Whatever it is. I don't know. I just raced and we'll see what happens.

Yeah.

My first experience with RS3 was that car right there and I ran a rally and we were supposed to do a quarter mile track, but because of that car and Ryan Wheeler's Lambo, we had to go to eighth mile track because they were too fast. And I'm pretty sure that car beat, was the, took over all in the whole thing.

Was this on the rally, you said? This must have been owned when Judd owned it then. Yeah, that was when it was just a Unit-Chang stage two.

Oh yeah, full bolt on. That's about it. I think those make like 500 on each.

This didn't get built till this year.

Yeah, if that's the one that he took, I think he had the freaking extra tank in the back.

He had like a 20 gallon fuel cell in the trunk. He had a fuel cell in the back.

Yeah. Yeah, because Unit-Chang didn't have flex fuel, so he was running E. So he'd carry that fuel cell in the bag so he could run E. Yeah. It's actually E.

We saw that on the rallies all the time. We've had a handful of people try to run E across the country and it never ends well.

Yeah, it's just a Midwest thing in California and Florida and that's pretty much it.

Yeah, yep. Well, it's like, even on our way out to Colorado, right? It was like right at the very edge. Anybody that was getting anything less than 200 miles to the tank, you were out. And even if you get to the gas station, you have no way of knowing if it's good. Because I can't remember, was it, somebody brought, oh no, Sean thought about bringing his old Jeep on, and it was just E. And I'm like, that is the worst idea you've ever had. Like, you're never gonna be able to take that car anywhere. So, do you guys do a lot of corn stuff over here then?

All, pretty much all. If there's options, that's the way I push it. I had a few customers that have like a B9 platform that would go from like a stage one to a stage two, and they're like, can you reflash this? I was like, why? It's like, it feels the same. Like, well, can we go to E85? And then, you know, I told them just like, just do it. Trust me, it's free, the fuel is cheaper, your fuel economy goes down, but just try it. And he tried it and he was like, thank you. That was significantly more power than it was before. Like it was a noticeable jump. Yeah, if we can, if we can, we do. And-

I mean, I'm assuming in case you get into a spot.

Yeah, I mean, it's difficult. Some cars you can do flex, like the, well, it's interesting because there's some companies that are being able to do it. We're able to do it with like the 8V, like the S3s, GTIs, stuff like that. With the proper supporting mods, you know, we can do it. RS3s are able to do it and, you know, GTRs are able to do it. But when it comes to like the B8 platform and the B9s and stuff like that, if you're on like an E40 or E85, there's no flex fuel on the market yet. So unfortunately, we can't do that. If you have your own cable, you can flash it at the gas station and switch, but that's about it. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yep, it's extra 150 bucks. If you don't have a laptop, you need a laptop.

Which is scary though, because if you flash in on a low battery at a gas station, you're dead in the water. You're done, that's right. That's why you gotta do flex. If you can do flex, always do flex. This switching back and forth, flashing the ECU while you're at the gas station, that's...

Well, do they not have a device? So like in the Ford world, we have like a tuning device, right? You have an SCT device or like an N-gauge where you can select your tune and flash it from that.

Yeah, I mean, it's all app-based. So you have to have wifi too. So you have that good wifi and the battery has to be strong. Otherwise, if the battery falls below like 11, 10 volts, it crashes. If you lose wifi during the flash, it crashes. And then you're just dead in the water. And then you're torn at home, so.

And I know that was a bit of a goofy question, right? Like how many of your cars are on E? But the reason I asked that, right, is because you have such a wide variety, right? Like I kind of fall into that, like, all right, I'm not pushing my car territory, but I do like having that, what, stage two tune, whatever it is, what did you say your variety of customer is? Cause obviously you have some crazy builds here, such as, you know, the RS3 or the GTR over there, which, you know, I'd love to talk about that if you're allowed to, but then obviously you have your general maintenance. So how many people come here for just a basic stage one, stage two sort of deal?

I mean, quite a bit. I was gonna say a lot. Yeah, a lot of new people, they do know us from the performance. So, I mean, even cars that there's nothing on the market, they ask if there's something because if someone's gonna have it, it's gonna be us. But yeah, I mean, I'd say quite a bit. I mean, like I have, I can't remember what it was. There was a guy that wanted like a water pump and something else done. And he's like, can you guys do tunes? And I was like, yeah. And he's like, well, what is like a stage one cost? And I looked it up and it was like 650 or something like that. He's like, let's do that too. I was like, this is a bone stock car that we're putting a water pump in. And he just wanted a stage one tune to get a little more power. Yeah.

Not yet, but we will one day.

Yeah, I mean, there was one guy, which actually that white RS3 up there, he came in for an oil change and just a checkup. And he said, while he was waiting for the oil change, was just talking about like, what more can I do? And we just had a conversation and I was like, switching to E85. And he thought E85 was like a race gas. He didn't want to do that because he thought it was going to be bad and corrosive. And he just didn't want to do it. And then I was telling him about the benefits of flex fuel, how you can pump anything and go. And then that snowballed into a big turbo full built motor. That was the next step. And then, so I guess that happened, just an oil change. It didn't happen that day, but the conversation happened and here we are today.

Well, it's like how many conversations, I think maybe like every two or three months, I start having the conversation. I'm like, oh, you know, I'd really like to. I'd like to get my car to where I'm like comfortable for the speed summit in September. I really do want to do the triple track showdown because that is super cool. Like, do you guys know about that at all?

Oh yeah, you guys went to the old auto cross, road course and then drag.

Yeah, I participated plenty of times.

Yeah, how'd you fare?

Yeah, I'm always fast in the quarter mile, but there's corners and everything else. It's one of those deals where if I didn't have a payment on my car at that time, I probably would have just pushed it. But when you have a payment on your car, or that's your only motor transportation, you take it a little bit more carefully. Yeah, so now if you put me there now, where my car's paid off and I don't give a s*** if I break it, I will push it as hard as I can. Then I don't care. And now with that and having my own shop and I can fix it whenever I get back to it, that relieves a lot of anxiety and stress on yourself. Then you can push a lot harder.

It also depends how you got to the track. Ice cream cruise, I drove to the track from here. So it was a five and a half hour drive. And then we had an open ticket for either drag or roll racing and no one wanted to use it. So then everyone's like, oh, do roll racing, do a roll racing. I was like, I'm five and a half hours from home. In the car, I drove here. So I mean, I waited in line. I did one poll against a supercharged eighth gen Civic and walked it, but like that type of thing. I was like, okay, one and done. I got lucky. You know, if I would towed it there, a hundred percent, I would do as many polls as I could because I had a way home. You know, it depends on a lot of things. If it's your only car and that's how you got there, maybe take it a little bit, you know, not so balls to the wall.

And it's probably a good thing I didn't even bring mine up because literally like the day I got back or like three days before I went up there, I'm like, hey, I should probably get something scheduled. Scheduled with you guys. And then Monday, obviously you guys switched out my, what was it? Water pump and then, yeah. So it's good now. Confidence is back.

Yeah. Yeah.

So trying to think which, oh, the GTR. So you guys have, let me know if I explain this correctly. Are you guys like a certified installer for Sysio? Or how's that work?

There's no like certification or anything like that. Well, yeah. Yeah. It's just, do they trust us and the processes? Cause I know Nathan, I mean, I don't know him very well, but I know him enough from shooting, was it Sorted when I was doing that. So I got to meet him in Florida twice. And then I've seen him here and there at events like Texas 2K and whatnot. And we've talked, but yeah, there's like no certification. It's just, it's just a matter of, you know, like I said, do we do good work and they, you know, they'll usually just work with us because of everything else on that.

And then the one that was up at Power Cruise, that was a, like technically like a Sysio build or what was the situation with that? Cause like, does it get a Sysio sticker on it?

The, you mean Josh's, the black one?

Yes. I mean, I made like 12, I think.

Yeah, I mean, that's 1330.

Yeah, you better be careful Josh, what's that number?

Yeah, Dino said 1330, therefore it makes 1330.

Oh, we round down.

But that was, I mean, that was, and he was going from 1050 to 1330. So it was a 300 wheel horsepower jump, which is an entire Volkswagen. There's a learning curve. I mean, you're going from, you're going from, I mean, like a low four second, 16 on 30 to a high three. Like that's a pretty significant jump at that level. So it was, you know, the learning curve for that new build. But yeah, it was, I mean, essentially, at least the way we're trying to build that one is, if you were to drop it off at CISIO, what sort of parts and tuning would you get? We're trying to go down that same route because their cars seem to work. We want to build them the same way, that way we're kind of giving the same treatment without stepping on toes. Obviously, Minnesota and Florida and Virginia, Georgia, they're a different market. So they kind of trust us and we kind of use him as a learning, a learning car, I guess. He wants to do fun stuff. We want to learn fun stuff. And we kind of go from there. Yeah, I mean, how long have you been friends with him?

I don't remember. I'd say probably early 2000s is when Josh and I met.

Me and Trae were just little, little, little guys.

Yeah, dude, I'm old. I am an old fox, what they say. Old and cranky.

Yes, you are the oldest one here.

I think you might be. I'm 38.

He remembers 30.

Yeah.

Back in my day. So, what goes into a 1330 wheel GTR?

I would say, it's kind of difficult because I try to plan for the future because I hate being at least at the level that I was at where it was engine limited, turbo limited. If I want more, then you have to do significant amounts.

Sell this to get back up to it.

So, yeah, a lot of shops in the area, I mean, you can push them hard. Just like the G80, you can push it as hard as you want, but what are you willing to put your name on? That level, 1300 can do just rods, pistons, cams, valve springs, valves, just a basic stage one motor bill, it's what they call it. It has twin 58 mil Zona turbos, a Sysio Zenith kit. That can go up to say mid 1400s, like 1450 on like 40 some pounds of boost, something like that. Triple pump fuel system, single 1700 cc injectors, and that's pretty much it. Stock intake manifold, you need a Shep stage three transmission, it's a handful of stuff. A build like that would probably be $90,000 from stock, but you're doing it on stock ECU, a single set of injectors, pump E85 to make 1300 wheel, it's pretty add to cart. Like that's, at least in this day and age, an add to cart build, GTR is hands down the easiest.

I love how you rambled all that off and said 90 grand and threw the word simple in there.

Yeah, well the simplest part is me writing it up, the difficult part is getting the wife to sign off on the check.

Yeah, so out of all the platforms, right, because you guys do pretty much all the Euro stuff, for the most part, that's pretty accurate, you use GTR Supras, which I mean Supras are still Euro, but do you guys have a particular platform that you love to just crank out of here? I guess between the two shops?

Yeah, I mean, so we do have a technician that works here that used to be at a different location or different shop, and he said compared to that place, he works on significantly more 3.0Ts, the supercharged V6, like that was, at least his takeaway is probably the most worked on engine that we have. I mean, there's probably three cars here and two cars at the other location getting worked on that have that engine. It's just insanely common. I mean, they're an A6s, A7s, A8s, Q5s, Q7s, S4s, you name it. It's just super common. I mean, I would say that's our bread and butter. You know, we've seen almost every single problem that can happen on them. So usually, and I use that word very strongly, usually the Diag can go pretty smoothly, usually, because it's one of those that we've seen this before.

That is, by the way, like the supercharged, they're V6s, right?

Yeah.

I'm not too familiar with that platform, but it is the second best sounding supercharged platform out there, I think. The Hellcats just take number one for best supercharger.

Okay, I would not.

So, put it this way.

Who has the best sounding supercharger?

Anything with a V8. I mean, I will say there was a G37, a red G37 at Power Cruise with a procharger on it, and I was like, that thing sounds so good.

Well, I mean, stock wise, though, like we're not talking about prochargers. If you start throwing in like aftermarket, like, oh, let's throw on a Gen 3 or a Gen 6 Whipple.

Yeah. I mean, I would say probably Hellcat has it hands down. Yeah, yeah.

You're looking at me like I'm a psychopath.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would say, yeah.

But you throw an intake on like, you know, just what's it called, the Hellcats, and then obviously do the same thing, you know, with the, what's it called, is it S3?

S4, yeah.

It's starting to get my generations confused now. But yeah, no, like it sounds really good. Like I remember somebody that I dislike did a crazy pull after a show and I was like, yeah, that sounds really good. I hate to admit it.

Are you talking the intake noise or the exhaust noise? Because when we were reacting to that, we're talking the exhaust. The exhaust is...

The exhaust note is...

Man, it's very VQ-esque. Yeah. The supercharger whine is, yeah, sick. Totally agree with that. Everyone loves that. I mean, I'm a turbo guy, but the sound of a supercharger whine is cool. It does get to a point where, you know, you got a TX2K and you have a 1500 horsepower Hellcat with a, you know, a 3.8 liter Whipple. You don't hear the whine anymore.

Correct.

Because the exhaust is just open header. But yeah, I would definitely say supercharger whine.

I f***** that one up.

It's to be why you like the procharger, because that sounds just like a turbo.

But the idle, there was a, it was a, what is that, a Mach 1, a new Mach 1 down in TX2K and I had a four inch aluminum straight pipe and I could hear his procharger over my exhaust and he was behind me on the freeway. And like just the sound of that. I mean, they don't quite sound like turbos, but it just, I don't know, the sound of them are just cool. I would never buy one, but the sounds are cool.

My wife has a procharger on her car.

I mean, they're...

It just does the power.

I like my supercharger on the must, on the GT500 because it's low end punch. The same thing with the turbo issues, right, the procharger takes a minute before she wakes up.

Yep. I mean, it's essentially a belt driven turbo. So RPM, I mean, RPM helps everything, you know, even your GT500. RPM helps. But...

Yeah. It does have some of those whoosh noises though, which gotta love them. And I had to save them there. Oh dude, I'm still laughing about our moment with... On Becca's podcast, where...

And I want to tell you guys, I've been hanging out with you, everybody, as of recent since Harris brought me on from the agency he likes to call it.

But I've been hanging out with you in the Mustang for forever, right?

I'm a Ford guy, Dynar fan. And so I'm learning all kinds of crap.

You guys are great.

I really appreciate you just letting me hang around.

You're not getting fired.

Well, sometimes I just stand around like an idiot, but I'm literally soaking all this stuff in as I'm standing around, right?

But we're talking to Becca and I'm used to pulleys, right?

Pulleys sizes.

We overdrive our crank pulleys, we underdrive our supercharger pulleys, which is a V8 thing, Mustang thing. And not that planes don't do twins, but I had said something about she was having a recover alternator at our cruise, right? So she was talking about like, why would have gone bad at this mileage? I was like, well, maybe is your crank pulley overdrive? And then I was like, wait a second, it's a fricking turbo, why would you even mess with the crank pulley? So I said something really dumb and then I fixed it myself.

Yeah, sometimes I listen back to these and I'm just like, oh yeah, I didn't sound the greatest there.

Oh, we all have our blonde moment.

Yeah, I mean, if you were to put a compilation together, this is gonna be episode 89, right? If you put a compilation together of every dumb thing I said, I mean, that'd be a hilarious video.

That'd be a whole episode.

Yeah.

Well, actually, yeah, I even thought about doing an episode, like going through and just taking like various noises people have made, like just out of context noises, like people will go like, ah, and just put it, I don't know. Stupid.

One dumb thing I've ever said though.

It's just the one thing. Yeah.

Yeah, it's okay. I think you were like episode 26 or 27, way early on.

For some reason, 26 pops in my mind for some reason.

Yeah. So, I mean, you've done quite a bit. I guess you already kind of touched on your build for the most part, what you're doing, your goals-wise. Are you going to be competing in any events or are you still going to keep it like street car status?

So, I want to still keep it a streetable car. I don't want to be trailer only because if I'm doing that, I might as well fully do it. I don't want to halfway do anything. So, if I keep it still street car, that's kind of like a giant umbrella, so you can kind of do whatever under that. I do want to get into a lot more drag and do stuff from a dead stop, but I don't want to just go out there with hard tires and just do it horribly. I want to get everything set up with slicks, a clutch delay valve, everything set up how I can. Obviously, within reason, I'm not going full 15-inch slicks and dog box and stuff like that. I'm keeping it within reason and streetable. But I do want to move into being more drag stuff. So I guess it is a change. It will be able to do roll racing and stuff like that and drive it to work. But drag is definitely something I want to get into because it's also an untapped market for my chassis alone. Obviously, it's a four-door big car. I mean, it was sold as a large chassis back in the 90s. So it's not the ideal platform, but it's the platform I have. So I might as well use it, learn from it, and then when the chassis is a limitation, move to something that is a giant leap in the right direction.

Now, you said you're building your motor. Do you guys build your motors in-house or do you send that out? I mean, obviously, there's machining and something needs to be done, but do you guys otherwise assemble?

For the most part, I'd say probably 90% of the engines we do in-house. Obviously, the machining, no. We have like four different shops we use because they all can't keep up because they all have their own schedule. We have ours, so I just spread it between four shops. But it's, I'd say most of the Dazas, other than the sleeve ones, all get assembled in-house. The sleeve motors all get done by Ed at FFE. He just does it, sends it back. It's a lot faster process that way. And not only that, he knows what he's doing anyway, so. Exactly.

Yeah. I do not build motors myself. Nope. Nope. A lot of it has to do with machining and I trust the guy that I pay, I just let him do it all of it. I trust that he does really good work. It's been great. It's the only issue I've had, which wasn't even an issue, cylinder one rod bearing was a little chewed up, but I never saw material in the oil, never knocked, never did any of that. So I mean, it's not a machinist problem, but he's going to get it, check it over, hone it, reassemble it. You know, it's one of those things, it's a few hundred dollars, you might as well let him do it if he has it. But I'll just get it as a short block and then put everything else on it.

By the way, there's going to be a lot of pauses in this episode. I just looked down and I'm like, oh s***, Dan's isn't recording. That's going to be an hour and a half extra editing on my time. This is one of those, I just looked down and I'm like, oh yeah.

So all of that explaining myself about how the stupid comments stuff was on.

Well, yeah, yeah, so you're basically, yeah.

You didn't have to bring that up. They didn't know, they didn't know that you recognize that.

The best part is.

Yes, yes. Okay, okay, okay.

The best part was is that you didn't bring it up though, either, that didn't get caught either. It's never ending. Like I literally told them, like if there's one thing that goes wrong this episode, I'll be happy. Because like that, that even this deep into this whole deal, something always goes wrong.

Oh yeah, for sure.

You guys see it all the time, right?

Nobody's perfect.

Yeah, I mean between the two shops especially, and what is this year, five or six are ratified now?

Three and a half?

Yeah, I don't even think it's four maybe.

Technically, 2020 was like when I went full time, or ish.

Yeah, something like that.

We started it when I graduated, so that was 2020.

Time flies, man, there's just a lot going on.

Well, you've scaled quite a bit too, right, because now you're at two shops, right? I think you didn't even have this shop when we did our first podcast, I'm pretty sure.

I listened to it today, trying to do some research.

I was after you.

No, you didn't, because you went to Sean's house.

Yeah, I think we were working on buying it, I think, at that time.

Might as well get a little bit.

But am I good now, or you just shut it off?

Just turned it on for the first time. Perfect. No, obviously, just drawing paints at every shop, right? And you're obviously just scaling. I mean, how many employees do you have now?

Seven.

Seven between the two?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Do you count him?

Yep, I have to. He's technically on payroll, so yes.

Technically?

What does that mean?

Technically just means technically.

According to the government.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So now you've been in this location like roughly a year.

Yeah, I think September would be a year.

Yeah, yep. So, Den, do you have plans to continue, or does it just kind of get these operating like a well-oiled machine?

Well, the later. Having just a well-oiled machine operate by itself.

Sounds like that's gonna be his problem.

Yeah, that's why we needed a general manager, so he's moving up.

Do you do much wrenching still?

Yeah, I still do. Yeah, I wear all the hats in the business, so I'm everything. But I'm more so help on the service side, a little bit of the service writing side as well. But yeah, I still do all the diagnostic stuff, like the hard stuff, pitch in where I can wear behind. I still do a lot of the engine builds. But for the most part, I try to be hands-off, but that's never gonna happen.

Out of your 110-hour work week, you're probably still wrenching maybe a quarter of that at least.

Yeah, a little bit. A lot of it is after hours, like the business side of it, I do after hours or on the weekends. Figuring out marketing, figuring out doing payroll, doing all that, the office stuff. The admin stuff, it's all done after hours or on the weekends. I try to do most of it during the day as well, or some of it during the day, because I'm usually at Chaska in the mornings, and then I come here in the afternoons, but lately it's just been here. It's because we're so backed up here that I have to jump in where I can.

Backed up on what in particular? Just everything?

Just everything. I mean, we have projects that have been lingering a little longer than I like, so I've been pushing to get them done. I think we got two or three out this last couple of weeks. And then on the service side of it, having just... I mean, the scalzing portion of itself is better, but it's sometimes a car will take longer than expected and then everything starts to back up. Then that's when I jump in.

How crucial has the dyno been to you guys?

Very, very crucial. Yeah, I mean, we've been doing a lot of in-house tunings with Brian behind the keyboard. So without that, we wouldn't be where we are as far as making a name for ourselves with our backing behind it or with the ratifying behind it.

I'm assuming he has a cot here somewhere, right? Because I never see him leave. He's here every time I'm here.

Yeah, he's a different animal.

What are we at on your build though? Because I know I kind of asked at the beginning of the episode, right? So what all goes into that Evo to make it as fast as it is? Because I don't know anything about Evos. I don't think we've had any Evo guys on, have we? Besides Piero, but Piero is kind of a road course guy. I don't think we've talked to any fast Evo guys.

I wouldn't take the claim of fast yet.

Well, it's zero miles an hour right now.

Yeah, no, I mean the Carba 4, so obviously the whole Audi situation, my goal with the Evo was kind of to do something different than what I had been doing. So I'm like the odd one out. I'm not building an Audi anymore. I went to the Evo platform because like Sam was saying, I wanted to do more drag racing and stuff, and I'm not gonna lie, Evos are proven to be pretty quick, whether it's from a dig or a roll. So I kind of took the easy way and wanted to just build something that I knew could be fast instead of trying to do something that hasn't been proven yet. But as far as my build, it's pretty much just gonna be, it's like a two-two stroker, so it'll be just pistons, rods basically, girdle. It's a full wet block. And then not a lot of people have done like the Zona setups, which is very common, like in RS3, as a platform area. So that's where I kind of got the idea from. So I took a Zona 9569S, which is I think actually in the IMS 1000 kits. So same turbo in IMS 1000 kits, and I'm just strapping it to a two-two four-cylinder. Pretty stock transmission. It has straight cut three-four, the rest is stock. And then, yeah, I mean, stock head gasket. And I mean, we're hoping to make 900 to 1000 with it, so we'll see.

You gonna gut it and everything, or no, you're gonna keep it?

No, same thing as Sam, I want to race it as much as I can, but I also want to be able to drive it to work and not have to wear earmuffs, you know?

Is it a more cost-effective platform to work on than Audi's? Because I was talking to somebody before this started, and they were talking built transmissions are 20 grand, and I'm thinking, in a Mustang, it's like seven grand for a built transmission. So is it more affordable than the Euro stuff, or?

My situation, specifically, is a little different, because my Audi, I pretty much built everything myself, besides the parts, obviously, that I bolted on. So I saved a lot of money doing everything on my own, but this one, I literally just sent it to the shop and said, do what you gotta do. So my situation, specifically, it's definitely not cost-effective. I'm spending way more. But I guess it depends what you're doing. Like Sam's car, everything's kind of unique and custom, so his is probably costing a lot more than a normal Daz would be. But I don't know, like a thousand horsepower Evo is gonna be cheaper than a thousand horsepower RS3, for sure. Yeah.

So you said that Zonas aren't usually the go-to route. What is?

Precision. Precision, especially like with the next-gen stuff. Everybody's doing it right now. And I'm a little late on the Zona tech, because I always am. Like on the Audi, I was running a board warner and everybody made fun of me for having a dump truck turbo. But I mean, it made power and it was fast and I never had problems with it. But yeah, I'm always behind on tech. So now Zona's coming out with their new line that's basically the same turbo with next-gen technology. So yeah, I don't know. I just wanted to try Zona. I've always seen them work really well on the DOSA platform. And not a lot of people have done it on the Evo. So I kind of wanted to try to be quote unquote unique in that way.

You're a little bit on the pricier side too, aren't there?

Oh yeah, dude. And it took me freaking 10 weeks to get mine.

Yeah, I mean, I'd say at least nowadays all good new turbos, whether it's Garrett Precision, Zona, they're all 2,500 to 3,500 to four grand, depending on the size. But yeah, a lot like, so the reason Zonas are so popular on RS3s is, Hank Iraz was the first one to like actually make a full frame kit and he used Zona turbochargers. So he kind of paved the path with that. And then at least from what I've gathered from friends that have Evos, the go-to was a sheepy race, 6266 kit, he used Precision. Back in the day, that was the route everyone went. So that's what everyone wanted. And they kind of proved themselves as the winningest turbocharger in racing. And that's kind of why people choose them. There's different opinions for both sides, but that's kind of at least from what I've seen. Well, about why people use a specific turbo. As if a company just decided that's what we want to do, and they were good, and at least maybe not good, but popular, then that's the route everyone else went.

So why did you, you're switching to Precision, aren't you?

Yeah.

Why is that?

Yeah, I was probably one of the larger Precision haters. I didn't have any real rhyme or reason.

He had a Zona on his before.

Yeah, I had a Zona, and I sold it to an Evo guy, actually, and the car's in the shop right now. I don't really have a great way. I mean, there was a story that I was told. It takes a lot for me to like, you know, I need to do research on something before I, you know, willingly spend money on it and put it into my car. You know, I need to know that it works, and I had seen all the work that was being done with the RS3 world and why Zonas were working, and they just, it was cool. I wanted to be part of that, you know, new RS3 five cylinders ran Zonas. I was like, I have a five cylinder, I'm gonna run Zona. That's what IROZ did. That's what my tuner who used to tune it, IROZ did. That's what I did. I had a conversation with Jay Meager, owner of Real Street Performance, and we actually talked about this. And at first his remark was, if the car was a show car and I had to look at the turbo all day, I would choose a Zona, because it has a billet center section, stainless turbine housing, they don't rust, precisions rust, it doesn't visually look great. He's like, but I would have to be okay with leaving 50 to 60 horsepower on the table for the equal size precision. But what he said was, he spent $40,000 on precision turbos to test on his personal Supra. He put a cap over the waste gate port and just ran it at 100% duty cycle, let it cool off for 10 minutes, ran it at 100% duty cycle until there was a failure and logged what failures he was seeing and what power he was making. And then he said from that testing, he has never seen any other turbo manufacturer live up to that abuse. So that's why he chooses, I mean, most like real street built cars run precision turbos because of that. And that was when I kind of had like a little like mental switch because, you know, like we've talked about last time I was on the podcast, I go to World Cup and I see these cars getting pushed to 120% more than they're built to do to win. And you know, you will see failures. You know, anytime you push something to the limit or pass the limit, you will see failures. 95% of the cars at World Cup finals have precision turbos. There are other manufacturers that are coming up like Apex, Revolution, but you will see failures when 95% of the people are running them. That's kind of just the way that it is.

It's a numbers game at that point.

Yep, so you can see most people talk about the negative. Usually the people that have good experiences don't talk. It's nice when they do, but the negative at least makes its way to the top. So everyone hears that. Everyone loves the drama, the beef and the stuff like that. So people are quick. I was one of those, super quick to say like, these turbos, sheer turbine wheels when you make 40 pounds of boost. It's easy to just look at that, but when you look at the other 97% that's not doing that, then it's like, okay, well, you make a realization that, maybe they're not so bad.

So when he was going through testing, and I'm not sure how deep in conversation you got, what were some of the common failures that he would see?

He said there weren't a ton of failures. He said there was like specific sizes that like if you can, there's like probably hours of research you can do on this, but when a turbo is being overspun, it's not necessarily the speed that they're spinning at that causes them to fail. It's the rapid deceleration of the speed that, people say, there's like sonic booms on each tip of the turbine wheel. And when they slow down, those sonic booms like collapse, and then the turbine wheel just disappears. So like oftentimes it'll make great power. And then when you let off, that's when the turbine wheel just disappears. So typically that's what it is, is when a turbo is being overspun, or if like if you're spinning the shaft faster than the wheel, then you know, then things get oblong, off balance, it contacts a compressor housing or a turbine housing, and then it'll eventually just seize or break off, or make noise or smoke or you name it. There's plenty of different stuff. But yeah, oftentimes it's just a turbine wheel will just leave.

Yeah, and those clearances are usually really tight. So there's not really much room for things to fluctuate.

Yeah, I originally ordered a 7275 Next Gen for my car. And reconsidering things is gonna go a little bit smaller. The tolerances on the turbine wheel to compressor was actually comically large.

Oh, really?

I don't know if that was for a specific reason or what, but I mean, you can spin them pretty quick. And I don't know if they just change things up a bit, but it was actually pretty large.

Yeah, I wonder if that's just as it's bigger, things have more room to flex.

Yeah, and get hot and expand. I will say, Jay did mention, at least that brand I was talking about, Apex. They are a great racing turbocharger. They do, I mean, you can look into them. They do a lot of unique things. So like oftentimes, there's a shaft for a turbocharger, the wheel goes on the shaft and then there's nut that holds it on. Well, that nut will be like a 13 millimeter nut or a 12 millimeter nut. Well, when you're talking about a 76 millimeter turbocharger, if 12 millimeter of that is a nut, you're losing the innermost portion to just something that's not producing air. So what Apex is actually doing is they're machining the compressor wheel into the shaft. So it's actually just a point. There's no nut that holds it on. So you're gaining an extra 10 millimeter worth of turbo. So that's really, really good and they're making insane numbers. I mean, like a 62, 70 is making like almost 12, 50, 1300 wheel, which is absurd. You know, like a 62, 66 Precision will make 900 and then for this turbo to make significantly more, it's insane. But the drawback is for some reason, the tolerances between the compressor wheel and the compressor housing are super tight. So if certain things, when you're making high boost on launch control from the line, or if you're no lift shifting, that concussion will bounce the shaft a little bit, it'll touch and as soon as it touches, it's gone. Like there's no room, like wiggle room at all. S***.

So I gotta ask, right? Cause I do like learning about this stuff. I'm curious, like, where do you get, is this just, you want forums for hours on end or where do you learn this?

So I was very introverted as a kid. My parents never, I never really talked at home, but every parent teacher conference, they said, I talk way too much, which is kind of weird. So I'm kind of introverted, extroverted. When I go to events like World Cup and TX2K, I talk to anyone I possibly can, gather as much information that I could use on my own personal car. I mean, owner of Real Street, just to walk up to him, introduce myself, shake his hand and just have a conversation. Just the ability to do that has, grown my knowledge significantly. And it-

It's just talking to people.

It works, yeah, just talking to people. I mean, that's what my job is. It's just talking to people. Do it all day and it never stops.

And I'm curious though, so right, cause you're gonna be GM, right? How's your role gonna change now?

I'm not gonna be the guy that, you know, when you call Ratify- It's not gonna be, you know, Ratified Motorsports or the Sam. And you're not gonna hear that anymore. I will be, you know, talking to customers on the project side of things. So if we're gonna have a car for, you know, two to three months, stuff like that, you know, I will be giving, you know, if we're making progress and there's progress to give to the customer, I will be, you know, making that, you know, just meeting with people, talking with people. I'm still gonna be in the shops. So when people come to drop off cars, I'll still be there. But like the online communication isn't gonna be as much, but when they're in the shop, you know, they'll see me. But it's more so shifting from keeping customers happy to making sure the business is working as it should, we're profitable, every technician's happy. So it's going from making the paying customers happy to keeping the people that are working on the customer's cars happy and making sure everything is flowing and just making people smile, I guess.

That makes sense, making people smile. You had to finish with that. So I'm curious to see what the answers are here, right? Cause the three of you have gone down very different routes at addressing the high horsepower car, right? What would each of you say is kinda like the best way, like if you were to do it all over again, what platform would you get? So I wanna start with you Trae, I'm curious. Would you still go with the Evo, given like how far along the build you are, or would you go with something else?

I don't know, man.

If you wanted to beat Pops, cause you've been crowing about that for three years, I'm gonna beat dad.

This guy, he'll tell you, only car that he gets mad about losing to is Evo's, cause he always loses to Evo's.

And he had one.

Yeah, he did have one. That's why I like Evo's. Growing up like.

And mine was stock.

Yeah, but I was also like five years old, so like I thought it was the fastest thing in the world. Yeah. But I don't know, I just like how Evo's drive, and like I still have an Audi, so like I'm, it's fine. But as far as like building a race car, like I said, I've always seen Evo's work, and I've always seen Evo's beat this guy. So I knew it would be an easy car to go fast in.

Always. You gonna take that, always beat you?

It is always, dude. Dude, I can try to show you 30 videos of this dude losing Evo's.

I didn't know that you would be sending those to me after this episode. That's gonna be a highlight of him just losing Evo, Evo, Evo.

But again, kind of like I told you last time though, every time that I try to like get faster, he's always doing something else. So I'd lose my opportunity anyways.

Which is what's wild, right? Because this thing's been down for a hot minute. What'd you say, September?

I think so.

So we got to-

There's a lot of Legos laying underneath the hood right now.

Yes, yes there is.

Yeah, so okay, so you would do an Evo again. All right, Sam, if you were to do it all over again?

Honda.

Honda?

Yeah, really.

Dude, you took the car I was gonna do.

Yeah, but they just work. You know, top 10 imports at World Cup Finals are all Hondas.

Yeah, all wheel drive Honda.

They just work.

It's like all wheel drive swap sort of deal too or no?

I mean, that would be cool. I'm not, you know, die hard all wheel drive. It would be sweet. Like I always say, like, you know, there's a handful of cars I want next, but a Honda would be cool because it's just, I like, I've seen some Honda builds that, you know, I question why they do that or why they don't work. The hard part for me is if you want to buy a Honda and you want to make comfortably 600, 700 horsepower, or at least the power I'm making now, you need a dog box and upgraded axles. That alone, you're talking like 12 grand. That's like a bare minimum. And that's, you know, a hard thing to swallow because I've made 800 on a stock trans and stock axles, stock driveshaft. I don't need any upgrade. So it's a lot more money, I would say, but it'd be cool to take what I've learned on my car that is technically a huge disadvantage because the engines don't work that great. They're reliable, but they don't flow that much air. It'd be cool to take it and apply that to a platform that is already significantly better. I mean, that's why Coyotes are so great. Is there a great flowing naturally aspirated engine?

His mic's on, right?

So when you add boost, they just work. Because like a K-Series, it's so great because they make decent power for an NA four cylinder. They flow a lot of air. So when you add forced air through it, significantly better.

And if you hopefully listen to the episode before this episode.

Yes, the Honda boys.

Yeah, you'll learn a lot about Hondas. Those guys, it is crazy. It is just kind of like, we talked about it with them too, it was like accidental over-engineering, right? They just, kind of like the 1JZ and things like that, or 2JZs, they just.

Yep, oops.

Yeah, exactly, yeah.

Oh s***, this kicks a**.

But I mean, yeah, I would say drag Honda, whether it be front wheel drive or all wheel drive, it would be cool.

Yeah.

Yep.

Interesting, did not expect that out of you today.

They're light. The hardest part I'm fighting with my cars is heavy. The last time, well, the only time I've ever been on a scale with me in it was 3740. My new goal is gonna be with me in it probably 3250ish, right around there. Yeah, so I'm taking 500 pounds out, but that was, I weighed it when I had a sunroof and steel exhaust.

That's right, yeah, you do have that carbon roof now, yeah.

That dropped probably 70 pounds.

Yeah, which is gnarly.

So the whole roof is carbon now, or?

Yeah, you look up and you see carbon. I don't have a headliner.

How do they even, so they like cut it at the pillars then, as it go on with like a...

Well, it was me.

You did that?

Yeah, I can show you some pictures after, but yeah. The bracing is a round.

Like ground glue, or how is that?

3M panel bond, the way your Mustang is held together. There's no hardware, there's just glue. Sweet.

Oh yeah, you took my Honda, so I'll go something different.

You can still pick a Honda.

No, I mean, are we talking fast, like quarter mile stuff, or road course stuff, or what do we call it?

If you wanted to go for like that four digit number again, something that just worked.

Yeah, I'd definitely just go R8 to a turbo.

Yeah, that's so basic.

People weren't doing that in 2019. They were, but...

Well, it don't matter. It's a different beast.

It is, you know, it is kind of crazy, right? Like you don't have to do a ton to get them there, right?

No, you don't. No, it's stock motor, I think it's 1200 and you can do them too.

Yeah, I have this question, right? I know you don't necessarily do a ton of R8s, I know you've done a handful of them, because I know the Huracans, like I think after you get to a certain power level, you have to get like a Billet's second gear or something like that.

Yeah, a weak spot in all of them has been the transmission.

Is it the same one in the R8s then?

Basically, yeah.

They're the same situation.

Yeah, the question came to me like last night and I was like, oh, perfect time, I can ask that now.

Nothing wrong, I don't know too much about them, but I'm learning, I'm learning as I go. We had a customer who dropped his off and I had to drive it. So I drove it around for a couple of days and I fell in love with the sound and the way it drove.

Was that the supercharged one?

Yeah, I gotta have one at some point. So it might be coming up sooner or later, but we'll see.

Yeah, it is crazy, just seeing those. There was a UGR car at Power Cruise, but he ran some transmission, do you think?

Yeah, the transmission.

Speaking of the devil.

It's a pretty looking car, though.

I love that color, too.

Turbo Timbs, that's what it was.

So which platform do you guys see people steering towards? Because you're all over the forums. Are people really going towards the B58, S58s? Is that just kind of the hot thing right now?

They're so popular.

Those things are monsters, though.

Yeah, I'd say, at least in the Daza community, when the G80s started getting popular and modded, a lot of people were comparing them, posting like, oh, this guy just ran this 60 on 30. How much did he spend on his mods, and what would you have to spend on an RS3 to do that? That was the big comparison. It's like, oh, ever since I sold my RS3, I've been loving life. I don't cry every night or something like that, or whatever it may be. I would say that a B58, S58 is definitely...

The growing platform, for sure.

Definitely growing a lot faster. But what people don't realize is, I mean, a thousand-horse RS3 is a $40,000 to $50,000 build on top of the car. To do a thousand-horse comfortably in a G80, you need a $12,000 turbo kit, built trans, built engine.

And a hundred thousand for the car.

Yeah, the money is still there. The dollar-for-dollar is... You can get to 800 easier in a G80, because I would not push a stock motor RS3 that far. But when you're talking thousand-plus, who knows? It's the same amount of money.

But wireless app will play. That went through for me.

I guess they got power seats, too.

You got to deal with the big sniff front grill, though. Some people don't like that.

It's grilling on me, man.

Oh, yeah, I don't mind it. When you put the CSL carbon grill on there, it looks good.

I don't like it either, but I sat in Sean's, and I'm like, I don't give a s*** about that grill right now.

Do you need the competition bucket seats? Yeah. No, Sean doesn't have that competition thing.

He doesn't? No, I don't think so. I can't remember, no.

Is that just... To be honest with you, I wouldn't be able to tell you the difference between the manual and that.

Is this manual or auto?

Auto.

Okay, so auto, rear wheel drive, no comp seats.

I think, I'm pretty sure it doesn't have comp seats.

They got like a light in them.

No, the comp seats are the carbon buckets, right?

They all got the light in them.

Yeah, yeah, it's not.

It literally has the leg extender and everything.

Oh, okay, yeah, so yeah, the ones, the noticeable thing is they have like a bump in between where your legs go. I think they have like holes that go...

Like a nut crusher is what they got in there.

Yeah, the backs are carbon, like there's, yeah.

Okay.

I don't know what that add-on cost is, but definitely work that into the loan. It's definitely needed.

Yeah, it worked out. Like he got it over out in California, right? And now he's getting some new wheels for it. So that's, because it has like 285s, the stock 285s on there. And it got a little squirrely when I drove it. Now it's like 70, 80% throttle. I was scared to actually, it's somebody else's car, first time driving it, right? Like his Mustang, I'll floor it all day long. Like even Mark's Mustang that makes a thousand to the wheels, floor it all day long. We're gonna go a little bit longer, because that Cup 2 is that are like 325s. It's like a completely different situation. Well, here's a question, right? Because I tried to explain it to somebody yesterday, but I couldn't quite explain it correctly. What's the hate on R888s lately?

The noise.

Yeah, the tiger noise, I'd say.

I don't drive the car hard, it doesn't corner fast, so I don't try to corner fast. Maybe that helps. I don't know. Buddy with the Evo has Archer Blades. He hasn't spun out. He has driven in the rain. I don't know. Some people hate them. Some people, you know.

They swear by them.

Yeah. I mean, I would never buy them again. It's just, I don't know. I don't need them. You know.

What would you go to otherwise?

Nankangs, bro.

Yeah. Yeah. Kumho tires. No, I would, if I had, for like a street tire, if it, you know, if it wasn't a daily driver, I would probably just buy a Nantti 555 R2, you know, because they make them in a taller sidewall for like a 17 inch tire. They don't really have a ton of 18 inch sizes, but I was in that dilemma of, you know, I needed 275 35 18. What's the go-to tire to buy?

Yeah.

And I was just like, well, these are decently priced and in stock. Let's just give them a shot.

But like they lasted 7,000 miles, maybe I did my nittles lasted quite a while, but they they're not as sticky as the Michelin's that I've got on there now.

What nittles do you have?

Uh, I had, well, I guess it's not really a fair comparison. They were the G2s.

You have more of the street.

Yeah. But I did like for burnouts and like I could do that all day long and I think they lasted me two seasons.

And I think they start with like 10, 30 seconds. Yeah.

No, there's quite a bit of tread on there. I've got Pilot Sports 4Ss on there now, which I tried to do a donut in that and it did not work as well as I did with the Nittles on there. But you don't know tires is like oil, right? When you start asking people what it's like, you're going to get 17 different, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. You get the people that maybe they're the most woke ones that realize it's like gas. You know, there's only two or three manufacturers with just different additives, you know, but yeah, then you could go hours talking about oils.

Well, and then some people are like, because the price fluctuates so much too, because I don't know, people don't realize that it's a petroleum product. So like it also can fluctuate like prices a barrel do as far as times.

I think they price, you know, they have the margins set to where, you know, it can fluctuate a dollar or two and they can still charge $14 a liter, you know, and still make decent money even though it's constantly going up.

They're expensive, that's all I know.

Yeah, I don't know, I just say for whatever reason, like in the draggy forums, I always see people clowning on people that are on R888s. I just, I'm just like, oh, I should talk to somebody that's more, knows more about this.

It was actually funny. If you go to like TX2K and stuff like that and a lot of cars, I have R888s, like GTRs, like street cars, stuff like that. And funny, a buddy of mine, he had gone down and you could hear like he said back in like TX2K days on the street, like two GTRs racing down the street. And on D-cell, you know, they're making the, the, like if you've been on like fresh pavement and have R888s, you know that noise. And he heard that noise and he thought it was a GTR thing. And then I did a poll next to him and on D-cell, he heard the, and then he realized it was just the tires that are insanely loud.

Yeah. The tire noise thing. I used to drive a Jeep Gladiator, dude, tire noises.

It's a little different.

I'm just, just noise in general. All right. This is a car making noise. I got, I don't know. Turn up the radios. Just kind of how I always felt about it. I don't know.

Did you ask him about your mysterious clunk, dude, by the way?

What?

Your mysterious clunk. Car noises.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah. He took it for a rip. Yeah. God damn GTI. I don't know. What should I get next? Because I'm leaning Corvette for some reason. C6.

Isn't that your only car?

Huh?

Isn't that your only car? The GTI?

Right now, yeah. I'm really, for whatever reason, I got a wild hair up my a** for a C6, G06.

Yeah. I mean, they're great.

I've always wanted one.

Yeah.

Just not yet.

Really a grand sport.

Yeah.

LS3s make great power. LS7s are obviously great, but I've heard they've had their problems.

They have their fair share. Basically, I heard you just do the heads and you're good to go.

Heads, lifters, and I think that's it.

Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know. I'm kind of over the super thing. My biggest thing is I'm at least not a huge fan of the seating position in a Corvette. Like you're sitting on the floor and just like that.

I need to be on the floor, dude. I can't sit in a Corvette with stock seats, even the newer ones. I mean the C8s are the newer ones. I could fit fine in those, but I can't. I don't know. Should we pop the usual three or do you have any more?

While you're shopping for cars, have you heard about the Coyote platform?

I really don't care.

Have you heard of Brett LaSalle?

They're fast, but for me, I'm a man with an ego, and I need a car that's just like... You get a Corvette with a nasty cam and just showing up, just shopping.

You can get a cam tune.

No.

On a Mustang with a little ghost tune.

I mean, that's like verbal tune for you guys, right?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. We try not to do it where we can. Yeah.

Have you heard of my car?

Yeah.

We might make some adjustments on that one.

We can do it, but yeah. It's...

Yeah.

I might actually talk... I might just see if I can reduce the verbals.

I'll show you a video after this of a car that we did that was insanely annoying. The verbal pops. It's like...

It was bad.

It's literally 3000 RPM all the way to like idle.

Yeah.

All the way.

Dude, the funniest thing, we were at a Venom rally however many years ago, and there was like a Focus RS, you know, whatever stage, whatever the hell it was. And coming down the mountain, just popping the whole way, like the whole stretch, however many miles, just going down the mountain, could not stop popping whatsoever.

Yeah, it'd be fun to like have it on a switch and do it for like a weekend and then just be done.

Yes.

That's the nice thing about how my car is currently set up, like I put it into sport mode or whatever, and then obnoxious tune, like burbles all day long, but I put it into quiet mode, not a single pop. And I actually, I prefer that over the previous tune I had. It's just kind of nice to be quiet sometimes. I don't know, maybe I'm getting old.

Yeah, that definitely a thing. Yeah, my tuner is probably-

Did he just literally say just before this, all the cars noises, it's all right, I don't care.

Yeah. But yeah, I made a comment to my tuner-

Walking contradiction.

I made a comment to my tuner about that, because my car does not decel, pop, bang, nothing. I've never heard a pop unless it hits limiter. And I mentioned that to him. I was like, yeah, I've never noticed that, and he's like, I don't do that. And then, I don't know who said it, but someone said, fast cars don't pop and bang.

I have an idea of who it was.

Let's like truly tune diesels don't blow black smoke either. They're actually tuned correctly.

It's one of those flair things that, you know, it's a hundred dollar add-on to your tune and they'll pay for a nice dinner that night if they sell it to you.

Here, do you want to look like an idiot? We can do that for you if you like.

We can do anything you want.

Yeah. Do you want me to pop the usual three or is my microphone working or do we not want to chance the fact that...

Do you have any more B58, S58? No, I kind of want one.

To be honest with you, when I...

This is the perfect episode.

Hey, my Supra is for sale.

I'm going to tell you, I would do a BMW before I would do the Supra. I don't like the way they look.

No offense to anybody driving a Supra. Yeah.

I don't think so.

You'll hit your head the first four times you go to sit in it. I did.

I already look like probably an 80 year old man climbing in out of my car.

I saw this video of a guy getting out of a Ford GT and he basically like flops onto the ground and then rolls over to the bumper to like help himself up.

I feel like that every time I get out of my car.

It's hard for me to get out of it. I'm a small guy.

Yeah.

No, I won't. When I've been searching, looking around when my orange car blew up the last time I was totally open, I was looking at GTRs, I was looking at BMWs, I was looking at all kinds of stuff before this other car fell in my lap.

Did he make a good decision?

Actually, I bought my car a week before that car went for sale and I paid pretty much the same amount of money that Judd had that one listed at. If that would have come up before I found the GT500, that might have been my car sitting there broken.

I didn't mean to throw that last part in.

I don't think it lasted very long with the new owner either because he brought in, I think he had it for a couple of months and then brought it in and the wrist pin broke on it.

Yeah, the wrist pin clip just disappeared. It just slipped out and wore a groove, brought it in for, what, smoking when he turned left or something like that?

Smoking when he turned right?

The most oddly specific thing, and it was replicable, which is insane.

That is very weird.

Misfire and smoking when you take right turns or something.

I have looked at some of your service things where you have, in quotations, what the customer said. I'm sure you get some silly s***.

Yeah, a lot of customer states.

Yeah.

Yeah, we had one, actually, Dave Rasmussen, we did a water pump on it, I think over a year ago. He was like, it leaks, but not when it's hot, not when it sits when it's cold, but as it's coming down in temperature. So you drive it for a half hour, park it, as it's coming down after 45 minutes, it'll just lose all of its coolant. So that's what we did. We drove it, put a pressure tester on it, let it sit. Hour later, just waterfall all over the ground. It's very rarely where a customer description is that accurate.

Well, granted, he's not really a normal customer, since he fixes his own cars, too.

He's a little bit more on the informed side. Do you have any other funny customer state stories, like just chasing anything? I feel like you've obviously been in your role longer than Trae has. I'm sure you've probably got a handful.

Yeah, I mean, there's been... I don't know. I want to say there's a few, nothing that's really come into mind. Yeah, I'm sure.

You're gonna text me later.

Yeah, I'll just say, next week I'll be like, dude, I got one for you.

Yeah.

So yeah.

That was a lull. That was a hell of a lull. Yeah, pop to your show.

Step in here, please.

You probably all know this since you've all been on here. I don't know if they did it when you guys were on, but at the end of every episode, we like to ask our guests to pick three cars, a show car, a track car and a daily driver. You have an unlimited budget, whatever you want, swap whatever you want into whatever you want. What are you picking?

I'm more so curious to see if you're gonna stick with what you previously said or not.

I don't even know what I said, but I know I said my truck, Honda and R8. It's still the same. Or is it? No, it's a Porsche. Porsche what? I think it was. The 911 Turbo. I think that's what I said last time.

Like a 992?

17-inch blush higher and whatever. 1.2. 1.2, whatever you want to say.

Yeah, okay. Nice and efficient.

I like it. They're the same cars.

I'm thinking.

I'm thinking too. What about you?

No, we don't do this anymore.

It's just a stall tactic to get more time.

Oh yeah.

I know. I shut that s*** down.

I'll do it. I'll go.

You can't pick two for one category too.

People try and sneak that one in and here's like, no, no, which one?

This is what I'll do. I'll say what I did last time. My daily was a Duraburb. It was like a 2500 Suburban with a Duramax swap. Toe truck slash comfortable, whatever. I'm changing that to a like a new Raptor, like pickup truck. It would be nice to have a better. Sure. Well, they'll Raptor on there. I have a customer with a Raptor R and it's super cool.

That's one of my favorite trucks.

A Raptor R and another Raptor R on order. And then I would say the show car is going to be out of left field. I think it was a G80 that I said last time. I'm going to change it up. It's going to be a box Chevy on 26s because I go to a lot of donk shows, which is like completely out of left field. But it's just, I don't know. It's cool. It's just, you know, old, you know, refreshed 305. Nothing crazy. Just something cool. Sound system, big wheels, nice candy paint. That's, you know, show car. And then race car probably. I think I did a twin turbo R8 last time. The new GT3 RSs are kind of sick. That red one with the red wheels, like that was super sick. The little details and stuff like that and like the canards and stuff like that and the vents. It's just like the attention to detail is just absolutely insane.

Is there somebody locally like, there's not obviously, look at the state we're in, not a ton of donks, right? Is there anybody that's like really well known in the donk community up here? Not really. Any inner city?

No, I mean, there's one guy that lives in Minnesota. I mean, he has a box Chevy. It's like white white with a red velvet top and 28 inch 4G autos that he goes to the Chicago meets and stuff like that, but I've never seen the car on the streets. There's not a ton. I mean, we have a donk page, like a donk spotting page on Instagram that if we see a car with 24s or 26s, we'll post it. And there's some really nice cars on there, but I mean, our scene's not that great. Chicago is definitely significantly better.

Noted. Yeah, we need to find someone down in Chicago because we are planning to do a Chicago tour later this season at some point. We were going to do it this month, but just timing doesn't work. But we do want to...

We need to donk the Lincoln before we go there, though.

Yeah.

I mean, definitely there's, I mean, what's his name? Sage, Donk Master. I mean, he's... If you do find somebody, find somebody that does like donk drag racing because there's companies out there that you'll send them like a 24-inch tire and they'll retread it or have like a drag radial type material on it. I mean, there's donks running mid-eights. On 24-inch rear wheels, 26-inch front wheels, twin turbo LS making 1,500 horsepower. It's insane. The level they're pushing. QA1 is making suspension for them to like be able to work with a 24-inch wheel. It's insane. So yeah, if you do do that, find somebody that's in the drag scene.

Yeah, you'll be my resident consultant.

Like, hey, this is kind of legit.

That's the other thing, like, you know, one of the things I have to, you know, now that this is growing in size, I had to be kind of careful not to just get anybody on it. Just pull them off the street, you know, and be like, hey, cool car, let's chat. So, one of the difficulties. All right, is that enough time for you or what's up?

Yeah, I tried to drag that on a little bit.

Yeah, but it still wasn't enough time for me, honestly.

He's just over on chat GBT, like help, give me ideas.

You can't choose something you already own either. What?

Yes, you can.

It's hard when you're a general, when you're a car enthusiast, because I want one of everything.

Yeah, definitely.

When you say track, I don't know if anybody's ever asked.

You make it up, pick a track.

Whatever track you want.

Go karts will make it happen.

Okay, I don't remember what I said last time at all, so they're probably all going to be different.

Perfect.

As far as the daily, I think, I'll find a backhand off of the Raptor and go TRX, I think. I think those are really cool. Doesn't Sean have one?

No.

Well, I think TRXs are cool. They look really cool.

He's had that Durango.

They look really cool, and you can do everything with them. Towel, whatever you got to do. And they're fast and have supercharged wind, so that's cool.

I beat one twice last week.

With the GTI?

Yeah, it was like maybe a car and a half.

Okay, nice. And then show car, I'll probably just say, I mean, my dream car is always going to be like R34 GTR.

I haven't heard that one before ever on the show.

Really?

It's like every other episode.

Jesus.

People love R34s.

Maybe not anymore because they're like legal, so now they're just starting to see them a lot more, but I think, I don't know, that's probably going to always be one of my dream cars. And then, what's the other one, track car?

Um, I will be right back after this commercial break.

Yeah, I don't know, I want to just say Evo, but I don't know.

Don't listen to Sam, it could be what you have.

Yeah, I'm thinking Evo. Like a road course Evo?

I mean, it's kind of what you're doing, right? I mean, you literally explained that earlier, that that's why you're doing Evo.

You kind of backpedaled like a father that made fun of his kid. Like, hey, if you want it, go for it. Listen, most boys don't play with Barbies, but he used to go for it.

If you want the grilled cheese, get the grilled cheese.

I just, like, track, I wouldn't ever really do like road course stuff. Like, I'm just not that type of person. I'm a drag racer or whatever, a roll racer. But I always, if I'm gonna be racing, I wanna be shifting. So, I don't know. I don't know what else I would pick. Probably Evo, or maybe even a Honda.

You gotta lock it down now.

I'm gonna go Evo.

Evo, all right. Yeah, Dan was trying to say earlier, it's like I don't let people do that either.

He even tried to sneak in as to answer there at the very end.

No, for whatever reason, I'm gonna sleep at the wheel this whole episode for whatever reason. I don't know if I drank enough caffeine, but I got you on that one. I ain't gonna sneak away. Okay, if you had to choose, okay, you had to buy one of the cars you had here. Let's say you're outside, right? You had to sell everything except for one car that you have, whether that's the GTR, you have the GTR still, right, or no? Yeah, or the RS3, or the Supra, or whatever. What would you choose to keep?

Of those three?

Unless you have any other big builds that I don't know about.

No, I only have those three cars, technically.

Which one would you take between those three?

It all varies on what I'm doing. I wouldn't keep the Supra.

Supra's gone.

Supra's gone.

Why is that?

It's fast, don't get me wrong. It's scary fast. You really puck at your butthole when it loses traction. Like a 100 plus, whatever. It's definitely fun, but I can't daily drive it. I can get in the car and do a drag strip, fine. But daily driving that thing, it leaves a lot to be had. It just feels like another cheap Toyota, to be honest, even though it's BMW inside. There's nothing that I like besides the wireless Apple Play. I keep going back to that, but that's about the only thing.

It is kind of the creature covers you get used to.

It sucks when you don't have it.

Yeah, it's just not a good car for me. It's good for other people, I'm gonna be wrong, but it's just not for me. But if I were to keep one.

So it's the RS3 and the GTR now.

Yeah, as an overall car, and as much as, if I would go to a touch and getting car, a GTR for sure. I would say a GTR, because it's definitely a dick magnet. And I like guys looking at me.

I mean, yeah, that's a cool car. I didn't know that was why you liked it, but.

No, but no, a GTR, I would say a GTR for sure. It's just, overall, it's a great car overall. Fast in the corners, you drive it, take it anywhere, it's comfortable. I'd say it's a lot more comfortable than the RS3, and it maneuvers better on the track, on the road course. And if you want to make it 1,300 horsepower, 1,500 horsepower, it's easy to do. And obviously it's more expensive too, but it definitely holds its own.

What's the sweet spot for you? Like power wise, right? Because like you've experienced it all, right? From 200 horsepower to 1,200 horsepower, like what's the sweet spot for you? Where you're just like, I like this.

Eight, eight, nine.

Really? Do you guys agree? I guess, yeah, I guess do you guys kind of agree with that? Or do you always want more?

Depends.

Right.

I mean, yeah, the more horsepower it makes, the more it's in the shop.

That's fair.

But like, I don't know. Like that black GTR, it doesn't break often. And it makes 13 in a wheel.

I don't think I've ever seen it back at your shop.

He's here almost every week. Whether it's himself or the car. So, yeah, we'll never get rid of him when we, we like having him around. But yeah, I don't know. The sweet spot, everyone says is like 800 horsepower. The RS3s and GTRs is when they're around 800, they usually have very few problems. Just oil changes. That's pretty much it.

And you don't do sleeve blocks on those quite yet at 800, right?

You don't need to. Okay.

So what you really want is something that 8, 900, you just drive around and then you need a switch. And when you need people to shut the f*** up, and you just flip that switch and then it's 15, 16, and then you can just turn it back down again, right?

That's why, yeah, I would say, I mean, yeah, for me, I would say GTR for sure is the car.

That's another one that's kind of, I can't remember who said it the other day. It's like, is there such thing as like a sleeper GTR?

No. And that's what I was gonna comment. Like when you said it's a total dick magnet, it can be completely bone stock exterior and people will still take pictures of you on the freeway.

Yeah, you should see how many freaking people break their necks when you're just driving on a freeway.

Stock RS3 never gets that attention, ever. Supra maybe, but like I drove it for a day and maybe one picture was taken on the freeway and that's it. GTR, insane.

Well, that was that whole thing I was going back to earlier, right? Like Audi, they make soccer mom vehicles go fast. I mean, it's really, they all are the same kind of.

Yeah, they're sleepers.

Yeah, which I think is cool, but it's not always what you want. Sometimes you want a little attention.

Yeah, like my car, like I tried to do things to make it not look like a grandpa car. So people actually like didn't just wave me off at Power Cruise. That's a big thing with a lot of Audi customers. They're like, no, just keep going, keep going, keep going. Like, you know, I want to race something fast or with a V8 or something. It's like, well, let's just give it a shot and then let me know how it was at the end.

That's what I've learned at Power Cruise.

You can't like, there could be a bumper hanging off, rust all over it and you have no idea what it's gonna do.

And don't mention bumpers hanging off to Joe DeVito.

Yeah. Hold on.

We saw plenty of bumpers hanging.

Am I missing something on that one? I mean, he got- He ran over a bumper. I was like, is that the same story?

Yeah, same story.

Yeah, that was intense. Especially, no, that's not, I'm not gonna say that on camera.

Yeah.

There's certain things that even I don't want to discuss.

I looked at them, like I said, before I went, and actually, the conversation I had with this guy is what pushed me back towards finding a GT500. It was just, because I'm so Ford oriented, my golf cart is made by Ford, which they only made for one year.

The car.

The car you own is a Ford.

Yes.

It was technically a car.

Yeah, it's a Neve. It's a neighborhood electric vehicle, is what it's technically called. But like, it just, I bleed blue, so he's like, it just wouldn't seem right to see you in a GTR, so.

I literally told him, like, you're being an idiot. I'm like, no, he's like, I'm thinking about, I think he said, did you say RS3? You're thinking about GTS, AMGs?

I was looking at, to stay forward, I was looking at the, yeah, the Focus RS.

Oh, and the Focus RS. I'm like, absolutely the f*** not. I'm like, compared, because your Mustang was making a 6, 5,700 at a time. I'm like, no, absolutely not.

I mean, yeah, the people that put 50 grand into an RS3 to make 1,000 are putting 50 grand into a Focus RS to make 550, 600.

Yeah.

It's insane.

I just was trying to go all wheel drive, right? And that was my Ford way to do it. But no, I think, like I said, I've been looking at BMWs. I think that'd be my next move.

Yeah, also blue.

Yeah.

The logo's blue.

Yeah, there you go. I do like, Yamaha's is my motorsports preference and their logo's blue, so I can just keep that thing going.

Yeah.

Yeah, well on that note, where can people find you? Let's start with you, Rat.

Well, I don't really have a social media thing other than my Facebook, but find Ratified on there, I guess. Ratified MN is my IG. I guess I run that. That's really all I ever have on.

Facebook, just Sam Moran and then Instagram is S4 underscore Hova, H-O-V-A.

You know, I think of you every single time I listen to Jay-Z now.

Yep, H-O-V-A, though.

Every single time. It's ridiculous, it's ridiculous.

I didn't even know what Hova meant until I asked him. I was like, I don't understand it, I don't get it.

He wouldn't get it.

Yeah, you are like a handful of years younger than me, too. I mean, I grew up a little bit more Jay-Z, but.

Aren't I older than you?

No.

How old are you?

I turn 25 this next month. Yeah, I'm a youngin. Yeah.

I didn't know.

Yeah.

What are we talking about? Social media?

Social media.

Where were we at again?

Pretty much everything besides Instagram is just my name, Trae Moua, and then Instagram is single Turbo Nagi.

You ever gonna change that?

Yeah, I was gonna say, will that ever change?

Dude, I made a post and I asked like what I should change it to if I changed it, and I got like literally 30 messages telling me that they were gonna just like unfollow me and block me if I changed my name. I was like, Jesus, all right, I guess I'm keeping it.

It's not the end of the world. Like I actually tell people to block me. I'm like, oh, you don't like this? Block me, I don't care. There's 100 million car enthusiasts worldwide at least.

So you build a name, like if it's not affecting your page or anything anyway, it's not a huge deal.

There's that too, but it is catchy.

Yeah, it just basically became like my trademark, I guess, in a sense. It's like people call me that in public sometimes still, and I'm like, okay.

Well, sweet on that. Oh yeah, Dan, Gunner Garage everywhere with two ends. I got you. Well, sweet, I'm glad we were able to finally do this Ratified After Hours sort of deal. It was just kind of a little all over the place, but I think we covered all the platforms and all the stuff you guys do and support. I don't know, did I miss anything? Did we miss anything?

No, I don't think so, except for half of my.

I don't think you understand how much of a f****** nightmare that's going to be to edit, dude. But yeah, thanks for coming along for the ride, guys. We're coming up really close to episode 100.

Oh yeah, and thanks for having us here, letting us. I know it's been the summer of travel, so we've been doing a lot of stuff at BIR and trying to hit every event they got going.

We've been using your room as a casting couch, so we're good.

That's fine. Enjoy them chairs.

I do want to do some more upgrades to that room at some point. I have too many people saying it looks like Rogan's setup, which I'm like, all right, sorry, the DL Vaughn setup was sold out, but yeah, it's okay. We'll figure it out. We're gonna make it look spicy. But thanks for coming on, guys. Dan, thanks for existing. And we'll see y'all next time. Oh yeah.