Ep9 Bisi Ezerioha

Hey, everybody, Welcome back to another episode of Car Stories with Son.

King and Amelia Hartford.

Today we have a very special guest.

He happens to be I would say, a childhood prodigy.

Incredibly smart wise beyond his years. He also paid his

way through college by street racing.

He did.

He is in a way like the real life Dominic Toretto and always thinks out of the box. It was

like the wackiest cars. He has this thousand horsepower minivan.

He does yes, so he gives street cred to all the mini van owners out there.

I love it. And he's really pushing the boundaries lately

with his performance ev.

Conversions and the most positive person that I probably ever met in my life.

He I don't believe has a bad bone in his body.

He wants to see everyone succeed.

We're lucky to have him in our life.

Yeah, and on this podcast. So without further ado, there

we go, bc A zarioh.

Okay, So let's let's go back to the origin of you coming to California. So you were in Long Beach

at yes age of like.

Okay, So I left Nigeria when I was sixteen. After

a year, you know, I got to University of Asia fifteen.

He did a year there, came here. My father typically

would have scored me here in the United States because he's always here often, but he had to take care of some he had vice some machinery and finish it up in Italy, and my mom had to take her to factory so she couldn't leave.

So this was for you to go to school, to go to school.

So they kind of sent me by myself two suitcases on a plane. My dad when he went to school

here to study geology, he had a scholarship from Golf Oil Company, and in that whole oil company he met this you know, this family, and Bob Lancaster was a very good friend of my father's and my father. He

was a founder of Torco Oil Company. And my dad

had him meet me at Lax and that was really interesting because I never met them before. So imagine going

to a foreign country, not really knowing anyone, and you meet this older couple who's taking home to their place in Wadier and that's it.

He'sill in touch with them today.

I do keep in touch with them from time to time. Unfortunately,

Bob and Connie passed away a few years ago. So

that's sad. But their sons are still around. They're really

good to me. They're they're like family to me. But

it was interesting coming here from Africa with a lot of African outfits on and going to church with them.

People ask me questions like, hey, how does it feel wearing shoes for.

The first time? I mean, I used to have Italian.

My pary.

I mean, come on, we were my parents were comfortable.

So it's kind of funny. But hearing those questions about how.

This assumption, Yeah, did that make you feel like an outlier in a way.

No, So what's weird is that I actually embrace those questions.

I thought genuinely they want people want to know. So

I was the first one. Oh no, well my father

used to travel to Italy and buy a shoes, so you know. And oh no, we live right next to

you know, so I would my parents are because my factory and we have factories everywhere, and we have Cocla and and Sprite and Phanta, and so I was very eager to educate and share share that. I never thought

it was, you know, ignorance or a way to put me down. I really welcomed those questions and answer them aptly.

So how did how did the cars start forming for you?

Was it during college? Is that how you got in trouble?

Was it? You can say that?

So, as I mentioned earlier, my first word was called I've always loved automobiles, just had this this great affinity for them, even from having hot wheels. Yes there are

hot wheys in Africa, but even from then playing with the hot we and so on and so forth, we just didn't have the environment for modifications. So even though

I had access to magazines like auction magazines back then, and I'm talking this is like eight late eighties.

And the nineties for the listeners that don't know what option mazing?

What is that?

What does that mean?

So oction magazine is this is this Japanese high performance magazine that not only covers, builds, think of an Amazon catalog in.

Paper, but just all parts.

It was just this this high end catalog at least for us, that allowed us to really look at things and see what we can purchased that was hot in Japanese call culture at the time. And so I saw

those and I'd always dream and I had three dream cars when I was back home, even though I never saw those cars myself, the Pontiac Fierron.

I couldn't help when people say, and it's time it was a beautiful car.

A green car when they didn't have oiling issues and catch on fire.

The latter I knew about, which was scary afterwards. I

didn't know at the time.

Did that happen while you were on the car.

That's a good that's part of my story is pretty good.

And then second was the m R two to m R two so earlier on a W eleven, and then the CRX.

So those are my three cars are like this is it for me?

Anyway? I digress. So back to when I came here.

Now I'm in a country where cal culture is pretty cool.

People modifying cars. There was a lot of how should

I say, domestic vehicles out there that were modified hot rods, but the sport compact scene was really in its infancy.

You couldn't call a BC model and order parts.

You couldn't go to eBay, you couldn't go to Amazon, you couldn't buy.

You just couldn't buy at that time.

So fresh there was nothing available. Yeah, I mean it.

I mean we could read about what some tuners did in Japan. Maybe mugan what they had done with Hondas.

Maybe Oscar Jackson with Jackson Racing did some things back in the day. But if I want to buy a

camshaft nowhere, I want to valve springs, you wanted pistons.

Companies existed, yeah, companies of Vanolia areas, but they didn't make Honda pistons. I mean, I'm talking this far back

as ninety two ninety three. There was nothing available when

you went to any kind of race, whord spalled compact cars, lots of rodaries, lots of ARE one hundreds, RX two's ORX thre's. You didn't see. Hondas weren't really the hot

thing at the time. And it's so strange how you

can have this ability to figure things out and apply to your vehicles and then go faster, and then in turn people get attracted to what you're doing and come to you. That's pretty much in essence what I experienced.

So I come here in the United States. There's great call

culture already. I don't know how to get into it.

I don't know anything about it. I'm just an engineering

student and want to experience certain things. I could go

to school and see some cause drive up. Maybe an

old Corolla effects come up and this lord would exhaust.

I don't know.

Anyway, back to the firero thing, I decide it's time for me to buy a car. I had a couple

of bucks. Well, my dad would send money every two weeks,

Thank you, dad, So I want to buy if I love the car. It's beautiful, it's sexy, it's a two door,

wet shape. It's just absolutely amazing. I have to have

this vehicle. I decided, in normal busy fashion to go

to a local bookstore and buy a book from Consumer Reports to read about how reliable this could be. Because

even though I'm excited about that, as a student, I had to be frugal.

Why frugal?

Because I had this bright idea that since my parents took care of me growing up that now i'm in America, i don't want their help anymore.

I'm going to make my own way.

Because I used to get teased at school that the only reason why BC you are who you are is because your parents take care of you, and you're still spoilt.

So I'm in America now by myself, with this family, and I want to prove to people inclue myself that I can do things on my own, yeah.

And ideally take care of them in the future.

Amen.

So I called my dad and told him that, and you know he did cry, laughed, just like that, just like that. So see that last Nsson exactly my dad

did and he gave me. I'm like, I'm really going

to show him. So I'm going to buy my own car.

But since I'm want to do it myself, I need something reliable.

Yeah.

Guess what consumer report says horrible car catches on fire, electrical problems. Okay, that's not for me. M R two perfect,

but I didn't have enough. I couldn't afford it. I'm

trying to refrugal. And I opted for the crx HF

High Fuel Efficiency because as a student it got great gas mileage.

So it looks the part.

Yes, it's not as sexy as a fiare Oh yes, not an m R two, but it is a nice little two seater kind of you.

Know, it's nice as clean, it's nice like it. So

I picked it up.

Well, ran side. That was probably the better decision. It

was not just for economy and for daily driving, but also for the community.

You know, I agree, I really want the m R Tunity.

So I get the CRX and I'm driving it and I'm just I'm just so excited about this car, and I'm reading about what people can do with Crx's not much, but still I'm reading trying to find out what I could do the fella. I lived with the Lancasters, still

having some financial challenges, so they had to sell their housing Wittier and moved to Lovely Wyoming. I went there

once with them. It was very cold, but anyway, okay.

So I told my parents, Hey, the Lancasters are moving. Dad, Mom,

I don't know where to stay.

Oh, don't worry.

We know someone. It's a lady, missus Jones, lovely lady.

She lives in this amazing, beautiful Jewish community in southern California.

She's been there sister's sixties. I've known her. Great woman.

She will love you. She comes by, she picks me up,

I have my suitcases, and we go to Compton.

That wasn't that's not I guess, Yeah, wow.

I didn't know that. That's my dad's tell me it

was Compton. And do you know how Compton was in

the late eighties early nineties. It was it was end

of my guardian. I called mister my guardian. She was

one of those ladies who bought her house way back in the day and would not move no matter what.

So we saw all of this. I was there when

the riots happened. I saw it all. Wow, But what

did that environment expose me to street racing? So once

again Nigerian kid here loving cars, never had an opportunity touch one. And around me at night you hear all

this racing down on Alameda, which is about.

To fall away from me.

How old were you at this point.

Eighteen nineteen and I was just really just excited about this environment. All of a sudden it was very expensive

and there are no parts.

Right.

There was one guy, Archie Madrano. He had a turble

Charci RX red with a yellow bumper and he was running.

At the time, we thought it was ridiculous, running like twelve eight and that was like that's like six is now.

You know in a SERRX front will drive with really small slicks from Mickey Thompson all that good stuff. Thought

about it, new it was expensive. After talking to him,

I said, Okay, this is not for me. I'll just

keep plugging along. So one morning I get up to

go to school and I stop my vehicle and I hear this deep, weird sound emanating from the back of my car.

I heard this, I'm like, okay, but it sounds kind of cool. But whatever.

So I go to Guardina Honda, which is not too far from Compton, and they said, oh, you have a perforated muffler.

Am I gonna say someone cut your cat off?

No?

Fortunately, you know, like nowadays, the catalyst on the HF was up near the head you have to kind of pull my mother, But yeah, it was. I had a

perforated muffler, and long story short, it was on cost me six hundred and twenty dollars to fix, which made not sound like a lot now, but to then it's probably like it sounded like he said sixty two thousand to me at the time, as it's chie right, yeah, I'm like, okay, that's not gonna work. But one of

the tech guys like, hey, you can go to a regular muffler shop. You don't have to get original Honda.

You can go to a muffler shop and though well went on there for you, and I go there and they say, okay, we have this dynamas Ultraflow muffler we can put on there for you.

It's way cheap.

I think it ended costs like seventy dollars or something like that, and you'll be good. Seventy dollars sounds better

than six hundred and twenty for me. So that's what

I did.

Guys.

When I started my car just to sound and may, I'm like, oh, this is so cool. Right, it sounded

so cool. It's like a religious moment for me. And

then it got better. Right when I drove off, my

car was faster. I'm like, oh my god, what the heck? Yeah,

after mcha muffler straight through it wasn't chambered. So now

I know why I gained power, but I didn't. Then

I'm just a student who has a car that sounds better, and I have more power, and it got better even than the power and the sound by fear to call me improved. Now I'm just thirsty for knowledge. I want

to know why it happened, how it happened. I caught

him for the shop.

We don't know. We just put a muffling air car.

We don't. They don't.

I want answers why no one could explain it to me?

Fast forward to today, I do this thing on Instagram Tech Tuesday where I just open up and you've been on that with me before. All I do is share

all my knowledge. I mean I share everything. I know everything.

You can ask me something about what I did that morning, and I will share, show you the diagram, I'll send you my freaking cat files. I don't care because I

remember what I experienced when I was younger, and I remember how I felt when people kind of just pushed me away and they want to tell me either they knew or they didn't know, and that hurt. So now

I'm trying to be that person I needed when I was younger, and I would have been much further ahead if people just opened up to me, and I don't have that. So I'm doing that for people, and some

people even in the industry woild chastise me, like BC, why are you telling all your secrets on everything you know?

Because technology always changes what I know today I didn't know a year ago, and tomorrow I would know more.

And life isn't a zero sum game either.

The industry alive, I agree, I concur with you wholeheartedly.

So that being said, people just wouldn't tell me. But

I had to know. So I sought out this AM

because I felt they would know and their local. So

I walked in met the owner, John Concialti, and unlike others, he's like, oh, what do you want to know where?

Here's why it happened, And he just opened up and he was a period. I was a student, but he

was an engineer already and he was more than happy to share everything you new with me. And till today

in John would deny like, okay, BC whatever. He is

the reason why I am where I am today. He

was a mentor to me. He he is the reason.

John Concialti from AM is the reason why I'm successful today. Well,

so he told me about how baffling is and tied it in with flow dynamics, which I was studying at the time, and how you know, it's flow and energy takes energy to expel gases. That energy to expel has

come from somewhere from your engine. So if you remove

those restrictions, your engine breathe easier. There's less energy that

is required to expel those gases, and now it's available for you to propel your car forward power. So I'm like, okay,

what can I do next? He's like, I've been thinking

about this new system where he can do the same thing would exhaust, but with intake. So I have this

thing on you just trying a car. So he got

me a filter and I went back to the muffle shop, expanded it and had to fit to my intake and to my box out and I sound more power.

Did you want royalties on those intakes? No?

I did not.

I was just excited student trying to figure things out.

I mean John ended up going on to you know, making, designing many many digger intake systems, and he did quite well with that. But I was there at the at

the beginning when he played with that. And then what

was next? Cam gears. I have the first cam gear

John made. I still have it in my garage, put

on my CRX, got power, went on his DYNO. It

was just from there on, I was just thirsty for knowledge.

But there was still a challenge. There was still a

challenge of if you need certain parts, So if I needed camshafts, I'd have to go to a place.

Before he continued, could you teach the audience why you would change the camshaft?

See what is a good analogy? I can use. Okay.

A cam shaft is device that actuates your valves, that allows air to come in and also combus a gas to escape. So, in essence, think of your engine as

a room and you have a door in that room.

Your camshaft is like the door itself. It allows the

valve or the door itself to open up for a certain time, for a certain amount of time and certain how should I say, distance of opening and then it closes, and that gives you certain amount of power when that happens.

Now what after make a camp shaft? Does it allows

you to open that door even wider and longer? And

why is that critical? In any internal combustion engine, the

way to make power is to get as much air with the appropate amount of fuel as possible. That's why

you have a natural aspirated Let's say Emilia had a corvette and it's not transperated, and it made x amount of power, and then she put a turbo charge on it, which forces more air in it, she will make more power.

And that's key because she had the opportunity to experience, or her engine had the opportunity experience more air inside of it with the appropriate amount of fuel. A camschef

does that using a spirit pressure and even a boost.

It can help as well by allowing the door to open further and longer. The caveat with that is that

you can consume more fuel. Also, if you have an

emissions friendly vehicle, it can affect emissions negatively as well.

So that's what we had to do then. And I

was so interested in technology and why things maybe go faster.

I just couldn't stop it. It's like a passion project

for me to contry to make things better and better and better. However, there are two things that happened to

me that really changed my life. When it came to

that racing thing. Have you guys ever been on the

roadway and saw that annoying person that will always trying to raise you and revving and all that stuff you're talking about.

Then you and I didn't meet when I was a teenager.

She wasn't born yet, possibly probably, And long story short, just with that intake and exhaust that I had intake from JC and exhaust from the Supreme Muffler Shop, I thought I was a fast thing on the planet.

So do you remember Sircred City?

Yeah? Okay, well she doesn't. I know well you never

walked in.

It was a magical place.

When I got a job there innineteen ninety three, there was a guy in a car audio in the back who had a Masa six to six turbo and his name is Terren.

King and he h street Race.

And the people in the store were being really a holes because they were telling him, Oh, there's a guy up front with a CRX, he'll spank you. They're telling me, oh,

there's a guy in car stereo, he will spank you.

You guys should reach each other. And I'm like, yeah,

I'll raise him. I got my intake, my exhaust, I'll

smoke him, no problem. Right, I didn't know what a

terrible sixty six could do. We go to a track

known as Terminal Island. That's why I met people like

Steph Papadacus. I met people like that there. It was

a track and long beach.

It was so quimin.

It was right in the water, excellent sea level, great air, always cool, just amazing, lots of domestics, lots of bedding, and we went there to do our show down. I

won't bore you with the groom details of how I couldn't burn out or how I launched. But let's say

at the end of the quarter mile he was on the return road, and I'll still go down.

I wish I was alive during these times. You care

about this?

Yeah, it was pretty bad. But then I'm like, teach me.

Oh my god, you know. And he modified his Masa turbo.

I mean, he did quite a fit to and it was much faster than factory and he gutted it and it was fast.

So long story short.

I was humbled by that event, but not as humbled as the one that really changed my life. On campus

after racing, which after Reconent twent, he started teaching me the ropes and how to rev, how to launch. I

didn't know how to do any of that. How to

do a burnout, handbrake up, get the water come out of it?

Do you burnout?

He told me all that. That made me even more cocky.

So I go to campus Calci Long Beach. I'm in

the VEC Center. Unlike now the side of campus I

was engineering. The parking live is always empty because I

guess people don't want to study engineering. You go to

Business administration, it's always packed full. We can't even get parking,

but engineering parking was empty.

So it was a good lot for misbehaviornigans.

I'm leaving one day there's a black c R X S I in the parking lot. I'm pulling out, she

pulls out. I read on them because I'm busy, naturally

what I read, and she's like, all right, we pull up, we launch. At the end of the race, they're on

the floor laughing at me. They got me. Not she

didn't beat me. She has passengers. I'm alone in my car,

and I'm like, at that point, I swore that was gonna be the fastest thing will come on the planet, like no one ever, and.

I did it.

I literally that day was a marker for what changed.

I was just I became obsessive with make my car faster.

Everything I learned in school, every time with the doctor Hile or anyone who's who's teaching, whether it's thermal or fluids or mass transfer, I'm thinking of ways to make that apply to my car. It made my schooling very

interesting for me because everything I learned was how can I apply it to my car.

I almost got expelled. My dad would killed.

I almost got expelled for trying to test carburetors in our chemical Jurine Lab. I used water, but I was

trying to test outomization of fluids. And as I did that,

the lab tech walked in, BC, what are you doing here?

That's not approved? And went to the dean and I

had to beg dotor hile, please, please please. I told

him what I was doing and he was impressed and didn't kick me out. You're not supposed to do unsupervised

on authorized experiments in school, but I did that because I had to.

That's how obsessive I was.

From there, I got into exhaust technology and we studied in fludynamics studies about venturies and how a ventury you can put it inside a pipe and increase velocity across that gradient. I'm like, if headers are supposed to help

scavenge and give us more power, shouldn't have venturi even help more? And I asked John and Joan, like it could, John,

John Concadi, I were the one on and I picked up power.

So just I continue. And each time I went to

Termina Island.

And Long Beach that was your field test was like it was.

I went from jeez, eighteen four, That's why I ran to sixteens to fifteen to fourteens to fourteen two and.

People, what are you doing?

How?

And I'm there Friday, Saturday, Sunday that's when track was open.

Friday after work. I go straight there after I go.

I couldn't stop thinking about this.

So you're working, you're going to school.

Going to school, working, and at night street racing, well, testing my cars, testing equipment later.

Yeah, that's what it's called testing.

I won't boy you the grim details of how crazy I want with this street racing and so on and so forth, but.

Please do Yeah, okay, Well, here's the thing.

I noticed a lot of people didn't go to the racetrack, so I would watch them and see how they launched.

I'd pay attention.

I kind of took a cime tape approach to stalking my prey. So I watch them and i'd see someone

who thinks they're fast or the cows really love, but they really weren't that fast, and they'll tell my guys to approach him. I didn't feel comfortable.

With that spoiler, because this is making me crazy? Is this?

How then, did you start racing as your income and quit your job and use this to pay for your school?

Not?

I feel like this is a great movie.

Actually I did a little bit of both.

So long story short, I had the opportunity to raise quite a few individuals and kept going faster and faster and faster. My advantage was I'd go to the track

and practice and know my times, while other people just only focus on street racing.

And I made a couple bucks doing that, and I knew who to hit up.

And when they see my HFCR They're like, yeah, I'll race you and I'll make with some money.

Sometimes people wouldn't pay Taran and his friends.

They'll tell me, you see, just go ahead and leave me with you at cars Junior and they show up with my money.

I don't know what they do, I said, don't know what they did. Were you're familiar with AOL chat Yeah, okay.

You guys are looking at it.

Well, even though we have pages, back in the day, AOL chat room was a place where we could meet up and race. And there was a chat room known

as AOL Japan Street Racing or Japan Racing.

Sorry, we all kind of congregated there. Well. I got

hit up for a race.

Remember early on how I told you in the VC Center parking lot, I was spanked by that lovely young lady and her two friends. Well, I was still my

quest to be the fast sale camp, and I was very, very proud of saying I was the fastest, and I beat my chest with the title of being the fastest saale camp out there until I got a someone hit me up on the chat room saying, hey, we want to race you for title of the fastest sale camp.

And I'm like, okay, street cred I'm doing this, no big deal where it's money or not. What could be

what would be two and a bucks, I'll do it.

So you definitely want know this. But all lightning techniques

back in the day consists of taking off our hatch, putting a plastic bag, taking out our doors, putting gutted doors, all weight reduction suspension, we take out our rear coils, and putting pipes so it doesn't squat. I did all

this and then my exhaust system, unbolting it and going with a side exit. That was my street race setup.

So this gentlemen hits me up and says, hey, we're racing you for five thousand dollars.

Wow, that's a big job. And this is still your

daily driver at this point.

It's the only car I've ever had five thousand dollars. Now, Guys,

even though my parents took care of me growing up, I never saw five thousand dollars in my life. So

me racing for five thousand dollars was ridiculous.

Did you have the money if you lost it or did you go in you're going to win.

If you search me, I probably have one hundred fifty dollars on me.

So you were just confident, You're like, I can do it.

For crop, for street street cred. That's what I thought

I was racing for. But when we sat five thousand,

I'm like, what, No. And then this one guy came up,

this one African American gentleman came up to me and said, hey, you know my name is John. Here go, I'm not exaggerating.

I'm gonna take a slight tangent. Big John is now

one of my good, good friends. Until today. He won't

tell me how him, as a teenager, was walking around street raises a five grand This we were kids, How did you have five grand? And this is not five

grand in twenty twenty three, this five grand in the nineties.

Use fuel as a judge. We used to pay nine

nine cents a gallon for ninety one. Then now we've

put four or five dollars, so it's equivalent today's twenty twenty five thousand.

That's what's before tax, before taxes, so that's a.

Lot of money. And O okay, so I take it.

And the guy who hit me up said he wants to hold the money, and everyone no, no, no, that day, the racers.

Don't hold the money.

You always have a neutral party the money, not that I would know. So lucky Mike we call him, held

the five thousand from us and held five thousand from him and we lined up. So what did these guys do?

Remember how I told you earlier. I used to watch

my prey and see what they'll do. And I understand

a lot about technology engineering. I stunded a lot about

how engines work. And these guys started making really silly mistakes.

So the first thing they did was start the car.

What car did they bring?

They have a CRX, so were for.

We're going for the the world's fastest CRX or single camp So they have a CX like myself injected, I'm carbureted. Thanks,

say jac Tom Young that's his name, opens my hood which is around looking for nitress.

I don't have any.

Did they? Was it because you guys weren't allowed to

run nitrous or was it just or not respirated?

So the thing is being that all motor, all motor, natural aspirated. You're not supposed to have any kind of

chemical No adders, no power adders.

That's the title. You know, a more yeah, hardcore?

You know, So tom this hood, I look at it, it looks like a regular okay whatever. Jack Shyll like

he's not gonna go anywhere close the hood. So they

make this mistake. I thought it was a mistake. I

thought it was cool and a lot of street racing guys used to do this. Front will drive, they'll start

the car, they'll have two guys in front of the car on each side of the fender. Then they'll pour

a bunch of bleach and VHD or whatever on the floor and they'll burn out. And they're burning out and

the guy has his handbrake burning out, the guys on the side of pushing car left to right.

You give me to look like you've never seen that?

Have you never seen seen that? He was very popular.

You don't do that now, you don't do that.

Now they used to use Coca cola back in.

The day bleach and I never knew about.

But it's to make the tires sticky, sticky.

So they're doing this and they're putting a lot of heating there into they're heat soaking, they're putting a lot of heat in their motor, just burning out. And they

did this about it three times, just show buddy, And there are people lined up on both sides of the street.

There's a big it's a big race, and they did a burnout and they pull back. I start mine up,

I do a dry hop and just clean off all the rubbish on my car.

That's when I stopped.

And I'm sorry if you said this was on street tires. Streets.

They were just misbehaving where you just chirp your.

Skirt skirted to clean the rocks and stuff. Street street tires.

You don't want to put a lot of heat into them because then they don't their best performance isn't best optimized when they're overheated. They're they're a lot more sensitive

on like a slick.

So they're doing all this, all these shenanigans, and I'm like, okay, whatever, So we stage, like Mike points at me, points at him, rev hands up, drops it. This guy leaves me first gear.

I'm looking at the lights. Oh my god, so bad.

Like a bus length between you guys, Like a car length, Like.

It's probably his rear quarter panel at my front bumper, Like he leave, he's it's a car lan almost a car length.

Okay, but you guys, the launch was okay, you left.

My launch sucked. His launch is better, which is very

typical of me.

By the way, second gear, I catch him, third gear, I'm ahead of him by the time we hit fourth.

It's done. I freaking won five thousand dollars.

Wow?

Or actually I won for someone five thousand dollars. I didn't.

I just got a lot of credit. People are streaming.

Is crazy Tom because like, hey, that was a good race, man, that was good good and then tells my kid to give them money. I have ten thousand dollars in my hand.

I turn over give it to John. Joe's like, oh no, no,

just give me five. I keep you five. I'm like, what, Yeah,

that was good race. Keep the five. I didn't understand

why this complete stranger will give me five thousand dollars.

And then the winnings tell me to keep it, so I did. Of course I kept it, and that I'm

saying that money, I'm not exaggerating, lasted me almost They balanced my college years as a student.

That just solved some mare problems.

It really helped me tremendously, and John and I became great friends and we kept I didn't get many street races after that, but I started leaving Compton and Wilmington and coming more towards Ontario, going to Sillmar, going to street races. That's time making money there again. Never be

rais same two hundred, three hundred dollar races, same procedure, watching my prey, approaching the right people, winning the races.

And then one day I saw a Mustang and Integra race each other and at the end of the race, the Mustang put over it. The Integer didn't stop, kept

going and going, and there's a teener section. He kept

going and then went all of the embankment. We all

ran towards there, and one guy, I don't even know if it's true, one guy came down like he's dead, and we all ran to our car and got out of there. And ever since then I stopped. I never

want to series again. Ever since that day. Ever, there's

a friend of mine who brought a velociter in for me to tune a few months ago. He was dead

that same night.

It's weird. It's like we He's like yeah.

I'm like, he's like you Street, It's like, yeah, I stop because I went down Terry. I saw someone that

I wouldn't take. He said, I was there, same thing.

I stopped too. Like that same night, both of us,

years apart, stopped racing because of what we saw that night just.

Had to be.

Now we're probably ninety nine. Yeah, night nine, I stopped,

and I like, I'm not doing this anymore. So I

was still very gung ho about technology and figuring things out.

And then one gentleman one day just walked up to me and identified himself as Johnyo Shinaga from Honda, and they said, hey, I've been watching you for a while and I see how you interact with people. And what

I mean by that is what I used to do is every time I went to a race, i'd have a table out, and all my partners who helped me with racing, whether it's then SoC Socle racing for the Wheels or MSD became one of my partners. Holly helped

me with pumps.

AM.

They give me brochures and I'll go to race setup a table. I'm putting their brochures on. And when people

ask me questions about, oh my god, you ran a good time.

What did you use?

I say, oh, I use this intake from AM or this carburetor from AM.

And here's that I know I used and is now in Fontana sanctioned.

Because I was going to put away inch of time. Okay,

yeah in the street street race. Don't look at me

like street racer.

She does on street she tests yah.

Behavior.

He approached me and said, I've been watching for a while and I like what you're doing? How would you

like to race for Honda?

And this was what age?

Oh now, okay, now I'm in my early twenties.

I think you've graduated at this point or not yet.

I haven't graduated yet. I didn't graduate at the time.

I'm still in school, still my same CRX, much more potent, much more powerful, less and less of a street car, but still my only ways of transportation. And he's like,

how would you like to race for us? I'm like,

I would love that. What do you have to do

that's not of contract because no, no, just run a sticker that says hand Factory Performance on your windshield and then if you win races, I'll pay twelve hundred bucks. Like

is this a joke? He's like, no, this is my card.

He's a hand of Factory Performance in Torrance. Feel free

to come by so and so forth, And that's how you stepish the really ship put Honda wow. And it

continued and I did quite well with that. And at

the time it was the heyday of magazines like superstreet' Sport, Compact Car, Dragsport which is down on a D Sport.

All those magazines were there. Don't cover me because of

how unique my setup was.

You have accomplished so much in your life and it's hard to fit it in this.

Podcast because I want to talk about your evolution into ev now, because I would say you're innovating and you're dominating in this like custom ev world, and so like can we can you share how you evolved into where you are today?

We all exist in California and it's a very challenging state when it comes to petrol performance.

You know, I like to have fun.

I'm the guy who if you looks at any of my social networks, you'll see me with twin turbo, shooting flames, doing fun stuff. I love race, I love speed, I

love efficients, I love all that stuff. I've always been

a diehard petrol head. But it's difficult here in California too.

Want to find anything that's newer than nineteen seventy five.

Would I get in trouble. You have to meet certain

emission standards or just go off road only, and it got tougher and tougher for US builders as well. We

noticed that agents starting to get set out to certain diner shops from the EPA to kind of bus shops that were tuning cars, and it was uncomfortable. So bearing

that in mind, I kind of had to focus my business on off road vehicles only. Cars are only for

the track, sandrails and so forth, and that's a very small niche compared to people who like to have a lot of fun with their cars. I noticed something out

there that there were people claiming that teslas were fast and they were pretty cool, and I had no interest in evs.

I heard it.

I'm talking about far but no, I was far back.

But as we sent this twenty eighteen, I'd have customers come by, like, you know, to buy parts or whatever for their petrol cars, and they say, Hey, I have my Tesla outside, would you like to take a ride my P one hundred. I'm like, no, I've known I

didn't want anything to do with evs. Then my customers

who are in my ear would say, yeah, EV suck.

It's for tree huggers, it's for guys who were hemp sandals.

It's not performance. I'm like, yeah, that's true. Forget those guys.

I would actually ask people to leave my shop if they kept talking about EV's. I had had no interest

in it.

It's funny because you're almost trailblazing the afternoon world. Now.

It's weird how that was such a challenge for me.

At the time, I was really close minded, and then something happened. Harmon Carden is one of my partners, So, Emilia,

you and I met on. I would say a project

with the American with Hyundai. They connected me with a

company known as Harmon Carden. Harmon Cartin is this great

company that has to do a lot with sound. You

may hurt the JBL. That's one of their divisions, so

on and so forth, and they approached us to build a car for their show in Las Vegas for CES Consumer Electronic Show. So we built this pretty cool Tucson

turbo charged Tucson like a seven hundred and one horse Park Tucson had all their accouterments in it, sound system, Bluetooth.

It was really sounded really cool, but also the engine bait was amazing, lots of blaying but also very powerful.

It was very cool.

I was on bags, really cool, and they gave me access to CS as I built this car and dropped it off for them at Vegas. I mentioned that I

have partnership with the American Honda and Hyundai. I've also

done a little bit be Ford. I saw all through

those companies in Vegas at SEES, I didn't recognize anyone in the booths, and then all the vehicles in the booths were ev Now this is a time where my budgets were getting cut every year. My seeing my budgets

getting smaller and smaller because things are tough and our direction is changing, and I was okay with it.

I may do.

But I go to CS and now the booths look like million dollar boosts. The projects look a lot more

involved than anything I've ever built, And I thought to myself, if this is where the manufacturers are going, and I want to remain relevant in this industry, I need to understand this technology, even though I don't like it, even though about dihod petrolhead, I'm about twin turbo charges and shooting flames and flex fuel and all that fun stuff and engine management solutions. It looks like the OEMs are

going this way. So Song and Emelia, what did I do?

I decided reluctantly to build my first one, and I didn't want people to make fun of me, so I wanted a chassis that I felt that people would pay attention to. I've always had a soft spot for Portion

nine thirty five from Group five Racing. I had the

opportunity to find a body kit from a curator who had the original CREMERA modes and I had you will find this interesting in Sema two thy and sixteen and there was a white Portion Eye eleven you sat in that had a large single turbo on the rear.

That is the pink car.

So I had a Portion Eye eleven that I'm like, I'm not really driving this thing is sitting here. Sung

liked it, but I should probably do something with it.

I grabbed it on the KREMEA three body to that chassis that you said it and Emilia, I'm not ashamed to share this with you, but the first time I drove that pink nine thirty five almost urinated on myself.

It's just I never experienced such an amazing I mean, you send the car.

It looks like a oh Porsche, it smells like old Porsche.

But then acceleration is just no lag is just instant. Overnight.

I went from an evy hater to an advocate overnight, and I'm like, guys, and it wasn't quiet because I have my compartment pumping into the into the the cockpait, I should say, or you know where you see the pastic compartment and the engine bay or one. I didn't

block anything up. There's no crazy firewall. And you hear

this super charges style wind to it. So it has

this is that.

From the transmission or from the gears.

And the motor itself. You can literally hear it's weird.

Where do you get them? Are these? Like?

Like?

Where you getting the motors from?

Great question.

So there's one architecture that I like in the evil world a lot and it's a popular one. It's actually

from the Tesla P one D rear drive unit. That

Conchetu is very very clever. It's an integrated motor inverter

and transactions.

Can you buy that as like a crate or do you have to buy a car?

You have to buy it from dismantlers. Tesla is not

very coming when.

It comes to brand new drive units.

Unfortunately, we have to scour the directing yards or reject to slanderds and buy them and then modify them in normal BC fashion.

I do modify so those.

Cars will drive with the sensors and all that being closed off.

So a great question you just take the driving itself.

We remove the inverter board itself. So the Tesla board

that control everything is one of the first modifications we do.

Think of it as you know how we see chip ECUs back.

In the day.

Think of it like that, but a little bit more advanced, where you have an inverter board that controls everything in the motor itself, and you have a separate engine management solution like a VCU two hundred from AM that controls that and then also to allow for higher rpm activity because the regular driving is Peter out about fifteen thousand rpm.

I push my to eighteen five. I change the bearings

inside and then because of a lot of torquiere and they come with a regular differential which is like a peg leg that you and I would know in racing circles.

The Tesla original factory setups use braking systems as an anti you know, as their anti scale or better chush control.

When it will spends, they use the brakes. I'm doing

something a little bit more analog, so I don't have that.

So my friends at KUWAF had made a I know my quait very well. We've done some really good stuff

for them, made a limited slip to the French so that we can now install inside the test drive unit as well.

So the region breaking that you have.

That as well, Regen, is now you using the engine to almost to some extent for the guys listening, reversing the energy to allow to go back and charge the battery.

Is it?

Am I wrong to say it's on the wheels on.

It is in the motor itself as a generator and an absorption unit in so when you see acceleration, you're generating it and it absorbs energy back and almost like slows down, reverses and puts it back in your battery in the motor.

When I drove your car the pink portion, it also changed, like I became I converted.

I'm coming to drive this sure media.

I know was say anything to you, I know your die heard petrol head, I was. But it is eye opening,

it really is, and fast forward. Today cars in my

facility are are EV's. We're doing a lot of EVY conversions,

everything from Rose Royces to catter Hams to VW buses to lots of portions nine twelve and nine thirties. It's

it's and I don't have to wory about emissions anymore. Honestly,

it shouldn't be legal because it's scary fast. It's it's

people are get in trouble as it is more more popular.

It's really scary fast stuff.

It's a scary carriage drive.

And it has this visceral like feeling to it because the motor makes the sound. It's you know, it's still

radically like an old portion, right, and it has the am you know ECU there right, It's so it feels familiar and and what's crazy about BC is that he lets you drive the car by yourself.

I don't know if I want to do that, Okay, and then.

And then you don't want to come back, Like I was, like, here's a freewhere, you're.

About to go home?

This thing?

Right, Yeah, he's so generous.

You know.

The reason I felt like, you know, I really wanted Listeners to meet you is that anytime I hang out with you, aside from all the car knowledge that you are so willing to share, and I always learned something from you walk away from me, Amelia is there's not one negative bone in BC. Like he's one of those

few people. He taught me something because you know, in life,

like you meet people and you kind of like, you know, maybe have some bad experiences and you have something negative to say about that person. Right with BC, he's taught

me like what's the point of even bringing that up?

You know?

And I used to talk a lot of shit, you know I did because.

I go, you know, like I fucked me over and like you know this or this guy's attitude is this.

But with b C, I never heard him say one negative thing about anybody.

And it's something I can honestly say the same.

Yeah, and it's a trade as I get older, as you know, as an adult, I go, Yeah, that's something I need to adopt.

Life's too short.

Yeah, life is too short. I mean, this country has

really been great to me. I mean I really came,

as I mentioned earlier, as a student without much, and I've accomplished so much and people been kind and I come across the different situations, but I try to focus on the on the positive, on the things that are more beneficial than not. It is difficult. I mean even recently,

I've gone through some really difficult personal things, but I still try and see positive things out of that as well.

So the best yet to come. And I really appreciate

you spend this time with you guys. Who knows what

tomorrow brings. Nonetheless, No, you're awesome.

Thank you everywhere. Now, it's been really cool to see

all your success over these years. Congratulations and everyone.

I appreciate the media, thank you.

And yeah, and the best is yet to come to come.

Thank you so much.

Thank you,

Toyota Corolla

Honda CRX

Chevrolet Corvette

Ford Mustang

Acura Integra

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