Transcript
Speaker: What the frick is up Denny's? This week we got an absolute slammer for you. If you own a third gen SH Subaru Forester and you're curious about taking it off road, this one's for you. So Josh reached out to me and wanted to come on the show and kind of share a little bit about his car.
Speaker: He did recently do an episode on the Suby & You podcast. If you want to hear some of his thoughts about the Subaru journey from a different perspective, I would absolutely go check that out. And definitely, you've got to be checking out the Suby & You podcast anyways. And then, the Wave podcast. You'll want to check that out out as well. Those guys are actual technicians who know how to work on cars the right way. So...
Speaker: If you want to get Subaru information and just podcast material from a more technical perspective, that is one absolute heater of a place to get it. Huge shout out to the sponsors, Anderson Design and Fabrication and Melee Design Firm. Both offer discounts to listeners of the show. Just go to their website and use code DIRTSUBIES at checkout for a discount.
Speaker: And without further ado, let's freaking get into this bad boy of an interview.
Speaker: We got the homie Josh on the podcast today. What's up, buddy? Dude, good to actually meet you. um I've been talking for like a couple of months about doing this. I mean, shit. I know, I know. And I'm the worst with replying to people on text because I get all my work texts come to my phone, work texts, work notifications, and I'm tied into like all their social media. So every time I look at the phone, I'm like, that's too much. I got to put it away. Unfortunately, i have a little bit of an addiction to Instagram. So like, I don't have notifications turned on, but I am so quick to to message you back.
Speaker: come i I noticed that, dude. You're good. Some people call it clingy. I call it dedicated. yeah That's what's up. um How long have you had your Instagram, actually?
Speaker: Since 20, technically since 2016. But I haven't started doing car stuff until I got this car in 2021. Okay. i I have been following you on one of my accounts for a minute. So it's actually really sick to have you on the podcast. Which account is that?
Speaker: Bro, I've got clapped Forester, lifted Subarus, dirt Subis. I've got for my Jeep. Clapped Forester. I think that's it. yeah I think that's the clapped Forester one because I followed you a long time ago. I didn't know who you were I just saw a cool car.
Speaker: And especially when I first started this, it was like Forester, Forester, Forester, anything with a Forester because I wanted i wanted to like create this little family of cool people. Yes, dude.
Speaker: yeah so i i don't remember you know when i first started following you and when you first started following me but it's been a while so i had no idea about the podcast for like two years i didn't even know until like somebody was like hey i'm on suvi and you or i'm on dirt dirt suvies i'm like wait what Well, this is this is brand new. Mine is super new. Raph's the OG. I'm like the new kid on the block.
Speaker: I'm fucking welcome in We need more people talking about cars. Absolutely. Can you tell everybody, you know, obviously already introduced you, but can you tell everybody where they can find you online and then what kind of car do you have?
Speaker: You can find me at CamelliaFoz underscore 988 on Instagram. That's the only place you're going find me. You can find me on Facebook, but chances are I'm going to look at the friend request and no, I don't. facebook Facebook is for marketplace and marketplace only. That's where I find good shit for cheap.
Speaker: Amen. I have a 2009 Forester XT. It's a full Oberland build. It's lifted. It's custom. It's weird.
Speaker: It gets a lot of looks on the road. It doesn't look like your normal mom car. So let me ask you this. Most people know this, but my goal is to educate people on, you know, on these episodes for newer people. Can you explain what an XT is?
Speaker: It is the Turing Turbo. it's It's usually the XT. So the XT has like a base model and it's cloth seats, no heated.
Speaker: No heated seats, nothing fancy. um Unfortunately, XT never came in a manual, which is, you know, a little less than little less than cool. But um the XT platform is the turbo model. So they have, like, the Outback XTs. Those have turbos, the Forrester XT.
Speaker: um I don't think the Legacy had an XT, but they did have a GT. which was similar. it came with the 2.5 turbo. Anything, if it says XT on it, it has a turbo, and it's the version of the car that didn't have it. So, like, you can get the regular Forester, the Outback.
Speaker: The XT version has the EJ255.
Speaker: uh turbo motor and some of them had automatic some of them had manual the forester never came in a manual xt even though it has the freaking firewall provisions yeah still pisses me off that i can put a master cylinder in this and call it day but right give me that clutch master let's go Well, they didn't they cut the manual after the SG in all the XT Foresters?
Speaker: Yes, but like the SH Forester, which is what I'm in never had the opportunity. it just never came from factory, at least in the United States. You can get one in Australia, but they also had the low-range first gear yes for for crawling and and the cool shit like that. Some of them, I think, even had a split case, but don't quote me on that.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's weird to me. they you know Obviously, they're looking at sales numbers and they're doing focus groups and all that stuff at SOA.
Speaker: But it was always so weird to me that with the because I worked for Subaru when the SJ XTs were still in production. And I remember this thinking the same thing. Like, okay, so I can get a base model 2018 Forester with a six-speed, but we have XTs.
Speaker: They don't come with a manual. and I just remember thinking... Most of the people who are wanting this want a manual. Yeah. I guess based on the statistics, maybe that wasn't the case. And it's just us goofball nerds that wanted the manuals. Listen, if you have a turbo, you want a manual.
Speaker: Why can't I get a non-turbo in a manual, but a turbo in automatic? Yeah. i can I can handle this car. like i And I should be able to drive it the way that I want to.
Speaker: Exactly. I'm trying to bang gears, not listen to not listen to that goofy heat. Eventually, I'm going to put a manual in this, but yeah I do have a transmission tune in this car that makes it pretty fun.
Speaker: I was able to talk to a couple of buddies over at, um they're up in Everett. It's, why can't I think of it? a Subaru Specialist.
Speaker: They're Subaru Specialist shop up in Everett. I can't think of their name right now, unfortunately. It's not Outfront or something like that? No, it's Subaru Specialist. something like it's it's a little yellow building up up in the off the docks area in okay everett but they were able to upgrade upgrade the the tcm tune and what it basically does is allows me to bang gears at full red line okay okay so so did they have what what did that process look like did did you hand them your tcu or did you take them my car handed it in my car
Speaker: Okay. And did they just like go in like through OBD2 or do you have any idea what they did? I went across the street and grabbed a beer and waited for him to call me. Let's go.
Speaker: I trusted them. They, they, they had more than enough work to prove themselves. Um, The transmission was in good condition with fresh fluid and everything that I could put into it.
Speaker: And it was spicier on the way home. That's all I know. And now And there was, was there any hardware like solenoid changes that needed to be done in the pan or is it all electronic?
Speaker: From what I understood, they did take the pan down. So maybe they did do some stuff. It was one of those things that was like, this is out of my wheelhouse. Go right ahead and do whatever you know how to do. And i just know that going into this silly little tryptonic,
Speaker: You can shift the gears manually or you can put it in in manually selectable first through fourth. And the shifting points got changed. So I think it was mostly just computer because if you put it in first and you just mash the gas pedal down, it will change gears eventually when it gets to the top. But...
Speaker: This goes clear into the 6,500 7 grand range before it's even thinking about it. I just posted a reel yesterday of me driving it. I don't really post a whole lot of reels of me doing street stuff. I don't post a lot of reels in general. But ah yeah, I actually sent that to you before this.
Speaker: And that's me driving in it full blown. Like it's still slow and it's loud, but it's so much more fun. The 29 inch tires don't make it fast at all. Dude, seriously. see Let me ask you about the,
Speaker: just the off-road ah build list, I guess you want to call it. what What are kind of like the main things that you have on there? Because this this is an Overland off-road build.
Speaker: Everybody always asks, oh, what kind of tires are you running? What kind of lift you got? know, all that type of stuff. um But what is what does all the off-road stuff kind of look like? I mean, I know you got bigger tires, you got a lift. I do want to talk about the suspension that you've got on there.
Speaker: um but yeah lay it on us okay so it's uh the the lift is just an adf lift everybody knows adf we love him patrick's a badass dude and if they don't they do now oh they better mean patrick is like dude if you don't know patrick what the hell are you doing where what rock are you under He is a rad ass dude.
Speaker: Like you can even see here, if anybody can see this, like I even have ADF on the inside. Like I got the mole rack on the top. yeah I got, ah as for anything else, and unfortunately I didn't get the lift from him. I bought it from a guy secondhand. He never used it. It's for 2018 Crosstrek.
Speaker: Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. It's the same suspension. Same suspension in a 2018 Crosstruck as it is in a Forester of my year. If you're in the market for some off-road parts for your Subaru and you're not 100% sure what you want to go with or where the best place is to check, Anderson Design & Fabrication has been one of my go-tos.
Speaker: for about 10 years at this point. They are a sponsor of the show and I could not be more thankful because again, been using in their parts since pretty much day one and Patrick did me a favor and offered a discount to the listeners of the show.
Speaker: If you want to get a lift kit, skid plates, molly panels, ditch light brackets uh the list goes on and on head over there you can get a decent high quality lift kit probably the best in the business by my standards just use code dirt subies at checkout that will give you five percent off pretty much everything in the store that they make and they're a small business and i'm always down to support small businesses in everything that i do whether it's the money that i spend on my own things or whether it's the stuff that i choose to promote they're a local oregon-based small business making an absolute
Speaker: slammers when it comes to Subaru parts. So it's the two inch front, two and a half inch rear standard kit with the brake line drops and the ah the subframe drop in the rear, the two inch subframe drop.
Speaker: Up front, I have the Rally Tech half inch lifted springs on some brand new KYBs. Just because they came as a full kit. So it was like cool or at least assembled struts, which at the time in place of where I lived, I didn't have the ability to assemble struts without, you know, taking them somewhere and figuring it out. The rears on the other hand, and it's something else that I'm talking to with Patrick.
Speaker: I have SK Forrester rear struts. in the back really that's a little bit of the the frankenstein uh something that i've figured out over the course of time is that you can um pretty much run to any strut any rear strut post 2009 and almost any forester or any subaru in general sometimes it's going to change a little bit based on the top hat design but i mean top hats are pretty easy to change out as long as you have the equipment
Speaker: So, like, i have a I have a buddy who's running a brand-new Outback suspension on his Forester. like Sick. I think you know who he is, too, if you've if you've heard about if you've heard of Starscream.
Speaker: Brandon up there in Oregon. Brandon's the homie. Yeah, he's got 2026 Outback struts his
Speaker: He never told me that. What the heck? I know. It's a little bit of a secret, but not too much. He's working on something that I won't tell you about. but ah I'll just ask him and see what's what's in the works.
Speaker: He's got some rad shit going on. Sick. But we're talking to Patrick about trying to get me some ah some lifted springs in the back because yeah they've just made the the off-road springs, the overload springs. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: So we're going to do that because these struts have like 30,000 miles on them. It's like nothing. They're not leaking or anything like that. So we're going put some better springs on them, try and lift it up a little bit.
Speaker: We're also talking about possibly doing the four-inch kit that he just did for for the Subaru ah Yeah. s h yeah It was out there and it was the bright green one that he posted all over his story. We're going to try and get that over here this car. Because I'm going for like five and a half, six inches of lift if I can. That's crazy.
Speaker: I want to be taller than a Tahoe. I want to be taller than a Tahoe. That's what I keep saying. Dude, these days it's not that hard. I feel like all the SUVs that are out now. independent suspension, man. It's rough. It's hard to do. It's hard. Like, yeah. Dude, nothing solid anymore, bro.
Speaker: Yeah, and I'm going to have to do a a front subframe drop to to make this happen because my if my front angles are already messed off and pissed off at me. yeah as As of right now, it's a very basic.
Speaker: For the most part, it's very basic on the lift. I do have the the adjustable rear lowers for Rally Tech. I have the the diff lockouts and skid plates and everything else. The front skid plate I made based off of the primitive design or primitive racing design. Okay.
Speaker: So I made that in my and my press brake. Okay, sick, sick. you Was there anything that you had to weld on it? Yeah, and there's the the little one inch risers. Do you TIG aluminum at all?
Speaker: ah do. Dude, that's... Full blown. I'm a full blown 80 ton wel certified welder. Oh, what? Yeah, I can weld anything together that you need. Like, absolutely no problem. so I can do stainless aluminum. I can do freaking one inch plate if you need to. i can i could turn your car into an Arbor rig.
Speaker: Yes, dude. I love that. Okay, sorry. I didn't mean to derail us there. No, you're good. can i Can I actually ask you a couple questions before we go too much further? Yeah, go for it.
Speaker: Just again, for the for maybe the newcomers, but I wanted to ask you You mentioned that you've got a two in the front and two and a half in the rear. If you could explain the benefit of doing that and kind of how it helps offset, you know, sag and all that type of thing.
Speaker: And could you also explain lift springs or something that I feel a lot of people are confused about and there's not. it's just an intimidating thing for people can you kind of explain what the purpose of doing like a ah lift spring or an overload spring what that you know what people might um just what the benefits of that would be so when you want to put an overload spring in the rear as because you have a bunch of gear and you want it to kind of stay up at at a certain rake to keep everything happy
Speaker: And the back end of the car weighs a lot more, even though the front, the the engine is in the front. The horizontally opposed engine itself is very low center of gravity.
Speaker: So the back end tends to bounce a lot. And as you start putting gear in there, camping gear, or like, in my case, a full bed. You know, it's, yes it's kind of heavy and you want it, you want that to stay up and you don't want it to sag and you don't want to scrub your tires on certain things when, especially when you start to articulate.
Speaker: Um, the reason why I went with a lift spring in the front is because the SK struts are a little bit taller than the factory SH struts. And I kind of wanted to level that rake out a little bit. Unfortunately, I'm still a little short in the rear. That's why I'm talking to Patrick about getting, Some lift springs in the back to kind of maintain that rake a little bit and stock springs versus the sport springs in the front. It's a little bit stiffer in the front. It feels more like a track car when I'm driving it, even though it's way up in the air.
Speaker: So the lift springs help with just kind of leveling things out and getting a little bit higher if you want it to be a little bit taller. It doesn't really do a whole lot necessarily other than just making it more of a lift than...
Speaker: your average lift, the two inch and the two and a half is literally just to combat that sag and to help keep the rake where it belongs.
Speaker: You want it to be a little bit nose down for controllability, especially on the road. And that's how it's offered from ADF or RallyTech or anything else. Like you're never gonna, you can find like inch and a half inch or inch and a half lifts.
Speaker: But more common than not, you're going to find like an inch and a half and an inch and seven eights. Yeah. So like even like buying for a new Crosstrek something like that, you're going to see that inch and a half and inch and seven eights versus inch and a half front, inch and a half rear.
Speaker: It's something that almost all companies offer just to combat that because you don't want it to be lower in the rear than it is in the front. We're not doing Carolina squat.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. We're not doing Carolina squat around here. We drive bad-ass cars. Yeah, all the good companies know to do that. A lot of they're not going to lot the big brands.
Speaker: Yeah. There's a couple, I have a buddy who keeps asking me about lifts. He's got a 2023 Crosstrek and he's like, oh, I can do like a two and a half inch or a three inch lift. Like these guys offer a three inch lift, but I'm like, no you do not want to go that far because you're going to end up breaking something. Like, stop it. Yeah. Just listen to me. Like I've talking, I'm talking to people who know more than I do to get this information for you.
Speaker: The last thing you want to do is do a three inch lift but based on you know, what you can buy. You don't want to just buy something because three inches is a more attractive number.
Speaker: You want something that's going to hold the longevity of your, your car. but Yeah. You want it to run good. Yeah, exactly. And the other thing that makes me so mad, and I've made videos about this before and tried to steer people in the right direction, but a lot of those three inch lift kits that you see online, they're in they're like an inch and three inch.
Speaker: No. Yeah, about an inch and three quarters. that It's those goofy aluminum spacers. They sell them as three inches because they say, well, it's compact lift because that's not how that works. Like these are Suburs. They're not, you know, it's not a different, you know, there's some suspensions.
Speaker: Exactly. Every inch of spacer that you put on the strut is how much lift you get. You can't sell them as three inch. It just, it drives me off the rails when people buy them. People buy them, bro.
Speaker: I saw somebody bitching about this on Facebook. He went and got a three inch lift and it was a one inch body spacer too.
Speaker: And I went, how did you do that? How did you do that? It's a unibody car. Exactly. There are no bolts. You're not taking the body off. What do you mean? The freaking frame rails are wrapped in the body of the car. You're not doing that.
Speaker: So they probably, it's probably those ah trailing arm spacers. oh, these are body spacers. No, they're trailing arm spacers. yeah i have trailing arm spacers on my car same same it's not a body lift can you actually tell people again there's new people that have no idea about anything that goes on under a car can you explain the difference between body on frame and unibody and how dude because i so body and brain you're gonna you're gonna see this a lot and if you really try and pay attention when you're on the road you're going to see like a Jeep TJ. You're a Jeep guy too. And I used to be a long time ago before I, you know, got my head right and got Subaru.
Speaker: Exactly. i You're going to see this a lot. Yeah. You're going to see this a lot. I've had like seven Jeeps in my life. But but heck yeah you're going to see this a lot. And and where I'm speaking of from the experience is I had a three inch suspension lift on my 05 TJ and a two inch body lift.
Speaker: It was a full five inch lift. You can call it that with the biggest air quotes in the world, a five inch lift. It's not. And you're going to understand that you can take the tub off of a lot of cars that are body on frame.
Speaker: Now, something like this You can only take it apart to a certain degree. You can take the doors off. You can take the glass out. You can take the seats off. You can take parts of the floor out, like for the tank, for the gas tank. You can take parts of that out.
Speaker: But realistically speaking, a lot of this car is crimped together at the edges. And sure, if you really wanted to go like really, really far and break all the spot welds and do everything else, sure, you can take this thing all the way apart.
Speaker: But you're not, it's not body on frame to the point of being able to put a body lift on this car. The lift you're going to get is from the suspension.
Speaker: And from, you know, you can you can get a little bit more lift from subframe, but really what you're doing with subframe is relaxing those angles from lifting it from the suspension.
Speaker: Now you can do coilovers and they're adjustable. you can go up and down. You can slam it to the ground. You can camber it. ah Even though camber is kind of sometimes difficult to do in these cars without certain modifications to the knuckles.
Speaker: Yeah. You can do a lot. but you're only going to lift it a certain amount. And then anytime you do lift it, the angles of your axles change.
Speaker: And that's where the subframe drop comes in because i don't know if you can see this or if I'm actually going be on camera doing this. You lift it up here, you drop the subframe down. This angle comes down and now your axles are happier to run. Because when your axles are running like this, they're going to break, they're going to wear.
Speaker: You know, the the rear axles you don't have to worry about as much, but the the fronts turn and they twist and they articulate. Up and down. I know people, ah one of all of our favorites, he is the Axle King Silver Bullet XV. Yeah.
Speaker: Anytime you turn right in his car and you hit the gas, there's a broken axle. Like, even though now he's got the long arm and all of that, that's a crazy setup. And that car is insane now.
Speaker: But... I've never been on a trip other than the last one that we did in December where he didn't break an axle. So, you know, and the thing is, is he, the thing that really irks me about like the Subaru community is I feel like this is a lot of people's for like, this is their entry into off-road and it's a good place to start.
Speaker: It is, yeah. But I feel like people, they get misdirected a lot because they they get the they get all the bad info. Oh, no, you can't do spacer lifts. You can't do spacer lifts because everybody thinks body spacer. that's Don't do a spacer lift on a truck.
Speaker: Exactly. It's completely different than a Subaru. I have a buddy Evo Knox. Do you know Evo Knox over there on Instagram? No. ah He's over in Greenville, Tennessee. It's one of my favorite places in the world of Greenville, Tennessee.
Speaker: He has a lifted Chevy Equinox. oh It's the same type of situation. yeah it's the same type of situation as what we deal with, except he's got some custom coilovers.
Speaker: He's got some custom coilovers that he he ended up having to go make. But he's got like fucking four inches on a freaking equinox. What do they call it when you're like set a jeep in out equinoxing, I guess.
Speaker: did Did you see those people on ah YouTube or Instagram? They took a Ford Edge and they were like, we're out edging. oh God.
Speaker: That's cringy as fuck. Dude, they were beating the dog piss out of this Ford Edge. I was like, you should not going to lie, that's pretty sick. As you should. You should beat the shit out of those cars.
Speaker: Each and every one of them. It's too bad they came out after the cash for clunkers. ah we lost We lost a lot of Jeep 4.0 today.
Speaker: Dude, freak. Yeah. Scott step. mother Let's go. Oh man. But yeah, I think with ah Milton, it's funny because people that are a little bit newer to off-roading, they'll see Milton do something and they're like, yeah, i told you mother heckers. Subarus are the most capable thing. I'm like, okay, okay. Hold on a second though.
Speaker: This guy's changed. yeah How much money has he put into that thing to make it unstoppable? Yeah. exactly how much money has he put into it and he's he's changed more axles than i have courts of oil like yeah the you know it's you don't you're only seeing like a 15 second clip and you're not seeing all the dedication that this guy's put in in the shop and all the research i've been out with him for hours and like i mean he's he's told me he's told me certain stuff like you can put um was it second gen ascent rear knuckles
Speaker: I saw a post about that. Something like that. You can put second rear knuckles from an ascent. And put like stock axles in the back, but it widens out the rear track a little bit yeah because it pushes it. But yeah on the front, like his control arms, he's length and 40 millimeters.
Speaker: So it's like, okay. And he's running second gen axles in the front to make this thing work. And he's got race works that are all the way around. And nothing thing runs like a cloud.
Speaker: Like his wheels are straight. He's not on spacers at all. No wheel spacers. Yeah. He's on coilovers that are beautiful. Like Jeff's kiss. That thing runs amazing. Exactly. And he actually knows how to set up coilovers. Like I tell people all the time, if you are not willing to become a nerd,
Speaker: Do not buy coilovers because you're going to be pissed because you're not going to know how to set them up. That's one of the reasons why I'm still still on a regular yeah platform because I didn't want to have to deal with the the upkeep of coilovers. You have to rebuild them once every year and a half. Yeah.
Speaker: You know, it's like exactly stuff you have to do to keep your car running awesome. And I just want to get in my shit and drive. Well, if you look, so like I have Fortune Auto coilovers on my daily and I can't remember what the mileage interval is for, for rebuilds, but you know, it's like, it's, I think it's like a grand to send them out and have them rebuilt.
Speaker: And it's like, okay, so now what are you going Put your Subaru up on jack stands for three weeks or what are you going to do? had this argument with my dad.
Speaker: He's got a Frontier, and we both did a lot of modifications to our cars at the same time. And he was like, I'm going to go with coilovers. And I was like, good luck.
Speaker: Exactly. So he did. And I know that he's not going to be able to rebuild them. So he's like, I'll just buy another set of coilovers when these need to go. I'm like, cool. You want to spend another $2,500 fronts?
Speaker: And honestly, that's kind of what you should do if you're going to go that route, though. It's not a cheap, it's not ah it's not a poor man's game, I'll tell you that. And that's what I love about mine is because, like, I can just drop three nuts on the front, two bolts on the bottom, rip those fuckers out, throw them, and put in new ones and just swap my springs over. For 250 bucks.
Speaker: Yeah. Exactly. And my springs, I can just swap right over and everything's good. If I have a leaking strut, bye. Who cares? Yeah, yeah. The front struts are perfectly stock. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Yeah, think. Minus the lift spring, but yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's the only thing that makes mine different. There's still 2009 Forester struts. Okay mother heckers, summertime's coming up. I know a bunch of you are planning some overlanding trips. You're planning some off-road trips. and that comes with the reality that a bunch of you guys are probably gonna be running your LED light bars and your freaking winches and all that stuff.
Speaker: And one of the best things that I've done, kind of up there with doing skid plates, in terms of peace of mind has been an upgraded battery. I've been running Melee Design Firm batteries and battery boxes, mounts, parts, all their stuff for five years, six years, six years now.
Speaker: And they are a sponsor of the show. And if you would like to get 10% off pretty much everything that they sell, you can get some of the top performance batteries in the market, strut tower braces, engine bay capsets like aluminum, billet aluminum capsets, all sorts of other parts that they have on their website.
Speaker: Just go to meleedesignfirm.com, use code DIRTSUBIS at checkout. That'll allow you to get a little bit of a savings and support a small local business. I just think for the average person, like, you know, you don't want to be doing a bunch of research. Like, wait, what parts do I have on this? And wait, oh man, there's a four week lead time on a rebuild on these. Oh, fudge. No, no, no. Just go down to O'Reilly's and say, I need it. Or 12th.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. Like, dude, it's much easier to just go to O'Reilly's and say, I need an 09 KYB for Subaru Forester. That's all I need. Boom. 120 bucks. It'll be here. It's either in our warehouse right now and I'll go to the back and grab it or it'll be here today by 530 PM and we'll call you.
Speaker: like Yeah. No brainer. My buddy Brian up in Bellingham. Brian the Pike. Everybody knows him with the 07 Forester. The Redman. Yeah, dude. Real wild. He waited like fucking 13 weeks for coilovers.
Speaker: It was forever. His car wasn't... It was running and driving, but like he had no struts in it for the longest time. we were talking about Ruby the Subie and him being in Subaru. Now he's working for Subaru, doing really, really well, and he's one of the earlier pioneers of Subaru off-road.
Speaker: He's got some badass vehicles, and then we kind of... um transition to when I met Milton. we were up at Hayek and we were stuck in my dad's truck in the mud. This is before I had my car.
Speaker: Okay. and this is like twenty early 2021-ish, like kind of spring, maybe now time, 2021. this the frontier? Yeah, my dad's frontier.
Speaker: All right. So we were stuck in the mud and we were trying to dig out and all of a sudden this little silver hatchback comes out of nowhere. she's like, hey, you guys need a pole? And we're in a truck on 33s. And he just hooked up to us Yeah, but not for view. Yeah, and he just pulls us right on out, this little goat of freaking silver Subaru.
Speaker: And I didn't even... think i don't even think I got his name at the time. You know, it was just like, cool, here's your pole, bye. And then he went off and he was hanging out with other people back during the Rugged Rue days.
Speaker: Now we're Cindy Subies. But... um ah back in the rugged brew days when he was hanging out with all of them and all of a sudden i get my subaru and i didn't know what i was going to do with it i ended up lowering it at first and kind of doing some track days with it and that's how i got my one piece drive shaft because i'll tell you about that if you want to absolutely It was lowered for a little bit. Nobody ever saw that. If you look at Raf's video before our podcast, you'll see one picture of me on the track.
Speaker: And it's just one and only one picture of me on the on the track. But... um I started the Instagram and then I started finding out that I could do off-road and coming from a Jeep guy, i was definitely into off-roading. I'd know how to drive off-road. That's no problem that me at all, but I didn't know where I wanted to go with this car. And I knew that it was super duper capable and it was a track ish monster at first. It's stock horsepower on stock wheels, no big deal. But then I started seeing lifted Subarus.
Speaker: And then I saw Silver Bullet XV and I went, wait, who is this? think I think know this guy. Like, I think I know this guy a little bit. And I started following him and started talking. I was like hey, do you remember me?
Speaker: And then we started, you know, kind of being friends. And now I can go to his house whenever I want to and hang out with him as long as he's not busy. And I tell him I'm not just going to show up, but. um Yeah, this is now I know Milton for who he is and we can go on trips and and do stuff. Like I said, with ah the Oregon Expo, we're going to be going there together. He invited me down there for Subarus, which is really cool because it's going to end up being more exposure for me, which is something that I've always wanted, at least for this car.
Speaker: Yeah. So that's how I met Milton and all of these great people in the off-road space for Subarus. So I always tell people, you know, in certain scenarios,
Speaker: Subarus are very capable. They are in no way as capable as like a TJ on 35s or, you know, an XJ on Tons with
Speaker: but I mean, without a low gear though, dude, you're, you're kinda, you're kinda toast if you get into steep stuff or it knows its limits and there's certain things you should know not to take them down. But this thing surprises me at every single chance it gets.
Speaker: That's exactly what I was going to say. i was going to say they they are surprisingly capable. you know Even in stock form, dude, some of the stuff I've seen people take like a stock Crosstrek or Outback on, I'm like, dude, what the fudge? My friend Zach, he brings his Crosstrek out. It's a six-speed manual, so he does have more problems with me.
Speaker: burning clutch baby he doesn't really burn the clutch it's just like he doesn't okay he doesn't have he's a good driver i taught him how to drive stick so you know he's not gonna see this podcast he won't fact check you but um he's he's a good driver it's just i think he's more a hesitant on what his car is capable of but he's followed me everywhere like everywhere that i've taken him and and it's just been a beautiful car Every single time.
Speaker: And I think he's yeah now finally understanding. Like we have a we have a planned trip ah next weekend with a guy I met on Facebook. He's got a Bronco, but he's got ah really good really good drones and he wants to take a couple of good videos. So people stay tuned to that.
Speaker: That's going to be freaking rad. We're going up to way up past Chinook Pass. Past Edomclaw up 410, like way, way up. Not quite close to the border, like somewhere about the Yakima area.
Speaker: Oh, that direction? Yeah, it's like a two and a half hour drive from me here. We're going to go up 410, go past the split and keep up and go up through the mountains there and then he's got something uh up there that he wants to go do and i'm like fucking yeah sure let's go it let's do it let show you what subarus can do heck can i ask you ah you know i i kind of alluded to this a second ago but
Speaker: As somebody who has owned vehicles that have been modified for off-road that have four low, um there's obviously places where Subarus excel. There's places where four by fours excel.
Speaker: What is kind of the the driving technique differences and what are some of the things where you're like, okay, I know better than to do this in a Subaru, but also, oh, I'd never have made that through with my Jeep. Like, are are there any major differences that you can kind of educate new people on?
Speaker: There are some things that you should and shouldn't do in a Subaru, but mostly i would say if you're a competent driver and not just competent, but confident,
Speaker: ah trust your gut. You know, if it looks too deep, you're your wheels only go so far down. Yeah. Being independent suspension, you're going to pick up wheels. And that's a really weird feeling if you're not used to, you know, like, I don't know if you've done it or not, but as you absolutely go through some of these weird whoops.
Speaker: that feeling of the, the break over angle of your, your car. And it just kind of goes like, that's kind of like yeah dropping elevator feeling like, or when you, you go down an elevation in an airplane, you kind of get that feeling that's in your tummy and you're like, Oh, that's weird.
Speaker: As long as you're maintaining three points of contact on the ground, even if it's, for a split second as you make that transition you're gonna be fine but you do have to watch out for what you do because you only like i said earlier you only have a limited amount of suspension travel before you can actually get yourself into some serious messiness and if you don't have a winch or any sort of recovery gear you can get yourself into a hairy situation where you're not necessarily going to get back out of it unbroken.
Speaker: So watch your lines, get out as much as you possibly can, as much as you feel like you need to, even if you're out in the woods alone, you know, watch out where your wheels are going to be, where they need to be.
Speaker: ah The differences between having something like a Jeep with four low ah really does come into the suspension and the grunt. And if you're worried about having like a locked diff, go with Torque Masters, get yourself some lockers in your Subaru. 100%. Yes. It's weird to drive those on the road, but when it comes to off-road, like you want that. So it's worth the 450 bucks or whatever it is. It's only like an hour and a half to install it. Like it's not that hard.
Speaker: uh just have a torque wrench because that's important but um and take photos take photos make sure you mark all your shims one of the things that i love doing on my shims is i i would mark one two three you know i would number all of my parts of it in like an exploded view like if you were looking at an exploded view of a diagram that one two three all the way through and you just level it out and you put that cardboard down with your bolts and the one two three you know however you're going to do things yes Make sure you have your torque values and follow them. Ugga Dugga is not torqued.
Speaker: ah It's torqued to something. Yeah, well, I mean, you can you can take your your axle nut. It's, one hundred and i think, 162 foot-pounds. But you put that at 170 foot-pounds, and you're going to start smoking your bearing.
Speaker: Like, it's important to make sure that it's just as tight as it needs to be and not too tight and too loose. We all know that that happens. Yeah. Could you actually explain to the the torque locker to people?
Speaker: ah Actually, no, because I don't have one. So I'll be honest, I don't. I just know how to drive. ah I'll leave my ego aside on that one.
Speaker: I will be getting one soon. will be getting one soon. They are worth the money. Yeah. Moving into this place, I don't have ah any, like I have a lot of room, but I don't have anywhere good to work on cars for any sort of extended period of time. Like I can pull it off into the grass over there, but like it's not...
Speaker: it's not great. I can do oil changes and brick jobs, suspension, stuff like that. That's quick and do axles and wheel bearings. yeah But I don't want to take my diff apart in the yard. dude you want to hear a funny story?
Speaker: Yeah, sure. So the house I live in right now, um Bro, I lived in a single wide trailer to save up to buy a house. Like, I'm not too cool to like scrimp and scrounge while I'm trying to grind. Well, the place I lived at had not a single square foot of concrete on the property other than under the house.
Speaker: And everything out here is sand. Bro, I dropped a set of spider gears in the sand and about lost. i I was so pissed. I was like, F this. I walked, dude, dropped spider gears and shims right in the sand. I walked straight into the house and Googled best real estate agent near me. And that's why I bought a house, bro. I like, this is wish i had that ability. I'm still missing my favorite T30 Torx bit.
Speaker: It's in the yard over there. Oh, man. ha And i've mowed the I've mowed the lawn since then, so it's probably gone mock genius into the woods. ah It's just gone forever. but Oh man, no, it was it was a lot of saving a lot of sacrifice. I sold everything I had to make it work, but... Absolutely, and you should. Yeah, I totally understand working outdoors. It is not the jam. Yeah, I want, like, before I go ahead and do the torque walker, like, I would probably much rather go to the junkyard and get 5-bolt and refurb it completely...
Speaker: andir it completely And then just swap diffs because I can swap a diff in my yard. Sure, it's a little bit more involved than doing brakes and suspension, but I can swap a diff in my yard more than I would rather open up a case.
Speaker: Exactly. Yeah. Drop a ring and pinion straight in the car. I don't want to lose dowel pins and things and have to sit there like Velma with her glasses and Scooby-Doo trying to figure shit out like there's not a Dropping carrier bearings in the dirt, bro. I'm good. I'm good.
Speaker: And that's another thing is with my rear diff, like some things are looser than I would like them to be. So it's going to come to a point where when I get the torque locker, I'm probably just going to go find myself a diff to completely rebuild.
Speaker: And then, you know, are you kind of clean it up and make it look nice. Yeah, absolutely. Just buy once, cry once, or whatever they say. I would rather do that. Are you 444s?
Speaker: ah Yeah, that's the factory. That's the factory in these cars is 444.
Speaker: 444 baby that's what's in my forester too i i love it it sucks on the highway it needs a little more gas but oh well it's so much fun yeah exactly so much way more scoots it's way more scoots and also like i keep that like 1800 to 2000 rpm range at like 65 miles an hour with cruise control on and yeah and i still like even with the 29s that i have on here and the lift and the anti-aerodynamics that I've installed, I still get over 20 miles to the gallon. So it works. same yeah I don't get much better than 20 miles to the gallon. And if I hit the gas, it goes down.
Speaker: But that 2021 sweet zone, like when I'm driving down to Oregon or or driving to like DuPont or JBLM where I'm working sometimes here in state, I get pretty good gas mileage.
Speaker: Even dealing with I-5. I don't care about the 444s. Yeah, i hate I-5, bro.
Speaker: I-5 past Fife, like where the freaking road does this. Buck, buck, buck, buck. God, that's horrible. it it they took so I feel like they took sections out of the concrete and just replaced them with slabs and didn't smooth out between them at all.
Speaker: So it's just like freaking clunk, clunk, clunk, like every eight feet. And you're cruising at like 65, 70 miles an hour, just minding your business. And then you hit this patch and you're just like, it's horrible. did i Did I break something? Like what's going on? I have really stiff suspension in this thing. So it's quite the shock. Like it's like, it hits me and it's like, I got to get over.
Speaker: got to get over out of this lane. Yeah. Hey, let me actually ask you about that. um Because that's that's a complaint that I hear from some people that run some of the Rally Tech Springs and some of the King Springs.
Speaker: They say, oh man, when I go off road, it's so jarring. Do you find that to be a thing or do you just air down a little bit? Because that's what I personally would do. air down to 11 PSI.
Speaker: My man. Pretty low. My I air down to 11 PSI, so it's okay. my my My tires are rated for 10. So I'm pretty on that cusp.
Speaker: I would say that after putting in the Rally Tech springs up front, ah granted, they're stock springs in the rear, which is really bouncy. Again, why me and Patrick are talking. I don't want it to be as bouncy in the rear, especially with this bed. It kind of slams around a bit. The fronts are a bit jarring.
Speaker: And i noticed that it, I don't know if it was the Springs that did this or not. So people, if you're going to buy Rally Tech, it's great. But I did notice that my front axles were getting a bit of up and down play a little bit quicker than I expected.
Speaker: And they were OEM axles when I installed the lift and did all of that. And I just had to do my axles again because I was getting a lot of front end float and a lot of issues and it felt like I was driving a Suburban.
Speaker: like and like a 90s Suburban, and it's not that kind of car. So, you know, I did also end up replacing my my steering rack, too, which helped a lot. but Okay.
Speaker: The steering rack a pain in the butt? No, I've done, like, four in this car already. Okay. The first one I got leaked immediately. it was a remand. Just buy a factory one Just buy buy buy a brand new one from Subaru. ah The second one I did, I blew out doing all-wheel drive donuts in the dirt.
Speaker: um the third one common The third one wasn't bad, but it did have a some loose inner tie rod joints.
Speaker: And then i was talking to Kathleen Autrekitsyagi, most people know. Yeah, dude. yeah. And she was able to talk to her connection, and all of a sudden UPS showed up with four new axles and a new steering rack for my car.
Speaker: So I was blessed with some free parts from the Rebel Rally Fund. And i was able to I was able to get my car back ah back to normal again. And now I have axles underneath my bed that are not as bad as brand new, but some extra axles just in case.
Speaker: Just in case I pull a Milton on the trail.
Speaker: Hopefully not, but we'll see. The front axles are easy enough. Yeah, it's it's one of those things where after you do it the first time, you're like, oh, I should unbolt that bolt too to get the knuckle down out of the, you know, like once you do it a couple times, you're like okay, okay, this is a quick job. With these cars, it's so easy just to pop the front strut out and get it out of your way.
Speaker: Now, you don't have to do that, but it for me, it's easier just to pop the whole strut assembly out and set it next to the car. Because then you can drop the front knuckle down completely. you don't have to actually take it off. You can take it off of the the control arm, but you don't have to. It falls enough out of the way that you can kind of get to it.
Speaker: And some cars, like when you're trying to take axles out, you have to kind of bang them in a little bit. These cars are not like that. You can just kind of yank it twice and it'll come out. yeah so yeah But broken axles. No roll pins. Yeah, broken axles are way harder to take out Cause part of it is separated. Yeah. Cause you don't have any Like when I was taking out this, just driver's side one, just not too, but not too long ago.
Speaker: Um, I had half of the, the, the inner side of the joint was separated. And it was such a pain in the ass to take apart, but we got it. We got it.
Speaker: peggy I, uh, I use that, that YouTube trick. You take a wrench and open in wrench and you stick it behind and you put it inside of a socket.
Speaker: and You can kind of use it to twist the wrench and it'll pop the the axle out of its housing. No kidding. Yeah. I might have to look that up. Yeah. It's just an open-end wrench. You can kind of turn it into kind of like a like a like one of those prying forks. it's not a tuning fork, you know what I mean?
Speaker: Pickle fork. Pickle fork. Yeah. That one. yeah good You can kind of take like 20...
Speaker: Yeah, about a like a 20 millimeter wrench that you have laying around. You can cut the round side off of it and stick it in a socket. And you can even use like your Milwaukee and shove the end of the wrench into it and just kind of bump it and it'll twist it and it'll pop the axle out of the ah the center diff.
Speaker: Okay. And you're just using that socket as, okay, you're you're using the socket as like leverage, is that what you're saying? It's holding on to the to the wrench. So the socket is going over the flat part of the wrench and it holds so that you can just kind of bump the thing and it'll turn the whole wrench. yeah It's the easiest pry tool in the world.
Speaker: so sick yeah I'm not I'm not above modifying tools for my needs I just I can't do that cheap dude that's actually what I bought icon wrenches are cheap and they're strong as hell dude people can hate all they want they're probably made the same factory as all the freaking snap on stuff I don't give a fudge dude what's the um that one automatic or the the auto mechanic YouTube channel where it's the older guy and his son
Speaker: Yes. yeah i would Dude, it's so Royal Auto Care. I was just watching them. Sherwood, I was yeah literally, as I was setting up my laptop before we jumped on, I was watching his newest video. That's so funny. They do a lot of Icon versus Snap-on reviews. and that's why Versus Mac.
Speaker: Yeah, that's Matco. All of those. They're the reason why I went with Icon. Because, one, I like Harbor Freight. Because you can take in one wrench and they'll just pull a wrench out of an open pack and then sell that pack to somebody for cheaper.
Speaker: Let's go. It's easy. You don't need a receipt. It's like, Icon, it's broken. Give me new one. They're like, okay. Hand it over. Here you go. he' Brand new one.
Speaker: Yeah. I'm not about buying Harbor Freight tools. Yeah, dude. same Same. Get a little better lighting going on. Let me ask you, you mentioned something about wiring and I know you got a bunch of lights.
Speaker: you You said something about how you sort of wired some of your stuff up. Let me hear about all the stuff you've got that's wired up. um I have... I just had to put you on my phone charger. My phone just rang at me 10%, so now you're at the lower side of me. Uh-oh. Okay. It's all right. We're good. I had a charger in the car.
Speaker: um Perfect. Oh, fuck. It's nine. All right. because Um... As for the lighting. guess it is. Well, it's all right. We've been talking for a while. We're getting along. So as for lighting, I just have Baja Designs stuff on an aux beam panel.
Speaker: I chose aux beam because they have the party mode, which I like. Yeah, dude, I'm running one. I love them. Yeah, it's great. The only thing that I would suggest if aux beam is listening is please use the ability to add a functioning on off button.
Speaker: ah while the car is not running you mean yeah that's why i did this little thing i agree i have one of these it's an 11 amazon remote sick and it's wired up so i can turn the panel on off and on that's tight yeah it's 11 bucks buy it it's great it's easy to wire up and now you have power to your panel anytime you want to heck yeah So you can turn on your sight lights from outside of the car, because if you have the Bluetooth panel like I do, you can turn it on with your phone.
Speaker: Here's something big, break the sticks in your campsite. Let's turn on the freaking, let's turn on the show. but Let's turn on all the lights.
Speaker: i want to see everything that's coming because when I aim my gun at you, you better be able to see you. i'm not Dude, ammo is too expensive to miss, bro.
Speaker: Well, see, the the thing is, so I like to drink a couple of beers. And when I go camping, I like to smoke a little bit of the the Washington Legal. So at 1130, 12 o'clock at night, if I'm alone, which I tend to be when I camp, you start breaking sticks in the woods near me, you're getting a warning shot because I'm already paranoid. I'm already stoned. Like...
Speaker: I got a little buzz going. like Cut this Satan salad, the devil's lettuce. The devil's lettuce. Got a little bit of the devil's lettuce going on. couple of beers in me. I'm chilling with some music and I hear something break a stick right behind my car.
Speaker: I want to turn on the lights so I can see what I'm aiming at because like you said, ammo is yeah expensive.
Speaker: Yes, dude. Hey, let me ask you about the Baja designs, man. um People are hesitant to spend the money that it costs to get stuff from them or... Diode dynamics.
Speaker: Diode, yeah. um What was that purchase process like? Were you hesitant to do it or...? I bought all mine on Marketplace. Oh, dude, let's go.
Speaker: ah If you're diligent enough, you can get them for cheaper. If you're out there scrolling online looking for lights, this is not a paid promotion.
Speaker: Go buy Diode. Just go buy Diode. And the reason why I say this is because they have more behind their lights. Like, I can't tell you how mad I am that the Squadron 2.0 just came out.
Speaker: from Baja Designs with a backlight when Diodes had backlights for years now, it seems. Okay, okay. What sort of cobwebs are you under over there at Baja Designs?
Speaker: Because I've wanted a backlight for the longest time. My buddies over here in Cindy's Hubies have been rocking Diodes Dynamics the entire time, and they've been rad the entire time.
Speaker: They're bright. When you say backlight, are you talking about like an ambient light housing itself? Yeah. Yeah. And so Baja Designs has the LP6s, the LP4s, and the LP9s that had a backlight. I think it's just the LP6s and the LP9s, which are their kind of roundish looking cut honeycomb looking light.
Speaker: I know what you're, I know exactly what you're talking about. that backlight that's just amber. okay The Squadron 2.0s, they just came out with a couple of weeks ago or just released a couple of weeks ago. You can now change the colors behind those.
Speaker: So when you're chilling and driving and you're on your daily mode, you can have pink and purple and orange and green and not red, not blue. That's illegal. i I won't tell you to do that, even though it's cool.
Speaker: Definitely don't do that. You have the ability to now do that with the Squadron 2.0s, and that's their only light in their entire lineup that you can do that with.
Speaker: Now, Diode, they've been there. They've done that. They're having a good time. Okay. Like, if you look at Silver Billet's car, he's got all of those purple lights. Oh, yeah.
Speaker: That's all Diode. Yeah. but yeah It's all cool. It looks sick, too. Yeah. And if you look at his lady, Mountain Subi, Carrie, lovely person.
Speaker: She's got the the the new 25 Outback that, or Forrester that Subaru gave them. Yes, dude. It's rocking all diodes. And that thing looks cool. You got all sorts of backlights. Why did Baja take so long to do it? If I had to do my job over with my lighting, I would do diode.
Speaker: Now, the fact that I am with, I'm not with Baja, I have Baja. That's what I spent my money on. And I was able to, some of the Tundra bros, I'll say them because they would buy the XL pros or the XL eighties for their hood lights.
Speaker: And I heard this from moca multiple people. It's a freaking five inch. It's a big light. And they want to put it on their hood. and then they would realize it's too big. And then they would sell it for like 150 bucks under MSRP.
Speaker: Sign me up. Yeah, this is just I'll drive up there. um ill I'll pick them up right now. i remember I got the two clears that are on the outside of my front bumper. This guy was like, you're not going to lowball me when you get here, right?
Speaker: He was selling a brand new set of fucking $500 lights for $320 or something like that. And I was like, I'm not going to lowball you. I know what I'm buying. Yeah, yeah. showed up 10 minutes from my house to go pick these up.
Speaker: I didn't even have to drive to like Mule or something up in Preston. Like, not even worried about it. Yeah. So, yeah, no, they're they're worth... a decent amount of money just based on the fact that they're nice lights. And some people have problems with water intrusion, but I've never had that problem other than with ah one set. And even then the warranty covered it immediately. Really? Yeah. I just messaged them and I sent them my lights with their printed post and everything else.
Speaker: they sent them back completely refreshed with a new wiring harness. So it was like, cool. so Completely free of charge. And I didn't even buy them from Baja. I bought them from outfitter. So I was like, their warranty covers it. And it's no big deal. I've never had water intrusion other than the time that I was in 30 inches of water. That's my fault for grabbing those things through it.
Speaker: Okay. Okay. So, so you brought it up. Um, I've wanted to, cause I was, you know, I've looked through your Instagram. Like I said, I've been following you for a minute. Um, you've got some sick photos that are absolutely wild of you driving the thing through boatloads of mud.
Speaker: Give me the lowdown on the snorkel. Give me the lowdown on, um, like water crossing tips that you have for people. Um, and any crazy stories you got doing water crossings.
Speaker: Uh, I don't have my many crazy stories with water crossings because I know how to drive through water. Uh, one of the main, yeah one of the main things about driving through water is keep moving.
Speaker: Keep moving. Do not stop. Don't like your spark plugs are on the side of your motor. Keep moving because you have a wake underneath your engine, underneath your skid plate that's pushing water away from your motor.
Speaker: That's good. Now, water is not necessarily inherently bad. You don't want to stay in it and take a bath. And as much as you really want to take get out and like take a picture, try not to.
Speaker: Do not. The pictures that you've seen were taken by actually don't know her name, but she's Sri and felt the journey, I think on Instagram.
Speaker: Yeah, Melissa. Yeah, Melissa. Okay. Yeah. She was there on our 18 rig trip through Tahuya. So she was okay she was posted up taking pictures. She was riding with Milton the entire time.
Speaker: And she she took some really incredible pictures. So all photo credit goes to her for those ones. Some of the other stuff I've done, some other water crossings. The main thing is don't be afraid of it. Like, don't be afraid of it. Your alternator on the top of your engine, so you're good there.
Speaker: As long as you're not going hood deep and sitting in it for a while, you're going to be all right. The snorkel, on the other hand, yes, that's a really good additive. All my air is from the top of my car.
Speaker: Most Subarus are right there in the grille. So you really don't want to go above that in a stock platform. This snorkel is a super cheap snorkel from I'm looking at it instead of the camera because it's right here.
Speaker: No, you're good. I'm looking at it with you in spirit. It sounds cool with the turbo. It sounds like Darth Vader's taking a breath out. It's awesome. anyway to go It's a super cheap Amazon snorkel for a Suzuki Grand Vitara.
Speaker: Oh, sick. Yeah, I bought it for $40. It was $40. So it's not gonna it's not the final snorkel. I intend on replacing this fender. This fender's a little bit messed up.
Speaker: And I'm going to make one out of stainless tubing. Okay. Rumble over land. I think he still has his page up. on lo on Unfortunately, he lost his car to a deer.
Speaker: A couple, like a month i know exactly. i know exactly who you're talking about. He's got that stainless one that kind of dumps backwards a little bit. I'm going to copy him. yeah I would buy his, but he lives in New Zealand. So it's good yeah like, i don't know if he still has the car, if he shipped it off to the wrecker or not by now, but it is such a cool snorkel. And I had already done the damage to my car with this snorkel before he did his. Yeah.
Speaker: And i'm I'm mad because I could have just done that. And I will. If I can find a good donor car in my color, I will.
Speaker: Eventually, I'm going to take off the wraplander on this and I'm going to redo all of the the the paint stuff. I'm going to do some good paint correction on it, and make it pretty before I scratch it up again.
Speaker: And I'm going to redo let's kind of the wrap design. I want it to be a little bit of a more fun to look at before I destroy again, because this paint, the the version of this paint on this car is not my doing.
Speaker: So I'm going to spruce it up and and make it mine again. I'm planning on doing ah some sort of a three-quarter wrap on the rear with some tire treads as a separation and some more of the topo lines, but a little bit different.
Speaker: When you did the snorkel, I think a lot of people have this idea that, oh, you just, it's like this thing that just sticks on the side of your car and now you have fresh air. There's a lot more that goes into it. yeah everythings gotta to be what it Everything's got to be sealed. yep You've got to literally chop through your fender. Can you kind of explain the mounting process? Yes. ah that's ah That's a pretty intimidating thing to do ah Taking a hole saw to the side of your car.
Speaker: And unfortunately, with mine, I used a hole saw that was one size too big. It was an inch too big. Oh, fudge. Which, if you look at my car closely enough, which I don't suggest you do, but you can. You're welcome to. Just like my car, bro. You can see a little piece of tape on the bottom of the snorkel that's covering up a half circle of too big a hole drilled.
Speaker: um I took half of the circle out and I welded it back in but it looks like crap. Oh, right on. So, I mean, it's still solid, but it looks like crap underneath the tape. ah It just comes with the territory, man. As for the ceiling, I just used some oh silicone lubricant.
Speaker: It's not silicone and ah like glue. It's not glued into place. The lubricant kind of just helps to keep the water out of those gaps. Yeah. And then there's a hose. Yeah, it's like a little vapor barrier sort of.
Speaker: um Then there's a like an accordion style hose. Yeah, the flex Yeah, it goes through the it goes through the fender. So the the inner and outer fender between where the engine is and the actual fender that you see on the outside, there's a flex tube that goes through it, and it just connects to the bottom of my airbox.
Speaker: So I didn't have to do anything. I didn't have to tune anything in any way, shape or form because the the turbo cars are definitely more picky about their mass airflow and how they're getting their air.
Speaker: So I didn't have to do anything for air density or anything to to actually install this. As for the other part of installation, it's got some studs, some all-thread stuff that screws onto the back, and literally all I did was shove the elbow of the snorkel through and touch those posts to my paint and took a Sharpie, marked the top of those studs, pulled everything off, drilled it all through, and shoved it together. Yeah.
Speaker: This snorkel, again, is not made for this car, so Uh, most of its rigidity is me using those studs that it came with and sucking it down with the nuts.
Speaker: Um, it kind of flexed it out a little bit. It is what it is. And then there's just an l bracket on the back of the actual, the neck of the snorkel that bolts into the A pillar, which I just use, soft tappers.
Speaker: Yeah, which means you have to drill into a permanent portion of the car. You are destroying your car to do this. Yes. Like, you your resale value is gone now. You don't have it anymore. yeah Unless you want a Bondo yeah and repaint sections. Yeah, optionss and paint. It's permanent thing.
Speaker: it's a permanent thing like yeah Yeah. Whatever you plan on doing later, if you want to take it back, and I can take it off and I can replace the fender.
Speaker: That portion of my A-pillar is forever dented in but where that L-bracket is. like it's We're a done deal. own this car. I don't have a car payment. I'm not worried about it.
Speaker: Dude, same. Don't do it to something with a warranty. That's kind of like my only... Like if you have a warranty, don't do that.
Speaker: Even though it looks rad and it sounds cool. It's just not worth it. don't Don't do it. Don't go into deep water. You don't have to. yeah Yeah, exactly. It's just fun. It's cool. Like not a lot of Subarus will go and tread 28 inches of water, but some of them do and we're cooler than you.
Speaker: And they probably shouldn't, you know? Yeah, even then. Like, I shouldn't do it, but I can. I mean the other Subarus, but yeah, it's... ah Oh, yeah, yeah. Don't do that.
Speaker: it'll In a lot of cases, nothing good is going to come from it. like Yeah. Like, I can do... Not too long ago, we had the Cedar River flood over our road.
Speaker: And we couldn't get out the other way because there was a bunch of trees down in the other direction. So we were kind of stuck home and I was the only car. okay Like, everybody's coming in and and turning around, road closed. There's, like, three feet of water. yeah Everybody's upset. And I just hit it at, like, 25 miles an hour.
Speaker: You keep that wake, like said. Keep the water away from your car. And i was transporting people, like, back and forth. They had to get home. they had to go see their dogs. Like, this the the river edge broke, like, while people were at work.
Speaker: So, like, they left for work in the morning and they came back to not being able to go home. So, I was just driving back and forth across this water for, like, two hours at a time.
Speaker: Just letting people check their mail and check on their dogs. Yeah. You just go through it quick enough. And I got this, like I said, I got this bed back here so people would lay back here and just hold on to dear life.
Speaker: I got the hatch open. you know, like, if you needed to jump out, you could, but... put your Put your feet out. Yeah. The cops were sitting there at the end just like, the fuck is this guy doing? And I'm like, having a good time.
Speaker: Yeah. Having a good time. People want to go get their meds and get their dogs. And yeah, I'll take you from one side of the water to the other. And this water was flowing into people's houses. and I was just like, yeah you I'll drive you. i don't care. Dude, that's crazy. That's, I Fortunately, I live on a hill, but there's certain parts where live right on the river, like right across from that.
Speaker: Pros and cons, right? That's all right. It's good enough amount of property. It's nice and quiet over here. Every now and then I see my neighbor in his underwear, but that's weird. And I just let him do his thing.
Speaker: Yeah, bro. I live in a subdivision now. I'm like, i' im that I'm that stupid dad. that's I'm not even a dad, but I'm the guy that's out there like, oh man, my lawn's not green enough. What kind of fertilizer should I get?
Speaker: I've become that dude, man. It is what it is. but i just keep my yard yeah just short enough to enjoy. i don't care what color it Yeah.
Speaker: I could just get out the rattle can and just hit it, bro. Well, you live in the desert. You you probably should. Do my water bill stupid in the summer, but yeah again, trade-offs. ah Okay. Let me ask you this. um I feel like there's a lot of stuff like in my car, for example, that It doesn't look crazy, but there's modifications that I've done to it that nobody will ever see.
Speaker: Like I relocated the ECU, which is kind of, and actually a couple months after I relocated it, I sunk the car and somehow, you know, just because I did that, the stupid things revived.
Speaker: Also got like a rear diff breather, you know, torque locker, all that stuff that people are just never going to see, but that has made it something that can actually do what I want it to do. Is there anything like that in your car that has been like a ah massive you know game changer as far as utility goes that people just wouldn't see by looking at it?
Speaker: ah The only thing that I actually have that's that's modified in that way um where people wouldn't see it is the front seats.
Speaker: I notched out the hinges. I don't know if you heard this in wraps. I don't know if you heard this in wraps podcast. No, must have missed it. was listening while I worked. So I notched out the hinges and I got rid of the rear seat completely. Did it just go all the way back? They go all the way flat.
Speaker: Oh, dude. And they wouldn't do that completely. But like where I'm sitting is my driving position. And it's actually a little bit further forward than it would actually be for me to sit like this.
Speaker: um Okay. Because they're notched and bent a little bit. So they go all the way in the back because the bed itself folds out to about here. ah So it comes out pretty much to the steering wheel and the entire, pretty much the entire space of the car is bed and camping mode.
Speaker: So it just goes over the front seats. Is that what you're saying? Yep. Yep. What the fudge? Yeah, I can send you a picture of it. It's actually on my Instagram somewhere.
Speaker: but That is sick. Yeah, the bed actually folds all the way out to, I think it's like maybe a foot away from the steering wheel. Like I can put my shoes in the seat when I'm chilling so they're not like on the bed. Okay.
Speaker: ah So there's some like some space up here that's available for for storage during sleep mode. But the bed comes out so I can use the sunroof as like I can actually see the stars when I'm chilling in bed.
Speaker: Dude, let's go. my My Forrester, I mean, I sleep in the thing, but it's not glamorous at all. yeah mines Mine's fairly glamorous. It takes an entire twin XL bed.
Speaker: like Oh, what? Yeah, your your you said you're six foot tall. ah You can fit in my bed completely fine, and me and Amanda both can lay side by side.
Speaker: And yeah, our hips are kind of by the edge, but you know we can cuddle in here and be comfortable. It's a four-inch thick mattress that folds out. So it's it's better than most hotels.
Speaker: but yeah ah The other thing that I did to kind of aid with that modification is once upon a time during that process, I took all of the interior plastics out.
Speaker: And I got rid of every unnecessary buckle, brace. There's no seat belts. There's no springs. There's no, the seat, the little seat brackets that it clips into are gone. There's nothing.
Speaker: And it's all gone back there. Everything is completely gone minus the bed. And like, I can put my arm on the bed right now and I am, but it like I said, the bed comes out to about here.
Speaker: And it's pretty much a full interior. it's It's pretty rad. Dude, that's gangster. Something I'm planning on doing is ripping this bed out and lighting it on fire and doing something that's a little bit a little bit more modular with a drawer system on the driver's side and something that kind of extends out more on the passenger side in case it's just me camping or both of us.
Speaker: which I found after building this bed and as heavy as it is and cumbersome and and kind of a pain in the ass that it is, I mostly camp alone. so i'm going to do something that's more yeah focused just for me and my my adventures.
Speaker: Okay. And it's going to be more of like a box with a drawer system and it's going to be a slide out style bed that comes all the way up to the dash. Okay. Okay.
Speaker: instead of i love that oh almost all the way up to the steering wheel it's gonna be all the way to the dash that's gonna be kind of cool okay i'm also putting some brz seats in the front and doing a dash upgrade yes dude on amazon they sell um they sell on amazon carbon fiber d-shaped steering wheels for these cars for 300 bucks really yeah and it takes your airbag and your buttons So you don't have to worry about... Just transplant it? Yeah, it all comes apart anyways. You can just put it on.
Speaker: And now you have a D-shaped steering wheel. I'm going to take all of the plastics and like wrap those in carbon fiber. I'm currently working with somebody to do a radio delete, which I'm actually going to end up putting my aux beam over there and some switches for a a hidden Bluetooth. Okay.
Speaker: air compressor and all of that is going to be kind of command central right there at the radio because the radio in this car doesn't work anyways. So, Oh, it's just riddance, bro. It's just sitting there. It's got a six disc CD changer for no fricking reason.
Speaker: Weight reduction time, dude. Can't wait to throw that at something broken breakable. Yeah.
Speaker: Oh man. Hey, let me ask you about your roof rack, man. What, what's your setup on the roof? Currently, there is nothing on the roof, but that is for okay gas mileage purposes.
Speaker: okay What people will see at the expo is just Thule bars, or Thule, however you say it. Thule, Thule, who knows?
Speaker: They're drilled through, and it's all one it's all one unit. i can take on and off with the mounting system for the Thule. Okay. And there is Amazon T-Track holding it all together.
Speaker: so I have a box, I have my, um recovery boards, and then I have my nine foot awning on the side that's actually on gate hinges.
Speaker: So it folds flat instead of sticking up like everybody else's. I always thought that kind of looked silly. Like you have this big awning sticking off the side, like, okay, bud. Mine folds flat and is aerodynamic and cool.
Speaker: Okay, yeah, yeah, because I was wondering about that because I saw it and it's it's inset when it's just it's on the car. i was like, oh, that's kind of interesting. I wonder like how he's got that set up.
Speaker: When you pull it yeah out and you put the guy wires on it to hold it up, it holds itself into place. Granted, I suppose a strong enough gust of wind in the wrong direction could fold it back, but it does actually kind of fold out a little bit further than 45.
Speaker: So it's a little bit further than 90. So it's kind of on top of itself when it's deployed. But when it's just in drive mode, it's completely out of the way. It's flat.
Speaker: You don't bump your head on it when you're getting in. my my main goal for that rack was low profile. I wanted it to be low and I wanted it to eventually be able to store ah water and fuel under it and then do like a road shower underneath it yeah yeah but since then I've decided nobody ah like Prince who makes a ah rack for my car I'm gonna just make my own
Speaker: They're easy enough. You person do it. Yeah, yeah, I think so. ah yeah So ah looking at how easy they are actually to build, like realistically speaking, paying $950 to Printsu is not the way I'm going to go about it. I'm going to make something completely custom that's going to be super cool with a light bar that folds down inside. Let's go. It's going to be fun.
Speaker: It's way cool. You know, I'm not above paying somebody for something, even if it's a lot of money. But if I see somebody with stuff on their car that they engineered and and fabricated, that's sick. Well, the servos for the light bar are like 20 bucks.
Speaker: And you can just, oh yeah, they're they're they're cheap. And you can wire the servo itself to power with the bar. okay which you can find out through wiring diagrams and things. You can kind of splice it into place.
Speaker: So when I hit power on the bar, yeah, the light will come on before it's up, but oh well, I'm opening the light anyways. ah And it's going to be hidden completely within that that front fairing. So it comes out and it's going to just come up like this and be be hidden.
Speaker: That'll probably be diode, but I'll get that light when I get that light. the actual rack itself I want it to be custom because I want to maintain the the the moonroof I want there to be kind of an open space in there so I can still like reach out because I love filming out of my my moonroof when I'm driving around especially going off road because you kind of just put your phone like right on the shelf and yeah it works out perfectly so I want to maintain some of that So that's like the selling point of the Forester.
Speaker: Yeah. And the pano roof, bro. If the roof rack is going to happen, it's going to have to be custom. So yeah, I might as well just get after it. I'm about it.
Speaker: Yeah. Heck yeah. Well, let me ask you about the drive shafts. I know you're not doing them now, but you've got a drive shaft in your car that is not stock. It is a custom one piece aluminum.
Speaker: with 1310 U-joints, so they're serviceable. Spicer 1310s, baby. 1310Xs. Yes. I think the X just means it has Zerk fittings in it, right? No, that's the 1X.
Speaker: The Xs are sealed. Okay. They're 100,000-mile joints. The the regular 1310 whatever it is is the one that has the Zerk fitting in the side of the the cross.
Speaker: The one X has a Zerk in the cap and then the X doesn't have any Zerks at all. It's got a lifetime race. It's like a hundred thousand miles. I've never seen him go like 80,000 miles without having to be changed.
Speaker: But yeah, that's from experience in the driveshaft industry. Effectively, i was driving on a road track and I broke my carrier bearing.
Speaker: yeah and i used i used a ratchet strap but that was pleasant it sucked because one thing if you've ever broken a carrier bearing in a in a car like these it's very it's a very jerky feeling it's like the car feels like one of those clown cars it's because it's pulling the stupid drive shaft yeah and it's pulling and pushing on like a joint yeah yeah ah It's a crazy feeling, but I used a yeah a ratchet strap and a horseshoe style bracket that I found at the track to kind of hold it in place.
Speaker: And I drove the car home. And I was able to rig something up with bailing wire and actually get the car to my shop where I took measurements and I left the car there where I ordered parts.
Speaker: And I found out that like the, the transmission yoke is a 350 Z yoke out of a Nissan. And, uh, The, the rear flange is sold by companies, but it's really hard to find. So I took measurements and I called my buddy Brandon over at, um, Powertrain Industries in California.
Speaker: And I had him make up a couple of, ah rear diff flanges. Granted, you can find this in other cars, so it's easier to find. It's just not easy to find when you're searching Subaru.
Speaker: Yeah. ah Effectively, what it ended up being is I started with a steel driveshaft, which is now on Brandon's car, Starscream. Yes, I've seen it. has my original driveshaft that came out of this that had 100,000 or not 100,000 miles, it had like
Speaker: 40 or something thousand miles on it before I gave it to him and I went to the aluminum one because I wanted something a bit lighter because the pedal feel is completely different when you don't have a two-piece driveshaft.
Speaker: Yeah, I'd imagine. And the ability to actually change the U-joints out rather than having to just replace the whole damn thing every time something goes wrong and it's about the same cost.
Speaker: Like I can get, ah I can, if you ordered a driveshaft from me today, I can go have it made for $581. Really? Yeah, that's how much it costs. my That's my cost. Sick. can go have it made for $580.
Speaker: But if you went to Subaru to buy a new driveshaft, it's going to be $650 or $700. Yeah. And you still have to throw it away when that one goes bad. Yeah, because they they stake the U-joints in those things. Yeah, pis exactly. And these ones all do are held in with horseshoe clips like every other U-joint in the world. You can break this driveshaft and you can retube it. You can add a new piece of tube. You can change it. You can shorten it. You can lengthen it.
Speaker: You can add a new yoke to the back if something goes wrong with one of the ears. You can replace the flanges. It's completely repairable from start to finish.
Speaker: And it's serviceable in your garage. If you know what you're doing with a U-joint, which if you don't, don't watch YouTube, they don't know what they're doing. Ask somebody, DM me.
Speaker: they're They're not that hard, but they're really easy to mess up. Yeah, yeah. U-joints are something you do not want to fudge around with. Because, I mean, now they're like 40 bucks a pop for those fifteen tes or whatever they are. That's why I go with the 1310Xs, because they're super duper easy to to to not mess up.
Speaker: Like, they're they're really straightforward. A lot of people really live by Moog. Don't buy Moog. don't buy those anymore. They they used to be good. Moog used to be good. Now they're cheapo yeah China garbage.
Speaker: Yeah. At least Spicer's made in Mexico. Like, it's not. yeah But they're solid, bro. hey And I think... Those U-joints specifically, they're used in the front axles of like YJs and TJs, right?
Speaker: ah they're Those are a 3R configuration. They're about the same thing, but they have ah okay a side clip rather than a clip on top of the cap. Okay. But I can't remember. Overall speaking, yes, they are about the same. A 1330 and a 3R about the same.
Speaker: 1310s are a little bit smaller, but they're still just as robust. Okay, I'm trying to think. I'm almost sure I've got thirteen tens in my in my parts bin. I can't remember if they're for the driveshaft on they're for the Jeeps. They're the driveshaft.
Speaker: Okay. Okay. That makes sense. But they're readily available. You know, yeah you go almost anywhere and get yourself a good U joint. Nyacko Golds or Spicers, whatever you can get. I wouldn't go either.
Speaker: i wouldn't go outside of those two brands because those two brands compete. And that means they're constantly trying to make a better U-joint than the other person, rather than like where you're going to drop all the needle bearings down and you're just going to be mad.
Speaker: And then you can be, you know, 28 years sober and relapsed because of this U-joint. Like, it just makes you mad. Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, dude. um I forgot to ask you this question. What tires are you running? I should asked you this a long time ago. Crappy tires. They're Les Schwab tires. Monzuma. Open ranges. Yeah.
Speaker: Those aren't bad tires. They're not bad tires, but they're not good in the snow. ah Okay. what ah What size are you running?
Speaker: They're
Speaker: Two 25-75-16s, I think. Okay, okay. Effectively a 29. That's a sidewall? Yeah, they're they're a 29 on a 16. Yeah, I'm going to be doing some 15s with F44. I'm going to do some of those wheels.
Speaker: And then I think i think Milton and Kerry got me stuck on getting ready to buy some Milestars.
Speaker: Dude, there's some controversy on those right now, but I like them, dude. I think they're sick. They're not too heavy, and every single time I've seen anybody wheeling with them, they're more capable than I am. yeah And I'm at 11 PSI, and they're at 15 or 18 PSI, and they're just crawling around me.
Speaker: like yeah I don't care about controversy ever, as long as my tire doesn't blow up. Yeah. And i mean, i I know some people who have some decent discount codes, so I get them for a little bit cheaper.
Speaker: So I'm going to go the route of being able to get something that I can afford. and yeah And that I know based on watching performance.
Speaker: Yeah. You've seen them in action. and I have. Same, dude. like i know They're comfortable, too. Like riding in a car that has them. You're like, yeah, this is great. And they're not too noisy either.
Speaker: And they look sick, dude. I'm not too cool to say. I think they look sick. They look sick. And like, so Milton has thirties on his cross track and they're bigger than my, my tires.
Speaker: In total, he's 30s on a 15. I'm 29s on 16. Yeah. And his wheel and tire combo set weighs less than one of my tires.
Speaker: Because I put his wheel on my car. And i was like, mine's heavier and mine's two years old with less tread than I began with. Yeah. And his is brand new and weighs less. I'm like, sold. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. Sold.
Speaker: Heck yeah. Are you going to do 235.75 when you go to 15s? No, I'm actually going to go down. Okay. I'm going to go down to what Kerry runs, which is... 215.75? two fifteen seventy five but She's running like a 28. Like a smaller overall diameter on her, not on the forest or on her older Outback. Yeah.
Speaker: She's running a slightly smaller tire. And I just want to go smaller because I do more road miles than I do dirt miles. Unfortunately in this car, at least until I retire it, I'm going buy a daily at some point. I'm sure.
Speaker: oh And it's probably also going to be a Subaru. I just don't know what we'll see if I can find something. Yeah. But um I'm going to go down to a 28 because I get better speedometer correction.
Speaker: And I'll get a little bit better mileage. So i'm I'm kind of just hoping for the best out of all of those worlds by going to a more stock-sized tire. And you'll have almost the exact same sidewall.
Speaker: yeah Yeah. So you're going to be golden. I'm going down like, what, three-quarters of an inch in overall height? But oh well. yeah Speed bumps already hate to see me coming, so I'm not worried about them at all. And I've never been stuck in this car except for in the snow.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. And that's because I got out tired by Milestar Patagonias. ah Every single time I stopped, I sunk down to my freaking rock rails. like yeah yeah Every single time I stopped with these tires and three feet of snow, I sucked down to my rockers. and yeah I had to get pulled out every time, and that was embarrassing, having three other Subarus drive around me.
Speaker: kind of was just a bit annoying. that' Yeah, no, I get it. I get it. of Future plans for the car. I know you said you're going to do some stuff with the vinyl on the car, but you got anything that works?
Speaker: Oh, dude. H6? Yeah. I definitely plan on doing a supercharged H6 with a cable six speed. Oh, fudge. Dude, yes, yes. I'm waiting for this engine to blow and then the other engine that I have for this car to blow.
Speaker: Okay. I have another engine already, so this one's old. This one's a little bit tired. i already have another engine sitting, waiting to go in.
Speaker: I'm planning on eventually building like a tooth and nail build for a really grunty H6. Now, are we talking easy or EG? Easy.
Speaker: Okay, okay. Chain driven. Let's go, dude. A little bit smaller, too. As my friend Jacob ah Redneck with Tech would say, EZ36. this ah man this ain't this ain't England. I don't know why. He's from America, and the only person I've ever met who says EZ.
Speaker: but all right. Yeah, I think EGs are 3.3, right? A little bit. little bit. yeah a little bit like I can't keep all the six. I've never owned a six-cylinder Subaru, but I'd love to. have every intention to do either 3.0 or a 3.6. It depends on what I can find and and what I can build responsibly.
Speaker: yeah Because I'm not going for 700 horsepower. If I wanted that, I would just go IAG and I'd get like a 750 block and call it a day. And I might even go that route and just do like a IAG 550 and just be happy as hell with the car. 550 is enough power to break all sorts of parts and have fun. Yeah. What are you going to do with 750 to 1,000 horsepower, bro? I don't need that, man. Frickin' dunes. know. That's true. That's true. My driveshaft can now twist, which is something your driveshaft can't do. No, dude. It can't do anything. Mine has a flexibility of about 17 degrees or so.
Speaker: 17 yeah so i can go about i can i can give it a hard clocking and it'll spring back that's why it's aluminum yeah yes dude yeah yeah which i was trying to sell milton on and he was like i think i want to steal one i was like guess what you don't yeah no well lightweight drive shafts have always been a thing dude my drive shaft weighs three and a half pounds No kidding. Yeah.
Speaker: Fully assembled. It's three and a half pounds.
Speaker: That's so, even with the U joint. Yep. Dude, that's completely, you can twirl it around on your hand like a pencil. I mean, it's 58 inches long, so it's a little temper. It's a little harder to do, but yeah, you can, it's super duper light.
Speaker: Yeah. And also the other thing is I found out that um in these cars, I don't know about other bodies in the SH specifically, you can take driveshaft out of an old Crown Vic cop car, which is a three and a half inch diameter aluminum driveshaft.
Speaker: Okay. You can have your nearest driveshaft company, modify it to length and slap it in and it works. At one point I had a three and a half inch diameter driveshaft in here, which is the same as like a fricking Dodge truck.
Speaker: ah It was ridiculous. So I went with the three inch, but yeah. And that's diameter, not circumference. That's a, yeah that's a big boy. yeah It's a girthy bitch.
Speaker: Yeah. No, I, that aluminum, I, I've never thought about that with, um, with the drive shafts, but you know, everybody like in the four by four world that, you know, aluminum, uh,
Speaker: crossover steering is what everybody runs because you bash it to rocks and as long as it's not too far gone like it'll just spring back into same old thing that's crazy i love it i love that dude okay lightning round uh favorite metal album when you're out in the car oh you're gonna have to make me look it up the one with um pain remains on it let's go isn't that the name of the album pain remains yes i think it actually is yeah by lorna shore let's go dude i love it okay and then i want to ask you this uh i recently lost a homie in october i still haven't got over it you got any tips for people that are uh struggling mentally specifically dudes
Speaker: That's a good one. I'm going to go ahead and say that it's the same thing, as I said, with Raf's podcast. It is really important that you have the ability to talk to somebody.
Speaker: And if I called you at midnight, let's say we're best friends, or I call you my best friend. I know we just formally met today. yeah Yeah. If I call you at midnight and say, I need a few minutes of your time,
Speaker: Cause it's a really weird time for me to be calling you. If I need a few minutes of your time and you're not there, like you're not available available to give me five minutes to let me talk or say something, you kind of have to readjust or reevaluate the way you feel about that person or how much access they have to your welldo wellbeing.
Speaker: Because a lot of the times certain people will ask you for your time but aren't available to give you theirs. 12 minutes is all it takes to talk somebody off of a ledge.
Speaker: That's... That's the average, right? yeah's twelve minutes Yeah. 12 minutes. And I can spare 12 minutes for people I don't know. Same. Same. so Any day. You really do need to be able to reevaluate friends on a fly.
Speaker: and find out who's actually there for you. So if you're struggling, especially as a man, it's okay to talk. It's really important to talk because the the the damage done by you doing something that permanently fixes your own problem is not what fixes other people's problems. And especially it's not like, oh, he was such a loving guy and I miss him.
Speaker: It's yeah what's left behind is what could I have done? And that's way more damaging than just you being lost. um that's ah That's a huge one, I think. And then the last bit of information that I'll give to somebody is it's okay to be mean.
Speaker: Like a lot of people are so afraid of hurting other people's feelings. And I'll call you a dick straight to your face if it means that I get to go home and feel like the decisions that I made were justified. As long as I didn't actually hurt somebody physically or do something that's going to get me arrested, i would rather be mean to you to keep my peace than let you feel like you won because you're not that important to anybody but yourself.
Speaker: So... Like realistically speaking, it's okay to be mean and it's important to evaluate and how high you hold certain people in your life, especially if they don't have time for you.
Speaker: There's obviously exceptions for family and like, like really, really, really close friends you've been with forever. But I've had friends, like I've reached out to friends when I was struggling and they're like, damn dude, that sucks.
Speaker: Well, gotta go. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah yeah guess what? I don't even talk to those people anymore. yeah They're not a part of my life because of certain types of reactions that I've dealt with from certain people during certain struggles.
Speaker: And it sucks to have to like say goodbye or limit the access that people have. But at the end of the day, you are alone with yourself.
Speaker: Even if you live with your family or your wife or your dogs, like you are alone with yourself at the end of the day and you have to be okay with that person. Even if it's really hard to face. Yeah, man. No, I appreciate that. I, uh, cause yeah, in October, back and october was it, uh, uh, overland Subies?
Speaker: No, no, no. It was, um, my, my best friend, Kyle, he, uh, I took up, took a lot of late night phone calls from this dude. He was going through a custody battle. Oh, fuck. those words It was, it was horrible. Cause you know, the, you know how the courts are, especially towards the dude, you know, dude can be doing pretty much everything right and still kind of get shafted and they're the women will win no matter what.
Speaker: unfortunately yeah yeah it's it's kind of crazy but this night in particular don't exactly exactly yeah this night in particular he didn't call it was about 3 a.m and uh he survived the gunshot oh but not consciously he was in a coma for about two and a half days his girlfriend called me the next day said hey Kyle just did so and so to himself. He's still alive, but he's in a coma. If you want to come say, say goodbye. I was like, cool, I'll turn the car around right now. I'll i'll drive three and a half, four hours right now.
Speaker: And, you know, went to see him in the hospital and say goodbye. But dude it's, that's the first time, because, i'm dude, I'm not a stranger to death, bro. Like, I, I grew up poor, you know, so all the kids I was around were selling drugs, doing gang stuff. This one like hit me hard. I'm still, I still think about this dude pretty often. So I'll feel free to call me anytime you need.
Speaker: Oh, thank you, man. I appreciate that. You don't even need to know me that well, but you will. That's dude. And that's how, man, that's how I feel. Like if somebody is going through a rough time, I don't care if I just met you. And if I don't even know you, you just send me a DM or whatever. Like if it's urgent, man, like I'm pretty bad at replying to texts, but dude, if somebody is going through it, you holler at me, man. Like I'm about that life. I'm trying to see everybody succeed and do well. You know, but the the longest line in my bio is please check on your friends. Mental health is more important than you think.
Speaker: Absolutely. It is. i've I've been there. It's the silent killer too, especially if you let it be. It's getting worse, man. We're, we live in a crazy, crazy world. That's just getting crazier every day, dude. One and every, what is it? 60 seconds. We lose a guy or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah. And it gets even crazier when you're talking about ex-military. It's even worse. Dude, I couldn't imagine some of that. Not at all, dude. Why do we have them living on the street? Happy Memorial day Thank you, everybody, for your service. Yes. Let's go. Yeah, man. Stay with us. You're important. You put out your fight for for a good reason, and we appreciate it.
Speaker: Dude, we I appreciate the heck out of the people. Yeah. People who paid, you know, what we refer to as like the ultimate sacrifice. Absolutely appreciate that. What I really have an appreciation for is people who made it home and they're carrying stuff that they can't tell their own family, you know, like, oh, dude, I, some of the horrors, like I've talked to Vietnam vets. I'm like, bro.
Speaker: i don't know how you sleep at night, but I'm glad you can. I've talked to, I've heard some crazy stories, but I've only met one person who enjoyed it. And that's scary. but yeah I met one guy who was just like, dude, that was rad. it was like oh go back like, Oh, I love killing. It's like, bro maybe we should find another job for you. No, dude.
Speaker: No, he just ended up going back and being better at his job. yes but All right. Oh, dude. Well, let's, uh, yeah, let's, let's pull the limo into the garage, man. Um, dude, I appreciate this. This was sick.
Speaker: Uh, I appreciate you taking the time out today, especially after your long drive home. No, no, dude, not a not a problem at all. We we got an early start and and made it back. But oh yeah before we go, I'm all about trying to get the homies paid. I think I saw you've got maybe some affiliate deals in your bio.
Speaker: I don't get paid for it. I get a little bit of a jingle with Raplander if you use my my code. Let's go. It's mostly just points online, but okay that's cool enough. I'm going to using them for as long as I know.
Speaker: And they do what? They do the the vinyl topography. Yeah. Yeah. Topify your shit is what they say. Let's go, man. the they they do the vinyl the vinyl lines. It's pretty cool. It's really easy to install. And I got a 10% code and and in my bio if you guys want to use it.
Speaker: Yeah, it looks good, too. i really i I dig your car. I know i already said that before started recording. did you hear Did you hear this in the Subie and You? One side is Mount Baker, one side's Mount Rainier? No, I didn't. i Like I said, I was working while i was listening. look look at Look at my page and look at the driver's side versus the passenger side. They're different.
Speaker: And they did that for you? No, I didn't. Oh, all dude, what? They send you a roll of vinyl and you do it yourself so you can imagine your own mountain.
Speaker: Or you can do what I did and I looked up old books of the so topography maps of these mountains and I zoomed into spots. You just zoom into a spot on your iPad and you can kind of see. Is that like the peak?
Speaker: ah That is off to the east thumb. Okay. So if you're looking at Mount Rainier, that's kind of got that little thumb that's off to the left side of it. That's that side. And then Mount Baker is the peak.
Speaker: Dude, tight. It's kind of off to the western slope of the peak because it's kind got the up and down valley. Okay. Baker's a little bit of ah a more flat mountain.
Speaker: Okay. not Not by much, but Mount Rainier is gorgeous and huge. Oh, dude. It is one of my favorite mountains. Heck yeah, dude. Well, man, again, thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it. This was sick. I appreciate you giving and me the time.
