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Talos is an online trailer sharing marketplace. Stoked to help build that marketplace and maybe contribute or use a trailer soon. Welcome to a new segment of the Slip Angle podcast. Today we're on the line with Rob Fields and of course Adam Jubay. And what we're going to be talking about are things that make your life difficult when you're going to the track. So the segment is going to be recurring and it's going to be called Why Is My Life So Hard with Adam Jubay.
And I think I think the first reason is why is my life so hard is that we chose the hobby that might be one of the harder hobbies. And Rob chose it professionally. So maybe the first reason why Rob's life is so hard is you chose to work in cars. But I chose this. Yeah, I had the no chance of escaping it, Gene, I think. Yeah. Yeah. The whirlpool was already swirling when Rob jumped in as a babe. My mom was.
flagging at mid Ohio while eight months pregnant with me. So I was at mid Ohio before I was born. Probably the first thing you kicked was like the handrail of like an unpainted stewards box long ago. Probably. Yeah, we're going there in a few weeks. Yeah, probably got bit by a rat, kicked a splintery handrail in a place, you know, middle of Ohio where somebody waves a flag. So a lot of bad things over there, but a great racetrack. It is a great racetrack. They redid some of it now, but anyway. Yeah, I'm looking forward to feeling a few of the new surfaces and throw a little bit of a mini festival there. It should be fun. I have one topic, Rob. Topic number one, off the top of my head, is tools. You have a lot of tools. I've stolen a few from you at racetracks. Do you have a tool prep strategy for events?
supporting cars and working on cars and you know being the bigger rig you you get asked about tools i'm sure so absolutely i think um the the overall strategy so to speak is we have um kind of a master set of tools that go with us um kind of independent of what car what equipment whatever's going and then we try to prep car specific tool sets um so we have bins that are you know all right the the sunday cup mini is going and We know, you know, it's this size axle nut and these kind of fasteners and this type of whatever. So along with the parts we throw in for spares and whatnot, we have car-specific tool sets that deal with us. That's a great idea. I like that idea. Well, you know, when you have...
one car or one platform to support your master set and your car specifics that are kind of the same. Um, we're in that little bit more unique position of, um, you know, we've got a mix of German, American, uh, Japanese, all kinds of different cars that we're taking to the track and supporting, and we have to prepare for all of them. Um, and then separate from that, I think, you know, the, the other part of the strategy, so to speak, is, um, we, we tend towards, um, Generally speaking, spending a little bit more upfront for a little bit nicer tool, get the longevity out of it. It's one thing when you're in the shop at home and you break a cheap tool and go, oh no, all right, well, I'm done for the night. I got to go pick up another one of these tomorrow kind of thing. It's a whole other ballgame when you're at the side of the racetrack or on the side of the highway or whatever the case may be. And the penalty for that is much higher. I imagine the penalty feels even higher too when somebody's paying you to work in your car. So when you're talking about car-specific tools and you mentioned the fit specifically, what's in that toolkit?
Or the Mini. Yeah, it depends a little bit on the prep level of the car as well, right? So like the Mini being a Sunday Cup car, it does not have a lot of custom performance parts on it. Custom, I shouldn't even say custom, it really doesn't even have that many performance parts on it. Like coilovers, right? Right, and yeah, coilovers and the exhaust and obviously the roll cage and all that stuff. But so from a tool perspective, that's really, you know, we prepped the same way we would think about just being able to service the factory car. And so that one's a pretty short list.
You know, the long list start when you get into cars that have really extensive levels of prep. Yeah, like Colton's LS7 E46 wide-body GLTC car probably has some things. Yeah, it's got a few. Does that have some custom tools? Like, oh, the number four header bolt needs to cut off half-inch wrench kind of thing? Yeah, we've got a bunch of that kind of stuff where it's shop-made tools. Bend up a few wrenches to make things easier kind of thing.
Exactly, exactly. The one that just sticks out in my mind the most there is that car has an oil priming gear on the oil filter reservoir. It's like a Peterson setup with like a weird little hex thing. Yeah, super trick, real easy. You know, if you haven't started the car in a while, you just put a drill, not an impact, a drill on that and spin it up to get some oil pressure before you fire the car up. But we have a socket and universal that are designated just for that, that go in the tool bin for that car. So you can't be without it kind of thing.
Right. But and then when we get into like our cardinals and stuff like that, those cars use a lot of circle track stuff. You know, the thread in ball joints and stuff like that. And those all have custom sockets that the manufacturer provides. All right. Well, maybe the last question that I have on the topic is what is something that you always pack that you never need? That's a great question. Every time we've packed a welder, we haven't needed it. And a few times when we haven't packed it, we did.
Yeah, that's one thing. What's the weirdest thing you've been asked about? Like, do you have this or that? I guess somebody asked you for a really dumb tool. That's a great question. I think, you know, I don't, I want to say yes, but I also think every time that somebody's asked us for something obscure, we had it for some reason. I'm trying to think of the weirdest thing that somebody has like came up to our like pit office and been like, can you ask if anybody over the PA, if anybody has a this and I, and there's a thing, but I can't remember what it is.
The one that will stick out in my mind is somebody asked us if we had a fender roller and we did. That was a good one. Oh yeah. Yeah. Somebody's asked me about a fender roller many times. There's like a special tool for some BMW thing that I've been asked about multiple times. And I'm like, I don't even know what that is, but I've heard of it and I have to Google it. And then I asked about it over the PA or something, but I forget what it is now. Maybe, maybe it's a Honda thing. I don't know. But there's a lot of specialty tools out there. Specialty stages of problem. Festival this year where someone asked for like a, a really specialized.
like Miata BP head. Like it had to be freshly, freshly machined and decked or something like that. And they were like, I think I want to say we have definitely made more than one, like a friend and like a sale of a head. Cause somebody had the weird thing or like the full engine or the transmission. I bet you we've sold $50,000 in parts over the PA just because people bring everything to a racetrack. Somebody's got it somewhere at a big event.
We've made a lot of new friends with parts swaps and tool exchanges. I think that was a pretty good first one. Why is our life hard? Because we are working on race cars and you've got to bring everything with. If you didn't bring it, Rob brought it. I love it. Thanks, everybody. Enjoy the show.
We're at West Michigan Honomy 2023, our 23rd year of West Michigan Honomy. Jeez. That's a long time, dude. That is a long time. I'm here with my king of England. That's the new guy. How many years has it been since you were in the U.S.? 2019 was the last year. So Richard Simmons, our buddy, he was on the show a long time ago. 18, 19. And you also do the outro? Yeah. Probably do a new one of those because Derek's into dirt bikes now. This is true. Yeah. Yeah, I'll do one more. So our buddy Richard Simmons, how did you...
Become friends with us. You liked a picture of my roll cage on Instagram. Really? Yeah. Like in 2015? Yeah, something crazy like that. And we started texting on... It was my toolbox. We started texting on Instagram, I think, and on freaking Facebook Messenger or something. Well, you liked my roll cage from the Slip Angle show page. And then I was like, what is this all about? Okay, and then you started listening to our terrible show. Yep.
And then I think I texted you back doing weird alignment with string. Yeah. Because you were struggling with something. I think I wrote an article and you talked to me about that. Yeah, it might have been actually. And today I fumbled around alignments. We took the wheel off ten times. Probably. Air text for the win today. Yeah. Fancy boy things. So, super glad to have you back here, bud. Thanks, man. One of my favorite people to hang out at the race track with. It's great to come back. I have missed it. You said Hannity is your favorite event. Absolutely. Why? Vibes. It's just chill. Yeah, we've got to knock this podcast out so you can go hang out with all your friends. Oh, that's good. I've got all night and all weekend. It's Friday night. You're here till Wednesday. Yep.
What's going on with cars in England, in your world? What are you doing, Otis? You change jobs around a little bit. A little bit. The machinist stuff, I'm still doing, and car building, but more as a second job. And now I do RMOT testing, which is a vehicle inspection. Yeah, some states here have it, some don't. I'm sure you said last time it was sort of like an ODB check, and off you go in some places. We basically just get a sniffer test. They stop doing sniffers on the tailpipe. They just plug into the OBD2. Yeah, my car was one of the last cars in Illinois to get an emissions test that was an OBD2.
Because I had moved my registration to Michigan when I was in college in 2001. And I had moved it there after I got my first notice for emissions. And then I moved it back like four years later. And they were like, oh shit, we've got to have this dude check. And it was a turbo F23 with a three and a half inch exhaust and no cat. So I just like drove up and down the street at like 6,000 RPM until the garage was open and there was nobody waiting. I drove straight in. And then like...
Joy of all joy. They used to put cars on a dyno. They would put you on a roller, but not strap you down. They would just put wheel chucks. It was the sketchiest thing. And they could never drive stick. They damaged my brother in the last car. And then they stopped doing lowered cars. And so they just did an idle test. And I cranked up the fan. And it passed. Yeah, that was a long time ago. Now they just do OBD2 scanners. What's the inspection over in England entail? Is that like a countrywide thing? Yeah, that's every car over three years old. Every car? Yeah. Over three years old? Yeah. Cars that are three years old are like nice cars still. Yeah, but...
You'd be surprised. It's everything. The whole car, you go through seatbelt, seat installation, suspension play. Brake roller check for brake efficiency and balance. Emissions test. Unless it's a hybrid. Right. You don't have to emissions test. Unless it's a hybrid. Yeah. Because the engines on their own are so bad at emissions, they don't want anyone to know. Because they're all low compression. When the electric kicks in and the motor kicks in and out, if it's really high compression, it'd kick hard and you'd notice it. Oh, that makes no sense. So they're all terrible. Really? Yeah. Really.
That's weird. I guess the overall efficiency is... Oh, yeah. It totally is, but if you actually measure what comes out the tailpipe, it would fail every time. Because the compression's so low on this? Yeah. Really? They're a terrible burn. I've never heard that. Because we test for CO2 and nitrogen oxides. Yes, NOX. Yeah, so they're nitrogen oxides. How do you guys test with an actual... Tailpipe sniffer and then ODB for the RPM. And if no ODB socket, because it's old... Man, you and Colin keep saying ODB. OBD. At least I keep hearing it. It's because you jinxed me with it earlier. Colin said it over the PA. Yeah, and then tailpipe sniff.
Okay. And then it does a fast idle test. Right. And like a standard normal idle test. So you test, you have to check every car. Like what is a 1923 something? They're technically MOT exempt after, I think it was 25 years. Okay. They keep changing the date on that. So it's a rolling date. Yeah. Okay. How long does it take a car? About 45 minutes. Oh, so is it invasive? Yeah. It is literally every seat belt. Wow. Doors have to open, fuel cap has to open, boot has to open. Yeah. Structural rigidity check for rust, et cetera. Really? Yeah.
Holy cow. And is this at like a shop that also does work? Yeah. Yeah. But you're just checking cars. That's all I do. Wow. That's a bit of a lie. I also order all the parts, book all the work, do all. But you're checking cars a lot. Yeah. Wow. 45 minutes a car. Yeah, I get like seven or eight a day sometimes. That's insane. That's wild. Well, I guess I tell you get good cars. You don't have a bunch of clapped out shit boxes like Chicago. Yeah. The other day I saw a car driving through Chicago and.
It didn't look like it rolled anymore. Because it had, like, two spare tires. One on the left, one on the right, front and back. So it was, like, tipping. Because the other cross, it was, like, three inches taller. On the two normal ones. And, like, every panel was shot. It was just smashing everything. And the alignment was so bad, you could hear it howl as it went down the road. It was going, like, about 50. And it looked like it was struggling, dude. It was bad. I was going to say, I've seen some fairly terrible cars. What's the worst thing that you can pass? What are you allowed to pass? There's a bit of discretion on it. So it kind of depends. But if it's dangerous for the road, it's dangerous for the road. But there's...
Like, advisories for things that have got... If you had a little bit of play in your ball joint, I'd advise it, and then that lets you know that before next year, you're probably going to want to have it looked at. So it's not like being really harsh. You've got to be fair to. Does it cost a bunch of money to have somebody do it? Like, do they pay you a bunch? Oh, £56-something is the actual... So they pay an hourly wage. Yeah, there's like a government set maximum price, but you could charge less if you want to just get the work in. Right. A lot of, like, big places like...
I don't know what you have for tire garages. Like Pet Boys. Or something like that. Yeah, they'll probably do them at like £30. But then fail you on £200 worth of work. Right, they're going to say, well, you've got to have your blinker fluids low, so you've got to top that shit off. Pretty much. Your exhaust fluid. I mean, it's definitely cooked. We've had some really good cars in those as well. You've sent me pictures of like really old stuff. Yeah. Did we send you the Lotus Carlton we had in? Yeah. Yeah, that was rad. Freaking cool, man. I've never even seen one of those in real life. It's like a four-door, like...
square old looking. Yeah, I don't know. It's a Vauxhall car when the Lotus re-engineered when they were friends with Vauxhall. We never had anything like that. No, I think that was different. I think it was GM then, but not. GM owned Vauxhall. Yeah, but not crossed over so much as they do now for things. Is the engine like a production item? It's special to the car. Like everything? Yeah, new block because it's a bigger capacity by 600cc, different crank. It came with mally rods and piston standard. Lotus did all the things, twin turbo, charge cooled. Really? It's 360 something horsepower. In like the 90s? Yeah, 92 that one was. Look at this, how to fit down this trailer.
What the heck is going on right there? That's too big a trailer to say with a Honda Fit. What's in there too? Coolers and ties by the looks of it. Yeah, that's a big trailer for the Honda Fit. It's as big as the Fit. Did you see that MR2 pulling that trailer? The trailer was two feet longer than the MR2. Yeah, there's laws against that. This is such a different scene than Gridlife. It makes me so happy to be here. It's chill. It is very chill. Gridlife looks like it's got fairly serious the last few years. The parties have gotten pretty serious too. Yeah. I mean...
It'll kill you. It probably would be in my heart. It'll actually, yeah. You know, like childhood heart surgery days and you take medications. Dude, the party just didn't stop all night. Oh, wow. There was 16 parties happening somewhere when we started the track. How did you create this monster? I don't know how that happens. People just want to have a good time with friends. Yeah. It was a really nice crowd, too. Oh, that's awesome. They were the best crowd I think we've ever had and the biggest, too. Were you at one Midwest festival? I've been to three Midwest festivals. The first trip over was just for Midwest in 17. That long ago? Yeah. And then I did 18. I stayed at yours. Yep.
for the summer. 19, you were here in Austin. 19, I came to Mid-Ohio for the first event and then Midwest. That was when Mid-Ohio was April. Yeah, and then I didn't make it back and then COVID happened and the whole of my life turned upside down. Yeah, so you weren't here for the last Atlanta. No. You drove back in my old RV when the AC quit and we wanted to die. I think I did die.
You were the most miserable person I've ever seen. I was so tired. You were also the most miserable person I've ever seen when you came back from mid-Ohio and had to drive a car to O'Hare. I was so, so destroyed. You were the tiredest person I've ever seen. I didn't sleep the whole weekend. I got off the plane, came to your house, went straight to the racetrack, teched a thousand cars. I don't know how you did all that. Then went straight back to Chicago. I didn't sleep in the trailer because things. You were so tired. Literally, I think I had about two hours sleep the whole weekend and then I had to do another eight hour flight on the way home. Did you sleep on the plane home?
No? I can't sleep on planes or on cars. It's weird. How long is the flight? Eight, nine? Eight-ish hours. Is it the same both directions? No, it's quicker on the way back. It's probably about three quarters of an hour because the Gulfstream wins and things. What are you working at car-wise in your life right now? Because that was the thing that we originally bonded on. I was like, hey, you like stupid cars too. I've still got a bunch of crappy Hondas. I mean, you and I have talked a bunch about them. Yeah, I've got my EK sort of race car, track car. Yeah, full cage. Yeah, which is now going to be K-Series. You're for sure doing it? I've got one. Didn't you have a super low mileage K-Series? Yeah. That's the one you're putting in? It like came out of a crash car? 400 miles, yeah. So that's like a Z4. That's worth so much money here
Yeah, they've gone up a lot. And you have the Type R that we never got. Which gen is that? Or what year? It's 07. It's got, like, fit suspension underneath. Kind of, yeah. It's got, like, a beam-back axle with McPherson on the front instead of the good stuff. And a K20? Yeah, a K20 Z4. It's a cool-looking car. Yeah, it's like a space shuttle Civic. They're, like, little hatchback-y things. Yeah, it's just a bigger fit, really. I remember, like, lusting for those. It's on the picture in your garage. Yeah. I remember lusting for those when we didn't have them. Yeah. Because we didn't have a Type R Civic ever. Like, we never had one until we got the FK. Oh, wow. We only had the Civic Si, which was, like, the 99-2000s.
Twin Cam. Before that, the only Twin Cam Civic, Civic Sorta, was the Del Sol came with the B16. Okay. We had that. Did you get EGs then? We didn't get B16s with EGs, no. The first B16 here, I mean, we got GSRs and stuff, which came 1.8s. But B16s came first here in the Del Sol for like two years. And that was an OBD-1 Del Sol. Did you get B17s as well? Yes, in Integrus. Second gen here, which would be 90 to 93. Oh, yeah, because we didn't see any of the B17 engines. You never got those? No. That's a weird, like, kind of a unicorn engine nowadays. Yeah. What do they stroke it? I think it's a stroked B16. Right. The B16...
It's not like the Civic Type R EK, which was a de-stroke B18. Yeah. That was a B16B. Yeah. He, like, revved a 10K. I think it was just a stroked out B16, basically. Whose car is this? There's so many EFs here right now. That's not the car. That's a good-looking EF, man. That's clean. We've seen it before, but I don't know who that is. I thought it might have been one of the Rambo crew had a similar car. It looks like Mikey's car was that color. Before they wrapped it. I don't know. That car's just, like, in the trailer. He's still got it. He's still got it. I think it's in one piece, too.
Well, I appreciate your help today with my car. Oh, that's all right. That was fun. I lined it a few times now. Yeah, the coolant thing is, it's not overheating, but when you come in, it like bubbles over, which is weird. Yeah, I think you've got an airlock. It's freaking running great. There's no signs of head gaskets earlier that I can... Except for it weeps out the sides of it. Well, yeah, but that's not coolant. That's a standard Honda oil falls out of it. Dude, I mean, I'm so stoked on the suspension right now.
I came in the last time I was out there. I came in because twice in one lap, I'm pushing on the gas and I couldn't pull back because my boots had wedged against the floor. It was not good. Hey, man, it's my buddy's old car. Me and my buddy Dave, right? His brother built that thing. That was one of the cars that made me want to get into cars. It's an EF, white bottom, an orangey tangerine top, and him and his uncle painted all the graphics. It's perfect paint. It was an auto when he had it.
And then he sold it. He did it when I was in high school. So that's a 99 build, by the way. Yeah, this dude just randomly showed up to Honda Meet one year, and he's just been coming back ever since. I don't think he's ever driven to Honda Meet, he just comes to hang out. Oh, really? Yeah. He says fuck a lot. He's a really fun guy to hang out with. He's great. Super fun guy. He says fuck in front of his kids a lot, though. That's a bit much. Even I try not to swear in front of the kids too much. Yeah, at a certain age. Yeah. Somewhere, when they get to a certain age, you'll swear at them. Yeah. You were restoring an EG for a while. Yeah. I'm now restoring another EG. Yeah, what's going on with your EG life? EG is a 92 to 95 Civic. Yeah.
So my first Honda was an EG. Yeah. I went to buy Prelude at the Honda dealer and couldn't be short. Like new? No. This was like 2001. I hadn't long passed my test. What year would it have been? It was a 95. So like the last of the thin headlights. Oh, best dashboards. Yeah. Fucking great interiors. Yeah. I really wanted them. Couldn't shore it. That was the other car that got me into Hondas was my buddy Dave built one of those. So those are great. Hey, Mike. Okay. I got it in here. Thanks, bud.
Good old Gingerman leaving us, letting us run until nine. I love that. They're the best. Yeah, you don't get any of that in England. Five to nine here. What a perfect night, too. Yeah, it's lovely. It's the weather looking for the weekend. It might rain tomorrow a little bit. It's probably going to be spotty. Yeah, that's right. I'm fairly qualified for rain. You get some of that. Those are 92 to 95. Yeah, that's it. You couldn't buy them because you couldn't insure it? Yeah. Because it was considered a sports car? Yeah. It was just a Civic. Yeah, but it had a 2.2-liter engine and 200 brake. It was an H22? Yeah. Cool. Yeah.
Most of them were, to be fair. Most of ours here were H23s. We didn't get hardly any H23s. We got a lot of F20s. That's where that F20 I was going to send to you came from. We didn't get any with the F20. Was the F22, the dual cam VTEC?
That looked like an H22? We never got that. I think that's a JDM thing. Yeah, we got a few 2.3s, but barely any. Most of them were H22. Most of them here were non-VTEC H23s. Yeah, two-liter single cams. Some of our base models were the non-VTEC single cams. Not many of them, though. That was a rare motor than that, but it came in tons of Accords. I still want to find a car to put one of those in with the head backwards. I kind of want to make it spin the wrong way. Yeah, well, no, the engine spins the same way. Yeah, make the head spin the wrong way. Make it breathe like a K. More well, like an Accord BTCC car, please.
Just today you mentioned me putting my F-Series back in my car. You're kind of giving me thoughts again. I'll ship you with an engine. I think I have another engine. No, too, yeah. That would be really fun. Yeah, those are a square motor, I think. I think they're under square, actually.
That might be good. Maybe I'll ship you a wing and you ship me a motor. We can do that. I need one after all the crashing. I do kind of want to do that big block single cam setup again because it was like a really fun setup. I mean, yeah, I've got all the ITB stuff for it. So I could make it fire up, just put it on the dyno, tune it, and be done. I sorted out the coolant system. I actually had an external, it was like above the trans, was an external thermostat in line that was fed to the side to open the thermostat up. And that worked really well. And that eliminated, I don't know if you're familiar with the coolant block. The thing is enormous. So I welded them out to the tube. It came off the water pump.
And basically just put a hose on that into this thing. It worked great, actually. Just put a bung on the end of that steel pipe coming off the water pump. I was surprised how well it worked. It ran around at 170 degrees all day long. But just oiling was stupid with it. It would starve in every corner. And it didn't make sense why. No, because you built something like that. Yeah, I did three different oil pans for it. And the last one was the craziest oil pan I've ever seen. And it's just regular Honda pickup stuff.
Yeah, I can't see it being that much of a problem. It was like a cavitating, something was wrong with the oil pump setup. Yeah. Anyway, I forgot to keep talking about, I'm really scatterbrained because I just got done. Yeah, everything's crazy. I forgot to keep talking about restoration civics. Yeah, so I bought 1500 EG. So that's a 1.5 JDM D15 BTEC? No, that was a UK, so that was more like the multi-point D15 No VTEC. Real basic. Yeah. What were you going to do? What are your plans to do that? I had a bunch of like SIR bits, so I had all the climate control.
And you said the interior stuff is getting insanely priced. Yeah, it's terrible now. Everything for them is just... If I didn't have the stuff I've kept all the years, I'd be totally screwed. What would the car be worth if it was done to the caliber you want? Seven or eight, probably. So it's almost not possible to restore them right now. You won't make money doing it, but you do it because you love them. Yeah, that was cool. And I started doing that and did all the suspension and got everything powder-coated and plated all my bolts. Started getting ready to put it all together and get the shell done. And then my buddy offered me his EG6 VTI in red. It's been sat in his garage.
seven or eight years. Okay. Well, like two and a half grand. How's the body? Needs back arch work, but it's not terrible. Typical Honda rust. Yeah. You guys get similar rust to like Chicago area. Yeah, because they salt the roads with something hideous. You don't get much snow though. No, we get, everything sits sort of about zero or below for the winter. Zero. So we get, yeah. Freezing. Freezing, yeah. But people in England, because it doesn't snow very much, also can't drive when it snows. And it's icy. Yeah. So it's always salted. Yeah. That makes sense. So if it gets anywhere near freezing, the grit of the lorries are out and everything's covered. Yep.
What's the plan for... So you have both shells now. Yeah. What's the plan for the new one? The new one is getting all the work. Okay. It's going in. When I get back, the champ who's doing the arches for me is at Le Mans at the minute with a TR4A. Really? Yeah. You sent me a picture of that. Yeah, that's it, the red one. That's like a 72? 67? I forget when they made the TR4s. Yeah, it's a 4A.
It's a four-cylinder little sports car thing. They sold some of those here. There was some dealers in California and New York. Yeah, you said SCCA guys. That's the only place I've ever seen them is they've been race cars since then. They were popular then. And some of them, you're like, oh, dude, that thing's been a race car for 50 years. Yeah, no, the chap who's got that, he bought four of them. Two TR4s and two TR3s. That's how you know you're a sick person. He cleared out some guy's barn. And he's basically going to sell the TR3s because he doesn't fit in them very well. He's got a bad leg to fund the two TR4s. But it was the 100th anniversary of Triumph. Really? So they had a big do at Le Mans the other week. So before I left, he drove it.
Yeah. Fresh out of his shop to ask for an MOD and an alignment and then drove to France. Really? Yeah. Like wheeling it there. Yeah, they drove it. That's freaking cool, man. But as soon as he gets back, he's having the car to do the arches. He's a body guy? He does. He's a welder. Gotcha. He used to do underwater welding and stuff. Really? That stuff's wild. Yeah. They like building stuff in the ocean. Yeah. So stupid.
It's amazing what people have figured out. And they probably figured that out 100 years ago. Yeah, absolutely. Like, how do we make this? We've got to do it under the water. Well, let's talk to some people that know some things and we'll figure out a plan. And we'll wear the diving bell and they'll pump air down to us and hope that we don't die. Yeah, he takes his time with his work, shall we say. So he's going to be there for a while. And he's sort of doing it between things. So doing rear fender arches, whatever you call them. And a little bit in the scuttle under the windscreen. Sorry, windshield. Windscreen, yeah. Yeah, but not too bad at all. The sails are fine.
Everything else is good. But as soon as he's had it back, I got the fun job of wheeling off all the seam sealer from underneath. I'm going to reseam seal the whole car and then under seal everything so it lasts longer than me. Is it a runner right now? No, the engine sat in the back. It's been in my friend Sam's garage for six or seven years or something. Is that a B-16 car? Yeah, it's a genuine VTI. Did it come with the engine? Yeah. Was it good?
Fresh rebuilt. Wow. And a fresh rebuilt box. If it's done right, it's worth money. Yeah. Even B-16s are worth pretty stupid money when they're in good shape. Yeah, everything's gone wild now. It's nuts. Like, insane. My old GSR-powered CRX, I could probably sell it for 15 Gs now. Like, just, what the heck? Like, my old Accord, UR. I sold it for, like, seven, and it's now worth 20. So dumb. You can never anticipate this stuff either. No. And that thing was such a pain, because you can't get bits for it. That was a cool car. Yeah, it was rad. Very unique. You had a lot of bugant parts on it, too. Yeah, it had loads of stuff. Airbox.
All of the wind deflectors were Mugen, Mugen sill plates. It had a carbon rear strut bar. Just all of the nice bits, the Volks wheels and stuff. It was the best car I've ever had. I never saw it, obviously, but it was a cool-looking car, too. It's not a thing that you see here. Or in England, much, because our cars, our Accords, were like the British Touring car, like Type R Accords, which are a lot more rounded, less square in the front, which a buddy of mine's got. Where did that one come from? I bought it from a town about 50 miles away. So they did sell those there.
No, it was imported from Japan. Oh, okay. But many years ago, because we haven't got any age restriction rules on the... Because those are the same things. Yeah. Can you import things from anywhere, anytime? Yeah, pretty much. Really? Yeah. Not just right-hand drive stuff? No. No, my... The blood chap I work with, his dad's got a 70-something Corvette, and so is his wife. And did I show you that Chevelle thing we were working on with the big block? Yeah. It's kind of neat. It's a bit freer to import stuff, but you have got to jump through some hoops getting it registered. I bet. Probably. Are you paying a pretty big penny to...
go through all the registration stuff? It's not terrible. I don't know how much it is because I haven't done it, to be honest. But you've got to go for like a super thorough MOT and then go through like engine number and bits, I think. Make sure it's got fog light because that's a legal requirement. The tires from Japan aren't any good because they're not E-marked. Really? Yeah. The stuff here is like, it's just a bunch of registration paperwork. It's got to be 25 years or older. But there's companies now that specialize in it. But they basically upcharge like $4,000 to $5,000 to do it. So you bring in a $4,000 car, it's like a $6,000 car, $10,000 car, you know.
But the market is there, though. Yeah, if people are going to pay the money, then why not charge it? If you're bringing in nice old stuff, too. There's JDM Classics, I think, in Virginia that just imports all day long. They've got a guy in Japan, they've got a guy here, and they just bring him in, fix him up, sell him. If anybody wants a nice GTR, give us a shot. You have a nice one? My brother is. 32? 33. Oh, it's 33. That's right. You told me about that. It's 97, so it's legal. Yeah. Illegal here? I think it's legal, isn't it? 97? Yeah, that would be legal now. They're starting to go up in value here, too. You don't see a lot of R33s yet. No. But this one's weird, because it's a UK official import through Nissan. Isn't it some rare spec, too? Yeah. What is it? It's a UK spec
UK spec. Yeah, so Middlehurst Motorsport, who did all of the GTR racing stuff. Because they didn't sell GTRs by you? No. They imported, to start with, I think it was 36 or something, but the numbers are a little bit sketchy, to prove the market. Modified a few of them, sent them out the door, and then imported 100 brand new ones and sold them too. This was one of the 36 used approved.
original cars. So like it came in the 90s? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I think 98 or 99 the sales ticket was for. What is that car worth in England now? Well, I don't know is the honest answer. Probably too much. Yeah, way too much. Way too much to have sat in a workshop with that Lotus Carlton and all the other bits. And didn't you guys just go through it too? Yeah, just read the engine. Well, to start with, it went and had a Link ECU fitted with wideband and decent oil pressure switch. Things to keep it alive. Bring it back to life because it got parked up originally because airflow meters died. Okay. And then...
bought some NISMO airflow meters for it and didn't really realize that they're not actually calibrated the same as the other one. So then you've got to have a NISMO ECU or some other ECU. And then when you buy another ECU, you don't need the airflow meters at all anyway because it's a map sensor. So the airflow meters are there just to look original. Get rid of those mass airflow meters. But they're still there, but just to look original. Yeah, Kyle had, my buddy told Kyle, his 32 was so fast when he got done with it. He did like ECU master, I think. Okay. Or maybe he did it in a different one.
But there's a lot of options for 32s and 33s. You can do a lot of stuff. We took it to the man who does Skyline post-ish to us. That was quite a crazy experience. What did it make power-wise? 502 and 420 torque. Okay. It's pretty good. Yeah. Standard engine. It was standard engine. 27 psi or something? Yeah. It's got steel turbos. So the boost is like 15 or 16 psi, I think, or something like that. It was up there for one of those. And then we had it back for a bit, and then it broke the ring land in number six because GTR engine things.
And then I had to rebuild the engine, which is great. They're cool engines. Yeah, but it's a numbers matching engine to that sort of reasonably valuable car. So you have to do it right. You can't window that black. No, it just started and it's back. You have a touch up on the map now. So somebody's looking to sell it now, huh? Yeah, I think so. We want to buy the workshop. Nathan wants to sell it to fund that. You can't get mortgages on business premises. Really? Yeah. What?
Yeah, as it turns out, for small businesses, no mortgages are available. How does anybody buy a building, then? Well, sell everything you own and get a business loan for the rest of it. Refinance your house and all that crap? Just whatever you've got to do. Yeah, that's annoying. So far into it, we've bought the MOT Bay and all the equipment that, like, if we don't, it's stupid. Right, yeah. The MOT Bay was 50 grand. Yeah. Probably paying off, though. It's nearly done. Yeah, cool.
That's a weird business. That's a thing that I've never had to do. I know they do it here or somewhere. Not in Michigan, but they do a lot of states. California's got stuff like that. And a bunch of states you wouldn't expect it here. I've got to go for inspection. I don't think it's as invasive as what you're talking about. The other day you were...
So you're working on EGs. You're at Chris Sullivan's house, our photographer buddy. He's doing an insane resto on an EG. Yeah. His is a bit more resto mod than mine. It's so wild. What do you think of that car? Oh, it's nuts clean. That's how I want mine, but without the wire tuck. That's a largely original car, too. Yeah. I think it has had a little bit of paint. Yeah. I think the body was painted. Yeah. But it was a 30,000 kilometer car. Yeah. It came from Japan. An importer in Ohio brought it in.
But our buddy Don had it for a while and then just didn't want to deal with the scope of the project. It gets pretty serious. It's a lot of way so much work. It's wild to see people actually go into that level. I mean, it's not going to turn into a truck car. No. It's not really a show car. No. It's just going to be like a perfect EG. Yeah, that's exactly what I want. With a different engine entrance. But mine's going to stay B16. Yeah. Luckily, Mike Taylor sent me some ITR bits from that stash of ITR things he got. He bought a weird stash of my machine shop. So I've got B18 main girdle. Okay.
mains caps in it. Okay. Cam gears, spring, type our springs, type our cams. Doing some stuff. I did the head on it. What do you have machines shop-wise? Because you started accumulating a lot of tools. Yeah, I've got a full-size mill now and my little mill and a full-size lathe and a little lathe and a tick welder and pretty much everything. And the trading estate I'm on, there's a chap. All he does is build race engines. He's got a dyno in there. Cool. So he's been pretty helpful with like, well, I've got stuff that I can't do yet. Specialized little stuff? Yeah.
The machine shop world here is getting kind of stupid. It's really expensive to do machine work. Really? Like $100 a bore to punch them out and hone them. Decking is a lot of money. You can spend $1,000 on machine work just doing a basic rebuild. I think that GTR engine, including buying really nice Italia rods and pistons. OK.
billet pistons. The rings were so tiny. It was so scary. I'll bet. Break them things. I think that with the pistons came to like $2,200. To build it? Yeah, for the machine work, the pistons. Machine work here. I don't know anybody who's got machine work that cheap. Lineboard the mains. The whole thing. That would be $2,000 machine work here. The machine work is getting so expensive because nobody does it anymore. We don't have all these little craft garages like you guys have. Every town in Europe, and England especially, has somebody that makes a sequential trance. Yeah, pretty much. It's insane. Yeah, we don't have that. Which is odd because I listen to...
V8 stuff, there's some pockets where the shops are so busy and big that they do it cheap. You bring something to a Chicago area machine shop, it's going to cost you just to prep a block and overbore, it's going to be like $800 probably. It's a lot of money. So that's why I just haven't built a motor for a while. I just did a B20 for a friend of mine. I think that was $350 to bore home. That's not bad. That's like $400-ish, $410 maybe? I think we're pretty equivalent right now.
Yeah, the exchange rate sucked. Yeah, you guys are getting hammered right now. What do you think the long-term Honda life for you is going to be? Just keep dinking with old cars like me? Yeah, I think so. Well, the EG, I'm never getting rid of the EG6. That's definitely going to stay. Just bring it up to the spec you want? Yeah. What about your race car? I think I might get rid of that, to be honest with you. Kind of getting over the race car thing? Well, yeah, it's hard work, and I crashed it quite bad. What kind of racing have you done with it? You've done hill climbs, though? Hill climbs and sprints, mostly. I've done one wheel-to-wheel race. What's sprints? I guess... Yeah, it's...
It's stand-in start. Eat Tim Levine pizza. Stand-in start, one flying lap of the track. Oh, cool. Kind of do. Yeah, we do. A bit like Blackhawk Farms. We've done that at Blackhawk. Yeah. You've been to Blackhawk, right? Yeah. The nicest. 18? Yeah. That was a fun, that place is such an amazing. It could be England, except for the weather and the mosquitoes. But I love that place. Like my favorite place to hang. Yeah. If this place had more trees, like in the paddock, it would be real similar. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, Blackhawk is like a state park inside. If you haven't been to Blackhawk and you're anywhere within five, six hours, you should try to go do a D either. Yeah. It's up in the north side of Illinois, right by Wisconsin.
Yeah, super fun place. The Standing Start stuff that we've done, that's kind of like what Sprint did, though? Yeah. It was Andy that was running it, wasn't it, I think? The sports car club that he works with? Yeah, that's basically that. What are the sanctioning bodies like in England? Who do you run with? Are they big? Are they little? I run with a little local car club, but those events sort of bleed in with other car clubs, too, to bring the numbers up and have a good field, because there's nothing less fun than having two cars in your class.
Yep. Gotta have a little bit of competition. Yeah. Is there a bunch of big national orgs too? Yeah. There's like the main national or like British Hill Climb Association. They run a national championship. How many events would be in that? I'm not entirely sure because I haven't got the money to go and play with the big boys. But I think it's seven or eight for the year. But some of them are split on two days so one of them might be two technically points scores for the championship. What are the roads like when you're doing a hill climb? Real tight? Mountains? Hills? Trees? Yeah. As wide as your car in a little bit. And tree line. So sketchy. Drop offs. Probably raining.
More than likely. More than likely. Have you ever followed Hill Climb Monsters? Oh, absolutely. That YouTube channel? Do they do anything in England? Yeah. I don't know if you've seen the Chelsea Walsh that they do. They have a big crazy event up there every year, but I never get enough time off work to go anywhere. Some of them seem like they get awesome spectator counts. Yeah. Even the little club events get... This is going to sound bad compared to Gridlife, but you'll get 100-odd spectators. Some of them seem like they get thousands. Oh, thousands, yeah. But just little club stuff. Well, running low on batteries. Oh, dear.
Got 40 minutes and that seems like a show. Oh, not bad. So what's your plans for future USA travels? Anything? It depends a bit on work because, well, this is the first time I've made it over since the COVID-ness and all the crazy work. I've got to get over to you and take my wife though. She wants to go there bad. Do it. We'll book a day. Mike wants to come over again as well. He goes all the time because his wife is from there. Yeah. He doesn't have a choice. He knows the boss. It's a big time.
But she's also the coolest boss ever. Dude, what a rad person. If you do racing, that is exactly the sort of... Yeah, you've got to marry Senna's ex-girlfriend. Yeah. Definitely. Legitimately, that's what she is. She was Senna's ex-girlfriend. It's pretty wild. I really need to get around the show and talk about it. Yeah. Anyway, maybe the next one we do, we should do it in England. Absolutely. I need to come over there. Do it. I need to apologize to Abe for not taking a break for sponsors, but he'll figure it out. He'll work out. He can pause it somewhere. All right, let's go do Hanami things, man. Definitely. Bye-bye.
Slip Angle was created by Austin Cabot and Adam Jubey, co-hosted by Derek Yarbrough and production by Avery Schmucker, who mixes all of our terrible audio. If you like the show, please rate us and review us on iTunes and come and find us in the Pits of Gridline to say hello.