Transcript
Speaker: Holy frick, boys. We got a good one this week on the Dirt Subies podcast by popular demand. We got Dan the Man. Back to talk about Subaru stuff.
Speaker: Dan is an absolute beast. He has been working on these cars for a long time. He has done some absolutely maniacal fabrication on Subarus. And he's here to share some more insights with us ah real quick.
Speaker: Make sure you're checking out the Subi and You podcast. If you want more bingeable Subaru podcasts, make sure you're following them on ah YouTube and all the other ah platforms that you can listen on. But let's go ahead and jump in.
Speaker: Man, you you look good. You get ah you got that fresh that fresh haircut. Yeah. Yeah. I got to do it. I got to do it every once in a while or it catches on fire. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. um Can you hear me okay? Is my audio good? Yeah. Heck yeah. Well, dude, let's, ah let's fricking jump in. We got the one and only Dan back for round two. I can't tell you, ah can't even count the number of comments and like private messages that I got from people like, oh, you need to get this guy back or, oh, I, I, this was my first episode listening to your podcast. You've got to get this guy back on. so thanks for Thanks for jumping back, man. I think we'll cover some good stuff today. Let's just jump right in. I mean, hopefully people know who you are, but you run a shop in the Prescott Valley, and you've been doing that for a couple years now?
Speaker: ah I've been doing it since 1998, but the shop in Prescott Valley has existed for close to two years now. Okay.
Speaker: Okay. And what do you guys, I mean, I know what you want to do, but, uh, what do you guys currently service over there? Absolutely everything. um because, uh, we need to pay the bills and I can't really afford to turn work away. Yeah. But, if I had my way, it would be, uh,
Speaker: mostly Subaru. You know, you've been working on these cars for decades. Um, so you've seen it all. What are some things that people can be doing with their vehicles? ah It might vary based on the generation and what, what year they're, you know, working with, but what are some top level things that people can do to get the most out of these cars?
Speaker: I don't think that there is a cookie cutter answer for that. Um, Typically, when I have clients come in and ask me something similar to that, it depends on the car and it depends on how they use it.
Speaker: And also their they're demographic. you know If it's a 70-year-old guy and a 20-year-old guy, they're going to get very different answers. To answer that broadly, I think that the same answer could be applied towards anything in the automotive industry.
Speaker: i keep fluids in it, keep it at a temperature that it needs to be or wants to be, and don't ab abuse it. But as far as Subarus are concerned, it's a generational answer.
Speaker: ah You know, the first gen Legacies, drive it, you know change the oil when you need to. You know, that's that's pretty much it. there're They're very resilient, tough cars.
Speaker: And then moving on to the second gen Legacies, You know, anytime that I found one that I wanted to keep, I would just preemptively do what I refer to as a clean slate.
Speaker: You know, we're we're buying used cars that are couple years old, couple decades old, you know, whatever they are. A clean slate in my shop refers to removing the engine, doing the head gaskets, rear main seal, front main seal, cam seals, timing belt, water pump, putting an OEM Subaru thermostat in it.
Speaker: ah The turbocharged cars have some additional cooling lines and oil lines that need to be inspected, replaced. The early turbos had filters and oil supply lines that need to be removed and thrown in the trash where they belong. I've heard that so many times. those So many TDO4s went straight in the trash thanks to that.
Speaker: Yeah. um And then if I've got a customer that comes in with, you know, like a 2005 to 2009 legacy turbo, Outback turbo, Forrester turbo, if it has an aftermarket turbo on it, um I want to know why.
Speaker: And, ah you know, we kind of tailor service to the specific vehicle. Now there's a lot of things that are generally true.
Speaker: then there's a lot of things that are just specific to the car. About two months ago, I had two 2006 Outbacks come in at the same time. And one of them had been going up and down a washboard road in Flagstaff, Arizona twice a day for years.
Speaker: And there wasn't a suspension component on the car that was in good shape. It was just destroyed. And then the other car was its twin, same color, same model, everything.
Speaker: And she had just used it for basic commuting and <unk> doing groceries and going to church. And the suspension on that car was great.
Speaker: So, you know, it it it really just depends on the car. and the components. You know, there's there's some rules, but the rules, there's always exceptions. And so we just kind of have to address it as it comes.
Speaker: want to take a quick second to remind you guys that I have been using Anderson Design and Fabrication Lift Kits for about 10 years now, and they are a proud sponsor now of the Dirt Subies podcast. And the way that you can take advantage of their sponsorship is by using code DIRTSUBIS at checkout on the Anderson Design and Fabrication website, which is awdadventure.com.
Speaker: You can use that on lift kits, skid plates, ditch light brackets, all sorts of cool stuff that they've got. All you got to do, again, is use code DIRTSUBIS at checkout, and that will get you 5% off. Let's jump back into this bad boy. With with the turbos,
Speaker: Do you think that those are something that, do they really introduce a lot of extra um failure points for people or is that kind of a myth? No, it it certainly does.
Speaker: um And it's not necessarily due to the fact that the car is turbocharged. It's due to the fact that there is added complexity and added components that need to be maintained in service.
Speaker: So if we were to take, you know, any Subaru that's turbocharged and roughly 20 years old, we run into oil supply lines that have coking inside of them or filters that haven't been removed and are restricting oil flow.
Speaker: Drain tubes on the turbos are just like any other rubber component. They get hard and brittle with age and start to leak. Really has nothing to do with Subaru. It's just a Rubber has a finite lifespan and depending on the environment that you live in, that lifespan can be drastically shorter. Uh, you know, Arizona is a particularly dry and harsh climate. Montana, where I'm from is very dry, very harsh and sees a very, very large temperature swing. Eastern Washington is is pretty dry also.
Speaker: So it kind of depends on the environment. As far as turbocharged Subarus go, if everything is flowing at the the rate that Subaru designed it to flow, you know, if the coolant's getting to where it's supposed to go and the oil is getting to where it's supposed to go and draining out of where it's supposed to be in an appropriate time frame,
Speaker: then they're fine. Uh, the turbochargers themselves, uh, Subaru turbos are made by IHI and they make phenomenal products, but, um, you know, they've, they've got a lifespan and there's no real number, um, you know, uh,
Speaker: 16 year old kid that is seeing red line several times a minute and boosting the car as much as it'll take all day every day that turbocharger is going to see a a shorter lifespan if it's being used under normal parameters you know it'll last a very long time you know we've we've got some turbos in the family that Or about as old as I am and still do their job just fine. But those cars have been very well maintained and haven't been abused. Is it that it's that banjo bolt filter that always gets clogged up, right? That's got to be pulled out and thrown in the thrown in the trash?
Speaker: Yeah. um Subaru started putting those in consistently with the EJ20 Turbo and the EJ25 Turbo in the e j twenty five turbot in the early two thousand It was not a good idea.
Speaker: Subaru has admitted that it was not a good idea. They at some point stopped putting them in the cars. I don't recall when that happened, but at some point they were removed. um If you look at the banjo bolt that holds the banjo fitting to the cylinder head or the turbo or the back of the the block or the AVCS solenoids or something like that, if it has a little nipple on top, that indicates that Subaru put a filter in it from the factory. Okay.
Speaker: And typically if I'm doing a turbo head gaskets, an engine rebuild, upgrading horsepower numbers, anything like that, it doesn't take a whole lot of time to remove those and inspect them And if they are there, regardless of their condition, I take them out and put them in the trash.
Speaker: um And that just allows less restriction and, you know Obviously, oil is the lifeblood of any car, so we need to make sure that it's getting to where it needs to be at a rate in which it needs to get there. you know um Subaru has a couple different oil pumps designed for a couple different reasons, and you know they produce a volume and a flow designed to cool the vehicle adequately. So typically, that's that's a good maintenance thing if you want to see the car live for any period of time. I've seen a lot of turbo failures due to clogged banjo fitting filters. Unfortunately, turbochargers that are worth owning are pretty expensive.
Speaker: Definitely. So I have seen countless numbers of clients over the years that go to eBay or Amazon and buy a piece of garbage. And there's no place in a vehicle for those turbochargers. They would make great paperweights, but that's about the extent of their usefulness as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker: Yeah. The good old max beating rods or whatever, the Wuhan whistlers. You know, i don't know about the brands specifically,
Speaker: But if it's a car that I want to live for a long time, I'm going to replace it with an OEM Subaru Turbo, whether it be new or remanufactured.
Speaker: And if you're looking for an increase in horsepower, there's almost an endless supply of quality manufacturers on the market that I've used over the years and have been fantastic.
Speaker: But you're going to pay for it. But I guarantee it's cheaper than buying a long block. Absolutely. Because when the turbo fails, it spews its guts into the intercooler and eventually the intake manifold.
Speaker: And eventually that debris is consumed and it just wreaks havoc on cylinder walls and valves and valve stems and anything else that boost touches. We've learned that the hard way. So it it is a rule in the shop.
Speaker: I will not install those on a customer's vehicle. I even if that is requested, it's just not something I'm willing to do. The best advice I can give somebody that owns a turbocharged Subaru and wants to see it live for a prolonged period of time is to get a quality set of gauges where you can monitor oil pressure and boost and coolant temp and, you know, maybe fuel pressure, maybe your AFR if you're feel like you need to do that. And in over the course of driving the vehicle for a significant period of time, you come to understand pretty quickly where the car likes to live.
Speaker: And every every car is going to be a little different. you know I've had some that love building 55 psi of oil pressure, and some of them are perfectly happy at 35 psi.
Speaker: you know, as long as you can get a baseline reading that is consistent, then later on you can monitor changes and deal with things appropriately. If you approach the same stoplight every day on your commute and you drive the car the same day every day on your commute and you know that it sees 12 psi in second gear before you shift it, but suddenly you see a drop, then You can assume that any number of things has happened and either address it yourself or have somebody that knows what they're looking at address it. Same thing goes with oil pressure and and coolant temperature.
Speaker: You know, if it's lived happy at 195 degrees coolant temperature for 10 years and all of a sudden it wants to float around 215, then then Something's going on and yeah and you can address it before it becomes catastrophic.
Speaker: But if a turbo lets go and there's bearing material or, ah you know, catastrophic failure would be the fins leaving the turbine.
Speaker: ah That's going to destroy the intercooler, cause serious damage to the intercooler, and parts of it and or the intercooler are going to be ingested. And then in addition to that, you know, some of these cheaper turbos don't have bearings in them. They've got...
Speaker: you know, just machined surfaces that the turbine rides on and any waste or destruction is being passed through the oil and going right into the engine. And, you know, that's why oil filters exist, but they're only capable of doing so much for so long.
Speaker: And eventually either it's going to be a catastrophic failure or a turbo replacement. I mean, all things considered, I am 1000% certain that Subarus are the least expensive vehicles to own and maintain.
Speaker: And I say that anecdotally from personal experience, but you know also I've been in the industry for decades. you know i I did a new engine in a Subaru today for probably...
Speaker: a fourth of what it would cost to do Ford Escape or Hyundai Santa Fe or or something like that. um they're They're just cheap. and And part of it is the way that they were designed.
Speaker: And a lot of it has to do with the ease of maintenance. You know, I i can have a Subaru engine out and on the stand in 45 minutes. You'd be hard pressed to do that with almost any other vehicle, you know, maybe aside from early Volkswagens that were air-cooled, but they're just incredibly easy to work on, which makes them incredibly cheap to work on.
Speaker: Yeah, i I hear people talk about, oh man, they're so hard to they're so hard to maintain and all these different things. And I think it comes from maybe the fact that the spark plugs are on the side of the engine, but everything else is right up front. You don't have the frame rails in the way of the alternator like you would on like an SR20. When I'm convincing people that they need to own Subarus, there's a couple target points that I hit.
Speaker: One of them being um the ease of maintenance. And if you open the hood and look at under the hood, everything's on top. And you know, the first gen legacy specifically, the the spark plugs are on top, the starters on top, air conditioning, power steering, alternator, everything is right there. The fuel filters right there. The only thing you really need to get under the cart to do is to remove the oil filter.
Speaker: And the newer ones, spark plugs are a little more challenging to get to, but if you do it once, it becomes incredibly easy afterwards. you know I forget what the book rate is on doing spark plugs. is I think it's like 4.6 or 4.9 hours or something on a, let's say a 2018 Outback.
Speaker: I can do it in an hour and a half. And that's me stopping to use the bathroom and answer the phone and talk to other clients. And you know if I were to really focus on it, I bet you I could get it down to an hour. And it's not because I'm particularly talented. It's because once you have...
Speaker: a method of approach and execution, these things become easier. And every time you do it, it becomes easier. You know, there's lots of people that I've had come into the shop that have indicated, you know, oh, you got to take the engine out to do the spark plugs. And two or three hours later, I'm telling them to come get the car and it's ready to go. And it's it's not just Subarus. It's any industry, any car.
Speaker: There's myths that are easily refuted. If it's taking you you know five six hours to do spark plugs or if you feel like you need to remove the engine you need some better advice and maybe some better tools but all things considered ah i mean they're they're more difficult than you know i did plugs on a toyota corolla today they're they're up top easy to get to you know you you kind of have to look at the broad picture and in the way that i see it is you're getting the most advanced all-wheel drive system on the planet you're getting one of the most reliable vehicles money can buy. You're getting the safest car money can buy. Yeah, you can spend an hour and a half doing plugs every 60,000 miles. It's not that big of a deal. You know I've owned a couple of other cars throughout my career behind the wheel, and I definitely got spoiled with Subarus. You know, it's like almost a hands-off experience. You know, you just drive it, and that's it.
Speaker: I met a young man...
Speaker: Probably seven years ago, when I was a service rider at a Subaru dealership, he was one of the the Subaru technicians, and he and I became very good friends. i at this point, consider him family. He's he's like a son to me.
Speaker: um When he left Subaru, he chose to get into exotics, so he's doing Audi R8s and Porsches and bi-turbo Mercedes-Benz and all this crazy stuff. And, every time he sends me a picture or a story about what he's doing at work today, i remind him how easy it is to work on Subarus and that he should probably come work for me. is is he local to you or was this in a different state?
Speaker: No, he lives in Nashville, Tennessee, um, where I lived for exactly 18 months. And, uh, we, uh, we bonded.
Speaker: Uh, he's, he's a good kid and he is a hell of a technician. Uh, he can work circles around me. he's just naturally talented and gifted, uh, incredibly intelligent young man.
Speaker: But, uh, right now I kind of view his daily activities as a sadist. He's, uh, choosing to work on the most difficult and complex vehicles on the planet by a long shot.
Speaker: But I'm sure he's doing it because there's quite a bit of money in it. I would imagine the average, average earning potential of a Ferrari owner versus somebody driving an Outback is going to be a little different.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. um Yeah. He's, he's sent some wild pictures over the last year or so and, Some of the things that he sends me, I'll admit I would turn down. I wouldn't want anything to do with.
Speaker: But he's still at that age where either he's just not afraid of it or or maybe he's just incredibly confident and competent. And like I said, he is a hell of a technician. He's knocking them out. Yeah.
Speaker: Now, what about things like coolant choice, coolant service, all the other fluids that people don't touch in the car, front diff, rear diff, things like that? do you have any advice for people along those lines?
Speaker: Yeah. um Basically, what I tell people is, you know, this is an uncomfortable situation. You know, if if they had their vehicle towed in, it's not something that's fun for anybody.
Speaker: um So we need to address the problem, but we also need to address it correctly. And what I mean by that is there's a number of choices. you know um A ir radiator hose is not the same quality from AutoZone to O'Reilly's to Napa to Subaru.
Speaker: And even then at Napa Auto Parts, you can buy four or five different upper radiator hoses. They're made by different people. When you've been doing it as long as I have, you know who makes good stuff or who usually makes good things and what to avoid.
Speaker: But as far as coolant goes, um I use a a low electri electricity conductivity, whatever Subaru calls it.
Speaker: And it's antifreeze that is designed to not flow electricity very well. And the reason this is important is in the early 2000s with the creation of the single overhead cam EJ25, we had a lot of head gasket weeping or seeping. It wasn't necessarily the head gasket blowing and the car usually didn't overheat.
Speaker: but it would accumulate some moisture and then accumulate road grime and dust and mud and whatever. and eventually it would pose a problem. And it wasn't because the head gasket had failed. It was because there was a electrolysis.
Speaker: So Subaru somewhere in the mid 2000s switched to a a coolant that did not conduct electricity very well. And it is blue.
Speaker: So I call it Smurf Juice. and I've seen that stuff. yeah and that And that's what I use. of That is all I will use in the shop.
Speaker: Even if I'm requested to use something else, I just simply won't. Because it doesn't cost anymore and it's the right stuff. There's some people that say, well, it's $2,000. doesn't need that.
Speaker: Well, yeah, it does. if Subaru, just like any other human or company or manufacturer, came to the conclusion that there was something that could be improved upon.
Speaker: And regardless of the timeframe, that is an improvement. So I use the the blue Subaru coolant. I will only use Subaru OEM thermostats in the cars.
Speaker: Um, And then, you know, as far as hoses go, Gates makes very high quality stuff. I've had pretty good luck with Napa's in-house brand.
Speaker: But, you know, every car has a story and you have to use deductive reasoning to figure out what that story is because they can't talk to us.
Speaker: So, you know, if if we see a car come in with aftermarket hoses on it and, ah a screw style hose clamp, then I want to know why.
Speaker: And if it's because that's what we had laying around, okay, that's fine. That's an acceptable answer. But if it's because the car kept blowing off the OEM Subaru band clamps,
Speaker: then that means that we have a head gasket issue or other cooling system issues. The car at that point is building pressure in the cooling system that it shouldn't be. And, you know, those band clamps from Subaru are...
Speaker: fantastic up to a point, but there's no reason the car should see pressures past that unless there's something wrong. Well, there's nothing wrong with using a quality screw style hose clamp.
Speaker: um I use them every day, but ah there's a difference between using them because that's what I have and using them because that's what I need. They will hold a higher pressure, but the higher pressure should not be there to begin with.
Speaker: Um, so ultimately it's, it's kind of like putting a bandaid on a war wound. Yeah. We need to address the problem. And typically the way that Subarus will blow head gaskets is not mixing oil and water like a traditional vehicle. Uh, I, I can only think of a few times that's happened in close to 30 years of working on these cars.
Speaker: Typically, they will start pumping combustion into the cooling system, which overpressurizes the cooling system. And then you see an excess amount of coolant being pushed into the reservoir, failure of the radiator cap, hoses bursting.
Speaker: ah And before any of that happens, you see a lot of coolant coming out of the tailpipe. If you guys know me, you know that I've been using Melee Design Firm battery boxes for a long time now. I use only batteries that Melee Design Firm sells. Each and every battery that I own is secured inside my vehicles using a Melee Design Firm battery box, but they also have battery mounts like tie-downs. And they sell a bunch of other cool Subaru accessories that are small batch, really well thought out, very tastefully done. And they are a proud sponsor of the Dirt Subies podcast.
Speaker: All you got to do to take advantage of that is on the meleedesignfirm.com website. Use code DIRTSUBIES at checkout. That will get you 10% off your order. And again, you can use that on batteries like Odyssey batteries, full throttle. I use full throttle personally, but they also sell Braille. They sell a ton of good stuff. You can even use it on their strut tower braces, pitch stop mounts, engine bay caps and all other cool sorts of Subaru accessories. Let's jump back into the episode. It's funny because I remember when I first started kind of wrenching on cars,
Speaker: If you just Google, how do I know if I have a bit bad head gasket, you're going to get the, ah you know, do you have, you know, discolored oil on the on the oil cap? do you have sludgy oil? Or you're going to see coolant mixing in with the oil and vice versa.
Speaker: And yeah, I've never seen that happen on a Subaru, not once. I have, but it's probably only been three or four times.
Speaker: And if you look at the way that the cylinder head and the block mate, the first point of access is exhaust being pumped into
Speaker: the combustion chamber and the the cooling chambers and things like that. um It takes a ah catastrophic failure for Subarus to mix oil and water.
Speaker: um I had one do that in a pretty funny way. Probably 25 years I was probably twenty five years ago i was a an amateur rally racer.
Speaker: And, you know, i would just enter local events that didn't require roll cages and fire suppression systems and things like that. And when I was living in Oregon, there was one that came through and I wanted to be a part of it. And all I had available to me was a 91 Legacy sedan with an automatic transmission and and a naturally aspirated EJ22.
Speaker: And that poor little guy held red line
Speaker: 30 minutes i love it and and uh we we got it hot enough to where um the plastic timing belt covers melted and the knock sensor melted and ah the intake manifold gaskets became a shape that they were not intended to be and I'm pretty sure we blew the catalytic converter out the back end of it.
Speaker: So, you know, we had to go through that car and and make it right when it was done. But um yeah, that that thing probably was not up for the task when we entered into that race. It was a car that we happened to have sitting on the lot that we had purchased with the intent of detailing and refurbishing and selling for a profit.
Speaker: Um, in fact, we did the whole race with a for sale sign in the back window. I love that. But, uh, you know, even, even considering what we did to that poor thing, we drove it 35 miles home afterwards.
Speaker: Um, that's impressive, which, which is hard to do. And, uh, you know, in, in most cars, and and that's one of the things that's been really funny for, um like one of my brothers, ah Once I got him hooked on Subarus, he's had maybe a dozen over the last 20 years or so, maybe 15 years.
Speaker: But that's one of the things that he's noted is even when I break it, it still gets me home. and And even when we show up for a Facebook marketplace deal or a Craigslist deal or whatever, you know, the people say it doesn't run and drive and and yet we drive it home or drive it onto a trailer or, you know, whatever.
Speaker: it's they're, they're particularly resilient cars. I've done so many bad things to so many different Subarus and in most other situations, the car would be bricked, but man, I've, I sank one car in a pond, drained it out, drove it home, you know, all kinds of stupid stuff, man.
Speaker: Yeah. Um, there's, there's a pretty famous story in our family of, uh, a Subaru brat that I tried to kill and couldn't. And, you know, that was not a a singular event. It has happened probably a couple dozen times in the last 30 years. I know you mentioned previously to me that pretty much everything that ever goes onto a car that you're working on is OEM.
Speaker: Are there... Well, actually, ah I'm not sure if that's 100% true, but i I feel like I remember you saying that. Is is that kind of the case when you're when you're working on something?
Speaker: Well, ill I'll tell you what I tell my clients. There are places where we can take shortcuts and save money. There are places we cannot. And it just comes with experience and experimentation. I have messed up a lot of stuff over the years trying to save money.
Speaker: But I've learned from those lessons and and chosen to implement them into our day-to-day business going forward. So for example, if you need brakes, there's no reason to go to the OEM.
Speaker: Subaru doesn't manufacture brakes. yeah that They buy them from a supplier. And depending on the year, make, and model, some of them are fantastic. Some of them leave a lot to be desired.
Speaker: um Napa makes great brakes. They're fantastic. I have had zero complaints. They're really high quality. They're made in the USA, some of them.
Speaker: um But there are certain things that you need to bite the bullet and go to the the dealer. And good examples of that would be thermostats, radiator caps,
Speaker: Um, if I do an engine swap or an engine rebuild, it will leave my shop with an OEM Subaru thermostat and radiator cap, whether you want it or not. That's what's, that's what it's leaving with.
Speaker: Um, you know, head gaskets are, uh, you know, you're, you're going to get a hundred different opinions from a hundred different people. Yeah. But over the years I have probably done four to 5,000 head gaskets.
Speaker: Most of them have been Felpro. And I have had one failure out of a Felpro head gasket. And I will admit that it was my fault. It was not Felpro's fault. Okay. um Six Star Motors makes a good head gasket.
Speaker: i If you're building a high horsepower car or if you have deformities in the head that can't be machined out, I'll go with a Comedic head gasket.
Speaker: okay I have used ah hundreds of those over the years. ah A great example is my brother was transporting a block and set of heads from my house back to his house and during the course of transport things just kind of rubbed together and did some damage and rather than spending money on the machine shop and all that stuff we just put comedic head gaskets in there and As far as I know, that car is still on the road, and that was...
Speaker: Nine years ago. When you're shopping for parts, you know, a lot of stuff, you know, you just can go to the dealership to get OEM. Some stuff they don't make anymore. If you are going to get OEM parts, do you have a specific place that you get them, whether they're currently in production or not in production? Have you found any places to buy OEM parts ah that isn't going to completely bankrupt you?
Speaker: Well, you're always going to pay more at the dealership. You know, if I were to order head gaskets, OEM Subaru head gaskets for your car today, i have two choices. I can call the local dealership and have them delivered to my doorstep an hour later, or I can get on the internet and look at Subaru parts online whatever. a couple different vendors on eBay that sell OEM Subaru parts and get them from them. And it's going to be significantly less cost, but you're going to wait.
Speaker: So it kind of just depends on the situation. Usually I will offer my clients a choice. If I think that that is an appropriate thing to do, there are certain things I will not give them a choice on.
Speaker: And if I'm going to do the work, it will be done my way. And part of the reason is, is because I've had so much trial and error and Part of the reason is, is I warranty everything I touch. And so if I'm going to offer you a warranty on parts that I'm installing, they're going to be good parts.
Speaker: I will not warranty AutoZone parts. I mean, if you're in a if you're in a pickle and you really need you know parts right now and all we have available is AutoZone, I'll put them on there. You're not getting a warranty.
Speaker: Because I know it's going to fail. But again, it it depends on the part. you know there There are certain things that the aftermarket does not offer. And so you just simply have to go to Subaru. yeah Anytime you're dealing with you know the driveshaft internal transmission components, internal engine components, if it's being done by me, it will be OEM stuff.
Speaker: But when it comes to struts, you know I evaluate how the car is used and who's using it. You know, if you're a 70-something-year-old guy that goes to the grocery store and goes to church and likes to go fishing on the weekends and whatever, can you get by with cheap Chinese struts on eBay?
Speaker: Sure, that's fine. I tell people they're not going to last as long. Their quality isn't as good as KYB or Bilstein or, you know, something like that, but...
Speaker: you're going to get what you pay for. If the circumstances are appropriate, at the end of the day, in that circumstance, it's your car and it's your money and and I'll do what you want me to. But I always tell them, you know, we can go on eBay and pay 400 bucks for garbage, or we can go to Napa and pay a thousand bucks for stuff that's really good.
Speaker: And then we can source the aftermarket if you really want high-end Bilstein dampeners for your Forester, they make them, let's put them on there. if If you want to spend the money, let's do it.
Speaker: But I always like giving the pros and cons. And ultimately, at the end of the day, I have found that when customers understand why they're spending money, they're okay with spending money.
Speaker: ah When they become angry is when they show up and they get a bill and they have no idea what's happened. and Yeah. That does not happen in my shop, but it has happened at places that I've worked at before and dealerships that I've worked at before.
Speaker: And you hear horror stories about it constantly. You know, we paid $3,000 and we have no idea why, but the car's not making that weird sound anymore. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I've the, you know, buy once, cry once thing. That's a lesson that I've learned the hard way. And it always costs more money in the long run, you know, because you're going to eventually spend that money plus what you spent on the original cheapo stuff.
Speaker: Yeah. And again, it depends on the product. You know, if you want to cut corners with your brakes and you are dealing with the potential of a brake failure in an unpleasant situation and that's your business. Yeah. yeah If you want to deal with that, deal with it.
Speaker: um But, you know, when it comes to timing belts and tensioners and idler pulleys for the front end of an EJ257, you know, that's a $5,000 engine. If that timing belt lets go, you get to see how things stack up and cost pretty quickly.
Speaker: interference baby. Yeah. But, you know, the the first gen legacies, who cares? You know, you can put a rubber band as a timing belt on there. Nobody cares. If it breaks, whatever, you you got a tow it home or fix it on the side of the road. Nobody cares. It's a case by case thing. and And the best thing in these situations is having somebody that's been through every possible scenario before. I'd be willing to bet that there isn't anything you can do to a Subaru that I haven't.
Speaker: So I can tell you, yeah, if you're going to buy this and you want to fix it and turn around and sell it for a profit, sure, get the garbage timing belt kit off of eBay for $79, fine. But in a repair shop atmosphere where I have to warranty everything and I want to put my name on it and and have it be something I'm proud of, there are costs associated with that. And there's been many times where ultimately I have believed that the right thing to do for the car is more expensive. And whether I incur that cost or the owner incurs that cost, it's going to happen. it's It's just what's right for the car. And it's it's right for building my business name. And you know at the end of the day, I've got to sleep at night and my business partner has put me in this situation because he knows that I'm going to do what's best for the business, even if it costs me. Again, it it depends on the specific components. Now, i might be mistaken in this, but like, for example, I'm from my understanding, like ASIN is who makes the timing kits for Subarus or did at one point.
Speaker: ah And you can go buy an ASIN kit for substantially less than what you would pay at the dealership for the same thing in Subaru packaging. um Are there any parts like that that are that are common that people can save a few bucks and still get the same thing?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. um the The ASIN stuff is ah a great example. They're OEM Subaru. They're also OEM Toyota and a lot of OEM Nissan.
Speaker: Yeah. um They kind of just seem to be the go-to provider for the Japanese market. They make good stuff, but you know you can pay X amount of dollars on eBay for the same kit and then pay double that at Subaru because it comes in a Subaru box. And the the coolant is kind of the same way.
Speaker: You know, i i have a coolant that I like and I get it from Napa Auto Parts. aye It meets all the requirements that I need it to meet. And I have not yet come into a situation where it has not done its job the way that I expect it to. You know, my cost on a gallon is $12.
Speaker: and the same gallon of coolant that's doing the same thing from Subaru is probably pretty close to triple that. If you feel comfortable spending that money to have a Subaru sticker on the bottle, there's nothing wrong with that. Go for it. I mean, that's that's fine.
Speaker: But I have to walk a fine line between... providing an incredibly high quality service with high quality parts and also making a profit. I can't put the business in a situation where I'm losing a potential sale because the cost is exorbitant. And so I will do what I can, where I can to save the client money.
Speaker: That makes me look good and it makes the business look good. And a great example is the engine that I put into a Forester today. He got couple quotes from a couple competing shops, one of which was $8,500, the other of $11,500. When to pick the car tomorrow,
Speaker: when he comes to pick up the car tomorrow he'll write me a check for $4,100, less than half. And part of that is because my labor rates are lower than a dealership. And part of it is because I know when and where it's okay to cut corners as far as cost is concerned.
Speaker: And then they get the benefit of having somebody that has been hyper-focused on this particular vehicle for their entire adult life. Whereas in a dealership atmosphere, you've got kind of a a crapshoot. You don't know what you're going to get. it might be a kid that really loves Subarus. It might be a guy that doesn't care and is just trying to pay his bills and doing the bare minimum to get through the day.
Speaker: you know You never know. Yeah. i I try and do the best I can for as least amount of money as possible. And, uh, Over the decades, I have found that Subaru owners are typically, i don't want to say cheap because that isn't true, but maybe frugal, have other financial priorities. you know We do the best we can with what we have. And regardless of the job, I aim to give the best possible outcome for the least possible financial investment.
Speaker: So let me just run through some parts here. Spark plugs, what are you going to use in in most cases? are you're going to go to the dealership for spark plugs? No. Okay. I'm going to go NGK.
Speaker: Perfect. Or Bosch. Same with the wires. The wires I will, and unless I am instructed otherwise, only go to Subaru. I have seen hundreds of times the auto parts store wires that pop off the plugs, and create a huge misfire.
Speaker: Yeah, I've had that happen to myself. Yep. And so if a customer is upset about paying $91.70 for a set of single overhead cam 2.5 spark plug wires, and they would prefer to spend $45.80 from Napa Auto Parts, I'm going to tell them what to expect.
Speaker: What's going to happen is these are going to be fine for a few days. They may pop off. They're going to continue to do so. Eventually, you're going to come to me and ask me to fix the problem. And what I'm going to tell you is, let's put some Subaru wires on there. I've never seen a set of Subaru wires pop off. That's one of those things where it's a simple simple part that can cause a massive headache because you're track trying to track down where's this misfire coming from what the heck is going on um what about things like uh ignition coils whether it's a pack or uh individual coils you do an oem on those i i prefer to use oem subaru parts whether they are new or used and again i inform the customers of what their options are and give them the pros and cons of
Speaker: each thing. The aftermarket has fallen short. there's There's just no other way of saying it. They're just not comparable. um Diamond makes most of Subaru's coils.
Speaker: They are a far superior product. Absolutely. um There has been some builds, high horsepower STI builds, race car builds, things of that nature where the customer has chosen to go with an MSD or Excel style coil.
Speaker: Those are really high dollar, really well-developed, high quality parts. If you bring me an AutoZone coil, I'm going to put it in the trash. Rightfully so. That's where it belongs.
Speaker: And we're going to put something better on there for you. And and we... We've done that twice in the last two or three months. One of them was a 2010 Forester that had significant and repeating misfires. They took it to maybe three or four other shops, could not find the issue. So they brought it to me. First thing I noticed is that it had an aftermarket coil on it that was relatively new. I took it off and put a used Subaru coil on that I had laying in a box. Problem solved. and yeah And these poor people had spent thousands of dollars in diagnostic fees when in reality they could have gone to the junkyard or called me and you know thrown a good used one on there and you know not had any issues afterwards. it's ah It's funny you mentioned Diamond. For a short period of time, actually worked for AutoZone, like in their commercial parts department. And I remember one time somebody needed ah a coil pack, you know, for like a EJ22 car. I don't remember what it was. I opened the box up from the generic DuraLast. I opened it up and and it's a Diamond coil pack. And I was like, ah, you scored today, bud. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker: And in that I think that's one of my biggest complaints with parts stores in general, is there's no consistency. Exactly. You know, if if you go in and ask for a coil on Tuesday, you may get a Diamond or a Beck Arnley, which, you know, they're they're pretty decent usually. You're not going to get the same part twice. and And I understand why it happens, but that doesn't make me feel any better about putting garbage on my car or on your car. so Yeah, well, because you need to know what you're getting every single time. Otherwise, you're just making a gamble.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. You know, there's there's been almost a never-ending supply of specifically AutoZone-related parts over the course of my career. i don't want to just bag on them, although they are the worst of the worst. Go for it. they But, you know, as a young man, i worked in Craig Inn and Chuck's auto parts stores and I worked in a Napa auto parts store. There really is just no comparison in the quality of parts that you're getting. It is comical, if not tragic in in a lot of cases. And it's gotten so much worse in the last five years, man. It's absolutely crazy.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. What about like wheel bearings and axles? What's your opinion on that? Good question. I do a lot of wheel bearings. Subaru, I would say probably starting around 2010 when they went to unit bearings.
Speaker: uh i guess they did that probably around 2006 but i see most of the issues with 10 and newer cars they just start to growl and it does it so subtly over the course of a long period of time that people don't tend to notice until i test drive it if you were to come in and ask for wheel bearings today i'm going to go to napa and buy them and the reason that i i do that as far as the parts stores are concerned What I have available to me locally is Napa, O'Reilly's, and AutoZone. I will not shop at AutoZone for any reason.
Speaker: It just doesn't matter. I won't go there. Don't blame you. O'Reilly's, I mean, they are what they are. The reason I choose to go to Napa is because they offer an incredible warranty. They try as much as they can within reason to source USA-made parts. And specifically for where I'm at, it is a locally owned and operated business, which means our money is staying local. The guy that is selling me the parts is...
Speaker: grocery shopping at the same place his kids go to school at the same place mine do there has been a couple times over the last few years where i've gone in there and even though there was no warranty on a part i've told them this failed and they've just replaced it because it was the right thing to do wheel bearing specifically that's where i go i have not had a failure yet I've been buying wheel bearings from Napa for decades, a long time. Axles is a different story and it kind of seems as though it doesn't matter on where you buy them.
Speaker: it's It's kind of a crapshoot. I had one client where I did three sets of axles in her car before it was right. And Napa was generous. They they allowed me to to warranty these parts.
Speaker: But ultimately, at the end of the day, the OEM Subaru axle that comes in your car new is probably the highest quality axle you can buy there may be some exceptions to some of the higher end stuff and then it's it's kind of weird it's you know like you were saying earlier you go and buy an axle on a tuesday and it's made in mexico and it's whatever brand it is is i've gone and got empy axles at napa auto parts in a box just empy parts and empy makes fantastic stuff they got their name in the volkswagen bug world
Speaker: okay making high-performance Volkswagen parts, but they do a lot of everything. I'm not sure where they're based out of. If I had to guess, probably Germany, but I don't know for certain. Before the Rockcrawler Legacy became a Rockcrawler Legacy, I was going through axles twice a year.
Speaker: I put a set of MP axles in it that I purchased at Napa. And those were in that car for another 120,000 miles. And the only reason they were removed is so that I could be a silly asshole and put solid axles under it. Good decision. And I'm, I'm pretty sure i put those axles in my brother's car and he drove them for another, however, like seven years, however many miles he drove. I don't know, but. Is it N as in Nancy?
Speaker: N-P? No, it's E-M-P-I. Okay. Okay. Do you know if they sell parts themselves? Like, can people just go buy those?
Speaker: Yeah. I couldn't tell you where. Yeah. And like I said, I i bought a Napa branded axle that had their stamp on it. And, you know, that's that's kind of how business is these days.
Speaker: if you need to stock a warehouse full of oil filters, regardless of what it says on the label, you got to buy them from a supplier that meets your criteria and has a competitive price.
Speaker: So like there's been a big shift in Subaru oil filters lately. You know, they were made in Taiwan, then they were made in Malaysia, then they were made in Japan and You know, all over all over the place, different manufacturers, do they still meet Subaru's quality standards?
Speaker: Probably. Hopefully. Yeah. Are some of them better than others? Probably. i couldn't tell you who, what, when, why, or where. You know, in Japan, you buy them by color.
Speaker: There's... There's white ones, there's black ones, there's red ones, there's blue ones. That all kind of, I think, has to go with where they're manufactured. You know, I've i've had good luck with those. I think ultimately, if if you're going to spend money on your car, you need to know what you're buying. And the burden falls on you. So if you go buy axles anywhere, at e at any any store,
Speaker: Open the box up and it's going to say made in Mexico or made in Taiwan or made in China or made in the US, whatever it says. And usually there's some sort of insignia that indicates a brand.
Speaker: It doesn't take a whole lot of time with the technology that we have these days to research who's made that product. with axle specifically, because it's a huge topic in the lifted Subaru community. Um, what do you think are the biggest failure points on those axles?
Speaker: I see a lot of people, they blame the lift, When in reality, you know, my thought on this is people are never checking the boot integrity. and then they go beat the dog piss out of the car and the mud, the water and all that type of, you know, they just introduce all kinds of contaminants into it.
Speaker: Yeah. So you can do yourself a lot of favors by making sure that all the components on the car are in a good working order. You know, your CV boots are sealed up.
Speaker: The band clamps are tight. um there's a proper torque preload on the axle nut and the bearing. you know, on the older cars, they had those pins that held them to the stub shafts. making I hate those pins. Making sure that those are haven't walked out because that does happen. You know, these components are designed to live in a standard working angle.
Speaker: And under some conditions, and rarely exceed that working angle and go into extreme angles.
Speaker: And that's okay every once in a while. But if you were to put three inch lift on a Subaru without doing subframe drop spacers or correcting the geometry of things, then those axles are now working at an extreme angle 100% of the time.
Speaker: The best thing that I have found to explain that to customers I'm sure somebody makes high heel shoes in my size and I have the ability to put them on, but are my ankles and my feet and my shins designed to work at that angle all the time? No, they're not. And I'm going to experience a great deal of discomfort and et cetera associated with putting myself in that predicament.
Speaker: Same thing goes with these axles. Even though they're technically capable of functioning at high angles, they were not designed to live there all the time.
Speaker: They were designed to be there for brief periods of time. So if your car is lifted excessively, then ultimately the answer is to find an axle that is comfortable living at those angles permanently.
Speaker: There's a few aftermarket companies that offer such things and they're ridiculously expensive and I'm sure they're nice parts. You can get long travel, high angle axles from your parts store.
Speaker: And I have probably bought 12 or 13 sets over the last four or five years. And it's kind of been a crapshoot. Some of them have been bad out of the box. some of That's what I've found.
Speaker: Some of them have failed after a couple months. One set I put into an Impreza that was lifted five and a half inches over stock.
Speaker: And I beat the crap out of that car. It embarrassed Jeeps. I had it on three wheels and two wheels way more than once.
Speaker: And just generally beat that car like it owed me money. And those axles were perfect. No issues. That is not the norm.
Speaker: So, you know, it's it's until somebody, you know, maybe like Patrick Anderson or or maybe the guys at Primitive or or something like that, until somebody puts in the time and financial resources to develop a high angle.
Speaker: axle that is designed to live at these extreme angles you know we're we're just going to get pretty good at swapping axles out fortunately subaru it's really easy to do i did one yesterday in less than three minutes so that's awesome but it's impressive but uh i I would be willing to bet that if something like that comes to market, it is going to be based on a Porsche CV.
Speaker: Yeah. That tends to be the go-to for long travel, high angle, high horsepower CV shafts. And honestly, I welcome it. I don't have a whole lot of nice things to say about Porsche as a company or a car.
Speaker: But whoever designed that axle, I think the first, the one that everybody likes is like in a 930 or something like that. I can't remember, but there's, they're not called SubiWorks anymore, but created that Porsche conversion kit where you can run those axles. I'm sure that product is fantastic, but ah most Subaru owners are going to have a very hard time paying that amount of money for axles when in reality, that's probably what they paid for their car. Yeah. I think they i think the conversion starts at like $2,500.
Speaker: twenty five hundred bucks Yeah, and most of us, you know, the the Impreza that was five and a half inches over stock height, I paid $500 for. And I drove it for three years, and I legitimately did things in that car that people in Jeeps would not. and And it was an absolute blast, and I loved every minute of it. And when I was done abusing the hell out of that car,
Speaker: A young man bought it and drove it to North Dakota. You did ah the necessary subframe spacing on that, correct? Because I find that you're kind of on the edge when you go to two inches, but the axles will usually live pretty well at two inches of lift.
Speaker: Yes. is So I'm guessing you probably did like three inch subframe spacers. Again, it depends on the Subaru that you're working on. The older Subarus had really long arm rear suspension. The rear suspension arms were you know basically the same length as the axles.
Speaker: So what that means is over the course of travel, everything is staying relative and it's working together. Yeah, it's not being pulled.
Speaker: Yeah, so the rear of that car, it was 2000 Impreza wagon. ah five and a half inches of lift. I did a two inch subframe drop. As far as the geometry is concerned, it was about a three and a half, three inch lift.
Speaker: The front, um all I did is put factory Outback subframe spacers in it, which is one and a quarter inch. And the car was perfectly happy.
Speaker: That is crazy. but Yeah. And you know, it, it frequently saw 90 miles an hour, no issues. It frequently was in the air.
Speaker: You know, I, I, the car was so inexpensive and it was a little beat up. I didn't have any issue treating it like a redheaded stepchild.
Speaker: You know, just flogged it and it took every bit of it and had no problems. I everyday regret selling that car. It was so much fun. Those are the best cars, man. Cars that cost less than a couple days worth of work. Yeah. And, ah you know, one of the versions of Goldie, the Super Subaru, was a nine inch lift.
Speaker: And it lived that way for probably a year and a half. It was all Subaru stuff. It was basically stock, just nine and a half inches taller.
Speaker: And it was fine. You know, the axles were at a pretty extreme angle and it was a pain in the ass to do ball joints on it and to take the axles out of it and whatever. But for all intents and purposes, it was fine. I put it back to stock when I needed to start driving it back and forth between Montana and Southern Oregon on a pretty regular basis.
Speaker: And it just didn't make sense to have it that tall with a 33-inch tire on it anymore. That's 33-inch Yeah, that that car I bought stock, stock.
Speaker: then went to a one-and a halfinch lift then i put forestreer struts on the one and a half inch lift so that's four inches over stocklk And it stayed that way for six or seven years.
Speaker: And then it went to about a nine inch lift. And though those struts were handmade. It didn't have strut spacers on the top. a huge subframe drop spacers and it had braces to go from the subframe up to the unibody. And it was that way for a while and it was fun. Then it went back to the Forrester struts with the one and a half inch lift.
Speaker: And it was that way again for another few years. And then it got the solid axle swap. You know, that car was constantly being played with. It was a good sport and never really complained. First-gen legacies, man. what's What's funny about that car, and and you've seen pictures, is as it sits right now, if I decided to, I could revert it to stock if I wanted to.
Speaker: it would all bolt It would all bolt right back in. Really? Yep. Okay. Oh, I love that. all All the factory subframe hookup points are still there, and they're being utilized in the solid axle conversion. There's...
Speaker: They're still being used just for a different purpose. Yeah, really all I would have to do is find the subframes in a stock transmission put it back together. Now, before you did the whole Toyota running in gear in that, and you were running the 33s, did it have, was it a manual transmission or an auto?
Speaker: oh it was manual. it was Holy crap. It was a standard Subaru five-speed with a 410 final drive. Okay. Really all I did as far as the drive frame was concerned prior to the solid axle swap is I put a turbo legacy rear diff in it so that I could get a limited slip rear diff.
Speaker: Okay. And I played with the suspension a lot, like I just said, but as far as the diffs and the transmission go, they were essentially one hundred percent stock Subaru parts. Did you, I mean, I, I'm guessing that you drove the car within its, uh, well, maybe not, maybe you didn't drive it within its design purpose, but, uh, did you burn clutch trying to run those 33s on the trail?
Speaker: No, no. When, when I did the solid axle swap, I removed the OEM clutch out of that car. whole Holy crap. So it it had 420 something thousand miles on it.
Speaker: And it had spent probably 100,000 miles with a significantly larger tire. And at least several years of its life, it lived in Montana where it was a hunting rig and it was a tow truck and it hauled my kids and the groceries and I used that car to herd cattle on my farm. i mean, it was crazy that that car was everything.
Speaker: it It just did everything. Um, and part of it was because I was too poor to buy anything else. Hey, you got to do what you got to But no, I had a client ask me to build a custom engine for him.
Speaker: He wanted to get as much power out of a naturally aspirated 2.5 as he could possibly get. And so I spent weeks building this engine and thousands of dollars building this engine. And it failed in about 40 miles. And i drove 40 miles from with the Super Subaru and drug him home with a tow rope, went investigating to figure out why it failed. and And I found out pretty quickly why it failed. And it was my fault.
Speaker: What was it? Well, what happened is ah the way that the car was built from the factory, it did not have an oil cooler on it. And after we increased the horsepower as much as we did, I chose to put a factory oil cooler on it, but I used... an oil filter for a non-cooled application.
Speaker: Wrong pressure? or No, different height. So when i screw when I screwed the short oil filter onto the long ah wealth oil filter adapter, it bottomed out and basically starved the engine for oil.
Speaker: Oh, gotcha. OK. And and that was that was my fault. i I just simply did not have that knowledge. prior to that happening.
Speaker: I do now. yes So, so, uh, that cost me a couple thousand dollars. Um, but you know, we, we got them back on there. He's still driving that car that happened in 2012. He's still driving that car.
Speaker: Well, I'm glad you brought that up because one of the topics that I wanted to cover with you was, you know, naturally aspirated Subarus are not known for being drag cars for sure. But across different EJ and, you know, FB platforms, ah are there things that you can do like cam grinds or anything to get a little bit more torque or power out of the cars?
Speaker: Absolutely. And okay you can do it pretty reliably if you're patient and have a little bit of money. So the the engine that I just referred to was in a 2002 Outback.
Speaker: It was an elderly gentleman that was driving from the Bitterroot Valley in Montana down to Elko, Nevada. For working. um It is the better part of 400 something miles.
Speaker: He wanted to set the cruise control and go to sleep. So he wanted the car to be able to climb mountain passes in Montana and Idaho with the cruise control on, which means it needed double the power that it had.
Speaker: and And we didn't achieve that, but we greatly increased its horsepower. So the way that I approached that engine is we did a 30 overbore on it.
Speaker: We went to Wiseco and got some pistons for it, factory crank, factory connecting rods. We did an STI head gasket. We did a mild port and polish on the heads. We did slightly larger valves.
Speaker: We went to Brian Crower Racing and got some springs that were better. Subaru has pretty good springs in their heads from the factory, but these ones were a little bit better. Then we called up Delta Camshaft. I believe they're in Tacoma, Washington, or they were Tacoma, Washington. Yeah, I think so.
Speaker: And we had a set of camshafts made that were basically to the specification of an aircraft. um A lot of people put Subaru engines and aircraft. That's kind of what we used with very, very minimal modification.
Speaker: We also called up Brian Crower and had him make a set of adjustable cam gears so that we could advance the timing just a little bit. Okay. We did phalonic spacers between the block and the intake manifold, and they were made out of a high-density polyethylene.
Speaker: basically just designed to isolate heat from the intake manifold. Okay. It also, one of the byproducts of doing that is you create more volume in your intake manifold. We did a header.
Speaker: We deleted one of the catalytic converters. We put a nice muffler on it. We did a cold air intake and it was a true cold air intake. It had a nice clutch in it, but when it was all said and done, it was 205 horsepower to the wheels in a natural naturally aspirated 2.5 which is that 30 or 40 over yeah it was 30 over okay i mean over stock horsepower Oh, ah stock horsepower for that car was 182. To the crank, though, I think, right? Correct.
Speaker: So to the tires, I don't know, maybe 150. So he picked up about 50 usable horsepower. And in a 3,300-pound car, that's very noticeable. Well, I mean, you're you're getting into like BRZ power territory with that.
Speaker: our Our goal was to meet or exceed... the factory horsepower of a Bugye WRX. And a Bugye WRX is, i think, 220 or 225 or something like that. Subaru advertises that. That's crank horsepower. So I believe we exceeded that. And it's all linear power. There's no you know turbo lag.
Speaker: Yeah, it's all right now. We finished that build in 2012, drove to Elko, Nevada in 2017 to check on him, see how he was doing. Car's still doing good.
Speaker: And he still to this day calls me maybe once every three or four months. Okay. Just to check in He was a good customer. He ended up becoming a very good friend. Yeah, he's he's probably put 200,000 miles on that build since since we did it.
Speaker: I know a lot of people will do the high compression hybrid um build stock heads, I'm guessing. So I guess it depends on what specifically you're talking about. um In the Subaru community, there is a thing that we call the Franken motor. Yes, that's the one, two five with the two O heads.
Speaker: And ah I'm not going to in any way, shape, or form claim that I invented that. But I do think that I am one of the pioneering people to start implementing that regularly.
Speaker: Okay, so we have you to thank for all the wasted research time that I've done on that. Well, I i took some information and I took some experiences from people that had forged that prior to me.
Speaker: And I started doing it very regularly. Okay. And this was 21, 22 years ago. The original Franken motor is a phase one in a first gen legacy. And you take the 2.2 block out and you put in a 2.5 block and put the 2.2 heads on it, bump up the compression a lot.
Speaker: Yeah. And I got to tell you, they are rowdy. They make power. right now and they maintain it all the way through the rpm range it's ridiculously reliable okay and you're you're using off the shelf parts the only downside is you have to run premium fuel yeah to keep from engine knocking yeah i've i've had a few that were you know 11 5 to 1 maybe 12 to i've had a few that were to close to to
Speaker: but they're rowdy. They make power right now. I love that. And ah we're fixing to do that again. I've probably built 40 or 50 over the years, but we're going to do one in Goldie the Super Subaru here pretty soon.
Speaker: Let's go. Now, when you do that, do you need to swap out ECUs? Is there any tuning involved or is it just pretty plug and play? Really, the only thing you're replacing is the short block. You reuse your factory intake manifold and all the sensors, ECU.
Speaker: um And as long as you don't go too wild with shaving the heads, then Everything's fine. I haven't had an issue with any of the ones that I've built. I just tell my clients, run premium fuel, you'll be fine.
Speaker: I haven't heard anything about any failures. And i I think the first one I built was in probably 2003. So it's it's been quite a while.
Speaker: Okay, so you are an OG with the Frankenmotor. Ooh, I love this. i I think that there's some guys... I know that there's guys that did it before me, but I'm probably one of the first to start doing it regularly for my my clientele and for myself. I'm not going to claim that I invented it or that I pioneered this this idea, but once I heard about it, I did it to a personal car and...
Speaker: The guy that I was working for at the time had to have it on his personal car. And we were in Portland, Oregon, where there's 83 billion people. And so it just kind of... And tons of Subarus. Yeah. It just kind of snowballed after that. They make just buckets of power. I mean, it's just a whole different animal. It's a whole different car when you're done.
Speaker: Doesn't matter if you got an automatic or a manual, it really wakes up. If you're driving it like a normal person, you can still achieve phenomenal gas mileage. I think it's good for 40, 45 horsepower. I think a factory EJ22E, like a phase one, is 142 horse. And most of these Franken motors are or living at about 185, give or take. And then if you do Delta camshafts and a lightweight flywheel and a header and you know these things on top of that,
Speaker: You know, you can build on that quite a bit. I was underneath Goldie, the the monster Subaru, about two weeks ago, and it's got 437,000 miles on it, and it's leaking, and I think the rear main seal is leaking pretty bad. That's what it looks like from a brief inspection.
Speaker: So I figured if I'm going to take the engine out to reseal it, I might as well do something hilarious, add some power. Why not? Yeah. Now, are there versions of that? I mean, it it makes sense to do that in a car that came with, you know, a 22 or a 2.0 or whatever. Are there any ways to achieve a similar type of a setup in vehicles that came with a 25 or, you know, a 2.5 liter engine?
Speaker: Well, i've I've done a reverse Frankenmotor before. I've done it twice. ah The first time was because... that's what I could afford.
Speaker: um So what happened in that particular scenario was I had a client that had a 98 or 99 Outback, which is a dual overhead cam 2.5. I hate those engines. It's the EJ25D.
Speaker: They had a ah slight rod knock and some head gasket issues. And at the time, all I had available to me was a two liter short block. And this was a not exactly a charity case, but you know we needed to keep the cost at an absolute bare minimum. We put the two liter block in there and the car ran great. It was smooth as glass.
Speaker: It made absolutely no power until about 3000 RPM. When it hit 3000 RPM, it came alive in a hilarious way. So we lowered the compression probably down to eight and a half to one. So it would have been suitable for a turbo or a supercharger at that point. Okay. i was going to ask about that.
Speaker: But yeah it was we called that affectionately the reverse Frankenmotor. And then I did the same thing again a couple years later.
Speaker: a buddy of mine wanted to put a turbo on a naturally aspirated car, and that's what we did. Just exactly that recipe, the 25D heads on a 20 block.
Speaker: And we put a factory WRX TD04 on it. And it was happy. Didn't really have any issues. The factory ECU ran everything. Really, all we had to do is a rising rate fuel pressure regulator.
Speaker: We put some bigger injectors out of a 300ZX in it because that's what we had. um It did great. okay i mean It wasn't the fastest thing out there, but it was fun. Yeah. And turbo noises.
Speaker: Yeah. It was a good poor man's rally car. Yeah. Well, you know, I was going to ask you about the whole NAT thing. um Can you just slap a turbo on a NA Subaru?
Speaker: Yep. Is that, I mean, I know you obviously are going to need a different subframe. Not necessarily. Really? Okay. The one that I just described, we did not change the subframe. I just handmade a header and an uppipe. Okay.
Speaker: And it was ugly as hell, but it worked. So there's there's a couple different questions there. Can you put a turbo in a natural acid route? Sure. It's just metal. It'll do what I tell it to.
Speaker: But how long is it going to live? And how much boost can you run? Yeah. And and those are different answers. If you're going to stay around three or four PSI, you're probably fine for a while.
Speaker: If you care to go above that, which 99.9% people i do want to achieve, no, it's going to die pretty quick, mostly due to the the compression ratio. You just need to lower it.
Speaker: um and And we're kind of dealing with that right now at our sister shop in Southern California. Our buddy Jose is at least considering, I don't know if he's actually going to do it, swapping the pistons out to lower the compression ratio.
Speaker: But ultimately, that needs to happen. You also need to make sure that the turbo is fed with oil and can get rid of the oil and fed with coolant and can get rid of the coolant.
Speaker: That's pretty easy. Making a header in an uppipe, if you have any amount of fabrication skill, isn't particularly difficult. Aside from that, you know the the factory naturally aspirated ECUs,
Speaker: have a hard time understanding what's going on with manifold pressure and things of that nature. um So doing a piggyback ECU that can handle that kind of stuff or, you know, rising fuel pressure regulators or things like that.
Speaker: There's certainly ways to do it. You know, people have been putting superchargers on stuff for 75 years, if not longer.
Speaker: So, you know, it can be done. It just has to be done right. And it's the same thing I tell everybody. it It doesn't really matter what they're asking. Yeah, we can do that. It just has to be done right if you want it to live for any amount of time.
Speaker: From a mechanical standpoint, what happens if you take an in a motor and you start pumping a bunch of boost? what What physically causes the engine to fail in those cases?
Speaker: Almost 100% time it is combustion chamber pressures and volumes and it will stretch and or break the factory retaining bolts blow head gaskets okay um blow the rings off the top of the piston uh things of that nature it's a pretty consistent failure So if if you had a naturally aspirated engine that you wanted to live at 10 psi of boost, I would suggest that somehow we lower the compression, whether it be by putting different pistons and rods in the car or by putting thicker head gaskets on the car, which Comedic does make.
Speaker: And then in addition to that, going to a company like ARP and getting some proper fasteners. they're They're just better products. The ARP head studs are just a far superior product. I've put them in bone stock naturally aspirated cars just because I think that's a good thing for that particular car. We did it to my brother's 2001 legacy wagon.
Speaker: We happen to have a set that ah a client ordered and never utilized. And you know that's the one that had a some scarring on the heads from transport. So okay we put comedic head gaskets on it and put some ARP head studs on that car. And he drove that thing for probably seven or eight years. His wife was the primary driver. And when it would no longer pass smog in the state of California. He gave it to me or I bought it from him or either way it became mine. And I drove it for a while and then sold it to a kid in Helena, Montana who kept in touch for a while, still doing fantastic.
Speaker: I love that. Now, at first glance, it would seem counterintuitive to lower compression just to add boost.
Speaker: Um, How does that work? How do you make more power? I mean, because again, it's like I said, it sounds counterintuitive. How does that work?
Speaker: Well, i I don't know that I have the absolute correct answer for that. Okay. But I can tell you with some degree of certainty that forced induction drastically increases power.
Speaker: combustion chamber pressures and volumes. And if the engine cannot deal with that pressure and volume, then parts will start to fail.
Speaker: And so what we're doing, you know, a good example is let's just take 2004 Impreza, a factory naturally aspirated single overhead cam 2.5 Impreza just a bare bones, whatever.
Speaker: It's going to have somewhere around 10.5 to 1 compression, give or take a few points. The same car with the turbocharged version is 8.1.
Speaker: Dropping from 10.5 to 8.1 doesn't sound like a huge amount, but it is. And in conjunction with that, when you look at what the turbo or a supercharger is doing is it's providing boost. And the way that boost is measured is in PSI.
Speaker: and So if you're running around 10 PSI or 15 PSI on a WRX or STI or whatever it is, this is atmosphere. So you're taking you're taking a stoichiometric atmosphere, which is whatever the engine can suck in naturally given its components.
Speaker: Now you're force feeding it 10 atmospheres or 15 atmospheres. That pressure is going to do one of two things. It's either they're going to create an enormous amount of power or it's going to create an enormous amount of destruction.
Speaker: And there are there are ways that we can combat that. You know, I i owned a truck for many years that lived happily at 85 PSI, but it was designed to do that. It was it was a Kenworth. kenworth Oh, oh ah a truck truck. okay And it it had a Caterpillar engine in it, and it was a bi-turbo.
Speaker: Caterpillar. It was designed to be there. you know Even under those circumstances, it was very reliable. you know I put two and a half million miles on that truck. you know it It lived at that power level. It was 650 horse, foot pounds of torque. Holy crap. And it lived there its entire life. It's honestly probably still alive.
Speaker: i can't imagine I can't imagine it's met its maker yet. So I guess the the power that's produced through forced induction is more than what you lose in the power that would be delivered from higher compression. Is that that true?
Speaker: Yeah, and and I guess it depends on how you look at it. So you know if you take a WRX and disable its turbocharger, which has happened in our sister shop in Hollywood recently. Okay.
Speaker: Okay. The car is anemic and cannot get out of its own way. Yeah. It's lethargic and produces no smiles. And so, you know, fixing the problem, which was, I think Jose said there were some vacuum lines that were routed incorrectly and the boost control solenoid was misbehaving.
Speaker: But when he when he corrected it, it became a WRX. It became what it was designed to be. But without a turbo, 8 to 1 compression in this particular application,
Speaker: was no fun at all. Now there's lots of things, you know, in history that have been super happy at four to one ratio, five to one seven to one.
Speaker: You know, the the last old Ford truck that I have is probably a six and a half to one compression ratio. I mean, it it wasn't a powerhouse, but it did fine. It was okay. Everything is in a final equation. One plus one equals two, but one by itself is just one. When you have these low compression ratios, there's a reason. you know Back in the day in the 50s, 60s, and even before that that, that was relatively normal. And then as efficiency and emission standards have increased, then compression ratios have risen. And diesels are always two or three times the compression ratio is a gasoline-powered engine. So it just depends on the application, who's making it, what its purpose is.
Speaker: Thanks for the, uh, I just got schooled. I love, uh, I love getting this type of info from you. I got a question about two different mods specifically for Subarus.
Speaker: Um, and I was curious what your thoughts are on them. So you got air oil separators that a lot of people run. And then think I've heard of people doing cylinder four cooling mods, uh, Do either of those really provide any benefit to the average person for reliability and longevity in these vehicles?
Speaker: I'll address the easy one first, the cylinder for a cooling mod. It is always beneficial regardless of how you use the car. And and what were what we are referring to is a turbocharged EJ20 EJ25. That is always beneficial Doesn't matter who's driving it, your grandma or you.
Speaker: The reason that that is beneficial is for whatever reason, ah number four has kind of a bottleneck when it comes to coolant flow.
Speaker: And so what ends up happening is coolant spends much more time in cylinder four than it does anywhere else. That may sound good, but it is not because when coolant sits in any one location for any period of time, it starts to accumulate heat. And that is counterintuitive. That's against what we're trying to achieve. Coolant is designed to cool, which means it needs to move. So the the job of coolant is to gather heat and pull it away into the radiator where it can be cooled.
Speaker: Radiated. Yeah. Yeah. yeah And so the the Cylinder 4 allows a free-flowing path for it to do so. So it is always a good idea. It's never a waste of money.
Speaker: Okay. And is that only for turbo engines or does that apply even to like an NA? Yes is the answer to both. ah so So obviously a turbocharged engine is going to generate a lot more heat. So it is more beneficial in that application.
Speaker: But if you were to choose to do it on a naturally aspirated car, you're not doing any harm. um You're creating a a free path for coolant to flow. I have not done it on a naturally aspirated car. But it can be done. As far as air oil separators go, the only person that can answer that question is the end user.
Speaker: There's a lot of products on the market for a lot of different cars, Subarus are not in a an exclusion, that tout themselves as being mandatory, etc., etc. The way that I see things, and again, i may or may not be correct,
Speaker: but the way that I see things is a air oil separator basically replaces your factory PCV system. If your PCV system is functioning properly and you use your cars to go get your kids from school and take the dog to the vet and go to the grocery store, there is absolutely no reason why you need to spend that money. If your car sees heavy track use with heavy side-to-side loads and forward-to-back G-forces,
Speaker: And things of that nature, yeah, it's beneficial. When I build a race car, that is part of the equation. I don't build race cars every day. i've yeah I've built five or six.
Speaker: You basically have to view that as a replacement of the PCV system. And the PCV system on a factory Subaru that is doing factory Subaru things is completely adequate.
Speaker: It is part of maintenance. You need to be checking and replacing your PCV valve just like you do your air filters and your oil changes and your tires and things like that. It is a consumable item.
Speaker: It is not something that is designed to last forever. If you were to put air oil separator on a turbocharged WRX that is not raced or sees track days, you're adding cost and complexity to a vehicle that can't really justify it, but you're not hurting you're not hurting anything.
Speaker: Okay. So if it makes you happy, go for it. I get that specific question probably once every two months. The first thing i tell people i ask people is, how do you use the car? And the last time I was asked that question was by a 79-year-old man in northern Tennessee,
Speaker: And there is no circumstance in which I can think of where he could justify that cost. So the answer to him specifically was, no, you don't need to do that. Now, if it was you or me and we were building a rally car and it was going to see heavy use at high temperatures, sure, go for it.
Speaker: um You know, it's not going to make or break yet There's cheap ones out there. There's even the really nice ones are not particularly expensive. So So, I mean, a ah PCV valve, it's positive crankcase ventilation, right? The purpose of a PCV valve is to ventilate crankcase pressure.
Speaker: We live in a world in which anything that comes up to temperature or exceeds its static temperature expands. So the the pressures inside the crankcase after you've let the car sit overnight and it's cold or is zero. But if you're going to push the car really hard in Phoenix, Arizona, those temperatures and pressures are a lot more. And if that pressure didn't have anywhere to go,
Speaker: it would push the rear main seal out of the car or the front main seal or the cam seals or any other number of seals it would push out of the car. I've done it. It's not pleasant. So the PCV is designed to be a one-way valve that allows these gases to escape the crankcase and be reintroduced into the intake manifold.
Speaker: Now, back in the day, they just had a tube that went straight to the ground. And it would just poop that shit out right onto the ground. Yeah, just vent to atmosphere. Yes. Now this becomes more important under forced induction applications that see heavy side loads and heavy g-forces and prolonged high temperatures it becomes more important so what the aos is designed to do is to give that system a freer path to vent it accumulates the oil so that it is not being reintroduced into the intake manifold because under race car type conditions the pcv valve
Speaker: would be overworked and would at some point end up just dumping oil into the intake manifold, which in small amounts isn't that big of a deal, but over the course of a long period of time and in high amounts is going to cause a lot of buildup in the intake manifold, which is going to be a reduction of horsepower. And, you know, it's,
Speaker: get a buildup on the back of the valves, which is not good for them. And yeah, uh, it's going to eventually end, uh, in blue smoke coming out the tailpipe. Every time I talk to you, always get a good, ah a good dump of information. I love it.
Speaker: Well, I, I, I hope that you understand that the way that I explain things is the way that I understand things. And I don't claim to know everything. I will never, um I will spend the rest of my life learning But as i of us as I understand the way the system works, that is it. Dude, I got so many silly things I could pick your brain about, but I wanted to ask you about two things in particular.
Speaker: Fuel grade. Is there any benefit for most people if their car calls for just regular unleaded? Is there any benefit to them putting premium or plus in the car? I think that that question is going to have a different answer for every person you ask.
Speaker: I typically tend to put in the car what is recommended. So, for example, my 25 Outback Wilderness is a turbocharged car, but Subaru designed it to run on regular gas. Is putting premium in it any better for it?
Speaker: Maybe. Maybe. Am I going to notice it? Probably not. The twin turbo Subaru that I currently own was designed to run on 95 or 97. We can't buy that at the pumps here.
Speaker: So I put 93 in it and it's fine. Could it be better? sure ah Would it be better if I put ah an Octane booster in there? Probably. I don't drive the car hard. It's a daily driver for me. I'm a fat guy sipping his coffee going to work.
Speaker: ah It rarely sees significant amounts of boost. So it's it's not really that big of a deal. The biggest difference between RON ratings, the Octane ratings, its ability to deter pinging.
Speaker: Yeah, or pre-detonation. Yeah, if it's not pinging, I mean, you know, this this answer really depends on on the vehicle. You know, if if you've got a race car and...
Speaker: super high compression and, you know, it it needs to perform at its best, then sure, spend the money. But most of us are going to get coffee and beer and go to work and just doing our thing.
Speaker: Most of the time, they're going to be fine under most parameters. So fuel additives, yes, they're fantastic. um I use three different fuel additives in the shop depending on what I'm trying to accomplish. Seafoam makes...
Speaker: an amazing product. ah Liquid Molly is even better. Okay. um And then Lucas fuel additives are wonderful products.
Speaker: And basically what these things are doing is, is trying to break up carbon deposits on top of your valves and clean out your injectors, anything else that fuel touches, it's going to clean. It's good.
Speaker: Just make sure that you're putting this stuff in on a full tank because it is heavily concentrated. And if you put it in on a quarter tank, you will burn up the fuel pump in your 1998 Tacoma.
Speaker: Interesting. um I wonder how you would know that specific information. It's a good guess. As far as the stop leak products, it doesn't matter where you're putting it. Transmission stop leak, power steering stop leak, oil stop leak. I will not use it. I do not think that they have a place.
Speaker: um They do not work in my experience. The head gasket stop leak is a very particular thing for me.
Speaker: If I come to the conclusion that a car that I'm working on has head gasket stop leak in it, um one of two things happen. Either I stop working on the car or everything that it has touched gets replaced.
Speaker: And I mean... everything and i've had that happen a couple times one of which was three weeks ago i had a guy in a dodge truck come in and said he put that garbage in his radiator to stop a radiator leak and i asked him what is this stuff designed to do and he said stop a leak and i said i need you to be more specific And he said, it's designed to plug a hole. I said, exactly.
Speaker: What do you think it's going to do? Going to plug holes in your heater core and your thermostat and the coolant passages in your cylinder heads and inside your block and in your water pump and in your radiator. It is just destruction in a bottle. If I get a car that comes in with head gasket issues and they have done that,
Speaker: I tell them they are buying a motor or they can go somewhere else. There's just no two ways about it. I've found some glitter in an engine before that shouldn't have been there and, uh, had a whole lot of fun cleaning it all out. Hmm.
Speaker: Well, and and that's the thing is you never do. it It doesn't matter how many times you flush it and they don't make a wire brush that is long enough and fine enough to get that out. It is something that will be in there until it is melted down and recycled.
Speaker: And it's garbage. And I think it is criminal to sell that stuff because not only does it not do what it's advertised to do, for more than a few minutes, but it destroys everything it's touched.
Speaker: And you know that's one of the things, if I'm going to look at a ah car to buy, if it has any of that in there, I don't even say goodbye. I'm in the car and gone. yeah yeah is Do not pass go.
Speaker: Hey, let me, since you, since you just mentioned that briefly, we talked on the phone a little bit about, um, just a quick checklist for people, you know, let's say they can't get a PPI on a car.
Speaker: They got 20 minutes to kind of look a Subaru over. What are some top level items that the average person can look for in a vehicle to make sure that they're not buying something that's just going to leave them on the side of the road?
Speaker: Yeah. ah So the way that I do this, and it might be right, it might be wrong, but it's what I do. If I plan on coming to see you to buy a car, I tell you I'm going to be there at 5 o'clock.
Speaker: Show up early. And I show up at 4. And I tell you explicitly, I want the car cold. I do not want it warmed up. I don't want you driving it around the block and getting everything circulated prior to me being there.
Speaker: I want the car ice cold. And if it isn't, I'm not coming. ah That's non-negotiable. And I have walked away from dozens of purchases under those parameters.
Speaker: If the car is cold and I get there, I do a cold start and I want to hear for a rod knock. I want to hear for piston slap, which is a Subaru-specific problem.
Speaker: Oh, yeah. Rod knocks apply to everything. And I want to watch the car come up to temperature. I want to see how quickly it does it. If it does it in a ridiculously fast manner, then I can assume that it doesn't have a thermostat in it. And I want to know why.
Speaker: If it doesn't an appropriate amount of time, then I can assume that the cooling system is pretty healthy. During initial startup, I have my wife look at the tailpipe of the car. She knows what to look for. If it's blue smoke or purple smoke or however you want to describe that shade of azure, then... Yeah, any oil blow by.
Speaker: then we can assume that it's burning oil. And that isn't necessarily a deal breaker because a PCV valve can introduce oil into the combustion chamber. Leaky valves, seals, and stems can also do that. And that's a pretty significant repair. I also tend to look, I always ask the sellers where they park the car at night. you know I look around to see if there's spots on the ground from leaking.
Speaker: um
Speaker: And prior to it getting hot, um take the radiator cap off, look at it, see if there's any residue from oil or head gasket sealers or anything like that on there.
Speaker: I will typically pull the oil fill cap off. It tends to collect moisture. If there's a blown head gasket, you're going to see, you know, milkshake on the bottom of the oil cap. Obviously pull the dipstick, check the condition of the oil. That's usually the first thing I do because if they have added a lot of oil recently, it will separate.
Speaker: So you'll see clean oil for quarter of an inch and then dirty oil for an inch or whatever. So i'll I'll look at that. And then moving on to the rest of the car, I'll do a brake stand.
Speaker: If it's rear-wheel drive car, I'll do a brake stand. And okay that's kind of an indication that the transmission is capable of transferring power adequately and isn't slipping or has other internal failures. It kind of leads you to believe that the engine is healthy and capable of producing the power that you would expect out of it.
Speaker: On a test drive, I listen for wheel bearings, noises coming out of the suspension and struts, things of that nature, ah just the the overall condition of the car.
Speaker: And then this is going to sound weird, but if I'm buying from a private party, I look at their house and the way a man keeps, or a woman, who keeps their house is indicative of how they keep their cars. And I learned that from my grandfather who owns, I don't know how many houses in Los Angeles.
Speaker: And while he is interviewing the potential renter and in taking their information, grandma goes outside and looks in their car. As a renter or a homeowner that is renting a home, you can, with some degree of certainty, assume that the way that they keep their car is how they're going to keep your home and vice versa.
Speaker: You know, these are very personal spaces. um And the same thing applies to selling. You know, if if I can make the home feel or if I can make the car feel like it's yours and you're comfortable there, there's chances are I'm going to sell you that car.
Speaker: Can't say that I've ever seen um really nice, well-maintained vehicles parked in front of ah a junk house. Now that I think about it, so that's not a bad tip. Yeah.
Speaker: It is surprisingly accurate. um So my wife and I owned a home in California for a while that we rented out. And we did the same thing.
Speaker: And against our better judgment, we agreed to rent a home to a couple whose car was just an absolute nightmare. And they cost us about $700,000. need a here. happened?
Speaker: i need a side trail here what happened They destroyed my home. Oh my God. How, uh, what did they do? Light it on fire? No, they, they beat the hell out of each other in the house. They broke windows. They threw each other down the flights of stairs.
Speaker: They started growing marijuana on the property, which ruined the nice lawn. they ended up having to be forcibly removed by, uh, not the police. Oh,
Speaker: So what you're saying is they were a very well-adjusted functional couple. Exactly. Forcible removes or removal is sometimes necessary.
Speaker: Okay, i got a couple other quick lightning round questions for you. The average person I find is very mystified by working on vehicles. What are some things, what are some jobs on these cars specifically that people can do to dip their toes in? For me, it was brakes. I did brakes and was like, oh, I thought this was some magic spell that had to take place. But after I did it, I was like, man, I can conquer the world.
Speaker: it's It's interesting you would say that because I would say that's the last thing I would tell a novice to work on. It is a very important component. but Out of all the systems on a car, they are the most important.
Speaker: That being said, i i do agree with you. They... They are relatively easy to get your hands on. But if you make a mistake simply out of not having knowledge, it can be it can be fatal. So you know I had a young man walk into the shop maybe two weeks ago.
Speaker: And i I think he just turned 18. And he's mystified and enchanted by all things automotive, which is how I started. And I assume is how you started.
Speaker: And he said, what's the best way to get into this? And I said, go get dirty and break shit, but do it in an environment in which you are not putting the general public at risk or yourself at risk.
Speaker: And that is exactly how I started. You know, i I started turning wrenches technically at like three or four years old. I was in the garage. I doubt helping is the right word.
Speaker: But I was in the garage with my father and I had my hands in and on and under absolutely everything. And he at the time had the patience to allow me to be a part of that and entertain my curiosity.
Speaker: And I think at six or seven years old, he gave me a carburetor and a little tray of tools and I took the damn thing apart. And his response initially was shock that I got it all apart.
Speaker: And his secondary response was put it back together. And I- The hard part. I kind of did o okay. I guarantee I made mistakes, but I've had my toes in a lot of industries over my lifetime. And I've had to learn a lot of trades and I've had to learn a lot of skills.
Speaker: Ultimately, at the end of the day, A human being learns things differently than his brother or his friend or his mother or anybody else.
Speaker: My little brother Aaron, if you put his butt cheeks into a desk at high school, he goes to sleep and he doesn't learn a thing. But if his knuckles are bleeding and he's sweating and he's inventing curse words, you better believe he is proficient and he has learned he's learned everything he needs to know. And I'm kind of a combination of the both. I can learn ah anecdotally and through the experiences of others and by watching things and learning things from instructors.
Speaker: and I learn things with my hands. It just depends on who you are and and and what works for you. But you know the young man that came into the shop a couple of weeks ago, I told him, go get dirty. He's got a BMW. They're broken down every other day. so he he has endless opportunities to learn.
Speaker: So get in there and figure out what is wrong, why it's wrong, what you can do to remedy that. And that is exactly what I did. I purchased my first vehicle. i was 14 and a half years old.
Speaker: It had a bad transmission and I had nobody around that cared to teach me how to do anything like that. I took the damn thing apart and did what I thought was rebuilding it, put it back in the truck. It did not work. I took it out again and I rebuilt it again and I put it back in and it still didn't work. And the third time I Approached the problem.
Speaker: And I learned. And when it was all said and done, the third time was the charm. And that truck took me to my freshman year of high school and all of these things. It was...
Speaker: A very painful and bloody and sweaty learning experience. But that's what worked for me and my little brother at the time. um Our other brother, Tommy, ah I know that he tinkered a lot with stuff, but he kind of just watched us do stupid stuff and learned from us and has, by default, become very proficient.
Speaker: That's the best way to learn. I made all the bad decisions in my family, so my ah so my siblings got to watch. Oh, this is what happens when you do stupid stuff.
Speaker: Yeah, but would it when it's happening, they don't want to listen. I'm doing this for you. Yeah. I'm being bad for your benefit. Exactly. No, they don't get it. Now, to be fair, the brakes, I did do that with the help of a knowledgeable friend that was going through auto tech school. So I didn't kill anybody, but that was my introduction to wrenching. Yeah. After, um, I sold my first vehicle, which was a Chevrolet Blazer.
Speaker: I bought a Toyota pickup. I think I was 16. And it was a lowrider. It had been body dropped and yeah big basically couldn't get anywhere.
Speaker: Rode like hell, I'm guessing. Yeah. I got stuck in my mother's driveway, which was embarrassing. So i I went through the effort of returning the truck to stock by myself with no knowledge. The internet was not a thing back then. I just...
Speaker: had to figure it out and so i did and then i got it stuck while out playing with my buddies and so then it became a lifted two-wheel drive toyota pickup with a mud terrain tire and then i got it stuck again and then it became a four-wheel drive toyota pickup oh let's go And then I got it stuck again and and couldn't do what I wanted to do. And then it ended up having one ton Chevrolet axles and triple transfer cases and all this crazy stuff. And at one point was probably one of the more capable four wheel drive vehicles in Northern California. Heck yeah.
Speaker: But, you we were doing this in a day and age where we couldn't, buy parts online and we couldn't Google how to get a long travel suspension on your Toyota pickup.
Speaker: It was just me and my brothers experimenting with stuff that we found in the junkyard and, uh, what worked worked and what didn't got put in the trash and that's all we could afford to do. you know, we, we had time and we had a welder, but we didn't have money.
Speaker: That's all you need, man. Time and a welder and some duct tape, man. Yeah. Yeah. There, there was a point in which I thought that I was a pretty good welder and I ended up having to secure the front axle to my truck with vice grips and drive it home.
Speaker: And did you break a a control arm mount? It was when I converted the truck to four wheel drive, I did a solid axle swap and,
Speaker: And I did this at 16 years old. And, uh, I had a little welder that I had bought from Napa auto parts and, and I could lay a pretty nice bead. So I thought I was hot shit.
Speaker: And, ah Beads don't look as good when they're not connected anymore because they didn't penetrate at all. Not hot enough. Yeah. So those of your listeners that live in Northern California probably know of Folsom Lake.
Speaker: and And I broke the front axle off the truck. in Folsom Lake, which you're not supposed to drive in.
Speaker: But we vice-scripted on and I limped it home and then i I took some more welding classes and I learned how to be better at what I was doing. And and that, i think, is the biggest takeaway is it doesn't matter how good you are, you can be better.
Speaker: Oh, You cannot and should not expect anybody else to push you to that excellence. If you are not constantly striving to know more and learn more and be more proficient at what you're doing, you're failure as a technician and you're failure as an automotive enthusiast. this drive for progression and becoming more than what you are doesn't just apply to the automotive world. I think it is applicable everywhere and and should be should be. And that's one of the things, you know, the young men that have come to me over the years and wanted to learn, that's that's one of the things that I tell them. And not a lot of them take that advice.
Speaker: um That's one of the things I love about Jose that works in the Hollywood shop. He's a sponge. He can't get enough. He needs more and more and more. He wants to know everything.
Speaker: I love that. I think my biggest fear is there's going to be a day where he has a question I don't have an answer for. And at that point, he and I are going to have to learn together. But yeah this this constant growth is what makes us better as people and as mechanics and car enthusiasts and whatever you want to say. doesn't matter if you're a stock broke broker. doesn't matter It doesn't matter if you're a marketing agency owner. You can always learn more.
Speaker: And i mean, even even just if you're a dad, you can always be a better dad. You can always learn to be a better husband, whatever it is. that's um yep that is the truth.
Speaker: What are the basic tools that an entry-level person who's like, okay, i want to at least know how to fix something that breaks. What are some specifically for Subarus?
Speaker: what are the What are the first things they should go out and buy? 10 millimeter, 12 millimeter, 14 millimeter, 17, 19, 21. And you can take a Subaru down to its bare core. Is the axle nut, is that a 21 or is it bigger? No, no, it's, it isn't.
Speaker: But you know for the the basic person, they're not really going to have a need to get in there. But a quality set of screwdrivers, a quality set of pliers and ah cutters,
Speaker: and then 99% Subaru you can address with
Speaker: yeah ah the The crank pulley's 22, and i think the axle nuts are 32. But aside from that, Subaru's really good about being consistent with their sizing. You know, i've I've had this conversation with employees over the years, and you know, you get these young kids out of WyoTech or out Yavapai Community College here in Prescott, and or any other training program. And they think that they need to go get a hundred thousand dollars worth of snap on tools or Mac tools and yeah, in whatever. And, you know, to be completely honest, I'm,
Speaker: a fairly successful shop owner and technician and i have stuff in my box from harbor freight and from sears me too actually there's some auto zone sockets in there it's fine you know if they do the job then they do the job you the last time i had this conversation was a young man that i hired I told him I was going to go buy him tools and that was going to be my cost. And I was going to take him to Harbor Freight.
Speaker: And he wanted to suggest otherwise. course he did. He's not paying. it Yeah, yeah. So what I told him at the time is, let's take a look at this 14 millimeter socket I have right here. and the And the one that I had at the time happened to be a snap-on socket.
Speaker: which I do not think is the best tool on the market, but they're a nice tool. That socket is probably $35 or $40 by itself. And so i I told him the way that he needs to think of buying tools is how long is it going to take for me to pay for that tool before it becomes a moneymaker? Yeah. where Where's your breakeven point?
Speaker: Yeah, and in with a $35 or $40 socket, it's going to be a couple weeks or a couple months before that thing is actually paid for itself and is now just an asset for you.
Speaker: Harbor Freight, the same socket is $0.10. Yeah. which Which means the first time you use it, it has already paid for itself. And now everything after that is gravy for you. And there was a time in which Harbor Freight was just trash. And when you were done with a job, you put it all in the trash can.
Speaker: Today, the They're nice tools. It's surprisingly good. i don't have any complaints. And I will tell you, since Whiskey Row Automotive has been open, I have broken more snap-on sockets than I have Harbor Freight. It's not even close.
Speaker: They've really stepped up their game. I've been going there for about 15 years, and it's not what it used to be. Yeah. So, you know, it's, if, if you're going to get into the industry, the, the best advice I can give you is go find an old man that knows what he's talking about and has been there and done that.
Speaker: You know, i I had a cousin get into the industry and he had good credit and he had a good down payment and he bought like a $25,000 snap on toolbox. You know, I, I hate to say it, your toolbox doesn't make you any money.
Speaker: Your toolbox, your toolbox doesn't fix cars. It holds the tools that do that for you. ah you know I've been in this industry since 1998. I have a Harbor Freight toolbox.
Speaker: I'm not ashamed of it at all. Yeah, same. I didn't put my family in debt to buy that. And that isn't a generational debt that my kids are going to have to pay for when I die. To be completely honest, I don't think it's a whole lot.
Speaker: I don't think a Mac box or a Snap-on box is a whole lot nicer. Yeah, it's it's pretty crazy when I go in there and look at the stuff now. It's going to a Harbor Freight. I mean, is it the top of the line stuff?
Speaker: No. Is it going to get the job done? Absolutely. Most of the time, yeah. I've had a Harbor Freight engine crane. I bought it when I was, I got it as a gift when I was 21 years old. I bet you it's pulled 10,000 engines.
Speaker: You still got it? Yep. I used it today. I used it today. um Any reason why somebody should have 12 point sockets when working on a Subaru? On a Subaru?
Speaker: Yeah. I'm trying to think if there's any 12 point. There is. There definitely is. um the The bolts that hold the case halves together and the head bolts are 12 point.
Speaker: Oh, that's right. Aside from that, No, not really. um some of Some of the cars had 12 points on the front differentials, but I've been playing with Subarus for decades, and I've got into a front differential twice.
Speaker: so Okay. Yeah, it's pretty rare to open the open the transmissions up. Yeah, they they did 12 points on the flywheels, for the dual mass flywheel.
Speaker: And they only did that for a few months, honestly. And then they went over to a Torx bit, which I hate, and I wish they hate them. But ah even that was pretty short-lived. Okay. And then they went back to a single mass flywheel and then ultimately just eliminated the manual transmission for most of the vehicles.
Speaker: Yep. Which brings us to today. I meant to ask you about this the last time. Shop horror stories. I need to hear some of the craziness that you've done.
Speaker: shop horror stories. So Les Schwab Tires, Auburn, California. Store A39. Sorry about that. Burned into that.
Speaker: They had old school in-ground hydraulic lifts that bled off and did not have locks on them. And if you weren't paying attention, they would crush anything under them.
Speaker: ah That was a horror story. Most of the horror I can attribute to the owner and manager of that store, who is a particularly disgusting human being.
Speaker: ah had a ah really gross shop in Tennessee. um It was condemnable. Absolutely freezing in the winter and guys at risk of having a heat stroke in the summer.
Speaker: Yikes. the Leaks in the roof when it rained, which is all day every day in Tennessee. Horrible management. So horror stories mean like maybe the business or injuries? So one of the first things you told me about was, uh, you know, i know we touched briefly on you just manhandling transmissions out of cars, but I know you've had a couple instance, ah instances of serious injuries underneath cars. I need to hear those.
Speaker: I've broken everything I own. not all of it has been automotive related, but I think a particularly horrific one was, uh,
Speaker: I caught a Subaru automatic transmission to the face. I was in the hospital for a couple weeks over that. i fractured my skull, broke my jaw. I lost all of my teeth on the right side of my face, broke my eye socket, and had to get 12 surgeries over the course of about 10 years to correct all that.
Speaker: So now as a result, all the teeth on the right side of my face are artificial. My right jawbone is a a cadaver bone that had to be graphy grafted in And there's a plate in my head from that.
Speaker: So metal detectors are not your thing. ah it's It's interesting. um Oddly enough, i I do travel quite a bit and I've only been asked about it two or three times.
Speaker: Okay. TSA, typically they see it as a some sort of implant in and just disregard it. How did you survive that? If you were, I'm guessing you were knocked unconscious, how did you manage to get out of that situation?
Speaker: yeah i i had a good friend at the time who happened to be a medical doctor and he had a habit of coming over on the evenings a couple times a week on his way home from work and you know we'd have a beer and hang out and he would give me stitches if i needed them and he happened to show up that evening and he found me in a pool of my own blood underneath a 1996 Legacy Brighton wagon.
Speaker: Ugly green color. It was green. Of course it was. And so he drug me out and administered first aid and ultimately ended up calling for reinforcements.
Speaker: But the skull fracture in the plate in the back of my head was a fairly significant undergoing and and challenging to deal with the the jawbone and the teeth weren't much better um i didn't have any teeth on the lower right side of my face until november of 23 so i was about 10 years with no teeth over there that's absolutely crazy
Speaker: yeah must have felt uh life-changing to get them back get something put back in there man it was kind of uncomfortable honestly yeah i chipped my front tooth a few years ago and i remember even just that little chip i was like what is going on in my mouth yeah yeah yeah you can't ignore it But there were so many phases of the reconstruction for me.
Speaker: I'd get used to it for maybe a year before something would happen because they had to let bone heal and before they could proceed. And so it was just a very long process.
Speaker: But the initial injury, they vacuumed my jaw out of my face. it was Holy crap. It was broken in so many places, it was easier for them to just vacuum it out.
Speaker: How long, i mean, obviously you're unconscious, but how long do you think you were under there before he happened to stumble upon you? No idea. i i couldn't tell you.
Speaker: i don't know what time it was when it happened, and I don't know what time it was, you know, when when he took me in, so... it's crazy how that works man you know what are the odds i mean i know he was a regular visitor but you know that's something to be thankful for you know yeah yeah there's there's been a huge amount of injury over the years most of it pertains to my hands i broke my pointer finger last week for probably the 30th time
Speaker: just casually broke my point what the heck happened man uh i have the hearse at the shop right now my My wife has a Cadillac funeral hearse.
Speaker: Perfect. I'm redoing all the suspension, so I was trying to press bushings out. That wasn't working, so I went to the air hammer and ended up just putting the air hammer right through my finger, so... No, thank you.
Speaker: Oh, dude. Well, i when I started my career, I was an alignment technician. And alignment guys, if they're doing their job, they're breaking their fingers constantly.
Speaker: you just You end up punching the bottom of a car really hard. yeah I mean, it it's it's just part of the game. and And my back is... is just destroyed because, I was young, poor, and stupid. and And that's a bad combination.
Speaker: Cause I, I've been there. Yeah. i I couldn't afford an engine crane when I was a teenager. So I'd just bear hug an engine and pick it up. And, you know, it,
Speaker: It was fine back then, but I'm paying for it now. it's Yeah. it It worked when it worked, but there's ah there's an expensive price to be paid for stuff like that.
Speaker: Yeah. yeah yeah All things considered, i I mean, you get your bumps and bruises and your broken fingers. That's to be expected. And it you know if you're doing your job, that's normal.
Speaker: Aside from that, I've been pretty lucky. I could have been far better off considering the frequency and oddity of some of the things that I do. Yeah.
Speaker: But, you know, especially looking back to when me and my brothers were building rock crawlers in our driveway. Yeah. I should have, could have, would have died a million times. But, you know, we fortunately were a observant and and learned from near misses.
Speaker: We're all still here. Let's go. Oh, man. Well, let me land the plane because I think we're going on two hours and 45 minutes. Yeah, no problem, man.
Speaker: thanks for doing this again, man. I'm, I can't tell you how, yeah, I can't tell you how happy I am. We connected, uh, you've quickly become one of my favorite people. Um, so thanks for taking, taking time out of your schedule. You know, you run a business, so I know your time is, uh, not, um, not something you got a lot to throw a lot of to throw around. So thank you.
Speaker: Yeah. Anytime. And, uh, you can see, uh, ah my The better looking half of our business arrangement, if you get a hold of Bill, and he is far more entertaining than I am and just as knowledgeable. So yeah he would be just an absolute blast. You'll you'll love him.
Speaker: i need to I need to make that happen. I know he's a busy guy too, but... He is. Yeah, he's he's doing great stuff. He's doing wonderful things for his community and the car culture, and I think he's got a lot of really awesome things coming up here pretty soon, so...
Speaker: I know you hinted at that, so I'm excited to... I haven't asked Tim about it or anything. I want to be as surprised as the rest of everybody, but looking forward.
Speaker: Yeah, it's always a good idea to let the artist reveal the artwork, so... Yeah. Heck, yeah. I did see that crazy SVX that he had in the shop, though, that... Yeah.
Speaker: That yeah little safari build. That thing is sick. Yeah. And it's it's proven itself to be an incredible vehicle. so Where are you guys located at? We're in Prescott Valley, Arizona.
Speaker: um have Been in the industry since 98 in a bunch of different states. But for now, we're here. And we're happy. yeah we're happy Perfect. And where are you guys located in the digital world?
Speaker: in the digital world? You can reach me at whiskeyrowauto at gmail.com. We are on Instagram. I think the handle is at whiskeyrowauto.
Speaker: And in addition to that, we have a website. It is whiskeyrow-auto.com. Perfect. And then I got, I got one more question I got to ask you. You mentioned to me, you called me on the phone. I was having a rough time.
Speaker: and you called me to check in. I really appreciated that. But you did mention that somebody is trailering their Forester all the way out to you. Have you seen that car yet?
Speaker: ah It did arrive. It has been fixed and it has gone back home. Let's go, man. I love that. Yeah. So you had somebody from Oregon. They listened to the last podcast, trailered that sucker out to you.
Speaker: was the Portland, Oregon, Vancouver, Washington area. And yeah, they they sent the car down here. That is impressive. Oh, that makes me so happy. Yeah. No, it was it was good. And and ultimately, the the good news they're happy with the repairs. Yeah.
Speaker: I haven't heard from him since, which is good in this industry. I was going to say, it's usually a good thing. Same in the medical industry. If you don't hear anything, that's a plus. It means you did your job. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, that was great. And I've had one guy come down from Montana, but he was a previous client from when I lived up there. so Okay. Well, yeah, I just want to encourage everybody to follow you guys. And if they're within driving distance or trailering distance, this guy knows what he's doing when when it comes to Subas. So, heck, yeah, i man. Well, thanks again, dude. did Seriously, always a highlight of my week when we get to chat.
Speaker: Yeah, anytime, man.
