91. Optima Ultimate Street Car Challenge, DIY Maintenance, Track Days, w/ Jay Horta "Car Bodega"

Sometimes an inch matters, you know?

An inch does matter. I'm glad that we are starting the episode off with an inch of mattering. Hello ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back to the Minnoxide podcast. I'm your host, Harris, AKA Minnoxide, man of many automotive aspirations. I'm really getting sick of that part of the intro. We're gonna have to switch it up. If anybody has suggestions, let's hear it. But I'm here with, well, we're back at the Ratified studio, so this is different. It's been a while, man, we've been on the road. But I'm here with my cohost, Dan, AKA Gunner Garage, with some new wheel damage. We'll talk about it later, don't worry about it.

I didn't think you were gonna bring it up right away.

It's okay, we're all about damaged goods, and that's why today we have.

That should be my title.

Damaged goods?

Yeah, just damaged goods, that's it.

So we got Jay from Car Bodega here. Car.Bodega, depending on the platform. But I think we just got back from the Optima's Ultimate Street Car Challenge. It is a mouthful, I get it wrong.

It's a lot.

But that was a pretty awesome event. That was my first time being a bit of a pit crew at said event, and then you guys were actually competing. So basically you guys were just yelling at me, Harris grabbed that. But it worked really well. You guys had a great time. You got third in your class.

Yeah.

Just pretty cool. That's not, yeah, yeah, let's just keep the total.

There was more than three.

It was five. Which I like, do we have to include out of five in there?

No, you were still doing pretty good. I mean, compared to what you were running against, that was still.

It is worth noting, right? In a car that's half the horsepower, you're only 10 seconds behind on cars that had double the horsepower.

Yeah.

Like that, that's not too shabby. What?

Did you say 10ths or 10 seconds?

Seconds. On a track.

Oh, oh, oh, okay, yeah, yeah.

On a track that's very horsepower-oriented, that's not bad at all.

Yeah, it has really long straights.

Yes.

That's really scary.

So, to give people a little bit of a background, we just came back from Road America. That's the Optima Ultimate Street Car Challenge. Getting it right still, right? Yep. It's a tongue twister, if you're a newbie to it. But anyways, they basically traveled the country hosting this event. It's kinda, so, Dan, tell us a little bit about it, because I'm gonna mess this up. What's everything that's included? You got road course, autocross.

Road course, autocross, what they call the peak performance stop box. I think that's just because they sponsor it. So anyway, you got the stop box, and then road course. Oh, and road rally.

Rally, a 10 minute drive up the street.

Well, they do that just to, so people that wanna trailer their race car, the whole road rally is just to prove that you brought a street car.

Yes.

Yep, and we talked about that with Tim DeCestro when he was on this episode, episode 71 or whatever it was. I'm starting to forget them now, but he was talking about like, yeah, is it really a street car if you have to trailer it everywhere? You know what I mean? So I think the road rally is a good way to get around it, and granted 10 minutes is a little short. Let's do a three hour rally and then we'll see.

Yeah, I thought it was gonna be about an hour.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.

Like an hour out, an hour back. We're in the middle of nowhere.

But I get it, in interest of time. There's so much road.

Yeah. That night we had a lot of time.

I don't know, it seemed like it was like we had one thing after another. I barely got to sit down in a trailer for 10 minutes, and I was like, okay, now we gotta get ready, or we gotta go do this. Yeah.

But it was a really cool event, right? Because you have, you know, I don't even know how they've managed to fit everything in that weekend, because you had Transand, then you had the TA2 series, then you had both, which is technically F3, F4, but not really series, because it's like the American version, the F1600 and the F2000, which is four, damn. So I don't even know how they were running all these series.

It was a lot.

But I think it was super cool. I did enjoy watching you run. That video, that one viral of you sliding it, what's turn 14 called, besides turn 14?

I can never remember any of these.

I don't know. There's so many tracks and so many turns.

Turn 14 is the last run before you come into the big straight, right?

It's the last left, and then you kind of go through a little bit of a slalom, and then the right to the big straight. And that, I didn't know how dangerous of a turn that was, but multiple people, after that, messaged me and said, hey, you're kind of lucky you didn't just go straight into that wall. And I'm like, I didn't even know that was an option.

What's crazy, though, is when you started losing it, I mean, you got it, and then you popped the awesome fireball.

Ooh, fireball.

I said that on purpose, by the way. But when you lost it, I'm like, oh damn, I've never seen somebody spin out that way before. Because usually, on that corner, at least on iRacing, which is a sim, not a game, when I lose it on that corner, it's usually oversteer to the right, and then as I'm entering onto the straight.

That was a special.

How did you like that Garmin, by the way?

I can do the impossible. That was actually really cool. I was really happy. It's like in iRacing when you hit tab or whatever and it shows the Delta, is what it's called. You can tell how not good at racing I am.

Well, you drive, it's okay.

So it shows the Delta, and I always have that on in iRacing because I like to see every turn, and I'm also really slow mentally. So if I hit a turn 10 seconds later, I'll forget where I hit my mark, but if I'm watching the Delta, I kind of do it, do the turn, and I look at the Delta and kind of watch my, either if it's going red or green, I can right away figure out, like program myself sooner or later. It was really cool seeing that.

Now, you can also take that if you want to have it honorably coach you too as you go along, which is kind of a new deal, which we didn't play around with.

We didn't play around with that. So explain, how does that work?

I think it takes your optimal, so you have to run the track a couple times so it gets an idea of how you drive and what the course layout is, and then it's supposed to, because it tells you, if you would have braked, braked? Broked it? Braked it? Brake? If you would break, what, 38 feet later, whatever. So then I think it just tells you that, hey, don't brake right here, try braking here.

So as you're driving, let's say you're going into turn five, the scariest of corners in my opinion, does it audibly tell you, brake?

It's supposed to. I never tested it.

I tested it, and when you do the test audio, it says, next turn, brake sooner and turn in sooner, whatever. It was saying stuff that it was talking in the future. So it would assume as you come up to a turn, it looked at your last lap, and it's like, hey, by the way, just a reminder, idiot.

It's kind of like when your GPS is going haywire, and it's like three streets over, and it keeps telling you to do a U-turn. Just imagine that going haywire. I mean, it can't, because it's pre-made or whatever, but it would be hilarious if it was live.

It's surprisingly really loud for what it was. I could hear it talking and doing stuff.

Wear your helmet.

Through the helmet, windows down. It's a really impressive unit. For $1,000, that's okay. I'm not gonna spend $1,000. I'll put my phone on the dash.

Hold on, we won't talk about it, but if there's a certain storm, we'll be getting a lot of them.

It's a slow year, it's a slow year.

But no, I think that was overall a good event. We managed to shave quite a bit of time off of yours, Dan. Six seconds from day one to day two after we were just literally, we sat down, because day one was kind of like a day to day. I think, well no, day one, it was just one practice session.

Day one was technically Friday, which was just the parade lap. Usually referring to Saturday, when we did practice.

Saturday was when I was able to run the Garmin, got it to record. Then we reviewed the data that night. I will say though that I hit a little bit of traffic, so I will attest definitely some of the time to the catalyst, for sure. I'm not saying it allotted for my full six seconds. The other thing was we were second ones on the track that morning, when I got my best laps. The car was running, it was just loving it. It was like 60, 70 degrees out, it was sunny. Car was running great. I had wide open.

That morning session was good. I wish I missed out on it.

I had just slammed a Jaco. Everything was clicking. I was limitless that movie.

Which is hilarious, because he's bringing up the traffic. He's like, well, everything went perfect, but traffic.

Well, that was day one, or Saturday.

That was on your practice.

We gotta know when to leave certain details out.

Plus, if I would have hit those numbers, I probably would have been in the red group, which I didn't really want to be in.

Which I don't know how I ended up in the red group, because I was also behind.

You were at the bottom of the red group, though.

Yeah, but I'm still on varsity. If I'm benched on varsity, you're kind of still there.

Okay, you know what? I like that analogy.

I mean, I was behind these giant boats, which I don't understand how they're pairing certain classes when they do the practice session, but I was behind 1980 trucks.

Yeah.

Big boys.

Well, what I think it might have been...

We're still pulling 230s, though.

Yeah, they were still wearing break bags, though.

Which is crazy, right? I think that's almost because I'd imagine they're making it up on the straights, compared to you.

Yeah, and it...

I think if you lift them off of there, too, the chassis underneath those things are not anywhere near...

They're pretty well built. Yeah, they were really fast on the straights.

They're probably lighter than your f****** mom.

Which is hard. I think overall, I didn't check the final results because I couldn't find the final results from the race.

I know where I came in. I don't remember where you came in.

I don't know where the race, how they landed on that, but I know as far as practice, I just like, I was right on them. The straights, they'd leave, but by the first second turn, it was like, you're right on them again. And that was just kind of frustrating.

Yeah, that's definitely... Well, that's also a power driven track, right? Like this is like the brain and competition course. It would have been... You would have placed completely differently, for example.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm curious. What's the next one? I know that one of the next guests we have coming up, he actually got invited to the SEMA Optima Invitational.

Oh yeah, yeah.

So I know that's one of where the other events are, but this is like a regional thing too, which is pretty cool. I haven't looked into it too much, but...

Yeah, I don't know either.

Yeah, this is gonna be one of those attend every year events though, just because as a spectator, even though I wasn't participating on the track stuff, it was really fun. Like to obviously record you guys, I was on the back of the Vespa with Jared.

It was a good weekend. And it's kind of crazy to think that there's people, first of all, that's pretty expensive to just do that kind of racing in general. And then second of all, in just that one weekend, I'm like, God, this was expensive. And there's people that are just, they travel with them and just do that ultimate street car. I looked at the stats of like, who did what on whatever track events. And there was people that had done like five or six out of eight events that they'd done so far.

Right, which same thing applies to like grid life, for example, right? Like if you want to do a whole season, it's definitely expensive. But if you're doing one, is it pricey? Depends on how you look at it, but it is. I think it is. But you also get your money's worth, right?

Well, I feel like what we paid for the weekend, I had an absolute blast.

Yeah, you know what, you're right.

And if you're traveling with them, it definitely could get expensive.

Right, well, it's kind of like if you look at like, Crown Rally in 2018, 19, when it was about anywhere from two and a half to four and a half for a ticket. Like, is it expensive?

Yeah.

Is it a f****** blast? Yeah. Well, it checks out, you know? So I get it, right? Whereas, you know, sometimes we've done some of these like cheaper events, you know, or I've even run cheaper events. It's like, it's different, right? It's a different level of, it goes from hobby to real serious real quick.

Yeah, I didn't think I'd be as competitive as I am in like racing and stuff. So.

Oh, f*** off.

So while we're segueing into that, I have your overall standings. You want to know where you came out?

Give it to me.

So out of a hundred cars, that was what we had there, right? You came in 45th. What?

No way.

And Justin, who was with us, came in 46th, and I came in 40th.

That's not bad.

No way. So we're like slightly above average.

Who's in the top 40? Because I don't think that-

Mike Broush is up there. He's like 25th.

That's insane. It can give me like an old classic car.

Hold on, is that just for road course?

I want to know road course.

Okay, I can get you the road course.

Because autocross is really hard in that RX-7. I don't even think we talked about what we drive.

Yeah, so Jay has both, what year is your R8, 2011?

2011 V10 R8. You gotta say the V10. You can't-

Yeah, and then you also got a 93 FD RX-7, which we will get into the details of that build at some point, but you guys are both struggling on autocross for you because we'll explain what issues we're having.

That's a track car, like big course car, and it does, I think, very well on the road course. It is, what I've learned, not an autocross car, and the reason is because maybe I just don't know how to drive it. I definitely don't know how to drive it, but I don't know if this is why I have this issue. Like, first gear, you know, when you first get a car, you don't know what noises it makes, you don't know what it's supposed to do or not do, and you kind of careful with stuff, because you're like, this might be great.

Sounds like every relationship ever, too. You don't know what noises it makes, it does not do.

So I just can't get into first, unless you're going slower than like eight, seven miles an hour. In an autocross, like once you get into second, and you're rolling, when you have to get into first, you're going like 10, 15, you know? And so, but that's also too slow for second. So it's like perfect storm where it's like too slow for second, but I'm going too fast to get into first. So yeah, it's that bop, that brawl, and I'm making, like I say, one wheel torque in that car. And-

If you can't get your, in an autocross, if you can't get your car back into first gear, that's like-

Game over.

Yeah, you could have shaved so much time off that it would be able to do that.

Game over for that.

Well, it wouldn't be a problem, right, if he had that low end torque in second, right?

Yeah, so no torque.

Right, because you could do the whole course in second.

Yeah, I could in my orange car for sure, shifting. I guess I didn't really-

Gearing's a big thing too, right? But my first gear would have almost worked, but I don't know if you guys could hear me when I was on the autocross. My best session, I just stayed in first, so.

Hold on, dyno run. So that is one of the things that, that was a really quiet car.

We should have a dyno cam. Just switches over to the dyno.

That's a good idea. I should have a dyno cam.

Let's just see what, you know.

I'm gonna talk to Trey about that. That's a really good idea.

You set up a camera down there while you're recording?

I'm too lazy to edit it, but we'll see if we can make it happen.

Just every time when you got the thing, it just pops in.

Yeah, yeah. Like alarms, brrrr, brrrr.

That's a really good idea, dude.

So I was in first, and then going around, and on that course, I was like, I'm just gonna rev bang it. Like, brrrr, brrrr, brrrr, brrrr. And I know the turn's coming up, and I'm not gonna go in a second, because I know I'm gonna have to brrrr, brrrr, brrrr. So I just go through a turn, and brrrr, brrrr, brrrr, brrrr, and then slow down.

And then brrrr, brrrr, brrrr, brrrr, brrrr. These are not the noises we're normally hearing when we have podcasts. There's not a lot of like silence.

For a brief moment, I want you to imagine the listener, and this is turned up in their car, and their windows are down, and then the car next to them just looks over, and they just hear it, brrrr, brrrr, brrrr. I really want somebody, if I get to the point where, cause I'm not doing it, if I can get somebody to go through all 100 episodes when I get to episode 100, and get every funny noise and make a compilation. Cause there's been some hilarious noises on the show. But yeah, no, I heard you rev banging it all the time. Like it was very obvious. And like, I think even one of the videos I sent you, I'm like, what's this idiot doing? But it makes sense, right?

Yeah, that's the only way that it could be quicker. It's like second gear. You just lose way more time.

What if you went to, the thing is, is those RX7s, they're really, they love high RPM.

Yeah, that's the other thing. If you can't, like you said, get back into first, cause they want to be, like it's not even coming alive till four grand.

Yeah, I'm happy with the car. I, well, we were talking about doing the T56 Magnum swap, which like I really want to do. And I'm getting the full package built out. Actually, I should get an email today with the turnkey cost. I gotta install it, but it's pretty much everything. Clutch, transmission, the T, Sten knows more about T6060 is what it is. The T56 Magnum is some other transmission.

It's the TR6060 and the T56 are basically the same. The same, yeah.

So, that clutch, throw out bearing, the cylinder, the master cylinder for the clutch.

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All that stuff for like $7,500, which I feel like is not bad. But then it's kind of like, then I step back and I'm like, I'm throwing all my money in a hooptie. I'm throwing $8,000 in a $30,000 car, and I'm that guy that I judge, you know what I mean?

Yeah, but you also just bought yourself seconds on the track and better standings. I mean, yeah.

From now on, by the way, any time you get a potential spam, we're answering it.

Yeah, all right.

I think so.

That happens about 42 times a day, so.

No, my dad would mess with spam callers sometimes.

Oh, I do it all the time.

But, because one of the things you could consider is, did you ever figure out what size turbo's on there or no?

No, I just bought the car, and I just haven't, every car I get, I don't stick to the same type of car. Like, I either get a classic or now like super car that's like V10 naturally aspirated. I had an I8. Yeah, I had a Camaro, which is a V8. Don't worry, I'm sorry to hear that. I8 hybrid, it was like a three cylinder turbo, but then it's got a hybrid system.

That's by the way, the worst car you've ever owned, I'm sure.

I love that car.

Really?

I have a friend, Victor Wong, he has an Aventador. I think it's an SVJ or maybe an SV. And he...

It might be a cheeseburger Aventador with fake stickers.

No, it's definitely not. It's not cheeseburger style. But he talks about how he misses I8 all the time, and I miss it, honestly.

As a cruiser, I'm sure it crushed.

It was great. And a lot of people don't know it has launch control. Like, a lot of people don't know you hit the right buttons, you put your foot on the brake, full gas, a little race flag comes out, and that thing... Okay, maybe it doesn't like pull, but it pulls all right, you know?

Or something with a three-cylinder.

I had a blast in that car. But my point is every car I've gotten has been different, and now I'm in a rotary.

Hold on, everybody else I've talked to, well, it's like 50-50 with the IA8s, right? For some people, it's the dream car. But I've heard mixed reviews. Some people like you love them. Other people are like, it's the worst sounding, it's the worst performing. Just every long list.

Those are people that don't own them.

No, those are people who have owned them. I know somebody who absolutely hates them. I'm not gonna say who it was. I just did a large project for them. But they had an IA, and they're like, I need to get rid of this thing immediately.

I liked it. I don't know, I'm weird. There's some stuff, quirky stuff that I like. Yeah, I like the unique, quirky stuff, you know?

Yeah. And you don't see a whole lot of them out there, that's for sure.

And I was in Austin, Texas, and down there, I was in a big super car group, and we'd go out with 720s and GT3RSs, and you'd see my I8 hanging with everybody.

It does look more impressive than it actually is.

Slide this over just the hair. You're getting a left shift. No, I mean, you can shift, too. No, one of the funniest things, especially when I'm editing this podcast, is I see people favor one side. Like Dan's a left sider. I'm just thinking, like, all right.

Well, I got this huge wallet in my right pocket, which I know you're yelling at me all the time.

That's horrible for you. PSA, by the way, having your wallet, like while you're sitting, like that's literally one of the fastest ways to destroy your back. Like by seven, you're done.

Yeah.

I didn't think there was any more people that existed that were back pocket walleters. You know?

That's our generation, dude.

Yeah, like I'm a front pocketer. I think that's solely front pocket stuff.

Yeah, you can't pickpocket us. Like, I mean, you can if you really tried, but like, for example, if you go to like Germany, they're really known for like their pickpocketers apparently. Like for their tourists. And I was like sitting here thinking like, hey, I'm a front pocketer.

I'm just trying to show off these glutes, man.

Maybe that's what it is. I don't have an a** at all whatsoever, so I'm just trying to.

Dan just stuff's two big wallets in his pockets.

What a f****** catfish.

Yeah.

Yeah, but so anyways, back to the RX-7, back to like, would you consider a smaller turbo then?

I don't think this, so maybe I would get a lot more power on the low end. I think just gearing is a thing, but.

You'd lose the top end though.

I auto-cross the R8, so I don't mind keeping the R8 as an auto-cross car. It's fun to still drive it and track it. I know it's controversial of auto-cross, it's tracking or not, whatever. But I like to take that out and play with it and see what its limits are. So I almost want to keep the R8 as an auto-cross car and the RX-7 as a full track car.

Gotcha, one for 46th place and the other one, okay.

The other one for 47th, yeah. So I'm happy with that. It just kills me when there are events that have auto-cross or dragging included. When we were at TTS and I took the RX-7, that thing was rough to look at.

I like those though, because then you get, I don't know, I like having things that are versatile, right? So yeah, they may not be great in any one thing, but there's ways that like, there's cars that show up that are better at drag and suck at road course too. So it all kind of evens itself out by the end of the event.

The problem is I was bad at everything, so.

Well, you did okay at road course. I gotta keep trying.

Road course was good. I didn't have, no, you're good. I didn't have, what I found out was 200 treadwear tires, they're not created equal. And that's something that I learned out there. I was tracking and I was like, how is a Piero, Mr. Pucci, in a 200 horsepower crank, 200 horsepower FRS, beating my over 300 wheel RX-7, and we have the same tires and everything, and granted, he is a way better driver, but he was doing like a lot better than me, and I was like, I feel like it shouldn't be that much of a difference. And I know he'd probably still be faster than me, but.

In every way possible, yes.

Yeah, even if I did have the exact same tires, but I found out then that I was running endurance tires that are like lapping tires, which were the K Plus's Ventura, something like that, K Plus's. I'm not a tire guy, so I don't know.

Versus what was he doing?

He was running whatever other tire that was not that. That was more of a track tire.

So like different compounds, same tread width or whatever.

Same treadwear, which doesn't make sense to me. I would assume treadwear is treadwear. Like it's the stickiness, how much it grabs. But no, so now I'm running RE71RS's, which are way better. And I know we were pretty close in time in Road America, but you were running.

300 treadwear.

Yeah, like some street tires.

Yeah, if you think that he's got a video of you sliding, he's got videos of me all over the track.

Like the video I posted on your Instagram.

Oh yeah.

Did you like that one?

The cone one?

The cone one was hilarious. I got a video of him bipping a cone like 20 feet.

The mail came to me, and you can edit this out or not if you want, but she came to me, she's like, I don't like what hair is posted. It's kind of nasty. And I'm like, I read it, and I was like, he didn't mean to put that word. It's supposed to be cone. And she's like, oh, that makes way more sense.

What was the word? Oh, nevermind.

I didn't even realize it, and then she texted me. I'm like, oh, change it.

Did you like fat finger the keyboard and put an M on it?

Am I a model corrected?

Because you know what's, I was like, Harris can be nasty if he's not that nasty to post it on there.

No, I'm not.

It's like a Brazzers title for a GT500. Yeah, exactly.

No, I will never do anything with anyone else's content that I won't do with my own. Like, I don't like to scratch that. Actually, I'm such a f****** hypocrite because I just put that no more nut title on it. Okay, I'm a hypocrite. Nevermind, take that back. But like, I wouldn't do that on your page. Yeah, so, Cohen corrected to come. It's okay.

Was it C-U-M or C-O-M-E?

No, it was C-O-M-E. That's why I was like, no, definitely.

I feel like you could, you know. But yeah, tires.

Yeah.

Tires are not all created equal, and I think.

It is crazy.

It's helped me a lot. And so, I forgot where we were going with all of this.

Well, that Dan has a, you had a street tire, right? The reason you had PS4s, right, is because you do rallies and all these other things. You like it to be streetable, but now you're considering getting yourself a track set of tires for events like that, because I think you easily could have shaved a second or two.

So much more fun.

Yeah.

A lot more fun.

But, dude, that afternoon session, some people were eating it.

It was greasy out there, it was hot.

Yeah, I mean, sorry, continue.

No, you go ahead.

It sucks. I didn't even get a morning session. I didn't get a morning session, and I'm really upset, because people were flying off the track on the afternoon session, and I'm like, seems like there was more grip in the morning. So, I was pretty upset about that, and I was sliding around, but I guess I was happy with my time.

What was the issue in the morning again?

Before I answer that, was your fastest time in the morning or afternoon?

It was in the morning. You would have probably killed it that morning, and we got a lot of laps. I've got three or four in.

Yeah, so I'm gonna, I wanna say that I'd be, instead of 45th, I'd maybe be like 43rd if I got a morning session. But, yeah, so morning race session, what, a vacuum hose blew off?

Yeah, your-

A banjo bolt came loose.

Banjo bolt came loose on your vacuum actuator for your wastegate.

Yeah, and so it was pumping like 30 PSI into the motor.

Yeah, your wastegate was basically not opening.

It was like a full, yeah, it wasn't opening. It was like throwing full boost. And I was going around and all of a sudden, the car was getting like almost like a fuel cut. The only reason I know what that felt like in the RX-7 was I was getting a fuel cut at Brainerd because I was running it too low. So we were going around and all of a sudden you hear like, uh, buh, like, you know, I'm on the throttle and I know I wasn't at the top of the RPM range. And just, it just felt weird, but I was like, I'm just gonna go with it, whatever. I know I had fueled up before that session, so I probably should have slowed down and known, luckily I didn't blow the motor. But, uh, looked down and it was hitting 30 PSI. And I was like, that's not great.

I mean, kudos to that car though, for eating up an extra 10 PSI boost and not blowing up.

Dude, I'm sure like 15.

It really wasn't, yeah, it wasn't, uh.

It's only tuned to 15 PSI. So it's like eating double and I was only running, it was supposed to be at 12. And so, yeah, it was put in almost 20 PSI.

193 octane too.

Yeah, and like, so, yeah, it was getting almost like a fuel cut issue and then lots of smoke. So I pull over, I pit, a guy comes up to me and he's like, hey, are you trying to get out? Cause we're getting calls that there's a lot of smoke coming out. I was like, thanks buddy. I kind of figured that out, you know? Pull over and I was freaking out. I was like, I blew a turbo, you know?

Oh, your day was done. I think I got my video, right? Yeah, we'll see the video soon.

Yeah, I was very distraught. But I was kind of excited, because I was like, this is the track line. Fix your car by the next race session, you know? We got trailers and we got quick jacks and tools, and that's all we need.

And all we had to do was tighten a bolt.

Yeah, and like, it's already like this bolt came loose, you know?

I literally got him on the phone. I was like, what the f*** happened? He's like, I blew my engine up.

Oh yeah, I think the tech said, I'm done, car's toast.

Yeah, I was pretty dramatic. I'm like a spicy queen sometimes, you know? Like a drama queen.

So, you know, I really would like to get like an FD expert or like a rotary expert on the show, right? Cause like, you know, when you bring up that, you know, being up to 30 PSI, like I can't imagine rotaries have the same end result from knock, right?

They don't, so we're gonna get totally lit up in the comments, cause none of us know anything about them, but yeah.

You should be like a disclaimer.

Yeah, but there's no like, by the way.

Right, but I don't know, I'm out of my depth here.

I haven't compression tested it yet, and it was probably a bad idea to not check the health of the engine before running the next race, and we were just like, well, let's just tie in this bolt and jump back on a racetrack.

That's what you import guys do, you just oil down the track for everybody else. I get it.

I was just like, I'm looking for a reason to buy a new motor.

Yeah, I could tell that from having conversations where you're like, I already priced out everything.

Yeah, I was like, a new race motor from Australia was like $9,000.

Except when it gets time to spend it, you'll be like, oh no.

You're right. So it was like, it got kind of nervous, but we just tightened the bolts and we were just like, it runs fine. I guess we're gonna find out. And it ran fine. I didn't really feel a loss of power. And I think that's what you feel when you lose seals is like, I guess you're getting-

You'll probably notice more smoke, more than that.

Oh, definitely was getting more smoke. I was in the pit area and smoke was like passing me going the right. It just rolled on my window like, I don't know who that guy is. So I don't, there's sometimes you hear noises and you're like, has that been there? Am I just noticing? You know, am I just noticing it? Or is it a new noise? And it starts like, you start getting your head. There's these like, weird demons talking to you. It's like, your car's gonna break.

Anytime there's a little shake or a wobble to you, you're like, oh f***, I got a hub assembly going out.

We got that at the-

Did you get at a different road service? You're like, okay, nevermind.

Yeah, well, we had that at TTS. My shifter was jumping up eight inches.

Oh, that's right.

Well, we did find some stuff wrong with that. More loose bolts. We can talk about that.

Sure, tell us about it.

Well, I was gonna say we can wait, but-

I think you should get ahold of Loctite as a sponsor for your-

Right, I'm losing a lot of bolts.

Yeah.

Holy s***.

So it happens on lawn mowers and weed whips. They shake apart.

Yeah, they shake apart. Definitely don't wanna. Oh, yeah, it's Loctite, yeah. I need to start just jumping straight to, which one's the strong one, the blue one?

The red one.

The red one, we just need to jump straight to red at this point.

Just dip the bolts in it and then bolt them on.

So Brainerd, what happened? We did a couple sessions, and then all of a sudden my shifter was jumping up. My shifter was in my hand, and just all of a sudden I'd get on power, and it would just come up like this. And I'm like, that guy is running away or dicking. Yeah, it was like, I was in my hand, and it was just kind of moving on me. I was like, hey buddy, I barely know you.

We just met.

This is my first time taking you out, literally. So, and that was literally my first time taking the car out. So it was jumping and you go into the car, and I'm like, the motor mount was loose.

Yep, there's a cross member that goes from the rear diff all the way up to the transmission.

Yeah, yeah, that one, that's called the PPF. But not only that, the literal motor mount, where it comes through, it kind of goes through the motor, two bolt holes through the motor comes out, and then it goes through the subframe, those bolts were loose. So I assume it was letting it kind of rock a little bit. We saw that, and we're like, oh, this is bad. And then we went to the back of the car, and the PPF bolt was also, I think it was loose, right? It wasn't gone.

No, but it was, it might have been like, I could turn it with my hands. There was like a good three quarter inch gap between the head and where it should have been.

I was turning it, I was like, is this supposed to spin like this? We tied that, and then we found a crack. Do we find the crack? No, I found the crack afterwards. There was a small hairline crack on the PPF mount now. And then after Brainerd got home, I was at Puro's shop, and we were preparing for Road America. And there was a bolt missing from that same setup, from that PPF mount. It was completely missing. So I've lost a lot of bolts, and then the banjo bolt came loose. So the guy that sold me the car that's an engineer, he literally said, before you attract the car, after every session, make sure all the bolts are tight.

Oh, really? We're just now hearing this information.

Yeah, kind of just glossed over that, you know, you get something with instructions, you're like, ah, f*** it. He's like, you should do all these things. He gave me a list.

It's an honest question, though. When you go to Ikea, you don't keep the directions.

I raw dog it, dude. I raw dog it, and s***'s upside down and inside out. And I'm like, is the door supposed to open in to the cabinet? It seems like I can't even put s*** in there because when I close it, it just puts everything out. Yeah, I raw dog a lot of stuff. Whoa. Just life in general.

Hey, man, I judge people who raw butt toilet seats, man.

I get it. Yeah, we don't have to get into that. I'm one of those people.

Hashtag staff infection. Continue.

It's a great car. Honestly, that RX-7, a lot of people were like, oh, you're gonna have a lot of issues.

Well, as we're just got done listing some of your issues.

A lot of issues, which that's not even the full list. We're halfway there. It's been a great car. It seems durable.

There's still some simplicity to it, though. When you really pop open the hood and get underneath the car and do all this stuff, hey, buddy. Yeah. It's really not, everything that we've done, as you've done, has been able to been a pretty quick fix, too. It's not been, so far.

People say pop the hood, and they're like, let's look at the motor. I'm like, dude, there's nothing under there. It's like a little f******, Just two alternators. It's like, yeah, just looking at the cylinder that goes to the back. There's nothing to it. And it's got the blue hoses and stuff that are like 1990, you know, early 2000s Fast and Furious. Yeah, but then now the car's red, and now I look like I have a bad style.

Well, pink or orange or depending.

Depending on the day, the clouds.

Whichever color of duct tape we picked up from the car. Yeah.

We're bouncing around like crazy, but that car is great. I've had fun with it. It's definitely been a fun car to learn on, and I'm excited to take the motor part when I have to, when the time comes. I haven't compression tested it.

I think you're a glutton for punishment, man.

Dude, I love it.

But I think you're the creative type. Like you like to disassemble stuff. And this is why I want to talk about the R8 as well, right? Because on your channel, I'm glad you're documenting this stuff too, because you're doing, after you got a hefty bill, we won't say who, you're just like, I'm gonna tear into this myself.

Are we just going into the R8?

Yeah, I think it's fair enough. Well, you can bounce between the R8 and the RXM, but my point here is, is you're not scared to get into weeds and figure it out.

No, I'm just stupid. I found out it's not because I'm smart. 2011 R8, 55,000 miles now, I think. Maybe a little bit over.

Brand new.

I mean, the RX-7 has over 100,000 miles. I feel like it's pretty new compared to the RX-7. That thing has not had a check engine light. It has not not had a check engine light since the day I've had it, pretty much. Like I bought it off the lot, and it was like Christmas. It was and it's celebrated. Yeah, unfortunately, all year, apparently. It was a check engine light, and at first it was an EVAP. So the R8, I've heard they're bulletproof motors. And when they say motor, they're literally talking about just the metal. Yeah, everything else around it, everything around the metal just sucks. And so, yeah, 2011 R8 got it, and it was an EVAP issue that when I bought the car, the guy said he fixed it. He sent me a bill from Red Rush. Maybe I shouldn't say who it is. A shop in North Dakota, wherever I bought it from. Anyways, and it said it was fixed. Oh, we didn't find any issues or they fixed it or whatever. Well, I test drove the car like 60 miles before I bought it. But I should have got one of those fancy readers, not the ones that can read every car, but there's Audi specific ones that can read into every module. I should have connected it, bought that and checked everything out. But the car's been great so far. I took it to a couple of shops after that, and they can figure out where the EVAP was coming from. So it basically lived with that most of its life until this winter.

For those of us that are silly geese, not me, what's EVAP stand for again?

Emissions, vapor. This is bad.

Yeah, it's just something that's not good.

It controls the fumes for the gas tank, right? You recycle fumes. It's so that you're not expelling gases into the environment.

That damn polar bears again.

It's lived with that its whole life. And then I try to launch control it a week into having it.

Which you should be able to do, though, technically. It's not like you have to own it a certain amount of time before you can play with launch control.

Yeah, well, I took one friend on a ride. He's a friend slash client. And so I took him on a ride, and I was like, I don't want to launch control it because I want to be careful in the car. But then there's those people that they're like, come on, I bet you can't do it. You're like, call me a b**** one more time. I'm not sure how much we can curse here.

You've heard everything I said. You're good.

So I took one of my buddies on a test drive and went to another buddy's place and want to see you trick, you know, and try to launch control it. And you just look back into the motor area, you know, and it's full of smoke. So I launch it and he's like, and you're like, not even you're going like 20 in first gear and it's like redlining and you're like, this doesn't look normal. Look back and it's just full of smoke, full and then look back at the dash, it's like clutch overheat. And so I think from that, I fried the clutch position sensor because it probably got really hot and fried the sensors right next to it. So whatever, I had that issue come up and I've just been slowly fixing the issues that have been building up. I'm very much the type to be like, it'll run fine. So over winter, when I went back home to Texas, I bought me a set of Quick Jacks, which I love.

Which was a hit at the track, by the way. People were coming by to take a picture.

What is that? I was like, well, you never seen a chunk of metal before?

No, it was kind of surprising how few people knew what Quick Jacks were.

They're great. So, I went home and, oh, so throughout this process of having engine issues, I took it to a shop and I was quoted $42,000 to fix the issues it had.

And whole RX-7, by the way.

Yes. A whole, yeah, a whole RX-7, which is why we now have the RX-7. So I was quoted $42,000 to fix them, and here's my thing, like, I educate myself as much as possible when I have a car because I want to...

As everyone should, because you don't want to get...

Taking advantage of.

Yeah.

And you don't know, and like, this RX-8, it's just a car at the end of the day. People are scared of it, but it is a little bit complex when you start thinking about how it, like, this hydraulic shifting mechanism, that has its own complexities. But luckily, online, like, that car has been sought after by enthusiasts for a while. Sorry, I'm drifting. That car has been sought after by enthusiasts for a while, now that they're so cheap. And you have a lot of people that have started to document a lot of the, you know, components and the systems. And so I found how the hydraulic system works. Went in, I'm like, okay, it has a pump and it goes over to three different actuators and it has an accumulator that, you know, because hydraulics, you can't really store pressure, so they use an accumulator that has like air in between and it kind of stores pressure that way. I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's my understanding of it. So I kind of educated myself on this, took it to a shop, and they're quoting me a new transmission. And I have the reader that I can read the VCDS, whatever, it's like a special computer that you can read every module. And I can see it says, clutch position sensor, loss of pressure internally, because I know there's no fluid on the ground. It's just losing pressure within that hydraulic system. And it's pretty, once you understand the system, you're like, well, what holds pressure? You're like the pump can flow back into the tank, the accumulator isn't storing pressure, or those actuators are letting, you know, fluid through. Well, I was quoted a whole new transmission, which didn't come with sensors, doesn't come with a hydraulic shifting mechanism, doesn't come with anything that the car needs to fix it. And so, yeah, I was like, I'm just going to fix this myself. The other 20. So that was 23,000. The other 23,000 was basically like carbon cleaning it, carbon clean, fixing the evap, and then replacing some sensors behind the intake.

And you got that sorted too, right?

So I sold this, the first 23,000, which is like the motor area, I did that myself. So went home for winter. And I was like, my problem was that there was parts quoted that I felt like didn't need to be replaced. And I understand a shop's, you know, thoughts behind that. It's like, let's just replace everything while we're there. Because then if it's not that and we have to go do double labor, it's going to suck for you. Right. I mean, I'm sure they don't mind. They're like, oh, we just got to work on your car twice.

It varies.

But one, I don't trust people that work on my cars because you don't know you can trust it. Well, I own a business and I know people own businesses and you just never know who's actually working on your car. And so I felt like whoever diagnosed this didn't understand the system and they're just like, throwing everything at it. Oh, let's replace everything that's there. It took me 10 minutes on a forum figuring out like, hey, that one way valve getting stuck open. Oh, and then it had the one way valves getting stuck closed. So I went on a forum, there's this guy, this guy in Russia or something that documented it. And he's like, there's a one way valve under the intake that you have to take everything apart and just replace that 20 cent one way valve. And it fixes that code.

Yep.

And what I was being quoted was like $5,000 to replace a bunch of parts. It wouldn't even have fixed it because that wasn't even what was causing the issue. Another one was the sensors behind it.

I tell this to people all the time when they get into something like I don't know if you've joined any rotary pages yet on Facebook or any of that stuff. But as soon as you get something and you want to learn, get into the forums, get onto the Facebook page, there is a whole bunch of knowledge out there. People, if you think your s***'s broke, it's happened to somebody else before too.

It's really broke. And the forums have helped me a lot. So yeah, I took it home, I bought the parts, spent like $1,500, $2,000, and I took the intake apart myself. It was scary. I was kind of scared I would break something. But I think every car is relatively the same. You just got to be organized, which I'm not.

Yeah, you know. Neither am I.

Yeah, but I have seen both of your guys' garages. It's rough.

Yeah.

And thank God his is tiny. Yours is like your entire junkyard.

I just like, I was like, I'm going to do it. What's the worst that's going to happen? I'm going to take it to somebody anyways.

Right.

Right.

They'll replace the parts then once you got them in a bucket.

Yeah, I'm like, I already got it taken apart, you know? If anything, I've taken myself a little bit. But the way I see things is like, you know, if you try it and you fell, at least with fixing your car, the worst case is you take it to somebody anyways. So I took the intake apart. I carbon cleaned it myself, which I think was like $3,500 of that. I bought a walnut blaster at Harbor Freight, which is my s***. I love Harbor Freight. Because like they have the lifetime warranties and everything, just like everyone else. So I go to Harbor Freight, bought a walnut blaster, and that's it. Took the intake apart. I made sure the tape like got blue tape and just labeled every hose. So if it came off the intake on the intake side, A, A, B, B. When I forgot what did I mark B already, I start drawing a stick figure. Oh, this is the little man, you know, and then start drawing right dog on one of them. Dog, dog. And I labeled everything and took it apart, carbon clean it myself. And now I know about the car more, replace the sensor. So I fixed all those issues for about $1,500.

Well, that's a huge confidence booster for you as well to be able to know that you can get under there and be like, all right, I'll take a day of this and fix it.

It's empowering.

It's empowering.

You're like, something breaks. I f****** got this, man.

I am man. You just start beating your chest. You get that. You're like, yeah.

Like a monkey. You know, like a gorilla. You start like, you know, trying to get aggressive with your car, reminding it, who's the boss?

Yeah.

I'm going to take you apart right now. I will strip you down naked and embarrass you. Um, so we got monkey noises added to the list.

This is going to be full of so many highlights.

It's going to be great. I'm verbal. I've just kind of had to learn.

By the way, is this what I look like when I talk with my hands? Because I'm very, I talk with my hands a lot too.

I don't think you've ever punched the mic like he just did.

Yeah, once or twice. It's okay. I've hit myself in the face a few times on accident, but it happens.

Yeah.

That's part of the game. But no, that's one thing I noticed immediately about you is like, you're just like, oh, why don't I do it?

Yeah. I mean, I just, I've never been scared. I don't think anybody should be scared to work on their own stuff. It's nice, you know?

Well, hold on. Some of us only have one method of transportation.

Yeah. Yeah. If it's your only method, I'm fortunate enough where I have multiple vehicles and I have the finances to be like, if I break something or if I make it worse, I have the money to be like, OK, I'll go pay for my mistakes.

Right.

This year, it's a slow year for business, but, you know, this dude is doing the breaks in the morning on our way to Optima.

He's about to tow, you know, two race cars.

I know.

For six hours.

During the breaks myself. Yeah, it was rough.

I'm over there pumping.

He's like, pump? This year, it's a DIY. Like, I really got a DIY.

Well, you learn. So my knowledge of cars and stuff came from literally just not being able to afford to take mine to a shop to get cars fixed. So it was like I had to it was either I fixed it or a f***** s*** broke for a while.

Yeah, yeah.

To your point.

I kind of like the fact that you could take your car to a shop and you're still diving into it.

Well, one thing you had to that you pointed out earlier that you kind of touched on is like diagnosis is like a huge thing too, right? Like, that's one of the things that a rat here prides himself on. Like, that's why a dude has two shops now. Diagnosis is like his thing.

Like you got I would rather pay more in the diagnosis and then it might save me $10,000. And that's what it would have done with the trend. So they wanted to replace the transmission. When I learned about the system, it would have been a $300 sensor, the pump for the motor for the hydraulic system, $300, and the accumulator was $200. Let's say $1,000 in parts, and that fixes my transmission issue versus $23,000. I don't know about you. That sounds like a good deal, saving that, you know?

Race car math.

Yeah. I mean, I like it. So carbon cleaned it, fixed most of it. I haven't worked on the transmission issues yet. I have all the parts, though.

And what's the transmission issue currently?

That's the clutch position sensor and the hydraulics loss of pressure. It's not bad. The crystal drives.

But I was definitely nervous after I gave you that car back. Because remember, on our way back from the rally, I think, is when I drove it, right? I took it for a quick rip, and I f****** sent it. I did one time in auto and then one time with the paddle shifters. And I think in auto is when I banged it off the rev limiter, which is funny. I was like, uh oh. A lot of you guys know Ratified Motorsport for their RS3, TTRS, 1000 horsepower hairdresser car builds, but they are so much more than that. From basic maintenance on an R35 GTR to, you know, cute little Volkswagen GTIs like mine, they're able to do a little bit of everything, whether it's your basic maintenance or an intake in a tune or even a full blown build. Be sure to go to ratifiedmotorsport.com to get yourself booked today. And I hope to see you guys at the shop.

It's meant to be driven. I got that car because it's like. I want it to be used. I don't want to be like, oh, am I afraid to put miles on it? Am I afraid to go on a cruise?

I even know guys with salvage cars that don't want to put miles on their car. It really is sad.

Are we pointing about anybody in this room?

Up to 6,000 miles now, man. I got the car with 1200 miles.

No, I don't drive. So track it.

You don't want to drive it down to Texas, though. It's OK.

I wouldn't drive it down to Texas either.

That's a lot to go. Yeah.

I drove back to Texas in the R8. I have the s******** luck because when I was driving, it's a 20 hour drive. It rained the whole way. How is that possible? We got a whole country and it rained the whole way. I pull up the radar and there's a f****** cloud that goes from north to south. It's rectangular and right on 35 the whole way. I was like, I'm never driving this thing again down across the country. And granted, if it was sunny, I don't know, like straight highway drives aren't my thing. So I'm on Dan's side. Harris gives me s*** for trailing my car back and forth.

To be fair, though, like I'm kind of going over that hump. Like I turn 25 here at the end of this month and I do feel like I'm getting old at times.

You get older and you're like, let's save it for the fun.

Well, it's like, oh, maybe that isn't as good of an idea.

Yeah.

Like my brother has like a different set of coilovers in his car, right? And I'm like, they're slightly more expensive. Like, okay, this is really nice.

Yeah.

It doesn't like my car is just, oh, yours are stiffer. So much stiffer.

Well, part of it, too, is that like, if I didn't have the RV, I would be sleeping in my race trailer like Bowen and Mike did, which I'm going to be doing soon. Yeah. So it was part of it is like, how do you get your I'm not going to drive the GT 500 and pop a tent. Sorry, but I know I've grown accustomed to a certain lifestyle. Tent sleeping is way beyond where I'm ever going to be again in my life.

So I think there's a lot of people who don't put miles on their car. We have a lot in this community in Minnesota. There's some in Texas that like they buy a car in their garage. And I don't like that. I like to be able to drive my cars and work on them. That's another thing with working on the car. Thirteen thousand dollars for the MagRide Coilovers. This might be a sin. I don't even know if I should say this out loud. I put BC Racing Coilovers on my R8, and it handles better than three blown MagRide shocks. And it was, you know, what, like less than a quarter of the cost. And I did it myself. Matt helped me a little bit in the garage, and it took me like three hours to do it. Granted, I had to go back and take it apart again because I swapped the springs from front to back by accident.

That's part of that reading the directions thing that I'll be out there. If you're a mechanic and you haven't put something together and had to take it back apart again, then you're not an actual mechanic.

Did you guys see what I posted on the Minnoxide Facebook page the other day? The comment, or no, I think I sent a screenshot to you guys. It's like, oh, this guy dresses like a mechanic, so yeah, he's definitely a mechanic.

Oh, is that what it was? I was like, yeah, I couldn't remember. Was that, was he talking about Bryce or me?

About Bryce. It's like, I trust this guy. He dresses like one. It's like, man, wait till you see Halloween. Mechanics are everywhere.

Well, now I carry my jumpsuit with me.

Oh, yeah, that's right. You are official.

I'm an official mechanic. But yeah, I like to be able to say I can drive and work on my cars.

That thing's, I think you fall in a very good niche. You cover all of it. You work on it. You actually drive the s*** out of it. I think you got good taste in cars, what some people may disagree. But I think, from the enthusiast's perspective, I think you're doing all right. Now granted, do I hate the Artronic? Yes, but we're not going to talk about that.

Yeah, single clutch.

This is talking, well, it's just, I don't know. I really got accustomed to the DSG lifestyle and the GTI shifts.

Well, there's somebody in the community that has a couple people with dual clutches. Come on, man. Someone with a Gen 2 dual clutch and another person with a Gen 1.

They've come down in price, bro.

Well, they want me to test drive there. They're like, just take my car for a spin. I'm like, no, because then I'm going to want it.

Yeah, right.

And I have no self-control when it comes to cars.

We know. You bought that RX-7 almost on a whim.

I know. So the RX-8 was going to be down. Oh, that's another thing. The dealer wanted to quote me. They were quoting me $10,000 to replace the ECUs. That's another thing that was quoted in that. So that $42,000, what does that even mean, including ECUs? That was another $12,000, $10,000 or something like that. Well, they wanted to do, that's a lot harder. I don't know, or maybe someone's done it.

There's no need for MoTeC in a stock car.

Yeah, so the dealer wanted to replace both. And then even at that, shops were quoting me $5,000 for just the ECU, because that's what they run. I found a Euro shop in Europe, and they get ECUs, they get them out of used cars, you send yours, they pin it manually, and they transfer your date over and send it back to you for $1,500.

Oh s***.

So here's the thing, I didn't know if that was the ECU that was causing that issue, but I'm a little computer monkey, and I'm on the computer looking for stuff, and somebody said, hey, I had this same issue with my ECUs, but I was like, I don't wanna, and the dealer said it was ECU. I don't trust the dealer.

Remind me again, what was the issue with the ECU?

It was just like intermittent reading. The code was just like intermittent communication or something like that. The dealer said I needed an ECU, I didn't trust them. I trusted some random guy in the internet, but I didn't want to risk, even if they replaced one, which they didn't want to do, $5,000, they want to do $10,000.

That's not something that you can just return either.

And you can't return it either. The guy in Europe, which I don't know what he's doing, how he makes money, but he's like $1,500, I'll send you your new ECU, and then if it doesn't work, you can just send the one I sent you back, and I just charged you like a $50 or $100 stocking fee. I was like $100 in insurance? Sounds great. Guess what? It worked. For a little bit, I was scared I got scammed, because I was like, this sounds too good to be true, but the ECU got here. So while I sent my right ECU that was the issue, I didn't want to do both, but I sent him my left anyways, and I was like, hey, can you pull the data? That way if it's not the right and I need to buy the left, you have the data already stored, you can just send me the ECU for the $1,500. He did that. So lots of DIY stuff, and I think there's lots of ways that people can save money. And it's just like doing the work yourself, like studying the car, going on the forums and educating yourself because dealers and shops are going to want to do it the right way. But like they're going to want to put everything brand new and do it top notch. And sometimes I don't know, I don't believe you always need that.

Do I need a brand new depends to on the type of customer, right? Like, yeah, for example, we talk about this with Michael from Razorhood all the time too. It's like, well, Razorhood isn't exactly like a platform for car enthusiasts, right? Like you're right.

Yeah, you and I have talked about that.

Yeah, like it's like a lot of guys are going to be. It's more for like the average guy, probably like just a hair below like my level of knowledge.

I granted I don't to be fair, probably like 80 to 90 percent of every other person.

Correct. I agree. Like, you know, so it's like some people just want to take their s*** to a dealership or a shop and just know it's done right. Is it expensive? Sure. So as long as they don't have to worry about it again, whereas you, you're like, oh, I f***** that up. I mean, still cheaper than a shop. I'll just jump back in there. You know, it really depends, right? Unlike your risk tolerance, a good word. I think so. Maybe. Yeah, I guess, like, for example, when it comes to wrapping cars, I used to use this all the time. It's analogy. I'm like, OK, a roll at the time, six or seven hundred dollars, or I could pay a shop for grand. I can f*** up six times.

I was going to say I'd rather f*** up a couple of times. I might get a panel done if I do it four times.

That's what I'm saying. Like, so it's like if it comes down to like a hood, like I used to offer to wrap my friend's hoods. I'm like, yeah, I don't care to do it, which like shops are charging. I think I would say like a thousand dollars. I'm like, the final is like 200 bucks. Like, we could f*** this up four times and I still make a profit.

That's very much me. But yeah, I don't know.

I learned I hated wrapping cars, though.

Wrapping is rough.

It's tough. Especially depending you're using a nosotec film, which is thicker, which is a bad idea.

This whole car was probably a bad idea when the ECU. So the way the car you asked how the car came about, the ECUs had to get shipped to Europe for the rate. And I didn't know how long it was going to take. And I knew I already wanted a track car because blowing a motor in an R8 is not cheap. If you want a new motor, I think it's about 55 to 60 thousand dollars for just the motor. And then plus installation is probably like another five to ten, which is crazy.

What's used?

Twenty five thousand junk junkyard motor, which like, I don't know, I could sell this motor and put it in a junkyard and sell it to somebody for 25 grand.

Like, I don't want to just to be fair, usually in an R8 situation, a junkyard motor is probably a car that's been wrecked. Yeah, exactly. But I still don't like it. Yeah, it's not like it's 400,000 miles and it's time to put it out.

No, no, no. It's been wrecked, but you don't know what it's been through or what it's done.

You know, like so I just I don't want to take that second note that that generation R8 doesn't it? It shares the motor with the S8 as well, doesn't it? I believe so.

Don't think so. I think that's the 5.0. This is the 5.2. You're thinking like the Gallardo pre LP and all that. We might be wrong.

There's a good chance.

I feel like I'm always hearing about these Audi's and German cars and stuff in these ECU's like I don't understand the Mustang ECU's are my orange car's been flashed so many times. It's definitely got an identity crisis. It doesn't know whether it's a Ford Taurus anymore. Three different tuners. It's been flashed so many times.

The ECU's are only bad because in the R8, there's slats in the rear hood of the car and then under that, there's like a mesh, you know, to make it look nice. That's the carbon. There's a mesh. And so the water comes in, goes through the slat, through the mesh, and drips onto the ECU. And that's why my ECU... So the problem was my ECU was oxidized from this side out.

Driving 15 hours in the rain.

Well, I would always drive. And I'm sure the person before probably would. But I didn't know if that was going to be the issue, like the ECU, if it was going to fix it or not. So when it was down and I shipped the ECU to Europe, dude, it was like from one day to the next. I was like, I'm buying an RX-7. I was sending people RX-7 posts left and right.

I got three or four different ones from you.

I think we had a phone conversation. I tried to talk you out of it. I was like, are you glutton for punishment? Because I know they can be unreliable. So I'm like, do you really want something else that's going to be broken?

I was like, tie me up and whip me. So that's why. And it sounds kind of like bratty. It was like, oh, my RX-7, let me just go buy a $35,000 car. But I wanted a track car anyways.

Something that you could beat on and be like, all right, I still have my other fun car.

And I'm saving the money from working on the car myself. Let's say with the issue and everything, it would have been over $50,000 to fix the issues it had. It cost me about $8,000. You know, I saved, you know, over 30, at least. I don't know. I'm not doing the math right. I'm sure it's.

They say most like real track guys or like. So you start off and you're like, you buy this $100,000 car and you're like, I'm going to go track this thing. And then when you really get into it, you end up with a $30,000 or $40,000 s*** box that you track. Is that now you're pushing the limits to the point where I could break this thing or put it into a wall. I've taken my skill to that level. So you don't want to do that with your.

There's definitely like, you talked about this a lot with your car, right? Because like the GT 500 in stock form is a fast car, right? Like Piero was trying to scare me before the track day or whatever. And I'm just sitting here thinking like, okay, there's only one corner I got nervous on and I sent it. I was sliding, but we don't talk about that. But like to push that car at its limit, like you could cause some serious damage.

Yeah.

Right. Because you're, you know, seven hundred sixty at the crank or seven ninety because you're in take. It's like, especially on the track, like Road America, which it punishes you.

Yeah.

Like we're that was it Camaro that went off the Viking Camaro. Yeah.

Yeah. He went straight.

Dude, that was like he almost bit that wall and it's like, you know, really, but I'm sure that car is not a slouch. I guarantee you it's probably making more but some probably between you and the RX seven.

Yeah.

It's like if you're trying to drive at the limit, stuff happens.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's better to have a slow car. And it's a lot more fun driving like a slow car fast than a fast car slow depends on the track too.

Right. Because like you remember, like you, me and Pierrot again, Sam, but it applies actually. No, Pierrot can talk about this as well in real life because he's done it. He's like, if you drive like a 300, 400 horsepower car on Road America, like, you know, he's driven to Evo. He's like, it's just boring. It's not technical. He likes the technical tracks like his BRZ. He has a blast or not BRZ, FRS. It's all the same.

It's an FRS with the GR motor.

It's all the same. But it's like he really enjoyed driving on the competition course at Brainerd because it's a fairly technical track. You could drive a slow car fast. You will be banging your head against the wall at the top of Fifth Road America with a car like that.

Yeah, the EVO. Yeah, anything. Yeah, Brainerd gets pretty scary. And I'm glad I have an RX-7 and not a R8 to take it through there. I mean, I have the R8, but I'm not glad I'm taking the RX-7. Given it's a lot of horsepower, but it's more manageable.

No, I really like Road America. I know that, but I have a car that can eat up that long straight, so it makes it more fun. I'm watching 165, and then I'm watching my speedometer, and I'm going, OK, there's a 90-degree turn up here up over this hill, so you can't hardly see it. And I'm like, all right, I want to see that number before I hit the brakes. And then you're in it hard because it's 90 degrees to the right.

I like Brainerd way more than Road America.

I did like that one, too.

It's a lot more fun. I like the kind of go-karty feel or you're just, yeah, well, it is that film or go-karty.

I enjoyed driving that little that small competition course. That was really fun. I think I only did like seven or eight laps. But getting coached by Alex Sajadi, who we had on episode 70, was really fun. Like, I learned a lot in just seven laps of coaching with that guy. Like, you could see why he was driving GT fours, like for real. But we are coming up on your hard out. Did you want to pop the usual three?

Yeah.

Oh, no.

So this is the part where you should be stressed.

Yeah. I thought about this and I was like, come up with an answer, come up with an answer. And I just couldn't.

I wrote them down and then came here and I still struggled.

He literally came with a notebook when he came on the podcast.

It's like, I don't know, my like when you walk into Home Depot, you're like, I got to get this, this and this. And you walk through the door and it erases your memory.

Yeah.

Like, what the f*** was I here to get?

I'm just I'm indecisive. Yeah, I like everything. Go ahead, ask the question.

It was anyway, at the end of every episode, we like to ask our guests to pick three cars, a track car, a show car and a daily driver. You have an unlimited budget. You can put a coyote in an RX-7 with a T56 behind it if you want.

That sounds fun.

Yeah.

Did you say unlimited budget?

Huh? Unlimited budget. I think I did.

I spaced out for a second.

Anyway, show car daily. Here's the thing is like I love the raw feeling of just daily driving a track car. It's just so fun to just have that.

You still got AC. I'm not hearing it.

Yeah. Well, my RX-7 doesn't have AC. So honestly, it'd have to be like a twin turbo Huracan set up or twin turbo Gen 2 R8 set up for like a street car.

You said for a daily?

I would daily that car.

All right, well, now you have to choose Huracan or R8.

It would have to be a Huracan. Come on. Like it's got the Lambo logo. I know they're the same car, but it's like...

Here's a question. Who's going to build it for you? Do you know a shop? Or is that you're not too familiar with that space?

It's got to be Ratified Motorsports, I guess.

Oh, yeah. We'll have you be the R&D.

Yeah.

All right. So twin turbo Huracan. What color? I'll push this a little bit. What color?

I didn't used to like bright colors.

Okay.

But we have...

It was intimidating.

There's so much we haven't gotten into, like wrapping the R8 and the RX-7, the DDE 720, GTR, LARC pink, 50 other words in that color. So since I put it from silver to that color, I've got to say I'm now a bright color car guy.

Yeah.

On the right cars, with the black accents, it works well on the R8. It would have to be that color.

Really, for a Huracan?

I love that color, man. I wish that it didn't have such a s***** short lifespan, and I wish it was cheaper and easier to install myself.

Yeah.

But it would have to be that large pink. I love it.

This is amazing. What a wrap. Like with my car, if it was just the white black stripes, they'd be like, oh, another GT 500. But the fact that it's Mystic Chrome, well, unless I'm riding around with your s*** box, then everybody wants to look at your f****** RX7. It's a running joke between us if everybody doesn't know that every time we're somewhere, people are drooling over his $30,000 car. Leaking oil on my trailer.

Yeah, leaking oil. I wrapped it myself so it looks like s***. And people somehow still love them. But a track car, I hate to say this, but every time I go to the track, I'm getting walked all over by Miata's. So if I'm talking about purely having fun, I know people are like...

Which, by the way, was first in your class, the MX-5.

Dude, and probably pretty high on that list overall. People are like, oh, I want a whatever, GT3 RS track car. It's like, if you want to be fast, the Miata's are fast. It'd have to be like an LS swap. Harris's.

My phone is going insane with my notifications now on this one. Unlimited budget, you're choosing a Miata?

There was a GT3 RS on that track, was there not?

Yeah, there was.

I bet you that.

Well, it wasn't an RS. It was a GT3.

I bet you that Miata beat it. And I bet you had a more fun...

That GT3 does travel the country though. I was chatting with him a little bit.

I don't care. The Miata was fun to drive. It was more reliable. It was probably cheaper to work on. I guarantee it was cheaper to work on. And it was faster. And if we're talking about purely being quick and having a good time, I'm choosing a Miata.

Even unlimited budget.

I don't give a f***. I want to have fun. Right? You know what? Show car Pagani.

Girls just want to have fun. I was thinking. What did you say?

A show car Pagani. You're talking about unlimited budget. I will have a Miata as a track car and a show car as a Pagani.

What Pagani?

I'm not that into Pagani.

No, no, no. You've played a video game.

The Utopia is the Utopia.

The new one?

The new one that has the four exhausts. And it's got you shift it, and it's got 20 gears in it. Or is that the Konic Seg?

I don't know. You pointed me like I even follow any of that s***.

There's one of those two.

The Konic Seg that has eight. It's really weird.

It's like it's got like a six pattern, but inside it's doing different gear. Like it has like 10 or 15 gears or something. And as they shift it, it figures out which ones it wants to go through. It's a really weird setup.

I think you might be thinking about the Konic Seg.

That is the Konic Seg. That one specifically is the Konic Seg, whatever.

Which Konic Seg is it?

I don't f****** know, man. I don't know. What do you guys like?

So I think about this all the time, where you're you guys know all these cars were. Is there like an encyclopedia somewhere to just tell us, or is it just come across your newsfeed from social media? Like, how do you know? I know you can't read car and driver anymore. Like, where are we finding out where these cars come from?

Just YouTube videos. I think it's. When you go through YouTube.

Before that, though, I don't know about you, but a lot of my knowledge came from like video games. Like for example, the Pagani Zonda Cinque, I think is what's actually pronounced the R, right? The white with the black and red stripe. Like that was my car in Need for Speed. Like Need for Speed, Forza is a big one where I learned, I learned a lot about cars from Forza. Gran Turismo was my first video game. That's where the Viper Comp Coupe was a big one for me.

Forza Motorsports for my Xbox guys.

Yeah, right. Yeah, well I switched from PlayStation 2 to Xbox 360, so it's like I got-

Forza was great.

Yeah. All right, I'm not letting you leave here before you figure this f****** car out, right? Because you can't just say Pagani.

I like Pagani's. I'm not a picky guy, man.

So is a Pagani a clinic sick?

I go through a lot of cars. I've had a 1980 Monte Carlo, 1970 Beach Buggy. I've had the R8, Mazda now. Like I'm, I just like cars. I would like a Pagani just to feel how it feels and hear how it sounds. Yeah. I don't know specifically.

Are you trying to look it up now or something?

Yeah, no, okay. So I think you're thinking, okay, I'm gonna pull it up here because it's on top gear. The Koenigsegg manual slash automatic CC850 gearbox, right? Is that what you're thinking about?

That's a weird way. Can you even consider that a manual?

Is this the one you're thinking about?

I don't know what it looks like, man. I've heard people talk about it. But it's weird because it's like you shift it, and the car actually just figures out what gears it wants to go in. Like, it's not a direct link to the transmission. It's almost like having paddle shifters, but you're doing more work. Yeah. It's just like paddle shifters with more work.

I'm gonna have to research it because I think I know what you're talking about, right? All right, we're gonna put a picture on the highway here. Here's the car Jay chose. I don't like letting people walk out of here without a concrete definite answer, but I think we're talking about the same thing.

Yeah, yeah. I am standing on the Miata track car, though.

That's gonna be, iPhone's gonna be on fire.

Well, how much are they? Should we just go get it? Can we buy a triple pack, just like a three pack of them in a little suitcase?

At autocross, they're f****** me up, and I was like, on the big track, I was like, they're definitely, I will step on a Miata. And I still got walked all over, and it had the same motor. I don't know if they come turbo, but that one had a turbo.

Yes, that one, I did, it sounded, the turbo.

Yeah, so I don't know if it comes like that or not, but even if you had to add a turbo, like the guy walked all over me.

Yeah.

And everyone else. So it's just like, and he's probably a fast driver anyways.

Are they still a Ford affiliate, Mazda, now? Like they were just like under the banner of Ford, if you remember.

I had to link everything to Ford, man.

Somebody Google it and get back to us.

I just know they're fast.

Yeah. Well, sweet, on that note, where can everybody find you?

Oh man.

Please don't give your address. That's happened before.

I was about to say, slowly transitioning to Car Bodega. So Car Bodega together on YouTube, Car.Bodega on Instagram, and then I guess we're gonna do all the other social medias. It'll be something like that on other social medias soon.

Did we ever officially introduce this guest, by the way? Jay Horta, did you mean like?

I don't think I've ever said Jay Horta. I just said, yeah, I think I did say Jay Horta from Car.Bodega.

Whoop, word doesn't matter.

I feel like there's a lot we didn't go over.

Yeah, well, see, that's the way I told you, it snowballs quickly.

Like, I'm a very DIY person, and we didn't go over how I'm an idiot and wrapped my own car. We went over it, which is probably the least of the concerns versus taking your R8 motor apart. Yeah.

Let's do some more track stuff. We'll definitely be, I think you're definitely in another episode.

Definitely.

We just can't do them back to back.

No, I mean, that's fine. I mean, I'm going to have a lot more under my belt soon. Traveling across a couple states to buy a trailer.

I'm really, I hope we're going to do way more of this.

A lot more. And now I'm buying a trailer. Lots of spontaneous buys. So it's going to be pretty interesting in the next couple of months. We're going to have maybe a rebuilt RX-7.

Yeah.

We'll need to compression test it.

And then you, Dan?

Oh, you can find us at Gunna Garage. I put a big sticker on the back window now. So wherever this coverage was, two N's, sorry.

I was staring them down. And then as for me, you guys are about a little over an hour deep into this episode. Make sure to follow on AllThingsMinnoxide, join the newsletter. That's where I do all my giveaways. We just announced our first Lunatech giveaway winner. So that was pretty cool. They'll be giving an entire Lunatech detailing kit. But yeah, we'll see who we get on from the next episode. I suck at intros. This is episode 91.

This is an outro.

Outro, whatever. You know what? The caffeine's wearing off, bro. It's okay. But anyways, thank you guys so much for watching. Jay, thanks for coming on. And Dan, thanks for existing. We'll see you all next time.

Thanks for existing.