Vinny Ten On The Worlds Fastest 350z, Building VQ Engines and The Return of The Supra

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Welcome back to another episode of the Street Alpha podcast.

I am your host, Tukes.

And we have another one for you guys

out here in Long Island, New York.

This is where I was born and raised.

And I had the pleasure of living pretty close

to the shop we're in right now.

We're here with Vinny Ten,

who is another legend.

We've been having a lot of legends on the podcast.

If you guys watched the Titan Motorsports episode

with Nero,

Nero actually brought up Vinny Ten

and he mentioned that he was racing with him

back in the day.

There was pretty much a lot of rivalries

that you guys had back then between the Supras,

going back and forth,

a lot of legendary races back then.

But growing up on Long Island,

I always thought that Vinny was primarily a 350Z shop.

I didn't really know he had any involvement

with Mark IV Supras up until the podcast with Nero.

So apparently, Vinny is the pioneer

for the Supra in drag racing, right?

He was the first to go 12s, 11s, 10s, 9s, maybe 8s too?

Sevens?

All the way from, we took it from 12 to sevens.

And then we went from 112 miles an hour to 191 miles an hour.

And that was in a 2850 pound, three quarter,

back half car,

actually it wasn't even a three quarter car.

So it was just a back half car.

And yeah, we broke the mold in the sense of,

nobody was out there doing anything with Toyota.

It was really early on.

We're talking about,

so I'm considered the first shop in the United States.

So I started my shop in 1992 in Manhattan.

With the average speed, it's like eight miles an hour.

But I lived in Manhattan.

I worked in Manhattan for a lot of years.

I knew there was a lot of motor sports in there

and we started in Manhattan.

And that's really where the first Supras started to roll in.

And before that,

we were doing lots and lots of Nissan 300ZXs.

That was my primary car that I was building a lot of,

was the 300ZX.

And the Mitsubishi Eclipse came on,

in 1999 or 1990.

We were doing a lot of those.

I had the first 11 second Eclipse in the area.

And just an array of seven MGs,

the single turbo 300ZX stuff.

But then the Supra came along.

And the first guy brought it

and I looked at it and I was like,

this is just one big motorcycle motor.

And it was an immediate attraction, whatever it was.

It was like, whatever, love at first sight,

whatever you want to call it.

But it was an immediate attraction.

And still in Manhattan.

And I was only there for three years.

So even before like 93, 95, 94,

we were already putting single turbos on them.

And we were doing it with Trust, which is Gretti USA now.

And so we were putting in Gretti,

front-mounted into cool as Gretti had our,

they used the Mitsubishi turbos back then.

I still think they're using those.

And it was all Gretti stuff.

I was more of a Gretti guy,

a more of a Trust guy back then than an HKS guy.

My competitors had HKS.

So, and I liked Gretti, I liked their company.

So, and we started doing business

before they were in America.

So I was ordering these parts, mostly exhaust systems.

And what we would do is I'd order like 20 exhaust systems

from Japan and they would come.

And then for like three days straight,

we would just do exhaust systems.

Now, you know, it's not was, it was just both on

because they were right hand drive cars.

So it was always a little welding, a little cutting.

The flanges on the catalytic converters were always different.

So that was the first thing we had to do

is chop off the catalytic converter fans

and then weld the actual thing on.

And then some of the hangers.

And we go three, four days straight

just putting on exhaust systems.

They didn't have anything, you know,

there was nothing in comparison to today to do anything.

So we also, at the same time, we're, you know,

looking at like Carboy and options

magazine out of Japan.

Carboy, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So, and then I picked up the phone and I called,

because I was pretty successful with doing it with Trust.

So I picked up the phone and called Vealsight.

And started talking to them.

They had one guy there that, you know,

actually spoke English and I started talking to them.

And the next thing I know,

I was able to get one of the first Vealsight.

No, the first Vealsight kit in America.

And we put it on a Supra.

I mean, if you looked at a Vealsight kit on a Supra

in 1993 or before, you've never seen anything like that.

That was something you've just never seen.

And, you know, got me on a magazine cover in Turbo magazine.

What year was that with the Vealsight

when you first installed it on the Supra?

I would say 95.

OK, 95, 96.

The Vealsight was popular before because I know Vealsight

because of Fast and Furious.

No, 1995.

I know, but I'm saying for me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like I didn't know about that brand until the movie.

Sure, sure, sure.

So, you know, a lot of you guys are doing stuff way before.

And I'm sure that those movies got inspiration

from what you guys were doing back then.

Well, we could talk a lot about that.

That's that's that's for sure when it comes to at least

the first Fast and Furious movie.

So, you know, I was able, I got him really cool.

I was still in Manhattan.

It was maybe I was two years into this business

that didn't exist anywhere else.

Yeah.

And, you know, I was making a lot of money.

I was working for the dealerships and I was making a lot of money.

I was a good tech and fast and I had no reason to leave.

I was union shop steward.

I had seniority and to leave that for a unknown.

I used to tell people I'm going to modify

Japanese performance cars.

They had no idea what I was going to do.

I had no, I didn't have almost everyone.

I had everyone tell me not to do it.

My girl, I was with at the time.

My shop steward, my service manager,

they were like, well, we'll bring into management.

You know, just don't do this.

You're a talent here.

You're going to go far.

And I'm like, I can't imagine that this is going to be my life.

I can't imagine it.

I just can't imagine it.

I just thought of something different

that there was more of something for myself.

Just like just like my guys, my guys work for me.

Because they don't want to do the same thing every day.

They want to do they want to challenge themselves.

They want they want to see the more difficult work.

You know, whereas in the dealer mentalities,

you want to do the easiest, graviest jobs.

My guys are like, give me the hardest stuff.

Give me the difficult stuff.

And, you know, I wanted to challenge myself.

And I didn't think and plus when I was growing up,

I wanted to be actually a motorcycle racer.

And that really? Yeah.

Yeah, I was into bikes and racing bikes

long before I was racing cars.

And I turbocharged motorcycles before I turbocharged cars.

Yeah, my first turbocharged vehicle was in 1980,

which was a Kawasaki 1000Z went on a bike on a bike.

Yeah. Wow.

So, yeah.

And I was all about maybe a little taller in Joey,

but probably not much more weight, probably one hundred,

fifteen, one hundred and twenty pounds.

So, you know, I did well on the bike.

I'll just say that.

And my friend that that we first turbocharged those bikes,

my friend, Fast Frank, is still in that business today.

OK. And he's actually not too far from here.

So it's a low amount.

Yeah. Yeah. He he owns a company called Powerhouse Motorcycles

right here on West Babylon.

Well, he's in the next town over West Babylon.

And he's still doing his thing, you know, building turbo bikes.

And I'm over here building turbo cars.

And in fact, we work together, believe it or not,

right across the street.

So it was really, really crazy when I got a spot.

It was like a full circle.

Yeah. You know, of coming coming back here.

So and then, you know, getting back to the super,

it was just it was an immediate love affair

because I understood the car right away.

And the car told you what it was.

It wasn't a twin turbo car.

It wasn't a sequential turbo car.

It was a two way twin turbo car,

because that's actually what's on the valve cover.

A lot of people misunderstand that.

And when you have a better understanding

of how that turbo system worked,

you were able to hook up boost controls

like a boost controller.

And I literally have in my toolbox

faxes that I was faxing back and forth to HKS

because their original instructions for the E.V.C.

was didn't work and, you know, I got it to work

and sent the fax back and said,

hey, this is how this works.

And, you know, the E.V.C. started working on

because when they first came out, the E.V.C.

they didn't work on it.

They would make more boost,

but they weren't on the control boost.

And but eventually we figured it out

and sent them the stuff and and everything worked out after that.

So what were some of the challenges you were facing

because being a pioneer with the Supra?

Of course, you have to be the first to do stuff, right?

You know, it's beautiful today

because you order a turbo kit and that thing comes completely

like every clamp, every nut, every ball, you know, for the most part,

there's still a little shenanigans going on.

But for the most part, it's all there.

Like for us, a turbo kit was a manifold.

Like if we had a turbo manifold, we were good,

then we can build out the rest.

And that's really where it all started

is just if we can get a manifold.

And one of the first companies that's in America

that started making manifolds was RPS, the RPS Clutches.

Oh, yeah, Bob Smith had a guy that made these incredible headers

and they were stupid expensive.

Like like my header back in the day cost $1,700.

Like that was like four or five thousand dollars today.

It was just a ridiculous amount.

But I got to know the guy and I got it cheaper.

And then we did some other stuff.

You know, we changed the primary tubes on them.

Yeah. And and when stats started happening,

that was like in more like 95, 96, everything started to come around.

And the the the business exploded

in the sense of the industry, not really the business,

but the industry exploded.

Every every American manufacturer wanted to get involved.

Every Japanese company wanted to get here.

One of the cool things that that actually created,

like guys like you, it created, it created a whole

generation of people that wanted to do this.

And now we see more, you know,

small time manufacturers making really super high quality parts,

you know, CNC machining, obviously, was involved in that.

Obviously, the explosion of the internet.

Yeah. You know, one of the things that, you know, the irony here is like

I literally had an entire career, right?

That even a well educated guy like yourself,

well, knowledgeable guy of the industry had no idea.

You know, I had a whole career.

I changed this entire industry.

Yeah. You know, and then got out of the super.

You know, not, you know, God got me out of the super

because I crashed it on my birthday.

I always say that was the greatest gift he ever gave me.

Actually, yeah, it was on your birthday.

It was on my birthday. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Greatest gift ever happened.

So your birthday is in August?

August, August 30th.

And I I crashed.

I crashed racing Paula Fontis.

Yeah. Yeah.

And and that that's a story in itself.

It was, you know, I look at, you know, and for some of the young guys

that are going through bad times, you know, I thought that was the worst day

of my life and it actually turned out to transition.

It's one of the best opportunities because we were contacted by Nissan

by Nissan dealership and that I had that I actually helped out earlier in the year.

I actually helped them out.

I hooked them up with the right people and move their program, you know,

at least forward and they contacted me because they owned the body shop as well.

And they said, hey, you know, you know, we we're looking out for you.

And if you want, you can bring the car to the body shop.

So I go over there and meet with them, you know, thank them and stuff like that.

Tom, I don't have a lot of money in.

I'm not really sure if I'm going to go forward.

There wasn't a lot of I made a living in 2003 and 2004.

But it was really, really difficult to do it.

You know, let me just tell you the scenario in New York.

You cannot be broke in New York.

You can't be broke in New York.

You could be broke anywhere else, man, but you cannot be broke in New York.

You just can't.

It just you can't.

You can't be a brokester and live in New York.

You just can't.

So for me, you know, you're from New York.

I mean, you know, Long Island at that.

Yeah. Long Island at that.

And you need a car out here, too.

Yeah, it's just you can't be a brokester and in New York, you know,

you're not going to live off the land here.

You know, it's just not one of those places where if you're not earning

an income that you're going to have any kind of substantive life.

So, you know, for me, it was always about providing.

You know, providing, you know, and so I.

Wasn't sure at the time, whether I was going to go back and not to racing.

And they said, OK, well, you know, well, it just meant the

the subframe bar over a little bit and look worse than it was.

And they did that.

And, you know, you know, and.

There's always something else to a deal, you know, to somebody being nice to you.

I hate saying it, you know, but there seems to always be something.

And they were like, you know, we could use somebody around here to build some engines.

And so, you know, as as an engine guy, I said, OK,

where we build engines where for the for the dealership,

because they were running a street tire car.

They were running a street tire car.

Yeah, they were running a performance.

The name of the place was Performance Motorsport.

And they were running a street tire car,

but literally every past they were blowing up a motor and literally putting

a brand new motor in the car and running.

Oh, yeah. Oh, man, it was it was ugly.

And, you know, I built every engine I've ever raced,

whether that's my motorcycle, turbo engines, every super engine,

you know, how I make a living, I build engines every day.

So and I had the fastest outlaw car out there by like 12 miles an hour.

So it was it wasn't like I was fast in you by a little bit.

I was fast in you by a lot in my class with cars that were

better chassis, running like I ran like in the end,

I was running seven thirties pretty consistently at one hundred and ninety

miles an hour in a twenty eight hundred and fifty pound back half car.

Yeah, against cars that were running three quarter chassis.

M one methanol, you know, and I was still putting those cars to shame.

Those car that, you know, those teams were only going like one hundred and eighty four miles an hour.

So I'm on C sixteen. You're on methanol.

You've got a three quarter car.

I got a back half car and I'm still laying waste here.

You know, and it's on the videos, you know, there's plenty of videos, I think,

on one hour on our YouTube channel that has those videos.

So, you know, everything, by the way, it's going to be a lot of shit going on in this video.

And if this is your camera right here, you guys can you guys can check it all out.

You can check it all out.

So we were just doing really well.

And, you know, we had won a championship.

And, you know, I think we were the one of the few people to win a champion.

There was three series at the time, NHRA, IDRC and Nopi.

OK, and I won first place in IDRC and third place in Nopi and NHRA.

And then before I won all third place in all three, even with the accident.

And I still took third place in those series.

So we, you know, we we were very well known.

I was I was, you know, I've always been a very

big person in promoting import racing.

OK, yes, that included in promoting myself.

But it was really because, again, I wanted to make a living doing this.

This is what I wanted to do.

And I knew I had to promote you to do it.

I had to promote you to do it.

I had to promote you to do it like I had to promote everyone.

Everybody, you know, just like now, you know, you walked through my shop, right?

Right, we just walked through my shop.

You met all my guys, right?

Yeah, make sure you guys check that out, too.

By the way, you know, you you met all my guys, you know, you met my partner

over here at Nissan and Bayshore, you know, everybody met my wife

because these are the people that support me.

Yeah, I pay them. I get it.

But they do a phenomenal job for me.

And without them, I wouldn't be able to go racing, especially this thing.

This thing's a bad work on.

This is like working on this is 10 pounds of shit in a one pound box right here.

OK, the same 20 pounds of shit in a 10 pound box.

I signed up for that.

This is 10 pounds of shit in a one pound box.

And these guys, they stuffed everything in there.

Yep, I build the motors, I'll set the motor in and then I'll walk away

and Steve and Joey and Characal put it back together.

Yeah, you know, I put the trainees in because I kind of like working with the trainees.

You can take that anyway you want, guys.

What was what was the reason for the crash?

I don't think I asked you that.

Uh, so I'm in second place.

Paula Fontes is in first place.

Right. We're in Maple Grove.

Obviously, I crashed that echo, but we'll get to that.

We're at Maple Grove.

OK, now, in order for me to take him out early on, I came up with a plan.

He qualified number one.

I told all the guys I'm going to qualify.

There was only eight guys in this class.

So I said, I'm going to qualify number eight and I'm going to race in first round

and I'm going to take him out.

And that was that was the plan.

OK, so Saturday comes.

Everybody rolls up.

I qualify last eight.

That means number one is going to race number eight.

And I'm going to get him in the first round and we're going to go from there.

I already got him covered.

We're good to go.

So I don't need to run my car again.

Everything's beautiful.

So he spun the bearings in his motor.

Going for number one.

OK, great.

So, you know, they're capable.

So, you know, we're friendly.

I'm over there and I see, you know, you got to pull the motor out and, you know,

pull the bearings out, change the bearings.

So they're up all night, changing the bearings in the motor.

One thing led to another.

I don't know what happened over there in that camp, but one thing led to another

and they didn't finish.

So now I walk over there at like 6 30 in the morning.

I see the motor on the floor.

I'm like, they're not going to be ready.

There's no way.

I'm like, I can't ask for a more perfect thing.

But overnight it rained and it rained hard.

So I go out to the track tracks dry.

I'm like, great.

I'm literally having a cup of coffee and the owner at the time was a guy named

George Case who rolls up on his scooter and he's like, how you doing?

I'm like, George, it's you know, sunshine's out.

So beautiful. It's a beautiful day.

He goes, not so fast.

I'm like, why? What's up?

He goes, remember the rain we had?

Yeah, it was torrential.

I said, I was already out to the track track track.

He goes, yeah, the track's dry.

But the return road is on the four feet of water.

We don't have any pumps to pump that much water out.

Yeah. They canceled the event.

You know, that deck. Yeah.

Now they're going to run the three rounds of eliminations

from Maple Grove at the next event at ACCO.

OK. OK.

So your first round of qualifying, you're going to go through first round

of eliminations, technically at the same time.

So now I obviously qualified.

Eight.

And it's one thing not to have lane choice at Maple Grove

because, again, they were good friends of mine over there.

There's no good friends.

And believe me, that track doesn't matter what lane.

But this time I'm at ACCO now to make up the race.

So we're going to the first round.

And now I don't have lane choice.

And now I'm stuck in the left lane.

The left lane, although it was a little faster, true.

But it had a hump in it.

And the right lane was smooth and fuck.

And two other cars had crashed in the season.

Actually, Pepe Loco and Manny Cruz, both crashed

in the left lane earlier in the season.

And and now I'm I'm in that lane.

And I was really aggressive with the tune up and the clutch.

And I put too much clutch in it.

I didn't put enough slip in it.

Clutches need to slip. Right.

And I put too much clutch in it.

So when I dropped the pedal, the clutch pedal, the car bogged for a second.

But I knew I could catch them anyway.

Yeah. So I just stayed into it.

And the car picked back up, you know, immediately, it's like split second,

you know, picked right back up and takes off.

But now the rear suspension is not loaded like it should.

And so I go out whatever, 180 feet, whatever, 300, whatever it is.

There's a bump in the left hand lane.

And if your car leaves and it's not fully compressed

when it hits that bump, it's going to take you.

So what happened was now it unsettles the car.

Yeah. And I'm drifting over.

I'm drifting over.

I don't see Paul.

I don't see him, which means I'm ahead of him.

Yeah. Right.

I look over, I don't see him.

I'm like, I can't I can't go in his lane.

I just can't.

The car makes a like a pole like it's going to go into that lane.

And I just.

You like the wheel over the wheel.

I'm not going to crash into somebody else and possibly kill him.

So we got the wheel over and hit the wall and bounced off the wall.

And it was a great video.

It was exciting.

I didn't get hurt, came out, 68 heartbeats a minute,

blood pressure 110 over 80.

At the time I spoke, I was smoking a cigarette.

The lady was like that.

The ambulance lady was like, you better stop it, baby.

You know, I'm not about enough of you.

And I'm like, that's the thing.

There's nothing wrong with me.

So they grabbed my helmet.

They see that it got a mark in the helmet from the cage, whatever.

Yeah. They're like, how's your head?

I'm like, great.

So he's cracked your helmet.

I feel great.

They're like, no, we're going to take you to the ambulance.

Me throw none of that.

I'm like, yeah, you know, with your head injury, I'm like, listen,

I've been hit a lot harder than that.

So we're not going anywhere.

My blood pressure is good.

My heart rate is good.

Let's get this car off the track and let's get that out of here.

And I whacked the car right there.

And that that that ended it for that that season.

The pro import was that started because of you.

Is that true?

I think that I had a lot to do with early on, along with others,

OK, along with others, specifically Pepe Loco.

He was him and I.

We met early on before there was any organized racing.

OK, OK. So and remember, we all were street racers.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, don't do street racing is dangerous.

Tell me a drag race and start out street racing.

OK, tell me, oh, well, that's because you're a girl, baby.

All right. But most most drag races,

and whether you want to admit that, whether it's a dirty secret,

you're going to start off street racing.

I mean, that's just where it is.

I mean, maybe maybe the road racing guys, you know, they start off in the go

carts, yeah, we're going to start off at the light on the avenue.

That's that's where it all starts all the time.

No, but I was just a strong, strong proponent of of import racing.

And so was Pepe. OK.

And together, you know, we we formed this thing at Echo Raceway

called the quick eight and basically it was eight guys put in a pot of money

and we go racing on that Sunday.

And it just really blew up really, really, really fast.

And the next thing we know, people are building back half cars

and then three quarter cars and then, you know, pro cars.

But it all it came year after year after year. OK.

You know, so I don't think I was involved in the pro

import class in the sense of developing that that that was already done.

You know, they were doing a good job.

The you know, at one point, you know, just give you an idea

how big import racing was.

It was three series. Hmm.

You don't have any three series for any.

I mean, you got IHRA and NHRA competing.

Can you imagine having no PRC and NHRA? Yeah.

And it was good because for a local guy like myself,

I didn't have to go like NHRA had races in

they have Colorado.

It's like, yeah, come on, man.

It's turbo cars.

What the hell are we doing in Colorado?

Yeah. First and second of all, it's an urban sport.

All right. True. OK.

Yeah. Yeah.

Colorado doesn't strike me as the urban epicenter of the Midwest,

if you know what I mean. Yeah. OK. All right.

I mean, maybe you've got the Colorado Timberwolves of something,

and that's going to be it for you. All right.

Everything else is going to be, you know, you know, so always,

you know, always made me think like I can't travel around the country like that.

Like I didn't have any sponsors.

I didn't come from money, you know.

So and I had a business and my business paid for my racing.

And so if I was too away too long from my business, it would suffer.

And, you know, we've been in business 30 March will be 34 years.

It's like I'm not going out of business for any addiction,

whether it's drugs or or alcohol, women, you know, racing.

I'm not going to do it. You know, I'm not going to be. Hi, my name is Vinny.

You know, I'm a degenerate drag racer. Hi, Vinny.

You know, you know, races are anonymous or something like that.

Yeah, I'm not doing that.

So so I I was able to take advantage of all of these series

by going basically from here to Florida,

mostly from here to Maryland and picking out all the ones that I wanted to go to.

OK, there was three more tracks out there.

There was Moroso, Akko and English Town, which have all been closed by now.

So so there was a lot of racing going on.

And so we were able to pick and choose which races we would go to.

And the ones we could make the money from, you know, they were paying out money.

So we were racing for the money.

And what do you what do you think you have the most inspiration in terms

of cars being built around that time to drag race?

I mean, I don't even want to answer that question,

because I don't want to sound like a complete jerk.

You know, I mean, but I can be straight up.

I mean, we're not going to take it away. All right. Well, then what I did.

What I did then, everybody came after me.

Yes, say how it is, you know, in New York, you know that.

Well, I mean, there is.

But, you know, we're talking to a bigger audience.

But, you know, that's that's really the truth.

You know, I that was the first person to make a thousand horsepower on a super.

I was the first person, you know, to, you know, are these facts, though?

So what's wrong with saying that?

So, you know, just say how it is. What are these facts?

If they fax, you're going to say they are facts.

There's no. OK, so first thousand horsepower Supra.

Oh, yeah. OK. Yeah, it was funny because it was actually done out here.

I had the shop in Queens when I come all the way out here to go to a place

called Mustang Magic. Oh, yeah, that's by my house.

Well, I used to live in your party.

And the tuner used to come and meet me there and whether, you know,

and I and I wrecked a lot of motors, you know,

we were having a lot of problems keeping, you know, one of the dirty secrets

of the Supra is that because of the design of the motor,

it loves to burn up bearings, you know, main bearings and stuff like that.

And remember, we didn't have nice king bearings.

We didn't have an ACL race.

But yeah, we were using an aluminum NDC bearing from from effing cleavite

and and, you know, spin the bearing or, you know, lift the head.

And, you know, I went out there like 10, 12 times and, you know,

paid the tuner every time. And wow.

And, you know, I go there and they're strapping the car down and he goes,

what are you going to do here today?

That's not going to blow the fuck.

I'm going to blow it up right now.

I'm going to blow it up, man.

You know, just so that they couldn't say it. Yeah.

Just and you got a sin.

I'm in a Mustang shop.

Right. Right. No love or very little.

And, you know, I just kept coming back and, you know, we were still racing.

You know, we'd race in 800 or a spiral car, 900.

But, you know, we wanted to get faster.

And so as we turned it up, we had created more problems.

And finally, we we made like a thousand 13 and the guy, you know,

and every time he would charge me, I'd make one pole, blow it up, charge me,

you know, the tuner charge me. Yeah.

You know, everybody, you know.

So this time when I made the, you know, the first thousand horsepower,

you know, it was impressive.

It sounded great.

It lived. We made a couple of more poles that kept living.

I'm like, OK, we're race ready now.

And so I walk up to him like, what do you know?

What do I owe you? You know, he's like, no, this one's on me.

You know, and I could just I felt such a satisfaction of, you know,

finally achieving that that right four digit number,

but also doing it in front of a bunch of Mustang guys in their own shop.

So that made me feel good.

So that was what the that was Supra.

Yeah, that was right.

What other like accolades I would say, did you feel like you kind of?

Well, you know, I think we did a phenomenal job with the super.

And the reason why I think we did it and I'll get to that.

I think the reason why we did a phenomenal job with the super.

And I think what it means, why I was so popular and what it really meant is I really.

We really paved the way to show what others can do.

So I took it so far, right?

Like I took it to a certain point, right?

Yeah. So, you know, the way I look at it, this is how I, you know,

when we talk about the history of supers, because every once in a while,

like, you know, I'm scrolling through Facebook, the old man stuff,

and I'm scrolling through it.

And, you know, I see I see somebody in an interview and, you know, yeah.

And and it just it doesn't make me mad.

It doesn't drive me crazy or anything like that.

But it certainly puts a smirk on my face where they, you know, some super guy.

And I recently heard this and he's like, yeah, we're the first to do this.

We're the first to do that.

And I'm like, man, you know, it's like you don't, you know,

at that point, you don't even know what you don't know.

True. Yeah. Yeah.

So I just put a smirk on my face.

But, you know, the way I think I like to look at it is that

I took it from nothing to a seven second car and showed the world what can be done.

And I kind of that was I was kind of tapped out on the chassis.

And, you know, we didn't have any real, real sponsors.

I had one, which maybe we'll get to later.

But I also look at it like then Titan picked up that ball.

Like, I think I brought it to the sevenths and then Titan brought it to the sixes.

And then, you know, that whole crew with E canoe then brought it to the fives.

It was the same crew that brought it to the sixes was the same crew that brought it to.

Yeah, it was Shane T.

Eric Lozinski, Gary White, you know, in Nero and Bottle, those are the guys.

And of course, E canoe himself, you know, that's who brought it to the fives,

you know, without his, you know, vision and his commitment.

That would have never happened.

And it was 100 percent. Yeah.

You know, it was a great day.

But, you know, when we were going sixes, you know, we were fastest pro stocks at that point.

We were going way faster than pro stocks.

You know, when we were in the pro class, our pro class was already

fast at an NHRA pro stock.

And today that we're in the fives, you know, I know, I know, I know,

Unleashed, they could probably run like a 511, like Josh John, Josh Taylor did recently.

But I think under like an NHRA rule package where pro mod runs like five

sixties and five seventies, I think that there's definitely an opportunity for,

you know, pro mods to race against pro imports.

Wow. Yeah.

So I definitely think there's an opportunity there.

I did a podcast with Titan, of course, right?

And one of the things where did you get that chair for Nero?

Nero, you ain't the king.

Nero, I swear to God, you ain't the king.

I beat you like a dirty dog before.

I beat your street tire cars.

I beat your pro cars.

I beat your Brad person that drive with a year unbeaten.

I beat you all don't sit there in the king's chair.

All right.

But I love you, Nero.

You know, I love you.

Oh, my God, you know, so.

So I didn't ask.

I didn't bring that up because of that, but um, shout out to Nero.

So I know I joke around.

I'm very sarcastic, but I know the people that we're talking to really well.

And I have a great deal of respect and a bigger amount of love for him.

I mean, I love Nero.

I mean, he's he's a really good dude.

He's he's one of my favorite people in this industry.

You know, he's a shrewd guy.

Yeah, shrewd, shrewd business guy.

But I respect that and other people do too.

And he's done a lot.

You know, he's done a lot for this industry.

Um, and Titan Motorsports as a whole has done a lot.

He's contributed a great deal at one time.

I think he was running three pro cars or two pro cars in a street car.

That's a huge, huge commitment.

So and he, uh, he really carried the torch, you know, I think others did too.

But yeah, you know, you had in his reign on that deal, you know, you had

bread personette, like I said, you had, um, God, what was his name?

Another famous guy, a bunch of famous guys on Jay Shamrock.

Um, uh, Matt Hoffid, um, run in the pro class.

He's a pro stock driver today.

He's winning an HR in a national events.

He owns total steel piston rings.

So there was some real hardcore talented guys in there.

And, um, you know, he's just one of them.

You know, he, I, I respect him because he, I, if there's anybody else

that probably on this planet that loves import drag racing as much as me,

I wouldn't say more than me, but as much as me, it's definitely, it's

definitely Nero and, and I love him because he's such a shit talk

and he won't take any crap.

So I love that guy and it was good with that, uh, big Mac guy, right?

That's good.

We can get to that too.

Um, so the reason I brought him up was because I posted a video

about how he, uh, went fives.

So you can do was the first to go fives, right?

And people were complaining and saying that that's not a real

Supra because there's basically the cars, just two chassis car.

So what I wanted to ask you, how else do you get a car to go fives?

So what I wanted to ask you, you know, again, you know, all you guys are great.

You know, all the people that watch his video, great.

My videos are great, but you know, you got to learn a little bit about

before you ask that question, you know, you're never going to get a car, so to

speak, I mean, they all look like cars from the outside.

Um, but that was more of a car than what we're running today.

Cause that was still a pretty much, um, steel car.

It was all tubed out on the inside.

Yes, that's for sure, but it still had pretty much the same body panels on it.

Whereas today, you know, the cars are all stretched and fiberglassed out.

That was still, I think a real car.

You know, okay.

So what about it makes it a real car for people who, cause people, these

are just people in the comments.

Nobody's an expert.

Yeah.

So, so this is like a real car.

So this sits on a unibody chassis, still uses the factory rear, you know, even

if you change the rear in this car, you know, not to make it a solid rear,

okay, but drive chef shop, they, you know, those guys over there, they make

a really, really nice billet, um, steel welded nine inch housing or 88 inch

housing for these cars that bolts right in.

You hear me Lee?

You listening?

Okay.

So, um, but I don't have one on this car.

Did you hear that Lee?

And, um, but we're, um, and this actually runs still in the LSD.

So this is, you know, you could probably get a car like this, um, in this

form, seven eighties, seven eighties in this form.

Yeah.

And this form, I think so.

So at what point would you like now the next to get it to a lower ET time?

What would you have to do to, to remove weight?

Or I think you'd have to back half the car.

You know, what does that, what does that mean?

So that means like we're going to cut the floors out of this car, um, yeah.

The whole inner structure and we're going to weld in a whole cage and we're

going to put a solid rear in the car and we're going to put a bigger tire in

and narrow the rear and, you know, really more for safety than anything else.

I mean, these are heavy cars.

Yeah.

You don't want these cars going as fast as they are and they are.

And so it's crazy that they are.

I mean, I just went a hundred and seventy four in this car.

And it's at the time when I went there, it was 3,500 pound car.

Yeah, that's, that's a heavy car.

Yeah, that is.

3,450, so almost 3,500.

I didn't even know these cars weighed that much.

Well, they don't.

They actually, my car was heavier than stock because we had the turbo kit,

the intercooler and the roll cage in the car.

Yeah, still heavy, though, still heavy.

Yeah, it was it was 3,550 pounds.

It was 3,450 pounds.

Yeah.

Um, and it was heavier than stock.

Um, everybody I'm racing is way lighter.

So last season, the beginning of 2025, we decided just to put the carbon doors on,

put the carbon deck and put the carbon hood.

That was it.

And, you know, got it down a couple of hundred pounds.

Yeah.

It went a little bit quicker.

Um, but I think right now, my biggest problem with this car is the rear.

It just, it just, it can't take the launch.

I think I'm driving through the rear.

Um, so what I'm going to do about that right now, I don't.

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No, but we'll say I think I might have a trick or two up my sleeve.

Um, then from there, you back half a car and the car's like got a big tire on.

It's got a little mini tub in there and then you can still run like a stock front

end, right?

So no, nothing, nothing in the front.

Yeah, nothing, nothing touched.

And then that's truly a back half car.

And that's what the super was.

And the other cars that I was racing in my class, um, because NHRA is pliable.

We'll just say that NHRA is pliable.

Um, so in the super, going back to the super, well, if we go, so if you took

this car and you cradled it with tubes and put struts in it, then you would

make it a three quarter car.

It would still be a regular car, regular car, but it's going to be a three

quarter car.

Then after that, when you look at a pro car, a pro car is just fully tube

chassis with a fiberglass body on it that emulates, you know, looks like the actual

Yeah, the actual car that is trying to bake.

You know, people say, well, that's not a real car, but that's still the

real power plant that came out of that.

Like this still got the VQ in it.

You mean in terms of the engine?

Yeah, yeah, you know, you know how many Celicas that they're racing have a

two JZ in it, right?

So at some point you got to walk away from the thought of, oh, this is a street car

or this is a, you know, this is a street car or this is a, you know, um, a fast

car and understand that you got to build a race car, yeah, safe and to go fast.

You're not going, you're not going to be El Nati and go 260 miles an hour.

I mean, you know, you got to, you got to think about it, you know, but you

know, one of the things in my career that I'm most proud of or, or pretty

proud of, I should say is that so the two JZ Toyota brand timing belt cast

iron motor, inline six, aluminum head, you know, right?

Real simple, very basic.

Um, well, when I got involved with Nissan, now I got a V six, all aluminum

chain motor, yeah, you know, completely different.

Like just like totally different than everything I cut my teeth on except

for the earlier stuff with Nissan, like the 300 ZX stuff.

But that was different too, because that was a cast iron block.

The setup was completely different.

They, the cam setup was completely different.

The timing chain, the, the 300 ZX used a belt, this used a chain, you know, is

this thing going to hold on at 9000 RPM?

Like there was just so many questions and I really questioned my own ability.

Did I get lucky and just get lucky with the two J or am I really that good?

You know, am I, am I good, not that good, but just am I good?

And, um, so when they asked me to build some motors for them, I was like, yeah,

let's do that.

You know, and, um, so I started building a motor for them and, uh, you know,

they seen my presence and they seen that I could run a shop, so to speak.

And then they said, Hey, would you come work for us?

And I said, well, I have a shop, you know, I'm not, not racing right now, but I

plan to get in, no, you know, we'll come race with us and we, you know, maybe

we'll get some other cars.

Okay.

You know, that, that's always interesting.

Yeah.

Um, you know, we're having a pro car built right now and I'm like, really?

And he's like, yeah, and it's, um, it wasn't, it was a pro car, but it was a

super comp car that they basically were making a mold body for and doing all the

updates on it.

So it wasn't a purpose built car.

Um, but I said, yeah, yeah, let's, uh, let's rock and roll.

So I built, they had a street tire car just like this on a BF Goodrich tire.

And, you know, that car was light.

They gutted it.

The rules were different.

Um, that car only weighed 2,800 pounds, but you know, that I had to make 1,100

horsepower, you know, in order to be competitive.

Yeah.

I mean, it's an eight second class.

Even back then it was an eight second class and I'm like, you're going 11s.

I got like 38 days to put a, you know, put this whole thing together.

And, um, and, uh, you know, we had a lot of help.

Um, one of the, one of the people I worked with, um, back then was a George

I know who was a really famous racer, probably one of the most, um, naturally

gifted and talented races out there.

He's also a mo tech tuner.

Um, he helped me out putting the mo tech in my car.

Um, really great guy.

We don't really speak that much anymore.

Um, he's, I think he's on the other side of the country, but really it's just a

naturally gifted guy and he was part of that team and I was in charge of building

the motors and, and, um, setting up the turbos and he was going to be in charge

of all the electronics and, you know, and together within like 38 days, uh, we put

together a package and we went down to Texas and we ran 833 in Texas at like

176 on an old BF Goodrich tire.

And, um, do you know John Shepard is Shep transmission?

Yeah.

So when one of the qualifying runs, this kid goes out, car is on a tear.

So he gets in front of John and the car makes a left hand turn.

I mean, straight left.

I thought it was going to go, it's the closest to this day and think about the

thousands and thousands of videos I've watched in drag racing.

And to this day, it's still the, I, I watched the shadow close between the car

and the wall and somehow, which I'll never can explain the kid that was driving

it, um, turned out wheel and at the last second, the car just snapped, didn't hit

the wall and drove right in front of John.

And it would have been a horrific accident.

John, you know, T bone this kid.

And, uh, but we, we, we put the mark out there.

We went, you know, we were, this, this team was left at, you know, the last race.

And then the next race, they come in and take five seconds off of what they were,

you know, whatever four seconds off of what they were doing.

And, uh, you know, got in the middle of the field.

I think they qualified, uh, I think he qualified number two or three with that.

And, you know, we had some other issues, but you know, that car went on to, to,

to do really well.

And that's when they said, okay, well, can you build us a pro car now?

You know, can you do this for a pro engine?

And I'm like, yeah, well, we need like 1700, you know, I'm making 11.

I don't know if I can now the challenge is even greater.

So, you know, we, we put that car together again.

Um, that's when I brought Shane in and a bunch of other people, um, George had

left the team at that point and, um, and, uh, we were, uh, bring it.

We brought in some other people.

We brought in Shane and we had Motek make us a harness and, um, Nathan

Techison actually made us the harness and what I think he was working for

Motek at the time might even be so make working for Motek now.

Um, and we got that all together and, uh, the owner was supposed to drive the car.

So I'm just there as like at this point, crew chief, shop manager, and, you know,

it was then decided that, you know, we need somebody with more experience in the

car.

So at that point I got the, I got the keys and, um, you know, now I got to show

what I did works, right?

Right.

Um, we go out, we're having a terrible time with the clutch, you know, just, just

terrible time with the clutch.

Just can't get it right.

And, um, just can't get it right.

And shaken, uh, you shook the tire.

I did like testing.

I did like nine hits and every hit 30 feet out, rattled the tire.

And you people don't know about a pro car.

You're sitting so far back that the wheel well, if this is the back of the seat,

the wheel well is right here.

So when that thing shakes the tire, you know what shaking the tire is actually?

It's like, just picture this.

It's, it's like when you drive over the tire, so picture a basketball and just

tuck the basketball in and then have that energy released.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

But do that like when the tire is spinning that, you know, 6,000 RPM, it's

like bang, bang, bang.

And it's knocked people's teeth out.

It has knocked doors off of cars.

It has knocked stuff loose in the car.

And we couldn't get the clutch.

We, it's all in the clutch when it's doing that, you know, it's, so the

clutch is the reason why it kept shaking the tire.

And we just couldn't get a grab on it.

And, uh, and we rented the track basically for the whole weekend.

This was Saturday.

So Sunday I get up and I try to get up and I, I can't get up.

I'm beat up so bad.

Like I can't stand up.

Like it took me a while because my back was so bruised.

It was like it hit with a baseball bat and phone books, you know, you didn't see

the mark, but it was there.

Yeah.

And, uh, but you know what?

I took a hot shower, it was a new day and, uh, whatever.

So I went back at it and we still didn't get the clutch.

And then our first race came up, um, which was at Moroso.

And, uh, we decided to go.

We were like, maybe it's the track, maybe the track prep's not right.

So I didn't, I actually, I didn't want to go.

I figured let's stay back here.

Let's just continue the time, but everybody want to go to Florida.

So Florida is where we went.

So we go to Moroso Park and I literally qualified number eight.

And I got a race, uh, bad person that I believe, I believe that was the driver.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was him.

And, um, you know, one thing about Brad and a couple of the drivers is that

they don't like the stage first.

And of course, as a driver, you know, I'm always out there watching when I'm

not racing, I'm watching you.

Yeah.

When I'm not racing, I'm watching you, man.

I'm watching everything you do.

I'm sitting there.

I'm watching how you stage.

If you stage the same way at the same time, do you have a certain routine?

Do you go through that routine the same way?

What happens if something upsets that routine, you know, when you get up to

that starting line, you have to command that starting line.

That's your starting line.

It's nobody else's starting line.

It's your starting line.

Um, and I kind of take that attitude, um, when I get up to start a line.

Once, once I'm in the burnout box and those wheels are turning, it's like,

this is my track, you know, um, and it's just a mental thing.

You know, it's just like, you know, this is my track.

You ain't, you, you know, I'm, I'm going to race you.

You know, you're going to get raced right now.

And so, um, we go up there and, you know, he's playing a staging game.

You don't want to go in.

I'm like, yeah.

Now understand that these guys all see me at the lower class, the outlaw class.

Yeah.

And I dominated that class.

Like take their ass, you know, that's, that's a fact.

Now I'm going into the big boy class, you know, so, right?

A bigger car, an outlaw car is, you know, maybe a seven second car.

This is going to be a mid six second car, you know, big jump in, you know,

driving ability.

So I, I don't know if they thought that I was going to be shook or whatever,

but man, we burned down both those cars before, before we went in and, you know,

and then finally, you know, we went in and, you know, we didn't have the clutch

set up right.

And I knew that going in, I knew I was going to lose, lose this race.

Like nothing changed.

So I doubt very much if this car is going to go 60 feet and it didn't, but I

would not let him, you know, take control of that race.

Like, you know, that was it.

So, um, I was pissed now.

Now I'm losing in competition.

So like, you know, it's one thing to f up in testing or not get it in testing,

but when you don't get it in competition, when everybody's out there, you know,

everybody's looking at your underwear, they see what you're doing.

It's like, oh man, you know, I don't want to, you know, I, I couldn't allow that,

you know, so all the way home, you know, I'm pissed.

I'm just, I'm on fire.

You know, I'm trying to figure this out.

We were driving up and there's an IDRC race and Maple Grove.

And I'm like, let's go, let's go there.

Let's go there for the weekend.

I'll make some arrangements with Mike where they can spray down a lane.

I know Maple Grove is a great track.

You know, I know everybody there.

I know they're going to take care of us.

Let's go.

So finally.

Cooler heads prevail and continue to test without everyone there.

Yeah, you know, even though there was an IDRC event at that point, sorry to say

that, you know, the IDC was kind of falling off.

They used to be the biggest, but they were kind of falling off and not do their

own fault through some real shenanigans by this industry.

It wasn't really Mike's fault or the IDRC series in itself.

Yeah, it was just that he was a small player in a big pond and he didn't own

the tracks and they were just pushing them out and, you know, and that's exactly

ultimately what happened there.

But we go to IDRC and I'm like, OK, let's take the clutch out.

Let's cut it.

Let's do it.

Let's go through everything.

We go up there.

I'm like, it left, you know, it left.

And I'm like, OK, bang, it's going, bang, it's going, bang, it's going.

Call went 663 at 216.

What? And I was like, wow.

And of course, we were static, right?

Yeah. Now we thought we had the clutch tuned up.

We're good to go.

And we did.

We kind of dialed it in from there.

But, you know, it just showed, you know, for myself.

But to me, that was such if you gave me a million dollars, I wouldn't take it over

that feeling that I had of the sense of accomplishment that not only was I

able to now do this with a 2JZ motor.

Yeah.

OK, and pioneer that whole thing.

Well, I just did it again with the Nissan motor.

You know what I mean?

On a completely different platform, like the two platforms were one's an inline

six, one's a V6, one's all aluminum, one's cast iron, aluminum.

So totally two different cars, two different engines with two different

idiosyncrasies and two different inherent problems.

You know, the inherent problem for the 2JZ, love to spit out the bearing.

The inherent problem for the VQ, love to lift the head.

You know, and I saw both of those problems without spending a lot of money.

Right. A lot of money.

So now, if you had an unlimited budget between the two, a 2JZ and a VQ, what would

you, what would you do? Oh, boy.

Like, if you if you had, let's say if I gave you five hundred

thousand dollars to build whatever you want, right, what would you do one year?

So I'm just I'm just going to tell you facts here.

When I started building the 2JZ, it destroyed the rotary.

It just shit on the rotary.

OK, OK, it just it just did for a lot of number of years.

Even my friend Pepe Loco went from racing his Datsun B210 with a rotary in it

to eventually racing a 2JZ powered car.

Yeah.

And there's a video of that out somewhere out there that we were bullshitting

a PRI about it, you know, more than bullshitting, but having a good time with it.

And my good friend, Ralphie Alves, was there too.

But oh, Ralph, DRT.

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

He was on a podcast, too. Sorry.

Shout out to Ralphie.

Ralphie, did you tell him I used to work on your car before you started your business?

I don't know if he told I didn't say that.

You didn't say that I used to work on your cars before you started your business.

You didn't say that, right?

Yeah, I figured that.

I still love you, Ralphie.

You know, I do.

But you know, that's the truth, too.

Right. You little.

Listen, he listens to the podcast.

I know you a little white Porsche with the little secret

bottle that I put in there for you.

Remember that? Oh, man.

He's got stories for days off.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

I love Ralphie.

You know, again, these guys that are absolutely 100% dedicated, you know,

at the very first race, I believe at that race right there, I think,

and I'm not 100% sure.

I mean, maybe he mentioned this, but at at at the event, he had appendicitis.

And he really had it taken care of like, I don't know, a couple of days before

and he showed up at the race or something that he was sick or really sick.

And it might have been appendicitis and he showed back up the race.

So he was at the very first East Coast race, for sure.

You know, him and Tito, Eddie Bellow.

Yeah, he's in Florida now, too.

Yeah, Eddie's in Florida now.

Last time I heard from him, he worked for me as well.

And we met years before we were both anybody.

Tito and I put together a 300 ZX and RX7.

Did he tell you about that car, the RX7 with the 300 ZX Tito?

Did you have him? No, I don't think I met him.

So we welded a 300 ZX front on a on a on a RX7 first gen chassis.

So it was RX7 from the windshield back, but from the windshield forward,

had a 300 ZX front on it, and we built the 300 ZX motor with it.

And Jim Wolf programmed the computer for us.

Jim, big shout out.

No, you for 30 plus years, the whole group over there.

But here's here's here's where I'm going to answer your question.

OK, here's where it. Let's hear it.

So again, the two Jay-Z shit on the three TC, four TC, four AG,

all the four solar cars and and all the rotaries.

And that back then it was two rotors and it destroyed them.

It just set everything apart, horsepower, performance, torque.

Even to the point, the first Pan American I attended in,

they wouldn't let me into the quick class.

They said I had to go to a bracket class.

So I had to.

It was a nine fifty bracket.

So literally that was because they didn't want me racing in a quick class

at that point because I had a six on them, which is crazy, right?

Because it was still a Japanese car.

But you're ready.

Be careful what the two Jay-Z did to everybody else.

The V are 38 is going to do to the two Jay-Z.

I don't care what your RB.

I don't care about you two Jay.

I don't care. OK, I don't care.

I built them all.

I know them all.

And I'm telling you all that the V are 38 is going to be the quintessential

small block Chevy of Japan motor moving forward.

The only thing that's going to stop that is if Nissan doesn't make it available,

we need blocks, we need heads.

Listen to Nissan and you will dominate, dominate, destroy, destroy

every other make out there for sure, easily.

But the GTR has already kind of proven itself.

No, those all those cars are it's honestly, it's to me,

it's kind of boring to watch because of how fast they are.

Like it's almost like they're there.

It's a known thing that GTRs are like kind of like the cheat code.

Yeah, I mean, as a car, but as an engine.

OK, so you know, I'm just talking about an engine like the the V are 38

engine is going to, you know, take over from the two Jay-Z and the the RB easily.

So you don't think that you don't think that pricing is going to be like how

much it costs to to work on this cars is going to be a big factor.

Well, we're not talking about the cars.

We're talking about the engines, right?

Engines. That's so so so look at how many

transplanted rotaries there are.

Look how many transplanted to Jay-Zs there are, right?

So this is going to be another transplanted engine, you know,

that's going to be used for a myriad of platforms.

One, they make more horsepower, right?

Right now they do, right?

Right now they they make way more horsepower.

There is no thirty three hundred horsepower to Jay.

If there is, they're spraying it with a five hundred shot of nitrous.

Is this on is this on factory cast or this is like?

So let's get to that.

So from what I understand, you can have actually a twenty five hundred.

And this is where it's going to shit on everybody.

This is it's not so much.

It's going to do it in a pro class where you can have billet everything.

It's actually going to do in the lower classes where it's where a budget concerns come.

So let's just say you buy you go buy eBay.

Right now you buy a thirteen thousand, ten thousand dollar long block.

OK, OK. You put pistons and rods in that.

Pistons and rods. That's it.

Pistons and rods, you're at twelve hundred.

OK, pistons and rods, you could get away with twelve right about there.

It's probably right where the crank is going to start to give up a little bit.

OK, OK. Then you put pistons, rods and a crank in there.

Set of valves, some cams.

You can bring a stock block stock stock block.

No boring, no honing, no line day, nothing.

Just brand new stock block, but bearings in it.

But rods, put a crank, put pistons in it, put a good head gasket, head studs,

put good cams in it, you know, stuff that just general stuff

that you would do to any other motor.

You don't have to put sleeves in it.

You don't have to put dry sump in it.

You know what I mean? OK.

And you'll make twenty five hundred horsepower.

You cannot do that with any other platform.

Maybe how he said no dry sump.

Yeah, you can go no dry sump.

I'm sorry, up to two thousand horsepower, nineteen hundred.

And that's still that's still a bit.

Yeah, a fifteen on a two J at well, thirteen hundred, fourteen hundred.

You're definitely going to start needing a dry sump.

Now, of course, you know, I heard I heard Nero's combination

of how he puts together on on the podcast.

Yeah, he talked about about some combinations.

I don't necessarily agree with them, but they work for him in terms of what

specifically because he I think he didn't really he didn't really go too much.

It's just the way that like his combination thought process was,

you know, like eight hundred up to this point.

And so I don't necessarily agree with it.

I don't think it's wrong.

I just do things a little different. OK.

But again, still you're at twelve, thirteen hundred on a two JZ.

And you're going to rev it to nine grand.

You have to have a dry sump in there.

RBS, as far as I know, the same thing.

You know, you've got him, you know, twelve, thirteen hundred.

You're going to start to put a dry sump.

You make two thousand horsepower to be our thirty eight.

No dry sump, no sleeving, no decking.

Just put it all together, tighten it up.

Why do you think it is how how many how many think about this?

Because obviously this is probably going to be your forte.

It's like how many GTRs, you know,

that are making between fourteen and nineteen hundred horsepower.

What GTR, which are thirty five.

Yeah, or thirty five.

There's probably a ton of them.

Ton. Yeah. I can't even think about that.

You just answered your own question.

Yeah. I can't even count.

Those are street cars.

That's your world.

Street cars. Right. OK.

So think about.

Yeah, that's normal.

A ton. Normal.

It's true. That's why I said it's kind of like, you know, you're you're

not going to get that you're not going to get that with a two J and you're

not going to get that with an RB and you damn sure I'm not going to get that

with any kind of rotary, although I have a tremendous respect for all of them.

Yeah. Yeah. Now costs.

So when you're looking at something like this, you're looking at cost, right?

So you said 12 to 13,000 roughly for you.

You could buy one on eBay right now for ten ten grand.

No turbos, no turbos, no hones, ten grand right now.

And then how much are pistons and rods for that?

How much are pistons and rods for an RB?

How much is pistons and rods for a two J?

You're not going to.

It's not like you're doing any change, right?

Doesn't change. You know, you're going to need a crank long before, you know,

when you know, a two J, you're going to need a crank at 1200 horsepower.

That's for sure. Right.

You know, and and yes and no, because, you know, I almost answered

my own question now. I made 1550, right?

I went 730 and 191 miles an hour on on on a stock crank with stock main

caps, actually, OK, OK, on a two J.

But my secret was I didn't do it with M1 methanol.

I did it with C16.

You do that same 1550 on M1 methanol, just the amount of sheer volume

of fuel that you have to put in there.

You know, Benelus taught us a very simple thing.

I teach you guys this all the time, you know, you can't compress a liquid.

So when you put that much fluid and that much fuel into a cylinder,

the reason why they really beat themselves up early on was because it

just couldn't take that kind of cylinder pressure.

And I've seen that. So I'm like, I like C16 anyway.

I'm a big C16 fan. This thing runs on C16.

And really, yeah, yeah, runs on C16, making 1400 horsepower.

You know, and so I never threw a rod out.

I never bent the crank because I didn't wasn't using that M1 fuel.

So, you know, I could see like, yeah, you're saying, oh, you would need it.

You know, crank at that point or you don't need a crank.

It's really dependent on the fuel that you use.

So most people aren't.

So most people nowadays probably aren't going to use that.

They're probably going to use like eighty five. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. That's why they keep knocking the rods out of them.

OK, so that's what I'm saying.

Like so. So the power numbers are different.

Yeah. Well, I mean, so, you know, you need the fuel to make the power.

Right. I need a good Vinny 10 racing engine to make the power.

You know, and what I always say to those guys is like, hey, you know,

I got another hundred and one hundred and fifty in a can if I want.

Like you're done.

Like you ain't putting no more fuel in your car.

Me, if I decide like, are you really piss me off?

I'm like, OK, I'll bring it back to my shop.

I'll change the injectors.

I'll put some M1 methanol in there and I'll be like the rest of you idiots,

you know, and run M1 methanol or or, you know, some red fuel or something like that.

You know, and that's always available for this car.

And even the super ran on C 16.

So the pro car, you know, when we were racing the old pro car for Nissan,

on that ran on M1, you know, that was an M1 fuel.

But that was, you know, but that was a steel rod motor

that didn't have an aluminum rod.

So, you know, I was able to keep that motor alive using a Carrillo rod.

Just pretty common. A lot of people are on that now.

Yeah, you know, they didn't even have an HD rod at the time.

And we were able to keep that alive again, you know, making 1750, 1800 to go 660.

So it seems like you're I don't want to say secret sauce is the fuel.

But like you're using C 16, which is pretty much

just keeping a lot of your engines alive and also keeping you at the power

levels that you have right now, as opposed to running low rock team fuels

or like 85, sorry.

And again.

So I go I go in 23 on this with a 137 60 foot time.

Terrible. It's horrible.

It's one of the things that's why I think the rear is giving up.

OK, OK.

So if this goes what my what my competitor goes, you know, like a one

twenty one one twenty two, then I'd be going seven sixties and seven forties

like Duffy, you understand the only difference between it's not the horsepower

level, that's the difference. Of course.

No, it's the 60 foot right now. Yeah, yeah.

So I'm getting where you go.

All right. So I wouldn't even need it for this car if I just straighten out

the 60 foot and then I can run my C 16 and I'd be more than competitive.

Right. But my feeling.

And again, this is why I kind of smirked a little bit was

your engines need it, but mine don't.

OK, OK.

So you need that.

You need that.

I put these heads.

You want to know something and my my guys notice on my things, but I'll open

that up. It's got a stock intake manifold.

Tell me. Tell me in all of your travels.

What car do you know?

What race car? What big horsepower car?

You know, using the factory period, correct intake manifold.

What race car?

Any any any any 1400 horsepower car?

What which would be mostly race cars or GTRs?

Are we talking imports only?

Yeah, yeah, because that's how I got to compare myself to that.

No, yeah, no, I usually usually, yeah, no, you don't see any.

I mean, I don't think any at that power.

No, no, no, doesn't exist.

That runs the stock intake manifold.

Maybe there might be some I could be wrong.

Somebody in comments probably going to say something, but it's rare.

You don't see it. Listen, people in the comments are always going to say something.

That's why they call the comments.

Yeah, but sometimes they might be right sometimes, but it's always that one guy.

Oh, yeah. Oh, there's always the one guy.

Oh, my friend was cousin with my brother, who married my sister, has a car.

But you're right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Stock intake manifold is on a stock intake manifold with the original

factory motor that came in this car, VQ 35, not an HR, not a 37,

not a VR 30, not a VR 38, not a three, you know, not a VG 30,

which are all popular motors, just a standard DE, one of the

most underrated motors, you know what I mean?

Like not underrated, but not like nobody ever did anything with them.

Like I'm pretty much the only one that's doing anything with them.

It's why I'm thank God I'm going to a GTO because I'm trying to make

in all the custom parts for this thing.

Oh, OK. You know, like I could just call up my friends over at T1 and get a crank.

Right. You know, be here tomorrow. Right.

Yeah. I got to wait 26 weeks if I burn this crank up.

You know, 26 weeks. Yeah.

Yeah, it's got a sunny Brian crank in it.

So you call up sunny and it's 26 weeks and you better be ordering three.

So yeah. Oh, yeah, that's the game.

That's the game. That's the game.

So people probably should stay away from trying to build

these to this level if they I mean, if they go through me or maybe one other

person, maybe like Kyle, you know, Kyle and Rachel, they do a pretty good job.

They run a six speed car up and I met him.

He has the he's still manual, right?

Yeah, yeah, he's he's got the fastest six speed.

And, you know, he's got a single turbo and I really like them.

You know, Rachel and Kyle, they have a good little business up in.

See, they're on the border of I think he's is he a mass?

Yeah, it's a mass. Massachusetts or something.

Mass Rhode Island border right up there.

Nice guys. You know, the great couple. Super cool.

Yeah, super cool people.

We always put together and, you know, always try to help each other out.

Is he is he low nines?

Yeah, I think he is or somewhere.

I don't know if you got in the eights yet, but he's not in the eights yet.

But, you know, I think he'll he'll go eights this year.

Now he's on T 56.

Now he's on. He was on the CD09 before CD09.

So, you know, you know, again, another guy does a great job, you know,

another guy that probably could go much faster and do much better

if he had some kind of financial assistance. Right.

But, you know, so it's just that I feel like as an engine builder.

And yes, turbo turbo engine builders aren't really all that respected.

Because, you know, back in the day, it was all about making normally

a aspirated horsepower and you didn't need any power adder.

And in some classes like like the pro class, it's like, yeah,

your your motor will make your engine will make horsepower.

That's true. But at that level, it's more about how can I can?

It's more of a containment device.

The engine, you know, kind of contain all of this horsepower

and all this air that I'm trying to and all this fuel I'm trying to push through.

But like in the lower classes, where they might be fuel restrictions

or weight where your motor really has to work for you, like, like, like every round,

like you don't have the budget to throw three motors in it over a weekend.

Then, yeah, then, you know, your engine is really important.

And so, like I said, one of the reasons I don't feel like I need to go there

is because I'm doing a good job at the engine level.

OK, and then, you know, and again, if I run out,

I got one hundred and fifty in the can.

OK, so VR 38 is what you think is going to be the next big thing,

which is the future. It's the future.

It's the future. I actually do see a lot more VR 38 swaps.

It was like a Fox body.

I PR I last year was a Fox body swap.

We actually talked about that like 10 years ago. Really? Yeah.

And the reason why, because the Fox body is one of the again,

middle class motorsports, right? We talked about that.

We don't have a lot of money, right?

I'm not embarrassed to say that.

Oh, it's to mean I don't have a lot of money to throw out racing.

Do I have a nice house? Do I live on the fucking beach?

Yeah. Yeah. Do I got cars?

Yeah. Do I have five grandkids?

And, you know, yeah, yeah, I got all of that.

But racing is like a whole different set of money. Yeah.

You know, and like people that don't go racing don't understand that.

Like if you don't understand how much it takes to go racing,

don't even start to go racing. So.

A whole different animal.

You know, so when we we looked at that for one reason is because

you can build a Fox body Mustang

out of every car that's produced, maybe, maybe, you know, rivaled to the Camaro

and this but a Fox body Mustang.

There are so many parts and so many good parts and so many cheap parts.

So we just felt like it was a light car.

We can buy all kinds of chassis parts, really cheap and put our motor in it.

And but, you know, it's like, I can't race in a domestic car.

I just couldn't wrap my head around it.

I'm like, I can't.

Now, you know, I'm trying for a guy.

You know what? Yeah.

It's like, what kind of car are you racing?

If I have to say Mustang first?

It's it's not in my vocabulary.

You can't do it. I just can't do it.

Not the shit on a Mustang.

Believe me, I've lost to plenty of Mustangs, lots of fast Mustangs out there.

I give them all the credit in the world.

I love watching Snot Rocket.

I love you guys, but I'm not one of you.

You know, I'm on the other team, man, and that's it.

And that's and that's where I'm staying.

That's where I'm planting my flag.

I'm never going to race unless you pay me a lot of money.

I'm not going to race a domestic car.

You know, yeah, I mean, I don't care what you drive.

I don't care what you race in.

Poor cars are going two hundred.

Yeah, 60 miles an hour.

Two hundred and sixty.

In a quarter mile, thirteen hundred and twenty feet.

Wrap your head around that.

Figure out you mathematicians, all you guys in the comment about.

Let me give you let me give you a test.

OK, figure out how fast somebody is going.

Two hundred and sixty miles an hour and use five sixty as your E.T.

And tell me how fast you're traveling per second.

Because I know if you guys can figure that out, I'm not going to lie.

I don't even know. I wouldn't even know about two hundred feet a second.

Wow. OK, it's probably more than that.

It's probably two ten.

You're going five sixty and thirteen twenty.

So if you double five sixty and five sixty,

that's still only going to bring you to one eleven forty or something like that.

Right. So eleven hundred and forty feet.

So think about how fast you're traveling

to go a quarter mile, thirteen hundred and twenty feet, five seconds, five and a half seconds.

You're traveling about two hundred and twenty, two hundred and thirty feet a second.

That is just it's it.

I don't know if they're going to slow us down, but I think eventually they go to.

I mean, at what point is the door car going to go for us?

At what point are they going to go to seventy to seventy fives?

You know, I mean, every year cars get faster in racing. So it's you know,

it's I mean, to go see a car, you stand at the, you know,

everybody loves seeing the car at the starting line.

Go at the big end.

Go at the finish line.

So I've been down here.

See how much energy is coming across at two hundred and twenty, two hundred and sixty.

Yeah, I went two hundred and sixty like these new just new generations

that I'm hoping to be bought of go. It's it's incredible.

It's it's really incredible.

So, you know, I I think that's going to be the power plant moving forward.

OK, the VR 38. Yeah.

So where does that Nissan baby Nissan?

Yeah, how many song I to I guess I get it.

I get it. Where does that leave the VQ and the VR platform like the earlier?

So the VR 30 platform is that specifically?

So because that's a huge thing, especially in New York, right?

A lot of people are running Q 50, Q 60.

So some I think some people are doing 350 stuff more for like drifting.

And yeah, you know, the takeover scene of these people doing sliding,

stupid flame tunes and that kind of stuff.

Pretty common with this with this car, right?

But yeah, because it's cheap.

You know, these cars, you know, one here.

I'm going to I'm going to give you manufacturers some gold right here.

OK, I'm going to give you some gold and you guys should definitely listen.

You know, what makes what what makes this now a $5,000 car

and the super a $220,000 car?

You want to know what one part, one singular part, your connecting rod.

If you were to put a good connecting rod in here that we could have made

500 horsepower, OK, on that, not 380 when the connecting rod comes out

of 400 with a connecting rod comes out of the motor and destroys the motor.

But if you guys literally made a good connecting rod in this motor,

this car right here would be worth four times, five times the value.

Because now some kid can now buy this car for $15,000,

put a bolt on turbo kit on it, make 500 horsepower

and be a hero without having to touch the motor.

OK, without having to touch that motor,

because once you go into that motor, it's time and money.

How much how much so you ask that the young people today

are more willing to buy a BMW M series,

pay $35,000 more than the Nissan's that are out there

just so that they can have the potential to make eight or 900 horsepower

and never open up the motor.

You're not going to do that on a VR 30.

I love Nissan, I love them, love.

I love the VR 30 platform. Love them. OK.

You know, but every manufacturer, you know, that makes that mistake is

pays for it because the car doesn't become an iconic car.

Why did the super become an iconic car?

Really simple.

If you pulled that motor apart and you looked at a factory super

connecting rod, it looks like a big block Chevy rod.

OK, it's about the same width, girth, it's not that far off.

Well, you can take a 2J, as you know,

and make 600 horsepower on a junkyard motor.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

That's why it's iconic, because it can be built, it can be run,

it can be raced, everybody knows it, so everybody wants it.

And that's why the demand for that super on top of,

you know, the movies and the racers and everything else.

But the platform, the 2JZ platform, why it's so widely used

is because it has a really strong connecting rod.

One part, one part, one part, one part separates everything.

Like if this had a good connecting rod on it, I'd be retired

because when these cars first came out, I was doing a Jim Wolf turbo kit

every week, every single week for two years.

I did a Jim Wolf turbo, you can call Colleen at Jim Wolf.

We were overnighting the turbo kits.

That's how fast we were getting them.

OK, it was an incredible number, only 150 bucks

to actually overnight a turbo kit back in a day.

So we would just overnight the turbo kit.

Yeah, every week we had one guy come in for almost two years straight.

Then when the car started to get like, you know, 40, 35 and 40,000 miles

and they were making like 400 horsepower.

Boom, car after car, we started seeing come back.

You know, break the rod, break the rod, break the rod.

After that, we got to build motors.

And now you build a motor, you build a motor for a car.

OK, the time, the money, the effort, you know, it takes quite a few months

to really get a car into a shop, pull the motor, send it to the machine shop,

send the heads out, you know, port the heads, you know, you know, get the heads back.

If you do your own porting, spend the week at the porting, the best, you know,

bench, you know, get it back online to where it's in the same,

you know, in the same lineup as the rest of your work, you know, get it there

and then spend, you know, two weeks putting it together.

And then, you know, three weeks over at the monster side, you know,

putting the motor in, putting a fuel system in, putting a coolant system in,

putting the turbo kit on, you know, it takes takes time and money.

Where's the super, you know, just turn up the boost, put a, you know,

botch fuel pump back in a day and you're making 600 horsepower, you would have came.

You would have came.

We're walking around with 600 horsepower, you would have came.

But I think that's where a lot of manufacturers make a mistake of not

putting a good rod in there.

And if they did, these cars would, you know, again, most of these manufacturers

they're not making money selling cars, they're selling parts.

So they're not looking to put the best parts in there.

But if you're really building a sports car, you want to make that sports car

a sports car, an iconic car.

As far as the VR 30 goes, I think it was an excellent platform for the

infinity, which my wife actually raced and she raced in 1140.

But to be honest with you, and I know I'm not going to make a lot of people

happy here and then, but I don't, you know, I have a saying.

Those you fear to criticize are your masters.

OK, OK, OK, those are the people that own you and control you.

Right, right, OK, and I will refuse to live by that.

You know what I mean?

I refuse to live by that.

I tell the truth.

Truth doesn't always come out pretty.

It doesn't always. It's not always nice.

I respect you. But believe me, when I tell you the truth,

where I tell you my opinion, I don't do it to to to take you down.

I tell you for your information so you can build yourself up.

Like I'm a I I consider myself a good person to be a good mentor to good people.

So whenever I criticize you, if I have something to say to you, believe me,

it's not to take you down. It's to build you up, you know.

So in this case, I expect I am what's the differentiation

between infinity and Nissan, and that should be spelled out.

And, you know, the Infiniti is a luxury car and it could use a VR 30.

It probably use a VR 30 in almost every line they have, you know,

and a bunch of other cars as well, not just the one, you know, Q.

But, you know, the other models they have as well.

And I think it's a good motor.

I think it's actually a pretty decent motor.

I think it like all motors, they have some certain problems.

Again, you know, you know, did they do a better job on a connecting rod?

Yeah, they did, you know, but it's still not in the same league as the BMW.

Right, right now, yeah.

Or even like a Ford EcoBoost or where you can make

nine hundred horsepower by just changing the oil pump gears or LS

that you can make seven hundred horsepower on stock stuff.

Yeah. And so I think the mistake and again, I say this lovingly

and not because I'm with Nissan at Bayshore or even, you know,

involved with Nissan in any way, I just say that I think it was a mistake

to put that same platform into that car knowing that the landscape is out there

where you can buy a BMW and get everything you want, make nine hundred horsepower

and never crack that motor open.

And I think it was a mistake putting the VR 30.

Now, is it a mistake that can be remedy?

Yeah, I mean, I'm like a look if you like if Nissan wants to keep the the VR 30

and put a good connector rod in there, rename the car, you know, 650Z,

you know, make it make something.

I mean, you're competing with with cars that are just unfortunately, you know,

yeah, you know, like you're you're a well, you're not a super owner,

but we have a couple of super old, you know, new Supra, you know,

actually the Japanese BMW version, Supra.

Well, which super it's because I do have a Supra, but not maybe a mark for it,

obviously, but you got to mark five, right?

Correct. Yeah. Right.

So you wouldn't consider that a super, obviously, because it's not.

It's a BMW, basically. Is that what you're saying?

It's a Z four with a body package on it.

Right. I know that.

Right. I wasn't sure if that's what you I wasn't sure if you were saying

mark four or mark five. No, no, right.

So, you know, it was Mikey over there on his mark five.

So we break his chops, too.

But, you know, you look at the Supra, you look at B 58, B 59, S 58.

You look at some of the Ford products that are coming out, you know,

like I said, the echo boost stuff and, you know, all of all of that stuff,

you can make a tremendous amount of horsepower without opening the motor.

So for the kids, they know that they're not stupid.

They, you know, to think that this generation of car enthusiasts is stupid

is is is a fatal mistake and it will show up in your sales numbers.

And so, you know, where obviously the BMWs are everywhere, literally,

you know, the sales numbers are good.

If you see them everywhere, yeah, then you know the sales numbers are good.

Do you see a Z everywhere?

No, be honest. No, you don't like the newsies.

Yeah, the newsies. No, I rarely you rarely see them because they didn't really,

you know, and again, I love the car.

You drive the car, you drive that car, and you want to make 500 horsepower

on that car, 550 by that car by that car.

But if you're thinking of buying that car

and making a thousand horsepower to kind of keep up with your buddies with the BMWs,

you know, you're going to have to see your uncle Vinny

and we're going to have to build your motor.

You know what I mean?

And that's just the way that's going to go, you know.

But, you know, again, once it's done and once it's done right,

it will be able to compete with them.

So the money that you think you're saving, you buy a new Z.

Yeah, Simon, New Z. How much?

Yeah. So you spend in 45 grand.

Well, it's cheaper than a Supra.

Well, it's way cheaper.

It's like 30 grand cheaper or twenty five thousand dollars.

It actually is not too far.

I drove one in Australia and it was actually really nice.

It kind of gave me a great car.

Yeah, it's again, it's a phenomenal car.

Yeah, the balance, the handling, the braking, the acceleration for what it is.

It's an excellent feels like it's a well paid together car.

Excellent car. I've driven them. They're awesome.

They they they're so much more predictable, you know,

without being too disrespectful here.

Like the, you know, BMWs are the import Mustang leaving the meat.

You know what I mean?

That's not this is my fault.

You know, I mean, that's the truth.

I mean, a Mustang going to slide across the air, you know, it's a BMW.

Yeah, but you see you're right. It's all right.

I know I'm right.

But you see that like I could do donuts in a Z and drive off straight.

Yeah, that's never going to happen in the Z.

But, you know, the difference between, you know,

41 and I paid 81 for an M2 recently,

you know, is 30, whatever, 30, 40,000 dollars, 37,000.

And that 37 grand is what you're going to need

to put it to that VR 38 to make it competitive with the M2.

And I think that's where they they made a slight mistake.

And if they could just either put a good rod in there,

you know, it's a good motor. It's a it's a baby GTR motor.

I mean, it's very similar. It's got it.

It's got an actual vacuum pump on it.

It's a it's a very cool motor.

It's just that, you know, once again, you know, that connecting rod, you know,

is just going to not be your friend.

So, you know, if they turn around and through production in the next year or so

or they listen to this podcast and let's put some good rods in there,

you know, I think you would have a secret winner.

Like now the guys will know, yeah, it only comes with 400 horsepower,

but turbos and injectors and I'm at I'm with you guys.

Yeah, yeah, you know, without having to spend 30 grand on the motor.

Yeah. So I think that's kind of where they came up a little short, not, you know,

and I also think that it it hurts both infinity and these on a little bit

because it doesn't differentiate between, you know, a Q 60 and, you know,

a Q 50 red sport, which is what I had and and the Z, you know.

So why do you think that they use that same mode?

I was honest, I was honestly disappointed that they use the same motor.

I thought they were going to come up with something different.

But why do you feel like they kept it in the newer chassis?

I mean, it may go along with what you're saying, but like, what's what do you really think?

I want to strangle them.

I want to be in I want to be in the board meeting for engineering who designed that rod.

I want to be in planning of who decided to green light the VR 30.

I want to be in the meeting for who decided to call it the Z instead of the 400 Z.

I thought that's what they were going to call it initially.

Rumors, when it first came out, it was going to be a 400 Z, no?

And like I said, I like to be in that room like it actually came out like to be in the room.

You know, I called it a 400 Z up until everybody calls it a 400 Z.

I can walk through every Nissan dealership that I know of and walk

through every single tech and walk up to them and say, what kind of cars that

and they'll be like up to 400 Z.

And again, like sometimes I don't know how the message gets mixed up.

You built a retro car, right?

It's a retro styling car.

Yeah, yeah, right?

You're basing that on history going back to 1969, if I'm correct, with the 240 Z.

So you went 240 Z, 260 Z, 280 Z, 300, 300 ZX, 300 ZX DETT, 350, 370.

None of these cars made the actual horsepower that they were claiming.

Right, right.

Finally, finally, you get a 400 horsepower car in a retro body and you

discard the retro name of the 400 Z.

It's like, like I said, I need to be in these rooms because, you know,

sometimes I think marketing, you know, like you called it the Z.

Is that like the ZUR, the ZE, you know, what are we, what are we?

Pronouns now?

Pronouns, we're gonna pronoun our cars now.

No, it's a 400 Z.

It made 400 horsepower.

It's a Z.

It makes it's a retro car.

It's a 400 Z.

Why wouldn't you go back?

So to me, you know, again, I'm I'm going to die nice on.

You understand what a die nice on.

I love my kids.

I love them.

Okay.

I mean, I love them.

I would give my life in a fucking heartbeat for any one of them.

But when they mess up, I got to tell them too.

When they mess up, I got to tell them, you know, what kind of what kind of person

would I be to allow you to make mistakes over and over again and not say anything?

You know, again, I am my own master.

That's why I said what I said before I started this.

You won't criticize your own masters.

Okay, I criticize because I want you to be better because I know you can be better.

And without any doubt in my mind, without any doubt in my mind, and I mean this

with all my heart, with the right people, and I mean the right people, Nissan would

be so dominating that it would take years for Toyota and Honda to keep keep up.

And I've always said this.

How does out the equation?

How does what they make a 40?

You know, they make a $40,000 force on the turbo car.

You know, I don't think they're they're well performance side of things.

This is kind of like, well, you know, like I like I've I've spoken to my good

friend over this many, many times.

My friend Simon Israeli and he owns a Nissan a Bayshore runs it.

And, you know, he's the chief marketing up there.

And I'm like, you know, Nissan is never going to be a company that sells 11

million cars like Toyota.

Well, Honda, and thank God for that, because they've become masters at

stamping out steel.

Can they stamp out steel better than everybody else?

Absolutely.

A hundred percent.

The stuff comes through the ports.

That's perfect.

Yeah.

Honda cars, Toyota cars are perfect.

Nissan cars are perfect, but they're too big.

They're too behemoth of a company.

They're not going to be able to move around.

You know, Nissan is in the most unique position because they shouldn't even

try to be Toyota or Honda, because Toyota and Honda can never be Nissan.

And at the same time, Nissan doesn't have to be Mazda or Mitsubishi.

It could literally forge its own path.

It can forge its own path and build cars that people want much more cleanly,

professionally, for instance, Pathfinder, huge hit, huge hit.

Seem everywhere.

They even got a forest green one.

It looks dynamite.

I mean, some of the, it looks, it's without a doubt the best looking

Pathfinder they ever made, right?

Okay.

We got, we got, we got Alex over here owns a, what do you, what do you got?

Ford X1.

Yeah.

All right.

How many different models Ford Explorer do they make?

How many different models Ford Broncos they make?

How many different models Dodge 1500s do they make?

How many different models?

But when you go into Nissan or, or, or mostly Toyota, at least Nissan

starting to change a little bit, you go to Toyota, that's, that's your Toyota.

One model, one make, everybody drives the same thing.

It's a perfect car.

Yeah.

It's absolutely a flawless and perfect car.

You will have no problems with this thing will go 200,000 miles.

You change the oil, the thing is never going to give you a problem.

It's also never going to give you a woody either.

Okay.

It's never going to do that for you.

Okay.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

I mean, sure.

Right?

Yeah.

Okay.

Whereas I think Nissan is nimble enough and they have one of the greatest, most

iconic motorsprouts brands ever to exist, Nismo.

You could be a kid in a third world, big and cobalt out of some cobalt mind.

And I guarantee you the kids wearing a Nismo shirt.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, it's like it's, it's that iconic, you know, it's that deep and

grained into the, into the entire car culture, which you got TRD, but not the

same as the same, right?

You got Mazda speed again, not the same as Nissan has been hardcore racing.

It's called whether it was GTP or Le Mans or LMP racing or, you know, when they

were racing a 300, they always dominated.

They always made the best stuff.

There was a time, and this is what I'm trying to explain.

There was a time when you could buy a 300 ZX, right?

You could buy a 300 ZX non-turbo.

You could buy a 300 ZX twin turbo.

You could buy a 300 ZX convertible and you could buy a 300 ZX two plus two.

Two plus two.

Yeah, they had back seats in it.

Oh, wow.

Okay, never heard of this.

Yeah, with a convertible.

And I think that the turbo model did not have it.

Are those rare two plus twos or?

Don't know, don't care.

But I'm just saying that they, they offered the same car in multiple models

where today, you know, you go to, unfortunately, which again, I'm

starting to see these on change, which is, you know, wonderful.

Like it's just, I'm so happy about that.

But again, this is where they can burn their path.

They don't have to just keep stamping out cars.

They can offer different models, just like how many different challenges can you buy?

Think about it.

You could buy a challenge with a six cylinder.

You could buy a challenge with a Hellcat.

Where can you do that?

So if you can't offer and getting back to your question, you know, you know,

getting back, if you can't offer a better VR 30, then keep the VR 30 that you have

in there and then offer something else like it's not going to be that hard.

So recently Toyota, you just heard that announcement that they released

like this new super car, right?

Yeah, yeah, bad ass car, two hundred and fifty thousand dollar retail price, right?

Is it if it's confirmed that too much?

Yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be.

Hundreds of millions of dollars to develop that car.

Well, that was a big controversy around coming out with another two J is that.

OK, so they spent all of that money in development.

They built that car.

Now they're going to build that car.

They're going to make horsepower, new power plant, new power plant engineering.

Money, money, money, money in design, money for the manufacturing,

money for the tooling, all of that money, money, money.

That's why it's got a two hundred and twenty, two hundred and fifty thousand

dollar price. Yeah.

OK, because they're not going to sell.

They're not going to sell like Ultimas.

They're not going to sell like Rogues.

They're going to sell like a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar car.

Yeah. So you've got to make up the, you know, the profit in that.

But meanwhile, back at the farm,

let's see, we have the most iconic brand car in the ever existed.

A car with, I don't know, I don't know how many years 69 is, but it's got to be

what, 50 years, it's got to be 51 years or something like that.

You have a 51 year proven track record with one of the most iconic cars ever.

OK, and you have the VR 38 power plant.

And somehow.

You didn't think of connecting those two.

And let's say you decided to do that now, you would destroy.

Just think of what the landscape would look like in a performance world

with a VR 38 powered Nissan Z.

There'd be nothing.

And I mean, BMW, you can go, you know what I mean?

OK, that's what you'll be doing.

OK, OK, there'll be no super sales.

OK, there'll be no Mazda sales.

There'll be only one sale.

Everybody would want a VR 38 powered 400, whatever at the time.

You can call it the 750 Z now.

OK, put some turbos on it, drop it right in, make 750.

Easy peasy, easy peasy.

And we, you know, we I've mentioned that to some higher ups.

And their thing was, well, we don't want to take away from the Takumi's,

you know, hand built motors.

And I'd be like, yeah, if you buy a GTR,

you get a Takumi to build you a hand-built motor.

But when you buy a Z, the reason why we could lower the production costs

is because we're going to send that through the same assembly line

that's already doing a VR 30, already doing a VQ line.

It's not that much different.

OK, the difference that you'll be paying for when you buy a GTR is that it's

hand-built, that's what you're paying for.

There's a Takumi, God signed his name to it.

You're not going to get that in a Z, but you will get the horsepower.

And that horsepower will make you competitive with everybody out there.

And there would be, I mean, just think about this for a second.

Borg wanted DCT transmission, which everybody has, right?

Mm hmm. OK, right.

So Borg wanted tranny. Is it a Borg wanted tranny?

I don't know if it's a yeah.

The eight HP, is that a Borg tranny?

The eight, the eight HP?

Yeah, we'll make that.

I don't think it's Borg wanted.

OK, so let's say you have an eight HP behind a VR

38 sitting in your 400 Z chassis.

OK, just that combination.

So I gave you a combination.

You're a car guy, you are a car guy.

You swapped out of your Supra, Mark V Supra.

I mean, you did the right thing and you put an RB Nissan motor in it.

Right. The other first person who's ever said that, but all right, I'll take it.

Let's get some Nissan guy.

OK, all right.

So tell me, as you're a car swap guy,

tell me what better car swap in the world would it be to shoe on that 38 in there?

That VR 38 motor with a DC tranny.

Tell me what car is going to compete with that?

Just think about that GTR motor, VR 38.

That obviously we've already discussed.

You don't even need to put a dry sump since the monofin 2000 horsepower.

Yeah. OK.

In a DCT powered transmission like it's in the new Supra.

Mm hmm.

Who's what what car?

There'd be no car to compete with that none zero.

There's no car out there that can compete with that zero.

I yeah, I'd have to agree.

Yeah, think about it.

I mean, put the two J's in there.

OK, I'll smoke you with that.

Put your RB in there.

I'll smoke you with that. It doesn't matter.

You can tell my imports only, right?

Yeah, of course.

I just have to be clear.

You know, it's well, you know, we're men here, so we don't ls the world.

OK.

Not even that.

The coyote, the Ford, the Ford, again, guys, it's kind of yeah.

You mean the coyote motor that basically looked at what Nissan did and copied it?

So you actually believe that?

I was so there was OK.

So I've taken both of those engines apart.

So hold on.

So you you actually believe that they copied.

I think so.

First of all, OK, let's talk about copying, right?

I mean, there's only a certain way to do a certain amount of things.

OK, so, you know, I wouldn't necessarily say they

copied it, but they certainly

they certainly looked at it and they certainly learned from it and they certainly.

Learned a lot.

You know what I mean?

I mean, those cars, those engines aren't that much different.

Space wise, front cover wise, chain wise, you know, just the layout wise.

Then any of the Z Z platform engines.

Hmm. You know, VQ went up, you know, VQ went up.

So OK.

Yeah, we had a podcast with Workhorse Performance and

they are in Maryland and they build some fast GTRs there.

And I think it seems Brad had mentioned that they make the power.

They make power the same on the dyno graph, which is kind of like, you know,

I don't really know what makes power the same.

The coyote and the VR.

VR, I don't know if he was being serious.

I know they go back and forth.

It's like banter between them.

OK.

Um, he basically, they were basically saying that, you know, that Ford had copied

the VR 38 and everyone went crazy because it's like, why would you say that's not

true? But I mean, I don't know.

It seems like you you really think they're very, very similar.

And I think all the manufacturers look at other manufacturers just like other

shops, look at other shops.

Why wouldn't you?

Right. I mean, at that level of engineering, you would have to look at whatever.

When you go to see Michelle, watch your car.

That's that you're going to seem to watch your car.

Oh, God, don't lie to me.

I mean, you go there to look at other people's cars.

Yeah. Why are you there?

You get an idea and you get inspiration and and then you take it from there.

No, it's 100 percent true.

My first image is there's there's nothing wrong with that.

You know, you're not going to stop it.

You know, people used to copy my stuff all the time.

You know, and everybody be, oh, well, that's the sincerest form of flattery.

Does it bother you, though?

Sure. I think it bothers anybody that works hard for it.

So but do you voice it?

Do you voice that these people are copying you?

You just kind of like let it go.

I just beat them.

Hmm.

I am a guy that if you want to f with me,

I'm I'm not a tough guy or anything like that, but I am a competitive guy.

You want to shit on me because you got a new new style car?

Oh, I'm into.

Let's just say Suburbs, right?

OK, so I wasn't known for Suburbs.

Steve came on board.

He introduced me to Suburbs.

I'm like, who's got the fastest super in the area?

They said, this guy, this we started doing

Suburbs, this guy started talking shit.

He ain't the fastest no more.

In fact, he ain't even in business anymore.

Oh, shit.

You know what I mean?

So you want to play out, play out, I'll take your platform and do better.

So, you know, I don't I don't necessarily

care because by the time you copy what I'm doing, I'm probably doing something else.

Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, you're just never going to be a winner.

You're just going to be a copier.

You know, and there's combinations that work.

I mean, like, you know, how many,

you know, how many blown alcohol motors are there?

You know, there's basically one kind of combination that everybody kind of rotates

around, you know, they use this guy's heads, this guy's blocks, this guy's cranks.

So, you know, eventually we're all going to

make the same combination because you're after the same horsepower.

So everything's going to be kind of similar.

So that's true.

And and nothing really lasts forever.

So, you know, you just people, you know, I call it replicate, you know,

there are ideas, replicate and duplicate, you know, that's what I call it.

You know, we're copying pastes.

The new talent calls it right.

And, you know, that's part of it and that's part of this industry.

And you can't get bent on what you already figured out, you know, get bent on what

you're trying to figure out because those guys are just trying to copy what you

already figured out, not what you already look in the know.

So, you know, just keep pushing.

And that's that's how do you stay relevant is by keep pushing, you know.

And and I and I love it.

I love it.

I love the competition.

Like I like I said, I loved everybody I worked, I raced with, you know,

I mean, there was a couple of people that I didn't like personally.

But, you know, overall, man, I was happy.

You know, people don't realize the numbers,

the number one guy needs the number 16 guy, you know,

because if you only have 13 people showing up, then you only have 10 people showing

up, then you only have nine people showing up.

And then all of a sudden the tracks close.

Yeah, right.

So, you know, I want the number 16 guy to show up.

You know, he's struggling.

He's at least he showed up.

You could laugh at the number 16 guy, but he showed up.

He put his best foot forward.

He did his best.

He may have qualified number 16, but that doesn't measure, you know, his efforts.

It just measures his results and he's going to make for his efforts better

results the next time he comes here.

Believe me, everybody's ever qualified number one qualified number 16 somewhere.

You understand, right?

And you got to get there and, you know,

the people that stay in it and dedicate themselves and

the sacrifices of racing is unmeasurable.

That's probably the probably the best question that you can ask

anybody it's in the racing field and you asked them in racing,

you know, what sacrifices have you made?

And that alone would take up on any of us and any racer

almost on any level.

It would probably take up an hour of your time

because the sacrifices are so big family, business, finances.

You know, I didn't take this interview because I had a, you know,

a birthday party to go to for my great godson and somebody said to me,

well, you know, he's got 2.5 million viewers.

You know, you should do that.

And I said to him, but I only got one godson.

No, I was, yeah, 100 percent.

So I was a moving off of that.

I missed many, many birthdays, many anniversaries, many christenings,

many, many family functions.

And I've put my business up right against the wall numerous times.

Yeah.

I've been through some really beautiful, great women.

I'm finally at a woman with a woman now in the last 20 years that finally gets it.

You know, yeah, thank God.

But I had to buy her a race car for her to get it.

That just didn't cost me nothing.

She's actually good at it.

So, you know, that's also the wonderful thing, you know,

she's actually pretty good at it.

You know, you sacrifice friendships, you know, my friend, my friend,

I call him my friend and my partner.

You know, Steve, I watch the sacrifices that he's made.

You're running a Subaru and, you know, most most races have credit card debt,

you know, or in debt, you know, they're paying off last season to get to this season.

Racing at almost any level is a is a is not a normal expense.

Right.

Like, oh, I want to buy myself a really nice car.

OK, let's say you want to buy yourself.

Oh, I mean, a nice car.

Let's say you want to go out and buy yourself, you know,

2020 Porsche 911 Turbo, all right, you're gonna put whatever,

already grand down 40 grand up your monthly nuts going to be fifteen hundred.

OK, fifteen, sixteen hundred.

Yeah. Oh, I've f and trade that fifteen hundred a month for half a season of what

it takes for me to get through a season, even with this car.

This car last year cost me forty three thousand dollars to race for the year.

Yep. And that's me building it and not breaking a motor.

This motors in here will go into this season on the third year.

This will be the third year on that motor at 60 pounds of boost of fifty one to

fifty nine pounds of boost. Wow.

Yeah, that's how I that's you see, I I learned early on I can't break and race.

I can't break and go racing.

I can't do it.

I will not be able to afford it.

I can't break and go racing.

And that's why when we spun the bearings on the two JZ earlier driving me crazy

because I knew I can't go racing unless I fix this.

This is not going to be this is not going to be something that I'm going to be able

to sustain. Right.

It's just not just not going to happen.

And so we had to figure that out, you know, and and and we did and we did.

Yeah, we've been talking about Nissan.

Yeah, right. And we talked to Toyotas and some BMW stuff.

But, you know, I I don't I've never actually disclosed this publicly.

Like, it's crazy.

Nobody what I'm about to tell you, nobody knows and it actually has to do with

Honda's and all you Honda guys out there.

Yeah, I'm your daddy, along with your Evo guys.

So the reason why I say that is because and I know you're going to know what

I'm talking about when I start talking about it.

So did you ever see the Ram headers, the Ram turbo headers?

That's a really, yeah.

Yeah, the tubular headers go like that.

Right. Honda started out with a turbo manifold.

Yeah, the turbo manifolds and then Honda started out with them.

And then then the Evo's picked them up.

Right. Right. Right.

You know, invented that manifold.

Invented the manifold.

Yeah, like where that manifold come from.

Who came up with that idea?

That's right.

Your uncle Vinny came up with that idea.

Every one of you guys using that manifold, you know who to thank me.

And and I actually have a picture here.

Yeah, I'll get it. I'll get it.

OK. Yeah, I'll grab it.

So I have a picture here.

And I just kind of noticed this the other day.

And so this was this precedes the fast and furious.

Not by much.

And there's a lot of controversy with that, me and the fast and furious.

And so anyway, the New York Times, when it was actually a really good paper,

they yeah.

OK, they did a full page article on me in the metro section, you know.

So all your races, you've been in like

Turbo magazine and Super Street, New York Times.

All right. And but in there, you got good eyes.

You got young eyes, right?

OK, so I want you to look right there.

See that? See what's on the stand?

Can you see that? I can't release.

It looks like the manifold.

Looks like the manifold on the bottom.

That's right. So when is this dated?

It's up there. Tell me that date right there.

June 21st, 1998.

OK.

So if you can predate that manifold from that day, you can have my shop.

OK.

I'm the one who invented that manifold.

And there was a reason why I invented it.

OK.

So reason why we invented that manifold real quick is that, you know, Hondas.

So on the on the older body, Hondas, like 89 civics,

they had a cross member with two torsion bars.

OK. So when you put the manifold on a turbo manifold,

the turbo would sit so low, you would either hit the course member or you

couldn't get a regular oil line to drain.

So I was walking into Cook's headers

because they were the ones who always built my headers for me.

And I said, listen, we're going to solve this problem because there's no way I'm

going to put this together.

We put a B 18 motor in there again, no money.

So we B 18 B, no, not a C, you know, V tech mode is just going to be 18.

And again, we were going to face that problem because it was a torsion bar car.

That's what made the bubble back so good because it went through a different

suspension and it didn't have the torsion bar.

OK. I didn't have the torsion bar.

I didn't have the the the the cross member in the front.

So I was going to no way was I going to just put a manifold on there and have

the same problems with the oil draining and the car smoking and coming back up

through the turbo. So I go to Cook's,

go see George over there and and as I'm walking into the building.

OK. And George is a friend of mine.

Like, you know, like everyone that deals with me, we become friends.

Because I want it that way.

I don't there's money.

There's always going to be money involved.

There's going to be something.

But like the friendship is worth more to me than the money.

And that's how I treat.

Carrillo, Ferrero, you know, these people, you know, I know, you know, I know to seek.

I know Zeke's family.

You know, that's running Ferrero today.

I know the people at Carrillo.

I actually dealt with people that actually started both of those companies.

So I'm like, Grant, I've been with these both of these companies for 40 years.

I mean, if I really needed something, I wouldn't even have to hesitate to ask.

People would send it in a heartbeat.

You know, but I never ask, you know, that's one of my things.

But so really good relationship.

And I'm walking into his place and outside of his place, he had a big white van.

And as I'm walking through,

as I'm walking up to the door, it's a Dodge van.

And as I grab my hand on the as I'm about to grab my hand on the door,

I stop and I look at the emblem, the Dodge emblem with a ram on it.

With the head is like with the ram like that.

And I go,

what if I said to go with down, I go up.

So I go in there, I speak to him, I think his name.

Oh, I think it was he's actually still in business with American racing because

him and him and his partner actually started Nick started American racing.

Are they local?

No, they were.

They were in they were in Long Island,

but they had to move because you can't run a big motorsports business in New York,

which we can get to in a minute.

So I looked at that and I'm like, OK, I got an idea.

Now I got the idea.

I walked in, I told him, I told him that that that that give me tube, give me tube,

give me tube, can we do it like this?

He's like, yeah, I can do it like that.

I see you put the flange right here.

He's like, yeah, I put the turbo right down, like.

Made that header.

And from that point on, every single person copied it.

That was the first one.

And if anybody can predate that and remember, that's on the engine stand.

So that's already been done.

So by 98, it was already done.

I think we probably did it in 97.

So that ram header, you're welcome.

You know, a little a little Vinny 10 tidbit there.

One of the things that most people probably want to know since this is a V6

platform is if you should run a single turbo or a twin turbo.

Now, you mostly run twin turbo, right?

Yeah, I don't think you have anything that's

like big single turbo, which is kind of like what you normally see on a V8 or V6.

Sure. In that kind of configuration.

So sure. But so there's actually some controversy there.

OK, so I don't, you know, obviously, I didn't even know you were going to answer

me that question. Yeah, I was on the note.

So but there is some controversy there.

So it's kind of stupid controversy because in a lot of and I'm not going to say

who because I know they're working on it.

OK. But for a number of years,

I've been banished from certain classes of racing because I am a twin turbo guy.

OK.

And most of the stuff is single turbo stuff.

And so they really didn't have a rule package for me.

And, you know, where I can compete in the classes that I should be competing in.

Yeah. And.

Real problem, because the whole world in import racing is either RB or 2J.

2J. Oh, everybody's got an inline six.

But I'm going to tell you something interesting after I make this statement.

But, you know, V6 is and VR 30s and VR 38s and VQ 35s, you know,

not the two previous, but certainly the VR 30 is going to take over the world.

And in every V8 racing class, there's twin turbo rules.

So how could you have a V6 or be any different than having, you know,

not being able to have a twin turbo rule package?

If you've seen the work that that Kyle did on his car to set up that single.

Yeah, it's ridiculous.

OK, it's absolutely the kid's phenomenal, right?

But you're talking about a $20,000 turbo kit or a 15, $20,000 turbo kit.

Yeah, you know, we where you could just buy two manifolds from Jim Wolf and put

him on your car for, you know, 600 bucks or something like that or would have a

1200 bucks. So as far as I'm concerned, if you have a V6.

Without a doubt,

you should be able to have a twin turbo rule package for you.

And we need that and we need that fast because what you're stopping is V6 is

from coming into the marketplace.

OK, OK.

And let's be honest, all of all of these cars came twin turbo.

So the 300ZX came twin turbo, so I'm supposed to make it a single.

The VR 38 came twin turbo, so I'm supposed to make it single.

The VR 30 came twin turbo, I'm supposed to make it single.

You know, the key is thing is twin turbo.

Should I make that a single too?

I mean, so we can't we can't we can't figure out a rules package for a twin

turbo package.

So that's one of the problems running a twin turbo is that a lot of

and what makes this even more insane, you're ready for this, that in some of

the classes that I that I was petitioning to race against.

Yeah, the V8s had twin turbos.

It's crazy, right?

They're not going to let a V6 have twin turbo.

So the V8s can have twin turbos, but the V6s can't.

You know, it's got to stop.

So from that standpoint, the the other kind of position that question poses

is what do I think works better?

Yeah.

So in 2003, my car went 760 at 176, 177, I think, well, maybe 178.

And I had an 88 millimeter single turbo on my car.

And so, you know, I kicked everybody's ass, they were going to slow me down.

So they were going to change the single turbo turbo size.

And that would affect me mostly because I didn't run the methanol.

Right.

I just ran C 16.

So a smaller turbo was going to have a bigger effect on me than somebody

running meth with a single.

Right. Right.

So I said, well, the car came twin turbo.

And I and I ran the year before in this kind of bastardized twin turbo setup.

It went fast.

I think it was fast as I want, but it went fast and I learned a lot from it.

I learned a lot actually from it.

And so I said to them, OK, well, I don't want to run a single anymore.

They want to go from an 88, I think, to an 81 or 82.

And I was like, hey, what if I want to go back to the original car?

The way the car was set up with the original twin turbo setup?

They said, sure.

I was shocked.

I said, and again, this is what happens when guys that don't know how to make power

or don't know how to go fast or, you know, even it happens when people try to slow,

you know, class down the people that are making your rules have no idea how to make

a car go fast, so you're not going to have any idea on how to slow it down.

And I took advantage of that.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I knew that that I was smart.

I just had more knowledge than they did.

So they come back to me and they go, OK, you could run two 61 millimeter

turbos or one 81 millimeter turbo.

Now, I don't know how this got through because I I

I don't know how they did that, like how they decided that was green lighted.

Because the last time I looked at 61 and 61 was one hundred and twenty two.

Yeah, I was like, what? OK.

So I said, OK.

And then I proceeded to go with that same car, seven thirty at one hundred and ninety

one and I talked earlier about torque.

Yeah.

Well, the smaller turbos were one, easier to spool.

OK, and two made more torque lower end.

And I didn't need to wind the motor up to seven thousand or six thousand

RPM to leave it alone. True, true, true.

They made the torque low enough where I had a bigger RPM range and it ran through it.

And that's why everybody with the single was going seven forties at one eighty one,

one eighty two, and I was, you know, going twelve miles an hour faster than I'm going

one hundred ninety one miles an hour.

And and my car was heavier and part of the rule.

Well, you know, again, you know,

advertising content always dictates editorial content and, you know,

sponsors always dictate the rules.

So one of the other rules that they decided to do was that like on a salara

or a front wheel drive car, well, you can create a lat car, right?

You can create a lat car and put a two JZ in there.

But if your car came with a longitude mounted motor, you had to run the stock

subframe.

So these guys already had a distinct advantage that they would take in the

front wheel drive cars, making them real wheel drive, enable the cradle and strut them.

And I couldn't.

And that's just one of those things where sponsorship and I won't say who it was.

OK, I won't even.

All I could tell you is that I rolled up right next to the guy in tech

that they were tech and that had the cradle in his frame.

And here I am because, again, he had a he had a front wheel drive car.

Yeah. And he converted it to real wheel drive.

So they were able to cradle a whole front of the car.

OK, big, big advantage.

OK, in fact, it's such a big advantage.

So I pull up and I go, how is that car legal?

Am I card not able to do that?

They got the same motor, there's the same car.

Oh, that's because it was front wheel drive.

I'm like, yes, so now it's got a cradle, right?

And he's like, yeah, and so now two cars are the same.

A car with a cradle and strut is the same.

You're considering that the same car.

Yeah, as a car with a stock cradle and a stock strut.

And I'm still friends with this guy today.

I still speak to him and he goes, yeah.

And I go, well, in your NHRA rulebook for the domestics, you have two different

classes for that. So how come it's different in the domestic classes,

but not domestic here?

And he goes, we're not going to address that.

And that was that.

So anyway, getting back to the twin turbo stuff,

you know, it's just one of those caveats where they were trying to slow me down

and put people with distinct advantages against me pretty much because of,

you know, the sponsorship in which they were operating under.

OK. And and it just didn't work out for them.

You know, they had so here I am

beating them with a back half only car running C 16 on two small turbos or a

single turbo, you know, I did it to him in 2003.

And the funny thing is everybody that kind of had the HKS twin turbo set up on that,

that were you running that? Yeah, they all went to the 81 single.

And I took the 81 single off and put twin turbos on

and beat you some more.

So that's what we did in 2004.

And that was very successful.

So I'm a big believer, whether it in line six and when the super comes out,

it's going to have that same header.

I still have the headers.

So the. Oh, wow.

Yeah, the super is going to come out and they'll have the two scoops on the hood

and, you know, it'll be twin turbo because that's how it ran in its last,

you know, in its last formation before the before the wreck.

So the answer between the two is obviously it seems like twin

turbo is a better option in terms of you need to torque.

Obviously that's now everybody's going to there's going to be probably the most

controversial thing we actually said on this is probably the subject alone,

where people are going to talk about the single being better and building

boost and have a more horsepower.

I mean, I've been going through it for forever.

You know, I've been going, I've been fighting that battle.

But, you know, the simple fact is the world's fastest turbo cars are twin

turbo. Really? Yeah.

They're not single.

They're twin.

So give me some examples here.

OK. Josh Taylor's car that went 511 at 260 is a twin turbo V8.

OK, so all the fast turbo cars are twin turbo.

So no single so single doesn't even come close, maybe?

Or is it like?

Well, if it did, everybody would have a single, right?

I just see it a lot.

So there are it's cheap.

You don't have to buy. Listen, it's expensive to do with twin turbo setup.

Hell, yeah. Yeah.

Two wastegates, two turbos, two blow off valves, lots of piping.

It's expensive.

It's much more expensive, but I believe it's better.

And so whenever I can, I'm always going to run a twin.

Is there a big difference between the V configuration and the inline?

OK, when you're running a twin versus single.

It's just it's just a piping nightmare to pipe on one side of the car all the way

over to the other side of the car.

And even if you put that turbo in the middle, then it really takes away its

ability to have a radiator.

So if we were running something like this in the street tire car,

the amount of fabrication, again, I've seen the fabrication that Kyle went

through on his car, it's beautiful.

Yeah. But.

From a cost standpoint, this is so much easier.

I don't have to do the front end of the car.

Right. I don't have to move the radiator.

You know, I don't I don't have to do any of that.

It all sits there and really for a weight bias, I want it

back as far back as I can get it anyway.

Right. I don't want to put weight all the way out on the nose.

So for me, I think twin is definitely a way to go in any kind of V6 configuration.

But what about the inline six?

I would do in my six.

Yeah, like my two J had, like I said, in 2004, my two J was twin turbo.

But I don't even know how you had like three into one.

OK, and then you were able to kind of fit that into the into the absolutely.

OK, and you don't have any issues with like heat or anything like that.

All in that one side of the end or nothing.

Now, what I did experience, which which I won't do,

I had two scoops up big scoops.

OK, and as I was driving, I realized it was catching too much air and I would

drift over and there's actually a video on my is a video on my YouTube channel

that you want if you want, you can lift or the guys to get it to you or whatever.

You can see that like it's like pop up, pop up, pop up.

I take off, you know, the car makes a move and then as it goes,

you could just see the car drifting because it's actually catching the scoop.

So this when I do come back out with it, I'll just make the the hood flat.

And so you'll see the turbos, but you won't have as much,

you know, scoop out there, you know, hold it back, it'll just be the turbos then.

And that had nothing to do with the crash at all, right?

No, no, not at all.

So I don't want to overlook the the VQ platform.

Of course, that's a pretty popular platform.

And I wanted to ask you a little bit more of technical questions

in that platform as far as building it and so on.

Sure. So I'm sure you get a lot of those coming in the shop.

And I'm not sure what people nowadays are really trying to do with them.

But let's say, like you said, the rods are the weak part of that engine.

Right. Yeah. Let's say if you wanted to make anything past that,

what are you doing nowadays aside from just so the cranks are great in that motor?

OK. VQ 35, 37 cranks are some of the best cranks ever,

which always drives me crazy because they connect the piston and a great crank

with a shitty rod, put a good piston in there.

You put a great crank in there and you put like a dollar ninety nine,

you know, five below rod in there, you know, just drove me crazy.

Oh, oh, you know, most of the serious players that come here with a 350Z

three seventies a little better because three seventy,

you can get away with about five hundred horsepower. OK.

You know, without having to open up without having to open up.

So the thirty seven motors are definitely better than the thirty five motors.

Even the HR motors, I'm not sold on.

I don't think they got much of a better rod.

But those guys just come in and they, you know, they build a car,

they build a motor and they put a turbo kit on it.

And, you know, it's thirty five grand, you know, there's no there's no.

You know, when I first started building cars for ten, fifteen grand,

you could build a car and then, you know, went to twenty and then twenty five.

But today, you know, after the last administration,

after the taxes and then and the inflation that went on,

you're looking at now thirty thirty five grand to build these cars.

And that's why I'm, you know, that's why I'm saying it's thirty five

grand to build this car. It's thirty five grand to build the the Newsy.

It's it's all the same.

I mean, maybe less because it has, you know, good fuel system and they are ready.

It's got a bunch of things already.

But yeah, it takes about thirty five grand to build one of these cars.

But when you're done, you've got a six hundred horsepower car on pump gas

with a brand new motor and if the bodies are usually clean

and you've got a nice car with, you know, low insurance, you know, one time price,

you know, can you make more than six hundred?

Oh, I could make on on a street if you're spending thirty five thousand dollars.

If if you're on a street, if you're on a street,

I, you know, I like to keep it around eight fifty.

OK, that's kind of where.

I'd like you to be, you know, after that.

You know, we've got to start doing more expensive stuff.

OK, so that takes it to the next level.

Obviously, it's going to be more than thirty five now.

Thirty five thousand dollars is that including fuel system.

That's what I'm saying.

So it's to build the whole car.

The whole car, not just the engine.

No, no, no, no, no, OK, OK, so your engines are around a good engine for me.

It's about between twelve and fourteen thousand to build it.

Yeah. OK, now are you doing anything with the cylinder heads?

Yeah. Are you porting them?

Do you have to?

Do you see any any massive gains from doing a port on on the on the heads?

Pointing on a VQ is very tricky. OK.

They have overheating problems.

They have some of the head gasket problems.

So by removing more and more material, you just transfer that heat more and more.

So it's really important that when you put them,

you put them in the right spot in the right way.

So, yes, pointing is absolutely part of it.

Putting a bigger valve in there is part of it.

OK, putting a good cam in there, like from Jim Wolff, make some great,

great bolting cams and, you know, again, the cranks are fine.

And you just, you know, Carilla Rod, CP piston.

I make my own style piston for this. OK, so we do have a custom piston,

but I can build you something, you know, like I said, for more of the

twelve thousand dollar or eleven thousand dollar area, OK, you know,

with more shelf parts than custom parts inside.

But if you're looking for that eight fifty, you're going to have to, you know,

put the HD rod in there.

You're going to have to put one of my custom pistons in there.

That's, you know, that'll bring it up to about fourteen thousand.

But again, you know, you know, I have a, you know, no problem with that.

You drag racing that motor at a thousand horsepower.

I only want to see you do it around eight hundred, eight fifty in the street.

But if you were drag racing that motor, you know, we can turn that up to a thousand

horsepower. So OK, so the engine can make more than eight fifty.

But on the street, you're saying eight fifty is probably.

Yeah, yeah. And it's fast at eight fifty in these cars. It's fast.

Yeah, I mean, I would hope so. It's fast.

Well, they feel fast. Yeah, it's, you know, it's not as smooth as like,

you know, I drive the BMW high horsepower.

It's a little smoother than, you know, it's especially a four wheel drive.

So, you know, there's being real wheel drive, you know, you need to be a little

bit more, you know, driver. OK.

So what's the best VQ engine then to build?

Because you didn't really say which, like if you're building this engine

for thirty five thousand, is it going to be DE rev up HR?

What is it going to be?

I would say the platform that I would probably start with, if I was

just getting in, so I was going to buy a used car, what platform I'd buy, right?

I'd probably buy the VQ thirty seven platform.

Oh, thirty seven. Yeah. OK.

Just so I don't so I can put a turbo kit or a supercharger kit on and make a

five hundred horsepower and never touch the motor.

OK, what about on the thirty five?

Thirty five, you're going to have to build a motor.

So DE, what should you look at?

Oh, I mean, as far as like so, the way the way to VQ history went

as far as the three five liter went, it went VQ thirty five DE VQ thirty five rev

up VQ thirty five HR. Right.

The HR motors are the best.

Now, prior to building them or when you build them? Both.

OK. So they're different motors.

See, VQ HR motors are more like VQ thirty seven and more like GTR motors.

They are what I call bed plate motors.

They don't have individual main caps.

They have a whole plate system that goes on there, which changes the entire

dynamic and rigidity of the motor. OK, I didn't know that.

Yeah. So they're more HR is more like is more like the VR series

than it is more like the VQ series. OK, so why do you run a DE?

Because that's what came with the car.

So you just left it that way because it came with there was no other reason

for running that. Well, that's because well, there is.

They're just saying because if you HR is the best, why wouldn't you run a HR?

Because everybody says that this motor can't make power.

That this motor lifts heads, that this motor overheats.

Well, I've been proven that wrong since 2005.

And now we're up to 1400 horsepower and I still won't lift any heads on this thing.

So so it's just, you know, I'll take, listen, be grateful.

I only took the VQ 35 DE motor.

That's what I said. Be grateful if I'm doing that with a VQ 35 DE.

Can you imagine if I really did wanted to do something with a different motor?

Right. True. Again, you know, I got a lot of cards in my back pocket.

You want fuel, you want a different VQ, I could put a VQ 40 in there.

You wouldn't even know it was in there. True. That's true.

Right. You wouldn't even know. Yeah. Now I'm now I'm a four liter.

You don't know. You have no idea.

I built a four liter motor you would have unless you pulled it apart and measured

the boards, which you're not going to do. Yeah. OK.

You wouldn't even know. OK.

And that's also a better motor.

The VQ 40, no matter what year is a better motor than the 35.

Do you guys do any sleeving? Is that even a thing?

Sure. OK. Sure.

I love sleeving. OK.

I love sleeving a block.

It makes all the difference in the world.

A lot of people don't like sleeving blocks.

I've learned a lot about sleeving blocks, so it always works for me now.

OK. I did have in the very, very beginning.

One engine that kind of dropped the sleeve.

And again, you know, I get again, you know, it's notorious in the world.

Yeah. And so, you know, again, you know, do your homework.

And what I what I found out, I was so.

I was like, so I couldn't believe that.

Other companies did it this way. Yeah.

And that wasn't the right way of doing it.

And so there was one company that that I still do business with today

that makes the sleeve the correct way.

And I won't tell you how that is.

No, that's fine. You don't have to.

Yeah. I was going to go into this as specifics,

but I was just asking if we were the first to use a fire lock ring.

I mean, I use the fire lock ring, which we which we actually called the Cooper

ring, which was actually made by Federal Mogul for, believe it or not,

Ferrari turbo motors and diesel turbo turbo motors in Europe.

And I found this part number in Federal Mogul.

And I said, you know what, I'm going to try this.

And that was the first really.

Ringing the block and I still have those.

So now everybody does it like they're like they're like they're a genius.

You know, and I pull out and like, yeah, 2005 right here.

This is what we were using in 2005.

Oh, but we insert. I was in the deck.

So was this.

So, you know, where they inserted. Yeah. Yeah.

So we were doing that in 2005.

And that's why I said, like in the beginning, you know, these guys are where the.

No, you weren't.

But I'm over here. I'm in New York.

I run a great shop. It's not that important to me. I go racing.

You know what, if you guys want to.

Talk us on the on the on whatever, go ahead, knock yourselves out.

You know,

do you guys do any filling, concrete filling or epoxy or anything like that now?

So, you know, epoxy seems to be making the rounds again.

So epoxy was, you know, something that was played with years ago,

supposedly as some new epoxies out.

Yeah, I've seen you there.

Sometimes when you sleeve a block that you're going to need that

because of the way the sleeve was installed.

Yeah, I can tell you that I can honestly say that I would say 60 percent

of all sleeves installed are installed incorrectly.

They're going to weaken the block.

You've seen that, remember, with all the crack GTR blocks

when they would crack in the blocks.

Do you talk about the VR 38? Yeah, you remember that?

Yeah, I don't remember it, but I heard about it from T1.

I'm sorry, not T1, AMS, Martin was talking about it.

Yeah, yeah, so I.

Knew what the problem was right away, right away, right away.

And the reason why I know what the problem was, because I did it on a VQ block.

See, OK, so I knew exactly who they were using

and what was causing it.

Oh, that's why a lot of people walked away from sleeving, right?

That's why they don't sleeve a VR 38 block, right?

Because they, you know, whether it is

sleeving or, you know, blocks of cracking. Yeah.

Yeah, that's why they use a stock block.

Stock block doesn't crack.

And how come the sleeve block cracks?

So you're saying that the sleeves are installed incorrectly for the most part.

That's why it caused the VR 38 blocks to crack.

That is correct.

And I kind of confirmed that with the guys over at T1.

So T1, what they were doing is that they were drilling down

into the valley of the block to run an extended rod, a extended stud.

But it still happened.

OK. So they still had problems.

That ruled out that.

So that kind of rolled out that issue.

I think it I think it I'm not sure if it still happened for T1.

But I think in the process of them figuring it out

and I think they did figure it out,

I would think they figured it.

I don't know that for like I called over there for some bearing

clearance is because on some rods that they sold me.

Yeah. And, you know, within, you know, an hour,

you know, I had the answer, you know, the real answer.

Right. You know, like, oh, we can't give that to you.

You know, that's the engine build the specs.

I'm like, hey, your name is going to be on my car.

You know what I mean?

So it's like I'm I'm I'm on your team.

You know, you know, whether it's AMS or, you know, T1

in this particular case, you know, just been working with T1.

Yeah. You know, I love the guys at AMS.

They're great guys over there, too.

We do business with them.

But on this hardcore stuff, they would I just

all of the other relationships that I had on this program

were also connected to them. OK.

So like Magnus was connected to him.

Shane was connected to him.

So it just made everything a lot easier when I decided, OK,

whom am I going to like, you know, start buying parts from?

I'm not going to make parts. I've got to buy them.

Right. So I made that decision.

And again, no, no disrespect to AMS.

They do a phenomenal job out there.

I've actually learned some things from them.

So, you know, another great company out there.

But there's no AMS is here.

There's no T1s here. There's no Titan.

There's no real street.

There's there's no big domestic or or import anywhere in New York

or, you know, basically Long Island five boroughs.

And and the reason for that is because it's almost impossible

to run one of these businesses in the Northeast.

I mean, right off the bat, right off the bat,

not even saying anything where we stand, middle of my shop.

Yeah. You know why we could stand in the middle of my shop at six o'clock at night?

Because it's January.

So every year, oh, your sales numbers aren't as good as the guy over there.

So we can't give you the discount.

The guy over there is in Georgia.

He's got 12 months of selling.

I got nine months of selling.

My season is nine months.

His season is 12 months.

If you look at my numbers, what I do in nine months,

it's almost as much as he does in 12 months.

I'm actually doing better than him.

But they only see the final number.

So one of the big drawbacks is that we have a very short season.

Basically, pretty much, I mean, I'm grateful

because I've been around for a long time.

So I'm pretty steady in the winter, but it does get slow

and it does get scary sometimes, you know, you get a little scared.

But that's one of one of the many.

Employment, labor, labor here in New York is astronomical.

It's just astronomical.

It's it's it's crazy.

It's, you know, I mean, these guys, you're not going to get good talent for cheap pricing.

What's labor in New York on average?

This is people who know because it's different in Florida than anywhere else.

My lowest guy makes my lowest tech.

Makes over 90 grand a year.

OK, well, I mean, quick math.

What is that labor wise an hour?

Like, how does that work?

Oh, like, what's the labor rate or labor?

Labor, labor, labor, labor, labor, labor, labor, labor, labor here.

Shout out to your $90,000 salary guy.

You know, hey, that's my lowest guy.

OK, it goes up from there.

OK, but one seventy five.

OK, and on long term jobs, we actually we actually reduce that

if the job goes out more than two weeks.

So if it goes out more than two weeks and we know it's going to be a more than two

week job, it's a big bill.

We'll bring it down to between one fifty and one twenty five.

OK, so we try to work on the longer jobs with less.

Yeah, and it averages out.

It basically averages out to about a hundred.

And, you know, at the end of the month, it basically averages out

to about one hundred and fifty five to one hundred and sixty dollars per hour of labor.

OK, that's pretty like it's not too far off and in Florida, some shops are charging.

Well, the beautiful thing is that, you know, a few years ago, one in a few years ago,

but a couple of years ago, you know, we were looking to maybe move, right?

You know, it's really tough here.

You can't grow, you know, taxes, insurance.

Yeah. You know how much a square foot in Long Island costs?

You have any idea the square footage prices are no longer anymore?

Yeah. Yeah, well, it's it's some of it, right, right?

Highest in the country.

Highest commercial stuff in the country.

Oh, commercial. Yeah, commercial.

Some of the highest commercial square foot, highest commercial insurance,

highest commercial rent, highest, highest labor rates, shortest season.

So really, if you would look at this from a purely business ROI investment,

you would not do that.

No disrespect to the dealer mechanics, but this ain't putting,

you know, part that came from the dealer into the exact dealer card

that it was made for. Right. You know, that's.

You know what I mean? We get cars that and I've said this on my own videos,

you know, USDM, JDM, AU and UA.

All of these parts could fit any one of those cars,

and all of the parts can fit those cars.

So, you know, everything that goes into your car kind of has to be massaged.

Right. And so you're never going to beat like a book time

to put in a left front strut from the dealer, you know,

it gives you point eight to do it.

Yeah, it takes me four hours to put a suspension in your car.

By the time I set up the coil, Ovis, take him out of the box, pre lube him,

put him in, pre, pre adjust them, get him in.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Minimum. And then I got to give you a height adjustment and alignment.

My guys are so dedicated that without a doubt,

the most dedicated crew I've ever had.

And I've had a lot of crews, but this crew is super dedicated.

They don't look at the clock.

They look at the job.

They want to finish the work.

They they they understand it's taken a little while,

but they understand what Wednesday means.

Wednesday means that we got two days left to finish this car,

or I got a day left to finish this car and two days left.

You know, they understand what Friday means.

That will cause got to be pretty much buttoned up for a pick up Friday,

night or Saturday. They understand what the end of the month means.

You know what I mean?

They understand that they got to push the cars out, you know,

really hustle to get these cars out.

One of the things that you used to and still do kind of rant about

is shops doing bad work and those shops doing bad work.

And then you have to fix their problems when they come into the shop.

Now, it's honestly probably a good thing for you, because now,

you know, you're getting more customers,

but I'm sure you have to deal with a lot more when it comes to

taking apart these cars and dealing with the nonsense, right?

The whole purpose of why the video started was because this is from back in it.

Like that's why years old.

So again, the whole reason why these videos started

and you've seen how long I've been ranting about this, right?

So this has been going on for forever.

You, you yourself was a victim, right?

Yeah, yeah. Yes, I was.

Yeah, you were a victim, right?

And we talked about that, like for briefly, right?

Right. You wanted to go with your boys that, you know,

kind of sound like you look like you was your age.

They were hanging out with the cool ones and all my cool friends

brought my cool car over to there.

And then you got, right?

OK, and what makes me upset just so that everybody knows this,

what makes me upset is not that you didn't come to me.

I'm not going to fix every car.

I'm not going to build every car.

I'm not going to work on every car that I already know.

What makes me upset is that if you don't have the financial ability

to collect your shit that's completely molested and bring it to another shop

and then pay them to do it, that takes one more person out of the game.

That takes one more person out of our industry.

That takes one more potential guy to go to a racetrack.

Takes one more potential guy to buy a turbo.

Takes one more potential guy to build the next car.

Because when your girlfriend, not yours, not mine, but everybody's girlfriend,

once they know you got screwed over and you spent 30 grand, 20 grand, 15 grand,

you think that that sell to your girlfriend that you're going to bring it

to the next shop, got to spend another 15 or 20 grand is going to go over well

for most middle class people?

No, it's not going over well.

That shit's going to be rusted in your backyard with weeds going through the hood.

All right.

True. Yeah. OK.

That's what's exactly what's going to happen.

So it takes you out of the game.

So here was a guy that was enthusiastic, had some ability, had some knowledge

and just fell in with the wrong people and they just you over.

Like I hate those people that do that.

Like if you're going to be a thief, be a good thief.

Go out there and rob something.

Don't be going out there robbing people that are trying to live their dream through you.

Yeah. You know, you sign up for a dream and they deliver a nightmare.

And it's like, you know, we, you know, there's no criminality out of that.

No, there's some criminality out of that.

And unfortunately, it's never going to get prosecuted because it's too hard to prove.

But there's other ways that we get back at you.

And one of those ways, you know, I decided was to expose those shops that do shit work.

Now, I don't name them because I don't want to be, you know, pseudo or anything like that.

But, you know, I pretty much make it so that you pretty much know who I'm talking about.

You know, and if you don't like it, my front door is there.

More than welcome to come in and have a conversation and justify it.

OK. Yeah. And my back door is there, too.

Because when I'm done with you, that's the way you're going out.

You ain't going out the same way you came in.

OK. We're not playing that game here.

Well, like these guys work hard at perfecting their craft.

Meanwhile, you know, you're just bullshitting away, giving it to some people

that really shouldn't be doing this.

Yeah. OK. Even if they finish the car, which is actually.

It's actually worse if they finish the car. OK. OK.

Then if they don't finish it.

Because the work is so bad that when you drive that car,

you can literally be killed in that car. OK.

We have seen enough stuff and documented enough stuff that will get you killed.

Why? Because nobody, nobody in our world, nobody on an industry drives

in the right hand lane at 50 miles an hour.

Nobody does that. Yeah. OK.

You get a clutch in the car.

I see it happen all the time.

You come out my parking lot.

You make a right hand turn and you're on the car because that's what you paid for.

You didn't come here to go slow. Yeah.

It's true. You came in and go fast.

And so now you're going to drive a faster car that's

put together even worse than when it came in.

I mean, I mean, I don't expect you to go to check out some of my videos,

but I mean, and I'm not saying anybody else should either.

I'm not trying to promote myself, but I've seen somebody.

I mean, it's just the shit that I've seen.

It's been so crazy, like loose bull joints, like, like this car literally

just comes out of a shop and it's going in there for performance work

and they pulled the car out and Joey goes or somebody comes up to me

and we just took the wheel and we go, but the bull joints going to fall.

Like it's so loose that even, you know, it's supposed to be preloaded.

You're not supposed to even move that.

No codpins with loose tie rods screws going through gas tanks.

So I saw that one.

Fuel lines rubbing on steering shaft.

So fuel lines on transmission lines on downpipes.

I mean, the amount of shit, I don't even remember the it's so much.

And, you know, we got two cars right here.

We're building two cars right now from again, from from from these.

Individuals, you know, from these thieves, their thieves, their thieves.

And they're they don't belong in my business.

This is my business and I'm not the best.

I'm not saying I'm the best.

I'm the best. I'm the best.

What I'm saying is, is there is a lot of good shops out there.

You're going to have to pay for it.

OK, there are no cheap deals here.

There is no deal here.

The best deal you're going to get, like I said to you before,

is that you pay for what you get and it's delivered somewhat on time.

If you can guarantee those two things, yeah, then you're doing better than

ninety nine point nine percent of the shops.

That's why I have Yarek, you know, the monster.

He's dedicated to one thing, big jobs.

When that big job comes off, the next big job is already waiting.

He's that guy. Then I have Joey.

Joey does one to three day jobs.

Anything that you think you can get done in three days, I can do it.

Yeah. OK, OK, no bullshit.

That talented.

Then I have, you know, Steve's tuning, selling and installing 20 hours a week.

These guys are working hard at their craft.

OK, they all came in as grease monkeys.

We're all came in as grease monkeys.

OK, we're all grease monkeys.

Oh, oil changes, lube guys, OK, grease monkeys.

OK, and then we may have become mechanics.

And maybe if you spend a little time, you might become a technician.

OK, and then you may spend the last time, you know, becoming a master tech.

These guys blew by that in their 20s.

These guys are craftsmen.

They're not mechanics. They're craftsmen.

When I build an engine and I'm pointing ahead, I'm not an engine builder.

I'm a fucking artist. I'm creating. OK.

My creation is horsepower.

Their creation is perfection.

So when you look at one of our cars, we look at you, look at it, that's right.

Everything looks right. Everything's in place.

Nothing is rubbing. Nothing is rubbing up even next to each other.

Nothing is when you look at everything, everything is in place

and it has a place and it needs to stay in place because turbo cars love to do one thing,

make you look stupid and blow up.

You know, you get all the guys out there.

You guys are in comment land.

You know, you take a normally aspirated car.

You unplug the fuel pressure regulator signal line, the little vacuum line

on a normally aspirated car, you take that, it's leaking, it's seeking vacuum.

You might pop a check engine like you should have run for the next 30,000 miles like that.

OK, that same line on a one to one regulator on a turbo car.

That line pops up and the first time you're in boost, you melt your motor.

Yeah, gun, just like that from one single vacuum line.

One out of a myriad of many one boost line.

Oh, I think this boost line goes here on the wastegate instead of here.

OK, OK.

That actually happened to me. OK, I didn't blow the motor.

But I had a wastegate issue like that is I didn't talk about it.

But yeah, well, yeah, I could have ended really, really bad.

Yeah, that's important.

It's scary because you spend a lot of money on this.

And there you go. So now it just hit home.

Yeah. So now it just hit home.

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about.

You spent a lot of money on it.

And if that motor would have blown and it would have been gone like that.

And you knew that you were that close to it, it gave you that pit in your stomach.

OK, because you can't afford to do it again. It's true.

So it takes a good guy like you.

Can you imagine to think about this for a second?

Just exactly what I was saying.

Think about it. You came in, you blew that motor.

You would have shit on this industry.

You wouldn't be doing what you're doing right now.

You would have left it. You would have said, you know what?

This ain't for me. I blew my shit up.

It started grand. I'm spending money.

I'm not an idiot. I got to get out.

And you would have been gone.

But instead you saved yourself and you went on to fight another day and here you are.

And that's exactly what I'm talking about is why I hate those shops

is because they remove potentially really incredible, talented,

good people into our industry by you hurting them.

It's like beating a baby before he's like one years old.

You know, you're beating them to.

A defenseless person, you know, and and they're never going to grow up

and they're never going to be in this, you know, they're never going to be normal.

And it's the same thing. You're going to get out of this.

And and believe me, I've seen it all the time where, you know, they come in

and they're like, listen, can I just put a stock motor in my car?

They're like, listen, I just got my car out of so and so.

Can I just I just need to get it up and running?

I need an extra car.

And you see all the parts and you see the half built motor that they did.

And you're like, you you you actually kind of want to do it almost for free.

You know, and we do a lot of that, like.

We we give away a lot, we do a lot, like, you know,

it doesn't seem like we do a lot for a lot of people, but we do a lot.

And but there's only so much I can do, you know,

to help you out of that situation before I'm in that situation.

So what do you what do you recommend for people who are looking to get into

this kind of, you know, motor sports or maybe building a car and looking for a

shop and they're on, you know, on Google reviews and trying to figure out what

shop to go to. That seems to be the common thing where people are trying to

figure out where to go. They've heard some bad things.

There's some bad reviews and so on.

Like, how do you know exactly where to go for what you're doing?

And maybe some younger people may not even know what you've done.

Like, for example, you don't know, right?

So you don't know you're in this industry, right?

Right. So I didn't know until Nero told me that you were a super guy and me

growing up, I always thought you were a 350Z guy.

Right. So, you know, you know, that's that's again, like I said,

a whole generation past and they don't even know who I am.

And I know that because when I come in here, when I talk to some of these guys,

I know it's like, you know, like, you know, yeah.

So let me ask you something.

Let me ask you something.

OK. Important stuff, right?

Important things, right?

Let's talk about your lovely girlfriend.

OK. Right. Yeah, let's talk about it.

All right. I'll listen in. OK.

By any chance, when you went to go meet her,

did you check it out on a Google review?

No, I didn't.

You sure? I mean, maybe she only got three stars.

Who knows?

No, I didn't. Why?

Why did you go on Google?

Why? Because it's an important decision.

Yeah, it's a really important decision, right?

Yeah. So how the fuck are you going to make an important decision

by not ever showing up and meeting the people?

You're not making a decision.

Other people are making a decision for you.

That's true. Right.

So if you want to go and you want to find the shop, you get off of your ass,

you put your phone in your back pocket and you drive to the shop

and you go meet with them.

And if they have 30 cars outside, run.

Oh, because your car will be fucking 31

and he will be paying when you give him a deposit.

He will be paying for number 14.

That's how far back you are.

OK, so you go there, you make sure they have, you know,

if it's a five car shop, you know, five day shop.

OK, have 10 cars outside.

That's reasonable.

That's for tomorrow's work and some long term work.

You go there and there's 30 cars there.

Then the second thing you have to look at how many people work for him.

How many people are working for you?

You got 30 cars in the shop.

How many people are working for you?

Oh, it's me and my guy.

You sure?

That's not a Google review question, right?

You're not going to get that from Google reviews.

OK, this is really good advice, by the way.

You go there and you meet with the guy.

You look him in the eye, you shake his hand, you talk to him.

If you and by the way, if you're a newbie and you don't know a lot,

bring somebody that does.

Don't be embarrassed about what you don't know.

Don't be embarrassed.

What you don't know.

You're not supposed to know it.

You haven't experienced the experience yet, so you're going to go through an

experience, bring somebody that's may have been, you know,

through the experience before that knows a little bit more than you.

Because what happens here is that if I.

If I know more than you, right, it's easy for me

to convince you that I know a lot, even though I only may know just a little

bit more than you.

But if I'm a good talker and I'm a good BSer and I'm a good salesman,

I don't need to know much more than you.

I just need to know more than you to make that sale.

You know what I mean?

So and you'll be convinced and you were.

So it did work and I worked on a fairly educated guy,

somewhat knowledgeable and it worked.

Yeah.

When you went into that shop, how many cars did he have outside?

As far as more than 30.

Okay.

I know it was definitely more than 30 cars.

So here I'm talking to a Tukes Alpha podcast, this big guy.

And yet you did exactly what I'm trying to stop.

Yeah, other people from doing it's true.

So, you know, don't go to, you know, don't go to Google reviews.

Don't go to Google.

Don't go on Instagram.

I can make this place look like Taj Mahal.

You know, if I want to section it off and do something cool or whatever,

there's not even a sign on my building.

You want to know the truth about why I did that, though?

It was because I didn't think that that person would do it to me

because nobody does.

I didn't think there's no way this guy is going to do that to me

because I'll tear him out.

Really?

And it didn't work out that unfortunately.

Yeah.

So I didn't go on Google.

That's not, I'm not that, you know, that's not.

No, I understand.

But again, I didn't expect that.

That's the best thing to do.

Go there.

Go there with somebody knowledgeable.

Yeah, somebody has been in this industry or somebody has modified cars.

Go to a shop, look around, see what he's built.

Does he go racing?

That's a big thing.

Like that too.

Yeah, so let's talk about that for a second.

Let's just talk about that for a fucking second.

OK, oh, I got so and so motorsports.

I'm so and so performance.

You know, I'm this.

I'm that.

You ain't never been to a race track ever, ever.

I'm at the road racing tracks.

We sponsor a 370Z Nismo car.

We're at the road racing tracks.

We're the only Nissan.

We go drag racing with the only Nissan.

But you know, me and Kyle, you know, we go to.

Auto cross.

I went to autocross.

Steve, was there even the last autocross?

Was there even a Nissan there?

Yeah, it was a Nissan Versa there.

You know what I mean?

So, you know, if you're in the motorsports place, right?

If you're in a space, oh, what a wonderful space.

If you're in business in the motorsports business

and you're not going to any motorsports,

yeah, you shouldn't be going to that guy.

Because how does he know anything?

You the whole point of when Steve goes racing or I go racing,

it's to show you what we're capable of.

OK, this is our work.

This is what we do.

Get off your ass, get off your phone, OK, show up,

present yourself, shake the guy's hand, look at his hand.

You shake my hand.

You're shaking a man's hand.

You know, I'm up turning wrenches.

You know, I'm building shit.

OK, I shake your hand.

It feels like a glove.

You ain't.

You.

You ain't the guy, you know, if you got a bunch of guys

that are screaming or background or, you know, the shop's not

in the water, like, yeah, my shop's all busted up

because I got robbed for doing the floor, but it's it's clean.

My shop's clean. You go to my bathroom.

It's clean. You go to my everywhere is clean.

It may not be clean like when you get a shop built out in Florida

or again, Texas, you know, you know, Florida, you know, you know, this.

This is a clean operation.

The guys, you know, oral clean, they're well capped.

You know, you look in their work area, you know, you have to look around.

Just like I said to you, hey, you want to go for a tour of my shop?

And you said, yeah, but I see another.

Yeah, but let me take you anyway.

Right. You've got to be willing to take a customer or a tour for your shop.

If the guy's not willing to take a tour for a shop.

It's got 30 cars out there just wants to sell you something right then and there.

Probably a good idea is not to go to that shop.

That's true. You know, this is facts.

So it's about the VQ, but the VR is pretty popular in New York and so on.

So big infinity clientele here in New York.

Yeah, huge, you know, VR 30 is a great motor.

It's like it's.

See, this is where people get twisted because I said, oh, I wouldn't

do so and so with a VR 30. Yeah.

But the VR 30 power plant, the whole power plant, everything

just the way it is, is a great fundamental foundation motor

for every single car out there. OK.

Except the Z. That's all I'm saying. OK.

That's I want to make that absolutely clear.

It's a great engine. It's a great power plant.

There are some things that are going wrong with them as we as they put some mileage on them.

Very fixable. They respond well.

They're good motors, they're solid motors.

The stuff that we're seeing come through are all easy fix problems,

not like the harder problems that some motors will inherently have.

Yeah. You know, spinning bearings, lifting heads, breaking shit.

That's it's good for that.

You know, it's got some oil coking issues where they they they clog up a little bit.

OK. But again, you know, simple repair and fix for that.

Once you service the motor, you know, then that problem goes away.

So again, great motor, great foundation, great transmissions in those motors to the

trannies are pretty good. We're actually putting those trannies in the VQ 37s.

We're taking the Q 60 trannies and putting them in the VQ 37 to make them a seven speed.

Right. So what transmission is in them?

That's I think that's a blog in there. Right.

Oh, OK, so, you know, but great car, great platform.

There's, you know, put turbos on them.

Are they are they are the DI? Yeah. OK.

So do you guys do port injection?

Sure, of course. You guys convert to port injection or you guys run both?

No, on those, it's just a tuning.

You know, we have the tuning software. We don't have to convert anything.

We know you don't run.

So it's only it's only direct injection or it's both on those.

No, it's it's both on the no, it's only one.

Yeah, the no VR VR 30.

It's yeah, it's just checked or it's just a direct injection.

Do you guys do port injection?

Because I don't the B 58. That's a common thing we can we can usually go

to port injection and make more.

Yeah, so we haven't had a client that needed that at this moment.

OK. Am I worried about point injection?

No, that's a nice fancy way of saying

something that we used to call an additional injector controller.

OK. OK. And AIC, right?

Or a REBEC simulator, which already made a REBEC simulator.

HKS made an AIC.

And believe it or not, one of the best

additional injector controllers out there is from a company

that's probably you've never heard of and is probably,

I don't know how many years old, a company called Split Second.

And they make they make a really good additional injector controller.

I think they're still around, right?

They're still around.

Yeah, so those guys are good guys over there.

And basically, all you're trying to do is, you know,

gain a pulse width on an injector.

And some of it, you know, some of the software is so powerful.

Now, we were talking about Hall of Tech and Multech earlier.

You know, you may be able to wire something like that

and trigger it some way to actually operate almost like off the,

you know, off of a standalone, you know, yeah, you don't have a standalone

separate for the direct injection, not I mean, sorry, for the point injection,

not the direct injection, which you will tune through the regular ECM.

So but I mean, we were making, as I say, how much power are you making on on D.I.

I think we Christine made but 540, 540, right?

We were making 540 horsepower on a direct injection.

We had the AMS upgraded pop.

That car was all AMS, actually.

That had its intercoolers.

Oh, no, not the it's really after cooler on it.

It had it had it had every part that AMS made for it at the time that we put it together.

And we used a set of stage one turbos, which I wasn't really happy with.

I'm not going to disclose the company.

They work. They just didn't work all that great.

So stage stage one turbo at stage one turbo.

And what are those?

What stage zero?

It was stock turbos on the VR 30.

All right. So is there a stage two, three?

Because yeah. Oh, absolutely.

What is the difference in stages?

Because I would just imagine horsepower, you know,

what what those turbos can produce as far as horsepower.

All the same turbo, just bigger, bigger turbos between it.

Yeah, bigger compressor wheels, bigger turbine wheels.

You know, they they all fit in the same manifold setup.

Oh, and this is a kit from a company that you can buy. Yeah. OK.

Yeah, I I mean, I'll give this company a shout out.

You know, it was pure turbos, but the turbo I had.

It was really early on, you know, early, early, early stuff.

And I just don't think it was like I think if you bought something today from them,

it would be different.

But I got them early on and.

You know, I just they did something.

I mean, they made more horsepower, but I was I was expecting more.

That's what they never broke.

They never went bad.

I just was expecting more horsepower.

But again, ladies and gentlemen, it was like when they first, first,

first made the first turbos for that particular platform. OK.

So, you know, don't I'm sure I'm positive

that they've gone above and beyond at this point. OK.

So you mentioned that the it's the VR 30 is pretty similar to the VR 38.

So is the VR 30 like a baby GTR, basically?

Like how similar are they?

Can you change the parts?

No. OK. No. No.

Is there any is there any platform that you can change parts with maybe put

like from a skyline of turbos or something like that?

I believe that you could bolt on GTR manifolds onto an HR motor.

And I'm going to an HR motor. Yeah.

And I'm about to prove.

Yeah. OK. The manual.

So the GTR comes with the manifold in the turbo all in one.

They're all connected in one piece.

So I believe that that will bolt right on.

In fact, we're we're coming really close to proving that.

We kind of proved it earlier in a video.

But I kind of want to see it myself.

You know, I don't know we we we didn't dive deep

and up into that car to figure out exactly how that went.

It wasn't adapt to play it, right?

OK. See, that's what I wasn't 100 percent sure.

So either we're going to make an adapt the plate to make that work.

OK. Or, you know, we'll figure out another way around it.

But I believe that that will work.

And that's what will be the benefits to doing that.

Cheap. It's cheaper.

Yeah. For the power that you're going to make.

Just cheap.

You can buy probably a set of used manifolds with turbos from a GTR

for a couple of grand and just make the intercooler piping and down piping.

And you got a turbo. What chassis?

Any of the 37 chassis. OK.

Interesting.

I need any 37 and any HR.

I think it'll fit. I would think so.

OK. Have you ever had an experience with any of the VK 56 stuff?

Because that's on the that's on the.

So it's so funny you say that.

So prior to me, put deciding to go with the VR 38.

Yeah, I bought a VK 56 motor.

OK. It is now I have another shop where I keep.

Damn, you know, you asked me earlier about this

and I didn't think about the VK 56 power wise.

I didn't think about that platform and how.

Yeah, I could have said that.

It might have been a close.

I could have been a close one.

Not going to lie. And for the price, you can pick those up for cheap.

You know, also VR 38 sleeves, pistons, rods and 2000 horsepower.

You're you're there.

You know, I don't disagree with that.

It's a big motor.

Yeah, it is a V8, though.

It is a big motor.

I really like what that gentleman is doing.

John Rogers. Yeah, John Rogers.

Thank you for telling me his name.

I didn't want to not mention his name.

I really like what John's doing.

I've never spoken to him or anything like that.

I am definitely a fan of what he's doing.

Again, it's another it's, you know, it's another person that, you know,

if I was ever in a position to

from an Nissan position to help a guy like that out,

that's the kind of guy I want to help out.

Yeah, because everybody knows him

and he's done some really incredible stuff.

But we were looking at that motor

10, 10 years ago, and that was something.

It's not new.

It's people have been doing swaps with those.

Yeah, yeah, but I don't think anybody's brought it brought it to John's level.

And, you know, again, just like myself, bringing the 2JZ

and then later on the VQ platform to another level,

it always takes that one individual like John to do that with that

and really show what it can be done.

And so, you know, again, I recognize that what he's doing.

And, you know, it's in a six beat.

So, you know, it's got a pretty consistent six second.

You know, he's again, the East onto the front.

And, you know, he's going to be a killer.

He's going to be a killer coming up this year.

He's not going to play.

He's running sixes.

Yeah, but he's running sixes pretty quickly.

And again, the supers still struggle to run sixes.

They run them.

Yeah, you know, Granis is out there.

You know, there's a couple of other guys out there.

Granis is six fifties, I think.

Yeah, but not like this guy with the V8.

You know, it's right up there, lays it down, comes back around, lays it down again.

The 2J is not going to be able to keep up with that.

And you would have the same, I believe, the same very similar.

Outcome if used the VR 38 as well.

I don't think you would have much of a different outcome, maybe a little bit

different, but not much.

Right. Well, you have two, you have two extra cylinders, right?

Yeah, it's not that.

It's the same reason why I believe that the GTR R35 motor will eventually

dethrone the 2JZ motor, and it's very simple.

It's not horsepower.

It's not the potential of horsepower.

It's the potential of torque.

So the V6 makes so much more torque.

So even if we go to same mile per hour in that course of the 1320 feet,

I'm going to accelerate that much faster than you.

You know, I never really understood the difference.

And for me, is torque more of a feeling or does it actually apply down?

That's what makes you feel like this.

Right. But how does that really translate to ET times?

And the more torque you can put down, for instance, it's all torque,

the first eighth of a mile.

The first eighth is all torque.

All torque. OK.

And then it's all horsepower from there.

After. Yep.

Yep, mile per hour represents horsepower.

So when you see a big mile per hour, you know, which is what I always like

seeing, because that represents how much horsepower I'm making.

So when I out horsepower you, that means I'm making more horsepower in you,

which means I'm a better engine builder than you.

OK, so when you have that's what it means.

I mean, I'm not being an asshole.

That's what it means. Of course, you're not doing that.

So but when you have more torque, is it harder to manage traction?

Sure. OK. Sure.

It's the control of that talk.

But like, you know, we're talking about, like, again, the 2JZ.

When it comes to torque, just like the Rotary.

So, for instance, 2JZ doesn't produce a lot of torque either.

Right. And Rotary's produce even less torque.

Right. So Rotary's just went fives.

I mean, just four weeks ago was the first rotary in the fives.

Why? Because they don't have enough torque to drive them out of the hole

and get them out there.

They had pretty good horsepower.

I've seen 230. I've seen Rotary's go 230, 6162, 230.

They had the mile per hour.

They had the horsepower.

They didn't have the torque.

So and then, you know, that translates to the 2JZ, too.

It's got a lot of horsepower, but it doesn't have, you know, the torque is way lower.

But on the VR38, you make a mungus, much more amount of torque,

which I think is really the reason that the cost efficiency,

the amount of time that you can run the VR35 as opposed to the 2JZ,

I think all of those things will come into play and, you know,

and really make it competitive.

I mean, it's going to be a, you understand, like, when we come out with this

kind of battle we're going to have, we're going to have no friends.

We're not going to have any rotary friends, obviously.

We're not going to have any RB friends, even though we're cousins, OK,

we're definitely not going to have any 2JZ friends.

And for damn sure, we're not going to have any domestic friends.

You know what I mean?

So this is a call that nobody, this is a platform that nobody's race yet.

And that's why I want to race it, because I, I believe just as I believe.

You know, that the 2JZ was going to be king, that eventually V6 modus will be the king,

that now this is the next transition and that will be the king.

OK, which is why you said, which is why when I said on the

shop tour that RB is going to be king in the next five years, you laughed.

I understand now, makes sense.

Well, we'll see.

I hope that, you know, I hope that we'll see what you're saying.

I mean, there's a lot, there's a lot that's got to, you know, go in, you know,

I mean, and the VK is also another platform that, you know, it's a great platform.

It's a great platform.

It's again, Nissan makes some good stuff.

So where do you see the future is for drag racing right now?

I've been to events the past.

What events have you gone to?

I've been to the World Cup, which is my favorite event.

How crazy is World Cup?

It's my favorite event that I've been to.

I haven't been to Pan Am.

I haven't been to any of like the pro mod events yet, like snowbirds and the

last stuff. OK.

But I think that World Cup is probably racing wise.

To me, that's the best event to go to.

Personally, I've experienced CX UK is great, too.

Different, different cars there, of course.

FL 2K is also.

Yeah, that's what that's what I was going to say, isn't there another one

in FL 2K? Yeah, FL 2K is great.

It's just the weather is the downside to that event.

But as far as the cars, we're always fighting the weather.

Yeah, but as far as the cars, I think, you know, World Cup is probably

the most exciting event if you want to see like the fastest cars go on the track.

Last year was off the hook.

Yeah. Yeah.

And the year before that, I went and that was off the hook.

And the last ticket was two years.

I mean, I'm thinking two years ago, you know, like, do you think that the sport is dying?

Drag racing.

Hell, no, not even close.

OK. Not even close.

I think I think what's happening is that people are moving out of urban areas,

populated areas and moving on because as motorsports guys, we just,

like you said, the police, this, that and the other.

Yeah, yeah. But, you know, slow and down.

No, they're they're record attending at this point.

At the bigger events, you mean?

Yeah. And I think, you know, I think that, you know, as far as spectator attendance,

that's what I'm more so probably looking at, you know.

So when we talk about spectator attendance, you know, you you you.

That is no longer a metric to be used. OK.

So what are you looking at?

I'm looking at the complete event coverage,

like most of these event coverage are on flow racing.

True. Or or some other type of medium.

So, yeah, you're going to lose some spectator count

because I can watch it from my big screen TV at home.

So is that is that like what they always implementing that?

Or you could watch it on YouTube?

Or is this? Yeah, you can watch flow racing on a lot of events.

For I'm saying for how many years this has always been a thing.

No, I would say I would say no, because the technology wasn't there.

So I would say I would say maybe the last and I could be wrong about this,

but I would say the last five years, I think five years.

You know, I think first of all,

I think import racing is has been a steady.

I mean, steady as a rock compared to any other domestic racing.

Domestic racing just by the numbers, the people are a lot.

This was a big transition of a lot of older guys that got out.

Yeah. And it was just recently that we see a lot of younger guys getting in.

Yeah. And we and we can almost thank the LS engine platform for that

because it allowed every. Yeah.

You know, everybody else in the world, you know,

you know, put on eBay,

turbo and eBay manifold that you were out racing.

And but as far as I mean, as far as the events go,

and it's as far as import racing goes,

you have to think about import racing for a second in like a different way.

So you're talking about FL2K.

You're talking about what's the other one?

TX2K. TX2K.

You're talking about World Cup.

Yeah. Pan-Americans, you know, a couple of other events that are out there.

And when you talk about those events,

you have to take it under the perspective.

It's probably going to get me in a little trouble

that most of those promoters are fighting with each other

and don't like each other.

You know, you.

You have to understand we don't have a series.

We have no organization.

So if you were talking to me about import racing,

we have no organization.

We have no series.

We don't even have a rule book that complies from one race to another.

It burns me so bad that these promoters

can't figure out a series.

Let's let's just take, for instance, just take this one caveat.

So let's just talk about the guys we know we just said.

So you go FL2K, Y2K.

Or Texas 2K.

You have Pan-American.

You have World Cup.

Let's say you throw in Fall Nationals

and maybe Fall Nationals and maybe Spring Nationals.

So let's let's say, right?

So that would look like a pretty good series.

You would have six events, seven events, and you would go,

you know, to those racers and you would actually have a series.

Do you know what the importance of a series is?

The importance of a series is that as a racer,

you have something to sell to a sponsor.

Hey, I'm going to be part of this so-and-so racing series.

I am going to be going for a championship in this class.

We don't have that because we have a bunch of numskulls

that want to f and fight with each other and won't get along.

Yet there is an answer for that.

The answers for that is, of course, that nobody, you know, of course,

again, my event doesn't dilute the environment.

Your event dilutes the environment.

It's always the other person's event that harms the environment.

Now, to be honest with you, all you guys are hurting the environment.

You're helping and hurting.

Greatest event ever, Pan American.

Greatest event ever, you know, World Cup.

Greatest event ever, FL2K.

Greatest event ever, TKX.

OK, so why don't we have these events, right?

Right?

Each promoter.

They keep their gate money, but each promoter of your track owner

Yeah, puts in a fund, puts in money into a general fund

to pay all the races that go to their series.

But you keep all of your gate.

OK, OK.

You don't have events on top of each other.

You start out in March.

Where do you start out in March in Florida?

And then you go to Texas.

OK, you know, and then you come up to the East Coast,

maybe go to Maryland for one race, maybe come up to the PA to do one race.

Then you do, then you do Pan Americans.

Then you go back down to Maryland, you do what you call it.

And at the end of the year, you got a series.

You go to FL2K at the end of the year.

Now you got a seven event series that races can go out and petition.

Sponsors say, hey, we're going to be on flow racing.

We're going to have this much coverage.

This is how much on site people we're going to have.

But they can't this it's so effed up that these guys can't even get together

and put a series together.

I'm actually thinking of calling the IHRA or even the NHRA and say, hey, listen,

you know, you want to put a series back together to give you a little benefit

over the IHRA and call the IHRA and say, hey, listen, the NHRA threw us out.

You're going to welcome us.

Come on in, you know, and then all these other tracks.

What are they going to do then?

If somebody comes up with a series and it's outside these tracks,

these tracks that are holding these events right now, you know,

maybe not some of the big, big ones, but some of them are going to be F.

You know, so I mean, and it breaks my heart because I watch TV.

You know, I'm still old.

I'm not, you know, just doing the bad thing all day long.

So, you know, on Sunday, sometimes I'm going through ESPN.

I've watched the snapper race snapper one mower racing series.

So you're telling me that people are racing lawnmowers on fucking ESPN,

but I can't get an import series going 260 miles an hour with 50,000 people

being there. It's like, are you serious?

Are you effing serious?

I love mowers is crazy.

But they are doing it.

Yeah, that's kind of wild.

Like that's how bad my industry is, is that lawnmowers have a series on ESPN.

And we can't organize ourselves.

These promoters get together, get in the room and work it all out,

which benefits everybody.

Everybody keeps their event.

You know, everybody keeps their event.

Everybody keeps their gate money.

Yeah. You know, you're just going to put in the money

as a general fund for the races to go around.

And that series will bring more and more spectators to your event,

you know, because now we get to FL 2K.

That would be technically the last race of the year.

Yeah. That's where all the champions happen.

Well, World Cup would be laughter.

No, no World Cup, and then it's FL 2K, isn't it?

No, I felt two keys in October and then it's OK.

So yeah, OK, so it's like the month they're like a month apart.

OK, so then what better way to end the year than at World Cup?

Yeah, that's how it ends.

It's like, right. So what better way to end it, right?

At World Cup, right?

So, you know, but you can't get these guys in a room

and you can't get them to understand why they're hurting the racer.

If you want to know why the race is going away,

it's because the race doesn't have any money.

This is true.

He can't even go to his local hardware store and say,

listen, I'm going to be on TV just a promotion alone.

You know, give me whatever, five grand or something.

Nothing, because there's no series.

You got nothing to sell. Hey, how are you doing?

I'm Vinny. I got on the cell.

I want you to give me money.

How's that working?

Yes. Hey, hi, I'm Vinny.

I got another cell. I got a fast call. Give me money.

How does that work?

So what you had to become is your own media company.

That's how you.

So now what has transitioned is because we've been out on our own.

And we're sitting out here in the dustbin of history of, you know,

now we just go to one, you know, which are great events.

Yeah, you know, 50,000 people, 30,000, a pan American over, you know,

per day, you know, when we talk about a 50,000 people showing up,

we're not talking about over three days or four days.

We're talking about per day.

You know what I mean?

You know, Saturday is 50,000 or 40,000 at World Cup.

You know, Sunday is 45,000 sold out.

Yeah, sold out. Sold out.

Not a ticket to be found.

So, you know,

not trying to take away anything from those guys, not trying to take away

anything from Pan American or FL2K or TKX.

But you guys got to get in a room and put a series together.

Keep all your gate money.

Keep all of that, putting in a general fund to run a series.

So people know that, you know, just like people know World Cup is on so and so.

People know the spring nationals will be on so and so.

The four nationals will be on so and so.

Why TK, you know, TKX will be so and so, FL2K will be so and so.

Then there's a championship.

You can run for that.

You can be on TV.

You're going to have flow racing.

I mean, not being able to sell an ESPN package when it's so easy

that even a FN lawn mower company can do it, then, you know,

I've been hearing about import racing dying since the day I showed up at a track.

OK. Yeah.

And it's still the number one spectator sport at any track.

There's no track really on the east coast that can survive without import racers.

OK. If it's not for the import races,

they can't survive on domestic alone.

There's not enough car count for you to survive on domestic alone.

So don't bullshit me about how the import racing is going away.

No, import racing saved drag racing, OK, saved drag racing, OK,

saved drag racing and saved a whole bunch of other businesses along with it,

like the machine shops that were losing all their business to crate motors.

Well, now you can't buy a crate motor, which we're going to work on.

OK, you know, and here's another here's another.

Here's another unbelievable thing, OK, unbelievable.

Like when I bring this to your attention,

you're not even going to you're going to be like, wow, you're right.

So at the birth of drag racing and even drag racing today,

even at the birth of drag racing, since the beginning of drag racing

to today in the domestic market, Ford, Chevy, Mopah,

you know, Dodge, all involved, right?

Yeah, all involved, all about the sponsor cars, sponsor events, sponsor teams.

Right. OK. What Japanese manufacturer ever, ever, ever, ever,

ever has sponsored a fucking car in America?

What Japanese manufacturer ever sponsored an event?

OK, none, not one, maybe Mazda at the World Cup finals with NHRA back in the day.

They gave them $50 or something. OK, we've done this entirely,

entirely without any factory support.

We have carried our racing through the last 30 years,

entirely without, without any zero.

When they're talking about some, they're talking, we gave you something,

zero manufacturer support.

They don't sponsor a car, they don't sponsor an event.

And you know what?

That the insanity here is that we perpetuate the entire market of resale

of these cars and products based on what we did in import racing,

because we showed you what we could be done with your Honda.

We showed you what you could be done with your Toyota.

We showed you what you could be done with your Mazda.

So people went out and bought those cars to modify.

What do you think they're driving?

Unmodified cars, unmodified BMWs, unmodified Toyota Supras, unmodified,

you know, four hundred seats.

No, every one of them modified.

And where they learned to modify from the track, from people going to the track.

And so a large part of their business was given to them without any cost

to them of their involvement in import racing.

So we've stood on our own.

So when you say, well, import racing is dying, how is that?

It can only die when we say it's going to die because we pay the bills.

You can go on to the domestic and HRA event or HRA event.

You walk through the pitch.

You see almost every single car has got some sort of sponsor.

There are zero major sponsors on any level.

And I and I even say some to the aftermarket companies.

OK, I'd look at the some of the biggest aftermarket companies.

OK, no bullshit.

Not not trying to again, not trying to throw shade, not trying to.

Again, not trying to cause any trouble.

But where's the turn 14 fucking car?

Where's the turn 14 car?

You've got all these shops buying all these parts off you

and we can't sponsor a drag car.

We can't sponsor a drag event or an import event or any kind of event.

Nothing, nothing.

Just take my money, buy the parts, give me that, you know,

and they're a great company.

They're a great company again.

Yeah, but they're not my master.

So I will criticize and I love the company again.

Two things can be true at the same time.

OK, so you get a turn 14 or a motor state or or a summit.

You know, and some of it actually sponsored in back in the day,

the import series won't do it now.

You know, so we we've done this entirely on our own.

OK, so drag racing is not dying.

Yeah, got it.

Yeah, well, that's because you and my idiot friend over there is a bunch.

Drifted.

Oh, let's go drifting.

Oh, let's go to a judge.

I'm asking, I'm asking the question.

I didn't say it was.

I'm just asking if you feel it is based off of what I've witnessed.

That's all.

But again, there's plenty of other drag racing that happens in different states

that I don't go to like 1320 covers.

A lot of events that most people don't go to that's fully packed out.

So the other thing that would would really be super cool.

Again, and again, World Cup does does do it, you know.

You know, again, everybody's afraid of the looting their series.

But, you know, even if you took that package of excuse me,

that package of rules and apply those rules so domestics can race.

So then there'd be like no guarantee of the race ever not being populated, right?

But, you know, I'm sure Jason's great guy.

I speak to him. He's great.

I mean, he's a great guy.

I mean, I text him.

He answers my text and or I email him.

He emails me back.

He's a great guy. He's done a phenomenal job.

I know his dad I raced before Jason had World Cup.

I actually raced there at an import race for his dad many, many years ago.

Great operators.

But, you know, he's afraid or concerned.

I don't know if afraid's not probably the right word, but he's concerned that,

you know, what he's got works so well right here.

Why should I try to give it up somewhere else or blueprint it to, you know,

another event and to a certain degree, he's true.

It is true.

But I think that sometimes you have to think about things being bigger than

yourself and I think import racing can be bigger than than what we even think of.

And that shows us every year at World Cup.

It shows us every time we go to FL 2K.

It shows us even even if they got, you know, you go to domestic races, right?

Right? Like you've not been to a domestic race, right?

Me? Yeah.

At Braden's in one time.

OK. And how many how many people understand?

I mean, when I went, it wasn't many.

No. So see, the thing is, is that true?

The domestic's got the competitors.

They have more competitors than we have.

People have been modifying domestic cars a lot longer.

So they naturally have, you know, a higher rate of participation.

But you know what they don't have?

They don't have one thing that we have.

They don't have the rabid fans that we have.

OK. That's why when even you show up at a full national or spring national or,

you know, not even a major, major race, there's still 10, 15,000 people that showed

up there. There's still 9,000 people that showed up there.

Yeah. OK.

You go to the domestic race, you find their families eating lunch in the stands.

That's who's in the stands.

There's no real spectators.

These are real fans.

These are hard cause you go to Pan American and they take over the upper

upper levels and they start camping out on the stands.

It's crazy. Yeah, we got I got to go this year.

I mean, it's until you I can't describe it until you go.

Yeah, I can tell you you're not going to believe it.

But the moment you go, you're going to know, like, wow, I've never like

somebody's experiences like you're never going to you can't you can't

duplicate the Pan American anyway.

It's like that is a race.

And, you know, it's at Maple Grove now, which I'm really happy about.

But when it was at Akko, it was like it was just and it's still that way.

Yeah, there's still, you know, like you say, you know,

sometimes there's a little delay in people moving over from, you know,

I think you said used into whatever.

It's a Dallas from Dallas to Houston or Houston to Dallas.

So, yeah, sometimes there's going to probably be a little delay of people

coming over there. But, you know, and that's sort of like the transition

they're doing from Akko to Maple Grove.

But the last two events were, you know, last two years that I went anyway.

Very good crowds. I mean, we're talking about

15 plus thousand easily.

OK, in some track and it's not even like, you know, outside of PA, you know,

I mean, so what is the future for Vinny 10 racing looking like?

As of right now, obviously you have this car.

So this car, I race this car one because I love this car.

It's just just a good car and I've had it for so long.

And I just I love racing it.

It's it's a very easy car to drive.

And I race it to stay sharp because I knew eventually either

I'm going to bring out the Supra or I'm going to bring out the Nissan.

And the Nissan just is almost ready.

So the pro car is going to be ready for testing less than 60 days at this point.

OK. But the reason why I started racing this car a few years back was

I'm a little older than you.

I'm a little older than everybody else, you know, and I wanted to make sure,

you know, racing is not just about getting in the car.

That's the day at the track in driving is the easiest.

That's the most peaceful part of my whole day is when I'm strapped in.

Everything after that is a ton of work.

There's a ton of work before weeks, months before.

Yeah, there's a ton of work to get it ready to get all the food ready to load everything.

There's a ton of work at the track, and it's usually hot at the track.

Yeah. And there's a lot of pressure at the track.

And I had to make sure that, you know, I can still.

Yeah, I can drive, but can I do all the other stuff?

Right. Right.

You know, because I'm not going to have a money team.

My guys are all volunteer.

I don't make them go.

If they show up, I got more help.

If they don't show up, I have less help.

That's just the way it is.

But me and my wife, Christine, you know, we go together and we unload the thing.

If it's just us, that's it's just us.

And we're going to go out there and race just us.

And we're going to be out there for, you know, whatever, three minimum three days

on the road. Yeah.

And you got to make sure that you can still do that.

Don't fuck with me, kiddies.

You know, but, you know, you got to be able to still do that.

And that's one of the things and also you got to be used to doing it.

So I didn't want to just, oh, yeah, here I am.

I'm Vinny 10.

I'm just going to drop into a five second car and just beat a man.

No, no, I want to stay sharp.

I want to stay fresh.

I want to stay around the track.

I want to, you know, keep learning things from other people.

Yeah.

And keep seeing what things, you know, look like and watch those

broke cars go down and, you know, and just try to learn as much as possible

while I'm there, but also to compete as best I can.

Get this thing go as fast as I, you know, could get it to go.

Does it have the record for this?

Oh, yeah, this is the fastest independent rear wheel drive.

You know, we can go down to, you know, it's the fastest independent

rear wheel drive, blue car, Nissan, you know, people come up with records.

This, as far as rear wheel drive, independent suspension car,

this is the fastest 350Z as I know in the world.

And that's everything I have ever driven.

Like everything I've ever driven or raced, it becomes number one.

I can't be number two.

Can't.

I don't want to be number two and I'm not shooting for number two.

When we bring out the pro car, it will be, you know, the fastest.

There's no rules for pro cars.

So it will be the fastest Nissan is the first goal.

That'll be the first goal.

And the second goal is to be then the fastest.

Fastest Nissan.

Yeah.

And what is the fastest Nissan?

I guess your boy.

Who?

Mac, right?

He's the fastest Nissan.

Yeah, I think so.

Will he run?

I think it was five seventies, maybe.

Yeah, five seventies.

So he's vulnerable at five seventies.

You run five seventies, you're vulnerable in this in this class now.

Fastest Nissan, but the Nissan would just be the plot, the engine

platform is considered.

Yeah, that's what it's powered by.

So that's just hands down.

You want to make this platform, this engine power plant, the VR 30.

I want to kill the RB.

I'm going to kill the two JZ.

And then I'm going to just keep going with the R30 VR 38.

Are we ever going to see a Supra build in the future?

Absolutely, absolutely.

So we're the car's chassis is all done.

So we were going to talk about this, but I said I didn't want to.

And so we got here.

Okay.

So I love that car.

Like that's, I mean, I that car still smells like when I get in that car,

it's got certain smells to it.

Yeah, it's got a certain feel to it.

It's still structurally a Supra.

It's not stretched or anything like that.

It's still all the bars are within the the confines of the car.

And it was a real car.

You know, it was a real Supra at one point.

I got that car because I was, I was, I was building the car.

I was building a car with a with a with an 85 Supra.

And I was putting a two JZ in that.

I feel a light car and we're going to go racing.

And I get a call from a guy named Angie.

And he owns actually a salvage yard out here.

But at the time he owned this place called or ran a place called Metro Auto

Salvage and he's like, Hey, we just got a Supra.

And I don't know what it is, but it's stripped as hell.

I'm like, I'll come right down.

So I go down there and the car is completely stripped.

The only thing in the car is the block, the block in the head.

The turbos were off.

The intake manifold, maybe the intake was on, but the exhaust manifold was off.

No doors, no wheels, no suspension, no nothing.

And so I go, how much you want for that?

And he goes, Oh, I got to get four grand, but I got to, I got to get,

I got to cut the car in half and sell it to you because it's a junkyard.

They can't sell a whole car.

OK. So I said, well, he didn't cut the car.

Fuck it.

If I buy this thing for four grand, that four grand in whatever it was, 95,

you know, it's a good amount, but I had a friend of mine named Danny Lu.

He's actually been by here a couple of times, old Chinatown friend met him

when I was had to shop in Manhattan, great guy along with Paul Chan

and a couple other guys over there, really, really cool guys over there.

And he had a non turbo.

So I called him up and I'm like, hey, I'll sell you a turbo motor for four grand.

He's like, yeah.

And he's like, yeah, but I don't have any money.

I said, four grand, I'll put it in for you.

He says, OK, I said, but you got to bring me the money tomorrow.

So he brings me the money.

I go out, I buy that car.

I take the motor out of that car.

I thought it was good.

I put it in Danny's motor.

Yeah, it's Danny's car.

It's still in his car right now.

He still has the original car with that motor that I put in there from that car.

And I convinced them not to chop the car in half because they were a salvage

odd, they can't sell me a whole car.

Yeah, they were going to sell me or junkyard.

It wasn't even a salvage odd.

They have to sell me a back half car and a front half car.

And of course they gave me two receipts, but they never cut the car in half.

You know, so I dragged that car out and I dragged it into a corner.

So that car.

Was a junkyard car.

You understand what I'm saying to you?

It's a junkyard car, because that's what I do.

I fucking take junk or broken shit or platforms that nobody wants.

And I will make you a fucking champion.

OK, we don't we don't build fast cars.

We build winners.

We make winners.

That's what we do.

We make winners and we do it because that's what we'd love to do.

Not because you're paying me to do it, but because I want to see you win.

I want to see you do good.

And so if I could take a car that came out of a junkyard and make it the most

famous car ever to exist in drag racing history and a champion, can you imagine

what I'm going to do with a real program?

I got nothing to say about that.

Yeah, I got nothing to say about that.

So that's that's that's who I am.

Like the only sad thing about the super and maybe more people now.

Is like like you, like a whole effing generation.

Don't know what started at all.

It wasn't Titan, you know, I love you, Nero.

It wasn't you, you know, it wasn't Titan.

It wasn't canoe.

It wasn't anybody else.

It was that car.

That's what started.

That's what perpetuated import racing.

And that's what's perpetuated the entire two JZ movement.

One of the popular things with these platforms and VRs, maybe VQs as well,

is like flames and verbal tunes and all this other stuff.

Right. That was a very, very popular thing or probably still is with these cars.

Right. So it's it's it's horrible.

It's it's you're an idiot.

So what are the downsides to having a flame map or some type of flame to

where's the flame come out of the exhaust comes out of the exhaust?

Where the flames start?

Well, I guess in the cylinders, right?

Yeah, it did.

It sure did.

It bounced off your small plug, wet past your exhaust valve,

bending it up, making it a nice and hot get past your turbine wheel.

Bang, the what about the concussional effect?

Pretty loud, right?

Yeah, right.

So that's what's going on when you're piston is in.

It's like that's what's going on between your piston relationship

and your cylinder relationship.

Now, you're hearing that concussional effect 15 feet later at the back of the car.

What do you think is happening inside that cylinder?

What do you think I if you watch the video that almost got a million views?

I mean, not as many as yours, of course.

But, you know, you'll you'll get a pretty good explanation of it.

And it's it's incredibly bad for the car.

Now, there are some softwares out there.

You know, that can do it through cam phasing,

which is a little gentler on the car.

But ultimately, it's it's really bad for the car.

And and as I said in the video, it beats up your valve seats.

It beats up your valve of your valves.

It beats up your rings.

It beats up the piston beats up the head gasket,

beats up the turbos and turbine wheels,

cracks the cats in your car if you have any.

And as I said in my video,

I encourage you to keep doing it because it's really good for business.

OK, how so how long?

I'm sure it doesn't matter.

That doesn't matter how long you're doing this for.

Like, is it like people because people believe that if you're not doing it

too much that you won't hurt the end, sure, but you're still doing it too often.

That's true.

It's like I'm only having sex with you for one second.

Does that really count as sex?

You know, the analogies are crazy.

So is this something that when people come here,

do you you don't put this on on their car?

You don't offer this as a service?

I absolutely do. Oh, OK.

So for about five years, I refused to do it.

I lost a tremendous amount of business having morals and ethics.

I sit here. I tell you that.

I explained to you what it was going to do.

Why is it going to do it?

How is it going to do it?

What the ramifications are when you do it?

And they still do it.

Or or or they wouldn't tune the call

because I didn't want to do it and I didn't do it for like five years.

And I said, you know what?

I'm an idiot.

So you know what?

Guess what I'm going to do?

I'm going to do the barbell tunes, whatever flame tunes, whatever you want to call it.

You're going to sign a release and you're going to pay me an extra

150 bucks for doing it.

So again, you want it?

I'll do it.

You know, do I think it's bad for your engine?

I think it's really bad for your engine.

And guess what happens when you buy a Vinny 10 racing engine and I tune your car?

You ain't getting no verbal tune on my motor.

You ain't going to beat up my motor.

I work too hard to put your motor together.

You only pay me once and then when I come back, oh,

you know, my car is got like a little miss.

Yeah, because the valve can't seal anymore because they're waffled from the heat.

You know, that generates all of that heat.

Yeah.

You know, you wouldn't put your hand in the back of the tailpipe, right?

What do you think your valve is experiencing?

True.

So how does that?

How does that compare to like two step or any leg?

So they're all the same.

So but they use differently and certain correct.

So, you know, where it became popular, where

verbal tunes really became popular, a couple of places they became popular.

Obviously, they became popular

because people with turbo cars needed to do that when they launched the car.

Yeah, build the boost, build the boost, take off, right?

Big flames.

Everybody loved that.

It also came from rally racing where they used to go around the turn.

You know, I think I'm around the turn.

Listen, it's exciting.

It's fun. I don't disagree.

I had a loud cars in my past.

Yeah.

But again, because I never really had, you know,

financial support, if I blew something up, I couldn't put that on my mother's credit card.

Not because my mother didn't love me, because she didn't have a credit card,

because we weren't financially able to have a credit card.

So that wasn't going to happen.

She wasn't going to come here and throw down three cards and pay for my motor.

Like I see a lot of these kids though, which I would never let my mother do that anyway.

But, you know, these kids do, you know, with a five thousand, five thousand, five thousand,

okay, 15 grand, get your motor.

And we see it all the time.

Don't we, Jeanine? Where is she?

There she is.

And she's the one that takes the money.

So I don't have to feel bad that I warned you and told you.

But you had a kid in here.

He just constantly blew up his ship because he's just constantly on

because he was cold and made him a superstar.

I mean, in my day, back in my day, I was your age.

But, you know, we were trying to get away from the cops, not attract them to us.

Hmm.

OK, OK, we weren't trying to say, oh, look at me.

I'm an idiot.

Come get me and take it.

Oh, follow me to the street races.

You know, you made a comment that, like,

Texas is really cracking down.

Yeah, yeah, they are.

Well, you guys probably would have got away with it for so much long.

If you look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me.

Look at me straight racing in El Paso.

You don't think they're watching the media?

That's a hundred percent what it is.

Yeah, yeah, you guys gave up yourself.

They didn't even have to come down for you.

They leave you alone.

They put the little cameras up on the pole when you're out sleeping.

And then when they come down and just watch you, they don't even come down and

just put the cameras on the pole, take everybody's plate number,

well, figure out where you live, follow your home, give you a bunch of tickets and

pound your car like it's supposed to be secret.

It's supposed to be a society.

Yep, you know, we're supposed to be mobsters.

You know, this is like being in the mob.

You know, you got to keep it quiet.

You don't tell, hey, no, I'm in the mob.

No, and this shit's like the mob.

It's almost like ass backwards.

So for me, if you want to put the verbal turning on question,

extra one hundred and fifty bucks, sign a waiver, have a great day.

That's how much it costs to do it.

If you would just come in and no, it's one hundred and fifty bucks on top of the tune.

OK, so what did the tune go for roughly?

Steve.

Nine fifty somewhere between depends, you know, it starts at nine fifty.

You can go as high as fifteen hundred, depending, you know, how many maps you want.

Is it a turbo car?

Is it a big turbo car?

You know, how much time you guys spend on it?

If we built the car, it's usually less because nothing's going to start to go wrong

on the dyno. Yeah.

The amount of cars that come in here and say they're going to be tuned

and and actually get on the dyno and get tuned is probably two out of every ten.

I want to tune.

OK, when's the last time you changed the oil?

Oh, when was the last time you changed the spark plugs?

Spark plugs?

Those are a hundred thousand miles, aren't they?

Oh, are you bringing the car to check out the car to make sure it doesn't have any oil leaks?

None's going to fall off.

The wastegate pipes not burning on, you know, the boost line or anything like that.

Guys got no brakes in the car.

No brakes.

Oh, I want to go fast.

You got no brakes in the car.

There's times when we don't tread on the tire, right, Steve?

No tread on the car.

The cords are coming through the tire.

I'm not putting this on my dyno.

So, you know.

Oh, man, well, it's keeping you busy, right?

It keeps me busy.

It keeps me busy and we do a good job.

And what what really makes this shop different, what makes this shop different is

that we are brutally honest.

I don't need to sell you anything.

I'm not going to sell you anything if I ever and I mean ever and I fucking mean ever

had one of my guys sell something just to get more hours out of the job.

I will fire you right then and there.

No discussion.

None, zero.

I told you never to do that.

I've enforced that that rule over and over again.

There's no reason to upsell anybody, anything that they don't need.

You know why?

Because these cars are so effed up that there's plenty that if you look at them

thoroughly enough, you'll find everything that's wrong with them.

Because most of these cars have been molested by people

that just don't possess the talent to do it right.

Yeah. So when they come in and they're modified,

I don't need to say anything.

I need to save you.

I'm going to save you money.

You know, it's going to cost you money to save money, but believe me,

you're saving money because half of the shit will either get you killed,

get you crashed or get your ship blown up.

Yeah. So every mostly every car that comes in here, we try to do a checkout on it.

You know, just to make sure it's safe.

And if it looks ready, it's definitely getting a check out.

If we don't know you, you get checked out, you know.

And you know, you know, everybody that owns a motor sports business know,

you know in your heart of hearts that we operate in a very gray area.

OK.

Yeah. Because of emissions and EPA.

OK. OK.

OK.

And it sucks.

It sucks.

It effing sucks that I got to work this effing hard and still being a gray business

when the EPA can come in here or whatever, whatever other environmental

agencies and shut us down.

I love PRI.

I love SEMA.

I think they do a phenomenal,

phenomenal job with SEMA and PRI.

Hands down.

I'm so grateful that there is a PRI.

Mostly because then people like Steve and myself and Yarek and Joey,

we don't feel so alienated because we don't have any real friends.

This is what we do.

And we do it at such a level that

you understand it's like whether we hate each other or like each other.

We're forced to like each other because we're in this clique.

And they all know, they all know, you know,

every shop owner knows that we operate in a gray area.

Yeah.

The manufacturer can make the product.

The manufacturer can make a product.

They can sell it to a distributor,

distribute it to sell it to a retailer.

OK, retailer can sell it to a shop owner, shop owner installs in the car.

I got the fucking EPA on my door.

How does that work?

So nobody's responsible here.

Nobody except for the guy that actually takes your products 365 days a year.

Every freaking product that's made, every shop owner takes your product.

OK, the lowest guy takes your product and makes you look good.

And for that reward, we have absolutely zero

effing protection from you, from PR, I or SEMA, zero.

You were supposed to get the RPM act passed.

You didn't do that.

Well, now we have the biggest deregulation president ever to exist.

We had him in 2016 to 2020.

He was a deregulation president and you didn't do anything about getting this thing

passed. You didn't go to the EPA chief at the time and try to get some things

deregulated. Well, now he's back in office and obviously he's deregulating like crazy.

Right. Yeah.

And also Lee Zeldin right out here from Long Island, who was instrumental in

getting the racetrack out here, the race track out in Calvin made.

OK, when he was congressman, he's a dynamite guy.

He's a motorsports guy.

He understands what we're going through.

Why don't.

OK, that PR, SEMA, executives haven't made them.

I'm never going to get an appointment with Lee Zeldin.

Am I? No, no, because I'm a nobody.

I got no money and I'm a nobody.

OK, but PR, I and SEMA and the powers that they and their legal team.

OK, certainly can get an appointment with Lee Zeldin and really deregulate this

industry to make it palatable for us not to have to worry about every frigging part

that we put in the car that we're committing some sort of fucking felony.

OK, that's what my industry has done to me.

It wants to make me a criminal for the products that it makes.

But it's not here to stand for me and protect me, even though I go to your show,

I sign up for your stupid membership, all of that stuff.

But in the end, if God forbid, Mr.

EPA walks in here and I don't do anything, you you will be

blue in the face trying to make me take out your cat.

You will I make power with cats.

I use the Gezi cat.

I'll use a good cat.

OK, I'm not taking the cats any car.

I'm not I'm not good shops aren't shutting off emissions codes.

They're not taking out and deleting emissions devices.

The good shops, the smart shops,

figure out how to make horsepower with those things in there.

If a GTR can make 600 horsepower from the factory with a cat in it, so conveying 10.

You have the power at PRI and SEMA to get an appointment with Lee Zeldin,

EPA chief, and get some of this shit that we have to go through as shop owners

off our backs, because on top of every freaking thing else that we got to worry

about payroll, comp, insurance, health insurance,

you know, building insurance, you know, now we got to worry about one day

after 20 years or 25 years, somebody could come in here and nitpick.

And you know, you would think that it was handled in the first Trump administration.

No, didn't get handled.

Well, now we're into the year into the new administration.

Did we hear anything from PRI or SEMA?

That they got an appointment with Lee Zeldin to make our industry great again?

No, no, you haven't.

So we got a big problem.

We got electronic fuel injected modern cars.

You know what?

If I got a carburetor car, no problem.

I could walk up to that car, adjust the fuel, adjust the timing.

Yeah. Right.

Why can't I do that with a fuel injected car?

I'm not allowed to.

Why? Just because it's fuel injected?

The car doesn't wear out just as much as a regular carburetor car?

No. So you've removed an ability for me to adjust cars for putting the parts

in the car that the industry sells.

And I can go to jail for it.

My business can be shut down.

I can be sued.

Where is PRI and SEMA to protect shop owners like me with legislation

through a deregulatory environment, which we have right now, to save some of these shops?

We have a problem.

We have a twofold problem.

So if the EPA is going to shut us down because you're not going to do anything, right?

OK. And single operator, owner, operator tracks are going out of business.

So we can't run the products that you're selling on the street and we can't

bring them to the track because the tracks are going out of business.

So where do you think you're selling these parts?

Where do you think this industry is going then?

OK.

So you have to solve these problems that his investment bank is and these big

corporations, they should be the ones buying the tracks.

There's no longer a single operator, owner, operator operating a track.

It's too difficult.

It's too risky.

It's too much in terms of like buying one or buying one, running one.

It's just way too much.

We need real corporations with real corporate structure to run these tracks,

like English town.

Like, can you imagine you have?

I'm sorry, I just get to be crazy.

You have a major

motor sports facility, you can call it a drag racing facility, but they have

autocross, they got go-karting, they had the motocross series sponsored by Kawasaki

there and then they had drag racing.

Yeah.

So you've got a motor sports park, literally 30 minutes outside of Manhattan.

And you guys can't figure out how to make that make money.

And at the same time, solve your problem.

Like investment bankers are the ones and the big corporations are the ones that need

to buy these tracks, because if the EPA keeps going and you don't do anything about

it, well, then the only place we're going to have is tracks.

But unfortunately, the tracks are closing.

So where do you think this is all going?

Five, six, seven years.

Is that looking too hot?

It potentially doesn't look too hot.

But thank God that we're rugged individuals,

not the warmth of collectivism, that's for sure.

We're rugged individuals and we're always going to find a way to make through this.

But it would behoove us and be a lot easier if we can get this industry to get

this administration's ear and get somebody's problem solved for us.

So again, love PRI.

I love SEMA.

Take the phenomenal job, their organization.

It's unbelievable.

It's like candy land you go there.

It's the greatest thing for anybody in this industry to go to those shows.

But my God,

you guys got the power.

We don't.

We're shop owners.

We're only the victims.

That's what you're making us.

You're making us victims.

And I tell you, I'm not a victim for anybody, for anything.

OK, I will always find my way, my way through this.

But man, it just makes navigating through this industry that much harder.

Do you want us to be in this business?

You want us to sell your parts?

You want us to tune your cars?

You want us to perpetuate the industry?

Give me an environment to do it in.

OK, all right.

I will come up on time now.

Yeah, but I do want to say I just I just want to I just want to say one thing.

Good, good.

OK, I really have to give all the accolades and all, you know, all the credit

to my wife and my guys.

They have been behind me and the forefront and the success of my business or our

business together.

Yeah, you know, I may be the front guy, that's true.

And I may be the engine guy and that's true.

And, you know, obviously I'm a personality that that all may be true,

but make no mistake, I don't walk around here like that.

These guys are the real heroes that come in here every day and, you know,

do an outstanding job and they work their asses off.

And so Joey and Jarrick and Steve,

you know, these guys are really engineering or really my fundamental

foundation to making this go and so I want to thank them and appreciate them.

And obviously, you know, I can't say enough about my wife.

You know, I've had other long term relationships that didn't work out because.

Yeah, my name is Vinny, you know, I'm an addict, you know,

race is anonymous and, you know, if you're going to ask me to stop racing or leave

you, yeah, well, there's more women than race cars, that's for sure.

So I moved on and but, you know, I found a winner with Christine and I've never

been happier and I'm so happy that she's experiencing this part of my career with

me. It's really wonderful because I never took any other women to the racetrack.

I always thought it was bad luck, but, you know,

I changed my ways when I came back racing a few years ago and she's my ride and

dive partner and I couldn't do it without her and I don't want to do it without her.

Or else I'm going to starve, not sleep.

I'll be sleeping in my truck, not eating.

You know, she makes sure I'm fed, I'm clothed, I'm housed.

She makes sure everything's there.

I just make sure the car shows up in the race ready.

But, you know, Steve,

Janine, Yarek,

Joey, my relationship now with Nissan at Bayshore, Simon,

Israeli, and I finally found a car guy that, you know, the meaning of the minds

and no competition to you, of course.

But I really got to give my two film guys, the video guys that have been now with

me for like six or seven months and I kind of get no competition.

There's no, they do completely separate things.

They do, but, you know, I'm always respectful for what you do.

And, you know, you know,

you know, they're they're

they're involvement in the last six or seven months.

I mean, you know, a big difference just not so much in business,

but so much in presence, a little bit in business, but a lot of presence,

a lot of online presence and stuff like that, which I think, you know,

boils out, eventually comes to the surface and more business will come.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, you know, these guys are just doing a phenomenal job.

I'm their first client,

but I've been, you know, I've gotten a lot of people there to start in their break.

And, you know, they certainly deserve it and they've done a wonderful job.

So, you know, to Mike and Alex, you know, from

from Rikimoto,

they do a phenomenal job.

So, you know, in the future, when I'm done dumping them to hire you,

right, you know, you could go out and hire them yourself.

But in the meantime, you only hire me to do a podcast.

No, no, no, I'm not even charged for this.

I got a lot. So it's not even a thing.

Yeah.

Well, I'm so entertaining you should be paying me at this point.

I mean, hey, we can talk about that.

I'm joking. I'm joking.

But anyway, no, I just want to thank my guys, thank my wife, thank my family

and thank all the people that I do business with.

Jim Wolf, Carillo, Joe from ProTalk, Zeke from Ferrera, you know, just,

you know, feels that really came through for me this year.

A drive shaft shop that does a great job.

You know, they just, just, you know, the people on my on my car, they're my friends.

You know what I mean? They're not.

You don't want to miss anybody, though, you know?

Yeah. Oh, VTR.

Well, if you don't know this, if you don't know, this is the place right now.

I mean, you'll never know.

If you're in the New York area, yeah, right from South Bay.

Yeah. Yeah.

Hey, listen, I'll even throw a shout out to my boys and Garrett.

You know, I'm waiting on the check.

You said Garrett.

Yeah, damn.

Yeah, I won't comment.

We'll we'll do a follow up at another time.

It's it's 1030 and these guys are all still here that he's talking about on the

podcast, and that says a lot because most interviews I do, you don't only see the

workers here, but they're all here.

So I can't believe it's 1030, man.

Yeah, it's 1030.

The whole team.

I said a new record.

Another record.

They have a new record.

The longest podcast on the street off of.

Yeah, man. Another record in E10.

But I mean, I feel like Nero said, you know, it's going to be a good podcast.

So I kind of figured it would be, I said two and a half hours, close to three.

But I don't want to miss anything because I feel like there's a lot of history.

And I honestly wouldn't make sense to come back and try to, you know,

yeah, edit it all out and put it all together.

I just like, I feel like I'm already here.

It's just the best.

No, it's the first time, you know, we're actually meeting.

Absolutely.

So yeah, it's the best time to kind of get all absolutely.

And that's why I didn't want to do any rehearsal.

I don't want to go over anything.

Look over notes.

Just a little different.

But I barely I honestly didn't even look at the notes.

I normally don't.

But yeah, it's just this flowed pretty easily.

Yeah, really good flow.

But I want to do it.

Yeah, no, 100%.

I do want to thank you for taking the time.

I did change my flight to make this happen.

Yeah, no, you did.

You were a very important guest.

Well, I appreciate that.

I had to I had to make sure I had to be on the podcast.

Now, I appreciate that.

Thank you so much for making this happen.

And thank you for calling me and letting me know you couldn't because,

yeah, you know, obviously, some people, maybe their priorities are a little different,

but you had a serious situation.

So I said, you know what, I'll make it work.

Like I said, you know, I only got one Godson, you know what I mean?

One Godson.

So, you know, no, 100%, you know.

So for people who are looking to work with you in the future,

if they have a VQ or if they have a 350Z, I build everything.

So how do they get in contact with you?

If you have a piston and a fuel injector, I'm your guy.

So domestic or import doesn't really matter.

You know, we do a great job all around.

So it doesn't really matter if we can't handle a job.

We always tell you because it's easier that way.

Yeah.

Like I said, we do a lot of business with the Hemifest crew and some other people

that I can't mention, you know.

But but if you want to get in touch with me, just call, you know,

Vinny Ten Racing in New York.

It's pretty easy.

I mean, and this is Lynn Lynnhurst.

Yeah, this is Lynn and her style Long Island.

So I wound up.

But now it's it's great.

I love the building, you know, I love I love the space.

So, you know, I appreciate that I'm here.

But yeah, just Vinny Ten Racing on Instagram, Vinny Ten Racing on Facebook,

Vinny Ten Racing, you know, in the phone book, if they don't even exist.

I haven't seen a phone book since I was eight years old.

I know I threw it out there.

But, you know, you know, Jeanine and Steve are going to pick up that call.

You're not going to, you know, is everybody here you can talk to.

But Jeanine does a great job and she'll guide you through, you know,

she's more knowledgeable than most most of the guys that come in here.

And she's picking it up really fast.

So she's doing a great job.

Steve, obviously a vast wealth of knowledge.

So you're you're going to be literally talking to my right hand people.

You know, there's there's no buffers and whatever you need, you know,

you come see me and once you hear, I'm here.

I'm here a 30 a 30, you know.

So when you come here, like I'm I can't get on the phone for everyone

because I would never be able to do anything.

And but, you know, when you're here, I usually take the time out to meet

as many customers as I can because I because I appreciate them, you know,

coming in here and choosing, choosing us. Awesome.

Well, thanks again so much for your time.

Pleasure, my man.

You guys have it.

If you guys do want to get in contact with Vinny or work with Vinny

on your future projects, you guys know where to reach him.

That concludes the episode pretty much.

So if you guys are listening and always watching, continue to keep listening

or watching, also make sure you hit that like button and subscribe

and also head over to streetofford.co to copy your merch.

Until next time, guys, we'll catch you on the next one.

Peace.

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Vinny Ten On The Worlds Fastest 350z, Building VQ Engines and The Return of The Supra

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