Special Guest, Nick The Audi Fan — The Carmudgeon Show w Jason Cammisa & Derek Tam-Scott — Ep 183
The Carmudgeon Show
Special Guest, Nick The Audi Fan — The Carmudgeon Show w Jason Cammisa & Derek Tam-Scott — Ep 183
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Company
034 Motorsport
034 Motorsport is a company that helps make Audi and Volkswagen cars faster and better. They do this by adding special parts and tuning the engines.
Car
C63 AMG
The C63 AMG is a fast and powerful car made by Mercedes-Benz. It has a strong engine and is designed for people who love to drive quickly.
Car
Audi 90
The Audi 90 is a car made by Audi that was sold in the 1980s and early 1990s. It is recognized for its all-wheel-drive technology, which helps with traction and control on the road.
Car
Audi RS2
Car
Cadillac STS
Car
Audi Quattro
Car
Toyota Land Cruiser
The Toyota Land Cruiser is a tough SUV that can handle rough roads and off-road adventures. It's known for being very reliable and has been around for many years.
Term
alternator
The alternator is a part of the car that makes electricity while the engine is running. It helps keep the battery charged and powers things like the radio and lights. If it stops working, the car can have electrical problems.
Term
voltage
Voltage is like the pressure of electricity in a car. If the voltage drops, it means there's not enough power for things like the radio or lights to work properly.
Term
PWM
PWM is a way to control how much power goes to something like heated seats by turning the power on and off really quickly. This helps keep the seats at the right temperature without overheating them.
Car
Ford Probe
Car
Audi 200
The Audi 200 is a car that was made by Audi, known for being a luxury vehicle with good performance. It had features like a turbo engine and all-wheel drive, which helped it handle well in different conditions.
Car
Ford Mustang
Term
turbocharger
A turbocharger is a part that helps an engine get more air, which makes it more powerful. It’s like giving the engine a boost.
Term
horsepower
Horsepower tells you how powerful an engine is. The more horsepower a car has, the faster it can go and the better it can accelerate.
Term
plastic dip
Plastic dip is a spray-on coating that can change the color of parts of your car, like badges. It's easy to remove, so you can change the look without damaging the original parts.
Term
turbocharged
Turbocharging means using a special device to make the engine get more air, which helps it produce more power. It's a way to make smaller engines perform better.
Term
anemic
When someone says an engine is 'anemic', they mean it doesn't have enough power to perform well. It's like saying the engine is weak.
Part
fuel pump
A fuel pump is a part of a car that moves fuel from the tank to the engine. If it stops working, the car can't run anymore.
Part
throttle potentiometer
A throttle potentiometer helps the car's computer know how much gas you're giving it by measuring the position of the throttle. This helps the engine run smoothly and efficiently.
Part
idle control valve
The idle control valve is a small part that helps keep the engine running smoothly when you're not pressing the gas pedal. It makes sure the engine doesn't stall by controlling how much air gets in.
Company
Hitachi
Hitachi is a big company that makes different kinds of products, including parts for cars. They focus on technology and are known for their quality.
Company
Bosch
Bosch is a company that makes parts for cars, like brakes and fuel systems. Many car manufacturers use their products because they are reliable and well-made.
Part
hydraulic brakes
Hydraulic brakes are a type of braking system that uses fluid to help stop the car. When you press the brake pedal, it pushes fluid through pipes to the brakes, making them work better.
Car
Audi RS6 Avant
The Audi RS6 Avant is a fast and powerful car that also has a lot of space like a station wagon. It's designed for both performance and everyday use.
Car
Volkswagen Egolf
The e-Golf is an electric car made by Volkswagen that looks like the regular Golf but runs on electricity instead of gasoline. It's designed to be efficient and environmentally friendly.
Term
0-60 time
0-60 time tells you how fast a car can go from stopped to 60 miles per hour. It's a way to see how quickly a car can speed up.
Company
standalone ECUs
Standalone ECUs are special devices that control how an engine works. They let you change settings to improve performance, especially for engines that don't have a typical number of cylinders.
Term
odd number of cylinders
An odd number of cylinders means the engine has 3, 5, or 7 cylinders instead of the usual 4, 6, or 8. This can make it harder to control the engine's performance.
Car
Audi 80
The Audi 80 is a car made by Audi that was popular for many years. It's known for being well-built and performing well on the road.
Term
sensor
A sensor in a car is a device that helps the car's computer understand what's happening, like how fast it's going or if the engine is too hot. It sends this information so the car can work properly.
Part
rear ball joints
Rear ball joints are parts of a car's suspension that help the wheels move up and down smoothly. They connect different parts of the suspension system and allow the wheels to turn while keeping the car stable.
Term
hella flush
'Hella flush' means that the wheels of a car are pushed out really far so they sit right at the edge of the fenders. It makes the car look lower and sportier, which many car enthusiasts like.
Term
shifter delete
A shifter delete is when you take out the gear shifter from a car's interior. People do this to make the inside look nicer or more unique, especially in custom cars.
Term
turboing
Turboing means putting a special device called a turbocharger on a car's engine to make it go faster.
Car
Audi RS3
Car
Lexus LFA
Car
Ford Expedition
Car
Renault Wind
Car
Alfa Romeo 164
Car
BMW M2
Car
Volkswagen Bus
Car
Porsche 911
Car
Porsche Cayenne
Car
Porsche 944
Car
Porsche 928
Car
Audi RS4
Car
Audi RS5
Car
Volkswagen Gtis
Car
Audi SQ5
Car
BMW E39
Car
Ford Explorer
Car
Ford Excursion
Car
Ford Ranger
Car
BMW E36M3
Car
Citroen Ds
LIVE
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I totally see why you can't clap. It's called shit in here. I'm watching my hands disappear as we're doing this. I'm thinking about this. I'm like, I totally get it. According to all the calculators online, we need 1.8 tons of cooling and heating capacity in here. That is two. That is two. It's just working now. It's just working now. We have four and a half tons of heating in here and 102 inch fan. Right.
It's still cold. It's fascinating. You should have seen what I was like in here without. Yeah. It would have been 48. I bet. Yeah. Yeah. No exaggeration. Yeah. No, I have much more sympathy now towards towards the. Derek couldn't clap in the fucking summer. He's just, he's clappless. He's Derek Clapton. Clapless. Clapless. Yeah. No, God. And this is another episode of the convention show. My name is Jason Clap Camisa. That is Derek Clapless hyphen. It's God. And that thing is one Nicholas PQ.
It's the fourth. Sure. We'll go with that. Thank you. We have a special guest today. Yes. Who is from zero three four motor sports? Oh, I thought it was going to say earth. He's a human. I'm, I'm, I, I'm, I'm on it nominally. Yes. You're uninterested or uninteresting. I'm uninteresting. You can't tell. The intro. Oh, shit. There we go. And he curses. Thank God. We have a guest on the show that curses. Nick is a friend of ours. He tends to encourage bad behavior. Both for his customers at zero three four.
Yes, us has been responsible for modifications for sort of drug pushing the modifications that we've done on our. Both of your. Yes. And he brought one of the coolest outies of all time in the background that we'll talk about. On this. The hundred and. Episode of the convention show. Brought to you by the Hagerty podcast network. And Derek brought to you by part of. And I will now clap.
Can you please do better? Not bad. I mean, honestly. Oh, I bet. No, I bet. No, no, you need. We need base. Okay. Derek. Nope. That's, that's the temperature. It's the temperature. Okay. It's a density altitude. I need it for the K truck. And I need to. He needs forced induction to compensate. Will you tell the audience so that it's not just. It's not a joke. He just sucks. There's opportunities for improvement. Like every hour. Okay. This is the difference between New York.
California. He sucks. There are opportunities for improvement. Sorry, Derek. I said there are opportunities improvement in New York. That what I meant. I said, I didn't mean to insult you. You are still very. You are measured in your criticisms when you think it could impact your ability to get manufactured cars in the future. Yeah, some engineer from AMG just asked me for my unfiltered opinion on C63 AMG and wants to know when I'm going to publish the.
I can be so verdict on it because they want that to feed back into the people who made the terrible decisions to make that car suck. And he's like, why aren't you doing it? I'm like, I would like to have a relationship with Mercedes-Benz and those bitches here, but I have to say, I can be measured. Well, the important thing is. So two percent. I need. If I, if I piss off Mercedes by being honest to the point where they never give me a car again, then I. Oh, fuck it. You've done your job. Yeah. Exactly.
The cars are that bad. Do you want another? I made it very clear. Do I need to do a point, you know, like a point by point, listing of what ruined everyone knows it. You don't put a force on her. Fucking C63 AMG. You don't put rear wheel steering on a car and then forget to tune it.
My day. All right. We clapped. We're out of here. We're done. Okay. Yep.
Okay. Well, that's how we're starting the episode.
It's very definitely not how we're fighting. So that's not only biting the hand that feed that's biting it,
fucking it and then shoving it and burning it and what else can you do? Putting in a meat grinder. Hello.
A few things. Yeah. We're going to. That's the start of the episode out of context. So let the audience figure out what we're really talking about. They never will.
Probably not. Hopefully not. We're hold on. We're glad to have you with us. Oh my. I'm John Davis. Yeah. Motorweek 25. He's still doing it. He's still doing it.
Yes. Well, speaking of Motorweek and the ancient years, I bet there is an ancient motor. Is there an ancient Motorweek video? Yes. About
$20. I'm sure. I'm sure somewhere. We are frankly very disappointed in the Audi 90. I don't know if it's online. Well, they're continually releasing. They're continually releasing them. Did this car?
This car, the 90 never came turbocharged for the US market. No, no, no, nor in any market technically under the 90 badge. It was STS. The S2 and RS2.
Coop, not a sedan. There was a sedan version and the S2 and wagon version of the S2 available in your UK.
Okay, so for those of you who are watching, you don't know that behind us is one of the incredibly rare US market, Audi 90, 20 valve Quattro.
Full name. That is the car that my dad had. So when we moved to Germany, we moved to the Lancraser. That's the Lancraser. Well, yes, not in.
Yes. We moved inside of a Lancraser. Did you say two? You said moved to a Lancraser. We moved to Germany in possession of a Lancraser, which arrived dead with a dead battery in the middle of the street blocking the street. The police were called because Germany, the taxi driver or the tow truck driver was French. My mother spoke neither of any language. The police were German and they also were screaming at each other until all of a sudden they started laughing together. While this is happening, I was walking home
from school and all of a sudden my dad's Lancraser is literally blocking the entire road, and I open the hood, see the battery is not connected, plug the battery and start it, drive it into the driveway. And I'm like, hey, Mom, what's going on with the police here? Anyway, the first time my parents took it on the Audubon was the last time it went on the Audubon. My dad traded for an Audi 90, 20 valve Quattro in that color. That is a hell of a trade. Yes. Yes. 70 miles an hour for a hundred and thirty miles. Not a straight across trade. No. Especially in this the year.
The year of 1991. And as in the Lancraser market was bumping in Germany at the time. He sold the Lancraser for what he had paid for it in 1983 or 1984. It was in 83 he bought it a year old. That's the most Toyota truck story. I feel like it was like $16,000 worth of marks. So I'd figure out 24,000 marks or something. I mean, I don't think the Audi was that much more. But his head cloth seats and no air conditioning and cranky windows. RS. The lightweight.
I'm on a lighter one. And Kaiser for with tinted tell and white wheels. And you now own this US spec car. Yes. Somehow it was a late night eBay marketplace find where a friend of a friend sends a link and goes, this has got you written all over it. And very clearly on a Sunday evening at 10 p.m. I was like, oh, it absolutely does.
I'm so glad that you got that and not me. So it was it went to me. I would have done the same thing. Yes. Exactly. Really? Yeah, I would I mean the idea I had such a bad experience with my five cylinder Audi and a large portion of that was turbo charging. It might be less problematic if it were naturally aspirated. It would be less problematic.
You'll still have fun with some problems. Okay. Well, like I said, I'm glad that it went to you and not to me. You missed the part where Nick said on the way here that is voltage dropped and squealing in soon. And all kinds of other shit happened in a belt with sideways. And whatever. It's just. Yeah. Yeah. But it on it undid itself is good now. Well, the squeal when you started to come in. It's a squeal now with standing. Yeah. But voltage is fine. Voltage is fine. But you don't turn on it's because the alternator is no longer tangled already. The radio turned off. The heat turned off. Oh, it was turning off. All
unnecessary systems because it was running full loss. Oh, no, I had to turn those off. It's in itself into the ground willing. I've driven cars that have systematically turned things off to preserve when it's when it runs out of juice.
K fancy. What? What? What car is this? There was a 19. I don't know if it was a diand in feature. It was just something it was doing. There was a 1992 Range Rover classic. Oh, no, that's nothing is controlled on those cars. Like, especially electronic, but it would like all of the peripheral system started
systematic like sequentially turning off as the car was dying and voltage required to turn on this capacitor is fizzing out in each one. This is not that smart.
It did, however, on the way here, I determined the heated seats, which it has and cranking six levels of heating. Yes. Only the Germans. Yes. Only outing. Yes. Of course. I think there needs to be more than two. Okay. Three is probably five, but there needs to be more than six were some
substantial in six will will send you into a short orbit. Oh, I mean, that's like is that is that that's more than there are types of meat, right? There's raw. There's rare. There's two levels of rare, I guess, if you're using the
fresh definition, right, which is like blue, senant, which is like rare. And then there's medium and well and medium. Well, it's the same number of meat level cooking. So that's really basically
a double. So I went medium rare for this drive today. I want my hemorrhoids to be cauterized. That is that is the sign, especially with cloth seats, like there's nothing better than knowing there's been a
cotterization than turn it to say. Yeah. So I chose medium rare, but it doesn't have a good way of actually changing between low and high. So what it does is it just runs the relay on off, on off, on off, on off. Maybe it's not supposed to, but this one does.
And it's not exactly insulated. And how many Hertz does it do that? Well, so it would change. It's fascinating. It was pretty, I have a video and we'll cut it in.
It just goes. Oh, it's like pulse width modulated. Yeah, it's an early, it thinks it's a PWM exactly. Yeah. So that's why I don't have any
Hertz. I don't think that's on purpose. But I sent a video to my other Nick who is well into outies. And I was like, what in the what relay is deciding to end its life? Yeah, it's the heat.
So other Nick is as friends of our production, friends with our production because he has given us two amazing cars to phone with. The first one was his 8.7 trillion horsepower,
Audi 200 sedan, 20 valve turbo Quattro, Palestinian limo, whatever you want to call that thing was. Oh, fast. And then he also gave me the Ford probe that I did reverse donut and broke the axle. And then laughed. Like what a hero.
Yeah, we're not so here during the Mustang episode. Yeah, during the Mustang. And then it was fixed like the next day. Yeah, we drove a local. We found he's somebody some I think live or
somebody found a local shop that was like, I can world pack an axle and we'll have it. We'll have it first thing in tomorrow morning. Nick was like, I genuinely I keep apologizing to him because he just was laughing the whole time. Like, I don't care. And he's the perfect person to type a person to borrow a car from because he's a mechanic.
Basically, he works on stuff. So we understand I didn't hurt the soul of his Ford probe, but it had snap an axle. Yeah, which, you know, it's getting out. It's out there getting used. That's the best case scenario for a Ford probe from 1980. Yeah, yeah.
Might be one of the very few that is getting used. So the Audi 90 20 valve Quattro is a Volkswagen that that five cylinder is a Volkswagen 1.8 liter 16 valve with one cylinder attached.
What is the code of this engine? Seven a seven a seven a and what does that mean? Or why is that one seven a and then when it has a turbocharger on it, it's called.
How did he just had three B with the turbocharger and then the RS2 is the same engine with the bigger turbo and it has a different or the S4. I think the RS2 got a version of the A a N.
A and what the one after what's the difference between a and N and three B. So a and doesn't have a distributor.
Where's three B. So that's correct. That's correct. But are they otherwise the same like architecture like the cylinder heads almost entirely ports and all that. Yeah, there's small niggly things here and there, but for the most part, this is the same as an a and as a three B as a whatever and can be converted.
The seven a's don't have a coolant port that's a hogged out and three B in the a and so cool the heads down for turbocharging, but you can just drill or machine through the side and then add the port and that's right there and it's an Audi. It doesn't self machine with, you know, bad tolerance control.
Give it time. Okay. Give it time. I so we just raced that this car versus one car with one fewer of these same cylinders and two less driven wheels and two less driven wheels.
It's okay. It's my modified truck 16 valve. Um, I was very much looking forward to this because this was a fast car when I was a kid. And, you know, this first car ever did 130 miles an hour in and it was just, you know, it's a monster and it sounds good.
I have never won a race like my life genuinely. I'm like, did he stall? Like your car has 50% more power than it originally did. It's got it makes 170 horsepower now. And so does that. So I would have thought crank to crank. There's a wheel.
Yeah, no, I will, we'll 140 in its current configuration. Yeah, this, this is like 110 wheel on a good day.
The lot of losses. All four wheels to be there. Well, I think there are eight wheels worth of other bearings in there or something of 16 wheels worth of dips or it's outies.
The torso is actually just a break dyno. Yeah, just just try to push one of those things. Like there are, they're amazing.
They don't move. They're like glued to the ground with the force of Ferdinand PX children, which there are many 13 13.
Still out of that. Um, yes, so that was a fun race. Yeah, it was amazingly. It was funny. We were both laughing. It was impressively slow.
And the transmission again, the, the, the previous owner of this vehicle, he bought it brand new in 1990 in Redwood City and drove it for a period of years before
giving it to his son, uh, who was not as gentle on the car. So, uh, you do need a double clutch between gears. And she'll still do a, she'll let you know, she's
you're right. And, and third and fifth will squeal actually. So in that, in that race, it was a little, a little, it was about completion. Yes, yes, yes, just made it. Just make it. We reached the end.
The crazy thing was the end of that race was basically how it's going to launch. And I walk out. This was so wild. So you've had this car with six months.
Uh, got it in September of 24. Yeah. Okay. So a couple months. Yeah. I get out of the car at lunch. And I walk around. I'm like, why don't you have black badges in the back?
Is it plastic dipped? And you're like, yeah, and I'm like, oh, that's funny because 15 years ago, I did a collectible classic for automobile magazine on a 90, 20 valve quadro, um, in this color.
And that kid had plastic dipped the badges. And it was the first time I'd ever heard of plastic it. And you're like, oh, really?
Yeah, I bought this from the original owner. And I'm like, yeah, this guy was a kid. He's like, and then you continued, who gave it to his kid?
And I'm like, there's no way, right? There's just no way. So we sat at this cafe and I pull up my one drive. And I'm looking through. And I'm like, oh, yeah, here's the car.
And you swipe the second picture. You're like, that's the head unit. I just pulled out yesterday. And I'm like, yeah, coincident, you know, whatever. And then there it is. The picture of the black
baggages out of the black badges and the license plate.
It's the same part. As the resident California license plate nerd, what plates were on it when you got it?
It was a white, it was a two number. Oh, fuck you took off original license plates. I had to register it in another state.
He doesn't live in California. Yes. Yes, it is. It is not currently residing in the state of California. I do still, however, have the plate.
See? Perfect. You can put it back on. You can for a show. Why not? Yes, yes. But you can't re-register it on that original place.
He can get back that to whatever sequence it is as a custom plate in Tennessee. Oh, in Tennessee, in Tennessee.
And then put, put the California plate on it with a sticker that says, 10, 10, a touchy or whatever, 10, whatever it's actually pronounced.
It's, that's unrecoverable. That's the California thing. You people are strange.
I was, because it's a sign of a car being continuously in California. And that speaks to the quality of its structure.
Look at that thing. There's no, there's no quality of the structure to begin with.
It's there. It's there. It's stuck in the structure. It's closed.
This is going to be the episode of the roast that we didn't do when we roasted when we were nice to each other.
The fuck is wrong with you for buying this? How do you bring us together?
Yeah, on the side of the road. Hey, call me. Could you go jump or box?
Here and there. Here and there. Yeah. No more disappointed to turn in the original title, which was, like, in 1990, a California title
was a super colorful rainbow. Yeah. That's rainbow era.
Because they went from pink to the rainbow title and the rainbow title phased out probably 20 something years early.
Is that where pink slip comes from? Yeah, they were originally pink.
Huh? They were pink until the late 80s.
And it's about the size. Yeah, we need a, we need a, Jake, we need a graphic over the car right now.
Clean. With all of us. All right, everyone thumbs up.
Exactly. Okay. Yeah, no, so I had to turn that in. What do we pick?
It was very, very sad because did you scan it?
Yes, scanned it, took photos of it. There's a whole whole lot of parts.
I mean, that car is quite the problem. It's the only car that any magazine ever gave a shit about.
And that's only because I wanted to drive my dad's car 20 years later.
Right. I was horrified. I was horrified. Yeah. I don't think his, so his car was lowered
from the previous owner. All to it, fault on, you know, partly with German.
And I immediately when I got in this car, I thought, oh, my dad's car had
different, either and different tuning on it or a light and flywheel because this thing is
it's so deliberate in its revs. Correct. They num just about everything they can in this car
from the US market, right? We make an aftermarket flywheel for this that's built aluminum.
We are talking, right? Yes. We, we are talking.
The right, yes. We, well, to tell us the butterfly well, I'll tell us the,
weighs seven pounds of the replacement.
What's the factor about 30?
Oh, it's in that neighborhood.
It feels like it's a large beast.
So you're doing it right?
At some point.
Well, there's the whole,
it's going to be turbocharged at some point.
No, I know.
Why would you do that?
I know.
Because he wants 7.6 trillion horsepower.
There's some of that.
That's $7 trillion in repairs.
Yeah, go along with that.
I know, give it a take.
It's a bit anemic in its current state.
However, I've grown to really fall in love with that again.
So I had a one in college that I bought
for $2,000 off of Craigslist site
unseen midnight in Seattle as a winter beater.
And drove it immediately four hours back to Spokane
where I was at the time.
And coming over the past, coming out of Seattle,
I drilled a cinder block that's in the middle of the road
as it was snowing, bend two wheels,
and it just keeps on trucking.
The whole way through.
I made it home at 4am, turned it off,
and it didn't turn back on ever again,
because the fuel pump died.
But got me home, got me there.
Wouldn't it have been cheaper to just not leave your house
in the first place?
Yes, yes, but it wouldn't have been as fun.
But you literally never started the car again.
Literally never started the car.
I towed it right back, or towed to a shop the following day.
And many repairs ensued.
But it was my college car for about a year following that
and sold it to fun.
Wait, did it or didn't it run again?
It did run again, but not without a lot of stuff.
I got it.
Basically you had to go get student loans
to pay for the rest.
Yes, add onto the student loans, exactly, exactly.
I'm going to collateralize these loans with another loan.
Very worth it.
Yes.
I learned many things about throttle potentiometers
and outboard fuel pumps and things of that nature.
If I think about it, my dad's car was in 88,
and we bought it in 91, so it was three years old,
and it never idled properly.
Ram, ram, ram, ram.
I mean, those kind of fuel injection
doesn't have much running.
So there's just a lot of running.
There's an idle control valve that goes underneath.
It's all separate.
There's a million different separate things
just put into like three inches of an intake tube.
And there's two different, there's a hotachi,
and then there's a Bosch.
And various ones were good or bad.
You're as idle as properly.
The most part.
Yeah, yeah, she does, OK.
And then there was the other thing is it has a hydro bomb,
like it's hydraulic brakes.
Correct.
It is highly assisted.
And does that throw up errors continually on your car?
No, it doesn't tell me that it doesn't work.
It just doesn't work.
My dad's was the other way around.
It always worked.
But you'd be driving beep that high pitched Audi
on their pullover sound with the red.
And then it would just go away.
But you're like, oh, do I have brakes?
Like you're on an autobahn.
You're going fucking quick.
And like, oh, brake failure.
Great.
Now what?
OK, they work.
Fuck it.
Exactly.
Which, credit to it, it's heavy,
but it's light to some degree for what it is.
You know what, 2900 pounds?
Yes.
I think 3,000 fruit.
The US trim was just everything.
I got everything.
But no power of assisted brakes.
And I've driven it around 900 miles since purchase.
And it's stopped pretty well.
Can't really put this.
Stopped right now.
Stopped here.
Whether it will move again.
That's the fun.
Yeah.
So no, I sold my first 90 and to fund an RS6 Avant
that I also bought.
So I don't see in the middle of Spokane.
That's C4.
That's C4.
That is an actual pattern, right?
Two is a trend.
Three is a problem.
Yeah.
Hi, my name is Nick.
I have a problem.
And drove that one side unseen from Washington State
back to California.
No bumper, because it didn't have one.
But I stopped along the way and picked one up.
It was incredible.
I think it was a wagon.
Yes, exactly.
But I missed the 90 to death for whatever reason.
So we as a company, I guess I should.
Now you can introduce it.
Now you can introduce it.
So I am the director of sales and marketing
at 0-3-4 MotorSport who made parts for Audi's and Volkswagen's
to make them faster, more reliable.
More sideways.
More sideways.
In many instances.
You gave me a rear sway bar for my e-golf fast influences.
Making my e-golf the most sideways e-golf ever.
Yes, that is the point.
Drunk so sure.
So we make a bunch of aftermarket components
for these cars to make them better.
You want to tell us what 0-3-4 means?
0-3-4.
0-3-4.
Derek, how could you?
You go O to 60.
No, but I do it.
My phone numbers are not to 60.
Yes, my phone numbers have O's in them.
There it is.
Oh, oh, oh, it's magic.
Oh, it's going to go all righty.
Auto parts.
Oh, but that's a West Coast thing.
I don't know.
I don't know.
There's a righty on these parts.
Really?
OK.
And do you have the same song?
Yes.
Without the whole thing.
It's the largest of the triple all-zone,
orrily, and a Natvance.
There's bands in advance.
Natvance time.
Yeah, it's the largest from like a market cap perspective.
Only you would know this.
OK.
But anyways.
034 is the first three digits of the parts numbers
on old Audi i5s, such as that one.
So if you go walk around that car,
every factory part number is 034, dash something, something,
something, something, something, something.
Do you continue to support the five-zone or cars?
We do.
We've discontinued some products over the years
that are just painful.
So we started as a company in the car with 034 on it.
Some things are still around, but we
started as a company making standalone ECUs for these cars
back in 2005.
Yeah, this is our 20th anniversary this year.
Wow.
We were the only company to come up with an ECU
that could do an odd number of cylinders, basically.
There was no standalone that could do odd cylinder counts
at the time.
So that's odd.
That's odd.
Right, it was put in ours to chip in it
to a bullet and call it a day.
So we started as a company making these faster.
So 034 motor sport off of an Audi 80 at the time.
So we, my boss and myself, Javad, weren't even born yet.
No, I was alive.
I was alive.
Fetal.
Dipers.
I was running around.
Pampers.
Cruisers.
Ish.
Because you were running around.
I think I was Crocs by then, for sure.
I have to make fun of them because he's the youngest guy in the room.
Yeah, I'm five.
Yeah, you're right.
No, so my boss and I bought this car together
as a sort of homage throwback.
So I am not the only one leveraged in bad decision-making.
I get to drag you.
Missouri loves company.
Yes, he owns the company.
He can help support you with parts, which are going to need.
There's thoughts there.
OK, so yes, we're relaunching a bunch of old products
that we used to make for these under 034 tradition.
They sub-brand.
Oh, that's wonderful news.
I think that's super cool because there's a real problem
with if you have a vintage car with sort of support
in a longer existing.
Right.
I mean, I've now been around long enough to watch a lot of cool stuff.
Just get discontinued in NLA for cars.
And now there's demand as their classics.
And it just doesn't exist.
And so people are like, holy shit, you
haven't original pre-merger or dine on whatever the shit.
And it's worth tons of money.
And I think it's neat that people are actually
supporting these cars.
Exactly.
And the market for a couple of years, these became worthless.
So spending any money on a performance part
or just a OE replacement upgrade was not, didn't make sense.
But nowadays, there's more of a crowd behind them.
So we're bringing back some performance parts.
But we're also like, you can't find the sensor anymore
to save your life.
Let's go ahead and make them.
Or these rear ball joints that no longer exist
in the state of the world.
Shokhan used to be the last one you could find them from.
But we can, with our manufacturing abilities,
bring a lot of that stuff back.
So that's very cool.
We're going to make it worthless.
We're doing God's work.
I request one crappy outie at a time.
No, people can send a letter like, hey, don't let her email.
Don't let her.
I don't want it.
No, it's yours.
They can email us and say, you have to spell out 0, 0, 4.
Yes, and if you spell it wrong,
then they won't make the part.
Exactly, then we won't do it.
But how do you catch them for mispronouncing
oddie if they're writing emails?
You need to let that go.
No.
My name's money.
Really, that'd be working on Porsche.
The majority of our customers call us 034 motor sports.
And we just have to accept that as much as it drives us
up the wall.
034.
I mean, we did make a shirt that fanatically spells it out.
You guys, you've done some pretty racy marketing stuff
through the year.
Don't you have like April Fools products before, yeah?
A few shifter deletes, hella flush stance kits.
It's vinyl that just goes over your fenders
to cover it to wherever the wheel is.
The shifter deletes just covers the shift box itself.
And then balls, of course.
Yes.
Yeah, they're always doing profane things there.
But most of 034's business is new cars
and turboing every day.
These days it's all of the, you know,
we're mark four and forward for VW,
VW products, correct.
And for Audi, it's B5 and above basically
would be bread and butter and a lot
of the new stuff these days, which
have complex ECUs that let you tune for more power.
Yeah, didn't we have a Q5?
Did that Q5 wind up in one of our races or no?
Not officially.
It did do a sporty race against the LFA in the RS3, just for fun.
Right.
I think we have, we probably have iPhone footage of that.
Yeah, I think Sean was in the back seat.
I got something.
I vaguely remember, I don't remember who won,
but that was, didn't you bring the Q5 down to tow the 200 just
in case?
Yes.
So the Q5 has towed the 200 a few times.
But on this one, we were feeling sporty.
So we didn't tow it there, but I brought the trailer just
in case it didn't need it.
Didn't need it, didn't need it.
Which was amazing given how Nick drove that car.
I mean, I put a V box in it and I'm like, OK, well, you know,
get the run the quarter mile.
And, but we need to film this 40 more times.
So don't kill it.
And all I hear is, what the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, boom.
And the full clutch dump at Red Line, full boost.
That was a redemption weekend for that car.
The last few times we tried to take it out to do things
who knew an event at Blue Diff.
And then a half mile event at Blue Tranny.
So between those two, we got to sort it.
Now it's ready.
Please don't tell me these things because what I don't want
to ever think about is, you know, what would have happened
to have that car exploded for that shoot?
We would have gone to a junkyard and get another one eating.
Oh, I'm not worried about you.
We spent all the money to have the crew and the track and the whole thing.
Cars blowing up is a problem.
I mean, the probe, we had only done half of the coverage in the car
for the, for that whole segment.
If you look closely in the Mustang, you weren't there for that.
But if you look closely in the dark horse video,
you'll see that all of the exterior moving shots of the probe,
it's being towed by the suburban wind expedition.
We had some rental truck that we just towed it.
And we just sort of tried to frame out the tow robe.
And it's just going down the runway at 30 miles an hour.
Clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk.
Just fucking CV is hanging.
That works.
They've got to do what you got to do.
At least it's light.
You know, you can actually get that thing up to speed at that.
We weren't trying with an axle hanging out of it.
I mean, I want to do more damage.
Live a little.
Have fun.
I was worried Nick could kill me.
He's one of those guys who just picked me up.
Oh, smash.
No, he's gentle giant.
I'm not thinking he will, but he could.
Yes, you know, you don't taunt the German shepherd
to the point where you piss it off.
Careful.
Although he's, you know, with the last name, like,
this is Gambalori.
He's not German.
Yeah, exactly.
He would just have his.
All of the New York County.
Exactly.
So yes, my only issue, I think that is a really cool car.
Actually.
It's underappreciated.
I think it's beautiful.
It's well proportioned.
It's the right size.
I just don't like that.
It fits into today's negative society
of hating everything and everyone.
I mean, it's, you know, right now everyone's anti-progress
and anti-world.
And that is anti-lock.
And it's, I'm sorry, I just wonder
if you're going at this.
We're going to have Derek.
The audience is going to do enough of a grown from that.
I almost showed up with a lock, with a padlock,
just to be like, and what do you have against this?
I love that it has an anti-lock button on it.
First of all, OK, that it turns off the ABS.
Secondly, that it doesn't say, like, it doesn't have an ABS
logo with it, but the thing through it
it just says anti-next-line lock.
I think that's all right.
It's anti-anti-lock.
She should be.
But it's just anti-lock.
They got most of the way there.
It should be the squared.
Yes, oh my god.
But around the answer.
Because it is not the most sophisticated anti-lock.
If you were driving spiritedly,
it will get in your way, or in the snow.
It's terrible.
I did manage to, in the snow, lock up all four of my dad's wheels.
So that, if I remember correctly, is Gen1 Bosch ABS,
which, or might be two.
But it does not have the ability.
It's not smart enough to know what's physically possible
and what's not.
And those systems, it didn't have a G sensor.
It was just using wheel speed.
So if you smacked the pedal as hard as you possibly could,
presumably, if you had working power assist,
you could get all four wheels to lock up at exactly the same time
to which the computer would say,
but we were moving and now we're stopped.
It says nothing for me to do here.
I had a Mercedes 190 that would the same thing.
In the snow, if you pounded the pedal,
just all four wheels locked and you drift down sideways.
And then you could start to slowly come off the pedal.
And one wheel would start turning and be like,
we are moving.
And then it was, and as you're coming off,
gradually allow the wheels to unlock.
And I'm pretty sure I did that same thing in my dad's car.
I'd believe it.
It's doable.
I was up in Tahoe last weekend with it.
And I had to use the anti lock button,
the anti-antial lock button because the small bit of slush
and it would immediately enter into anti-lock mode.
It was quite rough.
What tests at the time showed was that,
although the primary benefit of ABS
is to retain steering control and directional control,
ABS cars typically do stop in a shorter distance
on dry pavement.
And certainly in split-mew situations
where you have grip on one side and none on the other,
it stops you from rotating, going to spin.
However, in deep gravel and snow,
stopping distances were increased
because you actually want a little bit of slip
to create a trough with a leading speed bump in front of it.
That slows you down better.
And so if I remember correctly, the owner's manual
explained this, but if you're driving in deep snow or gravel,
it recommended turning on, probably not for the US
because we're so litigious.
It has the owner's manual in it.
So I will.
It has all the original documentation
came with a Bentley manual and everything.
Nice.
We'll flip through that.
Yeah, it recommended turning it off
so that you could lock up the wheels.
They would dig in and you'd stop sooner.
And that's why they did the thing.
And that fueled all kinds of stuff.
Back in the day, I wanted to put ABS in the shirako
and I set that on a pre-forum on a mailing list.
Yes, sir.
And everyone was like, you're an idiot.
They don't stop as short.
You're going to die in this car, whatever.
And like, no, no, no, no.
It's just very strange, like fringe cases, like deep gravel.
The rest of the time, unless you have four feet
and four different brake pedals, you
can't control all four wheels individually.
And it's going to be tough.
Exactly, exactly.
Now, most of the systems in it are
quite good for their age.
I mean, it's power windows, power seats.
It's got general motors, automatic climate
control, with Cadillac, which I love warmer and cooler.
It's just the best, not hot and cold.
No, warmer, cooler, warmer.
But you can't get too warmest.
Oh, hot.
You're just more warmer, warmer.
You're just more warmer, warmer, exactly.
Anti-lock and mo warmer, warmer.
And doesn't it have GM like power seat controls
or something?
Yeah.
That's 200, didn't it?
Yeah, I don't know.
It's so bizarre.
Though we determined the window switches in this thing
is exactly the same as the Alfa 164 and Lancia Tama.
Exactly.
That was totally bizarre.
Exactly.
But are those the same windows switches
that are in all of the other outings?
Yeah.
In the older ones, yeah.
Yeah.
That were available at the same time.
Ferdinand Piedch was, of course, the CEO at this time.
How the fuck did Lancia get those windows, like the people
Quattro cars get that bizarre?
They called outies so far.
They're probably from someone drove a 90 in one.
This is what I need.
There wasn't an L yet.
Those cars were in 1978.
They started developing 70, they were production 82.
How's the nightmare by then?
Crazy.
I love that random shit.
Something else just had those windows switches too.
I understand.
There was another thing in the studio that had that as well.
Oh, we've talked about the Chiseta.
It was not the Chiseta.
No, no, no.
You had three of them in the top of the top of the top.
Oh, 9,000 had the same switches.
Yes, that's one thing it does.
Yes.
I thought it had different windows switches.
Funked it that it did too, but no.
It's the kind of value that Carmage brings to your life.
You know somebody is going to get excited to hear this and be like, no, actually, they
look the same, but the Lancia internals are different, but I did notice they did the click,
the Audi click.
Yes.
Yes.
When you press them, which is just such a out of thing, nuanced thing to know.
Yes.
Okay.
So what else is in your garage?
Oh, God.
In California, I have a 2018 M2 that you've driven and been surprised of the throttle pedal
not being numb, did some tuning to make it a BMW will in men or in sport and sport plus
mode, just put the throttle to like 40% if you touch it.
So made that linear.
And then it was the shifter thing you did too.
Yes.
Shifter bushings and the mount for the shift linkage.
That's what it was.
Yes.
That car is so it's an N55 car.
Correct.
Correct.
I remember thinking and saying to you, I would have two of those before I would buy
any of the S55 cars.
Yes.
What a sweetheart.
Yes.
It makes a sound.
Is it slower?
Absolutely.
But it makes a good sound.
It makes a nice noise.
The shifter felt amazing.
The throttle was linear.
I like the way the boost builds on the N55.
It's not this wallup that throws a car sideways and observes it in like in turbo chargers.
Hmm.
It could happen again.
Guess not.
Me?
Yeah.
No.
Okay.
Okay.
We'll maybe talk about next week how you bought a turbo charge car instead.
Yeah.
I think the thing that says differently, shut up both of you.
It's fucking I can't have any goddamn secrets in this tunable turbo charge card nonetheless.
A turbo charge car that somebody had previously tuned and didn't tell me.
Yes.
I knew it as soon as I was at the garage.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Oh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That is not actually now.
That's barely aspirated.
It is.
It is aspirating as we speak.
Yes.
It's aspires to one day make a horsepower one day one day.
One day.
Yes.
So that is the 1989 Subaru Sandbar K truck of which is my my prize possession.
We'll never leave.
Really?
Oh my god.
I it's so bad.
It's great.
Well, that's one of those things where you're like, would you rather have the car or
the money?
And you're like, well, there's how much is it worth?
Six dollars.
I have a car.
Exactly.
Exactly.
It has been so useful for me in many years.
It's been all across the country.
I've towed various things where they load things up with it.
It's it's.
Yes.
Okay.
It towed my other broken vehicles.
It towed a nine four four turbo in and out of the parking lot very often.
Okay.
Drax.
Well, like, we're not talking like a trailer on the back of it.
No.
No.
I think 35.
19.
Oh my god.
It is.
It is a three valve two cylinder, EK 23.
Yes.
Sporty.
Why did they not maximize the 656 CC because this is pre.
This was 5.50.
Oh.
This is 5.49.
Yes.
Exactly.
Okay.
They can pretty close to max.
Yeah.
It has had one full ton of river rock in the truck bed before.
I was doing a landscaping ahead of one of our events at work and like a mile and half
away as a rock quarry.
I was like, these bushes are terrible.
Like, let's just make this a rock garden.
Well, I've got the truck.
I just towed five cars out of the parking lot.
Truck is a strong word.
Oh, come on.
It's got a bigger bed than most trucks out today.
That's fair.
I have actually partied in that bed.
You have a huge stereo in there.
Yes.
And even with that in, if it's two or one full ton of river rock, it drove on the bump
stops the whole way back.
But...
Drove is a strong word.
It motored a strong word.
It moved.
It moved.
It moved under motor.
It's powered begrudgingly.
It's a good thing that a lot of people have a hard time grasping is weight does not actually
affect top speed.
And in the case of this, the suspension was so squished that you probably got an extra
mile an hour.
The aerodynamics was incredible.
Correct.
Exactly.
So she does a sprightly 40 if the weather is right.
It depends.
But...
Which is that you have a following hurricane?
You have a big tailwind.
Do you have a DA calculator like on the dash?
You're like, okay, well, I'm only going to 37 today because it's pretty out there.
Yeah.
So you're going to get the draggy in it to zero to five.
Yes.
So the draggy can't do anything under if you don't hit 60, it just ignores it right?
No, it'll do 60 feet.
It'll measure how many minutes to take me to go 60 feet.
That's cool.
Correct.
We should...
Is it...
It's back east, right?
It is, but I can...
It can go play.
Well, the next time it comes here, I think we should bring it on a commissive ultimate
drag race replay.
Oh my god.
And get that biker kit.
Bicyclist who was who raised the Volkswagen bus was awesome.
He was amazing.
He was not only fucking like fast as shit on a bicycle, but he was really...
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I would totally have them back, because I think he would probably beat your car through
the quarter.
Trouns it.
The ultimate drag race is all the composed of vehicles that you hope will all lose against
the bicyclist, generally speaking.
I mean, it's a very difficult show to edit.
That's a ten-minute show, and the fucking fun is over in eight seconds for having these
car 9, 10, 12 seconds.
We could have a 45-minute race with that fucking thing.
Without a question.
What else do you put, we have to think about what else to pit against?
That fucking fiat to Quichanto, and that diesel land rover.
That was a plug as well, though the plug could probably beat it.
I don't know.
Frenchie, they have breathing problems.
My Frenchie is well in shape.
They can beat the shit out of this truck without a question.
OK.
OK.
Yes.
And then we'll pass out.
See?
They like the Frenchie and the truck.
Yes.
Yeah, exactly.
Oh, you broke?
There's a design flaw in this.
I have to contact the guy who made these for us and have them make us new ones.
That's not good.
Yeah.
The amount of plastic that there is on this little corner, for those listening at home, I broke
the Carmage and logo that we have here.
There are little jack stands that are holding it up.
To be fair, the jacksman could hold it up.
This could hold up the truck.
Who made the jack stands that were recalled someone recently?
Oh, Harbor Freight.
Harbor Freight.
Yes.
For now, it's horrible.
Horrible.
Horrible Freight.
Yes.
Don't start with the New York thing.
It's not fair.
So yes, those are my two naturally aspirated vehicles.
I have the Rester turbocharged, the M2, the 2018 SQ-Q5, which was at the shoot.
10 second car.
10 second car.
Under 700 horsepower.
Do you have a nickname for that car?
Like the mommy soccer machine, the refrigerator or something?
Well, it's the schmuck.
Yeah.
That's right.
Yes, yes.
All of my vehicles are serialized by schmuckitude, and that is by far the schmuckiest
of all the schmuck.
And your license plate?
That's correct.
Correct.
That is correct.
Yes.
It was a development vehicle for work that has since seen many things, yet with a hundred
and a half miles.
Which helps to forget.
It wants the ground quickly.
I beat the ever-living balls off of that thing.
It's gradients for the soil.
Yes.
Yes.
But it does everything.
It's a tow rig.
It's been at Laguna Saka.
It's been mid-140s at Laguna Saka, and that was when it had 200 less horsepower.
So I think there's opportunities for a 130 with that thing.
What Randy boasted it.
I thought about bringing it back just to do.
Yeah.
I want to know.
So the thing about Randy is he'll say yes to everything, especially if it's a lot of
work.
Yeah.
I would love to see what he could beat.
It'll lose brakes in four laps.
But only he only needs one.
Oh, there you go.
Yeah.
He'll probably finish them off in one lap.
Yes.
He doesn't use them.
He's trying to fuck up hopes.
As I discovered, the calipers they put on those generations of outies are a single-piece
cast caliper, six piston, so it looks sporty.
But as they heat up and expand, they expand faster than the bleed screw.
So no matter what, when you get thermal maximum, it will just piss all of its fluid out
of the bleeder screw hole.
So in four laps, it happened to me at Laguna.
Wow.
Yes.
You must have been very alert when that happened.
It was a sporty moment, for sure.
And we've since confirmed it happens on the S4s, on the RS3.
Hold on.
Is that the same brakes on the RS3?
Yes.
Okay.
That explains I have a friend who we have a friend.
We all know a friend who wrote one off very spectacularly because pedal on the floor.
New RS3.
Not previous generation.
This is previous generation.
No, the previous was a Brembo caliper, which was also terrible for other reasons.
Yes.
Yes.
How do you in braking not their strong suits?
We're handling.
We fix that.
Yes.
Yes, you have to.
I follow you guys on Instagram.
And you're always doing these fucking, we do shenanigans.
Rages shenanigans on public roads.
Close roads.
Close course.
Whatever it is, I see you coming around on a corner in a fucking white Q5, it's like, you
know, freeze frames.
Like a 38 degree lean.
And then the other car comes through at exactly the same speed and, you know, 12 degree
lean or whatever it is.
You're like, look at what our roll bars do.
Yes.
Yes.
Well, you ought to come to the track today the next time we do it.
I think we're doing button will at the end of the month.
We're a wool.
You can see an Audi turn.
It's crazy.
I've never.
They just don't do it out of the box.
No, no, no, they don't.
But that's, you know, a lot of people ask me, you're like Audi or BMW and it's like,
do you want a daily that you can make sporty or do you want a sporty car that you can
daily, right?
So the BMW out of the box, the Porsche is actually the one that does that was, that was,
that's not the price.
Porsche we need always 9.11 is always the answer.
You take over Monterey car.
We can give us something else.
I have never loved that.
We can thank you.
I have never, I've only owned non-porsche of horses, a cayenne and a 944.
I refused to own a real Porsche.
Okay.
I've owned a 986 and a 996 was so same.
Yes.
The purest will say bullshit, those are not real Porsches.
I've had a cayenne and a 944, and a 928, and a 968.
And?
And that's a, oh, and a 991.
And a bunch of 911s.
Yes.
Yes.
Is there a generation of 911 you've not had, 993, right?
993, 993, I would never own 993, I would, I would own a 997.
That's the only, that's the only, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
996, 976, 996 was the update that fixed.
Yeah.
Yeah.
997 is the only Marywater cool 911 in my opinion.
I think the rest of them are all bang or kill, kill.
Yeah.
I do, I do, uh, Prophe on 911s, pretty, pretty aggressively having never driven one.
You know.
I know.
I know.
I don't operate in circles with 911 owners.
And, and hello, he's on everything you've never made.
Yeah.
I mean, it's.
I like driving it and then I hate doing anything else
car related in that car.
I would never bring it to cars in coffee.
I would never take it to car week.
It's because I have other stuff that's more interesting.
It's a car that I own for me because of the experience
of driving it, which I have argued out.
Like I'm not sentimentally attached to any Porsche
that I've owned, I don't think.
Maybe the first one I ever had.
964?
It's not sentimental.
I'm attached to that car because of what it can do.
If that car were written off,
I'd be like, OK, well, I'll just build another one.
That's exactly the same in a color I like more.
God, I wish I was like that.
I'm sentimentally attached to all of my cars.
Porsche's feel like the car that you buy when you're
done fiddling with something.
You are done just trying to make a car better
and you just want it best out the box.
That feels like the car to get.
And I'm not done fiddling.
So I did drive a GT4, a 981 GT4 a couple of months ago,
and that started to show me why this is coming back in the day.
I thought they were stupid and then I drove a 996
and bought one.
Yeah, it's like there's just no.
Wow, I don't know.
It's just the cultural implications
and the imaginativeness of it is all lacking.
I'm coming from Audi owner land.
So yeah, exactly.
It's like part of the game too.
Yeah.
I mean, I love the cultural experience
of a vintage Audi, I wish they were more mainstream
and I wish they were less painful to own.
But that was one of the cars despite it being like,
I think the biggest money losing car I've ever owned
is I really enjoyed the vintage Audi experience.
Yeah, there's, it's the, one of the only outies
I can recall that has a personality
or some semblance of a soul.
I'm gonna say soul.
But a semblance.
The engine is very soul.
It's a Jason, yeah.
Yeah, I think that's what I like about it.
And that's the reason why there's no modern outies.
I'd really want certainly, I don't know,
maybe an RS4.
RS4, yeah.
And those motors are unbelievable
and they can do a lot of thing.
But it's, you know, combination of parts doesn't always,
each part can be great, but the combination of it
doesn't work.
Yeah, how it comes together.
RS2, I would own.
Yes.
RS4, I would own.
Yes.
A 4,000.
Yeah, I would own.
Yeah.
With a 20 valve in it.
Yes.
With a 20 valve in it.
No, no, yes.
No.
I'm gonna have enough of that.
But no, this sort of, the 80 and the 4,080 and 4,000.
I love to my 200, which is effectively
a larger version of the same 5 formula, right?
Outies become so full when you can say
what the fuck after driving it.
So, you know, our cars at the shop
are very what the fuck afterwards,
which is why I still have had,
I've had the SQ5 for five years,
and that's the longest I've ever owned a vehicle.
Because every single time I go,
what the fuck after I drive the thing?
And it's just, I giggle all the time.
Yeah, it's a combination of competence and usefulness
and also like experience in 700 horsepower.
Yes.
Experience, like I said.
Yeah, the experience.
So yes, they can be made to be soulful,
but out of the box, they are certainly an anemic thing.
So sort of going back to why would you want an Audi
over a BMW is do you want to get some more comfortably
and then maybe have fun later?
That's the Audi.
Do you want the other one around?
Or fun incidentally.
Fun incidentally.
Or accidental fun.
To start, yes.
Versus BMW, you know, I mean, I get in my M2 completely stock
and the juxtaposition of, you have to put $15,000
into an RS5 to make it half as good as an M2 stock.
And that's a depressing reality for the drivers related use.
But daily use, RS5 is incredible, right?
So it's a give and take.
I'm always kind of tough on how he's personally,
because they don't do the things that I value, right?
I value that the magic and the best cars on the planet
is that last bit of chassis tuning,
where everything works together.
The suspension does exactly what you want.
Never harsh for no reason.
And the steering is perfectly linear,
all the same talking and wherever.
All of that stuff is absent from every Audi ever made.
But for the RS2 and the RS4.
I think vintage outies, yeah.
The modern stuff.
You mean it's, I mean, I think that it's present
in other vintage outies as well in addition to, yeah.
I mean, even, so we had a coupe, a notro,
I think it was a notro.
No, it was a quadro.
It was a quadro.
And our other friend has a notro.
And I drive them and they're wonderful cars actually.
They're nice cars.
It's a nice, I love the shifter.
For whatever reason, there's something amazing
about the shifter and shifter.
No, it's nowhere near as terrible.
No, they're actually there.
I mean, they're a positive click into gear.
There's just something about the shift knob.
It feels quality.
It feels expensive without being, and it feels different.
And without being the Mercedes sort of different
for the sake of being recalcitrant, right?
I love the gauges.
I love the switch gear.
There's just a lot of stuff that I really like about the car.
And you drive it and they're like, wow.
Somebody put 400 times the amount of pressure
through this power assisted steering system
that it needs, because you could just spin it
from lock to lock, right?
And there's just, you know, then there's sort of things
that grow on me when I drive a car,
that talkative, and it's just not there.
I have found, if the Audi's power steering
is not working very well, it does become a very fun car.
That one doesn't work very well.
Quite fun.
My previous TTRS, his probably has some form of steering
rack issue, but it never really had power assisted steering
for the past 20 miles an hour, which made it
the most fun TTRS I've ever driven in on.
Okay.
So, deep power of your power steering.
Did you and I do some experiment on some,
with some Audi that we were driving in,
this is years ago, and I turned this ignition off,
going down a hill.
That was in the R8.
It was the R8.
And I was like, what the fuck, that's right.
You had this insane single clutch automated.
No, no, it was a dual clutch.
It was a dual clutch.
Dual clutch V8, which I didn't even know they made.
2014 only.
And I was driving it.
I'm like, why is this so big?
I thought they made them in 2013 as well.
That was R-Tronic, not S-Tronic, correct.
They switched in 2014.
I thought they switched in 2013.
At least for the US.
I can't speak for the rest of the world.
I didn't even know they made it until you made me drive
that thing.
It sounded, it was spectacular noise came into that thing.
Whatever exhaust you guys.
Yeah, it was a divided exhaust system.
So, left and right bank never talked to each other.
So, it sounds like this filthy NASCAR type.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
It's exactly what it was.
But I remember turning the steering off, going, what?
Oh, look, this is actually all just being filtered out
because Audi engineers are assholes.
And then turn the engine back on.
And it could be there, it could be there.
But no, they take some coaxing to make fun.
A TTRS, as in general, have been the most responsive
because they're golfs, which is kind of an unfortunate reality.
Right?
They are big GTIs.
The RS3 that I drove recently, I did two or three laps
around Big Willow was spectacular.
Yeah.
And you believe it.
Yeah.
Couldn't believe what they did with that diff.
The rear diff is unbelievable.
And the MQB, MQB EVO chassis that sits on, which is golf,
is very good.
It's just very good.
Yeah.
Annoying.
It is.
Is that discontinued that car?
The RS3?
Yeah.
They're still making it.
So they're still making A5 cylinder car.
Correct.
They're just not making the TTRS anymore.
That has gone.
It's just the RS3.
The RS3 is the last 5 cylinders.
Yeah.
Allegedly, though, I mean, we know folks within and around Audi
and Audi sport, and it seems to be this email thread every week
where we're doing no gas engines.
We're doing 5 cylinder in the next R8 replacement.
We're doing EV only.
We're doing R8 replacement, so it has to be a hybrid.
It's bounced around.
They can't decide once a week what they're going to do next.
That's not the right car for that engine.
That engine is magical.
I love 5 cylinders.
I think they're great, but I just...
The current one is so...
Wait, didn't the R8 get discontinued also?
It did.
It did.
Replaced by, in the Lamborghini land, the...
Oh, God, I forget the name of the thing.
The Huracan replacement.
Tema radio.
Tema radio.
Tema radio.
Tema radio.
The 5 cylinder just became anesthetized.
And it makes nice noises outside the car, ish,
but if I want a 5 cylinder,
I want the full 5 cylinder experience,
which means a lot of warble and a lot of...
Which can be done.
Yeah, I mean, those mid resonators
right at the front of the firewall
or take those out of the problem.
And some problems.
That's the coolest thing.
Every time I talk to you about something,
I'm like, this sucks and you're like,
oh, we've already fixed that.
All right, thank you, Audi,
for leaving a lot on the table for us to fix.
But there's a lot to fix,
such as in proper directional rotors,
is the thing that I will forever...
This is what I mean about that last couple percent.
So, would you like to explain what that is?
So, on almost every Audi that's performance oriented
in the slightest,
they will put directional rotors on the car
that are correct on the left side,
but then use the left rotor on the right side
and then tell you that it's a bi-directional rotor.
But if you look at the vaning,
it only works in one direction.
So, you end up with calipers and brakes
on the right side of the car
that are anywhere from 50 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit
hotter than the ones on the left.
Which, boiling point of brake fluid,
you're now over on one side.
On one side.
So, it's very good at turning.
That's how they get them to turn.
They're right, exactly.
A couple wheels, but they can only turn left.
So, you put in directional rotors, Audi.
And ironically, Lamborghini on the Huracan,
same car as an R8, it's correct.
The R8?
Incorrect.
You just say,
because you always get the sense,
this is always the case without you.
You get the sense that all the people at the top say,
this is a fringe case, we don't care.
It doesn't matter to our owners.
And I would say it actually matters to all the people
who are buying Porsche's and BMW's.
And they would consider your cars
if you got this shit right.
You could just spend a little bit more money,
get your shit right
and you'd probably sell a lot more cars
than the mainstream people who listen to those people
who are the taste makers.
Right.
I'm going to get dogged on after this
for hating on Audi for an hour.
Okay, would you hit on Volkswagen to view?
Well, hit on Derek.
All cars come with their problems.
Right.
And I'm very intimately aware of the ones for these,
which is why we're a company.
It's why we have things to make.
That's good.
You've got all your work cut out.
It was just 20 to make.
But then even the VW stuff,
I mean, I drove you put,
did you put that their dogbone insert
and your Mark 7GTI?
That was one of the most amazing transformations.
Thought about bringing that for other things.
Car that I am by.
The car that you don't know.
Okay.
So I'm going to buy one.
I'm going to buy one.
So this is like an ingenious thing.
So all of these fucking modern front-wheel drive cars
have wheel hop that is so genuinely horrendous.
I don't even understand
how they don't crack the frame of a car.
Well, so they fixed it.
So in Mark V and 6 generation, you would.
Now you just don't.
They don't break the chassis.
They replaced the dogbone arm from a cast aluminum thing
that would bang into the subframe
and then shatter in half to a stamped steel one
that will just bend it into form around the subframe.
Instead of fixing the fucking real problem
which is the wheel hop, which is fixed.
So the wheel hop is happening.
The worst offender I've seen is the Launtra N.
That was we somehow failed to get adequate video of this
when we did the last scooter.
But you can see it was one shot,
but we don't.
The other shot didn't work.
There was a reflection of there's car missing.
Something happened.
But you can watch the fender and hood and bumper
and headlights all separate and join
and separate and join and separate,
join, you know, what, three times a second.
It was in the car was one of the worst sounds
I've ever heard.
It sounded bad outside of the car too.
Fucking horrendous.
And it's all because everyone is putting in soft bushings
and there are soft engine mounts
so that you don't feel any vibration.
Yeah, which is then why the reason why you pop the clutch out
because you think the engine's off,
but it's actually still running.
And then the car lurches and you're like,
oh, I guess it was on.
And I didn't know.
I love this that he's Derek Derrick's the type of person
I could literally give him keys to a fucking 27 carburetor,
16 cylinder, missing three cylinders with no synchron mesh
and a clutch made out of that stupid fucking drinking vessel.
And he will start it perfectly on a hill and operate it
perfectly smoothly and never grind a gear
and never just drive you.
He drives around everything and all he did in his GTI was
like, just think it's turned off.
Classic.
So the solution is you guys make this like, is it billet?
It is billet.
A billet aluminum insert that just goes in the mount
and around the rubber.
Around the rubber.
Right.
So the factory rubber.
So that when you're cruising or under light load,
you don't feel any difference, right?
You're not compressing a bunch of things.
It's none of this big stiff mount.
But when you're under load and for those that aren't familiar,
these are transverse engines that there is a arm
that prevents the engine from just rotating 360 degrees
in the engine bay.
And there is within the mounting system
that it's on has some play.
It's right about a half inch each direction.
So we put this thing in between that just fills the void
so that when you load up, it stops.
There's still a little room for general movement.
But then your gears actually where you thought it would be
when you're trying to shift versus the engine transmission
shaking and you're trying to find the gear halfway
through the pole.
To me, the most amazing part of that transformation
was just even at idle.
So there is enough of a difference at idle
that when from I couldn't tell the car was running,
genuinely, if I tried, didn't know.
To now, if I'm touching the shifter from paying attention,
I feel just enough of a hint that the engine's running.
And you sort of don't want to bitch to an engineer
and say you've made this too refined.
But the Mark VII GTI is do refined.
And then you cannot shift by sound
because you hear and feel nothing.
You have to use the tack.
And I'm sorry, in a sporty car,
the car needs it's exhaust chopped off anyway.
But I want to feel the rise in revs.
So I can sit with noise if you chop the exhaust off of it.
Yeah.
Oh, you're going to sit down.
You have to be very calculated with what you do
and don't remove, otherwise it very quickly
will sound like a tractor.
Interesting.
Only Mark VII and above to be fair
because they went to the internal head manifold.
So it's just these two ports off the back
into the turbocharger for whatever reason.
And from there on, you can track any car
that went internal head manifold,
sounds like poop in comparison
to its previous generation that had a proper manifold.
So what Anthony Esposito has a Mark VII sport, right?
So he wanted to have a 17 sport manual
and he couldn't deal with how quiet it was.
And so the first thing he did was just brought it
to a muffler shop and chopped off the rear
and they just sort of mounted up two tips
that looked exactly like stock
and just made a pipe right back.
It sounds fucking fantastic.
Stock cat though.
Stock cat, critical.
Yes.
So if you're going to remove everything
beneath the cat, keep the cat.
Otherwise, other way around,
if you're in an environment
where a sport cat and catless,
it's loud, keep them back muffler
because you can't do both.
Otherwise, you get into this really bad tractor world.
Okay, good to really bad tractor world.
Don't go there.
Really don't go there.
It's good to know the word in form of tractor world.
They're multiple tractor words.
This is the one you don't want to go to.
Yeah, I love all this stuff.
Yeah, we'll see.
Maybe I'll play with.
Yeah, yeah, there's things.
Yeah, there's things.
What's next on your automotive?
Did we finish getting through your list of?
No, we haven't finished that.
We got ADHD, which happens a lot on this show.
Never.
What?
Never.
So there's the recently departed TTRS 8J,
the manual ones, a 2016 Cayenne GTS
that I bought as a tow vehicle.
Two tow vehicles.
I do have two tow vehicles
because I, in an attempt to move out of the state of California,
I wanted to rent a U-Haul,
which was $14,000 one way.
Get out.
One way for a 20-foot box truck.
So the Cayenne was $14,000.
I instead bought a vehicle
that could then tow a trailer
that I also would then purchase,
moved across the country, sold the trailer
for what I bought it for,
and then had a vehicle for sort of family driving.
Yep, damn.
Yep, screw you up.
What planet should it be?
Why didn't you use the white Audi?
Yeah.
I needed to tow something more than 7,000
or more than 4,000 pounds.
Got it.
And while I've cheated it quite often
with like 5,500.
We've just heard about the brakes.
Yeah.
You don't want me cheating, man.
Yeah.
I've towed 6,000 pounds with the SQ-5
and it did snap one of the bolts holding the,
so it's a structural limitation.
It is a structural limitation.
It's holding the, holding the,
which we call it, trailer hatch.
They're just through bolts to the back of the frame,
like in the frame rail.
And it's this tiny little overlap.
It's not very strong.
I have to ask the question,
did it snap that on a full boost torque,
like a launch control?
I may have been racing someone
while towing a 6,000 pound trailer
up the grapevine.
But it still got me home.
I didn't know.
Yes.
Like I said, I abused the crap out of that car.
My trick is always to look
with the German towing spec is
because often the cars are identical.
It's usually more.
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
They'll say towing, not possible,
or 1,000 pounds for our car.
And I know this.
E39 was the last time I did this.
1,000 pounds max,
but towing is not advised for the US.
Same car was 2,000 kilos.
So 44 pounds for the identical car.
You know why they do that, though, right?
Because we'll sue and they won't speed limits.
There's towing speed limits all across the European Union
and everywhere of 55 pounds.
Yeah, but so what are ours?
We don't have one.
Only state of California has 55.
The rest of the country will have fun.
Do whatever you want.
You would have 70, 80, who cares?
Evidently the Germans.
So they limit tow cap.
So it's funny in Canada.
They have a regional tow cap, too.
So SQ5 in Canada is 5,500 pounds.
You're kidding.
Yeah.
Oh, I just assumed it was litigation.
Like they just, if we tell you not to do it,
and you do it, you can't sue us for it.
It's probably a bit of both, right?
But that's been the one that I've heard of.
So this, I bought a 24-foot wind sail
of an enclosed trailer, and I...
Is that the model name?
Yes.
Yes.
Don't you have a thing about a naming trailer?
It's usually for motorhomes.
Right, motorhomes always have these names, right?
Everyone plays this game where you put the word
anal in front of the motorhome.
Yes.
Everyone plays this game?
Yes.
Okay, we're doing a survey on this.
It's a road trip game where you put the word
anal in front of the motorhome name,
and then you have to read the name of the motorhome.
So if it's like the anal pleasure way,
or like which is a real thing, there's...
Anal wanderer.
Yeah, anal wanderer.
I mean, anal leprechaun.
Yes.
I saw the anal shadow cruiser in Germany.
I saw mine hobby.
Right, a motorhome that said mine hobby.
Oh.
Right?
Which is very German, right?
Especially if you're near Berlin.
Anyway.
Oh my.
I only did this for fours.
And that was sort of the...
No, no, no, no.
You do it with cars generally, right?
Well, an explorer and excursion.
An anal excursion.
An anal excursion.
An anal excursion.
Yes.
An anal ranger.
Yes.
That's very good.
I'm focused and, you know,
fiesta.
That's the...
An anal void.
That's the little one.
But who knew?
An anal void.
Can you do it with car names generally,
but motorhomes also?
Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And then you also play the game of what headlights and tail lights are on the Class A motorhome?
Yes.
Yes, yes.
You're like, oh, that's very definitely a mercy...
Well, you see it on summer.
It's Mercedes W-124 turn signals.
Yeah.
A lot of E36M3.
Old Mobile or Rora on one of them, I think I've seen.
There's a whole Facebook group for RV tail spot and tail lights spotting.
That's great.
Damn it.
It's my free time.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's gone.
Sorry.
There goes my anal free time.
Sorry.
I bought the trailer and tried to tell it from...
The wind sail.
The wind sail.
Yeah.
I bought the wind sail from Sacramento and tried to drive it back to San Jose.
And on a gusty day, down 680, up to 40 miles an hour and it was...
Truth and advertising, it was a wind sail.
It was truly a wind sail.
It was a horrifying experience, which led me immediately to go, yeah.
Open trailer?
Sure.
Close trailer.
Not good.
So the cayenne did beautiful.
I didn't even know I had a flat tire for about a mile until a trucker, like, honked at me and went back there.
I was listening to a carmage and podcast at the time.
So I blame you both.
So we were very engaging.
So engaging.
So engaging.
You had to sleep.
I put a lot of them right to sleep somewhere in New Mexico.
But yeah, no, it felt great.
It was 70, 600 pounds, something like that.
Did you actually weigh it?
So I went through one of the, like, weigh stations and just for fun, because I also wasn't paying attention.
And it was in Arizona.
So it doesn't count?
It doesn't count.
Yeah, it was Arizona.
So yeah.
It towed pretty well for the weight.
Yeah.
And so you still have the cayenne?
I do.
I do.
I, that is the girlfriend's run around vehicle.
She, she commutes.
I don't.
So if she commuter car.
Yes.
Oh, what flavor of cayenne is it?
GTS.
That's right.
Pena.
Pena.
Yes.
That's not what they call it, isn't it?
It's not.
It's what it looks like.
Chessnut.
Chessnut is the, that's the right one.
Yeah.
Which generation?
958.2.
Okay.
So I had a black on Chessnut 957.
Hmm.
It's aesthetic.
It's aesthetic.
I liked the facelift of 5540.
I want a commercial plates for it.
And I had to go away.
And it was 5540.
That was because it was a steel structure one.
I think they lost like six or 800 pounds when they went to the...
How much does it have to weigh in California?
6,000.
New cayens are on the list.
Oh, section 171.
Yeah, yeah.
But that's GVWR.
You don't have to go away.
Yeah.
No, they need a weight certificate to give me commercial plates.
Oh, okay.
Did you...
And you couldn't get it because it was only...
No, no, I got them.
So it's not...
You can do it...
No, for commercial plates, it's car or station wagon or whatever.
Like a station wagon works.
You...
Like...
It doesn't need to be a truck.
They just need a weight certificate in order to put commercial plates on a vehicle.
So why...
This is a California thing that I don't know.
Yes.
Why would you want commercial plates?
Oh!
You fucking felon!
It's so we could park in commercial spots.
Who could say that?
Who could say that?
That's genius.
That's a fucking great hack.
I mean, it doesn't...
They aren't too costly, like $1,000 a year to register.
Some...
No.
Some...
I don't think a truck's in California where...
It's insanely expensive.
Maybe you pick up trucks.
But for...
They don't get commercial...
Pennsylvania...
You can't...
No, they don't get it here.
You can get...
Put commercial plates on your pickup truck if you want to.
I love felon.
That's why...
This is why there are signs that say commercial parking three axles or more.
Oh my god.
Because of you.
Because of you.
You know what the terrible thing is?
I went through all this trouble and I never...
Actually had a situation where I ever used it.
Do you deserve that fucking...
Oh, it's because I sold it relatively quickly.
Did it get re-rended a couple hundred times?
It got re-rended once.
But that wasn't why I sold it.
I kind of built for that.
Yeah, I mean it was...
Yeah, I mean it was...
Toe 77.
Yeah, I was mostly cosmetic.
It was a pretty hard hit.
I was the third in line for the re-rend.
We had a train.
And the one in the middle...
She was very traumatized by the whole experience.
And I just had like a bumper.
But it was a Porsche.
So it was 14,000.
Of course.
Naturally.
The games you have to play to get a ideal registration here are so...
I never realized how ridiculous it was until I tried...
Or I registered the truck in Tennessee.
Because I just showed up with it.
And I was like, you kind of kind of take me on word.
This is the 1989 truck.
But it was registered previously as a...
1993 in Washington State as an ATV.
And the guy called...
The Sam Park?
Yes.
The guy was like, okay.
What year do you want it to say?
I was like...
Oh.
I said 89, but I should have said 74.
In hindsight.
You could have come back here.
You could probably change it.
You could go back to the DMV and do that.
Evidently.
I'm not bad.
Anyone is hearing this from the...
You know, whatever state you live in DMV.
Well, not to name the DMV or the licensing office.
So they don't get caught.
But there's apparently a loophole in the South
that I was only aware of until recently.
Do you tell?
I'm interested.
I'm interested in a title go to Alabama.
Oh, I've heard of this.
So there was a gentleman next to me at the window
who inherited a truck from a deceased relative
and didn't have any of the proper paperwork
to actually put it into his own name.
So the lady at the desk and where I'm in Tennessee,
Alabama is like 45 minutes away.
She goes, drive on down Alabama.
Tell me the lost title.
They'll give you a blank form.
Fill it in your name.
Register it there.
And then come on back up and we'll get your title up here.
So I looked into it from there.
This is a big thing in the supercar world
to wash flooded cars.
So you get a branded title in another state
if it's ever been in Alabama.
Walk away.
Because it's been.
It's likely been washed.
This is why the rest of the country
would also.
Yes, you would hope.
If it's not on the car facts, though, yeah.
Yes.
So Alabama, that's useful information.
Yes, yes.
But this is why everyone hates California.
Because our DMV is, I mean,
for those people who are listening
who don't live in California,
you can't even register a regular car.
Like you walk in and they are like, no.
And you're like, what's the reason you're in California?
That's the reason.
Fuck you.
It's not.
I mean, there's some stuff you can't do.
For sure.
There's all kinds of stuff you can't do.
One of the most frustrating to me is the fact that
if a car is 1975 or newer, it has to pass smog.
If it is older than 75, it doesn't have to pass smog.
Except for if it's a car that was not sold
in the United States or I think the United States originally.
Originally you're kidding.
If it's 1968 to 1974, even if it's smog exempt,
if it's a car that wasn't sold here like a launch of Fulvia
or a Citroen DS after they left the US market.
Because the US and that we do have some smog regulations
and they want to make sure that you're only importing something
that was a 50 state car at that point.
Yes.
So if it's a 1968 car that was never offered in the United States
and doesn't have any placarding on it,
you cannot register it here.
Oh my God.
If it's a stupid placarded, but it's stupid also
because it's not a 17-digit VIN.
They can't confirm what market it's from.
So if it's a car, I mean you could hypothetically,
of course, make a label that says it's compliant
and stick it on the car and then get a title for it.
Well right.
My, my, my K-Truck had a 11-digit VIN
and I had to have one made by Washington State Patrol
at the time.
They made it 17.
Because it was newer than 1981.
Correct, correct.
So you could just importing the rover,
which was 100%.
I mean, this was the 1980.
It's a, it's a North American market car.
It was Canadian.
This is the SD1.
I brought it to the DMV here and they turned me away
and they're like, you can't register the car here.
And it was because they wanted one of the digits.
So the 10th digit by federal law is the,
is the, is the year digits.
Yes.
I love this check.
They wanted the, this is a pre-1981 VIN.
Right.
So it's a 1980.
1981 is the formulated federal 17 digit VIN.
California has its own law for 1979 and 1980,
which I had no idea.
Just those two years.
Just those two years.
Classic.
And they said the, the year code,
the 10th digit for all California,
all federal cars for 1980 must be a zero or a one,
which is 1970 or 1979 or 81, whatever it was.
And this wasn't and therefore VIN was invalid.
It was not a North American market car and I couldn't register.
I went back three times, finally got a,
there was a Swiss guy that worked at this place.
And I'm like, oh my God, this is an SD1.
I have not seen one of this.
Thank God.
Perfect.
He's like, let me look in the book.
They have a fucking book in the back.
This huge binder set of binders.
And he pulls it out and opens it and sure enough,
it shows exactly where the VIN,
the, the VIN stampings are on the car.
And that it was a special exemption
that Rover had to file with California
because Rover didn't follow California's rules.
Even though the cars were legal for sale in California.
And the US and the 50 state cars
were California emissions compliant.
That's just, this is the level of fuckery
for us to give them money.
That's the, the stupid part of this.
Look around California.
How, what percent of classic and exotic cars
have Montana plates on it?
New Mexico plates on it?
California, Arizona, whatever.
All they're doing is saying we don't want your money.
Which is actually what they do want.
But they're just that fucked up.
So now that you've finally lived outside of the West Coast,
you realize where everyone hates us.
You, you learn just go register everything and I'll ban them.
Apparently.
Yeah, evidently.
That's the moral of this.
Unless you want to sell it.
And then everyone's going to run away.
We have to sell it.
I mean, every place is a trade-off.
There are many things that we like about being in California.
But the DMV is not one of them.
That's correct.
This is a lovely place.
I, I have the benefit of being here every month.
So it's almost like that.
Not too much.
Are you going to get taxed by California?
That's true.
Yeah.
200 months and one day.
Yeah.
No, it's, it's.
And on those trips back get to play with such rover, right?
I mean, that thing.
Yeah.
It was worth it.
It's worth it to get it here.
So the rover.
God.
I don't think we've talked about this.
I can't remember.
But yeah, it got to make over.
So it had a vaginal rejuvenation.
Yes.
So you showed up.
I don't know why.
At my shop.
And you were like, what are you doing?
And I'm like, I'm about to do shocks and springs.
On a Rover SD1 and you just were like, where are the gloves?
Feel.
I have to hand it to you.
I had so much fun working it.
It is so much fun working with someone on an old car with someone who's engineering-minded
has a great sense of humor.
It doesn't get upset or frustrated.
And is perennially making terrible inappropriate jokes?
I mean, it's, it's par for the course.
That environment.
So you just have to do it.
You can't get mad at the British layland vehicle for being what it is.
It is what it is.
You just have to get mad at the engineers.
No, we got mad at our friend who was there who was like frantically looking up instructions
on how to do it.
By the time he was done explaining to us all of the dangers of a suspension layout,
we already have the front suspension apart on that car.
You schooled me.
And then so many other people schooled me about the fact that outies also use a system
with one lower control arm using the sway bar as an additional locating member.
So we did this suspension swap on the rover, which wasn't that bad.
No, no.
I mean, there were three of us.
It was two of us plus while the one who sat there and another friend,
who was necessary for the weight of those front strut assemblies.
Two fucking thing weight.
They weighed it.
200 pounds.
Yeah.
There was that.
Well, the first one fell.
And we were like, oh, just hold it up.
Bam!
But also the fuckery that is getting the bushings in the back.
I never in my life seen just a shock that difficult or a spring.
Oh, yeah.
Like, you don't realize how car German cars are Lego pieces.
Everything fits perfectly together.
And if it doesn't fit perfectly together, you smack it with a little hammer and poke.
And if it's nothing fits together on a rover.
Like, nothing.
It was impressive.
There was a lot of rolling around with different washers and trying to press things together.
I think I used a mallet to help lever arm a spring over something.
We used a pole jack to fit.
I mean, the shit that we had to do to get pieces that had previously been together
to go back together was truly impressive.
So I did shocks and springs.
And I did Rimmer Brothers as a supplier in the UK that does rover parts.
So I ordered Vittess, which was the homologation sort of, you know,
an M-car version of the S.D.1, the rally homologation car.
Shocks and springs did some bushings?
No, only shock mounts on the back.
And upper strap bearings.
Right, we left the blown-out sway bar bushings.
Yeah, because it gives a shit.
They weren't that blown out.
They were physically touching.
Well, they were touching.
And they were well lubricated.
They were very well lubricated from massive oil leaks everywhere.
And then put, so it had soulless cum horrors on it, which were the tires.
These are, this is a brand called Kamho.
And the tire name was soulless as in, like, lacking a soul.
Who names these fucking things?
Kumos soulless, S-O-L-U-S.
I didn't, I replaced them with Fredasign and Spring Classics,
which are the tires that they sent that we talked about, whatever.
Holy shit!
And I don't mean like, wow, this car is different.
This car is fucking transformed.
And I don't know which part of it is shock-s and springs.
Yeah, you did two variables at once.
Naughty-naughty.
You gotta drive this fucking thing.
Like, first of all, it turns.
And then previously would turn a little bit.
And then hork over.
And then do this weird thing where the steering wheel turned to marshmallows in your hand.
And you get sticky and it was gross.
It was dangerously low levels of grip.
I actually think that was those fucking Kumos.
Now, you and the car when I did the first exit ramp.
And I'm like, okay, this is about it.
And I take a really wide arc.
Because I was like, wall there.
And I don't know what the hell's going to, we did the work.
Maybe a strut's going to fall out.
Oh, yeah.
And we were drunk.
No one drank.
It turned.
And then turned more.
And then turned more.
And I lifted and it talked in.
And it probably pulled fucking 0.87 of a G without a squeal from the tire.
That's just from springs and shocks.
And then it was closed.
Remember the front end of that car was back.
Boom, boom.
Like the shocks were completely blown the fuck out.
Now it's probably an inch and a half higher than it used to be.
So it doesn't have a very saggy strings.
Well, it had just saggy in the back too.
No, the brand news.
The rear springs were brand new.
Springs and shocks were brand new.
But they left the, we don't think they were original.
They were some aftermarket shock in there.
They had a 1994 date code on them.
So they had been replaced at one point in time.
But probably only have 5,000 miles on them before we got the car.
But blown to shit.
And the springs had sagged to the point where the front of the car,
it was full on face down, ass up.
Yeah.
Now it's it's perfectly level, which is fun when you're not a rover.
Yes.
It's Christ Nick trying to behave here.
Shut up, jerk.
No, it's it's perfectly level.
Now I understand how they successfully campaigned this car
in touring car championships.
The front end on it is unbelievable.
I, you know, I didn't have the trust in the vehicle that you did
and entering it's also not mine.
Oh, I have the trust in the seatbelt.
It was a vehicle.
But, you know, turning it in, it was next to no dead sign.
It's just immediate tucking.
No wait, but, you know, incredible.
But there, and it's a 2.8 turnlock to lock rack,
which didn't exist on any of the car in 1976.
The car that you don't own, that you own, that you don't own,
has it's like 2.4, 2.3.
And it's like 40 years now.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, I'll probably talk about that car next week.
Damn it.
And I own it temporarily.
This is a story.
But yeah, the rover is fucking transformed.
And I know part of that is at least the front of signs
because they don't tuck those fucking kumos.
That was the other thing.
Those kumos, when we bought them, had 400 miles on them.
And we drove, we got in this car.
And I've ever braided the entire way home for three days.
How old are they?
New.
They were like six months before we bought that.
Six months?
The car.
And so it couldn't have been flat-spotted.
I pulled the tires off to have the wheels powder-coded
and refinished.
And they put them back on and said everything balanced perfectly.
And you couldn't see out of any of the mirrors in the car
from all the shake.
Gone.
So apparently, solus kumos aren't round.
But then how did they balance them?
Well, they can balance and wait.
Internally, if they're not.
You could actually see we spun.
You were there.
It was spun to one of the wheels and you could see there was
probably about half an inch of run out on the good ones,
one inch probably on the bad ones.
So they balance weight-wise, but they're not.
Actually, road force should tell you if wheel or tire is not round
but not most tire shops even road force.
I don't know.
Yeah.
I had them balanced twice and they were worse and then worse are.
Right.
And now the car is just glass smooth down the road.
Transformed this car.
It means more power.
Funny you should say that.
We were in a Zoom call a couple days ago
and with the Haggardies Red Line rebuild team.
And they do these fucking amazing stop-motion videos
where you just see the engine rebuild itself.
And they're talking about whatever they're finishing up.
I'm like, oh, what's next?
You want to Rover V8?
And David, because it's the rebuilds,
actually, it's top of my list.
Is that in a VR6?
Oh, I probably shouldn't say that.
You didn't hear that from me.
But whatever.
And he's like, yeah, that's in the works.
And I'm like, well, you want my Rover?
And he's like, yeah, send it.
And I'm like, what do you mean?
He's like, just send the car.
And I'm like, funny.
You should say that because just the other day,
I found a set of the test new old stock heads right by the shop.
Like four hours away.
But, you know, like right.
Of course not.
Other people that I know.
And he's like, all right, we'll just send the heads.
So I'm like, well, you build me a 3-9 or a 4-3?
Or he's like, why not a 4-6?
Mm-hmm.
And I thought it said, because everything's going to break.
But let's build like a 3-9 with the test heads on it and a cam.
Keep the torque level low, which means nothing else will break.
And so...
Yeah, be careful with stroking it.
So 3-9, what is...
Derek, damn, hyphen, Scott.
Yes.
A lesson taught in every high school classroom.
Yes.
What's going to happen?
You're going to grow there in the palms of your hands?
Is that what happens?
I thought it was blindness.
So the 4-2 is the displacement increases by increasing the stroke.
And the 3-9 is by boring.
And the 4-2s are a lot more coarse.
So I would say go as far as you can.
But be careful about lengthening stroke too much.
Because there's a coarseness that gets introduced.
I suspect that will annoy you.
So I would say, yes, exactly.
And that'll be bad for piston speeds if you stroke it.
So 3.9 likes to be 42-1 compression.
Yeah, see how far they can get without increasing the stroke.
Yeah.
Are these overbore engines as it is?
Yeah, I think so.
They are.
And so my thought was a 3-9.
So the VTES made 200 horsepower 190-190 horsepower at 3.5.
And if I do those heads plus a mild cam out of a 3-9,
I should be 220-230, which almost doubles.
And actually, according to GenGPD,
which I made the mistake of just asking 250
with a port and polish and a mild cam and higher compression,
with aftermarket engine management,
should be no issue.
3.9 or 4.0.
So Holly's getting a call from me.
And Edelbrock is getting a call from me.
Because I want to do Edelbrock, Holly EFI,
a cam, a 3.9 VTES heads,
and double the power of the rover.
And then how about this?
So it's going to have a pancake air filter on it?
Yes.
Or has to velocity stacks?
Yeah.
I just, I think pancake air filter looks low rents on that engine.
You have to do something that looks cooler.
To some degree, that's the point.
It is a rover SD one.
I know.
But I think the factory injected,
I like the factory injected plenum.
I think it looks cool.
Or, you know, the twin SUs, which are at an angle,
or the twin plenum VTES.
Just don't, if you don't want it to look like a small block Chevy
when you open the hood, in my opinion.
But how am I going to do that?
If I do an Edelbrock manifold,
I don't know what I would put on top of it.
So you have to come up with some kind of solution
that doesn't look like a pancake.
I am all excited about doubling the power
and you're like, make it look proper.
You're going to want to look at the engine and admire it,
and I think that that interferes with it.
I kind of think more, I want to get into my little car
and have a run.
It's fucking stupid.
It's fucking stupid.
So I'm saying this on the podcast
so that I can send this time-coated link
to everyone in the Haggardee video department.
I'd be like, hey, I've already promised
you're gonna build me a 220 horsepower.
Hey, Holly, hey, Edelbrock, hey,
Rimmer Brothers, anyone else, I need,
I need a hike for you.
You might have them for bid have to pay for something
for new to that.
No.
Yeah, fine, whatever.
These things, mate.
I'm not paying labor.
I draw the line of labor.
You guys wanna make a video out of this?
Yes, I will.
I will supply pistons, a cam,
heads, heads, heads, heads are gonna be expensive.
Yeah, whatever, makes sense.
But whatever, new old stock Vitas heads?
Then we can put those spring classics to work.
I'm gonna need it.
They're gonna need it.
Of course.
If it's subscribed to this tires
and said I've just bought them,
I'm gonna need them in the other month.
It's just a month.
Yeah, I'm gonna be paying.
Every six months a new set shows up.
The funny thing was, I mentioned this on the Zoom
and I fully expect Anthony Esposito to be like,
no, because he didn't want me to do the revelations
on this car.
He's like, no one's gonna give a shit.
Newian views later, I think he got the message
that there are people who speak English
who don't live in America who like this car.
And he's like, oh, let's do a drive.
Drag Race, Drag Race, replay show with it.
And he's like, let's see, what can we race?
And he starts calculating out like horsepower to weight.
He's like, well, I think it'll do with this
and whatever.
And I'm like, who the fuck is gonna give me
a new drive shaft when it shatters
or a new diff or a new transmission?
Like, no!
And he's like, well, you don't have to dump the clutch
that many times.
You do.
You do, right?
Exactly.
Well, you'd be there to throw me home in the car.
Yeah, and then we're back.
I'll bring this.
No, I'll tell you home in the K-Truck.
You'll be good.
Okay, good opportunities for that.
I mean, that's the whole point of these old things.
Like, you can keep them as they are exactly stock
or you can play with it.
I just want to play yours.
Yeah, I know.
I wanted to look relatively stock
and I just want, like, that's most important to me.
You want the original spirit of the thing to be intact.
Right, the personality needs to be preserved.
And that's one of my objections with restomans sometimes
is that you lose the personality
of the original objects.
I wanted to test.
And the problem is, so there was two series of SD1s.
There was the early car, there's the US cars,
or the early series one.
And then in 1982, they came out with a series two,
which was a lot of functional upgrades,
like reversing the popularity.
I love this.
Reversing the polar, you know that they developed a new system
to dip these cars in rust proofing.
Oh, yes, yes, yes.
And then I and I used to say that the rust proofing primer
would stick to the metal,
but they hooked the wires up reversed.
So it repelled the rust proofing
and then flaked right off in the car's rust in the ground.
So in 1982, when they switched factories,
that's when someone was like,
my fuck, it's been the wrong way the whole time, shit.
So the 82 and later cars were not built at Sully Hill,
which is the factory that was built for this car.
They were built elsewhere.
And they fixed a bunch of others shit like that.
But they put this god-awful Range Rover gauge cluster on it.
I shouldn't say that.
But it's just not the Ferrari.
It's 80s looking, instead of 70s looking.
Well, it's not the exterior styling of the car
was Ferrari inspired.
And so is the dash.
It's a fucking complete Ferrari rip-off.
Looks like a Momo 3-spot Ferrari wheel.
And the U.S.
In the U.S.
They did get that later.
There was available in Europe.
But we had these like, I feel like I sit in this car
and I'm like, I'm gonna oversized British shitbox Ferrari.
Weird knock-off thing.
And the later cars just look 80s and wrong.
And the Vitesse were all series two.
And I would love to have a right-hand drive Vitesse,
but I will not have that interior.
And so my only choice,
and this is a matter of, you know,
human requirements.
Yes, yes.
Yes, yes.
It is to make a Vitesse out of my car.
And if I can move a Vitesse with 200 and some horsepower
instead of 190, well, why the fuck would I?
But then you also have to move the steering wheel
over to the right side.
Which you can do.
You can do.
You can do.
In a matter of minutes, symmetrical.
Yes, yes.
Yes, it has that third vent.
Oh, should I do that?
No, yes.
Do you get value out of it being right-hand drive?
I love right-hand drives shit.
It's hilarious.
It's stupid.
I find it inconvenient.
It's a fuel box.
It drives through.
It's a pain in the eye.
It's a pain in the eye.
Overtaking is a convenient.
Yeah, but I can overtake in the car right now
with the current power level.
It's a bad idea.
So you're going to make it subplining.
I know.
So that you can never overtake in this car
because currently you can't overtake
due to lack of power in the future.
You won't be able to overtake
because you have no line subsite.
Okay, so what I'll do is I'll put two steering wheels,
two gauge cluster.
Sure.
Yeah, that's a perfect problem.
No, no, no, no, no.
You can do it like the garbage truck.
Just jump back and forth, which is...
I heard one on the back.
So someone off the back of the...
S-D-1 can actually drive.
Like a garbage truck.
Like a fire truck.
Yeah.
How about I don't do any of this shit?
And you just get about two and a horsepower in.
Yep.
And then probably have to upgrade the brakes.
Did we make it through your garage?
Mmm.
I don't remember.
Probably.
I'm going to say yes.
It's uninteresting beyond that.
I've had more interesting cars that I've sold
that I'd no longer own.
Once you get put in the sambar, you can't.
No, it's peak.
Everything else has beneath it.
Not the horsepower.
Though this is probably second place now,
because it's just so weird.
I think it's immensely cool.
Every single time it's on a lift, I laugh.
Which...
The carbon fiber drive shaft.
It has a carbon fiber drive shaft.
What?
Yes.
So it's a two-piece drive shaft.
And the first portion of it's carbon fiber.
So that when the engine and transmission exit the vehicle
in a front-end collision, it breaks quickly
and allows the system to fall into the car.
Pro-content.
Pro-content under the car.
Two.
The other thing that blew my mind.
Pro-con 11.
No, it's just 10.1.
There's something.
Pro-content is that system.
Ingenious.
Because...
Peac.
The steering wheel column retractors.
It's on a pulley and a cable system.
So that as soon as the engine starts to move back,
the steering wheel is pulled away.
And the seat belt break every bone in your body.
So it's pretensioner.
The seat belt moves...
It's all done with a cable.
So I'm sure once it rusts, that's really important.
It looks fresh.
On this one...
On this one...
Yeah.
But yeah, you watch period road tests,
or crash tests of any of the cars with pro-content.
It's amazing.
Why was this not more widely adapted?
Because airbags are accomplished all the same thing.
Which...
The other thing is the engine is the furthest...
I mean, it's in front of the grille on these cars.
So it's the first thing that we get hit.
The airbags in these cars were not dual-stage.
So it was just everything or nothing.
Below your brain.
Right.
So it's more common to remove them because in a fender bender
you will be injured and usually non-pro-content.
Right.
So these...
This does have pro-content for the US market.
It does.
Yeah, it's so cool.
Yeah, they had pro-content on the back window
on all these cars back in the day.
Never know what they've done.
No one knew it.
Typical German branding.
What the fuck does that mean?
I don't know.
But yeah, apparently they ditched it when airbags became mandatory.
But you can see the...
It's wild.
Because you see the crash test, the slow-motion footage,
you always see the airbag inflate over a couple frames.
And there, you see that steering wheel get ripped
the fuck out of the dummy's hand in one frame.
Yeah.
Like it's pretty violent.
Violet.
You can imagine it would dislocate shoulders if you're holding on.
Oh my god.
But cool idea.
The dummy didn't smash its face into the steering wheel.
Could you imagine if one of those cables came loose over time
and started dragging on the ground?
You just...
You're going down the highway 55.
You hit one of those interchanges.
Well, it breaks your shoulder blade
and it crushes your chest with the seatbelt.
Because it's the pretensioner's on there too.
Oh.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I feel like you'd just walk away.
Like it's it.
Just handbrake up.
Yeah, goodbye.
Yeah.
Whatever.
Very cool.
Nick Mist.
Yes.
You're a hero.
I'm not.
You're doing God's work for helping me to remember.
I have for less.
For adding fun to the unfunnable to solving the inherent Audi problems
over at 0-3-4.
There's much to do and more fun to have with it.
Well, I hope you come back.
There's a very show with some other pilot shit,
understeering.
Next time I'll bring a present day and show you what can be done.
Okay.
Yeah, let's get Derek and something really really stupid fast
to make him kick it.
Our RS5 did the quarter mile and 9-9 at 140.
Is there to 62.3?
On the streets like 27.
That would be a fun one for you.
Yeah.
I will bring an extra pair of trousers.
Yes.
I will bring Windex or something.
Yes.
It has different brake calipers on it, so it stops.
Calipers that we make.
And roaders that are on the road.
There should be more on the roaders.
Yes, exactly.
You guys are just fixing how you get one Audi at a time.
We're getting out.
Great.
Join us again next week.
It'll be the two of us without an Audi.
But maybe with a Volkswagen product.
We're not.
Thank you for joining us.
Thank you.
Thank you for coming out.
And go buy stuff from 0-3-4.
They make really good shoes.
Thank you.
I know this because I have an oversteering cough.
It will continue.
Yeah.
It's amazing.
And Doug.
Here we have the Lemo Emo.
In its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance
and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual.
Fascinating.
It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.
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About this episode
Nick from 034 Motorsport joins Jason and Derek for a lively discussion about Audi modifications, the quirks of vintage cars, and the challenges of California's DMV regulations. They dive into the history of the Audi 90, share personal stories about their own vehicles, and explore the intricacies of performance upgrades. The episode is filled with humor, technical insights, and anecdotes about car culture, making it a rich listen for anyone interested in the automotive world.
034 Motorsport
0-60 time
alternator
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Bosch
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hella flush
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Lexus LFA
Mercedes-Benz C 63 T-Modell (S204)
Porsche 911
Porsche 928
Porsche 944
Porsche Cayenne
Porsche Cayman
Renault Wind
Toyota Land Cruiser
Volkswagen Bus
Volkswagen e-Golf
Volkswagen Golf
Original notes
We dish the VW/Audi dirt with tuning company 034Motorsport’s Director of Sales and Marketing, Nick Mercadante. We’ll discuss 40 years worth of VAG foibles, from mismatched rotors, calipers that can’t handle the heat, 1980s ABS tech, wandering shifters and shattering engine mounts – but don’t worry, 034 has you covered!
Nick brought out his Audi 90 for us on this episode, and we’ll start by discussing its 6-level, buttock-melting heated seats (the relay for which is on its deathbed). Jason’s dad had this same car back in Germany in the 90s – featuring cloth seats, crank windows, and no AC. It made for a significantly improved Autobahn experience compared to his previous car, an FJ60-Series Land Cruiser. However, in stock form, the little Audi inline-5 hotrod of the 80s is no match for Jason’s modified 170 hp VW Scirocco. The Audi 90’s 7A engine just doesn’t have the oomph to make up for the drivetrain loss and general heft of the AWD drivetrain. If it had the turbocharged 3B motor from the S2, it may be a different story… Speaking of stories, Jason wrote one for Automobile Magazine some 15 years ago on this exact car that now sits in our background. Did you know it has a carbon fiber driveshaft and an anti anti-lock button? Yes, ANTI anti-lock.
We learn about the delightfully colorful California vehicle titles of the last century: both rainbow and pink (which is where the phrase “pink slip” comes from). And Derek is deeply distraught to learn Nick has removed the original California 2-number plate (and to learn just how easy it is to register cars outside of California).
We’ll cover Nick’s various vehicles: his college runabout Audi 90, UrS6 wagon, his BMW M2 (F22), Porsche Cayenne GTS (958.2), Audi SQ5 (w/ nearly 700 hp), his Kei truck Subaru Sambar (w/ nearly 20 hp), his Porsche 944, Audi TT RS, and his first-gen Audi R8 V8 with a NASCAR-grade 034Motorsport exhaust.
Speaking of Nick’s cars, we’ll also cover another 034 Nick’s collection – friend of the show, Nick Sgambelluri, who so generously provided (and abused) his monster-turbo Audi 200 sedan, as well as his pristine first-gen Ford Probe Turbo for the Dark Horse ICONS episode – where its axle unalived itself in the middle of a reverse donut (sorry, Nick!).
We talk 034Motorsport (which is singular and starts with a “zero”), including their 7 lbs aluminum flywheel for the Audi 90, their dogbone engine mounts, their origins making ECUs for 5-cylinder cars 20 years ago, and their new arm, 034Tradition, which will make classic parts to fill in the voids left behind when parts manufacturers discontinue them (they will even take requests!).
Other fun tidbits: Jason’s secret new turbo car, the classic RV anal-prefix name game, washing titles in Alabama, Derek the felon, trash Kumhos, Derek advising against too much stroking, the Rover gets a makeover (suspension and tires), and possibly a full Vitesse-style engine build via Redline Rebuilds!
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The Carmudgeon Show
Hagerty Media
0:00
96:39