Injector Details Everyone Misses

Welcome to the diesel podcast presented by DFC diesel.

How you been, Lenny?

Buddy, been good.

Been real good.

Busy but good.

Well, I remember after our last podcast, you're like,

hey, we're going to do one on December 22nd.

You need to hold me accountable

because I have some personal goals I'm trying to reach.

So let's chat in the morning and it's December 22nd.

Here we are.

So like I really enjoy snowmobiling.

And although I'm not in control of like what God gives us

for snow, I am in control of my performance on the snow

and machines, if you buy a new snowmobile today,

like it's probably better than you are as a rider,

no matter what.

And I did ride a few weeks ago and I discovered that

even though I've been training and been getting ready

for snowmobile season, absolutely like, so I'm down

about 13 pounds ish since you and I talked.

So I feel better, but my mobility, like the older I get,

the worse that my mobility is.

And you know, people say like, oh, he's got like crazy old

man strength or whatever, but I don't think it's strength.

I think what it actually is is our bodies become so pent up

with like resistance to mobility that you put it

in a position and your body just wants to spring back to

like not doing that.

So you're not strong.

You're just able to lift a lot because of that, which that

still proves because like I've always been pretty good at

deadlifts.

And the other day, like we were out of stock and a buddy of

mine was, you know, I'm on the radio like, where are you at?

I'm down here down there.

And I went down and he's like, yeah, dig it.

And I'm like, what are you doing?

Just pick it up and lift it.

And he was like, okay, I picked it up and lift it.

And the dude looks at me and he's like, dude, like you are a

freaking horse.

And I'm like, I don't really think I'm that strong.

I think it's just my back and my legs don't want to crouch

down very far.

So they just have to pop back up kind of a thing.

So yeah, the the fitness.

And then there's a guy right here in town who's who's got

probably it's one of the world's most recognized.

It's an aka gym and the fellow's name is Trevor Prangley.

And he's got a very popular Muay Thai Jiu Jitsu club here in

town.

I recently started a tire store and then I did some tires for

him and he wanted to get a vehicle tuned.

And I was able to facilitate that through a friend of mine.

It was just like an old 50s Chevrolet pickup truck with a

LS small block in it.

So, you know, recently I've been kind of, you know, just helping

him out with whatever I can and what have you and and he's

like, you really need to come into the master class and do

some rolling.

And I'm like, oh, buddy, like the mobility is just such a pain.

So that that's Tuesdays and Thursdays.

And so that's that's my goal right now is for 2026 to try

and hit as many of those masters class in the morning as I

can as possible because I really just just the mobility is

such a big deal.

Like I this morning my Mrs is like, she's our house, the

bedroom's aloft and she looks down as I'm staring at the TV

and there's this like gal on TV and she's got this like seven

minute stretch routine, which I suck at and my Mrs is looking

at me like, what the hell are you doing?

And I'm like trying to get mobile.

Like I just I don't want to tear a groin 20 miles out into the

woods and then have to deal with all that.

And it's kind of embarrassing to be good at something, but

have your body not cooperate.

So I've noticed that doing tires, we started a tire shop called

tires and traction and just crouching down, picking up

tires, putting them on cars, trying to help out the guys just

physically moving like that has made me feel a lot better.

And when I come back to the injector shop, they're like,

dude, you're in a better mood.

And I'm like, well, it's because I'm just moving like, you

know, you got eight or nine hours of just constant steady

movement instead of just walking around, you know,

supervising people and, you know, feeding people ideas like

it's it's been good.

So and then, you know, I did the thing about like physical

fitness is you have to you got to do something that you can

employ every single day, right?

And, you know, if I was in high school and I didn't have a

job or responsibilities or life dropping 20 pounds would be

easy, but when you've got to go to performance racing industry

show and you've got to hang out and kiss babies and buy cocktails

and buy dinners, there's just things that you got to put on

yourself that are expectations that you can achieve and

maintain.

So I didn't, you know, 13 pounds could I have lost more?

Yes.

But I think what I did was kind of turned on a little bit of

heat and a lot of heat and I feel I feel better about it.

So I'm not I'm not disappointed in myself, but you know, like

I think I can do this for a full year without changing too

terrible much.

And we got some some topics to cover and I definitely want

your feedback from PR I talked about the UCC truck, but this

is almost a perfect pivot to tie in a bunch of different

conversations we've had on the podcast.

So you've talked about being a good mechanic or like a big

turbo, you know, great turbo builder transmission builder

and then you have a shop and you're trying to run it.

So when you're going through the different parts of fitness

and what you're wanting to change, it aligns with a lot of

the previous things, excuse me that you've told me about doing

things that aren't comfortable to be able to improve your

overall like, you know, just focusing on like diesel shops

and stuff like, you know, I can imagine being a great mechanic

you open a shop, you might not be the greatest at accounting

or marketing or customer service, but you have to like

immerse yourself in it to get good at it.

So do you see a lot of crossover between the physical fitness,

the mobility, that kind of stuff and then the business side

of, you know, dynamite diesel products, the tire store that

you started and like they seem like they joined up a lot.

You know, I mean, I kind of feel, I guess I've spent a lot

of time in the truck, you know, even I didn't have to drive

to PRI, PRI was an exceptionally awesome time this year

like circa first time I ever held a booth at PRI was probably

0506 and that year the diesel in the PRI show, this was still

back in Florida was maybe me and one or two of the booths

like we were definitely, you know, the unwanted stepchildren

and this year the bigger booths at the PRI show have strong

ties to, if not our 100% diesel related.

So, you know, people for the past few years have kind of said

like diesel performance is over, like you can't delete a

truck, so it's all, that's bullshit.

Diesel performance shouldn't ever start with a street driven

truck that had a DPF period.

You should be building something that's going to be a performance

intended, you know, we make enough power now where you should

be able to scare the ever-loving hell out of yourself and do

it with safety.

You know, if you look at David Petrick and the firepunt gang

just built him a new chassis, that thing's wicked sick.

That's sitting in the waggle booth.

It's got wagglers, you know, big billet motor in it.

It's got our injectors in it.

If you look at, you know, say any the rod with his Corvette

that thing's wicked fast.

These aren't DPF deleted vehicles.

These are race specific vehicles and truck pulling has hundreds

of legitimate bad to the bone built for competition sled

pull trucks.

ODSS has done an okay job of getting and keeping racing alive,

but there's been like a lot of like people that were just like

where we're kind of doing the same thing over and over and

over and it's not really getting any better to where truck

pulling.

There's all sorts of organizations.

You got PPL.

You got the outlaws.

You got you got all these different sanctioned bodies that

start out as like brush lead pulls and then they turn into

sanctioned bodies.

And you know, when you get to the Mississippi River and head

east, you know, you could legitimately pull three times in

a weekend.

If you just didn't mind driving three or four hours to where

Mississippi West that'd be a real tough feat unless you've

got a fast truck tow truck and you don't mind covering like

10, 12, 14 hours between poles.

So with what we have going on this side of the world compared

to the other side of the world is a very different situation.

Pp excuse me, a PRI performance racing industry show gave me

another brief look, three day look at what the real world

has in store for us.

And I would say that the outlook is really bright like

things were a lot.

It was amazing dude.

Like we had a chassis in our in our booth and it had some

brand new cut tires in it.

And the guy one of the guys that worked at the tire shop at

nickels tire walks by is like, what are you doing with those?

What are those going on?

What's going on?

And he was kind of like offended that they weren't on some

like legit like pull truck.

And my guys are like, no, dude, they're going to be on this.

It's a UCC truck.

And that guy's like, what the hell's a UCC truck?

Like he had no idea.

So ultimate call out challenge.

One day it's a drag race truck.

The next way it's a sled pull truck.

Next day it's going to be a dyno event truck and all these

people that walk by and saw our chassis sitting there.

Like it was a great conversation starter in our booth because

you know, I'm just kind of like leaned up against chassis and

people walk by and they're like, what is that?

You know, it's like got a beautiful motor and trans case

transmission.

It's all brand new and it was just and it was a great way to

start conversations and and the amount of people are outside

sales reps Troy and Kirk, which again hats off.

They're killing it.

We're picking up five to seven referrals per week.

So dealer network is growing by five to seven per week.

Now not every single one of them is coming on direct, but five

to seven people per week were directing to a warehouse and

giving them a contact person with a new warehouse to buy our

product because we can't sell to every single body, but for

the ones that we can't bring in direct, we're sending them to

the warehouses and that five to seven for us a big number.

You know, there's the evolution of boy, this does tie in

together.

BRI was a wicked.

It was a great show.

I can't say enough good about it.

The future looks bright company called ECU Masters is making

an injector driver module, which means that Dynamite diesel

is going to be able to start installing and selling diesel

masters aftermarket ECUs to all of our race customers.

So we've got two mechanics work for me.

They'll be able to do installs.

We're working with hard way on base files that start up and

get the car running.

And Ryan's going to help us do like any sort of troubleshooting

things like that because he's got a good experience.

So I see that the ECU Masters really turning on the heat when

it comes to performance for us.

There's another fella named Phil that's getting back into into

the diesel game.

He's an extremely sharp guy, very well burst burst at Bosch

and Motec and he's going to come out and he's going to start

supporting aftermarket diesel hot rod stuff.

So, you know, with a guy freelance like that going out,

it's going to make all of diesel performance racing pulling

all of it just way better and safer shops for shop owners

that have never been to a SEMA show or never been to a PRI

show.

You got to you got to spread your wings and go for a fly.

It really does change when you're, you know, my father owned

a repair shop in a small town and he never did get to see

anything like that.

But had he seen something like that, I think it would open his

eyes to what the world really has to offer out there and what

challenges that shop owners, you know, face and what the

solutions are to overcome said challenges.

So you're constantly evolving constantly getting better for

yourself, your own pride and your customers as well because

you know, if you ever break up with somebody, you want to be

the one that is missed the most, right?

And if a customer ever leaves your shop, you want it to hurt

them more than it hurts you.

So you want to be as valuable as possible.

And that's just a general business and dating period like

not sure how I did that, but I did that.

I feel like that was pretty effective.

Yeah, PRI seems really cool.

I got to do a few episodes with people like while they were

in their booth and it was really cool to see

like collaborations or just like announcements that apply to

so many different parts of like whether it's I know it's

performance racing, you know, like show, but a lot of the

things pertain to everyday trucks and it was really cool

for me to be able to have those conversations and then share

it with like tens of thousands of people to be able to say,

Hey, there's a there's a new product coming on board or you

can use this for your race truck or your tow truck or daily

driver. It was really is really cool to be able to do that.

You know, a really extremely perfect example of how that

show helps everybody.

John Q. Public is in America.

There's no real foundries or casting facilities because EPA

and we bring in these Chinese cylinder heads that are cast

out of country and now a bunch of the aftermarket cylinder head

guys have discovered they can bring in these these rough castings.

They can buy a Centroid or a Rottler.

They can come up with their own CNC program.

They can come up with their own valve springs or retainers

and their own valves and they can sell an aftermarket cylinder

head. That's really really really a nice piece for less than

just walking into Cummins or Ford and buying like OEM junk.

That's all cracked and reused and refurbished and it you know,

it's the OEM level is never asked for a performance piece.

So you're never going to get good valve parts in it.

You're never going to get good valve train in it and you're

going to pay an awful lot for us.

So yeah, performance racing industry gives, you know, a shop

owner the answers to a lot of questions for everyday people

all the time.

I just love it.

I think it's a great show.

It mentioned before the podcast the flow of things from like

a truck owner to a shop to a distributor to a manufacturer.

And I think right now it really kind of falls really in line

with like PRI and what we just talked about because you you

see it as a manufacturer, but then you also see it working

with shops and even individuals that call Dynamite Diesel

products and order something.

So you see a lot of different angles of it.

Has it what's that flow like?

Has it changed?

Is it maybe kind of morphed into where how things are flowing

through that?

That's that's something I love to kind of follow and and just

be able to understand more about you know, circa 2000 you

had premier performance products in southern Idaho starting

up this all new idea or concept of a diesel performance driven

warehouse that was only, you know, strictly diesel.

That's all they talked is diesel and they had, you know,

bully dog that banks they had actually didn't have banks back

then they said bully dog that edge.

They had some really, you know, early staples of the performance

industry, you know, bully dog was known for like propane kits

back then and you know, they learned that from the tractor

side of things because those guys are farmers, right?

So a bunch of this stuff went to premier, premier hired up a

bunch of people and went out and chased a bunch of small shops

and then set up a dealer network of you could go to premier

and you could buy diesel dynamics injectors.

You can buy all these really early game stuff and at one point

they were kind of the mother ship of diesel performance.

Like if you didn't have a premier account, then you weren't

going to be successful and through the years, you know,

they stepped into things that were illegal and they got

slapped and then new ownership comes in changes.

We can't do that.

We can't afford to get slapped.

So then, you know, they kind of fall out of what people were

calling diesel performance, but it wasn't it was it wasn't

the performance at all.

It was just diesel the leading, you know, the performance side

of it is trying to figure out like what transmission or what

turbo or or what injectors or whatever you can use without

doing all the ignorance.

So when premier went away and I say that because they they

really kind of started stepping into mud flaps and gasoline

tuner stuff and Jeep stuff and they really they watered down

their own brand with so much saturation.

Then that gave other people that used to be customers

opportunities to jump in and compete directly head to head

with them and you know, some of those guys have been popped

as well.

So they've changed their direction.

Some are completely out of business, but as a as a manufacturer.

I've always thought to myself like if I called up like

Edelbrock in order to an intake manifold, they wouldn't

even sell me an intake manifold.

They wouldn't tell me to call some of our Jags and I thought

well dynamite if we're going to become a manufacturer, that's

the direction that we need to head down the path we need to

head down and we pushed on the warehouses to stock our product

and you know, then be educated on our product and COVID

happened and you know, I'm begging people like will you let

me come out and train with your sales staff and they're like

no, like you can't come to our facility anymore.

We're done with that.

Well, then their sales staff falls off of the training

bandwagon and they're they're being inundated by more and

more and more lines and more brands.

And pretty soon dynamite's too damn small for anybody to

even pay attention to at a warehouse.

So we became irrelevant with a lot of warehouses, I guess.

We have a lot of people calling here saying that our stuff

was on backward and they demanded that, you know, we give

them an ETA and we're like, bro, you give me a credit card

number, it will leave here today.

Your warehouse is just on COD like unfortunately I can't ship

because your warehouse and they're like what?

Yeah, you're it's sitting right by the shipping order by the

shipping table.

It's got your name.

It's got your address on it, but I can't sell it to you

through them because well, they're behind.

So, you know, we've had to change directions and hire an

outside sales firm that can pursue those leads and those

companies and those small shops and that's been

COVID changed a lot.

Like they're just the ability to go out and rub elbows with

people kind of came to a halt and now like we still have,

you know, if you're going to buy a Chevrolet pickup truck,

you're going to turn on TV, you're going to open up now that

I've mentioned it to my phone and they always stalk us.

The next time I open up Facebook, it's going to have a Chevrolet

is, you know, most latest, greatest 1.9% sales financing,

blah, blah, blah.

But there's somebody out there trying to figure out how to punch

you in the face with their brand every single day because

the day that you have that issue of I'm just done with what

I'm driving and I want to go buy a new one, you're almost

always going to go look at if you're not super brand specific

loyal, you're probably going to go look at whatever you heard

most recently about and you know, when you're trying to build

a brand or if you're trying to build your shop's name, you

really want to be the guy that when hunting camp comes around

at least one of the guys sitting around the fire at hunting

camp is speaking really highly of you.

So he tells his other four or five buddies that that's the guy

to go to that's the shop owner to go to and as a shop owner,

you want to be sure to, you know, a build up a really good

quality, you know, a reputation do high quality work, but

then you're also going to want to build up a really high

quality staff because you can't have people with five years

experience. If you genuinely don't have five year season

veterans working for you and if you, you know, I get tired of

I'm sure you've heard this, but you know, you go to anywhere

right now anywhere USA and small business owners are like,

man, I can't I can't hire anybody even when I want to hire

them. They're here for like three days and then they peace

out. They don't even have the respect to call me back and

tell me they're not coming in. I understand all those things

and I've said this a lot like unfortunately and it's not

Patrick's fault. It's not Lenny's fault. It's not Trump's

fault. It's not Biden's fault. It's what happened. Now when

you print money and you hand it out for free, the first thing

that it's going to do is it's going to drive up consumer

demand on all the goods. And the second thing it's going to

do is it's because you've now pumped in you've injected a

bunch of money that you didn't have access to before consumer

demand goes up and the next thing that happens is pretty

soon like all of the crap that's on these lots camp trailers

or whatever they run out. So then inflation starts and

inflation doesn't stop with camp trailers or motorcycles or

four-wheelers or boats. It stops because now gas and diesel

goes up and when you inflate energy costs you inflate the

cost of growing eggs, beef, rice, wheat, potatoes and here

we are years later still in that that toilet of costs and

now that I feel like with energy costs decreasing gas and

diesel I just it's very unfortunate but my 68RFE 140,000

miles finally broke last week. So we flew to PRI. One of my

mechanics drove the truck out with the booth in it and then

he was there for a day and then he he got to fly home. We

flew one of the other mechanics out at the end of the show to

help us tear the boot down and then he was able to drive

down to Missouri drop off our display motor and it's now at

the dyno shop getting beat up and then on his way home he

called and said hey look I'm in like somewhere next to

nowhere, South Dakota and I got no forward no reverse gears.

I'm like call a tow truck get a tow to someplace safe and

find a really comfy spot. We'll be there in like a day. So

myself myself and Rex had to jump in the truck with the 40

foot gooseneck and we towed Rex's truck. We then hooked up

to my trailer with Rex's truck and we all drove home and that

was really good for me because then I realized like if we're

gonna go to these NHRDA races and these ODSS races and and

UCC I own a really really really nice truck that I ordered

like the black limited Dooley. It's amazing. It's got fairly

low miles while it was brand new when I bought it but and I

just thought oh crap I'm gonna need to get another truck

because the great truck is going in for car testing at

SEMA garage which means the guys won't have a truck to go to

all the races with unless they use mine. So now I gotta since

we are sending the the 2019 out for testing now I got a

purchase then I reached out to Peter at SEMA garage. He gave

me a list of trucks that he wants to see us testing. So now

we're shopping for one of those trucks so we can start testing

other parts for you know EOS stuff and then we finally get

home and on the way home we had these like did you had crazy

winds about a week ago didn't you? He has pretty bad. So when

you had that we had that and then we had this rain and what

have you and twice I was driving at like 55 miles an hour

on the freeway and the wind picked up all of the sand from

the side of the highway and threw it at my black truck. So

I probably ate I'm betting that my trucks $5,000 damaged

like headlights, grill, windshield, all of it just

pelted. So I finally got some out. I was like pull over.

We're just going to stay in the next town. We're going to get

dinner and you know the weatherman says that the wind is

supposed to die tonight and we'll finish this because I'm

not going to continue beating up my junk. So my personal

trucks now black and rattled with all sorts of sandblasting

media super stoked about it but we are probably going to be

buying like an F-250, F-350 to do some testing on here pretty

quick or possibly even an L5P. Yeah, there's so many things

on our end going you know it's the end of the year and my

brains and my hyper overdrive right now trying to think about

all the things we did but you know what we kind of veered

off like as a shop owner hire somebody and be prepared to

pay them make sure that you yourself are investing in

your future, your retirement, your property, your tools and

when somebody comes to work for you they will see that you're

investing into your own company, your own self, your own

future and as long as you're investing into them then they

will stay with you but if they don't see an end in sight for

you then they don't see an end in sight for them so just as

sure as they found you to come to work for you they will find

somebody new to go to work for until they finally feel

comfort knowing that that company is going to be around for

a very long time. So we just hired another guy there's more

than 30 bodies in this building now which is crazy to me

because I didn't think we'd ever need to be that big doing

just injectors and yeah I take off for two weeks to come back

and there's another body doing reman injectors so it really

I remember this kind of pissed me off but do you remember

when when they were talking about inflation and Biden was

like hey I got a secret just pay them and it infuriated so

many business owners because it was so early in the game to

just you know be throwing money around to try and keep people

but reality is like the cost of houses isn't going to go down

we're just not ever going to see lower real estate values

anytime in the near future banks have to operate off of a

profit and you know we're going to see a couple of interest

rates drop but you're never going to unless something drastically

changes again which could happen in any moment we're probably

never going to see 3% interest rates ever again so you just

kind of got to get used to it and understand that you know

there's calculators that you can put in your phone that will

show you like mortgage costs you know things like that and

just understand that like whether you're buying a snow

wheel or you're buying a house you can plug in 60 months or 30

years or whatever you can plug in your interest you can plug

in the the principal amount that you're going to owe you'll

see what your payments are and you're going to see what your

interest payment is and then you got to understand that if

it's a company that the interest if not all of it most of it

can be written off so even though you're paying interest

does it really cost you anything or does it just something

less than you have to give to Uncle Sam so get a good CFO

get a good accountant get get sharp with books because like

at the end of the day trying to do a company and compete

against the large factories in America that have all those

infrastructures in place can be very very very difficult so

as small business people I think that we have to be as sharp

as possible to try and acquire and retain awesome employees

and I yeah that's there's that a diesel fans wanted to chat

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So what I'm curious about your opinion on going back to that

flow a bit is do you think like when it comes to the want

for a product or the need for a product like you mentioned

it's the last one that you see do you think that and this

isn't an either or question it could it could be variable I

think that the interest in a product comes from the shop

recommending it or it comes from the consumer asking about

it.

I know the answer to this question because being the

smaller brand the shops that I've sold to that trust our

stuff have always told us dude it's it's hard to sell your

stuff because it costs a little bit more and nobody knows

about it.

And reality is like Microsoft's never been the best but

everybody knows it so it sells and even if it's not the best

that pulls a premium dollar because everybody knows it.

So yeah I think that brand building is like that the that's

the key to success being able to sell yourself being able to

sell your company your products and knowing that you know this

actually changes my my tone just a little bit because we just

recently started Tirestore and the reason I started Tirestore

is because I got tired of low quality service like nothing

makes me more inferior than dropping $2,000 $3,000 on

tires and then driving down the road and having a weight fly

off or driving down the road and having a vibration or driving

down the road and having one of my $400 center caps pass me

like that kind of stuff's not acceptable.

So as a tire shop like with dynamite we're getting emails

every single day and we're getting phone calls every single

day that genuinely are happening because of 25 year organic

growth.

We've grown into be a brand and this is funny because like

even 25 years later Troy and Kirk are like hey there's people

that still don't know who we are and I'm thinking you've got

to be kidding me like these people live under a rock 25

years in business like I've outlasted a lot of companies

and people still don't know who we are and that's kind of a

good thing because as far as the all of the people in America

knowing who we are that's not where I'm at and since I'm not

there it's a good thing because that means there's more clients

out there and potentially more business available that I didn't

have access to last week.

So I'm pretty stoked about that.

With the tire shop I thought OK what I'm going to do is I'm

going to get myself a billboard on the side of the highway and

on the side of the highway is going to be this billboard

people going to drive by it they're going to see it they're

going to see our phone number they're going to call us it

hasn't worked too grand a month.

I don't think that I've gotten a single phone call off that

billboard yet and I'm thinking to myself like why and reality

is a couple of different things people have their goddamn

phones in their hand the whole time they're driving so they're

not staring at the billboard on the side of the road.

Now there is a billboard right here in town that I wanted to

be on but we're not there till next month and it is in a zone

that's like 35 mile an hour zone the billboard that I'm on

right now is like 65 miles an hour 70 mile an hour.

So these people are like they're focusing more on bumpers

and you know not getting into an accident at 70 instead of

hey there's a stoplight coming and I'm going to be stuck in

front of this roadside billboard this other one might be more

effective but then I was like OK back in the old day we used

to pay X amount per month for a telephone directory like the

yellow pages remember that.

We don't have that no more now you got to jump on your phone

you got to go to every single map app you got to go to all

these things you got to prove that you're in existence in your

business and then slowly but surely you migrate towards the

Google Maps the Apple Maps all of it and then you've got to

pray that your customers give you reviews so you can start

organically bumping up through the ranks right now if I type

in tires and traction I pop up but if I type in tire stores

in Hayden Idaho I don't pop up yet so marketing strategies

have become very very very digital and you kind of have

to have a lot of patience entire stores traditionally are

going to be like high retail zones and I don't need the money

so I don't really push to go to every single retail customer

out there like that's not my goal my goal is to find you

know a couple hundred customers that just want to be taken

care of that don't mind either a coming in grabbing their laptop

sitting down at a desk and going to work for an hour or two

while we work on the car or be somebody that schedules for

a drop off and have somebody else pick them up or schedules

with us to drop them off at their work or whatever so we're

not going to be doing just you drive in and sit down grab a

bag of popcorn and then wait like we're not doing that because

I don't care to

tire brands tire models there's so many people that make so

many tires and you've got like tier one to tier five tier

one is amazing awesome stuff super expensive and then tier

five is trash that comes in in a shipping container and when

that shipping is going on you're never going to find that

tire again so even if it's your favorite tire if you pop one

of them six months down the road you might not be able to

find a replacement so we're shooting to sell that tier one

stuff and keep people happy with really high quality stuff

and you know this it how is it different than dynamite will

dynamite is 25 years old and we sell to everybody in the USA

and countries outside the USA and the tire store is much more

like one of your shop owners it's going to be a guy that has

a local following and it takes time and he has to know people

and when somebody goes to lunch or goes to the bar they have

to talk about your local shop or else you're going to die

and if you don't have local talent that's willing to stay

and work with you you're always going to be beating yourself

up a couple interesting things is when I talk to people who

are they have a diesel truck but they're not an enthusiast

they don't know any of the brands that are on this podcast

they don't know dynamite they don't know any of the companies

I have on their idea of repair is to go to the Ford dealership

Ram dealership the GM dealership and just have them fix it

and that was something that was really eye-opening to me

because I've lived these brands since gosh 2010 or 2009

you know like I mentioned being on your site back in 2008

and looking at it I've lived more of this side of it and so

my idea has always been to how can I introduce

people who may find this video or this episode to other

options that they have and I've seen that shift as well

especially like doing a podcast is I never think and I don't

even consider myself like an industry person I think of

myself as an enthusiast first always approach like a

conversation with you or the things that I ask you about

as an enthusiast as a truck owner so how would I find it

like how would I learn about dynamite diesel products

how would I learn about what makes your injectors different

and kind of at the same time I've also seen this distrust of

legacy media and I'm not just talking like the big news

channels out there anything legacy you know when I was younger

I would flip up in a magazine and that would kind of direct

me on where I was going to go or I'd see like a print ad

like you mentioned and that's what would drive me where now

like I love how our audience they keep me accountable like

if I don't ask the right questions they tell me if I don't

go into enough detail they tell me and I use that as my

compass to be able to do that I find people want

they want to hear your stories they want the human side of

dynamite diesel products and then they want me to really go

into the details with you like when you go into those talks

about like flow and media and MM3 cubed and all that stuff

like they're thirsty for that and so I've definitely seen a

shift since the podcast started until gosh in three weeks

it's the 10 year anniversary of the diesel podcast but like

in those 10 years I've seen it change like how and what people

want and what they asked for and I saw the shift from like

I want compound turbos it's having on horsepower to now

they just want it to run like they don't even really care

about like the high performance daily driver they're trying

to keep their trucks going so it's been really kind of cool

to to follow that that's why I was curious and ask you like

where do you think the interest comes from like the consumer

or the shop owner for me personally I research everything

and if I'm undecided then I'll trust my local store local shop

and I want like their personal feedback and that can sway my

decision a little bit but normally I'm doing all the

research reading things and that's kind of guiding me.

You know last week I had a conversation with a good buddy

of mine who who basically is a very high executive in a diesel

company that has over 600 employees so this dude's stress

level is you know I'm going to call hi and he says Lenny you

know who a SAP is I'm like oh yeah I'm standard automotive

products yeah and if you've ever gone to like O'Reilly's or

auto zone there's a ton of standard automotive products in

there and their diesel injection program like I've gotten some

of their injectors just went down and bought them tested them

and the parts they're using aren't that great but the warranty

is really good and that's that's something that's almost

unfair because if there's a guy out there that runs a Napa

or some branch of automotive parts house and they're trying

to compete with a standard automotive your purchasing power

as somebody who owns like 3, 4, 5 parts houses compared to

somebody that's O'Reilly's your purchasing power is going to

be you know very very small horsepower so the only way that

if I was running 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 warehouses or or parts

houses I would do it off quality like we don't deal with big

box bullshit parts I don't care what the warranty is the best

warranty is one that you don't ever have to use and like dynamite

diesel like we we have methods we've got things that we do

we've got ways that we live it's not my fault that when I when

during covid everything I bought Italy came back in a warranty

and it's still coming back maybe a set of week now those have

expired time wise of our official warranty every single

employee from my manager to the guy that you know is shipping

stuff knows that anything from Italy we no questions asked

just fix it take care of it replace it because my my end

user the guy that's driving the truck he doesn't know and he

doesn't care where my parts came from he bought dynamite yeah

he didn't he didn't know his mind dynamite slash Italy and

that's not his fault for his problems but we still warranty

that stuff out because you know this is a another spin but

a long time ago I worked for a tire store called Les Schwab

tire and Les Schwab was still open unless started this this

tire store in like 1953 because the local tire shop kind of

screwed him and he's like you know what like I don't like

being screwed so he opened up this little company called ok

tire and rubber and he started this tire store and his whole

philosophy was like just take care of the customer do it right

do it right first time period and with less you know beating

that into us and then his warranty was really good like the

warranty is basically we cover everything if you got a tire

that has 1630 seconds for the rubber on a brand new and you

come in and it's not fixable with 930 seconds we're only

charging you for the 730 seconds of rubber that you used

and here at dynamite like there's stuff that we want you

that we definitely shouldn't want you but less also said

something during a talk one time we you know I got to work

when less was no longer running the company there's a guy

named Phil Wick that ran the company but less would you

know we would go to Primeville Oregon we would do the meet

and greet and then less would tell us you know like the

simple philosophies that make companies successful and he

asked us a question he said if anybody in here could write

a check to any customer for their 100% loyalty for all of

their tire purchases for the rest of their lives how much

is that check worth and really today I still use that same

theory like if I could write a check to any singles 18 year

old kid 28 year old man 53 year old man 70 year old man how

much is that check worth because you don't know like you

don't know if that 18 year old kid is going to end up owning

a drive-in service center and then he turns one into three

which turned into five would turn to six now if I would

have known that I would have given that kid a huge check

for all of his loyalty but you also don't know if he dies

tomorrow now you don't know if the 53 year old man that you're

dealing with over the counter today you don't know if that

guy happens to own 25 or 50 semi trucks you don't know if

he's got a ranch that potentially has 13 or 15 Dodge diesel

Ford power stroke GM L5 P's on the ranch since you don't know

this treat every single customer like it's your last

customer that's it and that being said I've fired some

customers and I I find peace in it because not every customer

is actually worth you know some people just can't tell the

truth they don't want to tell you the truth that they're

trying to get something some people are just scammers that's

all there is to it and you can't walk fast enough away from

those people to save the heartache the pain the suffering

the misery you know when customers and this happens to not

just dynamite but it's happened to every single you know clutch

company Peter five from South Bend clutch like I've had the

same discussion with him for you know 20 years these dudes

call up and they're like they do the install wrong they

screw this up they screw that up they send the clutch back

and it's blue like that's not a clutch fault that's an idiot

fault the dude behind the wheels and idiot when customers

send in injectors and they're like hey look you know I put

my stock stuff back in and it runs perfectly fine okay but

you sent me my parts back and they're full of trash so

either my parts caught all of the trash in your fuel tank

or you're not telling the truth it's whatever we recently

this year gave a guy back his money and we don't do that

very often but knowing that the guy is not telling you the

truth out of the gate you're way better off killing the

relationship and letting him go be some pain for somebody

else down the road and that's fine like I'm completely cool

with that like it's the best divorce ever like I'm giving

you back exactly what you put into this household not get

the hell out of here I didn't lose a thing like that as a

shop owner like that'll wear you out like you got too many

of those customers but if you build up the local name as a

shop owner to be the guy that you know is only taking care

of people that take care of him you know if you treat your

customers like family which family stuff because you're

born into this thing and that you all share genetics that

doesn't mean you share a lot and if your family isn't treating

you with respect action speak louder towards when you call

when you call a customer and say hey look you know I'm looking

at your truck and this this and this also need to be taken

care of and the customer says no just you know get it back

on the road and then a month later that guy calls you up

and reams your ass and tells you that you screwed up because

it's doing the same thing you're like no no no I gave you

an opportunity to fix all that stuff before it be but now

you're suffering from this this or this because I warned you

about it. Those are the customers and those are you know

the family members that you kind of want to know who they

are and break up with them over time because you're never

going to get ahead you're going to put so much effort and

so much wasted energy into something that never pays you

back you know like the people in this building my employees

were I'm having a Christmas Eve party out of my house and

it's no big deal we've got a lot of employees that moved out

of state to come to work for this company and then I have

a lot of family members here locally so like it's a great

way for me to hang out with all of them and get to know them

better on a more personal level you know like I say some don't

have family here what have you it's just I would rather spend

my effort and energy on people that spend their effort and

energy on me then giving my effort to a family member or

a customer who's just abusing their relationship like be

okay with moving on it's fine my therapist says so

there's a guy I saw him probably 1012 years ago on YouTube

his name is John Willis and he owns a company called special

operations equipment they make like EDC belts mag carriers

duffel bags tons of stuff like that but I found him because

he would do this thing on YouTube where he would get on

there and he would read customer emails and so it like he

would sell say a belt and it would say 8 to 12 week lead

time and he didn't meet like an email from a guy a day later

and says if you don't ship this tomorrow I'm canceling my

order I'm telling all my friends that you suck and everything

else and he would be like I already canceled your order

it would have shipped the end of the week but I'm going to do

a discount code with like your first name for anyone who

wants to use this because I want you to go to my competitors

and just tie them down and their customer service departments

down with this type of attitude and this type of stuff and

I wasn't even a customer of theirs I really like their belts

but I thought yeah I really like how he approaches this

I'm gonna jump on their website and I'm like oh it takes 8

to 12 weeks cool it would always ship faster but that always

stuck with me just as a consumer of like how am I going to

treat the people that are trying to help me how can I set

the expectation how can they tell me the expectation like

what you mentioned about those injectors and and warranting

them like that was another thing another industry I don't

want to name it because it'll get shadow banned on YouTube

but it was like they outsourced this production of this product

they had they marketed it hard they had a bunch of issues

with it and me two years later I'm looking at this brand to

buy something and I came across these old posts of it failed

it came apart it did this it did that they had to spend a lot

of time and I'm sure a lot of money to one be honest about

it and to say how we've changed it and I really appreciated

like their approach and I became a customer of this new

product that they have so I can definitely identify just like

as somebody who buys stuff who hates money and likes to buy

things all the time like yeah how that how that how that all

ties together yeah hate money hate money love work be a drag

racer

the the honest like thing about any company and this you know

this happens you know like when when one person starts

something it doesn't necessarily go it never

just because I started something doesn't mean that my

offspring is going to enjoy it or have passion about it so if

you hand it to them then it will dilute itself of quality and

passion and pretty soon it's never going to be what your

what your legacy or your view of what that thing after you're

gone ends up being and I mean if you look at you know less

swap tire that's a primary example like that dude was

passionate about helping customers period and tires just

happened to be the tool that he used to do that and he bred

a bunch of bad mo foes that ran stores privately they were

company owned stores but they were ran by managers that were

very prideful and very competitive so you'd see like in the

less swab recap which is a monthly newsletter that the store

that the company published you'd see who is killing it and

you'd see who is kind of sucking and once a year they would

do this image contest where your your managers in your local

zone call it 12 or 13 store managers they all jump in a

couple of suburbans they drive around and they grade the

interior cleanliness and image of your store and you would

have a contest for image like you know things and it was

always fun to be a part of that and they had us working for

free because we just wanted our store to look better nobody

else like they weren't paying us but we were so prideful as

young guys to make sure that we kicked everybody else's ask

the image contest that we was shown up 630 in morning 6

o'clock in the morning staying an hour after after we punch

out because we knew that we were going to kill the wage

costs and that hurts the profitability of the company

and then you suck at the recap like in the recap it would

be like your store used to be third most profitable all

the sudden you bleed the store for a bunch of image or a bunch

of excess overtime and your profitability drops so you didn't

want that either so they had us so passionate about what it

is we're doing that we didn't care about losing time or

minutes after hours we were just very prideful about what we

did then you know as years go on that delutes itself down

private money public money buys it you know that companies

for sale right now I think they want 7 billion dollars for

it which if that doesn't sound like a lot of money to you

take a dollar turned into a 60 second time segment and then

take 60 times 60 times 24 times 7 times 365 and how many

years it takes in minutes at $1 to get 7 I did that math

when I heard that Elon Musk his income tax was 11 billion

dollars so I did that math to figure out how many minutes

I would have to be alive earning $1 per minute and it's like

250 years it was crazy dude that's a lot that's a lot but

yeah like Elon Musk his income tax was more than the net

value of Lush Wab can you think about that like dude like

everybody knows that Lush Wab has like 600 stores now which

are all full of inventory and service trucks and employees

and tools tons of assets and that company's on the chopping

block for $7 billion and Elon's personal income tax was

11 billion for a year.

Yeah.

One year like that dude has his hands in so many pots.

I couldn't even imagine like that dude's just brilliant.

That's all there don't ever bet against that dude.

I promise him or Dana White that guy can turn anything to

gold.

Oh yeah.

Well before I let you go you mentioned drag racing UCC

truck I know that's something you're really focused hard on

for next year what like after after the first of the year

heading into 2026 like is that going to be like a major gear

up like what's your plan in the beginning part of the year

for it.

Okay so

so a good friend of mine passed away and he left me this

1998 Maroon pickup truck so it's been sitting around here for

years just kind of going to rot and this year I was like

I'm going to take the C7 truck bring it back out and we're

going to take it to UCC for the 10 year union UCC and it's

all for nostalgia.

I am a sucker for nostalgia.

So UCC truck is totally torn apart we're redoing all of it

and it's going to be bad like Chase fleece is building us

billet block with Waggler's billet aluminum head.

That's what we're going to drag race with

with our our buddy Chad Perkins at Perkins diesel in Missouri

built a Hamilton CGI block deck plate big studs it's got a

waggler ductile iron head on it and since Josh McCormick

currently owns the world record for chassis dynamometer

we're going to try and break that record and I love Josh

because that dude slaves like he grinds and he's a really

sharp guy. I also hate Josh because he set the bar so bloody

high I'm actually scared to break the record because of the

actual energy that it takes to make forty five hundred horsepower

on a motor that small like you know if there's a train making

forty five hundred horse 60 liters not a big deal but when

you do you know less than seven liters it's a big deal.

So love hate relationship right there Josh McCormick you took

the you took the cake. To get there the brotherhood of all my

buddies in this industry have all turned into niche guys Ryan

Milliken really understands calibration and tuning Andrew

to Vornick really understand suspension so I mean I've just

got a band of buddies from Hamilton Perkins fleece I got

buddies that are just wanting to help me out and get this thing

to haul ass and make big power and we're we're going to UCC

but before we even go there the NHRDA has new ownership and

we're in full support of that so we will be taking our UCC

truck to at least get test and tune passes at both the NHRDA

events so we're going to be racing it here in February and

it might not do much there. It might you know be just test

passes but Raven fabrications gets a chassis this week so

they can start in we got Chrome Olly ordered up and all the

things for all the cages we've got two parachutes on the bag

virus oppression like all of it. We're we're going we're going

full swing like I want and it's not just a flex like if I had

one flex if I had one dream. It would be that I don't care

if it's our truck with Donovan Harris driving it. I don't

care who it is but the podium this year at UCC I would love

and I hate to curse myself. That's me knocking on really

good hardwood. This is I will I will show you this is an

actual wood table. Basically I really want to take all three

top spot podium spots at the UCC this year. Like that would be

my my most dream for this year is whether it's us or whoever.

I don't care if I get there and I want all dynamite diesel

products injectors on the podium at UCC and ultimately like

now that NHRDA is going to have you know I'm in all support

of any sort of racing foundation that's going to promote diesel

but we're going to spend good money trying to make sure that

they have good events. So we're we're we're all in on the race

side and my my own sled pull truck. I'll probably see I was

supposed to see a front axle for like a month ago so I should

probably call on that and figure out where it's at but my

sled pull truck will be in three six form this year unless

I really get super chase and I've actually talked about taking

it out there and putting like putting it in super stock form

and then just leaving it at fleece and letting those guys

haul it around and then I would just fly out and then jump in

the truck and then run it in super stocks. So common rails

here to do some damage to some egos and I love that it's

because my guys have spent a lot of time trying to figure out

like end of injection beginning of injection and just massive

amounts quantity so we can make pistons go up and out really

violently and it's time to finally show the world that

we're there.

That's cool. I'm looking forward to seeing it and then talking

with you like through the process I'd really love to spend a

little time you know during our chats talking about like before

you get there because I think that part gets missed a lot like

the design the planning the things that you're learning

through it. So that's something in 2026. I'm really looking

forward to this 2026 is a huge you know like I I I just feel

like 2026 is going to be a year that moves a needle because

common rails made a pretty good splash in three sixes here.

But I know that quantity wise we have enough quantity to run

super stock quite easily and now that we've got more ECU's that

are coming to the marketplace that's going to put us in the

realm of being very very very relevant in super stocks and

big big power. I think that the NHRDA having new ownership

with some fresh passion Chris Sirle Chris Sirle or Chris

Sirle. God damn I always mess that name up. You know he's

going with the UCC since day one and he's now a partial owner

of the NHRDA having him join with Matt Story. You got a guy

that's just passionate and he's a great dude very family focused

very business focused and he just wants to see diesel motors

sports grow. I think that those two combining forces to do

NHRDA like this year is going to be it's going to be a little

bit small. They're just going to redo the events they did last

year but they're going to gain knowledge and gain traction

and they're going to gain you know love from people out West

that didn't race for the last 5 or 10 years didn't do anything

last 5 or 10 years and I would say that 12 months from now

they're probably going to come out with another couple events

and who knows they might start bringing back truck and tractor

pulling to you know the same weekend as the race. I just

think that this year has the potential to really blossom

and become a beautiful season for everybody in the performance

side of it and when the performance side of it grows the OEM

side of it like do our number one seller is stock 59 and stock

67 injectors because nobody wants to go drop 85 or 90 grand

at 12 to $1,500 a month plus insurance to go buy a new truck.

So if they want to they don't really want to because it's a huge

chunk of change every month but then they're also dealing with

the same emissions garbage and who knows like 2 years from now

we might be down to like we might have a lot less emissions

gear on a brand new truck in 2 years than we do right now

that could backfire I could be totally wrong but you know

imagine if it had the EGR and you know like some sort of a

catalytic converter and it was legal like that would be a big

deal it would save 10 grand off top buy a new truck plus the

service intervals would be much greater you know it'd be less

frequent so buddy I just I oh boy so many so many exciting

thoughts about all that kind of stuff you know yeah yeah it'll

be cool to to see how that unfolds I appreciate your time I

know you're super busy and and everything but it was cool to

cool to chat with you today Lenny look forward to 2026

talking with more about UCC smart injector stuff and as always

like to sit back and I think somebody called you professor

Lenny on YouTube on our last our last podcast so always like

to to chat with the professor I got I got called the Jay Leno

diesel last week that PR I wild like must be the size of my

nose yeah thanks Patrick appreciate you have me on want to

give a shout out to some of our patreon supporters Robert

TSW diesel Brian John all of our other patreon supporters all

of you who subscribe on YouTube and podcast apps follow us on

social media we appreciate all your support here in year nine

of the DS podcast and look forward to bringing you more

the content that you want to hear in 2025 till next time keep

the shiny set up

Injector Details Everyone Misses

About this episode

Chevrolet pickup truck

LS small block

DPF

injectors

Chevrolet Corvette

truck pulling

UCC truck

drag race

ECU Masters

injector driver module

aftermarket ECU

Bosch

Motec

cylinder heads

Rottler

Centroid

valve springs

OEM

turbo

Edelbrock

68RFE

NHRDA

ODSS

black limited Dually

Renault Wind

Ford F350

Chevrolet Suburbans

billet block

billet aluminum head

chassis dynamometer

horsepower

Ford Flex

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