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118:20
Car
Nissan Gtr
The Nissan GT-R is a fast all-wheel-drive sports car that’s famous for being hard to beat. In this segment, it’s one of the cars the guest’s team builds and tunes for racing.
Car
Lamborghini Huracan
The Lamborghini Huracán is a high-end supercar with a powerful engine in the middle of the car. Here, it’s being used as an example of the kind of cars the shop builds and modifies for racing.
Car
Audi R8
The Audi R8 is a supercar with the engine mounted in the middle for better handling. They’re listing it as one of the cars they build for racing.
Term
fuel injection
Fuel injection is how the car sprays fuel into the engine. For making big power, getting the fuel delivery right is a big deal.
Term
injector dynamics
Injector Dynamics is a company that makes fuel injectors for performance engines. The guest is saying their shop handles part of the injector process, including work done before those injectors end up with customers.
Term
OEM grade
“OEM grade” means parts are built to match the quality and performance standards of original equipment manufacturer components. In the context of injectors, it implies the hardware is designed for consistent fueling and durability rather than being a purely experimental race-only item.
Term
flow bench
A “flow bench” is a device used to test how much fuel an injector delivers. It’s how people try to prove injectors are matched, but a simple bench test may not tell the whole story.
Term
flow matched
“Flow matched” means the injectors are picked so they spray fuel at the same rate. That helps each cylinder get similar fuel, so the engine runs smoother.
Term
static flow match
“Static flow match” means the injectors are matched at one specific test setting. But injectors don’t work the same way in every real driving condition, so this can miss differences that show up later.
Term
pulse width
“Pulse width” is how long the injector opens for each shot of fuel. If injectors behave differently at short vs long opening times, the engine can get uneven fueling.
Term
dynamically
“Dynamically” here means the injectors are matched based on how they perform across different operating situations. Instead of one test result, it’s about consistency across the range the engine actually uses.
Concept
you can't, you don't match injectors
The host is making a point that injectors have their own inherent behavior, so you can’t truly “force” identical performance across all conditions. Instead, the practical approach is selecting and pairing injectors that are tightly matched by measurement method (here, dynamic matching across pulse width).
Term
static flow rate
Static flow rate is how much fuel an injector delivers when it’s tested in a controlled way. Tuners use that number to estimate how much fuel the engine will get. If the injector’s flow rate is outside the stated tolerance, the tune may need adjustment.
Term
off spec injectors
“Off spec injectors” are injectors that don’t deliver fuel quite as accurately as the official spec says. They might flow a bit more or a bit less than expected. If you use them with a tune meant for perfectly matched injectors, the fuel mixture can be off.
Term
nicely matched set
A “nicely matched set” means the injectors are chosen so they behave similarly to each other. That helps the engine get consistent fuel delivery cylinder-to-cylinder. It’s especially important if the tune expects injectors to be very consistent.
Term
GM
GM is General Motors. Their cars use engine computers and tuning setups that may require data to be in a specific format.
Term
Chrysler
Chrysler is a car brand. Their engine computers can expect tuning data in different formats, so injector data may need to be prepared accordingly.
Term
AEM
AEM makes aftermarket engine computers and tuning gear. If you’re using an AEM ECU, the injector data has to be in the right format for that system.
Term
ECU
ECU just means the car’s engine computer. It’s what decides how the engine runs, and different computers can need information in different formats.
Term
plug and play
“Plug and play” means it’s set up so you can use it with little or no extra work. For tuning, it usually means the files/data are already in the right format for the computer you’re using.
Term
offset
An “offset” is a correction number used to make the fuel delivery match what the tune is asking for. It helps compensate for how injectors actually behave versus what the computer assumes.
Term
OEMs
OEMs are the car companies that make the vehicles. The point here is that even the factory has to calibrate injectors for how they actually behave, not just trust the injector brand’s marketing numbers.
Term
ID
“ID” here sounds like a way to refer to the injector’s specific identity or measured behavior. Instead of assuming all injectors of the same model behave the same, you use data from that particular injector. That helps the engine control system fuel more accurately.
Term
1650
“1650” is a label people use for how much fuel an injector can flow. It’s like a capacity rating, but real-world flow can differ depending on conditions. That’s why tuners may measure and calibrate injectors instead of trusting the label alone.
Term
cc's
“cc’s” is a way to describe how much fuel an injector can deliver. Think of it like measuring the injector’s fuel “throughput.” Tuners use this to pick the right injector size and to tune the fuel delivery correctly.
Concept
generate the data
This means measuring and creating the injector’s calibration information for your exact setup. Even if an injector has a published rating, real injectors can vary. So tuners generate their own data so the engine computer can command the right amount of fuel.
Term
800 horsepower
“800 horsepower” is a big power number. At that level, the fuel system has to be capable of supplying enough fuel, not just the engine parts themselves.
Term
1,500 plus range
The “1,500 plus range” means extremely high power. When you’re that high, you can’t just use any injectors—you need the right size and a tune that matches them.
Term
matched properly
“Matched properly” means the injectors are set up to work together as a consistent set. That helps the engine get the right fuel in each cylinder, which is especially important when you’re pushing big power.
Term
airflow
Airflow is how much air each cylinder pulls in. Since fuel needs to be balanced with air, different airflow can make some cylinders run richer or leaner.
Term
lambda
Lambda is a way to describe whether the engine’s fuel and air mix is correct. If you have lambda readings for each cylinder, you can adjust each one more precisely.
Car
Lancia Lambda
The Lancia Lambda is an old car model from Lancia. It’s known because it was designed with some unusual engineering features for its time. It may be mentioned in a discussion about how car technology developed.
Term
EGT
EGT means exhaust gas temperature. It can hint at how combustion is going, but it doesn’t directly tell you the exact air-fuel ratio the way lambda does.
Term
air-fuel ratio
The air-fuel ratio is how much air versus fuel the engine uses. Getting it wrong can hurt power and can also increase heat and wear.
Term
500 CC injector
“500 cc” is a way of describing how much fuel an injector can flow. Bigger numbers usually mean the injector can supply more fuel for higher-power setups.
Brand
Bosch
Bosch is a well-known car-parts company. In this episode, they’re making the fuel injectors, and then the shop tests and prepares them so they’re ready to be used together.
Place
Arizona
Arizona is where the facility is located. The host is using it to explain where the injectors get built and prepared.
Term
laser engraving
Laser engraving is a way to permanently mark a part using a laser. Here it likely helps identify and track each injector through the build and testing process.
Term
break in
“Break-in” here means running the injectors through a controlled process first. It helps them settle into consistent behavior before they’re tested and paired for the engine.
Term
matched in sets
“Matched in sets” means multiple injectors are selected and calibrated so they behave consistently with each other. That matters because engines rely on each cylinder getting the right fuel quantity; mismatched injectors can cause uneven fueling and drivability issues.
Term
valve seat
The valve seat is the surface the valve seals against. If that seal changes slightly, the engine can let more or less flow through.
Term
injectors would be matched
Injector matching means making sure multiple fuel injectors spray the same amount. That helps the engine get the same fuel in each cylinder.
Term
rings
Rings are parts on the piston that seal the space between the piston and the cylinder. They also help keep oil under control, and break-in helps them fit the cylinder properly.
Term
fresh hone
Honing is a finishing process that roughens the inside of the cylinder in a controlled way. It helps the piston rings wear in correctly instead of just sliding on a smooth surface.
Term
48 injectors
Injectors are the fuel nozzles that spray gas into the engine. This setup can run a lot of injectors through a process—48 at a time—before they’re checked further.
Term
high duty cycle
Duty cycle is how often something is turned on during each repeating time period. “High duty cycle” means it’s on more of the time, so the injectors get more repeated actuation during the process.
Term
flow testing
Flow testing checks how much fuel an injector actually sprays. It helps confirm each injector is working correctly and consistently before you put it in the car.
Term
DI
DI means the fuel is injected straight into the engine’s cylinders, not into the air intake. Because of that, the fuel system parts have to be matched to the specific engine. It’s one reason high-power builds can need very specific injector setups.
Term
part number
A “part number” is basically the exact ID for a specific injector design. The host is saying that making a new injector design for direct injection is costly. So fewer engines end up using that exact injector.
Term
one injector per cylinder
This means each cylinder gets fuel from one injector. The host is saying that if you need more fuel for more power, you can sometimes add more injectors per cylinder. With direct injection, the setup is different, so you can’t just treat it the same way.
Term
inject a window
Fuel has to be sprayed at the right moment. If the engine only allows injection during a short time window, the injector can’t deliver as much fuel, so power gains get limited.
Term
200 bar
Bar is a unit of pressure; 200 bar is extremely high fuel-system pressure used in modern high-performance direct-injection setups. When you’re already near that pressure, there’s less “headroom” left to increase pressure to get more fuel flow.
Term
gas to ethanol
Gasoline and ethanol behave differently in an engine. Ethanol usually needs more fuel to make the same power, so you often need bigger injector/pump capacity, but it can also allow more aggressive tuning.
Term
port injectors
Port injectors spray fuel into the intake area before it goes into the cylinder. That can help the engine mix fuel and air more evenly, especially when conditions change.
Car
B58
B58 is BMW’s turbo inline-six engine. The host is saying that BMW’s setup evolved so it uses fuel injection in the intake as well as direct injection, which helps fix issues that came with earlier DI-only designs.
Term
DI in port
“DI in port” means the engine uses direct-injection-style fuel delivery, but it’s aimed at the intake port instead of only spraying into the cylinder. That can help the engine mix fuel and air more consistently.
Concept
hybrid platforms
A hybrid platform is the car’s basic design that’s built to use both a gas engine and an electric motor. Because the car can rely on electricity sometimes, the engine and fuel system may need different tuning than a normal gas-only car.
Car
BMW XM
The BMW XM is BMW’s big, powerful SUV that’s also a hybrid. Because it’s hybrid, upgrades aren’t just about the gas engine—you also have to deal with the electric parts and their control systems.
Concept
aftermarket
“Aftermarket” means modifications you do after buying the car, like upgrades and tuning. The host is saying hybrids can be harder to modify because the car’s systems are more complex.
Term
turbocharge
Turbocharging adds a device that squeezes extra air into the engine. That can help the engine make more power, but you still need everything else to be tuned to work with it.
Term
electronics
Here “electronics” means the car’s computers and sensors that control how the engine and hybrid system work together. If you change performance parts, those computers often need to be handled correctly too.
Car
Honda NSX
The 2017 Honda NSX is a hybrid supercar. The point here is that with modern hybrid electronics, it’s harder to modify than older cars, because the computer systems have to work correctly too.
Term
tuning a stock computer
“Tuning the stock computer” means updating the car’s factory computer so it controls the engine differently. For turbo cars, that usually changes how much boost and fuel the engine uses to make more power.
Concept
factory turbo hybrid stuff
This phrase means the car’s factory setup that combines a turbo engine with a hybrid system. The host is basically saying that because it’s all integrated from the factory, it can change how hard (or easy) it is to tune for more power.
Term
sequential transmissions
A sequential transmission is a gearbox where you shift through gears one-by-one in order. It’s common on serious builds because it can shift faster and more consistently than a regular manual setup.
Brand
6XD
6XD is a company that makes upgraded transmissions for performance cars. The host is saying their gearbox is strong enough to handle very high power.
Term
gearbox
A gearbox (transmission) is what lets the engine spin at the right speed while the car moves. For fast cars, it has to handle big power without failing.
Term
firmware
Firmware is the software stored in a car’s electronic control units (ECUs) that governs how systems operate. Updated firmware for cars like the GT-R and Huracán typically means revised calibration for engine management and drivability.
Term
cam control
Cam control is the computer adjusting valve timing using the camshafts. That changes how the engine breathes, which affects power and smoothness.
Term
Traction Control
Traction Control helps prevent the tires from spinning when you accelerate. It uses the car’s computer to cut power or brake certain wheels so you keep traction.
Term
torque modeling
Torque modeling is the ECU’s internal estimation of how much torque the engine is producing (and how it will respond). Modern ECUs use this to coordinate traction control and other stability systems, so firmware changes can require relearning the new control strategy.
Term
anti-lack functions
“Anti-lack” is a strategy to reduce a common drivability problem where the car feels like it’s lagging or falling flat for a moment. It’s the computer trying to keep torque delivery smoother.
Concept
calibration
A calibration is the tune—the settings inside the car’s computer that control how it runs. If the car’s computer changes with new firmware, the old tune might not work as well and may need to be redone.
Term
anti-lag
Anti-lag is a trick for turbo cars that helps the turbo stay “ready.” When you lift off the gas and then go back on it, anti-lag helps reduce the delay before boost comes back.
Term
throttle
Here, “throttle” means the gas control that affects how much air the engine can pull in. Anti-lag is designed to keep boost ready when you lift off the gas.
Term
drive-by-wire
Drive-by-wire means the gas pedal doesn’t mechanically move the throttle. Instead, sensors send signals to the computer, and the computer controls the throttle for you.
Term
brake pressure
Brake pressure is basically how hard you’re pressing the brake pedal. The car can use that information to decide how to manage boost and engine behavior.
Term
steering
Steering input tells the computer which way (and how much) you’re turning. The ECU can use that to adjust how it manages boost and engine torque.
Term
idle right
“Idle right” means the car runs smoothly when you’re stopped and not touching the gas. A tune can make the idle speed steadier and prevent weird surging or stalling.
Term
Mode Tech
Mode Tech is mentioned as the tuning setup that helps the car’s computer run correctly. The host is saying it makes it easier to dial in the car after adding performance parts.
Term
big injectors
Fuel injectors spray gas into the engine. “Big injectors” flow more fuel, so the car’s computer needs a tune to make sure it still runs right at idle and during normal driving.
Concept
docile street car
A “docile street car” is a car that’s tuned to feel calm and easy to drive day-to-day. It should idle smoothly and not act weird when you’re just cruising.
Car
stock STO
STO is a more track-focused version of the Lamborghini Huracán. The host is basically asking: if you make a Huracán dailyable, do you lose what makes the STO special?
Term
big exhaust that runs under the car
A bigger exhaust system is designed to let the engine breathe more easily. It often makes the car louder, which is why the host connects it to the GT-R being loud.
Term
clunky
“Clunky” means the shifts feel rough or not very smooth. The host is saying the older GT-R gearbox doesn’t feel as refined as newer transmissions.
Term
DCT
DCT means a dual-clutch transmission. It uses two clutches so the car can switch gears very quickly, usually with smoother power than older automatics.
Term
Winolas
WinOLS is tuning software. Tuners use it to edit the car’s computer settings (calibration) so the car behaves differently.
Term
TCU tunes
TCU tunes are software changes for the transmission computer. They can make the car shift sooner/later and feel more aggressive or smoother.
Term
flash
“Flash” here means updating the car’s computer software. It’s how tuners apply new settings without swapping parts.
Term
TCU cal
TCU cal means the settings for the car’s transmission computer. Those settings control how the transmission and clutches behave, especially when you’re making big power.
Term
clutch pressure
Clutch pressure is how hard the transmission squeezes the clutch. If it isn’t high enough for the engine’s power, the clutch can slip instead of gripping.
Term
clutch will slip
Clutch slip means the clutch isn’t gripping hard enough, so it slips under acceleration. That can create heat and can damage the transmission if it happens repeatedly.
Term
TCU cow
“TCU cow” sounds like a nickname for an aftermarket transmission control add-on. The point is that it can change how the transmission applies clutch pressure when the factory settings aren’t enough.
Term
drag racing
Drag racing is a straight-line acceleration format where launch behavior and shift timing are especially sensitive to drivetrain calibration. The host is saying that for drag use, the transmission/TCU strategy (“how it launches”) will vary depending on whether you’re using factory vs modified control hardware.
Term
V10 market
A “V10” is an engine with 10 cylinders arranged in two rows that form a V. “Jumping into the V10 market” means they started working on performance parts for V10 engines.
Term
head studs
Head studs are stronger bolts that hold the cylinder head tightly to the engine. On big-power engines, they help keep everything sealed under high pressure.
Term
Pissons rods
Connecting rods are internal engine parts that connect the pistons to the crankshaft. The host is saying they used upgraded rods to handle more power.
Term
built blocks
A “built block” is a stronger engine foundation made to handle more stress than a stock engine. It’s what you do when you’re making a lot more power than the factory design.
Term
B series
Honda’s “B series” is a family of engines Honda used in a lot of performance cars. The point here is that when you push them for big power, you often need extra reinforcement like sleeves.
Term
sleeve it
“Sleeving” means installing stronger liners inside the engine cylinders. It helps the engine survive when you’re making a lot more boost and power than stock.
LIVE
This episode is brought to you by 6XD Gearbox.
More on them later.
We can do a 30,000-foot view here.
Give people an overview of who you are and what it is you do today,
and then we'll go from there.
So we build race cars.
We build Lamborghini Huracan, Audi R8, Nissan GT-R.
Basically, every aspect of it besides paint and body work.
So the engine, transmission, fuel injection, fabrication, tuning,
everything's done under one roof.
And then what about the injector dynamics side of things?
So injector dynamics is the other half of the business.
So in 2008, so I started this in 2005.
In 2008 or so, injector dynamics came about.
And we are half of injector dynamics.
So any ID injector that ends up in anybody's hands
went through the shop at some point.
So other half, what does that look like?
Because it seems like everybody who
makes horsepower in this industry
has speaks so highly of you guys.
Why is that?
We're talking OEM grade sort of stuff.
Is it kind of what I hear?
Yeah.
I mean, we literally supply OEMs in some instances.
Oh, OK.
So the Chrysler, the crate engines
they do, the Hellifant and stuff like that,
those come with our injectors.
And so we work with a couple other OEM manufacturers
in specific things.
But in the aftermarket fuel injector industry,
most of these guys are guys with a cheap flow bench
in the garage.
And I mean, anybody can be a fuel injector salesman, right?
You can buy injectors and run them through a bench and go,
these are flow matched.
And now I'm the same as them.
And when we came about, ours are not a static flow match.
They're matched dynamically across the full pulse width
range.
And so matching something at static flow rate
is very different than having a tightly matched set
at 2 milliseconds on a big injector.
Like you have to, and I guess here's something
a lot of people probably don't realize.
You can't, you don't match injectors.
They do what they do.
And so the only way to have a tightly matched set
is to have a lot to choose from.
And so we have a very tight spec as far as if you buy a part
number, say an ID 1050, it's going
to be the static flow rate that we spec, plus or minus 2.5%.
So if an OE or somebody's doing like a calibration for a 1050
for like a known combination, they,
we can give them like a representative average set
of injectors, and they can be confident knowing
that their calibration they provide
will never be more than a couple percent off of an ID 1050
part number that somebody buys.
Now we get a lot of injectors that fall outside of that range.
And those on our end go as off spec injectors.
Now we can have a nicely matched set of off spec, say 1050s.
Maybe they're 5% higher, 5% low.
That happens.
And we'll have somebody that we sponsor,
a shop we work with, like, hey, I need something
for my personal car.
I'm like, we have these.
They're just as good as the set.
But if you were in that situation where you were working
from a calibration that was fixed,
we don't want you to be 5% off.
OK, I understand.
So things do fall outside of that range.
And it's not waste, but it is waste.
I mean, we sell them cheap to help people out.
But they're not trash.
So the standards that we hold, as far as that,
and there used to be a portion of the website that
was literally about no bullshit.
It's all real engineering data.
Nobody was providing data before injector dynamics.
Now, it's just a sheet with everything, right?
Or like, I don't know what that looks like.
It's on the website.
So we have a support website, help.injectordynamics.com.
And there's so many formats nowadays, right?
So if you've got a GM or a Chrysler or a MoTeC or an AEM
or whatever.
And so the data doesn't change with ECU, but the format does.
And so we try to provide plug and play copy-paste data
for everything that comes up.
And if somebody has an oddball application
and I need data in this format, we have internally what
we call data generator.
And so you can plot.
I'm looking for the offset.
I need these axes.
I need these breakpoints.
And it spits out copy-paste format.
So I want to bring this back down to the average person
real quick.
So you said you kind of work with OEMs.
What's the baseline from an OEM level?
I think one that numbers that I heard was like plus or minus
6% from an OEM perspective.
Or do you have an idea what that looks like?
Like what's average versus ID?
So if you buy an injector from Bosch, they have a 20.
They have an injector that is marketed as a 1650 that
flows about 1,480 cc's.
And Bosch does not provide data.
And they are the manufacturer.
It's up to the user to generate the data in the format
that they want.
So when OEs buy injectors for any stock car,
they're not relying on Bosch for the data.
They have to generate their own data.
And Bosch sells injectors.
They don't sell sets of injectors.
You could buy 1,000 injectors.
There's going to be a significant range across those.
And Bosch doesn't take the standpoint
that we're selling match sets.
They're just providing an injector.
But their range for a spec is significantly higher.
I don't know exactly what it is.
It's much higher than ours.
Yeah, I've heard.
It might have been like 8% or something.
I don't know.
I think it's actually bigger than that,
especially for the big injectors.
Yeah, I think I did an episode of Greg Banish twice,
which I'm sure you're familiar with him.
I think he gave me the exact number.
I'll have to look back on that episode now.
Dang it.
But OK, why is it so important when it comes to a race car
program, though?
Because if we're doing just a regular 800
horsepower build, are you looking for injectors like that?
Or is this more someone you get into that crazy 1,500 plus range?
Well, what's really important is that the set is matched
properly.
Nothing we're doing is we're plugging in some calibration
that somebody else did for a known combo and not tweaking it.
So that's why when somebody's like, hey,
I need a set of injectors for my personal project, whatever.
Yeah, these will be 3% or 4% higher or lower than our norm.
It doesn't matter.
They're tuned in the car.
But what matters is that the set is properly matched.
And some people go, yeah, but the airflow is not the same
on all cylinders.
That is true.
But how many variables do you want to induce?
We can at least have the injectors matched.
And you're not tuning individual cylinders
unless you have lambda in each cylinder, which almost nobody's
doing.
You can't do it with EGT.
You have to have lambda.
So the best you can do is at least take the injectors
out of the equation.
How do you grow with the industry?
Are you releasing your products regularly?
Are you improving things?
Like how exactly are you growing the ID side of things?
So it's hard at this point with where we are.
So we started as modifying stock injectors, not stock,
but off the shelf blotch injectors.
So ID 1,000 was a 500 CC injector that was modified.
And that's where it all started.
And then many years ago at this point,
it started or turned into Bosch manufacturing injectors
for us to our spec.
And so nothing's modified anymore.
Every injector we offer is a custom built injector for us
by Bosch, which you can't do that.
Like it took years and years to get to that point.
So we're an authorized technical partner with Bosch,
which is when it came to manufacturing these and them
doing this, they had to come see the facility,
ensure that we're doing things to their standard
to be able to put their name on our product.
This facility here?
In Arizona.
Oh, OK, gotcha.
So Paul's shop where I guess we could start
with how this all works.
So Bosch makes the injectors.
They come to Paul.
They do the break in.
They do laser engraving.
They do the flow testing.
And then they're matched in sets there.
And then they come to me and then we turn them into whatever
people order.
OK.
So is there any modifying or anything
happening at the Arizona facility
or is it just like ready to go?
No modifying.
OK, so that's straight from Bosch, ready to go.
No, no, not modifying, but we do.
They run through a break in process.
OK.
So you're talking about a product that
has a lift in microns.
I mean, the valve lift is tiny.
And so any little change with the valve seat
will change the flow rate.
And so we, you know, over time started
seeing that a set of injectors would be matched.
And then they would be run for a reasonable amount of time
and they come back and there's nothing wrong with them.
But now they're not matched as well.
OK.
What is the, so it's kind of like when you like break in an engine
almost like I've heard that people like to use seasoned
engines sometimes.
Is that sort of like a similar approach or?
Um, no.
No, not at all.
OK, swing and a miss.
The engine break in is more about seating the rings.
You know, you've got a fresh cylinder wall
and you want to take advantage of that fresh hone.
So the break in process involves you don't want to just let
an engine idle.
That's not how you break it in.
Like you need to put some load on it
because the cylinder pressure is what pushes the rings against
the cylinder wall and that friction is what beds basically
the rings to the cylinder wall.
So you want that.
But this is you cycle it long enough at high pressure
and you know, things will just normalize.
Got you.
And so everything runs through a very intense break in process.
The break invention is actually really cool.
I think it holds like 48 injectors and it runs them at 100 PSI
high duty cycle.
It's it sounds terrible because it's.
Yeah.
But they all run through this process before the flow testing
happens.
OK, so that in the end, hopefully all that's normalized
and your match set remains the match set for the rest of its
life.
You know, as long as you don't get these are all port
injectors, right?
You're doing a DI.
OK, we looked into the I a long time ago,
but it was for the EcoBoost stuff.
Yeah.
And the problem, the problem with the I stuff,
it costs a quarter of a million dollars to develop
a part number of an injector ish currently for what?
OK.
Yeah.
And so when we develop a part number,
it applies to anything that's port fuel injected, right?
The I stuff is very different.
You develop a part number, it's going to apply to one engine.
And so the market's significantly smaller.
And in the end, the stuff we're doing,
you know, there's there's kind of no limit to power.
I mean, if you if one injector per cylinder is not enough,
you just put another one in.
But if you have something that's DI with no port injection
and you go, you know, I want to make a lot more power,
you could put a lot of money into a pump and injector
and you might be able to get 30 or 50% more.
But that's it.
The injector would inject a window so small
because you have to inject when the valves are closed.
And so, you know, you can't get very much more flow rate.
You can get a little bit more pressure.
But I mean, you're already, you know, 200 bar.
So it's not like there's a ton of room to go.
And so that was kind of what shut that door.
It was like, man, this is going to be a huge investment
for a relatively small market.
And people go, okay, I've got bigger injectors now.
And in their mind, they're like,
now I can make a bunch of power.
You're like, well, not really.
I mean, now you can go from gas to ethanol.
Right.
Like you're ceiling raised just a little bit.
Yeah. Okay.
I'm curious when we're talking to V10 platform,
what would these come with?
DI?
Both.
Both? Okay, so, okay.
And that's been great.
So when DI came out, it's like, oh shit,
you know, now everybody's screwed.
They did that for a little while
and almost anything with DI now
also has port injectors
because there are advantages to having fuel
in the intake port.
And so that's been great.
It kind of fixed that problem for most people.
Like even the B58 stuff, you know, it used to be just DI.
Now it's DI in port.
And so all of a sudden that roadblock has gone.
How tapped in are you with the OE industry then?
Do you have any idea like where the next five or 10 years
looks like or not really, not to that level?
Okay.
I remember one of the things you were talking about
on Street Alpha, which I always like to give
Tuks's flowers, you know, like, you know, guys legit.
I've hung out with him a handful of times at events.
But where you, I think you briefly mentioned something
about hybrid platforms, especially with like, you know,
Temarario now finally getting delivered.
Is there any interest in development on that front?
Or what are your thoughts there?
I have a hybrid car.
I think it's a great thing overall.
I have a BMW XM that's the hybrid.
And you do get a bit of the best of both worlds.
So it's a cool thing.
But when it comes to modifying in the aftermarket,
it's a, I think it's going to be a big roadblock, right?
You know, anybody can turbocharge an engine.
That's, it doesn't matter what car it is.
That's easy, but making the electronics work
is the hard part.
And like it was already hard on new cars.
And now you want to throw the hybrid aspect in the mix.
So for the aftermarket, I think it's going to make things tough.
Have you been able to dabble with anything?
Like have you plugged into any cars yet or anything?
No, just holding on then.
Yeah, cause like I remember like people are trying to modify
like the 2017 NSX and it's like, you have to get a moat,
like bare minimum, you have to get a mo-tech and all that.
Like you can do, like if you want a significant powering
races and whatever.
So, but I think that also depends on the approach as well.
Cause I believe like the e-rays, like from what I've seen,
it doesn't really impact anything, right?
Yeah, you know, I mean, my initial thoughts were,
this is going to be a big problem.
But you know, I say that there's tunes for the BMW XM.
So maybe it's not as much of a factor,
but you know, when you're talking about
tuning a stock computer, like when you have a factory,
a car with turbos from the factory,
there's always a ton of potential, right?
Because- Especially with BMWs.
Nobody's going to release a car that's at its limit, right?
And so that's one thing.
Now you want to put turbos on something
that didn't come with, whole different ball game.
And so who knows, maybe the factory turbo hybrid stuff
won't be much of a problem from a standpoint
where somebody who is able to tune the factory, you see,
I don't do any of that stuff.
All I do is mo-tech, but integrating a mo-tech
on a car like that is going to be very difficult.
When you get to a certain level in a build,
whether it be drag racing or drifting, road course,
or just the badass street car,
you'll have to upgrade your transmission.
And when we're talking sequential transmissions,
there's no one on the planet
would have stronger gearbox than 6XD.
And the proof is in the pudding here, folks.
Half the FD field is rocking a 6XD
and even 3,000 horsepower vipers
have not been able to tame the best that 6XD has to offer.
So if you're ready to take it up a notch,
go to 6XDgearbox.com,
and when contacting them to place an order,
use code monoxide5, or reach out via socials
to figure out how one of the baddest transmissions
on the planet could fit in your build.
Let's get back to the show.
What makes you wake up in the morning excited?
Are you excited to come to work every day?
I am.
All right, why?
It's been different things over the years
and that's where the race cars come in.
And lately, for me, it's like,
I got an email last week from mo-tech
with some new updated firmware for the GTR and the Huracan.
They're like, this isn't, test it.
Let me know what you think, test this and that.
And at this point, the shop runs itself pretty well
and I'm here, I'm still making decisions here and there,
but at the core, the tuning is 100% my responsibility
and it will be because that's what I enjoy doing.
And so when something new comes out, I'm like, oh,
now I get to go play with this new thing.
And I like that, I like that part of it.
What do those firmware updates look like?
When they say go test it, what are you looking for?
So the back of the day, a computer would run an engine.
It did fuel an ignition, maybe it did cam control, whatever.
The mo-tech nowadays for these cars
is so incredibly advanced.
The Traction Control, the torque modeling,
this new one has all these new anti-lack functions
and strategies and it's like,
they'll completely change something
because they found a way to do it significantly better,
but it's like, you can't just migrate what you had,
you have to learn this whole new strategy.
And I'm okay with that, but for a lot of people
that a lot of tuners just kind of landed
on somebody's calibration and roll with it
and then new stuff like this comes out
and they're gonna be lost, but I like that aspect of it.
I'm gonna probably hurt myself going into
way too deep of waters here, but can you explain
like an anti-lack strategy would change?
Like how does it work?
What's changing?
Okay, so a traditional anti-lag
from like a rally aspect years ago, right?
It involves air going through the engine
to keep the turbos fooled up when the throttle's closed.
And so there didn't used to be drive-by-wire
and everything.
Now we have, the computer has full control of the throttle.
So you can have one kind of version of an anti-lag
where you're off the throttle
and the turbo's making boost.
And so with that, you can have compensations
based on brake pressure, steering, anything.
And then in our world, the anti-lag is more
roll race type of situation where you're full throttle,
but it's holding the car steady.
And so this new version,
the old version would do the same thing
in that like a traditional style anti-lag,
you're off the throttle,
but the computer is telling the engine
how much torque it wants.
And so it'll open the throttle
to make whatever your torque request is.
On the old one, we would just have to go full throttle
and retard ignition timing or cut enough
to get it to kind of hold a roughly steady speed.
And you could have throttle as an axis
for the ignition retard to where you could make it
to where maybe a 50% throttle would hold a speed.
And if you gave it more,
it would have a little bit less retard
to where you could still speed up or you could still slow down.
Oh, okay.
So you could have all that.
The new one has an option for an actual speed limit
to where it'll set a speed and hold it there.
So Texas 2K,
you're not gonna be accidentally jumping sort of deal.
So this is what I was going back and forth
with them a little bit about.
Having a set speed is cool in some instances, right?
Qualifying a 2K would be ideal.
65, the car's not gonna go faster than that.
You let go of the button, it's good.
But in actual competition, that's not good, right?
Because you're trying to pace with somebody
and you're like, well, shit, I'm fixed at this speed
and they're ahead of me.
So it needs to be a variable deal.
And we're gonna set it up to where
once you hit the button, it'll lock it at that speed.
And so you wouldn't hit the button until you're there already.
But if you had a set start speed of 65
and you can't catch up to the guy
because that's the start speed.
So it needs to be flexible and that's how it'll be.
Okay.
So when did you make the decision to go just all mode tech?
Did you play around with some stuff back in the day?
Yeah, I mean, I've tuned everything you can imagine.
But being in 2011 or so, we went exclusive Nissan GTR.
And so at the time it was just Cobb.
So I've tuned a bunch of Cobb stuff.
Syvex came out with a plug-in by ECU before Mode Tech did.
So we did a bunch of Syvex and then Mode Tech came out
and that's all I've done since.
But it got to be a point where I would spend more time
trying to get a stock ECU to idle.
I'm anal and I know it could be better
when it comes to like idle and drivability
and things like that.
And so if it's not as good as I know it can be,
it bothers me a lot.
And so I would spend more time just trying to get
the idle right with a factory ECU where I'm like,
I would have been done with this in a minute with Mode Tech.
And I was like, I'm just done fighting this.
But big injectors and bigger throttles
and I mean, it just throws everything off in the ECU.
So it's just at the level of cars we're building
it wasn't worth fighting.
And there's just way too many advantages.
So I just said, if we're building the car,
it has Mode Tech and that's it.
So let's say you have a brand new build in here
and it's ready to finally go tune or get it.
Like you just finished wiring it up and everything.
How long is that process to get it to be
a full on docile street car?
So at this point, I've, you know, every car you do,
you continue refining the calibration.
And if they're up to me, the car would never leave
because every time I drive a car,
there's something that can be a little bit better.
And so that's why I have a daily car with the Mode Tech in it
that I can tweak and, you know,
these new firmware updates come out
and I've got a car to play with.
But doing basically these two platforms for so long,
the calibrations are really, really good at this point.
And so the way the Mode Tech set up,
you tell it, you know, your displacement,
you tell it what injectors you have,
you tell it what sensors you have.
But the foundation stuff is, for the most part,
the same across all the cars.
So I can plug into a new build and fires right up,
right off the bat, put it on the dyno,
do the engine break in,
and I can be, you know, done with the car in an hour.
But it's because I've got thousands of hours
in building the calibration to this point.
So it doesn't take me long at all at this point,
but it's because of that.
Is that the daily bed away?
That is the daily bed.
That is a nice, is that as on Twin Turbot as well,
then I'm guessing?
Okay.
Okay, well actually, let's go down that path.
So Twin Turbot daily, how much is it making roughly for a?
1400.
Okay, so that's a dailyable Huracan.
Dailyable, yeah.
So is there any compromise to that compared to the stock STO?
No, and that's a really amazing thing about that platform.
Now the GTR, say you went from, you know,
600 to 1200 horsepower.
The engine's built, transmission's built.
It's got, you know, a big exhaust that runs under the car.
They're going to be loud.
The transmission and the GTR, you know, to be fair,
it's old.
I mean, GTR came out in 2008 in Japan.
When did they start developing that transmission?
Maybe 2005 or sooner, right?
It's 20 years old minimum.
And the technology is significantly worse
than what's in the newer DCT cars.
So the V10s drive, you wouldn't know it has
a huge horsepower upgrade or built trans or anything.
So these, they're loud.
The trans is a little clunky.
You can tell these have been modified.
It really doesn't hold true to the V10.
That platform, because when did the last Huracan get made?
23, 24, whatever.
Did the DCT evolve during its period or is it all the same?
If it did, it's not to any reasonable degree.
I mean, there may be like little internal differences.
Now, so that is something.
The trans on the GTR, same deal.
Like there's been some little changes,
but really the big changes is that they've continued
to develop the TCM calibration.
So if you drive an 09 or a 2020,
they drive completely different.
It's not the trans, it's the calibration for the trans.
So that has improved significantly.
I know, I don't do the TCM calibrations on the V10 stuff.
There's not ecutech like there is for these
and it's through Winolas and I'm busy enough.
So we use AMS for our TCU tunes.
Oh, cool, okay.
And I know just from going back and forth with them,
like a 15 Huracan versus a Perf,
the cal is significantly different.
Like these are kind of a bitch.
So that's definitely changed on those too,
but I don't see that side of it.
Cause I don't, I just flash this.
Gotcha. Okay. That makes sense.
And are you working with them through every range of car?
Like whether it's a 1200 horsepower,
2000 horsepower Huracan?
Yes, as far as the TCU cal, they're the only ones we use.
Now, if we're doing, if you're doing like,
say you want to make, you know,
1000 horsepower without going into the trans,
you can do it, but you're going to need a cow
to raise the clutch pressure
because the clutch will slip otherwise.
So if somebody wanted something where maybe it's a,
you know, it's got a nine plate Pro Max or something
and they want to make, you know, 1200 or something,
you don't necessarily need a TCU cow.
The factory one works well.
It's just whether or not you need more pressure.
Gotcha. Okay.
They do do some, some other things that the factory one
doesn't. So if you're drag racing it,
how it launches will vary.
So if it's anything that's going to be drag race,
then no matter what, we're doing a, a call in it.
Okay. What's the most daunting thing that you've come
across in the years, any project or anything that was just
like, I might be a little bit over my skis here.
You know, it's the development side of things.
You know, we jumped into the V10 market and my RA was the
first engine we ever built.
And I'm like, I've learned a lot over the years.
If it's not broke, don't break it.
And so on that build, I did a bare minimum.
Like let's put Pissons rods, head studs in the same,
see how far it goes, but Vow springs.
And I went 740 with the most basic engine combo.
It's crazy how far they can go.
Yeah.
And, but, you know, as we've gone further and further,
you've got cars making over 3000.
Now we're getting into built blocks and a lot more
modifications and we're learning some things that I'd
prefer not to have to learn, but you know, that's,
that's part of the development.
We've got, it's, it's a long and hard and expensive road,
but that's the only way to, I mean, we did it all in the GTR
too, you know, the, the first GTR we built coming from
Honda's with a B series, like you're not going to make a lot
of power if you don't sleeve it, right?
And so, you know, the first GTR block I saw, I'm like,
it's all aluminum.
Like there's no way this is going to hold anything.
So we sleeve the first one we built, put Darden,
MID sleeves in it and made like 1200 horsepower,
cracked the block.
And I'm like, and so it turns out, you know, now we know
after taking a step back, well, let's just find out where
the factory block fails.
For the most part, it doesn't.
I mean, I've seen a couple of break, but you can make 2500
horsepower on a factory liner and it doesn't, it doesn't break.
So when you put the MID sleeves in, you're removing so much
material from the block that you lost so much strength
and then the block cracks.
What's the weakest part of those GTR blocks?
So the GTR, it's wild that they do what they do.
There's only four main bearings in GTR.
And so like they're sharing a lot of load and two and three
see most of it.
And so with the factory block not sleeved,
where it's still as rigid as it's going to be,
that'll be your first week link and the block flexing
and the main bearings taking a beating.
And so we have a chromoly girdle that we put in,
we update from 10 millimeter mains to 12 millimeter mains.
And that is a significant improvement in that regard.
Once you do that, there's kind of, like I said,
I've seen a couple break, but there's kind of not a limit
that I've found yet.
But by the time you have turbos big enough to make
2500 plus horsepower, the extra displacement you can get
from a billet block, you go from a, you know,
a 41 to a 43 it really likes the bigger bore.
And so our big, big stuff at this point is all billet block.
And it's not necessarily because the stock block's not strong
enough, it's just the better combo
because it's bigger displacement.
Okay, that makes sense.
Yeah, I overheard, I think it was last year at Texas 2K,
I think I overheard Terrence talking about it.
Like that's just the four mains in there.
And that's like a big one.
Cause like what do Hondas have?
Five.
Right.
So like when I overheard him talking about that,
I'm like, oh, that makes sense.
Yeah.
Okay.
Is there any meat left on the bone with the GTR platform?
I wish.
I mean, we're, we're at a point where we could potentially
make more power, but the engine longevity, even at the big
power we're making is not, it's not acceptable.
I mean, we can go run an event and, you know,
George's car went a 61 at what, two 42 or something.
And we made a bunch of passes there and it,
it broke the flex plate for the torque converter.
And, you know, in tearing it down,
like the main bearings are already taken to beating.
Like it was, it, I thought it broke a crank on the last pass.
And because the Motec was showing errors for basically
the cam crank relationship.
And the crank is a weak link on those.
So I was like, all right, it broke the crank.
We got it apart.
The flex plate was destroyed.
And so the trigger rings on the flex plate.
And so it was the same as the crank breaking.
So had that not happened, it would have needed to come apart.
Anyway, after every race, we do, you know, a post race service
cut the oil filter open, you know, just look for bearings
or anything bad.
And at that, that, that run would have been for sure
the most power we've ever made on anything.
So that was like 83 pounds of booze,
250 horsepower nitrous and, you know, it went down,
but it's not going to do that very often.
Which car was that in again?
I remember seeing it.
That's a, so night terror.
So the rear wheel drive car with the big tires.
Got you.
The TH 400.
Is that the only car of that caliber in your camp?
Or like, do you have multiple deep, deep into six second cars?
So that car, that car's basically,
it's the same engine combo as night fury,
which is all wheel drive car.
They're both matte blacks.
It's not confusing at all.
Yeah.
Night fury has gone 64 oh, at two, 34.
Then that car went 61 at two, 42, I think.
Same engine combo, just different driveline.
We've got those.
Billy's car is the same engine and turbo combo,
the Roll Race car.
And then the 68 millimeter cars aren't,
aren't that far behind the precision.
68, 85, Clay's car makes 72 or 73 pounds of boost.
I mean, I think they're probably 27, 2800 horsepower.
Okay.
So with the top two cars, then what drove the decision
to go rear wheel drive on the other one?
This transmission is great,
but it's kind of a bitch to race with.
Compared to a race car, right?
You know, you have an automatic, you've got a torque converter.
They're, I won't say they're designed for it
because it wasn't designed for that.
It just works really well.
But they'll take a beating and they'll do it
over and again.
And we're asking a lot of this thing, you know?
It's a factory transmission with just upgraded guts.
The fact that it can even do what it does, I mean,
to put 3000 plus horsepower through the factory casting
and transmission and it worked, it's cool,
but it's not designed for drag racing.
You know, either a proper, you know, any manual car
that really drag race, this has a proper slipper clutch.
Now we've got the ability to slip the clutch a little bit,
but we still have limited control
because in the end the TCM is controlling it.
We have, there's going to be a limit to how much
we can slip it without hurting it.
Cause you've got, you know, like these at this level
you'll have 13 plates and the, the steels in between
the frictions are only a millimeter thick.
And so once those warp, there's no free play anymore
in the clutch's trash.
So it's, we're limited on what we can do.
Now, MoTeX started a standalone M1 TCM a decade ago.
And like I said, the, the transmission tuning on these
has come so far over the years from Nissan.
Initially there was a lot to be desired.
And so MoTeX started this development project.
Well, over time of, of building this,
the car kept getting better.
And the, you know, we weren't making a ton of power back then.
And so the project got shelved
because there wasn't really a need for it.
And so, you know, now there's a need for it.
And it's, it's almost ready at this point.
So MoTeX Australia was working on it
and we kind of got it resurrected and then COVID happened
and Australia just completely shut down.
And so it's just been on a back burner.
And so now MoTeX USA has taken over the project.
I sent them a GTR, they've been just continually developing
this and it's very, very close at this point.
So it's, it's gonna happen.
It's actually gonna happen,
but it'll be a standalone plug and play TCM replacement.
So this will give us full control over everything.
And, you know, the V10s drive significantly better
than these do.
When you, when you upgrade the clutches,
you've changed the characteristics of the clutch
so much from stock, but we don't have enough control
in the TCM to really fine tune things.
And so you'll get on these things sometimes
like on a 23 shift, we call it like a park.
Like it shifts and it's like harsh.
Okay.
And it's kind of just the exchange of clutches
isn't smooth enough.
And so they were able to fix that
with individual control of clutch crossovers.
So you have even odd, odd even, and we can fine tune that.
So they're able to get rid of that,
but we have, we'll have full control
over how the clutch comes in.
And right now we can, we can lie to the TCM
and make things happen that help the launch,
but in the end we don't have full control.
It could be better.
Got you.
And so there's that.
Now the other possibility that this brings in
is you can, but you can't drag race DCT car on a pro tree.
Yeah.
Yep.
Cause of the delay.
The ability is there to bump in.
It's been in the Motec for years.
We got that sorted.
It's there, but what you have to do,
you pre-stage, you hold a button, you get into launch,
you let off the brake for it to creep forward
and then you got to get back on the brake.
Then you go off the button and then you got to
let off the brake again to cut a light.
And it's, it's one of these things that I can't,
I can do it at a parking lot.
There's no way I could cut a light doing it.
And so it's, luckily everywhere we race as a sportsman tree
because it's just, it's what these cars need.
But you go to some race that's not a GTR race
and you have to race on a pro tree and you're like, shit,
like you just go in first and get in launch
and then you can focus on the tree
and not worry about anything else.
At this point, everybody knows that that's what you have
to do so they can burn you down.
So it kind of sucks, but there could be a clutch pedal.
And so you could add a clutch pedal,
you could stage the car like a normal
manual transmission car.
And then the clutch pedal in that regard
would be more of a switch.
You still have the computer control what the clutch does,
but that's kind of your, your, your go button.
Right.
So has there been any progress in that?
Cause again, I think your episode two,
cause it was a year and a half ago, two years ago posted
as that made some progress, especially with, you know,
I'll take you as saying all that.
Yeah. Because this was all, like I said,
it was just a back burner thing.
And we got them to resurrect the project
and devote some time to it.
And then it was back to the back burner.
And so, you know, I do, I deal with MoTeC Australia
direct on a lot of the, like when I get a firmware update
or something like that, because MoTeC USA is great.
They, they know anything there is to know about MoTeC.
The old MoTeC was, you just need to know the computer.
There isn't a bunch of vehicle integration,
but on this, like you have to know the platform
specifically in depth.
And so the guy in Australia that writes all the code for these,
he's the one that knows this.
So I deal with him direct when it comes to, you know,
these new features or future requests and things like that.
But dealing with MoTeC USA, I'm like, look,
we need this TCM and it's not going anywhere.
And so they were able to take the project over
and now they have full control.
So it's, it's, it's functional and it's,
I don't know when it'll be something you can buy,
but like I have the calibration and it's working
and they've got a lot of miles locked on the car at this point.
Is that a customer car or a personal car
that you sent over to them?
Or is it like working from both?
It's a customer's car that's been here for 10 years or something.
Okay.
Like he's just like, let's, let's party with this sort of deal.
Yeah.
It's kind of a, one of those things that Bill never got paid
and the car just never went anywhere.
Oh, gosh.
Now I understand.
It's, it's, it's mine, but it's, yeah.
Okay, fair enough.
I was like, it's sitting here.
You might as well, I'll sit at you.
You can play with it.
Who do you respect most in this industry?
I, there's, there's a handful of people
that I have a lot of respect for.
There's so many aspects to the things that we do, right?
You know, we use John Shepherd
for all of our transmission work.
I have since day one with DCT stuff.
We do the engine stuff here.
We could do, we could do transmission stuff,
but we're all busy.
I've got a full house.
John's great to work with.
I know that when I get something back from him,
I trust that it's, that it's going to be right.
And almost all the time it is.
And so we work closely with him,
my engine builder that I work with.
When I got in this industry in 1997,
we at Jotec, we were using this machine shop
and my engine builder worked there.
So literally I've been working with him
since the day I got in this industry.
And now he's, he's right down the road,
more or less exclusive to us.
And he basically does an engine a week.
So we send all the parts over there,
all the machine work, short block assembly,
cylinder head assembly, and then it gets back here.
Brandon does all the long walk assembly.
And so every week it's drop one off, pick one up.
So just back and forth.
So we've got a really good work relationship there.
I'm, we manufacture a lot of parts.
If you look at the parts we manufacture,
it might look weird.
We don't do intercoolers or exhaust systems
or basic turbo kits.
That's all out there.
And so if there's an industry partner
that we work with, AMS, BoostLogic, ETS,
if somebody makes a good product,
I have no problem using their product.
And, you know, we make our money on our margin and move on.
The parts that we make, we've got, you know,
the mechanical fuel pump kit for a GTR
and just oddball shit that there was a void.
And so there needed to be a product.
So we built it and we manufacture that.
And, you know, when it came time to do
our fuel system for the V10,
I bought a Huracan gas tank,
I bought an RA gas tank just in case they were different
and, you know, kind of apart.
And I'm getting into all this, how we're gonna do this.
And I'm looking at AMS's kit and I'm like,
they really did it right.
And, you know, I could have knocked off all the parts
and, you know, call it my own.
But instead I talked to Martin
and I'm like, I want my own fuel system.
I want to do some things different than what you did.
But what you did in the tank is right.
And will you probably label these for me
rather than going around him?
And, you know, they still make money on it.
So there's a handful of products
that we have as T1 branded parts
that aren't T1 design parts
because the respect that I have for the people
that did it initially.
I've had enough of my shit knocked off
and it's not fun.
I don't like it.
No, that's really cool.
Like AMS is kind of central to this market, it seems.
They work with a lot of people like,
I can't remember why I'm allowed to disclose
and not disclose.
But yeah, it seems like there's a lot of stuff
with various companies where it's like,
you can do like sort of like a white label
or some version or whatever.
So that's really cool.
Okay.
Damn it, I had a good one in there.
Lost that one.
What are you currently knocking your head against the wall?
Is there something that's just being a pain in the ass
right now?
The GTR engine lasting more than a handful of passes
at 3000 horsepower.
You've probably seen the Elmer racing in Finland.
They have what they call the hell engine.
And it's a five liter from scratch full billet
VR38 replacement.
Okay, I've not seen this.
Okay, it's very cool.
That's insane.
I paid for 12 and a half years ago at this point
and it was supposed to be like six months
and we're getting close.
But it's literally Bolton place of VR38.
But it's not, you know, like everybody else's billet block
is a copy of a factory billet block.
This is from scratch, has billet heads, everything,
the cylinder spacing, the born stroke is,
everything's just, it's a five liter V6.
And normally you'd see somebody, you know,
advertise something like this.
And like, I wouldn't even consider it.
These, this isn't the first from scratch billet engine
these guys have done.
They have a four liter engine they call Thor, I think,
that has based on a, I think it's a Porsche 944.
It's a, I think it's a four liter four cylinder,
but it's one time attack multiple times.
That's insane.
So that's, that says a lot, right?
You can't, you can't throw together an engine
and win time attack races.
So these guys, they do know what they're doing.
It's a significant undertaking to build
from scratch billet deal like that.
That I'm hoping is what allows us to continue progression
on the GTR because with where things are,
I, I'm not able to make them live.
I could make more power.
There's always bigger turbos,
but they, they just, they won't live.
And so that's, we're asking a lot of parts, you know,
there's no, there's no room for a bigger crank
and bigger rods and things like that.
So I'm hoping that, that takes us over that.
Okay.
Cause that's gonna be my next question is,
is, and maybe you're not able to disclose it at this point,
but what does that engine address?
What that, that you're not able to currently,
or do you want to hold back on that?
Well, I mean, the, the power ceiling should go up
significantly just from the displacement, bigger valves.
You know, you can only cram so much shit into a small hole.
So the ability to make more power,
but even if, if that wasn't a factor,
if we could make the same power we're making now,
cause I mean, we're making a lot of power.
If we could make that same power for four or five times
as long, that's huge.
Yeah.
Yeah. And I'm sure it's such a cheap undertaking
as well, right?
And, you know, it's funny, like if you,
if you buy our 4.3 their billet long block
and you don't provide a core, right?
So we have to buy heads, timing covers, you know,
all the,
all the, all the shit that does get reused.
It's more expensive than this engine will be.
Oh wow. Okay.
So it's, it's not even a situation where it's like,
yeah, but nobody's going to be able to afford it.
Like people are already spending that amount of money.
Now, if it works like it does,
I don't think they're going to be able to keep up
with production.
That's the next problem.
You mentioned something there, billet heads.
Does anybody even do those for the GTR?
I know Martin tried to pursue it years ago
and decided, you know what, not worth it.
Yeah.
It's kind of like the TCM.
There wasn't really much of a need.
And now as things continue to progress,
the need is, is there more?
Okay.
So the deck surface on the GTR, I mean, again,
the fact that they do what they do says a lot,
but the deck surface will yield eventually.
And so once the, once the deck gives a little bit,
now you've lost your clamp on the, on that gasket.
And so before, you know, back the day
when we were running an MLS head gasket,
once you would lose that clamp,
you'd see cool and pressure, you know, start to jump up.
And then with an MLS gasket, you've got,
maybe it's three, could be four or five layers, whatever,
but the middle layer would just start to like compress out.
And so you would take one off, take one apart
that wasn't blown, but it was, it was compromised.
And the middle layer is like wrinkled, like pressed out.
And so you've all seen the results of a blown head gasket,
right, where it looks like a flamethrower went through there
and towards the head and the block and it destroys parts.
So with our firing setup, it doesn't do that.
It will leak eventually once you lose,
once you lose some of the clamp,
but we keep an eye on cool and pressure
with where we measure cool and pressure.
We're on the high pressure side of the engine,
mechanical water pump.
And so the cool and pressure,
you could look at on a properly sealed engine,
if you plotted cool and pressure,
it'll look just like the RPM trace.
So it's gonna follow RPM.
So if you were to do, like if you do a scatter plot
and look at cool and pressure versus inlet manifold pressure,
and you see cool and pressure going up
with inlet manifold pressure, you know, you got a problem.
But eventually they'll start to leak.
And you might see like 35, maybe 40 PSI
on a healthy engine that's sealed, it's not leaking.
Okay.
At our higher RPM.
If you have a race car,
so like I use the PWR radiators
that have the extruded fin core,
and they're safe to 100 PSI,
where a normal radiator, it'll balloon
if you get too much pressure.
Like you blow, I guess it balloons, right?
But they'll do it at a much lower pressure.
So on our race car stuff with the extruded fin,
everything's either, you know,
Wiggins clamps or an lines or whatever.
There's no hose clamps that can blow off
in the cooling system.
As they start to leak a little bit,
I'm not concerned with it.
It's a little bit of cylinder pressure
getting into the cooling system.
It's not the other way around.
And so as long as you can manage it,
you can keep running it.
I've run over 100 PSI, you know,
you're at an event and yeah, it's not perfect.
We could park the car or we could keep racing it.
So like I've let him go to over 100.
And then you're like, all right,
this needs to be addressed,
but we can continue racing.
Now, if you had say a factory cooling system
with, you know, the factory hose clamps
and rubber hoses and stuff like that,
if you try to do that,
you're probably gonna have problems.
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Let's get back to the show.
Are your customers as competitive as you?
The ones that have been,
some people get into this, they wanna go racing.
Some people have been racing for, you know,
I think my first,
with BoTech that it logs,
it categorizes things by vehicle ID,
which would be customer's name on my end,
and then year and then month.
And if I pull up George's logs,
I think it starts in like 2012.
So if you're gonna do it that long,
it's because you're really competitive.
Some people wanna go race,
and that's the other part of the problem.
Everybody wants to go faster than they went last time.
And when the knobs are at 11, that gets difficult to do.
And that's where the GTRs are in basically,
you know, every market.
The 58 millimeter class, A-List car,
we built that car around the rules for that class.
And I forget what the record was,
but it was significantly slower than we went.
We went 71 like five or six times, one TX2K.
And it was like, this is great.
And sometimes things go like that.
And sometimes they don't.
Sometimes shit breaks, or the car's not consistent,
there's issues.
But now when you've gone 71
and I was all in already,
and it's like, why isn't it going faster?
The knobs are already all the way.
So it gets tough.
Is that the hardest,
what's the hardest class for you guys to build a car for?
Well, I mean, we've,
I think we might have the record in all the classes
at this point.
Okay.
So Christine's gone 67 and 68 millimeter class.
A-List gone seven.
I think she might have gone an O at TX2K,
which she went TX2K 25 and 26.
That's the record in the 58 class.
Georgia's car in the unlimited class at 640.
We can do it in any class.
It's just the more power it makes,
the less reliable it's gonna be.
You're gonna go through more parts.
So the 68 classes, or the 58 class is nice,
because it's only gonna make 22 or 23 hundred horsepower.
It's like, they can live a reasonable life there,
but you had a thousand changes.
Do you have a, I think you mentioned you had a couple
of couples.
Do you have a lot of couples that get into racing here,
or just a handful?
You know, I never really thought about it,
but so George and Christine, Brandon and Aila,
I think that might be it.
Okay.
Yeah.
Gotcha.
What's next for the V10 platform then?
Obviously that's not like the GTR.
That one has a little bit more meat on the bone,
hopefully than the GTR at this point.
A little, but we're thrusting that gap quickly.
So we work with a shop in Germany called
A9 Performance.
They have a half mile R8 and it's a red R8.
I think it went 253 last time it was out.
And they're racing next weekend with a new combo.
It's our engine and I do all the tuning on it,
but I'm eager to see what that one does.
Cause there's a lot of things,
they did a really good job putting that car together.
And the weak links that we found,
they've come up with solutions for.
So we'll see how that goes.
You know, the aim is to have my record.
So that'll be cool.
But yeah, the V10 novice, it's a 10 and a half.
Okay.
What's the limiting factor?
Is it engine or trans on these?
For us as engine at this point, we're still working on.
Yeah.
It's interesting to see, especially one of my favorite things
before Texas 2K is everybody's posting their dyno charts
and just seeing everybody's like different approach to it.
I'm like, all right, let's see who's gonna,
who's gonna be out to party this year sort of deal.
Is there any other platforms that you wanna dab with
or is this gonna be the foreseeable future for a while?
This is foreseeable for now, for sure.
We'll do Porsche, McLaren, like full bolt on level stuff.
When it comes to anything beyond that,
I have no interest in doing it unless I can tune it.
So whether or not there's a MoTek kit for it
for us to do our own MoTek kit
on a very advanced car like that,
like there's a handful of people in the world
that are capable of doing the reverse engineering
and building a package for that.
And I'm not one of them.
So,
people know us for record setting cars and things like that.
And I've had people like,
will you do a Porsche Formi or a Viper?
It's like, I know what the road looks like
to get to the record setting level.
And my hands are more than full with work as it stands.
So to start over with a new platform
while this is already here, it just doesn't make sense.
Yeah, like if you wanted to go, for example,
Chase Kratos' record in the Viper world,
like you're just gonna have to dump
so much time and money into it.
But Aaron will just tell me everything to do
and I'll just start from where he knows.
Yeah, yeah, you know, things, oh yeah,
cause everybody just shares.
Well, actually touch on that.
Well, you already mentioned like, you know,
you got Shepherd, you got Martin, you, ETS, all these guys.
Is there a lot of sharing when it comes to
being at the track still within this industry for you?
I don't, I can't speak for other people,
but yes, I have a very good relationship
with everybody that I deal with.
Okay.
I was on the phone with Jason Hefner
for an hour yesterday, you know, working through something.
I have no problem sharing with those that I know
aren't just leeches, you know?
Like I go back and forth with Martin and Lance
on ancient stuff all the time.
Yeah, it's, look, we all want to be able to deliver
the best experience for our customers.
And look, there's a lot of hard lessons to be learned.
And like I said, if somebody's not a leech
and we're sharing, then it's better for all of us to advance.
So yeah, I have no problem with that.
And I think that's the way forward.
Okay.
What's the hardest lesson you had to learn?
Either business or car wise or whatever.
We're very specific on who we allow
to be a customer at this point.
And there are bad customers.
When it comes to builds specifically, you know,
somebody's buying parts, whatever.
But we by now do a really good job of feeling people out
and knowing who's gonna be a problem
and who's not gonna be a problem.
And if you, you know, if you want a car like this,
like you're not gonna buy a 2,500 horsepower GTR
and, you know, it'd have a warranty or it'd not break.
That's not how it goes.
So I'd say the hardest lesson was the mistakes
in allowing the wrong people to be customers.
And that doesn't happen a lot.
We had one a little while back
and that just reminds you to be better at that.
Yeah, be cautious.
What about, obviously one of the things you mentioned
off air was a lot of the customers here grow with you.
And as they continue to progress, you know,
turn to dial from 11 to 12, 12 to 13, you know, but
do you ever, like for example,
is there ever somebody that comes in here
is like, you know what, I want a 1,600 or 2,000 horsepower
build, are you the one coaching them?
Or do you go on, you know, to track day with them?
Like, is there a coaching session for some of this stuff?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
If we do a build, you're gonna end up,
you're gonna get a notebook that's got, you know,
documentation on maintenance requirements,
there's so much stuff in the Motek,
like how the functions work, how the maps are set up,
how to change the maps, how to do this and that.
And then, you know, when it comes to the track,
we, I think maybe more so than anybody,
provide an amazing arrive and drive experience
for our customers.
So we had 15 cars at TX2K26.
And you're tuning all them by the way?
All right, that's insane.
It's not, don't do it.
It's not smart.
But the problem is, you know, we build these cars
in the customer's phone race.
I can't tell them, no, you can't,
no, I'm only selecting Tenny or something.
And so we just have to deal with it.
It is what it is.
And so we, we accommodate, you know,
when it comes to text, there's usually roughly
three texts will take care of two or three cars.
And you know, everything's grouped,
the Stuart manages all that does a great job
of keeping everybody on track.
And this is your responsibility.
This is yours.
There's a checklist for every car, every pass.
And so the customers go, run.
There's always one of our staff with him
in the burnout on the line, just to make sure that,
you know, by now most of them know what to do,
but it's still just their trick and tire pressure
lining them up, you know, put them in a burnout box.
But it's, it's a surprisingly well-oiled machine
for that level of work.
It's wild.
Well, that's one of the things I've heard
from other shops too is like customer supports
super difficult when it comes to a track event.
And like when it comes to Texas 2K,
you guys have one of the biggest tents on the property
with the amount of customers that you bring out there.
Yep.
How are you able to do that, right?
Because like for a lot of these shops,
it costs them money to go there.
Is it more so just, it's important for your brand
to go out there to support customers?
Is it actually like, are you burning money at that point?
Or what are your thoughts?
Okay, so it's not an option for us to go.
It's in our backyard.
It's the biggest race of the year.
It's specifically for the cars we build.
Yeah, very much.
And so like, I can't not go, right?
And so we're gonna go, all of our customers wanna go,
and we just deal with it.
So, I have a handful of texts,
but I've got a bunch of guys that handle
assembly parts, building wire harnesses, all this stuff.
Basically, we have 22 employees.
We probably have 16 plus at the track.
And everybody's able,
you don't have to be a mechanic to be able to
fill a car with fuel and drain a catch can
and check tire pressures and torque wheels.
So we've got guys that aren't texts
that are able to come and assist.
And so, you know, everybody does all that.
It's the longest week of the year by a month.
But if you do,
I talked to Martin a lot,
and he was part of this Ferrari road race thing.
And they basically have an arrive and drive thing
for customers, but it's $25,000 for a weekend.
And those cars don't require any work.
You know, they're not like,
they go out and run a session and they come back and,
you know, check the tires and whatever.
What I do with my guys, and it's nice for us
that it's local because we don't have to fly people out,
but we take the sum of all of our expenses to be there
and divided among everybody.
And for 15 cars, if you raced,
at 2K26, if you raced the six days or whatever it is,
I mean, it's straight up week.
Way too long.
It was roughly $6,000 in track sport per car.
And to have that level of support for that many days,
for that amount of money is ridiculous.
You know, it's, I don't want to say,
I'm not making money on it, I'm just not losing money on it.
And so I'm okay with that.
That's the goal I hear from everybody.
You know, that's, it's our business.
That's what we do.
If we don't go race, then people don't want to build
these cars.
Most of what we're building isn't for the street.
And so if there's, if we're not racing,
then there's no point.
So if we can do it and everybody have fun
and we're not losing money at it, I'm good.
Okay.
Are you doing events as well, like to that level of support,
like Brayden 10 for FL2K or anything or not as much?
So, TS2K has, you know, been for 10 plus years
and it's always in Texas.
So that's, that's always been easy.
We used to do, well, for maybe five years,
we did a World Cup finals in Maryland.
Yep.
And, you know, that's not our race.
That's a race that we can go to.
Track conditions are amazing.
The track's great.
We go there set records.
And when we go there,
I have to fly all the crew out, the expenses go up,
not as many people go.
So the per car cost, it's still six days.
The per car cost goes up significantly.
And it's like, it's not a race that we're going to win.
It's just to go and try to set records.
So that, the novelty wore off pretty quickly on that.
And so we haven't been there.
I've actually never been to FL2K.
We were going to go after we decided
we're not doing World Cup finals.
And it was the year that the hurricane was coming
right across our driving path.
And I had a transporter set up, $20,000,
transport all the cars and everything.
And we're watching the weather and it's like,
it seemed very unlikely the race was going to happen.
And it was like, if we call it now,
we get our transport money back.
Versus, if we chance it and then go,
I mean, it would have been a huge loss of money.
And it ended up, I think they raced a little bit here
and there, but the race didn't fully finish.
Yeah, I think it was like 23 years ago, I think, right?
It was a messy one.
Like I think it was like right between something like that.
Yeah.
And so now we have GTR Festival in Ennis at our home track
in November.
And so it's like, all right, we've got, we've got March,
we've got November.
It's going to be hard to get me to travel anywhere
if both of those continue happening,
which they are for the foreseeable future.
Speaking of GTR Festival, any interesting going
to the other ones around the world?
Yeah.
We want to go to the one in Australia.
We want to bring George's car there.
Brandon wants to go with his GTR and ALIS.
The problem is the transport time to get there,
basically the cars would not be able to race TX2K.
Oh, I see what you're saying.
And so if they like left TX2K, got on a boat,
it would probably make the race, but not guaranteed.
And so it's like, all right, like now that George
has multiple cars, that's kind of the plan.
At some point, well, one of them won't race.
And they have a lot more interest in the all-wheel-drive car
being actually GTR.
So that one hasn't been put back together yet
from the fire at TX2K 25.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah, I forgot about that.
Yeah, I had a fuel line literally just broke apart.
And so it wasn't terrible, but it still fires nasty.
It's going to be a lot of work.
So at some point, the plan will be for that car
to not race TX2K, but go there.
That makes sense.
And then he can race the other one at TX2K.
Yeah, because I can't imagine flying a car out there.
It's very cheap.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think it was like to go to the Nuremberg ring.
One of my friends went seven or eight years ago.
I think it was like $40,000 there and back.
Or no, just one way actually.
It was stupid, but you're probably
going to need to ship your car soon or know somebody that will.
And as someone who used to work in freight logistics,
I understand the difficulties of finding reliable transport,
especially when trying to make it to rallies, race tracks,
or to warehouse to hide your Corvette,
because you're going through a messy divorce
and when she says everything, she means everything.
Anywho, Nick Shearer is the proud owner
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Let's get back to the show.
OK, what about you?
You do any racing anymore?
Not anymore, no.
In, you know, from the day I opened the shop,
I had the Integra, like I always had my race car.
And then my GTR, I went 6'9 and 2018.
Oh, wow.
And then I took the car apart.
I was like, all right, I'm done with this trans.
Took it apart.
Initially, it was a six second car with like an 850 roll cage.
And I was like, let's put a proper cage in it.
And then when you go into let's put a proper cage in it,
it's like, you know, how far are we going to go?
Should we back half it so we can put a bigger tire on it?
OK, well, now do we put a four link in it?
Do we keep an IRS?
Then it's like, all right, we'll just we'll back half it.
It's like, all right, well, I don't have any rules to play by.
So why not just get rid of the firewall and shock towers
and go full tube frame?
Because it's almost easier to do that than to back half it
and integrate all the OE, you know, front half.
And so I was like, fine, we'll just do that.
So full tube frame, four link, big tire.
It's got a Liberty seven speed air shifted trans torque
converter.
And so that one is actually on that's
what that Elmer engine is going to go.
So it's been on hold waiting for that.
OK.
Yeah, it's crazy how quickly it snowballs into something
just absurd.
Like you're already absurd.
And it's like, I just go to a whole new level.
Full retard.
Yeah, exactly.
What's it called?
So yesterday, I actually on the flight down here,
everyone's not like to throw on a little bit of Rogan.
Anytime he has somebody that's a car guy on like, you know,
Shab, for example, car guy, Tom's your car guy, right?
So I'm like, all right, this is going to be a fun episode.
And they started talking about the various cars out there,
like 01 X. And then, you know, like Shab had this car.
That was like, I don't know, some 1400 horsepower TRX.
I was just constantly a problem.
And basically, like they both came to the conclusion
that 1000 horsepower cars or 1200 horsepower cars
are problems.
Is that true?
Or can like, can you put on thousands and thousands
of miles on a car like that?
Depends on the car.
Like what are we starting from?
And what are we going to?
What would you recommend?
At 1200.
Yeah.
A V10 with a factory engine and factory trans.
OK.
Twin turbos, MoTek, fuel system, TCU cal, make 11, 1200
all day long.
It's not the trans is the weakest link in that.
But if you're just enjoying a car as a street car,
you're not drag racing it, you'll probably,
the trans probably lasts your full ownership of that car.
Yeah.
I mean, that's not a car that somebody builds and it's like,
I'm never going to sell this.
It's not a collectible like that.
It's not your first car that you're never going to get rid of.
So you might have it for one of, so our builds,
all of numbers that come with a badge build 007, which was pretty
cool to get that number.
But that was a 1500 horsepower stock engine built trans.
And the guy beat the piss out of that car for three plus years.
And he just sold it, New Yorker bought it.
And like to not have to go into an engine,
not have to get, you know, it's not a cheap build.
Once you get into the trans, here's the deal.
If you don't touch the trans, there's no cost, right?
OK. So that's zero.
The full built trans for, you know, a 3000 horsepower car is over $80,000.
So it's a significant price difference.
So, you know, is there any in between there?
There is. So, you know, you can do,
Dodson has just a second gear upgrade and just a third year upgrade.
Those are the weakest gears, but it's like, you know, like,
how deep are you going to go in this thing and still have acid?
So we don't do anything like that.
If we're either you're going to be stock years or it's going to be a full year.
So you don't do like the second gear upgrade or whatever often or no, not often.
Just because it's not it's not really that week.
If you're drag racing it to where there's going to be, you know, a one to shift
because that's that's the hardest part.
And also at this point, the TCU calibrations are are really good.
And I can call Jake and go, look, this one's got stock years.
I need a softer crossover.
And we have ways to help that in the event it has, you know, stock or weaker parts.
Interesting.
But really, if you need a second year upgrade,
you're going to need the third and then you're going to need the rest of just
just do it all.
And you don't do any stock ECU stuff with these either.
Okay.
Where they did you at any point do it though?
Okay.
Got you.
Just like straight motel.
No, you know, on the on the GTR Cobb made an interface that made it easy.
Yeah.
And gave enough control for, you know, reasonable power levels.
You know, if you were trying to make back then, if you were trying to make over
a thousand, the injectors that you needed and, you know, there wasn't good traction
control, like there was lots of reasons to upgrade.
But the V10s, I mean, right?
Is that different?
So now the V10 with the GTR, it was a car that came with turbos.
Okay.
So it was all designed around that.
The V10 didn't.
And you, you can do it.
There's DS one.
There's the ability to go in there.
There's, I forget how many tables when I looked at it.
It's unbelievable how many tables there are in a stock ECU.
So the, the ability is there, but it's, it's, it's not easy.
And, you know, it's, it would be when there is a solution, it's like, why would I
beat my head against the wall trying to do this?
So it can be done.
There are limitations.
There are definitely advantages to a full standalone.
And so I just never bothered.
That makes sense.
What do you think is hurting our industry right now?
Is there any players or anything?
We're holding us back.
So the guys that are, that are doing the hard work and developing the parts,
we're the ones that get copied and stuff gets knocked off.
And if that continues happening and we stop what we're doing, then the knockoff
guys don't have anything to work from and the industry stalls.
And so it's really frustrating to me to see the people that, that, that's their
marketing approach, like, Hey, it's just business, bro.
You know, I mean, you don't have a patent on it.
I can do whatever I want.
Like there's a lot of those guys and, and I, I don't associate with that at all.
And it's, they're, they're making money and they might be providing a good
to the industry by bringing costs down, but they're not, they're not helping the
industry.
I see what you're saying.
Um, do you have stuff patented?
I imagine no, no, I mean, that's not so specific.
Like if you have, you know, some new technology or something, it might be
something to patent, but like the stuff we're doing, the volume on it is so small.
And you can, you could have a patent.
That doesn't mean nobody's going to copy it.
It just means that when they do, now you have to spend money to fight them on it.
And it's just, yeah, it's not even worth it at that point.
I also read somewhere that when it comes to, um, anything that's like ECU or
tune related or whatever, you can't patent it whatsoever because it's such a gray area.
Like, I would imagine that to be the case.
Yeah.
You know, patents are incredibly specific.
Yeah.
Right.
So like you can't patent a tune.
Yeah.
I mean, somebody else, though he did it first.
Right.
And that was the argument that people are making.
And I was like, all right, fair enough.
Like you're modifying something that already exists.
Like it just gets so messy.
It's not even worth pursuing.
You get.
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It's the fact that 80% of you guys are not subscribed and following the show.
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Let's get back to the show.
One of the things we didn't finish talking about earlier was the break in process.
I don't think when it comes to the injector side of things.
Um, so kind of explain that.
So how long are you breaking stuff in for?
And then once it's done breaking in, is it basically thrown in a box,
send it to a customer or is there more sorting that's required or anything like
that?
So that the break in is, uh, the second step in the process.
So the, the, they all get laser engraved because otherwise they're all the same
injector, right?
So that they get laser engraved with a, with a serial number.
And then they go through the break in process and then they come out of there
and then they all get flowed.
And so, you know, we'll flow a batch of, a batch of injectors is between 500 and
a thousand pieces for us.
Okay.
And so they all get flowed and then the computer spits out this part number or
this serial number goes with this serial number.
And sometimes you might have a group that only makes a set of four.
Sometimes we might have 20 that make still a tightly matched set.
So our, our set is plus or minus 1% across the pulse width range.
And so they'll come to me in groups of four, groups of six, groups of 20, and, you
know, we can break those up as needed, but I can't take a set of six and a set
of four and put them in a V10.
They won't be matched that way.
So the, the break in happens first so that everything's normalized so that the flow
data is relevant to real world.
How did this process come about?
Are you involved with that quite a bit?
Your partner that when you started this, how did that partnership happen in the
first place?
So I mentioned earlier, nobody used to provide injector data.
Like it just, nobody knew what it was.
It wasn't really a thing in the early MoTeC days with the, the M800 or the M4,
you know, the old gold boxes, there was what they called the injector battery offset.
And they're in the M4, I think they had like maybe four or five Bosch
injector presets, but if you didn't have those, then it was up to you to get the
data.
And so initially I had an M4 on the race car with the old 160 pound Bosch
injectors, terrible, but it's all that was available in that flow rate, you
know, and you, you had to have, you got to have.
So a certain amount of fuel.
Yep.
So I later upgraded it to an M800 ECU where I could go to eight injectors.
And so I called RC engineering, I bought 8,000 CC injectors.
And I said, I need the, the battery offset for these.
And they were like, what, what computer are you using?
And I was like, MoTeC, they're like, you need to call MoTeC.
And I was like, I asked MoTeC and they said, they don't have the data for
your injectors to call you.
And I go, we don't have the data.
And I'm like, okay.
And so, um, talking to Simon at MoTeC and he goes, so one of our dealers, uh,
Paul Yaw ran into this and it pissed him off enough that he developed a flow bench
and offers this service.
And so I send the injectors to Paul to get them characterized so I could get the
offset data to do things properly.
And he does them and he's like, um, you know, these are 1000 CC injectors.
Uh, they were, uh, peak and hold injectors because there weren't high impedance
injectors that big back then.
I had MoTeC on my car, but I was still doing a lot of Honda out of stuff with
stock ECU.
And the, with the stock ECU, it won't drive a peak and hold injector properly.
So you had to put an injector resistor on, which is another cluster of making
things wrong.
And he goes, you know, I've got a 1000 CC high impedance injector and I'm like,
like that didn't exist as far as I knew.
And I'm like, so he sends me a sheet with some info on it.
And I'm like, send me a set and I'll try them.
And so I put them, I put them in the race car, which, you know, a lot of times
when, when say a good versus bad injector, the biggest area you'll see it as an
idle, you know, air fuels moving around, it's, you know, kind of missing or whatever.
And on a race car with big cams and open downpipe, it's like, it already does an
idle good.
And so I put them in, I'm like, I mean, they, they seemed like they're doing
well, but like I'm not sold yet.
So I put them in a stock Integra motor and I was blown away.
Like the air fuel ratio is just, you're used to just seeing the gauge do this.
And it's fucking rock solid.
This thing, I don't say it has stock injectors.
So I'm like, holy shit, like there's, there's something to this.
And what time period was this roughly?
2008.
And so I, I'm like, send me a few more sets of these.
And so I put them in a couple of other cars and I'm like, okay, there's, there's
something here.
And so I call them and I'm like, how many of these can you get?
Because he wasn't, he wasn't in the injector industry to sell products.
He built this to characterize injectors.
That was the service he offered.
Was it just like him by himself at this point?
Yep.
Okay.
And, um, like how many can you get?
He's like, yeah, I don't know.
I mean, I've, he's never tried to buy them in any kind of quantity.
This was, it was a Ford, Mustang injector that was modified.
So he calls for a dealership and he's like, I can get like a couple hundred.
I was like, send me a couple hundred.
He's like, okay, I'll just,
I'll just give it to him.
Okay.
And so he sends them to me and I put them in the hands of other tuners that I know
who would, you know, I could sell them to customers.
They, they're not really going to know the difference.
How good they are.
When you drive a car, things can be pretty off and it's still drive.
Okay.
But people are getting these going, holy shit.
Like this is, this is way better than anything that's been available to us at
this point.
And some, send me more, send me more.
And so they start selling and then, you know, I just was selling them as a Bosch
1000 CC injector.
Like Paul wasn't a part of this.
Nobody knew where they were coming from.
Eventually people started figuring out who I was getting them from and people
started reaching out to Paul and Paul's like, he calls me.
He's like, these people are calling and they're wanting these injectors.
He's like, I was doing these injectors for a long time.
Nobody wanted him.
He's like, you came into the mix.
Now everybody wants them.
This, like you started this.
He's like, I don't want to deal with these people.
Paul's the engineer that wants to, you know, build his flow bench and sit in
the room and make data.
And so he's like, how about, you know, I'll do them all.
I'll send them to you.
You handle everybody else.
He knew that I have the knowledge to provide the tech sport that is required
and make sure that people get the good results.
And, you know, I have the customer base, I have the staff to be able to sell these.
And so that's how it all started.
Okay.
Well, so then how'd you guys go into business together?
Is it like that end up being like a 50-50 sort of like you deal with the marketing
side, I'll deal with the engineering side.
So basically we had that, that one conversation in 2008.
And a handshake between us and we do millions of dollars a year together
on nothing more than a handshake, you know, 15 years ago, almost.
That's awesome.
And so it's, it's, it's been a great partnership.
He handles his side of things.
I handle my side of things and everything works and has worked for a long time.
So what point did you guys start working direct with Bosch then?
The ID 1300, I think was our first
piece and at the time, so Bosch, they have a production line
where all only injectors are manufactured.
Forget they can do something silly like 10,000 injectors a day or something like
the capability is significant, but the volume also has to be significant to,
to get it there.
We weren't doing enough volume for that.
And so there's also what they, the sample shop where custom pieces can be made.
So when it comes, when you're developing an injector, the sample shop is building
it to your spec for valve lift and spring rate and, you know, this valve
in the screen and so we could get custom pieces there.
The, so the 1300s were all built at sample shop, which raises the cost
significantly from production line stuff.
Once we got those, and that was rolling and smooth and doing well at the time.
So the ID 1000 was our first part number.
It was a 48 millimeter length injector, which at the time, almost everything used.
Then GM came out with a lot of the LS LS engines used a 34 millimeter.
So it was a shorter injector, making a short injector taller is easy.
Making, making it along with smaller is not.
And so there, there was a need for a shorter bodied injector.
So then we did the ID 850 because there was a shorter core that we could modify
the same way we were modifying what the 1000 was.
And it would end up at 8, 850.
So we did that.
And then we did an ID 725.
That was also the longer body.
The only reason we did that is because back then people were still like,
they're like a thousand CC injector could never run well.
And so the people were scared of it.
They're like, well, I don't need an injector that big.
It's like, maybe you don't, but think about it this way.
If you did need an injector that big, an ID 1000 will run an idle like a stock
injector in almost anything.
Okay.
And so, yes, maybe you don't need an injector that big, but at idle,
the engines all consume basically the same amount of fuel, right?
But whatever the displacement is and what fuel you're using, if the engine
makes, if it's a five liter V8 that makes 400 horsepower or it makes 1500 horsepower,
they're both going to use the same amount of fuel and idle.
So people were still scared about that.
So we did the 725.
And so we had three part numbers that there didn't need to be, but they all
served a little bit different purpose.
And so the ID 1050 was, and still is the only injector to come off the production
line at Bosch.
And we were able to get our sales volume of those three part numbers combined
was enough for us to deal direct with Bosch on the assembly line side of things.
Okay.
And so since the ID 1050 is a shorter body, it could do what the 850 did.
We can make it longer.
And at this point, nobody's scared of a 1000 CC injector anymore.
So we didn't need a lower flow rate.
There was just, there was no need.
So that one is on a production line.
The rest are still sample shop, except the 2600.
So what we had is what we called the ID 2000 was a compressed natural gas
injector that Bosch makes.
So known as the 2000 or 2200, whatever.
It's a shelf part for a CNG engine, not for liquid fuel.
Because it's not in liquid fuel, there's nothing to damp the valve when it opens
and closes.
Okay.
And so it can beat itself up.
And so the, the valve goes through an extra hardening process to prevent it from
killing itself.
Okay.
Well, that hardening process changes the characteristics of the metal and it can
now rust.
And so if you're running ethanol or methanol, those would have a problem.
If they were in liquid fuel all the time, it wasn't a problem.
But, you know, you, you, your car is parked for a long time or something.
The ethanol absorbs water or the bigger problem would be you took the engine
apart, you had it apart.
These injectors that were in ethanol are now out in dry air and they'll rust.
Okay.
So that was one problem.
The other problem is the, the, it's a very unique design.
Uh, all of our injectors are like a, just a ball valve seat.
And so it's all stainless.
You know, there's nothing weird.
These have a flat face valve with a polymer face.
Okay.
And that, that polymer face is how they seal.
And you know, that it works well for compressed natural gas.
Now they're with the, the 2000 and the 2600.
They both have that same valve face and they're, they're not compatible with
all chemicals.
Okay.
So some of the things in fuel, MTB, ETB, nitromethane does not play well with
this polymer.
And so what'll happen, again, we're talking about a piece that has a valve
lift measured in microns.
They're still, you know, it's not like the valve moves a ton.
And so if you have this polymer valve face that swells a few thousands of an
inch, now your flow can be drastically reduced when you run one of these fuels.
So we didn't really realize it when we started with the 2000.
And there's another, uh, CNG injector by Bosch that's about 1600 CCs.
Uh, that injector runs amazing, but it has the same valve face with less valve
lifts.
Okay.
And so fuel gets hot or you run one of these fuels, your flow can be
reduced by 40%.
And just people that still sell this injector for liquid fuel.
Bosch doesn't sell it for that, but in the aftermarket, people still sell this.
You still see these games sold today.
Yes.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
We, we sold probably, I think it was probably a couple hundred of them before
we realized this was a problem.
What made you realize that was a problem?
Uh, cars running lean when they get hot or with different fuels, like, like to
an unexplainable degree, like what the fuck's going on?
Was that easy to diagnose or were you chasing your tail for a bit?
Well, it was easy to see that there was a problem, but it took us a bit to figure
out what the fuck was going on.
And we recalled all those injectors and gave everybody their money back.
And there's still people selling those with, they just don't say anything about it.
Now the 2000 is susceptible to the same thing, but, but by that point we learned
what the problems were and we sell them saying, Hey, this is not compatible
with this fuel or fuel.
If you choose to run it, that's on you at this point, but, um, the,
Bosch has not been happy about any of this CNG stuff being used with liquid fuel.
It makes the injector look bad.
It's not Bosch's fault.
They built it for a certain purpose and we're using it for something other.
And so, you know, at one point they were like, you guys can't keep selling the 2000.
I'm like, we have, we have to have something like we need this amount of fuel.
It works.
We know what the stipulations are.
We know that if you don't take proper precautions, it can rust this trash.
It is what it is.
And so that's what led to the 2600 being made was the, though that one's manufactured
in Germany, all the rest are manufactured in the U S and that was Bosch saying, okay,
we want to provide you with a solution.
And so they, they're like, we want these CNG injectors off the market for liquid
fuel use.
We're going to build you a proper injector.
And so that's what the 2600 is.
Gotcha.
So it's from the CNG architecture with changes internally for liquid fuel.
Now it still does have the incompatibility issue with MTB or nitro methane, but it won't rust.
That, that problem's fixed and it's, it's manufactured for liquid fuel by Bosch for
us, where the only one that has it.
So that was, that was their solution.
We're like, give us something and we can stop using these.
And so that's how I came about.
So real quick on the 2000s, when you were still using them, was there like a different
like service interval, like, Hey, can you use this?
Don't park the car too long.
Like, what was the, how'd you approach that?
When you were using them?
You know, they all came with a warning card and it had, you know, specifics.
Like if, if the car is going to sit for more than a month, it depends on the climate.
You know, if you're in Arizona where it's dry, it's, it's less of a concern.
You're in Florida, probably don't want to park that long.
So, um, if it's going to sit for a long time, put gasoline in it because gas wasn't a problem.
Um, if they're going to come out of the engine, pickle them, we, we, uh, just basically just
run WD 40 through them.
I have a little injector.
It's a diagnostic thing from Amazon that you plug the injector in and hit a body.
It goes, yeah.
And so we just, you know, spray WD 40, run it through that, seal them up, put them in a bag.
They're fine.
They won't give you a problem that way.
The other end of that is probably if your engine's apart for something, it's probably
a good idea to send your injectors in for cleaning and inspection anyway, just to make
sure that they're all still in spec because the, the contaminants that can cause fuel
injector problems are smaller than the eye can see.
So, you know, it doesn't take much.
And that was actually another funny thing.
When I, when I built the Integra with those RC injectors, um, it was a whole new fuel system.
Um, the lines weren't cleaned enough, which just flushed all the shit right into the
detectors.
And so literally while I'm tuned in the car, it starts to run in like shit.
I'm like, what the fuck's going on?
And so I end up sending back to RC and they're like, you know, they're like, they're, they
were down, you know, between 20 and 40% and flow.
And they're like, there's, there's rubber in them.
We can see it from the fuel lines.
And, you know, and they say, I'm like, God, it's bullshit.
You know, these injectors suck, whatever.
They clean them.
I put it back in and everything's fine.
I'm like, okay.
So I did it.
And at least weekly, there's somebody has an injector problem.
And they're like, it's a, it's, it's a brand new fuel system.
There can't be a problem.
That's where your problems most likely versus a car that's been running for a
long time and you just changed the injectors.
Right.
So you put all these new parts in there and, you know, how good did you really flush
the fuel lines and, you know, really most ideal would be, you put a new fuel system
in a car, you disconnect the fuel lines, put the filter in and run the system,
let the filter catch all the shit.
And then pick it up.
But yeah, a whole new fuel system is not the right answer when you're like, it
can't be an injector problem because it's all new stuff.
I never would have thought about that.
Like, yeah, just kind of like, well, it's kind of like, uh, for example, some
people would get like a new machine part toward ever and say, just make sure you
clean it for you.
That sort of deal.
Okay.
Yeah.
I never would have thought that there'd be stuff in the system to gum it up
right out the gate.
And, you know, so many Mustang owners just had their problems solved.
You know, every car has a fuel filter, right?
It has for years because shit ends up in fuel.
And, you know, people are like, you know, what's the service interval?
How much it's in your fuel?
You know, you could go a 100000 miles without it and change
your fuel filter, or you could go a thousand miles and the filter is full of crap.
So it just, there is, there's no right answer.
Um, and that's, that's a neat thing are the first fuel filter that we offered.
Well, we started making fuel filters because of so many people have an
injector problems.
So when ethanol came about, most fuel filters are, uh, like a paper filter element
and it doesn't play well with ethanol.
And so the filter manufacturers go, yeah, you have to run our stainless
element for, for ethanol.
The problem is the stainless elements not fine enough to protect the injectors.
So it covers the fuel filter manufacturer like, yeah, no more fuel filter problems.
Now you have injector problems.
So, um, that led us down the path of developing a proper fuel filter because
we, we, we only service our injectors, but we service our injectors and there's
a lot of them out there.
So it's, it's, we service a lot of injectors.
And so, you know, you get the flow test back and it's like, all right, now you're
talking to customer like, all right, they're all over the place.
Let's talk about your fuel system and try to figure out why.
And a lot of it came down to people not having proper filtration.
So we developed our fuel filter.
The IDF 750 has a differential pressure indicator on the front of it.
So it's cool.
You, when the car is running, you just look at it.
Like if it's time to change the filter element, this indicator's moved over.
Okay.
And it's a spin off canister, more like an oil filter type thing.
Take it off, change the element, put it back in.
Good to go.
So that's everything that, that we offer under the ID brand was to fill a void.
You know, we don't have a bunch of fuel rails and there's a lot of fuel system
parts we could do, but kind of like, you know, my mentality on, you know, an
intercooler for GTR, there's, there's tons of good options out there.
I don't need to be just another one of those.
So I'll support the people that, that I feel are doing it right.
And I think that's, it's better for the industry that way.
How many injectors are you servicing a year if you had the ballpark or a month or whatever?
Do you even have a ballpark?
So the process works that we have a Google form.
You fill out, got all your contact info, ejector serial numbers, you know, what,
what's going on with them, whether or not you need a, a process to fill out.
Whether or not you need a preclean test, like if an engine failed and you're like,
I want them tested as they are.
So, so I can isolate.
Maybe that's the cause of the failure or not.
And I don't handle any of that side of things.
And when I go and look at that form, there'll be 15 plus forms filled out a day.
Oh wow.
So, you know, and you figure, for the most part, at a minimum, there's going to be
four injectors that come in with that set.
So it's a, it's a significant amount.
It adds up pretty quick.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Oh, how big is too big when it comes to an injector for, let's say a street car?
Is there one?
Depends how big the engine is.
Okay.
The bigger, the bigger the per cylinder displacement is.
Okay.
It's going to use more air.
So it's going to use more fuel.
And so a 2600 in a GTR as a primary injector with a MoTeC, I can make it run really, really good.
Oh wow.
A V10 with 2600 primaries runs like shit.
It's the cylinder displacement is significantly smaller.
And so it kind of comes down to that almost everything we do at this point has staged
injection.
So smaller primary, bigger secondary.
When it's, when you're not having to idle or cruise on it, you know, with, where the real
small volume requirements are, you can have a really big injector.
It doesn't matter because you're, you're using it in its happy place.
Okay.
But trying to get a very small amount of fuel out of a big injector, uh, consistently,
repeatedly is, that's the hard part.
So that's why so much of it comes back to idle, you know, if, if, if a car runs in
idols really well on whatever injector size is in there, then it's fine.
Okay.
But that's where you'll see the downside of too big.
So obviously you're big on the tuning side.
Um, do you, was there a stage in your career where you were making the wrong combinations
work or were you always trying to get people to, Hey, this is the particular way you want
to build your car go for it.
Like, when did that get standardized?
Um, you know, things are always progressing, but I don't think, um,
I don't think anything's changed in the, my mentality or my decisions as to this is how
we're going to do a combo.
The parts have gotten better and technology's gotten better.
So, so the end result might be better, but, uh, at least as long as I've been doing this
here, I don't think like I was doing things wrong and now I look back and I can't believe
I did that, you know,
Oh, you don't have many of those moments then?
No.
Okay.
Well, that's a good, that's a good thing to be proud of,
which that's actually a good follow up question.
What are you most proud of in your 20, 30 year career at this point?
Um, I'm pretty proud of what we've built today.
You know, the, the, the name that we've built for ourselves in the industry, uh, the
reputation we have, the cars that we're putting out, um, I've got, you know, I said 20 plus
people that get to have a pretty awesome job and, uh, support their families.
That's, I'm really proud of that.
Sweet.
Uh, as a business, what's next?
Do you ever have any ambitions to like make, help people with road course builds or anything
like that?
Do you do anything like that?
Cause I know Kota is not that very far from here.
Yeah, we've done a little bit.
Um, we had a pretty cool project come about.
Um, you know, the Daytona prototype cars.
Okay.
They're, they're, they're really fuck.
I mean, it's a little bit below F1, but I mean, they're, they're very high level
race cars.
And, uh, there was a team, I think it was probably about 2016 that, uh, that, uh, handful
of Daytona prototype cars with a GTR engine in it that Nismo did the engines on.
And they raced in Emsa, um, they were racing in the same car.
And Emsa and you know, the, the rules with all that, like they could make about 650
horsepower, um, with Emsa, there's, uh, the BOP balance of performance.
So if somebody's going faster, they can penalize you.
And there's all this stuff that's integrated in the ECU to check.
You can't run over this amount of boosts for this amount of time.
Like it's very, very specific.
And so, uh, those cars, I think they had, I think it was a cause worth ECU initially.
And they got with MoTeC in Australia.
And Darren, the guy that does the packages for these two platforms was in charge of that
project and he ended up putting, uh, MoTeC in it and writing the package.
And so years go on, comes about that, uh, uh, local race team bought two of these cars.
And now they're racing it in a vintage series where there's no rules.
And so he was like, they reached out and we're like, you know, can you build a motor?
Can you tune it?
And can you support it?
We want to make like 1200 horsepower.
Easy.
And so we did that.
And that, that was probably the coolest car I've ever worked on in tune.
That's insane.
Yeah.
It was neat.
Did, I mean, how different was it to work on something like that?
Like, was it just a standard GTR engine?
Uh, more or less.
Yeah.
So they, we built the engine and, and I tuned it here, but, uh, they, they did all
the install and everything.
Um, it's, you know, it's, it's rear wheel drive.
And so it doesn't have, uh, the GTR has a front axle going through the oil pan.
So it didn't have any of that.
Uh, daily engineering makes a really, really trick, uh, dry sump kit for the rear wheel drive
version.
It's a pan, the pumps integrated, like it's really nice.
And, um, it had, uh, Nizmo had made full billet front timing covers.
Didn't have variable cam timing anymore.
Because the engine was like pushed against the firewall.
Like there wasn't even room for their, the VTC covers.
Um, but in the end it was just a GTR engine.
So it all works.
I mean, it's, did you do any like tuning?
Like, is that all just on the, was that remote?
Was that on a hub dyno?
What, they brought it here.
We call them the hub dyno.
Gotcha.
But you're not going out there.
Like you're not hopping behind the wheel or anything like that.
No, I couldn't even fit in that car.
Yeah.
It's one of those cockpits, you know, you wedge yourself into and you're laying down.
I mean, it was, was cool, but yeah, I didn't drive it on the dyno.
I was just tuning it on the dyno.
I did go to the track with him a couple of times and you know, everything dialed in, but
that's craziness.
Have you, have you been to Daytona?
No.
Gotcha.
Do you pay attention to any of that stuff or not really like, what's a weekend look like?
Are you watching F1 or anything?
My weekends for the past handful of years usually involve soccer tournaments.
Oh, okay.
My son plays soccer and he plays for school and for two club teams.
And so a lot of our free time is there.
We live very close to a lake.
I have a boat.
Oh, we drove over it.
Yeah.
So, you know, it's hot in Texas.
If you're going to be outside in the summer, you probably want to be wet.
Yeah.
So, I have a boat that's, the boating is probably the one thing my whole family likes to do together.
Okay.
And so, we're on the weekends that we, that we're not at soccer.
We're usually out at the lake.
Have you tuned the boat?
Tune a lot of boats actually.
Tune the, okay.
So, again, I don't want to mess with it unless MoTeX has a kit for it.
MoTeX has a plug and place for the Mercury 450 and 500 outboard motors.
And for what they call the QC4V, which is the twin turbo inboard motor for the big boats.
And so the, the, the lowest horsepower QC4V offering is 1,100 horsepower, the highest one's
1650.
So, this is a huge twin turbo V8.
It's so easy to make power on these things.
I mean, I'll make 1,300 on pump gas like without blinking an eye.
And so I've got a friend that's got a 40 foot skater with two of the Mercury engines.
And that one, we're putting it back together right now with bigger turbos and ethanol,
but it made 1,800 per motor on race gas last time out.
And it's, it's silly how fast those things are.
Is it a race boat?
Yeah.
Okay.
And then his, he's also got one, an outboard boat with two of the 450s that they're
650 or 700 right now.
And so that, that market's, that's been fun and interesting and new.
The outboard, you know, they're, they're, it's a supercharged V8 stock.
So you can put poise on it, you know, you, they'll run about 10 pounds of boost stock.
You can get it up to 17 or 18 is about all we've seen.
But it's enough to break a factory engine.
So now they're getting into building the engines.
And now, you know, fuel on the lake is not good quality fuel.
And so these engines have to be built to run on shit fuel.
Now, when you, just like any other turbo, a factory turbo car, like they have to
account for the worst scenario and the things to live.
Now, when you tune it and you turn it up, you, you get rid of some of that safety margin,
but you know, you have to, you know, you, you can't run it when it's, you know,
the coolant temps 250 degrees and you're trying to drag race it.
So if you, when you tune something, you know, okay, look, I have to put 93 octane in here,
but they're like eight, I think they're 8.71 compression and they run 10 pounds of boosts.
Like that's, and they can do it probably on fucking water.
So if you, if you build it and go, okay, look, 18 pounds of boosts is about all we
have to work with, if we're going to run ethanol on this thing, there's no reason it
couldn't be 10 or 11 one compression easily. So that market's still very young and people
are starting to play with that now that we have a good computer. So yeah, the, the boat
market is actually new and growing fast.
What's the strangest thing you've tuned?
I did a, an old, it was called a champ car. It looks like a, like an Indy car.
Oh yeah. And it had a V8 engine that used high boost cylinder heads.
Oh, okay. I don't know who made it. We put a mo-tech on it. I tuned it. It's those things.
This was at my first shop and I had a Dinojet 248, the big, big roller one. And there's, there's
so little rotating mass in the engine, you know, it's not like they got a big flywheel or anything.
And they've got a long first gear because they're not, they're not launching these things.
To get that thing going on the dyno without stalling it was, was, I mean, we had to like
roll the tires to like get it moving and then almost launch the thing on the dyno for it not
to stall. But that was, that was a unique one for sure.
No helicopters, any aerial things yet?
No. Okay.
No, I don't think I want that responsibility.
No, no, no. Yeah.
I do my best, but sometimes shit happens and I don't want somebody falling out of the sky.
No, yeah. We had a guy on the show, he tuned a gyro copter on a Haltech. He's to you.
That's ballsy.
But like the gyro copters, like apparently like, because I think they're like some weird design,
like they, they can glide down on like a helicopter where it's like,
you know, it's a whole different thing. But yeah, as we start to wrap up here,
do we, do we touch on mostly everything? Do we catch up on, I mean, I'm sure there's people
screaming at the windshield right now, like asking this, but I mean, I, nothing comes to mind.
Sure. Well, at the end of every episode, I like to ask, guess this one question and it goes like
this, you have an unlimited budget, you could pick three cars and go, you had to choose a daily
driver, a show car and a track car. Build whatever you want, mod it however you want.
Any type of track to the daily.
I'm a Porsche guy. You wouldn't think so.
Yeah. That kind of a surprise.
Looking here, but I have my, my daily, daily is a Tycon.
Okay. And it makes 900 horsepower.
So they come stock with that one horsepower, right?
So the, the 25 and newer, the, the Turbo S model from launch mode makes 940 horsepower.
Otherwise it's, I think it's about 800. There's a company called map EV that has a tune.
So hardware wise, the Tycon four, which is, comes with 435 horsepower,
has the same hardware as the Turbo S. So you can go from 430 horsepower to 940 just by reprogramming.
And so for $3,000, you pick up 500 horsepower and they give you the launch horsepower all the time.
So it's, it's the 940 horsepower electric car. If you ever do an electric car,
you could say what you want. I'm a fucking car guy.
You, you can't be an electric car as a daily driver just for how it drives.
Yeah.
Look, I like the noise and I have, I have cars that fill that need too.
But I've, I'm, this is the third Tycon I've owned.
I, I, there's no other car I've bought that many times.
Like I really, I really like the car as, as just a daily.
I have a GT2 RS that's my favorite car to drive and it's Porsche just fucking nailed it with the 911.
It is, it's the car that does it all. It's reliable. It's comfortable. It's a great car.
Now, if you want to make 3,000 horsepower, it's not the car for it.
Fair enough.
But as, as a, I want to buy a car that's, that's comfortable to drive,
that I can drive anywhere all the time, the 911 and the, the turbo S would be
my first choice in that the GT2 RS. It's a lot more racy, but it looks so much better.
Okay.
So there's that one. If I wanted to build something, say a thousand plus horsepower,
uh, then I was going to use a lot on the street. It would be an R8.
Okay.
I love the Huracan. It looks great. It's not, it's not comfortable to drive. You can't
fucking see anything out of it. You know, you're in a stoplight and you have to duck down to see
the roof line so low, but it looks really good. So I think those, those are the three.
So, uh, Tycon was the daily to GT2 RS was the track car or uh,
that's the, that's the other daily that you can do anything with. That's just the,
but you don't want to drive it daily because it's going to put miles on it. Um, and then, uh,
I guess when you say track car, like for me, having a car that's devoted just to the race track,
you don't get to use it very often.
Fair enough.
And so I'd rather have like a fun toy and that's, that's where the Huracan comes in.
Oh, so that would be that kind of, that filled that gap. So then what's, which one's the show car
then? See, when they're all good looking cars, it's hard to say. Um,
daily, the nice car you can do anything with would be the GT2.
And then the Huracan R8 is the, it's not a car you want to daily. It's not a car you're going to,
when you drive it, you're going to drive it with a purpose. Okay.
You know, you take out the twin turbo 1500, 2500 horsepower, whatever. Fair enough.
That car has a purpose. Yeah. Okay. I like, I like those answers. I, man, that's like crazier
than downpiping a tune with a Taycan. It's, it went, the 60 to 130 went from,
it was either 12 or 14 seconds to 5.8.
It's just, it's silly how much it improved for $3,000.
Yeah. I think that actually, I feel like you, did you post that online a couple of years ago?
I feel like I've seen that would have been my last one. Yeah. Okay. And so, and so what happened,
the first one I had was a turbo S the second one was a GTS that just the regular sedan.
And then in 25, they up to the power capability.
And so the new ones across the, the wagon. And so it was just like, all right, let me get
something different on this one, but I wanted the newer one to get the more, but the, the GTS
with the tune was like, I think 800 horsepower. So 800 940, like they're both fast.
Well, on that note, where can everybody find you?
T1racedevelopment.com is our website. We're on Facebook and Instagram, T1race.
Yeah. We're easy to get all of. Awesome. Well, Tony, I'm so glad we made this happen.
This has been a long time in a word. So I'm glad I made it down here. So thank you so much.
Thank you. Everybody, thanks for tuning in and listening, and we'll see y'all next time.
About this episode
Tony Palo from Injector Dynamics walks through how his shop builds race cars and treats injector work as “the other half of the business.” He explains why injector matching can’t rely on static flow numbers, how part numbers map to tight tolerances, and why ECU formats and firmware logic change the tuning workflow. The conversation then widens into extreme GT-R and V10 reliability—3000+ hp durability, injector break-in, and why staged injection plus correct TCU/ECU calibration matters for consistency.
Original notes
Tony Palo of T1 Race Development and Injector Dynamics joins the show to break down what it takes to build and tune some of the most powerful GT-Rs and V10s on the planet, and why Injector Dynamics is at the top of the industry when it comes to data and performance.
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0:00 - Intro
0:11 - T1 Race Development & Injector Dynamics
1:08 - What Makes ID Different, OEM Standards & The Bosch Partnership 8:12 - Break-In Process, Matching Injectors & Why It Matters
17:06 - What Keeps Tony Excited & Going All-In on Motec
22:04 - V10 Platform, First Builds & Big Projects
28:19 - Motec, DCT Racing Limitations
41:40 - Who Tony Respects & Key Industry Partnerships
45:30 - GT-R Engine Limits, Billet Blocks & 5 LITER VR38
1:09:29 - Tony's Personal Car, High Power Reliability & Transmissions 1:16:44 - Knockoffs, Patents & What's Hurting the Industry
1:18:45 - ID Origin Story, What Competitors Ignore and Making Products Better
1:33:49 - CNG Injectors, Fuel Filters, Injector Sizing & Staged Injection 1:44:17 - Other Projects and Boats.
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118:20