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S&YE213 - Wild B4 This
About this episode
Kevin, aka Wild Before This, shares his deep passion for Subaru vehicles, particularly his journey building and modifying his Forester Wilderness and Crosstrek for off-road adventures. He discusses technical upgrades like suspension and lighting, the importance of lightweight builds, and his love for camping and trail exploration with his wife. Kevin also talks about the strong Subaru community, his new off-road tour business, and personal philosophies on life, respect, and adventure. The episode blends car talk with personal stories and insights into the off-road lifestyle in Southern California.
Topics:
forester wilderness build
crosstrek modifications
off-road adventures
subaru community
suspension upgrades
camping setup
trail experiences
off-road tour business
vehicle maintenance
personal stories
Kevin hops on the mic to chat about his first generation Wilderness Forester, his set up for camping, mods he has added, and adventures he enjoys with his Subaru.
Links from the show, links to sponsors and discount partners, and ways to support the podcast:
Wild B4 This
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Subaru WRX
"... I actually got rid of that car because I found a WRX with a blown motor. Oh, and so that was that was ..."
Car
Audi A3
"...e time, but we got married through that. I had an Audi A3 at the time. So it was all wheel drive."
Car
Jeep Cherokee
"...w to even look at all that stuff was I had a Jeep Cherokee back in the day. Okay."
Car
Ford Excursion
"... I can and take people who want to come on guided excursions. They could bring their own car"
Select text to request an explanation
Hey, my name is Kevin, on Instagram, I'm wild before this, and you're tuned in to episode
two, one, three on the Subian U Podcast.
Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Subian U Podcast.
I just got back from the Dallas area because I attended Subifest, Texas on Saturday, October
11th.
I was there with my son Luke, my daughter Catherine, her husband Ian, and Luke's friend Brody.
So we all had a good time, and of course we were all there last year, and when Luke was
talking to his friend Brody earlier this year, Brody said that he wanted to go and
check it out.
And so we actually had a couple of dex from Bucky from last year that were not signed.
So we took them up there, got those signed.
They got some posters signed.
Luke has a Bucky hat.
He got that signed as well.
So it was a really good time.
We also saw Rihanna again, of course, and also Scott Speed.
And I got Scott Speed on the mic for a little bit, which was really, really cool.
I feel very, very blessed, and I really, I had a good opportunity, so I took it.
I caught up with him between things that he had to do.
He was doing some ride-alongs, and then he also was going to be doing, I think
is when he's going to be doing the autographs.
So I was able to catch him between finishing up all of the ride-alongs that he was doing
and then before he was doing the autographs.
So that was nice.
Just sat down with him, asked him if it was okay to record a little bit, asked him what
he thought of Subifest, and so yeah.
So got him on the mic finally, and I might be able to potentially get him on a full episode.
So I will try to make that happen.
That would be really, really cool.
But overall, we had a really great day, and it started off cool.
It felt good outside, wasn't too hot, and then it started to slowly warm up throughout
the day.
But it was nice seeing people again that I haven't seen in a while, and I met some
new people.
But around two o'clock, it started to get really, really hot, and I wasn't drinking
as much water as I really needed to, and I didn't eat until I think like maybe 12.30
or one, maybe 12.30 for the first time the entire day.
I hadn't had anything to eat.
And a little after two o'clock, the heat was really, really catching up to me, and I think
I was getting a little bit of heat exhaustion because I was just, I was feeling really
weak.
I was starting to get a headache and just wasn't feeling good.
So, and it was catching up with everybody else that was with me too, but we decided
to go ahead and leave.
So I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to everybody.
So if you're listening to this, and you were there, and we were chatting before, or we
didn't get a chance to catch up, I'm sorry, I just, I had to get out of there because
it was really, really getting to be pretty hot.
And like I said, I hadn't had enough water, and I think that was a big part of why
it was really getting to me.
So I just wanted to be safe and leave and because like when I, when we were sitting in
the car in the AC, I wasn't walking around.
It was still like, it was pretty rough.
I wasn't feeling too good, but thankfully, slowly, I was able to feel better.
And of course now I'm fine, but yeah, great day, a lot of fun, always a good time.
But before we go any further, I want to give a shout out to my buddy, Ben, who
is the host of Dirt Subbies.
He's been running along with episodes over there.
So please go check it out for some more Subie content in podcast format.
He's had some really good guests on and I'm actually learning some stuff from his episodes
because his are a little more technical and listening to them, especially the one with
Brandon Starscream, 1201, his episode was really good because they were talking about
a lot of technical stuff and some things that I didn't know.
So I learned some stuff from that.
I know my, or I know my podcast doesn't get too technical, but his seems to be a little
more technical.
So there's some really good information over there.
So go check it out.
And now a word from one of our sponsors.
The Subie and You podcast is brought to you by Accentric Designs.
For those of you who don't know, Accentric Designs is a small, community-driven business
that offers custom fit vinyl overlays for most Subaru models.
This includes various designs for the rear reflectors, tail lights and side tail lights.
I also offer fun, detailed designs like the popular fender stripes and stickers.
To find designs for your Subie, head on over to AccentricDesigns.com.
There's always more projects in the works, so be sure to follow at Accentric.designs
on Instagram.
As always, thank you so much Accentric Designs for sponsoring the Subie and You podcast.
If you were a previous guest on the podcast, and you would like an episode specific decal,
you can go to AccentricDesigns.com, go to search and just type in episode and it'll come up
with the, or it'll show you where the decals are that you can order with your episode
number.
So thank you so much, Jen, for doing that for the previous guests.
This Friday, I am going to be putting out the bonus episode from Overland Expo in Virginia.
The last one, the last, or the last location, the last event of the season.
It was a great day, had a good time, or great weekend, because it's a three-day event.
It's bittersweet because now it's over and, but we have next year to look forward
to.
We'll be getting together with some people from SOA, Joe particularly, and other people
as well to talk about what we can do next year.
So I'm planning on putting together an episode with Joe as like a follow-up for, with him
about what he thought about Overland Expo for this year and what we can potentially
see next year if he has some of those ideas yet.
I'm also going to be recording tomorrow night, Tuesday, October 14th with the
teams, the Subaru teams that are at the Rebel Rally.
So though they will have been there for a few days, participating, competing, and I am
going to interview them and I'll put that out as a bonus episode.
I'm going to try to do that, have it out on Wednesday, and so that everybody can
listen to it, because I want it to be fresh off of our conversations.
So especially since they're out there at the Rebel Rally.
If I can't put it out Wednesday, then I'll put it out Thursday, but I'm going
to try it for Wednesday.
Anyway, please look out for that.
At Subifest, Texas, I saw my other two sponsors there.
Right as you come into the entrance, there was Subimods.
They had their big set up there and went over there, introduced myself to the
guys.
There's actually a guy that works for them and his name is Rafael also.
We were going to try to get some content together, but they were busy
setting up when I first went over there and they were also short-handed.
They had four people.
They normally have six and I ended up going over there a little bit later on
and they were super, super busy and then I was busy running around.
I wasn't at Subifest in an official capacity.
I was just there on my own because I wanted to just spend my time with my
family.
So I got a few interviews, but not too many, but I didn't get a chance
to connect with Rafael from Subimods because we were just all kind of busy.
But go check out Subimods.com.
See what they have to offer for your Subaru because they do offer
products for the overland and off-road type of Subarus.
It looks like they're also going to be getting into a little bit more of
the off-road and overland scene with their content that they put out
with Adventure One.
So go check out Subimods.com.
Also, go check out their memberships that they have as well.
Also right there near the Subaru Motorsports USA trailer and the
simulators for you could go and try to beat Bucky's time was Subaru Gear,
my other sponsor.
It was great running into Tom there and chatting with him and meeting
a few of the other people.
So if you didn't get a chance to pick up any gear at Subifest,
Texas, or any of the other events, you can go to SubaruGear.com,
fill up your cart and use the code SUBIENU25 for 20% off your purchase.
And if your total is over $50 after the 20% discount,
you automatically get free shipping.
So go check out SubaruGear.com.
Go check out all of the merch that they have there.
They've got some really good stuff and they've added some new things.
So thank you so much SubaruGear.com for sponsoring the
Subimods podcast and bringing this great offer to our listeners.
And now we will get into this conversation with Kevin,
who goes by Wild Before This.
And here he has to say, so here we go.
Welcome to the podcast, Kevin, man.
I appreciate being here.
Thank you for having me, Rob.
You're welcome.
Uh, yeah, so I'm glad that you that you said your Instagram handle
because I was saying in my head, Wild, Wild Be For This,
but you're a Wild Before This.
So, yeah, that makes sense.
So where did that name come from?
Well, I was, you know, I'm 48 years old.
I'm probably one of the older cats that you've had on the show here.
And I've had a lot of cars.
I mean, that's just probably my, I would say we're getting close to,
if not at the 20th vehicle I've owned in my life or registered.
And a couple of them have been some off-road builds, you know?
And so I was no stranger when I got, I actually built a Wilderness edition.
We'll probably talk about that a little later.
I built one before they came out, kind of.
But when we got the Wilderness edition, I'm going,
this doesn't make anybody wild, you know, I'm doing this stuff.
Like, so I decided that I would actually just kind of coin it.
Like, you know, I've been, I've been wild before this.
This is, you know, that makes sense to make the, the name here.
Yeah, that's cool.
It's a cool story.
Well, before we get started with anything else, of course, I have to ask you
the most important question, and that is whether you prefer waffles or pancakes.
Oh, man, I'm in the waffle gang.
I, I'm sorry.
Just this is over.
But you got, have you ever done peanut butter on waffles
with syrup on top in that order?
Probably, I'm pretty sure I have.
Go get yourself some eggos tonight after we're done here
and pop it in the toaster.
And right when it comes out, just a little bit of peanut butter,
some syrup on it and just gobble it down and tell me what you think.
I actually have some waffles.
I usually do not, but I found some.
And I'm going to I'll try that little late night snack.
If you're into nutty peanut butter, it's even better.
But superb.
It might change your mind is almond butter.
OK. Absolutely.
I'm butters probably better.
Yeah. OK. More healthy.
I'll do that. I'll do that.
Yeah. So I I know, obviously, you have a forester wilderness.
And it's I know it's the first edition.
But how many Subarus have you owned?
Because I know I saw you had another account where you had a cross track.
So I know you've had at least two Subarus, but have you had more than two?
Yeah, I actually started with I call it the doghouse.
I started with in three forester.
The old boxing one.
Yeah, the old boxy one.
And it was nice.
It had leather interior.
It had like rally lights on the bottom with the little grills on it.
It had like all the little extras.
I would think that that would have had in that year.
And I made two keys for it.
And when I got my dog, that was the reason for me buying one.
I'd always wanted to get into Subarus somehow.
I didn't know it'd be a forester of that here.
It just looked like a total no offense to anyone, grandparent's vehicle.
But it was my dog's doghouse.
It was awesome.
I loved every second of that thing.
That car was super impressive to me.
It's not like a tank.
I was able to go camping with it.
So, you know, I would be able to throw some stuff in there and take the dog
and, you know, just go out and I just it just went everywhere.
It was fun. I actually upgraded the brake system myself.
I put I found out that WRX brakes fit on it.
Well, the calipers do.
And you get the rotors from a VW Corrado.
A Corrado?
Nice.
A Corrado?
Yeah.
Yeah, it was like a 70s Corrado.
And you slap them on and the hub size was the same.
And next thing you know, you're rocking upgraded WRX brakes.
And when I sold that car, the young lady had to contact me on the side
and say, hey, what brakes are on this?
Because nothing I'm buying fits.
I felt so bad, but she was happy that they were bigger
once I actually explained it to her.
So that was kind of cool.
But that was number one.
Number two, I actually got rid of that car
because I found a WRX with a blown motor.
Oh, and so that was that was my poor man.
FTI, I put a EJ 202 flat tool was a 205 in that thing.
Oh, my God, I don't even remember.
I had to I had to black that car out of my memory.
I'll tell you why in a second.
But I bought it from the guy and then it was a half project.
He had the heads off of it and it was just all apart.
And I just plucked the motor out, got a new one
from the record down here in Wilmington.
And I had the motor in over the weekend and we were driving it.
It was amazing. That's so cool.
And I had it about five months.
I was on the freeway, a local freeway here, the 605 North
for all my locals.
And right in front of the old Irwindale race track
and traffic just go stopped.
And so I stopped.
I mean, it was a hard stop.
And I look in my mirror and the guy behind me didn't stop.
And he hit me at full speed.
It was a Dodge crew cab pickup.
Of course.
And he hit me pretty much at full speed and the car was toast.
But it saved my life.
Man, I say that car saved my life.
I got out of the car with just a little bit of seatbelt rub.
And everything was pretty cool.
Except for the fact that I lost my build.
Yeah. And you know, the guy got out, you know, ran.
Hey, I'm so sorry.
You know, I was like, hey, don't worry, it was an accident.
You know, I, you know, I'm OK.
You're OK.
We get to go home to family tonight.
And, you know, it is what it is.
So that was number two.
And then the reason behind all of this in the first place
is my wife is just an amazing person.
We got married.
She was my girlfriend at the time, but we got married through that.
I had an Audi A3 at the time.
So it was all wheel drive.
I never got out of the all wheel drive camp
after having a few suities.
And she says, I'm tired of you working on this thing.
It was it was a great car.
It was very, very nice.
But I tuned it.
It had a transmission tune, a engine tune.
And after that, it uncovered a lot of flaws
with a hundred thousand mile vehicle, you know,
the transmission started slipping,
the clutches were starting to go.
And, you know, rather than me just put stuff in it
to band-aid it and she looked at me and says,
look, you always talked about that little cross-track.
I went through a couple cross-tracks.
I had a first gen and we had two first gen.
She drove hers first and I borrowed it
for a little bit after my Subaru.
My WRX got wrecked.
And I just I ended up with a desert khaki one.
So every time you mentioned a desert khaki on the show,
my heartstrings just, oh, I wish I'd never got rid of it.
But it was the two points slow.
And I just, I got tired of not having manual transmissions
and that's what kind of got me into the Audi camp for a while.
But working on those things is just ridiculous.
So I'm stubborn.
I didn't give up, but she said, look,
you always talked about camping.
You always wanted to go and look at, you know,
you always took that cross-track out.
And cause I took that thing everywhere.
It was a lease and I think I returned it back
with like almost 80,000 miles.
I had to pay them like $2,000 to give it back.
It was so sad.
But I did like it except for the engine.
And I always said, I'll put an STI motor in this thing one day.
And that never happened.
But when I looked them up again,
they had the Forester engines, the 2.5s.
And this was March of 21.
And we got an amazing deal at a Glendale Subaru.
I mean, we brought a bunch of friends there
to ride cars from there prior to me having it.
So when I went for my car, they did really good by us.
And it was right before the prices went sky high during COVID.
I think we, I want to say we got that thing for like 29.
It was crazy.
It was silly.
And that was the beginning.
When I went back online to start looking for parts,
there was a huge following.
There was, you know, support,
primitive race things, kid plates.
There was suspension companies, there was lighting.
I go, oh, okay, you know, here we go.
And the reason why I knew to even look at all that stuff
was I had a Jeep Cherokee back in the day.
Okay.
So my grandmother had bought a 1995 Jeep Cherokee,
XJ body style, you know,
and I was able to get my hands back on it
in my later adult life while I was at Honda.
And I put a six inch lift on it.
I had long arm travel.
I had swapped the differential for one
with limited slip differential in it.
I mean, it had everything transmission cooler.
I did the fuel injectors on it, you know,
don't forget I was a Honda technician.
So I could do all the work in the garage
as long as I was quick, you know,
and stay out of everybody's way for the night.
That's so good, man, to have access to that.
Oh, it was a blessing.
Yeah.
It was such a blessing, Raf, you have no idea.
I saved so much money.
Oh yeah, I can only imagine
because there's stuff that I would like to be able to do
that I can't, that I'm having to pay for, you know,
and not having access to a garage.
It's all I can only imagine.
You know, it's a blessing for sure.
I still to this day want to rally some friends together
and just pitch in and get a shop
just for the heck of it, you know, just pay the rent.
So we could all just work on stuff after hours, you know,
but, you know, yeah, I built that Jeep
and the only reason why I got rid of it
was just it ate better than me in fuel, man.
That thing sucks so much gas
no matter what you do.
And this was back then prices
when I was building on it, you know,
0809 through about 2014.
So, you know, it was pretty wild to have that experience
with that car.
I'm texting my wife over here.
She's like, what's going on?
I was supposed to turn her car into the Cadillac Joe.
I was trying to tell you,
I had some issues with them earlier, but yeah.
She's like, what the heck are you doing?
I'm starting the podcast.
So did you not tell her prior that you were recording?
I told her and I said, do you want to be honest?
She goes, no, you're like the spokesperson for the car.
Don't worry.
You go ahead and I'm like, get out of here.
It's because of you.
We're getting to do all this stuff.
You know, she, you know,
most women in a man's life
is not going to let this dude just go out
and buy a bunch of parts and build a car, you know,
to take places, but she's really into going out with me,
you know, and like I was saying with the Jeep,
you know, I did a lot of that by myself.
I didn't have a lot of people back in those days
that like to go off-roading and like to go camping
and sit out and breathe dust for two days straight,
you know, and I just, I didn't grow up that way.
A lot of my friends were into night clubs
and doing their Raven and all that.
And I just wanted to get out and just slow it down
and not really necessarily slow it down, just be away,
I guess, you know.
Yeah, I get it.
It's different.
So, you know, I always say it's because of her.
It's mostly the stuff that's in the car
is so that when we do go out,
we, I never put her in a situation
where she's scared or freaked out or worried, you know,
and in the beginning she was worried
because she just didn't, you know, we were dating,
you know, and she's just like, oh my God, it's crazy.
I go, look, don't worry.
When I look worried, then you worry.
If I'm not worried, you know,
as an old master technician,
I kind of know what every clunk and pop
and sounds gonna be and how bad is it, you know,
depending on what we're doing.
I broke a lot of parts in the Jeep.
Yeah.
Hey, you were enjoying it.
I had a lot of good experiences.
I learned a lot.
I've seen really bad stuff off-road happen to people.
And I know that, like, you know,
it's all fun and games until it's not.
And then you have to be ready for that, too,
because, you know, that's a situation
that's an adventure in itself.
You can't, you know, just not take care of those things
that are, you know, in front of you.
You have to deal with everything, so.
Yeah, of course.
But, you know, we're on number six now.
We had the Cross Trek.
I built the heck out of that thing.
Everything except lockers and oil coolers, you know.
It had lift.
When we got it,
the first thing I knew I wanted to do with that thing
was get the oil pan off the ground.
Yeah, that's important.
I just kind of, you know, one of my favorite things to do
is my first oil change.
I never let anybody do my first oil change
on any new car that is in my possession,
whether it's new or old, you know.
It's like, hey, I'm going to do the work here.
This is my baby.
No one cares more about your car than you do, you know.
It's just kind of sad how that works.
But I climbed under the car and I'm going,
what the heck is this?
The oil pan's just right there.
Like that's not going anywhere off-road, you know.
And so March comes,
I think I spent pretty much about a solid 45 days
looking at different suspension kits and videos
of people on suspensions.
And I don't know if you know him,
but a lot of people know him by a suit, buggy, Bob.
I've heard of him, yeah.
And I saw this dude jump his car out in some terrain
that reminded me of somewhere local.
And I go, oh my Lord,
like that is exactly what I plan on doing to this poor car.
And that was what I needed to do.
And so I went out and I found out
that he had bought a suspension
by a company named Flat Out Suspension.
Yeah.
And I didn't know anything about what suspension he had.
I just knew that there was a different couple,
or a few different options that they offered.
And I was going, okay,
I'm about to drop way too much money into this car.
I need to get in kind of inexpensive.
And then maybe later on we'll figure it out, you know.
And so I bought the GR lights.
And that's like their entry level at the time.
Now they have something called the Trail Sport,
I believe it's called.
Okay.
I have to look that up,
because I hadn't looked at it in a while.
My mind is so tired from it.
I'm sorry, but it's really cool that the GR lights
was their entry level.
It was just over a thousand bucks.
And I thought, okay,
for the terrain that I'm in in Southern California,
it'll handle most of what I think I can go do.
I might not necessarily be able to jump the car,
but I knew that looking at a stock suspension
off of the cross-track, off of any vehicle,
I knew that if I wasn't going to,
if I was going to replace the suspension,
it was not going to look anything like stock.
So I looked at the Ironman kit and I thought, well,
that's better, but I can't adjust it.
And then is it rebuildable?
And so that was one of my issues with that kit, you know,
when I was looking at suspension kits,
because it was a pretty cool kit.
I was like, oh, 900 bucks, that's a little bit less.
On sale, I think it was.
And I was like, okay, this could work,
but what if I want to adjust it?
What if I want to change my spring rates?
So I learned about spring rates back in the day.
I used to autocross cars on pavement,
if you've ever heard of autocross.
Yeah.
And I used to get a little crazy on my Honda.
I was a Honda guy, so I had an Acura Antegra.
By the time that thing was done,
it had a B17, I had a 1.7 liter in it,
in a naturally aspirated, I was all about all motor.
And it was a Honda at a tune,
and I played with it myself.
And I found out I was running the car lean,
so it probably would have been a lot faster
if I had actually paid money to have it professionally done.
But it was quick by my standards.
And so I learned about corner weighting
and spring rates and all that stuff.
And I knew that, okay, if I do an adjustable suspension,
I can change the spring rates out,
because I had no idea what my camping load
was going to be, and that was important to me too,
is that, hey, I'm gonna have a lot of stuff in the car.
The car needs to handle good, not like Kaka,
if I do a bunch of modifications
without considering those things.
I still wanna be able to drive the thing.
And so, if you go back to my Crosstrek page,
that was Xtrek underscore V3.
And it was V3, because it was my third version
of the Crosstrek, so I had already had one and two,
my stock ones, my first gens.
So I kinda had an idea of like, okay,
I'm driving a rally car,
I wanna build it more or less like a rally car.
What is it gonna need?
And so that's why I settled on the flyout suspension,
because I thought, okay, I can up the spring rates
later on if they're too soft,
or if I have too much stuff,
or I think I'm gonna have a winch bumper one day
and full-on two bumpers front and rear.
I think it was relations race wheels.
I think they had come out with a couple bumpers
back in the day.
I was looking at those.
Yeah, I remember those.
Right when I was gonna pull the trigger,
they discontinued them.
I did get the set of their wheels.
Oh, nice.
And I think I was like probably the last person
to get their wheels.
And man, I sold those wheels to my nephew,
so they're still in the family.
If I ever build something else,
I'll have to snatch them off.
But that's good.
I didn't get that crazy,
because what I realized after I got the suspension in,
how well the car handled, it was just so lightweight.
And then the all-wheel drive system,
it was still the all-wheel drive system.
And immediately what I did with that car was,
I took the sway bars off.
So in my Jeep, I had no sway bars,
and I already was very comfortable with how that would feel.
So in the cross-track,
as soon as the suspension came on, sway bars were off.
And so massive articulation.
I went on all the trails I wanted to go on.
I mean, it was the business.
There's a trail over here called Clegghorn Ridge
that I used to take in my Jeep.
I used to do a lot of testing in my Jeep on that thing.
So if I lift the car,
if I did the sway bar delete on that thing,
I had sway bar end links that I could disconnect on that.
All my testing was there
and I put the new differential in there.
But I took the cross-track there
and that was a whole different animal.
And I did some stuff in that cross-track
that I probably shouldn't have done.
And I could talk about it
because both of the warranties are expired now.
So Subaru, you know, whatever.
But that little car impressed the heck out of me.
I did one obstacle on stock wheels and tires
that that car, stock air pressure,
that car should not have went up.
It's on the page too.
You'd probably have to scroll down 400 posts to see it.
But that little cross-track was amazing.
And so I did the best I could building it.
We took the camping.
I came from backpack life.
So I had a lot of small backpack stuff
that was good for me, solo life.
But my wife was like,
this is not comfortable.
This sucks.
So I had to kind of slowly upgrade that.
So slowly the car just got heavier, you know?
And I mean, I just, I ended up,
I went through a cooler phase where it was like,
okay, we need a cooler that can last.
We were in the Kern River.
And I remember we were in a position where we could,
you know, we didn't have work.
We could stay a couple of extra days
because we were on vacation time and we were going,
okay, let's just stay one more day.
We had our kid with us.
We had to stay one more day.
Let's stay one more day.
And we were able to do that two times.
And on the third time,
we couldn't stay because we ran out of ice.
So we were like forced to go back into civilization.
It was like really cool.
We were upgraded for like almost a whole week.
And I was just like, okay, never again.
And that's when we decided, okay, it's refrigerator time.
So we ended up buying one of those big lifetime coolers,
like bear proof cooler.
And I needed a big one
because we're gonna stuff it full of ice
and lose capacity.
So I bought the 55 quart.
Well, it took up half the trunk.
So now I was like, oh my gosh, where do we put the stuff?
So I had to get the extension for the Yakima rack.
And we had to shift everything around.
We were always just making everything fit.
And at the time we had a 87 pound Akita Husky.
You know, our daughter was five, six, seven years old.
I think she stopped going with us when she hit nine.
You know, so she was growing in size, you know,
and the poor dog took up, you know, backseat
and the kids just stuffed in the corner with the dog.
You know, if I drove fast,
three hours doesn't feel that long.
We'd all jump out and we'd be able to camp
and it'd be a good time, you know.
So she didn't really notice it and it was tolerable.
But guess what?
The freaking Forrester Wilderness came out
in like November of the same year.
And I'm going, oh, because I love the way
the Forrester Wilderness looked.
But we were knee-deep in the cross-trick.
So I just turned my head and, you know,
we just kept building, you know, we got the wheels.
We got tires.
At that time we had Kumo all-terrains.
What year was it that the first Wilderness came out
for the Forrester?
It was 22 or 23.
I think it was 21 or 22.
Okay.
It was 21 or 22, I think we had it.
I think we only had it eight months
before the Wilderness Forrester came out.
Either they came out with the Wilderness Forrester,
they came out with the Outback
with news of the Forrester.
I don't remember exactly how it went,
but I saw it and I was just like,
well, you know, this is going to be cool
because we can get a locker, you know.
Yeah, I was just like, we'll just turn our head.
We're going to worry about it later.
So, you know, back to the suspension,
I saw my neighbor really interested in what we were doing
and he decided to buy a regular Forrester.
So he bought a touring and he says,
hey, can you help me get some suspension?
And I was like, yeah, what do you want to do?
And he says, I want to build mine just like yours.
So he made me order some flat-out suspension for him.
And I say made me order him
because their predominant language is Mandarin.
So me and him communicate mostly through Google Translate.
And so I had to help him get the suspension going
and we take it out on a group run.
It was one of our first group runs
and I had done a little solo practice by myself
and it just barely got the suspension in.
And that weekend that we put a suspension in,
the group run was organized by Subagi.
So we meet him out in this local place
called Hungry Valley.
That was the first time I actually got to meet
some people that I remember.
And I didn't even know I met them
until later on, Silverstone, Subi Lee.
I had met him on that run
and then later on met him around other groups
and then I realized in pictures
that we were on the same group run together.
It was kind of funny.
But so we were on the group run with those guys,
watching them go up some massive hill climbs.
I think I took one or two, I was scared,
but I was like, let's do it, you know, we have the lift.
My neighbor didn't want anything to do with it.
He did one climb
and I thought he was gonna flip his forester.
It was really scary.
He was just new, you know?
And so we got out of the practice area
that we were all kind of staging in
and did like a forest trail run.
And anybody familiar with forest trails, you know,
they'll have like an off camber section
where it kind of turns inside
and the inside corner will be washed out
because that's just where the water flows
and it just washes that area out.
So you have to kind of go wide up the bank a little bit.
And so I don't know what my neighbor was thinking,
he was in front of me and we were trying to keep up
all the guys with the off-road wheels and tires.
If you've ever done that mod,
you know what a difference switching from a stock tire
to off-road wheels and tires is.
So he's trying to keep up with those guys
on his stock wheels and tires.
And I literally see the rear end of his car lift up.
Well, he went in the ditch
and he got stopped by, you know, going in the ditch
and popped back out.
Thankfully, not, you know, didn't fly down the mountain,
but you know, I saw his rear end lift up
and I go, what?
And I look at my wife, I go, hey,
did you see his car lift up?
She's like, yeah.
And then maybe, you know, three or four seconds later,
he stops and we get out, we all get that look
and he tacoed his suspension.
That's how hard he hit that dip.
Yeah, I mean, it was just like, whoa.
So he boat it in.
I'm looking at him like, well,
you're lucky I have tools.
So, you know, I carry all my tools
because I just, from the Jeep days,
you always roll the tools, you know?
Never know.
New car or not.
I just, you know, that's just kind of how we do it.
So I was able to loosen the collars on his coil over
and I rotated it around to where it just kind of
straightened the wheel back in,
because this wheel is in, you know, it's all tacoed in.
So I straightened it, we tightened it all back up.
We go up a little further to where the rest
of the group was kind of like,
hey, what happened to the stragglers, you know?
So we get back to them
and it was kind of the midway point.
We show everybody what happened
and we made the decision to turn around.
So he drives from, you know,
Magic Mountain is our area,
Magic Mountain, California, Southern Cal,
all the way out to,
what would be a landmark that everybody would know?
The 605 in the 603 way, I mean, it was a good 65 miles
on a tacoed strut and he made it back
with very, very, very little tire wear.
We were surprised.
And, you know, over the weekend,
we get over and get a hold of flat out suspension
and he says, hey, can we upgrade?
Is there any way we can avoid this?
And so flat out suspension, let him upgrade.
I think it was like an extra a few hundred bucks.
And he had appeared into the GR40 platform.
So I saw it when it got in,
because I was doing the work for him
and I got jealous.
I was just like, wow, this is a unit, man.
This thing is huge.
It's beefy.
I was like, this is what I should have ordered.
So I got a hold of flat, I said, hey,
let's do the upgrade thing.
And so I was able to get the upgrade
and we're rocking the GR40s now.
What I didn't know was an inverted strut.
So I had done no homework on inverted struts.
On my Acura, I had some custom struts built by Tain
but they weren't inverted.
So I didn't really know what this was.
And I learned that it's a damper insert
inside of a sleeve that on mount.
So there's some of them are different.
Some of them have a preload adjustment.
So there's a couple of collars there
or some of them it's an actual one unit mount
that this sleeve slides into and locks in.
Well, there's grease in there.
And eventually through the motion of that thing
going in and out through all of the salt water.
If you're up north or you have salt roads
down here, we were up in the forest roads
that are muddy and wet and we're in the desert
where it's sandy and that sand turns to like a clay
like concrete kind of substance.
That stuff eventually works its way in there
and dissolves the grease and you lose lubrication
and it makes noise now, it's friction.
So it'll click, it'll clack, it'll clunk and pop.
And so you have to take those things apart
and service them.
And in the cross track, we were on trails
down near every weekend.
And so I found myself servicing them almost every,
once every three months or so.
Yeah, it's a lot of work.
It was a lot of work, but once you get the hang of it
it takes about 15 minutes per unit.
Oh, that's not bad.
No, not bad at all.
And then I have a friend that was doing alignments for me
and then eventually I worked my way
into a firestone situation where they have
an alignment situation where they'll let you
buy an alignment once and they'll check it for you
and unofficially they might correct it, allegedly.
So we were able to take advantage of that program
a little bit and luckily I still have some friends
that will help me with that.
So servicing the units isn't that bad for me.
So that put that something to think.
And I like sharing that with people too
because I get a lot of people that will reach out,
hey, what's this friendship to you ever?
What do you recommend?
And I like giving out all the information.
And my wife says I talk a lot.
Yeah, that's part of it, but I've learned a lot.
And if I don't share that
and someone has a bad experience, I'll feel that.
Yeah, and that's what's been so great
about this community is when people have mods
or certain things that they do
and somebody asks them a question,
for the most part, nobody's keeping information back.
And especially when somebody new comes in the community
and they have no idea what they're doing
and because we all have to start somewhere
and then you reach out to somebody
and ask them just very simple questions
and people are just all so very willing to help
because we get excited that somebody else bought a Subaru
and is wanting to do stuff to it and with it.
Million percent, yeah, million percent.
Let's help them out.
And I think that's kind of, I mean, I went on the forums,
I was, I went on the, it was like North American
organization of Subaru, NASVAC or something like that.
It's an old school stuff.
I read so much information back in the days,
just putting my WRX together
and stuff about the Forester and just,
everybody's cool.
And I've been in some other forums,
like some of the Jeep forums
and there's some real D bags on there,
for no reason, and it's just, and I get it.
Everybody has an opinion and stuff,
but like I always tend to think like
the same amount of energy that it takes to be a D bag
on a post, you could have spent that time
providing something knowledgeable.
Yeah, useful and helpful.
Yeah, you just wasted space on that.
I got to scroll a little extra to try to get my answer.
I love meeting people
and everybody I've ever met that has a Subaru,
they're willing to talk about it.
They've got a cool story about it, and it's just,
I mean, I'm sure you have that in other groups,
but I just, I never see ego, you know,
and it's something like young, old,
income level, race, it doesn't even matter.
Like everybody's just, oh, you have a Subaru, cool, man.
Like how long have you had it?
Everybody's into it, it's fun.
I have a quick question about your episode
because we're recording episode two, one, three
and you requested that episode number specifically,
so I wanna know what the story is behind that.
Well, I mean, it is not really much of a story
other than just, you know, I grew up in Los Angeles,
you know, I'm an LA native,
I've done some traveling around,
I just love Los Angeles.
It's crazy, we've got some of the craziest people,
we've got some of the nicest people I've ever met too
and the most diverse people on the planet, you know,
I've met every, you know, someone from every country
here in LA, you know, and it's two, one, three
is actually just an area code, you know,
and I was born in 1977, so I remember when two, one, three
was most of Los Angeles,
now we have all these different area codes,
you know, the three, two, three, 66, A1A,
some before all those, but like, you know,
I remember that and so being, you know, see,
I, you know, I saw your, I watched your,
I saw this show, some of the early episodes
or the hurt just shows some of the earlier stuff
and I got to be honest, I stopped listening to it
because I did not want to be influenced
while I had built my car, I just,
I just wanted something totally unique, you know,
and something that I didn't, you know,
I mean, I had some people that I kind of looked at,
like, oh, okay, cool, but I just wanted something
that was totally unique, that was my personality,
like a lot of others, you know, do with their vehicles
that, you know, I think we're probably Subaru owners
are some of the most customizing people
second to Honda, maybe, you know,
there's some pretty tricked out Hondas and custom Hondas,
but, you know, it's just the two, one, three
was just kind of like, hey, you know,
this is a Los Angeles, you know, number,
let's just keep this episode to somebody here in LA.
If nobody else thought about doing it, I'm a claimant.
Yeah, no, there have been certain episode numbers
that have been claimed and I'm like, okay, you got it.
So yeah, that's cool.
I waited for this, so thank you.
Yeah, no, you're welcome.
So with your forest that you have now,
like you said, you've got the first generation
of the Forester Wilderness, do you have a name
for your Forester?
Yeah, I call her Eve.
Okay, where did that come from?
Well, we have crazy schedules, so my wife
is in the restaurant business and so she's a manager
and works crazy, crazy hours.
So, you know, think about this,
while your guys' families are being served
at the restaurant, we're out by ourselves.
Yeah, some of the holidays,
we don't have our loved one with us,
so enjoy it while you have it,
but she gets out on some crazy late shifts
and I love driving at night
and most of the time when we leave,
we're leaving in the evening.
So we leave in the evening.
The car's blacked out for a reason
because when we go out, you know,
I don't like high-profile vehicles.
It's usually just us by ourselves,
so we'll find a little cove somewhere
in the shadows and our little campsites
just kind of by ourselves, just tucked in somewhere.
We don't, you know, have a huge carbon footprint,
I guess you could call that.
You know, we're visitors in the land
and we try to just keep it, you know, quiet like that.
So yeah, our car's name is Eve, short for evening.
Nice, that's good.
So, when you bought, you know,
you had the cross-track,
you saw the Forrester wilderness
and you're like, oh man, that looks great.
But then, like you said, you had to turn your head
and not, you know, do anything with it yet.
So now that you've,
so you got the first generation Forrester wilderness,
now then you started seeing the other ones coming out too,
where you're like, oh man, I should have waited
or are you perfectly happy with where you are
in the car that you have?
Being that it's a wilderness and the first generation.
I was up late browsing the internet
and I decided to go on downsubaru.com
and build my own wilderness.
Cause I said, if I go and get a wilder, a Forrester,
it's not going to be a regular one.
I wouldn't do a touring, I wouldn't do a sport.
I'd get the wilderness for what we're doing.
And I knew a little bit about it,
that it, you know, had some better gearing
and some oil cooler.
So I just wanted to see what was going on.
So tons of research, I'm going, holy cow.
Like I wouldn't have to put oil coolers on this.
I wouldn't have to put a transmission cooler on this
cause I was getting ready, you know,
those were some of the mods in line on the Crosstrek.
And I'm going, Hey, it's got better gear ratios.
Okay, well, maybe I can get by with,
I'm going to throw a locker in it right away.
And you know what, the transmission is a little stronger.
Oh, come on.
Man, I don't have to worry about the CVT popping on me
later on down the road.
Like, hmm, you know, and so I built one.
So I built it the way I would have wanted it
off the lot, you know, without some of the extras,
I wanted to make sure it had LED lighting
cause my Crosstrek didn't have it, you know,
and I, you know, put the frills in there
and I go, wow, 33 out the door, huh?
Without the tax and CRV.
Well, okay, at least I know where we're at.
Close the window, go to bed, you know?
We get out Sunday and we drive by the dealership.
We have one at Monrovia, a local city here.
And I go, did you drive by it on purpose?
Or did you just happen to be driving and pass by?
We're on our way to my grandmother's house
and she lives down the street from it.
So I'm just like, gosh, so,
so I'm like looking at it,
just putting my hand by my eyeball.
I was like, don't look at it.
I don't see the dealership.
I just want to drive by it, get off the exit and coast, you know?
And my wife looks at me and goes, babe,
what's the likelihood of them having the one you want?
And I go, dang it, you're right.
That's what she got me with.
So we get on the lot and they didn't have any.
And I go, I want an all black one, you know,
and they had one and it was just like I built it.
Had the LED lights, didn't have mud flaps.
It had, you know, anyway, short version.
So when I get in the car, any car,
I'm a go car driver.
I like small cars.
So one of my things is when I get in the driver's seat,
I stretch my arm out
and I like to be able to touch the B pillar on the other side.
Either it's with my fingertip or the paw on my hand,
I don't care.
I just like to not have to move over.
I just like to have that within my reach.
I don't know what it is.
Yeah.
Just that helps me understand
that I like the size of this vehicle.
So I could do that in my forestry.
And I'm like, yeah, this is great.
And then when the way I put my seat,
the way I drive the Forester,
to me would feel like a WRX.
I don't sit SUV style.
I kind of lay it back and, you know,
I take the weight off my butt.
Anyways, but, you know, looking at the new Foresters,
I see what they're doing.
I get it.
No, I don't.
But I get it.
I am not a fan due to the fact that it's more,
to me, it's more soft.
It's more refined.
They straightened it out a little more, I feel like.
And then, yeah, to me, I haven't sat in one yet,
but it just overall feels larger in appearance.
And I like the tucked in tight look.
I mean, we have some really tiny trails here in SoCal.
And I don't like trail rash.
I'm about to go buy that liquid stuff
you just paint on your car
and then it dries and protects the side of your car
and then you can peel it off later.
I'm gonna invest in a bottle or a bucket of that stuff.
But like, if this car was any larger,
I wouldn't be happy, I think.
So you built out your Cross Trek before
you got the Forester and you built it out
for specific purposes and capabilities and everything.
But when you bought the Forester Wilderness,
like how did you, like when you first started
driving it and testing it out and taking it off on trails,
what did you notice about the differences in capabilities
between the Forester Wilderness as it was
and then how you had built your Cross Trek?
Well, I kind of cheated a little bit.
So before I got my, my wife is a master negotiator.
I'll tell you guys, if any of you guys
need to go buy a car and you wanna borrow my wife,
all we require is some shrimp tacos
from Cuatos Fientos here in LA.
They deep fry the whole taco.
It's phenomenal and that's our kryptonite.
And then we'll go and spend a few hours at the dealership,
just to goof around and play,
but we didn't give back the Cross Trek
until it was bare back to stock.
So they let me negotiate the deal
and we took all of the adventure parts
off the Cross Trek, everything.
So I still had the stock,
you still had the stock OEM wheels and tires?
So that's, so my nephew needed the tires and wheels.
So I needed his tires and wheels.
It was the same bolt pattern.
So I put 09 Forester tires and wheels
on the old Cross Trek.
And then he took my off-road wheels.
So we were able to restore those.
Matt Estrada, thank you brother.
I don't know his handle on Instagram.
He gave me his stock suspension from his Cross Trek.
So I was able to take my flat-out suspension off of there
and put the stock suspension off the Cross Trek
back on there.
I took my Diod Dynamic fog lights.
I had a Casey lights light bar in the front.
I had an AGM battery, interstate AGM.
I took all of my adventure stuff off of the car.
And this is the funniest part.
When we signed the paperwork
and I swapping my car,
we just lifted the roof rack off
and put it on the Forester in the lot right there.
I went back three days later
and did all of the swap work in their back lot.
Oh my God.
Props to Sierra of Monrovia.
Thank you, you guys are amazing.
They let me do that in their back lot.
Me and my nephew, we knocked it out in four hours.
So we had the Cross Trek completely stock
within four hours.
That's great that they let you do that, man.
It was crazy.
The service manager wasn't happy about it,
but after we told him to go talk to sales,
we never came back and everybody was happy
and they still talk to me today.
That's good.
Good deal.
So back to the differences.
The Forester has the same wheelbase as the Cross Trek.
So on the trail,
once I got used to the little bit more height
and just a little bit wider body,
it actually feels the same.
Okay.
Now there is some weird magic going on
with the weight distribution.
I think that it felt easier to climb
and that might have been because of the gear ratios.
But so far,
I've not had any issues climbing up over any obstacle
as long as we can get over it,
not wreck the whole undercarriage
by scraping ourselves over it.
But it's been crazy how well this thing does off road.
That's good.
And it did surprise me because it is heavier,
but we've had no issues.
What modifications have you done to it so far?
Well, I think one of the magic pieces of any Subaru
is keeping it lightweight.
So all of my mods have been with that in mind.
So I mean, we have skid plates.
The only skid plate I don't have,
which is still in the box.
And the only reason why I haven't thrown it on
because I don't have any marks on it.
I haven't touched it and we have the height clearance,
but I don't have the rear differential on.
Gotcha.
So we've got the front skid.
We've got a transmission skid.
We've got the suspension from flat out.
We have GR40Rs for reservoir in the front,
reservoir in the rears.
For anybody who wants to know,
it's a 225 pound spring rate all the way around,
which I'm about to raise the front
to a 250 pound spring rate.
Because I think I'm going a little bit too fast for them.
And I'd rather add a little bit more cushion there
and maybe deal with a little bit stiffer ride
than damaging any of the disc suspension.
We have, I've got massive amounts of travel
because I did a custom control arm.
So I've got some control arms
where I've done a spherical bearing in the control arm.
So I've got a one inch spherical bearing
that's rated like 25,000 pounds.
So I could pretty much wreck the car,
pull it out and put it in a new car.
So I pretty much have no limit in travel.
I was just tired of going through control arm bushings.
The cross track, I did three sets in 77,000 miles.
And then on the Forester here,
I was already on my second set
before I did the switch.
So I have spherical bearings
on the lower control arm, lower control arms.
I've got spherical bearings on the upper mounts
of the flat out suspension.
So the ride quality is not the best
compared to a stock Forester.
It's very tolerable for me
because I just, I like race car stuff.
I mean, I have 20 different adjustments on the dampers.
Right now they're at level eight.
So it's kind of stiff
because I was in the Canyon roads last week.
We had to do a burial for our dog,
but we were in the Canyon roads.
So when we're in the Canyon, I can turn it up
and go a little faster.
So, you know, I got to play a little bit
and have some fun up there.
That's good.
I got used to it.
So I just haven't turned it down yet
to put it back into Indiana Jones mode, I call it.
Yeah.
Yeah, we got a lot more sway.
We have no sway bars,
but the increased spring rate kind of compensates for that.
So it's not dangerous.
Yeah.
That's kind of the external stuff.
Internal, if you pop the hood,
we've got, we use a trigger four for our lighting.
So there's a company out there called Trigger Four.
They do a, well, it's called Trigger
and they do a four, a six.
I think they have an eight,
but it's a wireless switching system.
So I've got that.
I got a four plus so I can do a Bluetooth relay.
So it adds a fifth input.
So I've got my fog lights on that.
I've got a light bar integrated into the bumper.
We have a body armor four by four bumper
that accepts either the winch or a light bar.
Yeah.
So we chose the light bar
because I always had the rationale of like,
anything, if I would need a winch,
either A, I need to pick a different line.
B, I'm not going to drag myself over obstacles.
C, if it's that crazy of an obstacle,
chances are I'm on a crazy trail.
I would probably rather just turn around and go around.
Some trails aren't worth the price of admission
in my book.
Yeah.
You know, I get that.
And so if we can't climb up naturally
or if we've got a buddy like a lot of times,
if we're on gnarly gnarly stuff,
I got a buddy who's got a Jeep.
We'll usually be with him.
I'll just put the tow rope on him and have him drag us up.
And that's the case.
It would have been because
I don't have enough power, enough torque.
I keep our load modular.
You can kind of, I don't want to show it,
but I've dumped weight on the trail.
So I have a camping box where our kitchen is in that.
We carry a separate stove.
So back in the day it was a Coleman.
Now we have a Blackstone,
which is a little heavier, but they're removable.
You know, so if we have a situation,
I can instantly drop almost 60 pounds out of the car.
I carry the spare tires separate
so I have that strapped down in the car.
I can remove the spare tire.
That weighs 63 pounds on its own.
The wheels and tires are kind of heavy, but.
Oh yeah.
So I mean, instantly I can kind of get rid of
almost 100 pounds of dead weight on the trail
to give us a little bit extra.
And then because of the height
and then the way our suspension is built,
if I have to goose it and get a little bit crazy on the up.
Momentum.
Yep, you know how it is.
So, you know, unibody's power will just hammer our way up.
It might look ugly, but we'll be there.
So I've done that.
We've gotten stuck in deep sand
and I've had to drop the weight
and come flying at it and then walk back down
and go back and get our stuff.
You know, just recently in Soobie Fest,
that was kind of off topic,
but just recently in Soobie Fest
we went to a spot called Clekhorn Ridge.
We went, some of the locals were out
and I just, I utilize that as the opportunity
to meet as many people as I could.
Sorry babe, I kind of pissed off my wife that weekend.
But I just wanted to meet all the people
that I engage with on Instagram
or have engaged with me
or some of the local crews that are around.
And I got to shake a lot of hands and meet some people
we were able to take a group up to Clekhorn Ridge
and I had my full camping load
and I never go out there with camping load.
We had the rooftop tent and just all the food.
It was crazy, fridge was full.
But to make it up this obstacle,
I actually had to ditch some of that stuff on the trail.
And we made it, good footage,
but you know, I had to go back down
and load my stuff up again.
And it was fun times.
I mean, that's what it's for.
And then it's an adventure vehicle.
So it's built essentially
for whatever we're going to handle that day
or that week or whatever we're going to go do.
So, you know, I've got accessories that allow us to do that.
So if my roof rack is on, you know,
that's kind of our lighter load.
And I call that my rally mode, you know,
the roof racks on, we're hitting some trails.
We're probably going to go fast or faster.
If the rooftop tents on, we're just kind of
in overland mode.
The cars probably weighed down
with a bunch of other stuff, extra water.
In the wintertime, we have a diesel heater, extra food,
you know, stuff like that.
It's just whatever we're going to go do,
we just accessorize for the trip, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
So with all of your mods,
I'm guessing you've installed all of them yourself?
Yeah, I've done.
Or have you had to shop to do anything for you?
Or is it just you and you and friends?
No, it's me, you know, and me and my friends.
I've had some friends that have jumped in the mix
for some of the suspension stuff
and some of the interior stuff.
But mostly it just happens, you know,
I'm kind of a mad scientist,
so I'll just be staring at the car late night.
I have a garage, fortunately, I can park in.
So I'll come downstairs and just go out in the garage
and just stare at the car sometimes.
Well, in the beginning.
And, you know, I'll just go, wow, okay,
we're going camping, what does this need?
Or we just got back from a trip,
how could I improve this, you know?
And so a lot of my mods were put in the car
because I didn't want to unload stuff, you know?
Sometimes I didn't, I just, you know,
when we outgrew the spare tire,
I, you know, it didn't fit in that space anymore.
I go, well, we need water in that area now.
We need to put the battery down there.
We have a spot for tools, you know?
And, you know, the way I built it, it was like,
okay, how is this all going to work?
So to employ a shop to do something like that
and try to convey that message, you know,
I would have had to drag someone from the shop
to the trails and have them follow me around
to show them how I actually do it
for them to get the idea of how I want it
or they would have went at it with their vision,
which might have been awesome, but I'm very picky.
You gotta do what works for you too.
Yeah, I just, I have to, you know, I'm a lefty,
so I have to have it kind of weird and quirky,
but yeah, I haven't had anyone do any of the stuff
except, you know, the alignment shop, the guys there,
and then I do document my CVT oil changes through Subaru.
Okay, that's good.
So that's about the only stuff I'll have anybody ever touch.
As long as, you know, God willing,
as long as I can do it myself, I'm doing it.
Yeah.
Speaking of that, you, there was,
I saw a little clip you did
where you removed the heat trapping engine cover,
as you said, and you put a little shield from,
I forgot what cross check may be a premium or something
just to cover the exposed belts,
but so I totally get that because of the heat
and everything that you do,
but would you ever consider cutting your hood
and doing the spiked performance hood louvers?
Or is that a little too extreme?
Yeah, I, you know, I don't think I could.
I'd look at the hoodlines
of the Wilderness Edition Forester,
and I think to myself that it's very unique.
I don't know if I've really compared it
to the Touring Edition,
but, you know, the sport and the Forester Wilderness
are different.
And so like I see some people that remove the hood decal,
the, you know, that removes the sunshine from your face.
And I go, well, dude, like, that's a,
you just brought it down to a premium
or a sport or a touring edition.
Like, you know, this is 20 years from now,
these cars are going to be coveted as unicorns.
You know, they're not going to be very man,
especially I have a black one.
Like nobody, first of all, I very rarely see anybody
off-road a black Forester,
let alone a Wilderness Edition.
So I tend to believe like in the Subaru community,
years from now, it would be a special car.
And I kind of want to retain some of that.
Yeah, I'll have some of the trail stuff on it.
You know, but yeah, those are the experiences.
It gives it those characters.
I could tell, you know, I could tell you where every single
one of these scratches came from,
even if it was in the garage, which sucks.
But if I got another hood, just a spare one day,
I might do it just to see what it looks like.
Yeah, but I would definitely keep a stock hood.
If I could hang it in the garage one day
or, you know, if I get a bigger garage
and maybe make it an art piece,
I think I could hang the spare hood
and try just my hand in making louvers
just to see how cool it looks, but.
Yeah.
Yeah, I was just curious.
The heat temperatures are down pretty low right now.
Anyway, removing that plastic shielding off it helped a lot.
And the only reason why it happened in the first was
because we block half our bumper
with the body armor 4x4 metal bumper, you know.
Yeah.
So it's not as much of a vehicle.
So that's the reason why the temperature spiked.
Yeah, but on trail, I see 220s, you know, 227s
if we're up on the, you know, the hot days
and we're going up hills and, you know,
but if I stop, it drops down really fast.
And then I'm pretty up on my oil changes,
5,000 miles religiously.
Yeah.
So, you know, I'm not too worried about eating anymore.
Okay.
So you've mentioned a few trails,
but what are like some of the trails
that you get out to the most?
Man, we go a lot to the desert.
I love going out to the desert.
I have a big tree on my back tattooed,
but I just love being out in the desert
because it's different every time we go out there.
There's so much space.
So even if we do run into one or two people,
it's kind of rare.
You know, we're down here in the southern desert
by, you know, like if we go, you know,
real far south, we end up, you know,
down on the border, the Mexico, California border.
And when you say we, are you talking about
just like you and your wife going out?
Yeah, my wife's pretty much my adventure buddy.
Okay.
I've got, we do group runs.
I've got a couple of people out here tattooed trek.
Doza.j, he goes out with us, a couple other local guys
that'll, hey, I'm going on a trail run.
You want to go?
And they say, yeah, and then we all go, you know?
I've got another group that we have to plan a lot more.
So I don't ever know what's going to happen to me.
I might get a call from one of the properties
and I can't go or I thought I was going
and now something else happening, we're not going.
So I don't really have a crew that we can, you know,
religiously go with.
So it's just kind of me and my wife,
whenever we just, you know, have nothing going on
to kids with her friends or, you know,
there's no dinners planned and stuff or, you know,
she's not working, things like that.
Well, that's awesome that she's into it with you
and that you all go out and do that together.
Cause that's, I know that that makes a big deal
and it's a big deal.
Yeah. Cause it's not everybody is into doing that, you know,
and when you've got your partner,
that's your adventure buddy at the same time.
That's really cool.
Oh man, she's, she's my, she's my, my,
my eyes and ears on the road.
She's our spotter.
She's a lot of the videos you guys see
of the car out there.
Thank you, E, Erica, you're amazing.
She's an amazing camera person.
Nice.
There would be no video if it wasn't for her a lot
of times cause I'm too busy stressing out,
trying to get up some of this stuff.
Some of these obstacles are gnarly.
Never really shows on camera.
Let me tell you that.
But yeah, I'm very fortunate that,
that she's okay with the craziness that just comes
with being, you know, married to me.
Cause yeah, it's, it's wild.
That's good.
That's good.
It's cool.
So speaking of trails, like how close is the nearest
trail to you as far as like how long it takes you to get there?
With, well, in California, we usually say how, you know,
with traffic or without, right?
Yeah.
Everything's described by time.
Well, the trail is only two miles away,
but it's getting three hours to get there.
Exactly.
Yeah.
I mean, Big Bear is freaking 30 miles away,
but it's an hour and a half with the traffic.
So, but no, if there's no traffic,
Saturday morning, Sunday morning when we get up
and we're just going to meet,
we're usually about 45 minutes away, 40 minutes.
That's not bad.
Yeah, it's nice.
Yeah.
It's not bad at all.
Considering some of the stories I've heard
from other people where there's flat land and yeah, so.
Where I'm at.
Yeah, we're very blessed.
So if you ever come down this way,
I can't wait to take you on some stuff.
You know, growing up, I was, you know,
into my Jeep stuff and I had, you know,
the privilege of buying old books.
You know, we had map books and guide books
and a lot of the trails that I know of,
they're not printed on maps today.
I look on there and it's not listed.
I look on my guidebook and I'm like,
ha, ha, ha, it's kind of cool.
So I got some spots.
It's fun to go out for sure.
Yeah.
So as far as like getting out to trails,
I know you said that you kind of like look at things
as if it looks too gnarly or something,
then I'm just not going to go.
I'd rather turn around.
But like, have you been out on trails before
and then you ended up like coming across something
that you weren't able to get over or through?
Cause like, you know, you go down a trail,
maybe you don't know that there's something there
that you haven't seen yet.
Sure.
Well, you know, coming from having a Cherokee,
that little, and it's funny, ironically,
this car is two inches larger than the old Cherokee.
As far as like the length, they're just the overall volume.
Size and dimensions.
Gotcha.
Size and dimensions, because as you know, 1995 to 2025,
you know, things are different growing and size.
So this is actually about the same dimensions
as my old Cherokee was.
And you know, aside from having straight axle,
it was still a unibody.
So this car feels very familiar to me.
And so I have a lot of different tools
that I guess I use that are unseen on the car.
One of them is keeping it lightweight.
That's the magic of a Subaru.
If you're going to build a Subaru, keep it lightweight,
throw in massive bumpers front and rear
and all this extra stuff inside the wood shelving
and all that stuff.
Great.
Overland builds 100%.
But when you start getting on some of the trails,
the weight distribution is going to be weird.
It's going to be heavy in areas where it shouldn't be.
It's just, it's weird.
So another thing I do too,
another thing I do too is I'm on a trail tire.
I'm not on an actual all-terrain tire.
Okay.
Because I knew that these tires for sure,
the first few years of this life of this car
was all going to be city-based for the most part,
just because I know where I'm at in life right now.
My kid's in high school and she's got all the places
she wants me to do or take her to.
And I just knew that 90% of this vehicle's tire use
is going to be on asphalt.
And I'd feel bad chewing up an all-terrain tire
on a track like that.
So tire pressure is a very big friend of mine.
I'm very conscious of my tire pressures,
the articulation that we have.
I'm very cautious.
I had to extend the brake lines
and get staying the steel brake lines
because I wanted to make sure
that we weren't ripping brake lines off.
And so we have massive amounts of articulation.
I drop weight when I need to, if I need to.
I keep the car light as I can.
And then I air down only when I need to.
So will a lot of times hit a trail at stock tire pressure?
Yeah.
Cold tire pressure for us is 33, 32.
I usually just run 34 all around, normally.
By the time we hit trails we're at like 36, 37.
And I don't even air down, I just go.
And then if we do an all-wheel drive slide,
meaning that all four tires are spinning
and this happened to us, then I stop.
I'll air down.
And then I usually try to grab a different line.
And most of the time we put right up.
It's been shocking to me, especially with X mode.
It shocks me, it just how well the car will pick up
and move itself forward.
And a lot of times what I see
when other people have issues I've seen,
and this is unfortunate,
but I've seen manual cross tracks
not be able to stay in the torque band of the motor
and stall on inclines.
Usually that's around a 25 to 30 degree incline.
And it's a scary situation, but I've seen it happen.
Whereas when I take my foot off, yeah,
the car brakes itself, it stays with the brakes activated
until you get on the gas.
But I'll just floor it
and then you just keep your foot on the gas
and maybe you'll have one tire spin or whatnot.
But if you stay on it at that constant throttle,
it'll figure it out and send the traction
where you're sending the power where it needs.
And then you have forward motion.
So it helps you do the work?
Yeah, it's crazy.
So I come in to a trail
and I'm very good at looking ahead.
Okay.
I usually kind of know
what you're getting into ahead of time.
I'm three or four cars ahead.
I'm looking, even if we're on an ops,
like even if we're in a group,
I'm looking at what the car in front of the car
in front of me is looking at.
Like I am always trying to anticipate
every single thing on the trail
because, you know, when I had my Cherokee,
you know, one of the biggest assets
of any four-wheel drive vehicle is four low.
Well, when do you use four low?
Before an obstacle, not on the obstacle, you know?
You look at the boulders coming up
and you're not in the middle of boulders
before you activate four low, right?
You put it in gear before all that.
So if I see something gnarly
and I've got load and I've got weight in the car,
I'm already in X mode in this chassis, in this chassis.
The cross track didn't have dual mode X mode.
It had its, I forgot what it had.
Just like the, yeah, I know what you're talking about.
It had I in sport mode, right?
I didn't think it had, it had something,
but it wasn't like a dual range X mode,
like the snow dirt.
It was just a regular basic one.
But, you know, a year old enough to remember this,
remember Tyco, they had an RC car
that you'd push the button on it
and little claws came out of the tire?
I think so.
Dude, that's old school, right?
You can look this up.
It's a YouTube video of the commercial.
It's hilarious, but X mode reminds me of that.
It's an extra bit of traction
because it clamps down the rear clutches
and it gives you, you know, a more aggressive clutching.
Like I call it an imaginary locker, you know?
Like fake locker.
Yeah.
So I will activate that before I get on the obstacle
because I don't want to get on the obstacle
and now I'm giving it more throttle
than I should have been able to
or, you know, I didn't give it enough
or now I'm tearing a bumper off the car
or I'm sliding into a rock
or no, I'd rather have all my aids in effect
before I hit the obstacle
so that I give myself the best chance I've got
at getting over it
because I've learned two things.
I don't like trail damage
and two, I don't like looking stupid on video
because most of the time people are filming.
So I will tell people, don't stop filming.
Like, hey, if I made a mistake, I want it to be shown
because I'd like to look at that video later
and oh, you know what?
I probably should have went a little more to the right
or I could have put my tire, you know,
on that rock right over there
or I didn't give enough gas right there
or I gave it too much gas, you know,
that's why I bounced off of the subframe, you know,
or whatever that would be, you know, so
but I like to limit that stuff as much
but especially on this chassis,
I want to keep this thing till the wheels fall off.
Yeah, it's nice, it's very nice.
Do you have a bucket list spot
that you'd love to get out to with your forester?
I mean, since you like to get out and adventure,
I mean, is there something
that you and your wife have talked about?
Like, hey, we got to go here someday.
Well, I'm kind of glad that she doesn't know a whole lot
about the off-road world.
I kind of brought her into it.
So that kind of cuts everything down into half, right?
It's all pretty much where I want to go, thank God,
because we'd be all over the place.
We're at this time of life where we can't do this yet
but I definitely want to do a cross-country tour.
She's never been to the capital, you know,
I want to go to the capital again as an adult
and be able to take more time there
to see some of the Smithsonian stuff.
I'm big into art.
I love architecture.
So getting down the Smithsonian's down there would be cool.
I want to get into New York on our dime,
not like fly there and be on Uber's
and whatever else we would do to get around.
I want to drive my car in the craziest place
in the United States.
What I think is some of the craziest streets in the US.
Yeah, it's fun though.
But I feel like I'm a New York driver.
Like I'm like three second rule at the freaking stop signs.
You don't know what you're doing, I'm out.
Like I don't have time.
So yeah, I want to do a cross-country tour,
just me and my wife, you know, we have the rooftop tent.
We have all the stuff that I would say
would allow us to be self-sustained on the road.
So we'd mix that up with a bunch of Airbnb's
and just outdoor while I want to just live
in different parts of the country, essentially.
We went to the Kern River, which is, you know,
down by the Sequoia National Park.
And we ran into this couple and we were, you know,
just hamming it up, but they were so cool, older couple.
And I said, so where are you guys out of?
Where do you guys live?
Like where are you from?
And the guy looked at me and said,
son, we haven't had a zip code in seven years.
Oh man, I'll bet that's nice.
And that just was like, wow, like, I want that.
That'd be cool, you know, just to try that.
You know, just that nomadic lifestyle.
But I'm a car camper, so I like that stuff.
You know, I would just be exploring
and just having adventures and do all that.
I want to get down to Moab
and risk getting some tickets
for being on four-wheel drive roads.
I want to go do that, yep.
I want to run from the Forest Service.
I'd like to, and this is, you know, stop a bit,
everything worked out, man, drive up to Alaska.
Oh yeah.
I want to drive up to the most travelable tip
of the, you know, continent
and just hang out up there for a while
and see what that's all about.
Yeah.
Maybe do it when there's the, you know,
when it's like, you know,
that those stretches of darkness, you know,
in the winter.
Yeah, that would be the interesting thing.
You know, I'm a night guy,
so that just sounds crazy to me.
I'd be all over that.
But I mean, you know, I'm grateful.
I'm just grateful that I can do what I'm doing now.
And as the adventures come,
I'll be grateful for those.
Who knows where they'll take me, you know?
Yeah, I get it.
Being that you've owned, this is your sixth one.
Would you say that you'll always own a Subaru?
At this point in life, yeah,
there's always going to be a 3B in the stable.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'll have something else eventually.
I definitely will get back into the go-karty side of things
and manual transmission things, side of things.
But having something that's great in the winter,
I love winter sports,
so we'll get up in the snowboarding, you know,
and get up in the mammoth, big bear areas,
we've been up in Tahoe in the snow.
So having something that I feel comfortable in,
in inclement weather is a must.
And having a full-size truck with any of these other
all-wheel drive systems or four-wheel drive systems,
I just don't need anything like that.
It's just, this fits the bill pretty well.
Yeah, yeah, that's good.
How would you say that owning your Subaru
has changed your life?
Oh, man, it's definitely kept to me
active in terms of events and community stuff.
Like I really, you know, since getting my Instagram page,
I'd never really post my social life,
my personal social life,
because I feel like that's just sacred stuff, you know?
I mean, yeah, every once in a while,
I'll post a little token here and there,
but for the most part, like those events,
I remember those events,
and I don't wanna look at a screen to remember those.
I want those ingrained in my head, you know?
And the closest ones to us,
those people know what we go through,
and that's, I think, enough.
So, you know, I have a different Instagram account
for that kind of stuff,
but the car page, I just wanted it to be
kind of an all-inclusive type vibe
because I do get a lot of people that ask me
about the car and they ask me about the trails,
they've asked me about my cooking setup
and what kind of stuff I like.
I get all kinds of crazy stuff,
and so, you know, I've never had a favorite car.
I like all cars.
I love everything on wheels.
I'm very mechanical, so if it's on wheels,
I love it.
Skateboards, bicycles, you know, motorcycles, anything.
I just, anything mechanical.
So, having the car page has kind of kept me
in the spotlight to where I can still share knowledge
and make connections with people who have like-minded interests,
you know, because in the property manager world,
I'm driving around a lot,
and I'm stuck in the car a lot,
so I don't get to go out and just meet a lot of people
all the time.
You know, it's just kind of one of those things, you know,
and so, being able to go to a place like Sylvia Fest,
I get to connect with people.
I get to tell people, hey, nice car, man,
tell me about it.
Where are you from?
Where do you like to trail?
Or even if I park next to somebody who, you know,
you know what the rule is, right?
When you park a car and there's a SUV in the parking lot,
you gotta park next to that person.
And, you know, and I've parked next to people
and we've shared stories and found out that, you know,
we bought our cars from the same dealership
or live close to each other or go to the same trails
or so it's kept me social, I guess.
Yeah.
You know, especially in LA,
because I don't know, in LA, people don't do that.
You know, people don't wave.
You know, there's no SUV wave anymore.
When I was younger, there was a SUV wave,
but, you know, LA is kind of guarded
and, you know, and to itself nowadays.
And so, you know, to be able to connect with somebody
and just break the ice over a car, it's kind of cool.
So I still exercise that right, I guess.
That's why they call me a golden retriever kind of,
you know, it's just, you know,
I love going out and saying, hey, you, let's talk,
let's connect.
Yeah, no, it's good.
It's always fun, too, when you get a chance
to meet somebody in person that you've connected with
on Instagram, but even when you just randomly run into
somebody else out there that has a Subaru,
that's always fun, too.
Yeah, I don't think I would have gotten,
I don't think I'd do that if I had a Honda.
I don't think I would do that if I,
if I had a Jeep, maybe, I guess,
but I think I'd have an ego
because I think Jeep people are always,
you know, hey, my Jeep's badass.
I, you know, like I feel like I don't, you know,
I don't look at my Subaru the way other people look at it,
you know, like, okay, if somebody will say,
hey, that's really cool, it looks really good.
Well, thanks, I appreciate that.
Now, I feel working to it, I guess,
but like to me it's just, it's a Subaru,
just like yours, because yours could be
the exact same way, you know.
Yeah, or it could be stock and congratulations,
you bought a Subaru.
Or better, you know, or better.
And it's just, it's all, you know, it's all love.
Oh yeah, 100%.
All love.
So yeah, I think it's changed me in that sense
where it just, it's kept me social
and just kept me a people person.
Yeah, no, it's good.
So this last segment is to get to know you a little bit better,
but who is Kevin, as in describe yourself?
Wow.
Man, I was trading this part
because I don't really think about myself in that sense.
You know, I'm definitely outgoing, I'm honorable,
you know, I do what I say I'm gonna do.
You know, if I tell you I'm gonna do something,
you don't have to worry about it.
You can leave it with me.
I am, I'm a watchdog, you know.
If I go out on a group on trails,
I watch after my people and I hold human life sacred,
you know, I've seen some really crappy stuff out there
in the wilderness and, you know,
I just vowed to try to not let that stuff happen,
you know, so I probably carry more gear than I should,
but it's because I know that someone out there
is gonna need our help, you know.
And I'm gonna be the person that's probably gonna jump in
and save the day and I take pride in knowing,
or having knowledge and being able to apply knowledge
in a sense that can help people
because, you know, it's just,
it's more fun when we're all having fun, you know.
I don't like that people struggle, you know,
and when, you know, you've been on trails
and it gets kind of hairy
and it's just, it's nice to have people around
that support you and are there.
I definitely look at myself as one of those people.
Okay, yeah, that's good.
That's good.
Good, definitely good traits to have.
What is a favorite memory from your childhood?
Man, favorite memory from childhood?
Oh, shoot.
How deep in childhood?
Cause- It doesn't matter,
cause we're like playing in the mud
with G.I. Joe's type stuff.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I mean, if there's like a memory that sticks out
cause I'm, you know, I mean like,
I have quite a few memories,
but you know, if there's one that's just like,
oh yeah, that happened and that was cool.
I mean, it has to, I mean, we were,
we were babies of the 80s, you know?
Oh yeah.
So being able to wake up in the morning
and watch cartoons and play with Transformers,
die cast, metal.
Hey man.
And, you know, to Thundercats and Voltron
and, you know, all those old school things,
like those, that stuff brings me memories
that I enjoy.
Yeah.
And nostalgic in those sense,
you know, like the Nintendo's and all that stuff.
I like the old school stuff,
just that simple life back then.
Oh, 100%.
I get that.
Yeah.
You know, drinking hose water.
Yep.
You know, we had labels that said,
don't put a plastic bag over your head.
And, you know, people did it anyway.
And, you know, it was just crazy.
It was just the stuff that we lived through.
I think about those things and I go,
man, it was so cool.
And it does bring me joy
because those are the things that shaped me
for who I am today, you know,
and just had I not had those experiences,
who would I be?
And, you know, all the good stuff,
all the bad stuff, I was going,
man, you're gonna ask me about myself.
I hope I don't take this to the dark side,
but, you know, we grew up in a time where
it was just, it was crazy,
but it wasn't as crazy as it is now.
And so I look at it and I appreciate it.
You know, knowing who my neighbors were
or you're walking down the street
and you say hi to somebody
and they say hi back or, you know,
it's just, it was a different time.
So, you know, childhood memories would just be sitting
at the freaking TV and some cereal,
watching Transformers.
Well, you've told us maybe.
Yeah, 100%.
You told us what you do for a living,
but do you have a dream job?
Well, my dream job would just get paid
to travel the earth,
like some of these Instagrammers.
I don't know how they do it.
I don't even know if they're doing it for real, you know.
No, I get that.
That's a good transition.
You know, I knew that this year would be different
because if my daughter's getting older,
she needs less of our help
and she's becoming more independent.
Hey, I gotta figure out what I'm gonna do.
The property management thing's not gonna take up
all of my time and I'll be driving a little less
because she'll be getting her driver's license soon.
So what do I really wanna do?
And I saw this thing on Instagram and it said,
get paid for who you are, not for what you do.
You know, I just happened to take a buddy of mine
who owns a flower shop, Vahog Foscanian,
and he said, we took him out there.
We had to con him to get him out there
because he was like, dude, I'm not going out here.
You guys are crazy.
Are you sure we're gonna be okay?
And I said, look, it'll be fine.
He said, well, I'm gonna rent a Jeep.
So he rents this Jeep and he gets to my house
and you know, I said, let me see your load out.
What you got?
And he's got all this stuff scattered in the trunk.
And I'm like, dude, you're gonna,
you're gonna be hitting the head with something.
Let me give you a box.
So I put, you know, all this gear together in a box
and you know, pretty much get him set up.
And we left way later than we really wanted to leave.
But you know, it was all for the, for a reason, you know?
And we get out there, we do a cool little exploration.
I take him through some caves.
We get out in the middle of the night.
We're out there watching the stars.
And he's all, dude, I had such a good time.
This was so great.
And he's all, this would be a great business.
And we looked at each other and we're like,
this would be an amazing business.
And so when he said that, I had a Vegas trip.
We went to Vegas.
I was trying to get, I was trying to get
all the dirty rules.
You guys dog me out.
I was trying to go off-roading with you guys.
You guys want to go?
So I went off-roading and I went back to the room
and I was sitting there and I thought about like,
man, what would be a cool name for a business
that did off-road tours?
And I came up with Outer Edge Adventures.
And so I presented it to our team.
It's me, my wife, Vosgen and his wife, Vosgen and his wife.
And they loved it.
And now we have an LLC called Outer Edge Adventures.
And we actually have a promotion run
that we're going to be doing on October 1st.
We're going to be doing it just in a week here or so.
But we're going to be doing off-road tours.
We're going to do an all dayer.
We've got an overnight one that we've put together.
And then we have a two-night one.
And so we're just going to start kind of guiding people.
And he's a chef.
He does Armenian food.
So he does Armenian shiskababs like you can't believe.
Oh my goodness.
His wife is a freaking TikTok chef.
And so she tries all these crazy recipes.
She's amazing with food.
We all got certified, first aid certified.
So now we know how to use AEDs.
Now to stop bleeding.
I mean, it's just it's all coming together.
We're getting our insurances together.
And that's awesome.
That's what I'm going to be doing.
So he asked me, what would I rather be doing?
I'm actually going to start trying
to do what I would rather be doing, which
is stay out in the wild as much as I can
and take people who want to come on guided excursions.
They could bring their own car
or we have room for them to ride along
and get tossed around a little bit if they want.
And it's going to be epic.
I've got guidebooks that are from the old.
I've got a lot of maps, places that we haven't even discussed.
And I just I'm excited about it.
And I'm just looking forward to getting a chance
to get more of that out.
And we're going to these places anyway.
Yeah, man, congrats.
That's awesome.
So yeah, thank you all.
I'm grateful for it.
I'm grateful that my wife is excited about it.
And we have partners that are successful in business
and they're helping us get stuff rolling too.
And it's just a blessing all around.
Yeah, that's super cool, man.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Yeah.
What is something that really scares you?
But any other people in danger, we
go out to these places a lot.
And I mean, some of my friends,
you have some of the people in the group Dennis,
Nuberu, he thinks I'm crazy.
He holds his breath when I do some of the stuff that I do.
But I mean, all of I everything I do is it's very calculated.
I'm very I try to be as precise as I possibly can.
I don't number one, I don't like taking trail damage
and I don't like seeing other people's car get damaged.
So it's playtime until it's not.
And so I'm very aware.
I try to be as much aware of things as possible.
And so what ultimately scares me
is someone getting injured and us not being able to deal with it
right away.
Yeah.
I don't want people getting hurt.
I don't want people going into shock.
I love going out and having a lot of fun out here camping
and hiking and doing all the stuff that we go do.
But seeing blatant disrespect for life
is just not the business.
So I get very worried when I see that.
We go out to places where it's wide open riding
areas. We have an area out here.
I'm not sure if it exists in the rest of the states,
but we have what's called Bureau of Land Management.
I think it's federal.
So we've got BLM manned out here.
And we'll be out here just minor on business.
And you'll see some of these guys in these sand rails
come flying without regard.
And I'm just like, guys, that's super dangerous.
And that's the stuff that scares me.
When I see people just not contest
of how fast things can change into a bad situation.
Yeah, it can happen too quick.
Yeah, for sure.
What is something that really excites you?
Oh, camping trips.
We're going out Wednesday, actually.
So Tuesday night, I pick my wife up from work.
Well, she gets home around 11.
And I'll have the car packed tent on top.
And we're going out to the desert again.
Nice.
And we're going to go do some stars,
go and do some star searching.
And it's like a dry lake bed I want to go check out.
So we're going to go camp the first night right in there
and then wake up in it.
And then I get to view it.
And then we'll go and do some exploration around it.
And then come on home.
But any time we're getting ready to go camping,
that's what really gets me excited.
Any time we're going on a trip,
say we're going to Vegas or like we're
going to go out of state cobble, we're going to cobble
or something on vacation, I don't really get excited.
It's cool, I'll pack, you know, I'm like, yeah, you know.
But when we're going camping, there's something about it.
Just even thinking about going camping is exciting.
Yeah, that's nice.
That's my jam.
Something to get excited about.
Yeah.
What is something that makes you want to get out
of bed every day?
Every day I get out of bed because the sun is up.
I like getting up and just adventuring.
Every day is an adventure to me, you know.
It's an opportunity to go and try something new
or do something new or even if it's the routine, it's just,
I like getting up.
I always like to say if I don't wear myself out,
I would probably just rest out.
So I'd wear out, I'd rather wear out.
Man, I'm going to wear my, give me two new knees
if I need them, let's keep going.
And then I asked the doctor who did my grandmother
surgery, I said, I don't want surgery.
What do I do to avoid it?
You've heard the phrase, move it or lose it, right?
And I go, yeah, he's like, well, just keep moving.
And I said, oh, okay, I can keep running with my dog.
He's all, yeah, there's actually studies that say that
you'll have stronger, you know, runners have stronger
cartilage in their knees.
I go, okay, that's all you got to tell me.
So I want to keep moving as much as I can,
as long as I can.
And so, you know, I hate getting and staying in bed.
Like I just, unless I'm tired, I listen to my body.
When I'm tired, I, you know, I rest, you know,
but most of the time I get as much sleep as I need
because I pop right up, you know, I get up.
Yeah, so I guess being tired is something
that would make you want to stay in bed, huh?
You know, when I'm tired, what really wants me,
what I, I mean, and I don't want to stay in bed.
When I'm tired, I want to go camp
because that's my relax.
Yeah.
You know, just, and sorry for all the ground tenters
anymore.
I used to ground tent.
That wasn't relaxing at all.
That was rough in it.
Yeah.
I was beating myself up.
No, thank you.
For no reason, because I had the budget
to do a rooftop tent.
I just was hardheaded.
And now that we have a rooftop tent,
it's like, it's a full-size bed on top of our roof.
Yeah.
And then I have an air mattress that's got gel and stuff.
If I fill it up with too much with air,
it's like sleeping on a brick.
So it's like, it's really nice when I get that medium
and I sleep so comfortable up there.
So like, like when I'm tired,
I don't want to stay in bed.
I want to get out of dodge and go reset somewhere else,
you know?
Yeah.
That doesn't keep me in bed.
Yeah.
What would be your best bit of advice
to give to someone about anything?
About anything?
Well, kind of what my grandmother said,
you know, never be afraid to reinvent yourself.
You know, sometimes things are scary.
And so if it's scary, you should run towards it
because it's probably going to work in your favor.
You know, it's, you know, if it's bringing you fear,
like, you know, anxiety or, you know, excitement,
like, you know, that's a good thing.
Yeah. I've heard that before too.
Yeah, that's, it's positive.
Change is almost always good.
People are like, oh, I gotta get rid of it.
I gotta look for another job.
Look for that other job.
It's probably going to be better than the old one.
If it's not scary, it's not good enough.
Or it's not worth it.
If it's not scary, what?
If it's not scary, it's not worth it.
Yeah, it's not.
It's like the same old thing.
You might as well just stay with what you're doing.
Yeah.
My grandmother told me back in the day
her mom used to say,
keep your hands to yourself,
your feet on the ground,
and don't walk like you're walking behind a plow.
Yeah.
So that's some wisdom.
Yeah.
If you really think about that,
you know, she's from the old, you know,
she survived wars, you know, and so,
you know, that's about, you know,
holding your head high, having pride,
you know, all this stuff that's going on
in the world right now,
people have lost respect for each other.
And it's, it's, I don't want to say it,
it's freaking retarded.
You know, I don't know what's going on.
I'm like, you know, I'm on the freeway.
I put my turn signal on and I could have it on for days
and people are just trying to speed in front of me
and getting in front of me.
Yeah, I hate that.
That's so annoying.
I get it.
I drive an armored turtle.
I get it.
But have respect.
The turn signal's on.
Yeah, I let people in as much as I can,
because I hate it when I'm driving somewhere
and I go, it hasn't happened in a long time,
but it has happened where there's plenty of room
behind you, you put your blinker on,
and then they start speeding up.
Like, I'm not going to let you over.
It's like, why?
That's right.
Where are you going?
The same red light I'm going to.
Okay, that's, I wasn't racing you.
I'm in a 2.5 automatic CVT.
Believe me, it's not that quick.
Yeah, I just don't get it.
Yeah.
You know, that's, that's social stuff,
but what about just, there's no chivalry.
You know, I was walking in the other day
and that was deliberately stopping
because this older woman was walking out
this lady with a cane and everybody behind me
wanted to try to pass me because they didn't understand
why I was stopping.
And even still, once they saw the old woman,
they just squeezed fire.
Yeah, I see that too.
You know, and it's just like, man,
I didn't grow up that way.
You know, you open doors for women,
you let women sit down first.
You, you know, you walk on the outside,
all those wonderful things.
And that's just, that stuff hasn't been passed down
to the current generations.
And that's scary to me.
And I just, that's my advice is look up
some of that stuff, be kind.
You know, open the door for someone.
If you see a piece of trash on the ground,
pick it up.
It's probably from, it's probably in your neighborhood.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The piece of trash you saw is probably in your neighborhood.
It's contaminating your neighborhood.
Yeah.
Come on dude.
Like, you know, have a quick, take one second for that.
And I just, you know, that's why I love camping
because it's always no trace principles.
You know, I'm big on when I leave the campsite,
we are definitely scouting for more trash
to leave it cleaner than we found it.
Yeah.
I'm bad at this and I shame on me,
but I want to do this soon
is I want to host a trash cleanup.
I want to join a trash cleanup.
Several of them, you know, I haven't done that yet.
And I want to get on that wagon.
It's just life has me in different directions.
But like, you know, that's my advice is like,
take care of the freaking world, man.
Cause, you know, all the older people that you see now
that you're racing in front of trying to get in front of
they're not going to be around
and you're going to be that person.
Yeah.
Yep.
I understand.
I can't wait for the aliens, man.
That's going to bring us all together again.
Yeah.
I'll let everybody know we're human.
You know, like, come on, it's just really,
it's really interesting.
So that's, that's kind of my advice.
I'm sorry to be on a tangent on that, but I live in LA.
It's wild out here.
Yeah.
I'm not used to it.
Well, cool, man.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you for recording and reserving episode two 13.
I'm so grateful for you having a show for us all to be on
in the first place and to express, you know,
our love for what we, you know,
have spent so much time being passionate about, you know,
and, you know, a lot of us,
blood sweat and tears under the hoods of these things
and are in the car themselves or on the trails,
you know, in the cities, wherever you're at, you know,
a lot of people, you know, we have our stories
and we love sharing this stuff.
And, you know, we are all grateful
that you listened to yourself hours after hours
of editing this stuff and putting in that work
because it definitely is time consuming
and an effort for sure.
Yeah.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thank you.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
It has been a lot of work, but it's been fun, you know.
I mean, it's about the community and for the community.
Million percent, man.
And if you ever need a guest host,
I'd be happy to try to pick up for you.
You alleviate you from some of the...
I know if anybody's ever offered that,
but you should take advantage of that
so you could take some time to drive to California
so that when you get here, we can camp.
Oh, yeah, yeah, thank you.
All right.
Yeah.
We'll appreciate you again, Raphael, and...
Yeah, you're welcome.
Hopefully we'll see you at the next big event.
I hope so, man.
Yeah, I'd love to, but we'll see.
Don't be surprised if this Golden Retriever guy
comes up wagging tail and going,
hey, it's me.
Yeah.
All right, man, will you have a good night?
Thank you, YouTube brother.
Talk to you soon.
All right, bye.
Bye-bye.
Hey, everybody.
Thank you for tuning into another episode
of the Subin U podcast.
If you're not doing so already,
go give Kevin a follow.
His Instagram handle is Wild B,
the number four, and then this.
Go check out his builds,
the first generation of the Wilderness Forester,
which was interesting because I'm so used to seeing
the ones that are out there now
that I forgot what they looked like.
So if you go check his out,
it definitely looks different,
but I like it.
It's all black and it's very clean.
So he's got a, he did a really good job with a build.
It's, it looks really good.
And I don't know.
I kind of miss seeing the other ones around.
I haven't seen too many of the older ones around,
but yeah, go give them a follow
and be sure to tune in for the bonus episodes this week.
There's gonna be the first one from the ladies
with the Ravel rally that are out there competing
in Subarus, which is super, super exciting.
There are two factory teams
and then there is Autrek Isyagi
with her own personal cross track out there,
getting after it.
So, and then look for the bonus episode
from Overland Expo in Virginia this Friday.
So thank you all again so much.
Thank you for sticking around
for over four and a half years.
I really, really appreciate the support
and for everybody listening.
Hope you all have a great week.
Much Subi love, RAF.
Spotify and many more.
To support the podcast,
please head over to patreon.com slash Subi and you podcast.
Once you join,
you will have access to the Discord channel
and Discord chats with other patrons.
If you'd like to get in contact with the show,
you can find them on Instagram at Subi and you podcast
online at Subi and you podcast.com or by email
Subi and you podcast at gmail.com.
That's all for this week.
I'll see you in the next one.
Bye.
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