New Year, Same Old Car Podcast

One thousand cars sir you have a thousand cars I don't think I'd attempt to try this

stunt or we owe this horsepower to Uncle Sam's too big a car like I put my beer belly on

it you can't immediately tell somebody how many cars you have you'll really give those

up in a yuffy something to think about stay on the bar don't go off the bar with your Bronco

1980 Volvo horns what's right man's coolant he's like oh I thought I'd be small it's for a

small car and oh yeah but it's still an automatic transmission they're never gonna be light it's

definitely gonna have to crash starting off with Brad by another car that's the west

internet she knows this is Nigerian oil print I also wish you drove a tan Camry anyways

that's a very horrible podcast content very inside just love to be driven hard

this is the Adobe one right we're in the Adobe all right so I'll watch when we end it that I don't

close it that's right all right you're recording I am recording we are back hello welcome to

autoaf topic it has been a minute and it is now 2026 what's up Brad

I don't feel like it's a day past 2024 it does not we will call back to that comment

when we go over our resolutions that we've failed or made in the best year so we'll see if we're

well this is good because I don't fully remember them so you're gonna test me I guess uh I uh I

took a I took it to the time this afternoon to re-listen to last year's New Year's podcast because

I knew I'm sorry some resolutions and I knew that we probably nailed some and we probably

failed some so let's see how good or how bad we did in 2025 all right who do you want I mean

you already know them do you want to go first you do know them or do you want to make fun of me

let's see me go first I always want to make fun of you but that's okay so all right I listen to the

episode um first things first I just like to say I think it was a stellar episode and I could see

why we have so many people listen to us every week that's all I have to say about that okay

whoops and no it was actually it was a pretty good episode it was a pretty good episode so

I I enjoyed it despite it being my own voice because I forgot everything we talked about

and it was kind of neat to go back to the beginning of the white truck project so

but anyway so as as the tradition goes we generally have a Christmas themed episode

and then a New Year's themed episode but since we took the month of December off

we didn't do a Christmas themed episode this year so uh quick belated happy holidays to everybody

and I wanted to thank you Andrew for purchasing me an RC kit for Christmas

because we have ruined each other's hobby life and have made each other into full-on RC nerds again

so I uh have to build now a to my uh monster beetle so very excited about that actually

I'm planning out a paint scheme that will be different than box art so hopefully it works

out the way I think it's gonna work out cool did you have a good holiday I did uh yeah excellent

good nice relax someone yeah excellent yeah I now have two RC kits to build because I officially

also as teased on previous podcasts that I was thinking about getting into it uh Naomi bought me

a Yokomo Drift chassis to build so she's also supporting the disease so yeah it's a surprise

so it should be plenty and yes I'm aware um and I appreciate the input that you gave her

yeah there was also a gift of vintage Mitsubishi posters like dealership posters that uh was

a suggestion that was sent to her privately from our friend Brian so I appreciate anybody who

does that and helps her along to give me some gifts so I have some sweet old Mitsubishi posters

from the Mitsubishi anniversary when they were talking about their 1910s and 20s cars hmm

and some like sepia tone dealership artwork to hang in the garage so super cool but anyway so

since we skipped Christmas I just want to touch on that real fast we can move right on to New

Year's resolutions uh do you want to make some or do you want to see how you did in the last years

so it did in the last years I guess before I make some all right so for 2024

you know what I think that we should actually make some for this year okay because then if it's

the same that you made it for last year then I have something more to make fun of you with

okay all right have you thought of any resolutions yet this year well

automotive or podcast related or or whatever it could be whatever I mean I bet one of them

was to get the Volvo running and that you know did happen so I haven't driven it yet but it does run

one of them was to get the Volvo running yes you are correct it was the Volvo running and

to source a set of wheels for it and I think that both of those things have been done oh yeah I did

I do have a set of wheels for it um no tires but wheels um and I think I mean did I talk about like

maybe driving the talent more or like putting the intercooler in it that I've been talking about

for the last five years you use the talent intercooler was on your list for 2025

oops I didn't even drive that car also I made fun of you in the 2024 version of sorry the beginning

of 2025 because it was also on your 2023 list oh boy you've missed that resolution now two years

straight yeah it's it's been a it's been a while uh I have it yeah unfortunately I don't know I didn't

even get to drive that car last year um I don't know why I just didn't get to it busy year I don't

remember like what else I did which is weird but I'm like thinking man I drove the Golan a lot more

um is your Golan running on speed density yet no that was one of them you have also failed that one

I think maybe I mean did I talk about like updating the fuel system that was the beginning of last

year or was that the year before I'm losing track now so yes long long when you own cars for a long

long time so you start to forget spoiler alert spoiler alert uh that was also one that you received

a ribbing for last year because running legal out on speed density was also a 2023 to 2024

resolution as well so that's a rather also two years in um you did mention that you did partially

update the fuel system but you haven't gone all the way yet okay okay uh and does the Golan have

a sticky breakout or uh I think I fixed that by okay get it compressing it uh I mean who knows it

it's been sitting again because I haven't driven it since the end of the summer so at least gave

that one some attention I did I didn't because that was annoying and I wanted to drive it more

and I had a like I had like a really nice weekend with that uh in August driving it around

I think I talked about it I made it I went over the Kanganmangus and somehow had no one in front

of me the entire time uh on a Saturday morning or afternoon which was pretty crazy that's unheard of

yeah it was a like a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon in August and there was nobody in front

of me in basically the entire way um yeah uh so yeah I really should drive that car more

I didn't get much use out of the G20 either I didn't know zero track days but discovered

so another one of your resolutions was to do more track days oh boy

well I figured out that the ball joints were bad and I do have them I have to replace them

I mean in my defense the silly Subaru's of my mom and Stephanie both needed wheel bearings

and that took up a lot of extra time repairing those cars um and you know I'm sitting here

having a grand old time giving me a hard time for missing pretty much every single resolution

we talked about last year but we haven't reviewed mine yet um so chances are pretty good I might

have missed the mark too we'll have to wait and see though but yeah that was basically yet

your big ones were uh fuel system for speed density talent intercooler finish the Volvo

do more track days and just use the cars more those were your your goals I think you accomplished

the Volvo's not finished but it's close and it's not like you were wavered on that so I'll

give you that one you did get the wheels the Volvo I'll give you that one uh and you did use

the Galant quite a bit this year so well give you 50% credit I'd use the cars more

yeah and I'll tell you this so like I do have once a month on Tuesdays there's the the Marble

Head cruise in that I try to drive one of the cars too and now doing RC drifting the drift

tracks pretty close to the house but that's a good excuse to take a car out on a Wednesday night so

sure once it's sure once the road's all just gone you have a very a very legitimate excuse of having

a schoolage child that takes a lot of your time as well so I will uh certainly let that be part of

the issue with the talent is I don't have backseat so I can't really ride it so everything else has

back seats and it's fine he can totally ride in the G20 the Galant and he does uh which actually

we probably have to get you know talk to Stephanie about how he needs a booster seat now because

the seat that's in the we've been using is like one of the travel seats but it's like a harness

that convertible ones yeah yeah and the rest of his seats are now boosters so

which just makes it even easier because it's just the belt and yep yeah super easy

but unless that's that's a valid reason for not driving the talent as much and not using the

cars as much as you want to because you have family stuff to deal with so I don't say deal

us deal with sounds harsh you have family stuff to deal and and Marco also really likes the

Montero so I end up using that a lot because he's just like sure truck so which at this point is also

a 27 year old car it's a vintage vehicle so yeah it was a vintage vehicle five years ago

no I'm not I'm not a disagreeing I'm just saying it is it's not like you're just driving the

Volkswagen everywhere you are still using a vehicle with a bit of uh

hopefully I didn't talk about the bumper I definitely need to fix the bumper paint

you did not talk about it but all right one welcome to after this year so next year I can

give you a hard time for yeah that's that is the thing I need to fix the bumper paint on that

that failed just poor prep on my part um yeah I need I need to get on my we got distracted

working on the Volvo and then we spent a 10 time fixing the Subarus so I haven't my dad and I have

not gotten to my mom's beetle need to get the bat um and fix it and now it won't even start like

that's the most you know important I feel like that's the most important one because that's not

for you um your mom loves that car so we get to have her be able to use it yeah so we have all

the brake stuff to do uh full just brake conversion which would be nice because the drum brakes are

terrible um but the problem is we were to move it like a little bit ago and now only can start so

we have to figure that out I'm sure it's not a big deal but it's funny though because I did the

webbers on the Volvo now my dad's like well if the if the fuel injection is bad we're just

putting webbers on it okay fair seems like the extreme version for that vehicle I don't think

it needs that I think you can do it my guess is it will be yeah my guess is it'll be something

fairly fairly simple and you'll be able to fix it and be able to use it like normal because

that seems like a car that especially if you're going to use it to like go up to an Hampshire

and stuff you'd probably rather have it have fuel injection yeah a lot of people don't I guess

because it's there's no parts made for them anymore so we'll see we'll see what happens to it we'll

figure out why yeah I I also feel like that's kind of like the the old way of thinking on those cars

and now that we live in a world of like technology and 3d printing and

heart sourcing from other vehicles I feel like there's a way to keep those old fuel injected

beetles maybe still injected I feel like it's one of those things that like if you start taking

into it like yeah the old way of thinking was take off the fuel injection and throw it in the trash

the same way that like a guy building a hot rod Camaro in 85 would take off his tpi and put a

four barrel cowrator on it you know what I mean like fear of the unknown I feel like that's probably

not the case anymore on those beetles because there's such a fine amount of them running around

like California and stuff and those cars out there need to have you know their factory fuel

injection and emissions equipment still working to be registered so my guess is there's something out

there yeah we'll see well I guess so what do I got I gotta I gotta finish the Volvo I guess I mean

this half I half made it smooth enough I mean it's pretty much if it wasn't for the weather you'd

probably be driving it yeah I'd probably be more of it motivated to to work on it it's just been

super super cold and but I mean definitely having it running definitely makes me want to work on it

more I'm like I don't feel as stressed out about it not like it was getting pretty annoying where

hasn't run yet but now it does so we know at least runs the rest is like in my opinion like not a

big deal because it's just like weird wiring that needs to be fixed and it's more like tinkering

now than a big project yeah there's just like you know 10 wires in that car so it's not a big deal

the big thing is like I have sort of have the seats I need to find the bases I need to really

work on finding the part that helps them mount in the car because even just sitting in it to like

start it like those seats are awful so awful yeah um and it's not gonna be fun to go better than like

the video game seat you buy at the dollar store yeah but um yeah so there's that uh

I'm not gonna put the the talent in it cool out in here we'll ignore that maybe I'll just do it

anyways but um I guess the only other thing would be like just drive my car I'm working on it I get

I gotta fix the g20 the ball joints um to be able to use that again it's somehow got a sticker

I don't think it should have but it did so easy for me nice but um yeah what did you have for

resolutions so let's just cap yours real fast so you know what to review next year so your

resolutions are finish the Volvo fix your arms Volkswagen and just use the cars more

yes I feel like you can hit that I feel like you can hit that mostly because you've knocked off

the ones off the list that you haven't completed in the past two years so that's pretty good and

now you can fix those ones if you want to so last year what did I say

um I said I was going to 100% have sold the McCorm

then maybe was going to have sold the 944

I was going to turn the yellow crescent into my daily and sell the eclipse

hmm and I said there would be three cars sold this year

hmm so

it is 100% failure rate on the car stuff because the McCorm is still here

the 944 is still here and the eclipse is still here and the Cressida still does not run

uh you will also be happy to know Andrew that on the end of 23 into 24 episode

yeah I also said I was going to fix and sell the eclipse sell them or core possibly sell the

944 and the yellow Cressida so

it's not out of the ordinary for one of us to go more than two years missing everything we

told ourselves we would do at the beginning of the year so that's where we're at

okay we have failed terribly my other my like my like catch all resolutions last year were to

go to more events uh which I I would say I did that I did a bunch of new events this year

including like Monterey um and to use the garage because at this point last year the

garage was still empty because it did not have doors so I would like to say that oh the garage

wasn't empty but it wasn't usable yet because I had the wrong doors I don't remember um but I

wasn't using the garage yet and now I'm using the garage so I I did pull that one off so

that's uh that's about where we are so I failed miserably you didn't fail as badly as I failed

but uh it's gone down the year has passed and all three of those cars are here and I didn't

sell a single car in fact I added a car which was not so at least I didn't say I wasn't going to buy

a car because I would never say that because you never know but I did I did buy the starry on this

year in July so there was a car purchase this year which is not out of the ordinary there almost

always is a car purchase at some point during the year so anyway so yeah I missed everything last

year too so we're not going to uh I could make fun of you all I want but I class houses right

so nothing we can do about it now only move forward another year so this guy's resolutions

I'm thinking a little less a little less grandeur maybe um I am going to sell some cars this year

I have to it's a financial issue to not so it has to happen so this year I have made two separate

uh resolutions automotive related one of which is the mercure will be sold this year

okay third time's a charm third year's a charm that's going to happen has to happen

the 944 will now definitely be gone this year

okay um this also has to happen

the mercure has been broken for this entire year yeah I only recently started using it again

and uh we'll get into project crop dates later but I have the final part came in last night

so fingers crossed that should be all done before this weekend and I can aggressively

put it on the market I was thinking of using Hagerty's auction site there

but it seems like that is a very slow rolling event because a friend has been trying to put

his car on there and it's been going on for like three months now so hmm I don't think I want to

do that but we'll see what happens I wasn't going to use an auction site but I'd like to just move

the car on now um I haven't tricked any of my friends into buying it so I have to actually

do a real car sale which is never fun so that has to go 100 so that's the big one that there will

be at least two cars gone uh probably three and they really will be this year and I'm holding

myself to it and if I don't do it I would like everybody in the discord to harass me until the

end of time if they're not sold the last one is I don't want to carry any long-term projects over

into 2026 so any car that I have that is not running by mid-year so rephrase that any car I have

that come July is a non-running car whether it's a car that I've had for a long time

or a car that I have purchased between now and July if it's not running in July

I have six months to fix it and if it's not running by the end of the year it's gone

I put that July date on there so if a car breaks in November I don't have to sell it in December

I just don't want any long-term stuff hanging over until next year and the only caveat of this is the

two cars in Massachusetts because they might not be here so I can't work on them so

and they both run as far as I know last time I was there at least so I don't want to carry over

any long-term projects if it's not working it needs to go so as of right now that's the 1981 Cressida

the 1980 Corolla the 84 Starion

you think that's it right I think that's it so those three cars right now if they're not running

by the end of the year are just gonna be sold I'm not gonna let them stick around if they're not

fixed okay so that's my that's my goal for this year no huge long-term projects because it's

my my personal goal in life is better mental health and having less giant broken projects

hang over my back is better for my mental health so I think that's the big one come 2026 I'd like

to have just improvement and maintenance projects that's all nothing that needs to be done so

everything else runs I've started everything else in the past

a couple of months the Colt works Camaro works Mercore runs 944 works Merck

the 79 Cressida works the 83 Seporo works and the truck works and the eclipse works

so right now those are not on the chopping block but they even those have a catastrophic failure

by just by July then I only have to the end of the year to fix them when they go away because no

no projects hang over my head so that's from it okay fair enough some July when I've bought

seven cars that don't run you can remind me of this so I might do that biggest one obviously is the

is the Corolla because the engines in part um I don't think the Starrion should be an issue

and I still have just not I haven't touched the yellow Cressida save for moving it since that

trip where you were here trying to help me diagnose it and that was what three years ago

whoa okay yeah and the car hasn't been touched so if I'm not going to touch it I have to move it on

so at this point I'll take a bit of a loss on it but it is what it is so I'm giving myself this is

it it's it's this is the year if not this year then it's gone so for the market for 1982 at a Cressida

just come hit me up a year from now because it'll probably be Brazil

there you go I'd like to fix it but we'll see what happens

so that's my resolution for this year um I failed all last years they were the same as 23s

I failed them then failed them 20 so I failed them 20 sorry 23 to 24 and 24 25 so moving into 26

that's what we're gonna do so we also had a couple of podcast resolutions last year

oh boy

we were going to have more guests we had a couple we did it's a couple we were going to make some

merchandise

mm-hmm we didn't do that no we didn't I did mention last year that I had a giant box full of hats to

sell uh and I didn't sell any of those I also talked about how I'm bad at shipping and how I

owed a box of stuff that I said I was gonna send to Santiago that I did about six months at that

point that box is still here so that's another full year without shipping that does not go so

that's cool uh and we said that we were gonna try to run some more for new events

and uh I don't think we did that either so a bunch of god-name liars

at the beginning I said I listened I know why y'all listen now that we're a bunch of liars

I don't know I am but I trust us or listens to us so nope terrible people so we need to make some

merch we do I need to ship this box to Santiago I need to offer these hats up for sale you should

but that's where we're at unfortunately I didn't uh we did we like like literally like a hundred

failure rate on everything we said so pretty much save for the Volvo which is a big project

so we'll give you good credit for that but everything else lacked so anyway on that depressing note

let's kick off 2026 we'll fix our stuff we'll use our cars and we'll have a good year because

that's what I need in order for my own personal mental health this year

all right I mean that sounds good to me sure I don't see why it wouldn't be I mean I wouldn't say

2025 was a bad year I had a lot of people had dogs living in my house for a good chunk of the year

which is a part of my excuse for not getting things done but they that has not been an issue since

June or July so I've had six months to finish the stuff I haven't finished but it is what it is

that being said we've all done a ton of stuff this year so the failings on these are not exactly

failings on us as car people it's not like we didn't do anything we did a ton of stuff

so that being said what were your favorite events you've done in 2025

let's see favorite events um well what do we do at the beginning of the year anything

there wasn't much because I did go to Japan I did a lot of car stuff there I'll just count

that as one car event okay because I went and did a bunch of car stuff while we're also vacationing

so that was kind of cool yeah I drove I drove on Fuji Speedway so yeah

um pretty epic yeah and then it would be see there was no rally

I missed grid life because I was busy or something I don't know

I did go to Watkins Glen and I saw SPG win that was really cool

also pretty epic that was your first trip to Watkins Glen or second that was the second time

okay I still have not made it yeah and

what else we went to you know NASCAR New Hampshire again

you know that's kind of the same I guess that's not really a top event

it was cool in when I was in Portugal I got to go to a big car festival

at the only car museum in Portugal so that was really that Caramulo Motor Festival that was

really cool that's definitely like a if you're over in Europe or I can get over there to definitely

check that out that was super neat because it was totally by chance too yeah I just I didn't really

plan it it just sort of happened all the time we were there um that's kind of like the biggest

car events we didn't really do I didn't really do anything else oh dear the NASCAR trucks that

walk at Lime Rock that was really cool that never happened before yeah that's rad

yeah that's I think that's everything it's it's bad when you kind of forget because you just get

so busy but I think that was all the races I went to I didn't do didn't do any Imsa races because

we were planning a big trip to Japan so I didn't do any early Imsa races didn't go to Daytona

I didn't go to Indy 500 that was a year before the yeah and then yeah I think that was that's

pretty much it I mean I did uh you know Mark when I went to see Hot Wheels Monster Drugs and that was

kind of like not very good but you know whatever it was for children wasn't meant for me that's why

is this why is this child children's movie not entertaining to me as an adult yeah

uh I'm trying to think that's kind of like it

it actually wasn't a lot of events because that's the thing they don't do Imsa at Lime Rock anymore

I really need to get to I keep saying this every year I really need to get the Watkins

Glen for an Imsa race I'd love to get out to Long Beach and see Imsa and I'd be really

interested to see Formula D now uh I mean I was before and then I would like to see uh

you know Imsa at Laguna Seca and I was pretty jealous that you went to Car Week I gotta figure

out if I can get out there at some point um I well you have a spot because yeah I just I just

reserved my I have my own camp spot this year I know we've got um we do have plans we're going

to San Diego San Diego for the uh NASCAR race NASCAR street race yep that's uh that's a regret I do

have I didn't make the time to get to the Chicago race but also I was talking to Stephanie about

this the other day I said yeah it was kind it's kind of like they were having it like

at an awkward weekend if you're not local to Chicago like I don't want to get on a plane

travel for 4th of July like I like being home for 4th of July it's just an easy holiday to be at home

right so um but they're not doing that anymore so they're going to do it in San Diego at the

Navy base right uh Coronado adjacent to basically yeah it's Coronado Island

I it's on the base partially on the base partially off the base yeah that is what I've heard yeah

so um we've got seats that overlook the bay I figured that would be uh it overlooks the chicane

and the bay I figured we want to look at the water um yeah it's pretty awesome when the cars aren't

going by so yeah that'll be really cool um yeah what I mean so what were your favorite events

well you mentioned one I made it to Monterey for the first time ever

which was wild and I do have my camping spot now secured for this coming year so

pretty stoked on that I do know you don't like camping because you don't sleep in the ground but

we do have a spare cot if you do want to come you can borrow the cot for sure um let's see

one of the freesiest things I did this year event-wise was I rode as a passenger in the

heavy sweep vehicle for the Prescott rally and that was super rad um we didn't have to tow anything

but just to be in the event was pretty neat um especially the fact that we did sweep in a

Lamborghini LM002 also was really cool so that was probably one of my favorite events of the year

just because it was so ridiculous over the top um let's see what else event-wise

those were the two really really big ones I did a bunch of off-roading in my truck

which is something I haven't done in a very long time because I never had a truck

but now that I have a truck that's been a thing did some camping trips in the truck

had a really good time with that um that's really been it for big events

um oh I guess I should shout out my own event we ran the second annual now

Arizona Rising Sun rally and I was nervous that it would not be as good as the first

and it was every bit as good as the first so it was an absolutely perfect event again

so that'll happen again in 2026 and the thing that if you were trying to find a week to come

out here and hang out would be a good one too so there's that um what else I think that's mainly

yet I'm doing quick little scroll through here in my pictures to see what other events I did but

nothing else really stands out as a as a crazy crazy event there were a bunch of car shows a

bunch of cool stuff nothing uh nothing as big as Monterey or doing the rally or

just some of the off-road trips that were uh they were good this year so it was interesting

because last year we talked about the fact that it was the first year neither one of us had been to

Radwood at all and continued that trend in 25 never went to Radwood

so I was going to go to the LA event but they changed the weekend it used to be in November

and they ran it this year in October and it wound up being the same weekend as the Arizona

Rising Sun rally so obviously I was not going to plan an entire event and then skip my own

event to go to a different event so I did not go to Radwood in LA again this year so that's been

two years since I've been to a Radwood event I have not been to one since August of 23 when

they had it here in Phoenix so still kind of wild about that but yeah I just uh continuing to do all

the events I can as far as like little cars and coffees and little car events and trying to get

together with local friends and do small drives and we've had a couple of coffee run nights and

try to keep that going and I think it's going to continue to be more small things like that with

a big event now and again peppered in which is probably the best way to do it I don't have many

big events planned for this year save for the street the NASCAR street race in California

Monterey again and my rally so that's a pretty good number of things I think

so yeah those are my big events so anything else to round out the year with Andrew?

no that's pretty much it

I muted myself because I thought I was barking sorry

how many downloads this year Andrew do you have that stats this year?

I do have stats let's see

carries of the growth or shrinkage of the of the podcast listening base

we had less than a year over here we missed we're not doing we're not doing corporate

metrics here we're not about that sure I'm just more curious I know what last year's number was

that's why I'm oh okay I talked about it last year so the end of the year

it's a lower number you had to pump those numbers up it will be a lower number

down a lot 4.4

thousand downloads I don't know why that's so 4,400 probably yep that is less than half

yep down 58 percent sweet all right well podcasting is for closers so we're out

yeah I have no idea not that I care listen we talked about last year we're not we're not chasing

numbers every year more and more podcasts come out more and more people are listening to podcasts

but also there's more to choose from and as we talked about last year our podcast is a niche

within a niche right we talk about classic cars but we also talk about obscure classic cars so

we're the only podcast we'll ever hear mentioned an azusa stylus

or a dodge colt or an infinity g20 so if you're into those kinds of cars that's why you're here

if you're into porches and ferraris and Lamborghinis and supercars and hypercars and

formula one you'll find content elsewhere but see it is I'm not worried about it if I do it

core group is here um if I do it the last two years it's much more impressive it's 15,000

downloads root still top episode is from May of 2024 is to let old cars be old

so that's that's the last two years that's top episode so I'll get some tag lines yeah for last

year also trademark trademark trademark because I have a t-shirt design with that t-shirt with that

logo yeah for our merch that we're gonna make sometime yeah but the last top episode we've got

is the vulva gets pistons that's for this year yeah we kind of dropped off quite a bit I don't

know I don't know what happened we think of a lot because we don't have guests

um we don't we have post regularly all the time we haven't been we need to we need to be more

consistent and we need to have some more guests the problem is you're fighting now even just looking

at my current podcast feed it's like people will release a podcast but then it'll be like

10 or 15 minutes long and they release like one every day yeah and that really

juices your numbers and now people are really saying AI podcast right so they're like

you know yeah it's an uphill battle and we're not in this for the money I don't really care

well last year we we started we started the year by complaining about celebrity podcasts

so it's I'd rather have celebrity podcast than AI podcast that is another problem

you've got just celebrities getting into it and corporations getting into it

uh and you know that's what it is we are a small independent podcast

and we don't charge anything like we said you can listen to us for free we don't even have ads

we won't even tell you a t-shirt even though we keep saying we're going to yeah um we really

should do that uh that should definitely be something that we need to look into

it would be nice having some merch and like I've said before the easiest way we'll probably do that

is through the discord because it's easier just to have people say I would like a large

I'd like an extra large and you just order what people need and we don't have to

spend money on extras and that's probably the way we just do it I have more experience now

in this than last year because I did handle a t-shirt stuff for the rally so if we do have a

a page on our website and have people direct people there to say what they want and I can get

those particular ones ordered you know everybody put in their order you know in advance and I can

have the shop that made my shirts for the rally make shirts again so I do have experience with

that now so this is a off-air topic we'll get back into later for sure yeah this is probably

why people don't listen anymore because they just don't but anyway I can't I can't believe

Santiago still listens a year and a half waiting for a one box stuff is I was gonna give him

geez and now it's just becoming wild at this point yeah um so yeah well that's interesting um but

we do have we had most of the downloads of course in the United States 3,800 almost 3,900

now we're the few Canadians some Germans coming in third place United Kingdom in fourth

surprisingly Singapore is in sixth Singapore made the list last year and Turkey was away

but last year too um no Turkey is not there now makes me wonder if there's some sort of like

people using a VPN or something maybe we could make that numbers skewed to weird places

if you're in japan anyway yes so again we don't care necessarily yeah right we don't care

necessarily about the numbers overall but it would be nice to have a little more consistency

out of us for our listeners the ones who do stick around and the ones who do message us every Friday

there's not an episode and wonder where we are wonder where we've been so we also haven't been

posting much on Instagram on both our personal accounts and our podcast accounts at most a

big fall off on that on my end of things so I think it's just been a it's been a tiring year

so I think you try to try to be a little less run down by things in 26 to be fair try to be a

little less talk about some stuff so yeah I mean a lot of people are burned out on social media so

yep that's kind of where that comes from anyway moving on from this depressing note of the state

of things and the podcast and independent media world any project care updates Andrew I think

he had a big one yeah I do sorry I'm playing on my headphones um yeah the Volvo runs

which we now know because you said it before in your new year's resolution but that is

incredibly huge news and I am beyond the moon excited for you and cannot wait for the next

time I'm out there and the weather is good to take her head and go yeah um so my dad and I and

fellow listener and former guest uh chapel who lives nearby we we worked on it a couple

days on our own like two weeks before Christmas uh and got it to fire up and broke the cam in

and it runs decently it definitely needs jetting and tuning but um you know so far there was no

like well I shouldn't say there was no leaks is as soon as I filled it up with coolant it started

to leak out of the water pump and that was like a bit disappointing I was like ah and I thought for

sure that we weren't gonna get it running that weekend but luckily um it's kind of weird the

way the the water pumps are on these old Volvo engines it just mashes up to the bottom of the

head in the front it has two o-rings and the two o-rings are only located by a groove in the

water pump they don't have a matching groove in the head it's literally just a flat surface

on the head uh so you have to like I just when I put it on on the engine stand I didn't put it

up tight enough to the head so luckily we were able to like just loosen the bolts a little bit

and pry it up and retightened it and it's sealed so it stopped leaking that is a win for sure yeah

so that um that was a little bit nerve racking at first and that it took a few tries to get the

fuel system primed we're just running it off gas can because I need to drain the tank in it still

and once we kind of got that dialed and the pressure set we were able to get it to run

but it was the timing was very retarded and even though it looks like the as best as I can tell

we set the distributor up properly and set the oil pump drive up properly where the distributor

matches into and the distributor was pointing at the number three cylinder like all everybody says

for timing but it just like and then the adjustment of the distributor was interfering because there's

like a little oiler button on the distributor that was hitting the block if we turned it too far

and then the other way the vacuum uh diaphragm was hitting so basically we took it out flipped it 180

adjusted where the cap was the number one cylinder and then we were able to adjust the timing enough

and it was running so it's a thing I term or phrase I recently like was made aware of

somebody sent uh it was a link to like a harrier yard that talked about it and then it actually

I have a confession I've been watching road kill garage lately it came up there

Steve bullshit said it you just kind of get it sometimes you just got to give the car what it

wants it just even though it's supposed to be set up this way but it's not working but it works the

other way that's just what it is the car wants it just give it the car just give the car what it wants

that's a pretty big revelation that you can watch your road to the garage because even so

anti that the entire time I've been trying to push it so I feel like I was definitely not

in the roadkill I'm more into a roadkill garage if you went back and watched certain episodes

that so not early roadkill but later on they're very similar in fact there are many roadkill

episodes that are in the same garage as roadkill garage so yeah it seemed like they got they were

just like we're just doing these all different episodes but they're all doing the same place

it's all the same people so it's mostly all the same people yeah and there's

different guests for different things and yeah it's there's some good stuff out there and I'm

glad you I'm glad that you're watching it what is your favorite roadkill garage project car you've

seen so far um I mean the crop duster came out really pretty at the end you know yep and I liked

the well yeah we'll get off topic here I like the

Belvedere was it Belvedere road runner clone so they took the road runner that was wrapped around

the telephone pole and then dropped it into a oh yeah yeah the seat they called it a sea body

yeah because it was turned into a sea yeah yeah yeah that one was super cool it was like a green

a green car they swapped everything into I think right yeah it was a good way to I mean otherwise

that that road runner was trashed like there's no saving it so putting it into that other cars

was making a clone with it it was perfect there was an episode of roadkill where they purchased

that wrapped around yeah they talked about it yeah and uh got it running and drove it laps

around a racetrack with it it was very entertaining so but yeah no I I love those guys I love the way

they build cars I love the fact that they're just about making it fun making it work and making it

usable and not like concerned as much by making it perfect and just like the fact that the aesthetics

just come along with the build as it goes so people would talk about before when I was

doing stuff and making videos and and doing those type of things was that they do show the struggle

there's a lot of tv shows they don't show the struggles that you have

um and they show the struggle so yes it's relatable right they'll show them do the whole

project go out and drive the car and something immediately breaks and they won't like edit

that out so drag it back to the garage and fix it again which is like real life stuff for sure

or it'll just be like uh yeah this isn't working right now we're just gonna cut and we're gonna

figure it out and we come back we'll explain to you what we did and it's like I feel that

there was times when we were trying to make videos and work on stuff and it just be like

can we just cut the cameras right now so we can just like figure out what's going on here

we'll come back we'll do it we'll do it on camera afterwards when we figure it out

we'll explain what we did 100% well I'm glad I'm glad you're in um the crop duster is also

one of my favorite cars they built there's also a red duster they're doing they did more recently

well what was his um was it like a 71 road runner

which one is it watch them challenger the red the red one that they it was actually once they

polished it like they cut and buffed it it was like a really nice car that was a road runner

like a 72 or 73 yeah that's but there's another duster there's another duster they did I don't

know if you caught that far yet in the later episodes they bought it with a barely running slant

six and drove it and drove it from where they bought it to back to dulcet's farm in the swapped

in on 383 or 38 dm I remember by 383 and it's still a ratty but it's super cool they just

actually listed it for sale but unfortunately it's well out of my budget so all the muscle trucks are

cool yep yeah they're all cool the Dodge truck the Chevy truck they're they're all super rad

they just again I've always I've always liked it there's no secret there we've always disagreed

with that so I uh well I'm glad to hear you're at least watching some of the content that I

promoted in the past I'll tell you this it it makes me feel a little better about the Volvo

and the fact that I put a really nice engine in to a car that's like meh like looks meh

harpset like they they put some really nice engines into some cars that are like

meh but yeah they really aren't that bad they just like don't look great but like they're like

that's what's cool about it that's I'm building a completely fresh motor for my radial Corolla like

it's I'm fine with it it's gonna have fresh motor and fresh suspension and the rest of it just looks

like a 50 year old Corolla so 45 Corolla because like I said like the cars look good from a

certain distance and then but you can actually drive them and use them because once you start

painting stuff maybe the car personality yeah you don't want to use it so um but yeah

so yeah we got it running um it runs decent it needs uh it definitely just needs adjustments

now it needs to probably be uh another friend of ours um commented on my instagram post about it

he's got a couple cars that have little webbers he said that they seem to like a little more

timing at idle so I'm gonna adjust the timing up a little bit from like 10 degrees to like 12

I've got sitting next to me on my desk here I have new jets for it and new chokes um because it

it's not like a race engine it just has nice carburetors on it it's basically just a stock engine

so I think sure the the chokes that come in there which are basically the Venturis sort of

it's basically your webbers are funny because they they call these things chokes um because they

really just like choke down the barrel that's inside we're strictly plate racing basically um

but what comes in the ones that are in I think what's in there right now

I've always all written it's either either 30 or 31 millimeter so these are uh dcoe 40s so the

total barrel diameter could be up to 40 which would be crazy huge if you had a full race

engine you'd want a ton of air at high rpm so you'd put the the full bore in there

but for a street car you don't want that you actually want to choke it down and I'm actually

going to go to like 28s because two things you'll get less air and more velocity for the air so

hopefully they'll make better vacuum and better torque for driving around town so um and then I

have some jets to hopefully help adjust with that so unfortunately this stuff is expensive to get

into this country now but it is what it is um it's interesting because they have like online

calculators and they've kind of been updated over the last year I was like kind of keeping trying

I had like screenshots of what I did like earlier in the year and then recently and they like updated

the the calculator to compensate for alcohol and fuel so like I kind of looked at what the suggested

one was I looked at what I had what came in the carburetors and then I looked at what the original

setup sheets for of all the 20 were and sort of picked some jets kind of guesstimated based on

those things kind of you know airing on the more conservative side of performance because the engine

is not like doesn't have a ported head doesn't have oversight valves or anything don't have an

aggressive cam it's the original cam make sure it's not too lean or too rich it's the original

style cam yeah and the o2 sensor the y-band o2 will help that actually works really great that um

you know once we had the car running uh that was not inexpensive I maybe I talked about that unit

being like about 300 bucks um but it connects perfectly to your phone via bluetooth and it seemed

the refresh rate seemed really fast and it seemed very accurate and it was right on your phone showing

it um so you could do like a I think it data logs I need to double check but you could also just do

a screen recording while you're running it if you really want to go back and look

while your phone so though that is a really cool thing I really recommend that for like

carpet cars that you want to do tuning on it's $300 is a lot less than billion new motor

it's performance electronics wideband so I would definitely look into one of those

um that's definitely something you can add to your Corolla build

before you're ready to get it going I intend on it um it was easy to put you know you just weld it

into the header and yeah it you give it 12 volts uh with ignition on and it just automatically

turns on and sends out the bluetooth signal and it I mean it connected so fast it was great so

that'll be a help for tuning um you know of course we've also got the little vacuum thing you

use for Weber's uh that was helpful but really it's just we got to play with the

adjustment of the throttle bottle flies to make sure they're all synced and then play with the

idle screws because the the big thing with Weber's is you do most of the tuning

with the progression holes you know they say like it's like 90% of Weber's is at idle

through mid-range is what those um idle jets will do so once you kind of get those

everything else kind of falls in line and then the thing with Weber's is once they're kind of tuned

they really don't go out of tune very easily they'll usually hold their tune really well so

there's not a lot of parts that move that are adjustable because that's all like hard parts

right yeah and the cool thing is you're basically uh it's a carburetor per cylinder

because there's dual so each cylinder gives its own little there's two basically two carburetors

inside each Weber so you've got I've got four carburetors so unfortunately that makes it expensive

I had to buy four sets of jets uh no

four jets two for each carburetor not four sets and two jokes for each carburetor so

yeah that's and then the other thing that's will be with that car is fixing the rest of the wiring

so all the wiring in the front of car has been fixed except for I mean all the broken wires have

been fixed everything works everything lights up the headlights are being funny um they're kind of

on all the time uh and I don't think that has anything to do with the LED conversion

uh those are actually really nice parts um you know those maybe I talked about installing

those but lighting them up they're really really nice they fit really well I highly recommend

getting one of those kits um but what happens is you turn the ignition on and the low beams are on

and then you turn it to start and it switches to high beams without touching anything else

so that's a little funky we're gonna figure that out and there are no brake lights either

so you have running lights but no brake lights and then there's a bunch of loose wires in the

cabin that I need to figure out and I also have maybe I talked about it I have the fuse block

panel I need to switch out for regular bladed fuses to get rid of the old ceramic fuses

that we talked about you talked about that yeah but that's really the next big thing

and what we'll probably do I probably won't do a lot of tuning or trying to get it running right

now because it's so cold out and even though the garage is heated you have to open up the doors

because you can't be running the thing inside well you're also not going to be driving the car

in this weather exactly you want to kind of tune it in more of springish to summer weather

when you're actually gonna be driving it just so I'll probably like maybe swap the parts over

we'll see but I'm gonna focus on the next time I go to work on it we'll just be like cleaning up

the wiring and trying to figure out what's going on those lights so it's all ready to go

and then maybe I'll probably even wait till it's a little warmer out

and bleed the brakes and and flush the gas tank but yeah that's um

other than that like that's it's having it running is absolutely absolutely we've talked about this

before it's it's absolutely motivation to work on it more because there's no you know it runs

and this again right and it's funny because I'm watching this roadkill show I'm like

this is kind of the way I've always done cars I didn't really be like I don't I feel like I didn't

get this idea from watching roadkill I'm like this is just kind of the way our philosophy has always

been for working on cars kind of just get them running and then you can figure them out after

maybe that's why it resonated with you so much I'm like you like watching it and I guess

it's why it's it's it's always just been it reminds me of what we do you know they don't go crazy on

everything else until the car functions and the first thing they do in every car is power wash it

so it's like yes give me a hard time about cleaning I don't give you a hard time I don't

give you a hard time I do the same thing you do yes the discord does for sure so but I always

clean things before working on them it's it's much nicer to work on something that's clean that is to

work on something that's also dirty like why not clean it first that's why I spent like 20

plus hours cleaning the interior that's staring on before I even like dug into what was wrong with

it because I wanted to see what I was working with you know like I wanted to scrub under the hood

scrub the interior clean up any spiders that we're gonna throw any kind of stuff and I now have the

car up in the air and crawling underneath it and it's superbly clean under there it's like

it's so nice to work on a clean car I crawl out of the car I don't get greasy and dirty and grimy

and covered in years of mud so always clean the cars speaking of yep my project car stuff I don't

know I talked about pulling the tank out I'm pretty sure but they also might have been on the lost

episode I think it was I'll do a quick coverage of it um I pulled the tank out of the car we

initially had thought there were two holes in the tank and it was leaking onto the ground and it was

empty without the car jacked up I don't remember if I told this or not so bear with me if I did

I'm just gonna go over it quickly jacked the car up looked a little closer at it realized there were

no holes in the tank but yet it was still dripping on the ground from what looked like two holes in

the tank what had happened was the tank was full like completely full like over full and as it sat

for as long as it sat gasoline expands and contracts I guess I don't know the specifics of it but I

know the fumes and the vapors make things like you put a gas can outside and it blows up like

that blows up but like expands so the fuel somehow moves around inside the tank and it wound up

underneath the sending unit and it seeped out around the very hardened old rubber seal

and ran down the side of the tank and it pooled in two places that pulled the undercoat off the

tank and it looked like a perfectly square pickaxe hole well it wasn't it was just the undercoat

and the fuel leaking from the top of the tank so obviously I realized this when I'm under the car

trying to take the tank out and then realizing the tank has got like 12 gallons of fuel in it

so that became a little bit more of a job than I was anticipating but thankfully a good friend

of mine Chris probably know him on instagram is angry bird gti came over here he lives in the

neighborhood and helped me wrangle the tank out of the car full of fuel got it on the ground

and drained the tank with a siphon a siphon pump and it took multiple five gallon buckets

because there was a lot of fuel in it very old fuel but it was in there and the good news is

is that the inside of the tank other than having a bunch of like gunk on all the baffles and everything

is in really good condition there's no rust there's no issues there's no problems there's

no holes I do not need a tank so I'm able to just clean that tank probably recode the undercoating

where it's damaged put some new seals on the sending unit so it doesn't leak out anymore

and then just reinstall that tank back into the car so that seems to be the plan

um before I do that I'm going to upgrade a couple of things in the fuel system

because I've been doing a bunch of research and there is a company now that sells a ecu

for the starion that's basically a plug-and-play unit that allows you to tune the fuel in the engine

based on parameters that are tuned through I forget the name of the software but it's one of the

more regularly used tuning softwares because the ecu and the starion only controls fuel doesn't

control anything else so you're able to modify it pretty simply with this little kit but I do

want to put a nicer fuel pump in than just a factory pump and it looks like there's a company

that makes a drop-in hanger for the tank and I can put like a Bosch 040 is the pump to use now

it looks like that will flow enough for what I want to do and uh make the car future proof

so I don't ever have to bolt a tank out again is the hope so that's going to be the big the big

upgrade on that one but that's where it stands right now it's still up on jack stands um tank is

still out of it I need to finish cleaning the tank the holidays came and then stuff got moved

around because we host thanksgiving and christmas eve here so stuff was kind of pushed around

different places now getting back into everything now that we're all cleaned up from all the holidays

and can get back into working on stuff pretty heavily so theoretically that car should run

not too long from now and then obviously once I have it running I will look into making

modifications to the car because I have big plans for that car so we can do a whole episode just on

that car alone I think based on all the parts that are available now but that first step is

going to be that ecu and that same company that makes that ecu also does a distributor

close ignition for the car that uses coil packs um so that once you have the distributorless

ignition it runs on a like hall effect style sensor on the crank so it kind of also makes

that tunable with that same software so basically it takes this old 2.6 and makes it a modern

modern running engine sort of so that's hopefully the plan make it deadpan reliable and more power

so that's coming up next in that car other project car updates the mccore has a door handle

that was broken for a while I also took apart the speedometer cable to find out what the situation

was with why I had no speedometer or odometer it worked for most of the time I had the car

it broke about a year ago and I have not driven the car much because I don't want to put a bunch

of miles on without the odometer because it is not a total mileage tmu car not total mileage

unknown I'd like to keep it as an accurate mileage car so a couple of things it's an 89

and 89 mercore xr40is with the five speed are supposed to have a box in the firewall

that has a little eight inch cable that runs from that box to the speedometer

and the other cable runs from the other side of that box down to the transmission and inside

that box is the speed sensor for the cruise control my car has never had functioning cruise control

I've never looked into it to find out why because I never really cared that much

but in doing digging and taking this car apart which by the way taking apart a 1989 mercore

interior pieces are basically made out of very thin glass almost impossible

thankfully I got everything apart without breaking anything putting it back together though

I am nervous so we'll see what happens but the cable in my car does not have that speed sensor

box and is one cable that is 108 and a half inches long that goes from the back of the

speedometer directly into the gearbox with nothing in between so it's like what happened here

um digging into it a little bit more it looks like the car might have been converted at some

point from an automatic car to a manual car which not a big deal it's done well enough

that I never noticed till now but it just means it will never have functioning cruise controls so

um I couldn't find a cable locally the way this cable is set up it has the standard like

spring like speedometer cable inside the rubber sheath and then it has an end that clips into

the back of the cluster and an end that plugs into the transmission was square ends on either end

so you can find the correct one I eventually did find the correct one and the only car part

that matches this that I've been able to find is uh Ford Sierra RS500 which is the hot rod version

of the Sierra of the McCore XF40i available only in Europe in like a six-figure car nowadays

so I was a little bit lost as to why that was the right part but then also my car has RS500

headlights and it has an RS500 hood vents that I have brand new in a box so at some point somebody

bought RS500 parts for it and maybe when they did the transmission conversion maybe that's what the

part came out of who knows but I was able to find thanks to Patrick in our discord helped me I think

it was Patrick helped me find a universal part that will fit inside the original sheath that I have

and then one end has a square end on it and the other end has a little adapter you put on that

you crimp into place and it turns it into a square end on the other end and you cut it to length

so I can cut the thing to be 108 and a half inches fit inside the factory rubber sheath

and work as intended so I have the whole car apart I just got that part late last night

it came here like delivered at like 8 p.m. so oddly enough so hopefully by this weekend I'll

have that car all back together and as far as I know that's the final step before I put the car

up for sale so if you're looking for a 1989 Mercore that has 88,000 miles on it and at one

point was not a medic I think but it's now a manual and done well enough that it works just fine

that car after this should be fully fully fully sorted it won't need anything I mean other than

cruise control it won't need anything and it'll be for sale so hit me up on that one so that's that

project like Ferrola hasn't gone anywhere the engine still sitting here in my garage I have not

brought to the machine shop yet again holidays that whole thing work the machine shops on the

open ground work hours it's just been a whole thing I need to get that down there hopefully this

week I can go into work early one day so I can start so I can get out a little earlier and maybe

take a ride at the machine shop so that's the plan for that one and let's see

oh the other thing I've been working on is the Mitsubishi oh sorry the Dodge Ram

Power Ram 50 or the Mitsubishi Mighty Max 4x4 if you are a regular listener you'll remember

that our friend in Nebraska got found a fender local to me that had the factory stripe package on it

also a straight bumper also a straight balance panel and hit me with the address of where it was

I went over there immediately and purchased everything I think I told the story on the

podcast about that when Naomi and I went a weekend out of it finally this weekend I hung that fender

on the car and I can't even believe how perfectly the stripes match up so they must have been some

kind of template when they put these stripes on because it's my understanding that these stripes

were a like not factory installed but port installed package or dealer installed package

so the fact that they line up like perfectly is shocking but also amazing so the new fender

is on the truck and it looks it looks like it was never ever a problem yeah so it's uh

that's a go once in a lifetime find defined defender you can just bolt on that has all

the right stripes all the right matching in the right color so on a 40 year old truck

correct me right that was that truck entirely happened this past year right

I picked the truck up in September of 24 okay didn't start working on it until December

and finished it in January all right so it was December to January to get the car running again

I would say I've just been using it all year yeah that truck was our best win I'll take credit

for it to our best win of 25 yeah actually last time you were here I think I had it but it wasn't

running yet no it was gross and under your your tree that drops all the stuff and birds live in

right but the but I'd already already cleaned out like under the hood and stuff you saw

you start after I had discovered everything I needed to discover but hadn't started working

yet I don't think so but yeah I started working that in December we went away for like a 10 day

trip in January which as much as I love the trip all I wanted to do was go home and work on the

truck uh-huh because I had it just running when we left I think without driving yet

you know I came back I got it driving there were two setbacks it's come home on a tow truck twice

both of them fuel related the first one was when the original mechanical fuel pump gave up the ghost

and the second one was when the electronic fuel pump that I added to replace the mechanical fuel

pump failed after like two months and I replaced that with another one of those fuel pumps because

it was warrantied but at the same time I purchased another style of electric fuel pump that's been

recommended by like a hundred different people and I put that in the glove box and I put a little

couple lengths of wiring and a cheap set of crimpers and ends in the glove box so that if it ever

happens again if the other one fails again at least I have a replacement ready to go so I

hopefully won't go home on a tow truck again but yeah that truck's been uh 2025 was definitely the

year of the mighty max pickup so and I added the cap this year too so and I got a windshield this

year hello kinds this out this year it went to the big Williams show which is my favorite weekend

of the year locally but it's 7 000 foot of elevation climbing and did that with all our camping gear

so it's been it's been a good year for that truck it took a lot of my my energy to getting of the

year but it was fully worth it because it's gone all over the state done a bunch off-roading a bunch

of camping it's been a good time so now this time next time you come out here I'll have to take the

truck off-roading so you can experience the no longer languishing under a tree covered in bird

crap moment to an actually functional vehicle so hopefully it'll be 100 done by then because I'm

still looking to do uh so it's radio and some interior work and meet some minor stuff but

it runs and drives and I drive it all the time so it's kind of been I won't call it my daily

because the eclipse is my daily but it's kind of been used a lot so and then the final project are

update slash down date is the eclipse I failed emissions

first time in my life ever failing emissions

so I don't know what to do

what I've seen a couple of places my knocks is too high by almost double

which is interesting because the whole top end of the motor is fresh

it's been recently gone through everything else seems fine and last year or two years ago last

time it went through emissions it passed with flying colors like wasn't even close to failing

and this year it's more than double the normal so there's a couple of things that people have

suggested but I look into I haven't had a chance I actually had to do an emissions repair on a

failing embers 05 Lancer this weekend I put a catalytic converter in I shouldn't say I did it

I supervised as I taught him how to do it and get a wonderful job so good on him but

I got a little greasy a couple times but overall was all him but anyway speaking to my friend Josh

who has had many Mitsubishi's that have failed emissions and he said to go to the part store

and buy two bottles of heat which is the basically gas antifreeze but it's also

like an alcohol product and a water remover and that supposedly should

clean enough of the fuel burning to burn off the knocks so I did that I went to auto zone

bought two bottles of the yellow heat put it in the tank drove it about 60 miles all on the highway

to get the cats up the temp went back to emissions so it's parts per million I think

it's 4.5 is what it's at has to be at 2.5 sorry oh you're around you know that's it

because it has to be at 2.5 and it's at 4.5 so I did all that drove it like 60 miles went back

ran it again and it went from 4.5 to 4.2 but still well above acceptable so it did something

just didn't do enough so I have to check timing make sure the timing is set make sure maybe we

didn't screw something up terribly it's the timing is way advanced because that can also

cause knocks to be up I guess and then the third step is to check the EGR system and make sure

it's fully functional and cleaned out so I haven't got there yet but all that's happened is I've

failed and I tried the the quick easy method of putting alcohol in the tank and hopefully

sneaking through but it did not work so we shall see it's frustrating because I can't the car is

now not registered that I can't register it until it passes emissions so

through my project cars that's the quick quick overview of what we've missed in the past month

which yeah actually is a pretty lot it's a good amount of stuff it's been been busy around here

all that with the holidays so and tons of RC car stuff and that's really the big 2026 thing

Andrew is going to be our like continued foray to RC cars a well a well down the rabbit hole here

of RC drifting I started 2025 with no RC cars purchased in a very very long time

by the end of 25 there were four new IC cars here yeah so I've been playing with and tuning

my Yocamo chassis just doing small stuff here and there the first mod was an alignment rack

for RC car which will work with very cool all the RC cars all the touring cars it's on my list

even the back because you basically you want to be able to set the alignment

you a lot of people do it by eyeball in my field but I'm like I kind of want to know what the

numbers are so I know it's even and then I started actually writing notes down on it

and how it drives in an attempt to try to make it drive better I'm trying to do

my plan with this Yocamo chassis they're basically all plastic

and I don't want to change any parts that come on it stock I want to see how far I can go with it

and how well I can drive it as an out-of-the-box

RD2O so most people say that that's entirely possible with that car and the only thing

people wind up playing with is the electronics and shock absorbers yeah I'll use the shocks until

they blow out yeah you'll basically just start leaking and I have decent electronics in it so

um yeah I'm curious to see how far I can push it and if I can get good enough

driving to maybe do a competition with it

so I mean that's the goal right yeah with anything just get good at it enjoy it as long as you're

enjoying it who cares I think you know I was like I don't know about competing but I mean

like I could probably try to compete because it's not like this isn't like a physical thing

so much like I don't have to run really fast or be in super good shape that's a more skill than

dollars thing like you have to actually know what you're doing whereas like the RC racing racing

was always a dollar a game like oh this guy's got two ran wrapped up in motors and batteries so

obviously he's gonna win every time yeah and people have some ridiculous chassis

but it's more about how well you can drive them and it would be pretty fun to push this stock car

as far as I can just to say I did it um you know I'm kind of looking at I'm like it's not worth it

in my mind the way I'm looking at now I'm like the amount of money mods cost

or or or hop up parts I'm like it's not worth I'll just keep driving it the way it is

and if I want a better chassis Yokomo sells a next version up that comes with all the aluminum parts

all those parts already yeah yeah it's a better deal than buying them all piecemeal

like just just run the expensive stuff yeah the expensive stuff really is electronics anyway so

yeah I'm like yeah which I could just transfer and just hang the chassis on the on the on the wall

when I'm done um build a show body for it you put it in the put on the shelf yeah exactly

but for fun for fun stuff I did buy I've always wanted an M chassis car

that's the short wheelbase to Maya yep um I've never had one and there's a new chassis out

it's called the mbo one around a couple years ago it doesn't get a lot of love a lot of people are

upset with it because the way it's set up it's very modular you can change the wheelbase on it you

can change the drive from like front wheel drive rear wheel drive and like mid engine

and like rear kind of engine or rear motor um and it uses the same like front suspension

arms as a TTO2 so what the arms that can steer but it also uses them on the rear

okay I guess it it makes it it seems like it has a lot of slop I guess but I'm building it right

now it doesn't feel it has that much slop I think people are maybe overblowing it and

well I think people are comparing it to like a Yokomo race chassis or a TRF to Maya race chassis

like yeah I don't know it's a hobby great it's a hobby great but it's not a professional great

it doesn't even come with oil shocks it's got friction shocks so the long story short here is

that I bought a conversion kit for it from matrix racing club to make it into a drift car this is

which is not the way you want to start drifting do not buy a drift conversion and then try to

convert a Tamiya chassis because it's way more expensive this is totally a passion uh Tamiya

Tamiya nerd project uh sure the way to do it is what I did which is buy the Yokomo chassis and

that's why I advised Naomi to get that one for you for Christmas because that's like the way to go

that's the entry level one it's definitely the cheapest way to get into it yeah and without buying

a Rage Runker and the Yokomo chassis comes even though like I said it's all plastic everything

is adjustable on it it has it's almost adjustable turnbuckles yeah it's you can do a lot with it

it doesn't even though it's entry level it doesn't feel cheap so but anyway this Tamiya

um I'm like halfway built the chassis I did put entry level because I want to experiment with

electronics I put entry level Yokomo electronics in it so it is brushless but they're um it's not

even that much they're not even that less expensive than the hobby wing um but they're slightly less

expensive and they're pretty wired I don't even need soldering and interestingly they come with a

Tamiya plug on them but I had to get an adapter because the ESC is set up for lipos not nickel

metal hydrates um so that should be pretty interesting just to try it and I bought a base

Yokomo gyro because that's it I'm like I want to feel the differences in these electronics and

understand why some are better than others um because that was a big revelation driving the

Yokomo chassis is that I put $150 servo in it and I was like oh I get it like it's quiet and it's

faster than a $20 cheap basher servo so

well let me know how the mid-level stuff works because I gotta purchase some stuff too and

if I could save some coin I'd love to supposedly the ESC is pre-programmed

it's a drift ESC but it's pre-programmed to be with good throttle response for drifting

and then I bought this weird no-name drift servo off of AMA and that was only 50 bucks

I'm gonna try that out um what's the brand name of it it's like digital racing it's like something

random I've been I've been watching a lot of youtube videos about the electronics and what the

combo of things is that's like budget friendly but also like good because I don't want to spend

a ton of money if I don't have to but

apparently the spacebar mutes this um yeah I the screen went down I get spacebar out of

hold back up and I muted myself um I don't want to spend a ton of money on stuff I don't need

but I don't want to spend not enough money on stuff that's not good enough either so I think

that's my whole conundrum is I'm much like anything in life I'm overthinking the purchase

process and like looking at all these different things and I've watched there's a few pretty

detailed youtube tutorials on like building these cars and going through them and you know if you

want to get into it I'd recommend you watch some of shredcraft's videos yeah because he is uh he's

very dry which is good he's not like one in your face like hey guys he just he's very like about

the stuff he just tells you about what's good and what's not good and he's been one of the guys

I've been watching and a couple others too but he's the one his name I can remember that's been

pretty consistent with good advice it seems so he has a he has a yokomo rd 2.0 that he's building

to a budget level and uh been watching a couple of different videos where he's you know I purchased

this part and it wasn't good enough so I switched to this part it's like that's that's exactly what

I want to see yeah somebody came who knows what he's talking about purchasing cheaper stuff and

saying what's good and what's not that's sort of what I'm trying and I actually am trying to do

little videos of this because it's on the workbench it's easier than doing it out at a car sure I'm not

I'm not trying to hustle to get a car fixed and also do a video I can just leave it on the bench

and walk away so I'm trying to get myself into making more videos that way that's another thing for

2025 and then I'll try to put these on the scale autocast and stuff um but yeah I've got uh that's

the other thing you can also buy you stuff like I'm I'm tomorrow night when I go to the drift track

I got a guy he's getting rid of a basically brand new hobby wing the drifty you see for like 50 bucks

less than what it costs yell 10 whatever like twice and he just didn't want it whatever and I I picked

up a um the guy that runs the track he was like uh I got this Yoko mo uh I think it's an MD10 or an

st10 it's a it's a low transfer special so it's a roll car they call it so it's the weight is up

high and really soft suspension so it actually rolls and moves like a real car sure and that's like

almost a $400 chassis and he was just like uh I'm just going to sell it for half price anyone

local that just wants to get it running as a roller so I got it for like 170 bucks it's basically

brand new what chassis is that low transfer special LTS Yoko mo LTS that's Yoko mo as well yep

but basically I like I like watching those ones work I need yep yeah it's a basically you know

it's basically a I think it's based on a yd10 um which shares a lot of parts of the rd10 now we're

now we're really losing people but yeah 100% yeah but it the battery basically the motor is in the

back drift the diff the transmissions in the back it puts the battery up above the motor on the chassis

for a tonneau and has um super soft long travel shocks and so like the Japanese

would call them roll cars because it literally pitches and rolls yeah I've seen videos of those

cars working in there super neat looking yeah and I was like after that price I'll just buy it and

I'll do it slowly I'll build it up like I found this local guys got the usc for cheap I'll buy that

next month I'll buy a motor I'll just put it together slowly sure if it's in good shape so

you know the guy pat was like I just want to see somebody use it with the track I was like yeah

I get the uh four door Ken Mary body it's a little okay the only problem with the vintage bodies

they're a little bit narrow I guess um so it might be a little challenge to get it to fit with the

wheels yeah I'd notice that some guys have like way too much track in the front and the wheels are

like 100% outside defenders now I'm like yeah nope you lose me because it's not scale yeah so I'm

going to try to make it as scale as I can and throw that body on it and it should look cool like

rolling and moving around but it's rad so yeah it looks like um the RC drift track here also does

Wednesday night stuff so I gotta head down there and check out some stuff and see what's

available for sale possibly for electronics down there yeah it's the type of hobby where guys are

always buying and selling stuff you always pick up used stuff yep and I I also picked up uh a

TTO2 drift chassis from Tamiya so uh the reason why I bought it this it's uh

when drifting started it was full drive cars with just plastic tires for sure so that's

that's what this chassis is it has no gyro or anything but you can't run that anywhere I can't

run it anywhere but I'm going to convert it to a real drive oh okay got a matrix racing club

conversion kit for the TTO2 because I've seen a lot of those videos of them running TTO2s and

they look really cool and it works my nerds Tamiya nerd um but the reason why I bought this one

it's the one of the red rx7 on it because it was only 140 bucks and it came with ball bearings

and it came with the rx7 body and it came with a lighting kit

so I was like that's worth it right there

and an ESC yeah it's got the original factory ESC and the brushed motor

which that's one of the ones I'm gonna send off to our friend Brian who's getting back we got back

in RC because now I've got several extras of those I'll save those for other you know basher

projects but I've got one extra set I can share um so yeah that's worth it I thought just uh you

know and if I I'm kind of looking at it I'm like well I'll try the electronics and the MBO one and

if I like those I'll either swap them over to try the other one or I'll get another set of those

or I'll see what I want to do I'll wait see what kind of electronics I want to put on it

I'll try some different videos you don't have to have all of them fully built all the time you

can transfer stuff around because you can only drive so many at once yeah exactly uh and there's

some interesting you know if your tech's getting into drift stuff they have a drift ESC they have

a drift motor that's 380 size but has the bolt pattern to fit in a 540 area so that's kind of

interesting like it's like lighter um but has the power of it you know so it's like that's

interesting to try like you know maybe it doesn't work maybe it works well who knows but I'm willing

to experiment so that's I don't know that's I've definitely I don't know this is like a really

fun hobby it's just you actually get uh I have a place to use the cars um you know you get kind

of get feedback from driving them you can tune them a little bit um in the long run it's definitely

less expensive than real cars you know oh yeah for sure I'm not gonna stop playing with real cars

but I don't really need to build any more race cars you know eventually on the long-term horizon

yeah I'd love to do a track day car a real one but um in the meantime I can just do

basic track days of the t20 what's that teaser teaser comment here I'm about to ruin my financial

future by owning a race car so okay yeah yeah that's yeah exactly yeah um also I have all the

I'm actually building shelving for RC cars in my garage so yeah I'm just looking at my workspace

area I need to add some shelves to display stuff but it's and it's uh you know as Marco's getting

a little bit older he'll be able to do it with me too you know it's like that'll become a lifetime

obsession to him as well yeah you can it's not like you know carding is pretty cool that's also

super expensive for a family yep it's a lot of work but this is like a little bit more manageable

you know you can have his own car maybe you can get decent at it so you probably will

be decent at it because kids are good at this kind of stuff yeah so I can do it I mean

sweet I'd like to I'd like I'd definitely like to compete and maybe see how far I can go I think

it's possible to be decent at it I could be completely wrong but we'll see I'm sure you'll

be fine I'm looking forward to it to getting into it I'm looking forward I'm a little

envious of the proximity of your track to you compared to me to my track but it is what it is

even the owner of the track is he's like you're closer than I am nice but the vibe there is

he's all about like making everybody faster and drive better and like when there's a bunch of people

there they'll they'll be like all right train time and everybody like gets in tries to run in a big

long train and they try to force everybody to be better at tandeming like non-competitively just

like well the good thing about this too is that you can learn the tandem stuff unlike in a real

drift car where like the stakes are way higher yeah it's like sand bodies they just pop back out again

yeah I've definitely had a couple a couple of wrecks with people and it's like

oh the car not broken all right roll good carry on sweet well I think that is a good first episode

of 2026 and it is

all right so I mean we'll try to post more to social media um floor short we'll try to post

more pictures of the fun things we're doing with cars I think we should my challenge to you Brad

maybe do a couple of little short videos while you're working on stuff just throw them on Instagram

that's all you have to do it doesn't have to be fancy just like what I did with the Volvo right

where I was like doing a little tour around the engine bay while I was working on stuff

why don't you do that with that it's that comfort zone level that's what we're talking about here

yeah but it's like it doesn't have to be more than a minute you can just be like yeah here's what

it's funny I was trying to figure out how to crimp the end on this bomber cable and there are no

videos that teach you how to do it I would imagine it'd be like a bike cable no sort of kind of

but there's this weird little tool that comes with that's a disposable crimper

basically you set it in like a bench vise and crush the crimper onto the part and it crimps the thing

um I don't have bench vise though it's the problem oh but you have a bench right I was like oh let's go

buy a bench vise turns out bench vises very expensive so yeah I'm a free

uh yeah they weren't cheap I mean I have like a tiny little dumb one that doesn't

do very much but um yeah they're not I guess I can get I don't know that's also like something

that would be good used like Facebook marketplace look for a vise yeah I guess I don't need like

a really big one no I don't need the professional level $1,500 one from Ranger no what is I'm afraid

of oh let's see I'm looking at a real fast they have a five-inch swivel vise five inches enough

is it the width of the jaw I assume so yes

yeah that's 60 bucks

yeah so maybe they don't work you still need a bench or a half inch for $29 have a bench

you can bolt it to my bench it's totally fine all right maybe I'll buy one there you go we'll see

so yeah do do some short little videos and stuff and uh I'm gonna try to do the same um

well attempt I'm just not as comfortable doing the video and uploading the video as I am at

doing pictures or when somebody else does a video I actually did a probably hour-long video for a

local guy who makes YouTube videos hasn't come out yet but just a tour of my he's being

the vintage Japanese stuff so I kind of there you go tour of the Japanese stuff and collection

or some of it we did about half the collection so cool but uh other than that come join us on

the discord it's fun yeah it's the easiest way to get ahold of us the other thing I think we

work on too is uh and we're we're doing rc stuff but maybe we should fit in a

a couple of model challenge builds get me to build I was actually just thinking about that

just thinking about that yeah we should pull that off I would like to get pulsing back out

you know I started the other day on one but only did a few things that broke away but

I would like to get back into that too yeah always so much time in the day unfortunately

yeah exactly I even had my 24 scale Montero RC kit I need to finish up too

because that'd be that's a cool thing to to just uh show off with the drift track because

people are into it that's the other thing they added a scale crawler course so it's it's cool

that I have one of those already so everybody's into that too when you you'll break from drift

and you go over there's a corner where the guy's does landscape and you brought a bunch of extra

rocks built a cool crawler course so if you like the rc drift guys are into scale and that's why

they're also under crawlers yeah so that's why we fit in anyway as we heard level of thousands

spiral here at the end um yeah all right end of the enter we are on out off top of the instagram

that's probably the best place I can even talk about the other places uh scale autocast on instagram

I'm racing our instagram rad we're gonna find you they can also find me at instagram at tsi

ss 350 I also post on our own podcast accounts and obviously on the discord in order to find the

discord message us on the instagram we'll get you there we'll get you a link all right cool as always

keep your eyes analog private club cool people only keep your eyes analog and aim for the roses

New Year, Same Old Car Podcast

About this episode

Honda Talon

Mercury Merkur

Dodge Duster

Mercury XR4Ti

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from Auto Off Topic