Betting It All on Rotaries with Rob Dahm | Let’s Be RONest

Season 2 of Let’s Be RONest kicks off with Rob Dahm, the guy behind some of the wildest rotary builds out there.

From being scared of loud engines as a kid to chasing world records and building a 1000+ horsepower RX-7, Rob breaks down how curiosity, not just passion, shaped everything he does. What started with computers and Guinness World Records turned into an obsession with speed, engineering, and pushing limits.
Ron and Rob get into the early days, from starting an IT business just to afford a Lamborghini Diablo, to maxing out credit cards building cars, to jumping into YouTube before anyone really knew what it would become.
They also dive into what it actually takes to build and drive a high-horsepower rotary, why data matters more than people think, and how Rob approaches problem-solving when things don’t go as planned.

The conversation goes deep on Pikes Peak, from learning the course, to trusting the car, to pushing it right to the edge. They also talk about balancing building, driving, and content, and why sometimes the win isn’t a trophy, it’s just getting the chance to do it.

This episode features Rob Dahm discussing rotary engines, RX-7 builds, Pikes Peak, data-driven tuning, YouTube, and betting on yourself.

Brought to you by Nitto Tire | FUELED BY ENTHUSIASTS.
Find the perfect tire match for your vehicle, explore full tire specs, and locate a dealer at:
https://www.nittotire.com/

Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/c/DrivingLine?sub_confirmation=1
Follow Driving Line on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drivingline
Follow Driving Line on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drivingline/
#TeamNitto #LetsBeRONest #RobDahm #RX7 #Rotary #PikesPeak #CarBuilds #Automotive

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

And here we go to kick off 2026 of Let's Be Ronic. This first episode, episode one for 2026, we have a psychopath for you guys. This guy's nuts on social media, they call him the mad scientist, and he does some seriously ridiculous stuff. Some of which I get heebie jeebies about, but this guy's crazy, all his builds are crazy, and you're about to see it, and we're gonna interview him. And why is he so crazy? But then again, I'm just as crazy as him. So I'd like to introduce our first guest, Rob Dom! What's up, brother? Oh man, dude. From one psychopath to another. Welcome to the show. It's nice having you on board. We're gonna interview you and figure out what makes you tick. Okay, there are a lot of things. Not being vowels. You're a big rotary guy, and we're gonna go over it. Meaning I used to be a big rotary guy. But uh, yeah, have a seat and thank you for being part of the show. Um, a lot of people on uh social media, even the stuff I see you doing is just is just off the deep end. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

It's like, what if how did now mind you, um, your last name, how do you pronounce it today? Uh that's cool. Actually, my license plate is my last name in both California and Michigan, and everybody's like, oh yeah, how'd you get that license plate? Because it's a damn, but it's dumb.

SPEAKER_04 1:39

It's dumb, yeah. But then when you see when you see his bills, you're just like, Dom, bro! I was like, is that a stage name? Yeah, no. It's a Rob Dom. Yeah. Oh wow. So how you grew up in Michigan, yes. Right? And how did all this start? Four years old, five years old? How did doing things insane?

SPEAKER_02 2:03

You are about to get your mind blown because I am not a car guy. Oh wow. To the point that I've I've never really shared this publicly, and it it's funny because it's not like it's super personal, but it is. When I was young, my dad had a motorcycle and he revved it, and I cried. I cried still would. As soon as it hit high RPM, I was like, no, that's terrifying. It's too late! Okay. And so I was so scared of motor vehicles that I actually in Crayon, I'm not kidding you, signed a waiver with my parents that I would not drive until I was 35. I thought it was such a responsibility. I, you know, I you know, so you didn't like the I didn't like the noise, I didn't like cars, nothing. Yeah, so so as a as a little kid, had zero interest in it. My thing was computers. Uh the Guinness Booker World Records.

SPEAKER_04 2:50

So that's where the transition starts to occur. What was what turned you on in the Guinness Booker Records? What did you witness?

SPEAKER_02 2:56

So uh I love records, I love you know limits of what's the limit of human ability, and one of the things that happened was I had a paperback version, it was 1991 Guinness Booker World Records, you know, Scholastic Book Fair and Elemental. Yeah, yeah, yeah. World's fastest production vehicle, and it's weird, it's not in the hard back uh hardcover, it's in only the soft, small version. Uh-huh. Uh the 1991 Lamborghini Diablo was the world's fastest production vehicle, and it was this little black and white sliver of a car, and I remember reading that it was like only 42 inches tall, so I was taller than it at the time, and I was like, that is the coolest, like most extreme when you went uh found this. Yeah, uh second grade, third grade, somewhere there? Oh wow, and so I was I was but you didn't like cars, you didn't like the noise, but I liked I like the idea of a limit. Like I like for some reason I was fixated on that, and then in '94, Dumb and Dumber came out, and the the idea of the the red Diablo being the most extreme waste of money, an extreme, like unreal, unobtainable thing, that I don't know what the heck what happened. I I locked in and I was like, I want uh I want I want my life to be have lived well enough that I've bought and I could have sold, but bought a Lamborghini Diablo. How did you first find out about the Diablo? Was was just the King's Burke Records. I'd never heard of Lamborghini or anything, I couldn't even pronounce it. I just saw Diablo. And so right then something poisoned something. I am I that was absolutely a switch that turned on, and I even went so far as to start my IT business to afford buying a Lamborghini Diablo. Because I was like, okay, how can I make money? And this is right as the dot com boom was occurring, and and I was uh 18, 17. So I started a computer business and then it crashed. And so so I you know I struggled for quite a few years, but I grew an IT business just to buy a Lamborghini.

SPEAKER_04 4:45

As an IT guy, right? And you have your humble beginnings in in Detroit, right? Not in the cars, mind you. What did you drive as an IT guy?

SPEAKER_02 4:54

So uh my first car was a 1990 Pontiac Sunburn, and it was it was in my neighbor's front yard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I loved that car.

SPEAKER_04 5:03

Like, here's here's what you love that car.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

Love. Let me explain. Okay, go, go. So uh I I had heard about turbochargers and I saw a turbocharger and heard the whistle, right? And so again, there was that one weird thing that triggered it, and then I realized that the Plontiac Sunbird, the 1990, could come in a turbo version. And so I went to the junkyard and bought the manifold and turbo for a turbo Plontiac Sunbird. Thankfully, the 1.8 liter that that came on did not match up to the two-liter that mine was. So uh I straight up cut the exhaust manifold to make it fit, even though the runners didn't line up right now. So you now you started wrenching. It was turbo, it was a turbo that did it. And so I was like, I want to turbo charge my car because it'll be fast and I could race people. Uh-huh. Uh sunburn. And uh I I cut up the exhaust manifold and everything, you know, just hand tools. Well, I uh uh did the uh did you have a grub? You were using my dad's grubs. Okay, yeah. So my dad was pissed because that you know cars and pieces. Uh-huh. Um, but I I went and bought a uh this is the funniest part of it. I bought a glass pack little cherry bomb muffler from Holmes, and my dad's like, you know what that's gonna lead to? That's gonna lead to street races, that's gonna lead to going to jail, which means going to prison, which means getting hooked on drugs. He was like, you're gonna end up on drugs if you install that on your car. I'm not lying. My dad was like, just I was like, that life sounds very easy to call on a cherry bomb.

SPEAKER_04 6:26

It's in a box. It's like the old commercial. This is your brain, this is your brain on a cherry bomb.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

So I put it on a little four-banger, and I just was like, it sounded different than stock, and that to me was enough. But yeah, it was a turbocharger that got me all excited. I never got it to fit properly, thankfully. Uh, I would have blown the engine up immediately because I didn't know about the weight. So you did get it running. I I I I got it connected, but I didn't know about the wastegate stuff. I didn't understand what a wastegate was, and so I ended up taking it off because my dad's like, I need the garage back, you know, and so I put the stock stuff back on. So I never got to turbocharge that car, but that was my first taste of like I want to modify it, and and it was turbo. It was just turbo.

SPEAKER_04 7:04

So you were already intrigued starting off with that.

SPEAKER_02 7:07

Did you have a let me ask you this in your room at your parents' house, did you have a poster of a Lamborghini on it was the Scholastic Book Fair Lamborghini Diablo, purple, lightning strikes and all that, like we're really poor graphics, but it was the coolest, like again, the unobtainium was on the wall, and then here's what I'm playing with now.

SPEAKER_04 7:24

You know what's silly is my brother worked the same way. He he's a computer nerd guy, right? Yeah, and he did computers because it helped pay for the racing, so it makes sense. Yeah, and he was right there in the um mid to late 90s in the whole computer room.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

Yeah, and and what's wild is being from Detroit, I worked with a lot of tier one auto suppliers. Uh-huh. So I started getting into that, like, okay, not just car parts, but here's some of the engineers building car parts, and they became friends. And obviously, Detroit isn't like a hot rod, it's a muscle car central. It's you have to make it. And so, you know, there's Woodward Dream Crews, and I I I I didn't connect with the big verbally v8s. Um, it was oddly enough, my my there was another neighbor of my parents going through a divorce at the time, and he had to sell his FC RX 7. And so my mom was What year was that? How old were you? 1988. And so I'm I'm 17, 18, and I was just kind of not interested in anything. I was just in that, like, I'm too cool to be interested in anything. But I was also looking for something to be interested in. So you ended up with that FC, your first thing. Here's what's weird is that my parents were like, hey, we're gonna give you$4,000 for college. You know, that was all$4,000. Um, and the problem was is because I I'm not I don't know how to word this. I was in the gifted program, and so I was being lazy, not getting scholarships, and so though they weren't gonna give me money because to they wanted me to get more on my own feet than I could have, and so they did they capped it at$4,000. Well, the weird part is my mom bait and switched. She shows me this F this neighbor selling this car, I didn't care until it hit 9,000 RPM. Again, that like limit, like, oh my god, this is like high RPM, like no other car does this. Was that turbo? That's no, no, f no, not natural aspirated. Yeah, wow, and so I I just love that. Like it just kept going, it felt wrong. And my mom was saying, Okay, with the 4,000 that we saved up for you for college, you can buy the FC with that. And I'm like, like, oh, like, oh okay, all right, I guess. Yeah, and that's exactly what happened. And I love that car.

unknown 9:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

Um, I I thought, okay, there's the turbo two, you know, the hood has that offset scoop and everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, I'm gonna put an intake, I'm gonna put an exhaust, and that's like 30 horsepower here, 50 horsepower here. So you're already doing that. So I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna basically do more power than a uh turbo two until I lined up next to a turbo two and got walked because you know, an intake and exhaust doesn't just magic off these numbers. But but you know, you know, kid math, it does. Yeah, and so okay, I'm like, alright, I'm not I'm not that guy yet. And so uh the third part of that, so it's the intake exhaust, racing a turbo two, and then the next thing is I finally get like my first like steady girlfriend, and I'm excited, you know. I go to pick her up. Her dad worked for Ford, which at the time owned 30% of Mazda, and he comes out, and this is this is honestly shifted my trajectory for everything else. He comes out and goes, That's not an RX7. And she had told him it was, you know, hey, my boyfriend's picked me up in RX7. That's not RX7. RX7's pretty, it's smooth, it's got these beautiful lines. He was talking about the FD. Ah and I was so traumatized by that that uh that night I was like looking at like there wasn't auto trader really, it wasn't still in paper form. Uh the internet wasn't really like doing the things in paper form. Yeah, yeah, I enjoyed it, yeah. And so uh I found a random website that was listing cars, and I found an FD for sale in Tennessee and made all the arrangements to finance it, and you know, it was ten thousand dollars. I had four thousand dollars because I sold the FC and had uh uh financed ten thousand dollars to get this FD. Did your parents know that you were doing this? Yeah, they oh my dad, like you pit that pistons are reliable, rotaries are not, you know, you're just gonna waste your money and time. And he was he had the right points. His overall uh statement and thought logic was correct. Um but I just I was like, okay, now I have to prove my girlfriend's dad that like I you know I'm a real man, I have a RX7. Like a curvy, a curvy RX 7, you know, and then Fast and Furious comes out right then. Uh and so like I I kind of got lucky because I was buying the car as Fast Fury Summer of Fast and Furious 1 coming out, and of course that's I didn't recognize, I'm not gonna lie, I didn't recognize that that was Dom's car or the the that actually the video of like it going through the intake and I didn't realize it was a rotary uh until years later. Um but you know, so that of course that hype just took that to the stratosphere, but and you're doing all this while trying to form an IT company? Yeah, and so I had no money. I was I had$300 a month car payment for the$10,000 loan, and I was barely making that, but I was happy, you know, and then Did you end up taking it apart? Yes. I the problem was I had uh identity theft of some sort on my my credit history in a positive sense. Some Rob Dom had owned a house back in the 70s or something like that, so I had excellent credit. So the first thing I did was got a credit card with an$18,000 credit limit and bought an intercooler, a power FC, the new air intake system, a down pipe, a high flow down pipe, maxed, maxed it out, maxed it out immediately. I get feeling and uh you know got this FC Dadlock and all these things that were for the basic tuning, you know, the best of the ability to tune the car uh with stock twin turbos. Oh and so I I did it all from unintercooler to all that uh in in the driveway, not in the garage this time at my parents' house, and loaded myself up with debt and then stopped. And then stopped for a couple years. That was that was that was the moment. Uh but I was learning how to tune my car back in 2001. Wow, what kind of engine management were you using? Apex FC? Yeah, yeah, power, yeah, Apexy Power FC uh with a little data logic to the little unit, and I'd throw it in Excel and make my changes, and I didn't know what 90% of the other options were, and I just didn't mess with them. I just only messed with what I felt I knew. Uh and I never blew the car up. I put water injection on the car because I wanted I I knew that you you know there was that limit of like you can only run so much boost off of pump gas, and so I wanted more, and so I I added water injection to my turbo so I could raise the boost. Where were you getting all your information?

SPEAKER_04 13:28

Forums. Oh, form yeah, forums back in the day? Yeah, I thought you'd be looking at like a turbo magazine or something like that. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 13:34

So uh funny enough, arc7club.com, uh-huh, and I was a lurker. Are y'all and yeah, yeah, yeah. He was arc7.com. Uh huh. Arx7club.com was actually one of the biggest websites in the world back when that era of the internet. It wasn't just arc7s, you know, there's like general talk and all that sort of stuff. And so back then I just lurked and I just consumed, and I started cloud uh taking all that information and I made a little website. Uh it's no longer up, but I made a website called turboarx7.com where I was just aggregating all this information, and then I I bought a used engine and tore it down and was just documenting all this kind of shit. And this was in the late 90s? Uh this is 2001, 2002, wow, 2006 was when I was really doing that phase. And uh so long before YouTube, what happened was I just had the urge to document and prove that I had used my time wisely. So uh I it's not cheesy, but it was uh ever since second grade I had a journal. And quite frankly, YouTube was just an extension of the journal of just documenting that today was well lived. And so you know that's why I was one of the first YouTube players. Do you still have that your journals?

SPEAKER_04 14:39

I don't update it as much because I update YouTube. But you have the ones from the second grade? Second grade on the still have that Diablo poster? Yep, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

Like I like I was obsessed with like memories, you know, like pictures and you know, just documentation of my life. Uh and you like your typical second grade or it was it was very simple. Where did you learn all that? I I you know what uh this is weird, but my journal came from learning about Anne Frank you know as a kid, you know, reading, you know, being taught that, and I just remember how important it was to hear somebody's story first person uh in a circumstance where you can't capture otherwise. Uh and so that was important to me to kind of take that energy and run with it.

SPEAKER_04 15:17

So impressive. You didn't your friends in in growing up in Michigan, were they in the cars too?

SPEAKER_02 15:26

Not not really. Um because in Michigan it's really weird, especially in my hometown in Monroe. Uh it used to be back in the 90s the highest per capita or per person uh income. Like Lifestyles Richard famous covered that Monroe was like one of the wealthiest cities per person because everybody was a union auto worker. So everybody made good middle class money. Um, but you worked at Ford's, that's what everybody there calls it. Um you had this Mazda. Yeah, and and I mean it called it got caught all of the uh racial slurs for because back then it was like you know, you know, they'll get that rice burner out of here, that type of shit. And so I was I was not well liked at the local car meets because it was all everybody bringing their Yankos and stuff like that. Um, but they were still curious. They they they talked shit to about the rotary, but they're like, but that one of the How does that work? The one of their uh wankles?

SPEAKER_04 16:15

It looks like there's a keg in there.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

Yeah, yeah. So they they they were interested, but uh yeah, it was definitely the wrong uh world to uh build that in. And so here's what's interesting about that is that I felt very isolated that way. When I bought the Diablo, which I kind of spoiler, I ended up financing the shit out of my Diablo. I own it. Did you still have the RX 7? I still have that. That RX7, by the way, the one I've owned since I was 18, is the four-rotor now. No way! It's the easiest ship. It went through all these upgrades to the point where what's left of it is still the VIN plate and the door sills. Oh, like those that's still the same car from bone stock all the way to what you see, uh, you know, racing can and so on. But yeah, the Diablo was the tipping point for me, is that when I bought that car, I didn't tell anybody. Uh the bank knew, it was their car. But uh my neighbors started posting on Facebook like So your computer company started doing well. Yeah, the uh medical records became an electronic medical recording thing. Yeah, I remember that. And I was really good at databasing, so that was where I was able to do a lot of data conversion and custom things for weird doctors' offices that were doing off-beat things, and was able to make a quick amount of money to do a downkeep.

SPEAKER_04 17:24

So you have your passion. Fell in love with the rotary, fell in love with cars, fell in love with turbocharging. How did computer work? How did that love compare?

SPEAKER_02 17:34

Yeah, so um I I enjoyed it. I really enjoyed, you know, making data do things. And and that translates really, long story short, to tuning nowadays. But it was that cool thing of like architecture of handling a lot of information, and that was really neat to see trends and and make data do things. I don't know, I just really fell in love with that. But what I didn't fall in love with was sitting at my desk the whole time, you know? And it was like I'd have to pay so much to go do a car event. And I mean that's the real reality of most people's lives is that cars are you know uh an outlet, and uh I had just started documenting stuff on YouTube, and I thought, well, just like everybody, like if I start a YouTube channel, and this is what I was at? So I started the YouTube channel a year uh into YouTube being founded, which was like 2006-2007, and I think my channel says 2008. Uh and what's funny is I actually tried doing something back then. I made it because it was an IT guy, right? So I was like, what if when YouTube uh plays a video, I have a little like thing on the side that shows like if I hold up a turbo, it shows the turbo for sale for that car. You can because like there's such a disconnect. If I'm watching this, now it's called influencers, but back then it wasn't. It wasn't even vlogging. It was if I have an object for sale, I click on this link, and and I knew that there would be money there. Sales is money. Um, and so I made I made a proof of concept of that. This is 06, 06, 08. And I was trying to find somebody that did was famous for car videos to to buy to promote it, to work with me on that. And there wasn't really anybody. So I was like, well, let me just make my own videos. And so by the I took one of the videos down, but the very first video you see is me actually talking about the the power FC and the data log it, and that was uh my website worked where you could show that for sale, the Apexy Power FC for sale, buy it here. So you know, you see this guy promoting it, here's you know, you know, impulse buy it. And so uh that was what I used my YouTube channel for. And then it I made a couple videos like that and then went dormant because I was doing other things trying to make life work, and then 2011, uh uh it was the first time I made it out to California. Oh, so you've been in Michigan this whole time. Michigan the whole time, and uh you know, California was this mythical place to me. And yeah, and I got flown out to California because I got selected to be on a show. Oh! What show was that? Uh just you I don't think you've ever heard of it. This is just it's just it was a car show. Oh, you know, you know, uh just a bunch of guys and one girl. Oh, that happened. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. And so uh How did you get roped into that? Yeah, uh it's really funny. So it's a bachelorette, obviously. Um so what happened was I was sitting at Wendy's in my hometown, and the general manager was a friend of mine from high school. She comes up to me and she goes, Rob, promise me you'll do something. And I'm like, that's pretty opening, I don't know her that well. And so she's like, just promise me. She goes, I think you're perfect for that, what I want you to do. And so she's like, they're having bachelor, bachelorette, casting tryouts up in uh Novi. Uh, I want you to try up for this. And I was single and I had nothing else going on, and so I went and did the tryout. Free trip to California. Yeah, well, yeah, I ultimately the I should have like top government top secret clearance for this because the process at the time to become to get on that show, it they screen, they have like 700 question psychology tests, they take blood tests, S T tests, all that sort of stuff. Um, and then they don't call you back immediately, and you think you're you know, it's bad. But uh yeah, so made it onto the show, and uh I didn't really care for the girl that I just cared for the experience. I was excited for this. Experience California, yeah, yeah. And so I I I did it, uh, you know, kept my dignity the whole time. Yeah, you know, and then I was like, you know what, there's this this world out here that it's not like oh, go to California to become famous. I didn't give a shit about that. I wasn't more a technical kind of guy, yeah. Yeah, I wasn't trying to chase fame, I just saw that the hot rotting scene was out here, and you know, that's when I ran into people out here that could potentially build my dream car, which is the full rotor at the time. And I knew Michigan was more of a manufacturer, not fabrication. And so that's that's really the pivoting point. The bachelorette fell into that, and then I started using YouTube more to document these. When did you end up here in California? So 2014 uh was when I started flying out here. Here more and more, and I was okay at 2015 I'm building a forwarder. Um, but it wasn't until 2016 I was out here more than I was up there, even though I still have the house in Michigan. Um, and then 2018 was like, okay, I'm committed.

SPEAKER_04 22:13

Yeah. So you finally made the decision saying that I'm gonna follow what I enjoy for fun, get away from the IT industry, get away from uh that sort of thing, and I'm gonna follow my passion.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

Yeah, and that actually almost bankrupted me uh because he does. Yeah, the IT business was profitable. I finally got it profitable and I was like lost interest. And I was like, well, you know what? Even if I make less, but am doing what I love, it's a net benefit. Well, the problem was I was hoping that the IT business would give me like a stipend, like I hand it to my brother, and like, okay, maybe I'll make a couple grand a month doing nothing and all that because I've worked hard for that. As soon as I handed it over, it went to zero. Like the business is fine, but at my my money went to zero, so I had to rely on YouTube a hundred percent. Wow. So I was just back to the. So you took that leap of faith. Big leap of faith, bigger than I was expecting. And you know, I'm here I'm maxing out my credit cards and choosing which bills to pay, uh, right as I'm out here trying to make it work, and then any small interruption, just that I mean that everything was just waiting on the next thing, and so it was a pretty intense uh period of my life. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 23:20

Yeah, so that's and then now you're very intense part of my life too, yeah. Wow, but you're having fun. Yes. I I I you know one thing, you know, I don't know how don't get me wrong, rotaries are cool, they sound great. You said it first, you said the word rotary first. They they they they sound great. Um uh my team obviously we built a three-rotor arc 7, right? Or arcs 8, right? Yep. And man, just they sound great. It was great when we finally finished it, and it's always an interesting talk about because it's a keg that makes mo makes makes horsepower. But I did you have a fair amount of blow up? I mean, I blew up a lot, a lot. It's it's love lost. There's a saying that goes is uh the the best times of owning a boat is when you buy one and then you sell one, right? With a rotary, it was great buying one and then finally getting rid of it because me or my brother weren't the ones driving it, and so they'd always blow up.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

But how yeah, my books is so opposite of yours. Really? Yeah, I think I was accidentally uh brought into the cult of rotaries uh rotaries by by by sheer luck of of like, okay, the NA, you know, an NA rotary will last almost forever. You're not racing it, right? Um, but then my my FD, um I never I never hurt that motor, the one I was tuning back then. I never heard it because I was never really I we talked about this off camera, but I was driving it like I cared about the engine. Uh so I drive I I've I've had to train myself to drive more like a race car driver, but I always drove as a uh you know mechanical symphony at number one, and so I don't think I ever put my cars in a position to blow them off. Therefore, I never had that like heartbreak of like, oh, this engine sucks. And so the thing that really was the tipping point for rotories for me was like, okay, I bought the three-rotor that I'm known for, actually, this car right here, very first version of this, and you know, it was only not only, it was making 600-700 horsepower, and it was just the bragg most raggedy build ever. And it was just so much fun, just blowing the tires off, no, no real boost control per se. Because you owned it, you took care of it. Yeah, so I started making it better. And I mean, this is like version 17 of that.

SPEAKER_04 25:42

Um that's your Bright Speak car, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:45

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

And uh what is your claim to fame with this car? That's the first car that I went viral with. Oh wow. What it's like owning a three-rotor X7, I think it's at like five million views now. Um, that was this car. Well, the back half, not that windshield, no, not those doors, the the rear hatch. That's about it, of the same original car. But but it was just a what it's like owning a three-rotor, and I honestly got I thought it was played out. I thought by the time I made that video, YouTube was already like saturated, and I was so, so wrong. But it was just the idea of like this raggedy car making it way too much power and doing shooting flames and doing all that sort of stuff, and uh that's what really took off. Now, mind you, I wanted to use a song in that video so badly that I made zero dollars off it. So it went to AWOL Nation with sale. I just wanted sale from the AWL Nation video.

SPEAKER_05 26:42

Sale!

SPEAKER_02 26:43

So I didn't make any money off it, but people became aware of me. So uh yeah, so the like I said, the the majority of this car is now uh super custom. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04 26:54

It's it's it's I I can I can, you know, when I look look at this car, right? And I see, now mind you, this isn't you know some crazy JGTC car. Right, but when I look at it, there's a lot of thinking going on that I see that you've done.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

Yeah, uh the funny part is this was a lot of uh hypotheticals that ended up becoming race uh RAN. So these are my first time 3D printing something.

SPEAKER_04 27:16

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 27:17

And I was like, okay, I want this is why they call you the mad scientist. It you know what it is? It's that like uh a little bit more, a little bit more. My goal with this build was I have a thousand horsepower rotary, I want the most thermally efficient version of that because rotaries are not thermally efficient. So I was like, let me get as much cooling through this car, and okay, well, I'm gonna have to learn how to 3D print because I've I bought that CNC machine to cut metal down. Now, okay, I want to build plastic up and then get good at composites and all that sort of stuff. So I was like, let's make sure that all the air going into the front duct goes into the coolers. So uh this was specifically for Pike's Peak. This attack this is a Pike's Peak thing. Time attack, you know, is like you know, warm-up lap, and then the car's already overheating, do your hot uh you know, hot lap, literally, and then pull it back in and cool down. So I wasn't really as worried about that. But Pike's Peak, I just knew that okay, this thing's gotta be like not can't get up to temp here. So there's no air up there. Yeah, it's 60% of the air that's here uh at the top up there. And so uh the most important thing to me is so I've got the size of that turbo. I've had a thing- DOM! That's the appropriate reaction. So the interesting thing is any other, for the most part, any other three-rotor you see in an FD, I would- Oh, you drive by wire, same as we did that too. Go. Yeah, so you you you'll notice how far back that is.

SPEAKER_03 28:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

Uh stock, the steering rack and the engine don't play nice. So if you ever see a three-rotor FDR7, I can already promise you that it has the worst bump steering.

SPEAKER_04 28:58

I know. So I agree with I I had one and we had to hack all kinds of stuff because of all the where the rack and pin. You know first instance.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

Yeah, so I was like, I'm so sick of the bump steer and trying to correct it in the wheel that I shift the engine back eight and a half inches to get the steering rack touching. Yeah, I can see it right here in the lineup. But it the it went back to FD handling, and the engine now makes this car 50-50 uh weight distribution. Considering it's cast iron block. No, it's not, it's all aluminum.

SPEAKER_04 29:29

Is that one aluminum? Oh my gosh. Yeah, so this thing's light.

SPEAKER_02 29:33

Yeah, so this car, this car, uh and you've driven this car at pipe speed twice now. Once first year I did it uh and I the fastest RX 7, which is an arbitrary goal, but still important to me. But then the next year, last year, uh the race got cut short because of of weather, and so I turned all my safeties off and just made it a drag race from the starting line to as far as I could go, and ended up blowing the turbo in half uh one turn before the end. But I was faster than Mad Mike in his four-rotor with you know him as a driver and his you know, like everything. So you hold the record at Pike's peak for uh RX 7s, and the only person that's been faster as as a rotary is Mad Mike, but I was faster than him last year had the race not been shortened and had not been. Who's the record holder? Uh I guess it'd be Mad Mike, but that's he's that's in the Mazda 3 that he made. Yeah, so my thing's and again this is being pedantic to give myself like just make myself feel good, but you know, RX7 chassis, I'm the fastest, uh, compared to like Rod Millen. But quite frankly, he did it in dirt, so he's still faster than me, in my opinion. Uh-huh. But my time says faster, but it's all paved.

SPEAKER_04 30:38

So you know, funny thing, okay. Uh when I think of Pike's Peak, I think of that white Mitsubishi Evo that fell off the mountain. In fact, his co-driver lives out in Houston, right? And he he told me his whole story about it. He's just like, oh, we're fucking dead, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So with you driving Pike's Peak, right? Where where did where's your driving experience? I mean, being able to drive Pike's Peak, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's one thing to drive a road course, but to drive up Pike's Peak and not fall off the mountain, yeah, where did you get your skill?

SPEAKER_02 31:19

Um, so uh a couple things. One is the why. Uh when I I did stuff for Top Gear as a host for their American series. Oh, you were on Top Gear? Yeah, I was a host for top like the for the YouTube series that you do. And so I went up Pike's Peak my first time as a passenger. And so the guy that was driving, uh David Donner, I asked him, Would you be willing to drive my RX7? That really was the four-rotor. Once I get it all done up, can you drive it up Pike's Peak? Uh I don't have the ego. I don't need I don't need to be the guy. I already am the guy that built it, that's cool. Um, and he's like, No, no, screw that. You put all that effort into building it, you need to haul your ass up this mountain. Do it yourself. And he he was challenging me to be better. And so he's like, apply the first year, get declined, bring go second. But you had no drive, uh, no rate, very little. Oh wow. I've done a couple tracking. You got some balls. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, but but the thing, my theory was I don't drive to this is gonna be a controversial thing. I don't drive because I love driving. I drive because it teaches me how to be a better builder.

unknown 32:22

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

Oh, that's true. Yeah, it's true. You're 110% true. So I was like, I don't know how to build a good car better than my, you know, the version I had before was atrocious because I didn't know what the car needed. And so now I'm knowing how to drive, this was my, you know, within the the environment I was given, this is my best. I mean, this is a really fun ass car. This is a fun car to drive. I will be honest, I would love for you to drive it because it's it's just fun and it's fast. And the arrow's a little uh off balance because I have a massive rear wing that's uh not really balanced.

SPEAKER_04 32:53

Uh this thing will probably understeer.

SPEAKER_02 32:55

Yeah, yeah, which is fun. Like uh Which is fun.

SPEAKER_04 32:58

Understeer is not fun. No, no, no, hear me. Understeer is not fun. That means you're going off the mountain.

SPEAKER_02 33:04

I didn't do that with uh up the mountain, but what I mean is Line Rock, at Lime Rock, there's one left turn, everything else is all right turns, and that one left turn, you can just let off you know, or hit the brakes, just let off the gas. The car puts all the weight in the front, that rear is not coming loose. So you can really do this weird kind of trail breaky, like let the car's rear end try and hang out, it's not gonna kick out. So I I instead of just going to a turn and turning left, I was letting off and trying to rotate the rear, and it just wouldn't get stuck. Now, could it be faster?

SPEAKER_01 33:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 33:35

Uh but with what I have, it was way faster than just oh, left turn, turn left. So I don't know. It's it was just teaching me how to like build and drive.

SPEAKER_04 33:44

Yeah, just like with you mentioning that, right? Um, some of the most dangerous, dangerous, not dangerous in a good way. Yeah, dangerous drivers are the ones that understand mechanically what's going on in the car. It's just like uh Days and Thunder, you know, where the crew chief asked uh uh Tom Cruise, you know, I I didn't understand a word you said, a wedge here, what you did put me in a car, I knew how to drive it. But yeah, with drivers, you were able to understand the mechanics of it. But I give you balls to go. Was Pike's Peak your first endeavor as a driver?

SPEAKER_02 34:18

Uh I would say official. Like if you put like if I had like a official list of what I've done, everything else was like, you know, grid life and testing tune days and just having fun. Um and what the thing that I felt that I would excel at Pike's Peak, and thankfully I can say this on the other side, I'm saying it did, is that I love memorizing things. And so 156 turns, I felt like that's a different thing than perfecting five turns. And so I don't I get bored perfecting five turns, but being really good at all of them.

SPEAKER_04 34:48

And you had not one ounce of fear that you would fall off the mountain.

SPEAKER_02 34:56

Okay, I uh here's the thing I will say. I I'm gonna I'm gonna draw a line in the sand here is I'm gonna say that it it's not as scary as people think because of your optimism. You're and you're looking especially if you're studying, you know, do the do uh I did countless hours of sim driving. The thing is that you really are just focused on the lines, you know, and you're like, oh, this is this turn, this is this turn. You're not focused on the peripheral, it's terrifying drive down the mountain. And that's the other thing to me is at a 10-degree angle, your car wants to slow down at all times. But when you're going down, your car wants to speed up, and that's terrifying. And you don't know the road back. So I the I feel like it gives you, and I could say false sense, but it does give you this weird sense of security of like, okay, I'm I'm just doing what I did in the game, and I and what I I think my the magic secret to that was that I geared the car in the game, I modified the car in the game to match my gearing of this car because it's unique.

SPEAKER_04 35:54

That's why you didn't have any fear of the same thing. And so I was just at the top of fourth.

SPEAKER_02 35:57

Yeah, so what I'm what I'm thinking is, oh, I'm not at the top of fourth, I could be going faster because in the game, I was top of fourth. And and it scaled, I'm I shouldn't say dangerously, but dangerously well. Where I was just like, okay, I could push it a little bit more. And the and the car in the game handled like shit. So my car can handle better than the car in the game. So I'm like, this is great! This is this is way better in the game. Uh there's one turn that was really iconic where I uh where I uh sauced it a little too soon and the car kicked out, and then you you see me get it settled and I'm back on the throttle, and all the fans are going nuts and everything like that. And so there was one turn where I okay tested the limit and went too a little too fast and spun the car a little bit, but but you could hear that it wasn't a fear, it was a confidence of okay, get the car back. And I just gotten back from rally school, and I would argue that rally school is probably the best school for uh learning something like that. Wow, wait, transferring.

SPEAKER_04 36:51

I applaud, I applaud your your your uh confidence, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 36:57

It's it's it's I like I said optimism and and just blinders, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 37:02

Wow, and the propensity for uh your curiosity because you built this. That's one thing I enjoyed too with with building cars was you do something, oh what's it do? What's it gonna do? And as you're in the middle of building it, right? Yeah, you're like, I can't wait to see what it does, and then you're like, wow, that made a big difference.

SPEAKER_02 37:22

Yeah, yeah, there was there were so many things. Obviously, I'm very data uh centric, and so like I have every single input on the Helltech's highest ECU, I have every single input, measure like barometric pressure sensor, temperature coming off the turbo, temperature past this, pressures everywhere, uh turbos, you know, you name all these sensors because then I realize okay, uh, how to be a better driver. I'm tuning tuning my driving or tuning, you know. The coolest thing, this is the coolest thing, is that I have shock level sensors on all four wheels, and they're recording every millisecond. And on the top section of pikes, it's got so much worse every year that there's a section where at speed your car, but you can see each the front two tires extend the shops fully, and then you see the rear two shops. Oh, because there's no air at the top. Well, there's no air, but there's there's a the road has settled under here, and you're you're in a braking zone. The road is gone, and for over a quarter of a second, over 250 milliseconds, all four tires are fully trying to grab something in a braking zone. And so, like, but the data from testing, as I was getting faster and faster, that was getting more and more extreme. I knew brake, let off, break. And so I could go into that turn faster. And so it was just instead of breaking, and then the car hits and slides, and then okay, you know, bad things happen there, it was data. Huh?

SPEAKER_04 38:48

Let's say, uh, are you going to bike's peak this year? Yes. Yep. Oh fuck. Um let's say you get a day, a day where, let's say a practice day at Pike's peak, right? And then you finally go back to your hotel room, how many hours do you spend looking at data?

SPEAKER_02 39:04

Oh, that's as much as I can without ruining sleep, which is already ruined. But my I've got a formula, uh, shouldn't I say a formula, I've got a ritual that works so perfectly uh the day before pikes, is that that night before I go to sleep, I will see if I can remember every single corner in my head. I will drive it, and if I can't remember, like, oh, it's like that one little zigzag or whatever, I start over. And so both years, the night before I go, or the night before race day, is drive the whole thing in my memory. And it's it's you know, first couple turns, easy. But then when you're like you start losing interest or you're you're wandering. No, no, no. I'm not going, you know, and it takes whatever, however many.

SPEAKER_04 39:45

So you're already visualizing the whole run of your head at you know, we had I had a previous guest on the show, James Dean. Yeah, right? Awesome guy. And James Dean had said that before an event even happens, or even during a practice day, right? When he gets to the hotel, he'll be laying in bed, driving the whole course and making adjustments. So he's already visualizing, and it's funny, you do the same thing. And work, it's impressive. Yeah, so what kind of changes are you gonna do? I for you being um uh Tony Stark, I compare you to actually you look more like Wolverine, in my opinion. You Jack McGregor. Yes, and all you need is the bangs on your fingers. But um uh with Pike's Peak, I would imagine you have a your brain is working too. What are you gonna do to this thing? So uh I have You have an understeer problem, so I'm curious what you can do there.

SPEAKER_02 40:41

I have bigger problems um than that because like I said, I was already I was already gonna almost hit a 10-minute even time, which is which is my goal. I don't want to go under 10 minutes. What's the record? Uh well uh Mad Mike's was 1034. Uh-huh. And then I did an 11.0 something one, 112, my first year. So that was pretty impressive for me. That less carved and I still I made it. And then the last, like I said, last year I was on track to do almost a 10-minute even. Ooh. And so the thing is Mad Mike, you're gonna get it served, bro. I want, I want, I know I can beat him. That's that's the cool part. But I want him to come back because that was his first time too. Now he's a professional drifter and all that, and he's got a lot of you know, sponsors, all that sort of stuff. But I would love to keep that well.

SPEAKER_04 41:25

The way, I mean, not to take anything away from your fabrication or anything like that, right? But this car is like the epitome of grassroots. Yes, you know what I mean? There's nothing uh I'm a guy that built a splitter on a plywood, you know what I mean? On our arc shape, but I can tell you're tinkering with this, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 41:46

So, like, for example, these are uh made out of ABS, and you can see the different sections that I printed on my printer. And then what's cool about ABS printing is you can take acetone and melt it and then fuse them together. So, like when you say grassroots, that's making this massive thing solving a problem with a more home-built solution. Now, uh the thing is that with the air being so thin up there, this turbo spins about 30,000 RPM above its limit. Ooh, that's not good. And so that's what ended up hurting me. That creates a lot more heat and uh it ended up snapping itself in half on a shift. Ah, I was imagining. Shifting and turbo overspinning are my two issues that if I just fix those, I could I could probably run a 1015 and be safe. But there is uh the one thing, Ron, that I I will say, especially about a rotary, there is a significant difference between running it 90% and 100%. And it's almost double. It's a it's whatever the heat, the critical, everything, 90%, you can run this car all day long at 90%. 100% shit starts breaking quickly. And it's it's it's just this like exponentially insane thing. Where the first year I made it all the way to the end and I was perfectly fine. The car I drove it all the way back down to shoot flames, the anti-lagging, but the second year, because every single turn was just top off, and you're gonna talk about hitting the rev limiter. I was just pushing the car to its fullest, uh, issues just escalated so much quicker. So my now I got this data of how to do a 10-minute run that nobody can take from me. I've I have this log and I know how to fix it. Well, you've already seen it. Yeah, so that that's why last year was so everybody else was all like oh race it's short, what a waste of an event. I'm like, no, no, no, no. I now have data that you you couldn't pay for. I mean, other than doing what I did. It was a wasted year. I used it perfectly.

SPEAKER_04 43:33

So, uh, how are your hopes in uh getting the record up there?

SPEAKER_02 43:37

Um, I feel I honestly feel very confident. I feel nice like it feels it feels like sorry, Mad Mike. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, bro. It feels more reason for you to come out. He's a competitive person too. So yeah, we're we're good friends, but he's a very he's a driver. Yeah, you know, and uh it's funny because he's coming from driving, going into like building more, and I'm coming from building, going into driving, so we're kind of like crossing paths. But he's got a lot of backing him. Yeah, exactly. So I feel like the underdog, even though I'm not, compared to him, I am. You know, and so I like staying hungry, staying, you know, able to adapt, change.

SPEAKER_04 44:13

Well, you seem to be more of a person of curiosity. Yes. You know what I mean? And that's what drives you. Yeah. Curiosity.

SPEAKER_02 44:20

Yeah, and it's yeah, data, curiosity seeing. And the other thing is like, who wouldn't like I I don't forget, like, all the fans that watch what I do. Somebody's out there going, if I was in that spot, I would be doing this. He's wasting his opportunity. And I think I'm that guy worrying about wasting the opportunity. I'm like, what can I do while I'm still relevant? You know, because I imagine YouTube goes up and it comes down, mine's gone up and just kind of I've always stayed right underneath mainstream, and I love that. But someday, what happened happens? So I'm like, let's take advantage of every opportunity while I can still, you know, make some uh differences.

SPEAKER_04 44:55

I would imagine um uh just as long as you stay true to your curiosity, I think you'll be just fine because a lot of people put content out there, right, to appease the masses, right? Yes, but with you is a genuine curiosity, you know what I mean? And mind you, it it doesn't it doesn't have to be a million-dollar carbon fiber box. You you could say, yeah, I built this. You know what I mean? If you're the um now, mind you, with the greatest respect, Mike, we're good friends and everything, right? But um, if you don't look at a man Mike build, I mean, dude, that thing looks like it's worth$250,000. And not not to take away from your love of shit, right? But yeah, that's my my polish. When when I when I see it, yeah, I see curiosity, I see you tinkering, I see you staying up until two in the morning, three in the morning looking at data. Oh, here's a question, right? And then waking up at six to go for the first round, right? Yeah, yeah. Because what fuels you from the conversations we're having right now is curiosity, and I love it, right? But do you there's gotta be a balance. You know what I mean? I'm wondering what kind of raw Rob Dom can only take so much.

SPEAKER_02 46:07

Yes, I am hitting that limit considerably, not with rotaries, and I think the reason why is that the world left a lot on the table for rotaries to improve, but the optimism I had getting into the Cosworth program when there are over a hundred very intelligent rob Doms doing what I'm one Rob Dom is trying to do.

SPEAKER_04 46:28

I found human limits to be the biggest because you're driving, right, on race day, and then looking at data at the same time, and then working on the caruber, plus working on the car at the same time. I mean, yeah, how how do you do it?

SPEAKER_02 46:47

That part you'll notice, and I think this is where I'm very thankful for my core audience, is that they're very understanding of how bad the content gets, because it's genuinely the moment. You know, I'm not I'm not racing uh up Pike's Peak to make a video, I'm making a video to be able to afford racing up Pike's Peak. And I think that they understand that where I could be a much better storyteller, so that is what suffers first. Because for me to be looking at the data and being like, okay, if the wheels speed, blah blah blah blah. Oh hey guys, by the way, um, so we're ready, like maybe I'm gonna get some throw you later. No, you know, that it just goes out the window uh and it's just very uh I'm I'm gonna die if I don't get this done. Yeah. And so I tend that suffers first. And then uh driving suffers next. Because quite frankly, my my issues with this car are driving. My if if I if I had a perfect car, it's it's the I would be able to do a 10-minute drive. I'm a driver capable with this type of car of doing a 10-minute run, but as a builder, I'm not.

SPEAKER_04 47:47

So let me ask you this, right? Um me personally, from my experience racing, my my biggest thing is to kick everybody's ass, right? And go above and beyond to kick everybody's ass, right? But uh take for instance this pipe thing pipe speak thing, are you more fueled with breaking that time, or are you more fueled on the making adjustments to the vehicle and the time is if anything uh uh a result?

SPEAKER_02 48:14

You know the answer. You're asking that question knows the answer. Is that my audience? When I when I have my core audience, they get where I'm coming from. But when it my videos get viral, the people don't understand. I don't give a shit if I'm first place. I can get down here. I still want to nice. I love it. You're you're you're watching my video. I won. I got to race pipes peak as a rando. You know, like like I I've already I've already win. Like for me, the that's my competitive uh side is filled because what my hope had happened, my dream came true. Now, obviously I'm bummed out if I didn't make it, but like a lot of people were like, Are you so upset that your car blew up one turn before the end? I'm like, no, I have data. Everybody else was all bummed out. They all made it, they all made it to the end of the and they were all like, what a shit event. You're like, we just really suck. I'm with the fans because they had to tow my car, I'm grading year to ear. I did something memorable. It obviously wasn't foolish, it was pushing the limits, and I couldn't have had anything better. So yeah, it that's that's I'm fueled by that. People do not understand. The general public does not understand that me getting to drive an indie car when I am so unqualified to do show like we are, unless our name's Will Power or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like I won. I I'm I I did it. You know, so everything else is just icing on the cake, but like you said, it's the data.

SPEAKER_04 49:40

Yeah, data is so just looking at data and going, oh, oh, oh speaking in days of leather terms, we put a little wedge here and a little bump here, yeah. And when you put when you implement something new and then you take it out again, you're like, oh shit, they worked.

SPEAKER_02 49:59

Yeah, yeah, and and I think maybe I was influenced by something when I was much younger, is I always wanted to be a person of experience. I don't want to necessarily be the subject matter expert, but I want to be able to say, if somebody says, hey Rob, what's your thought on this? I can speak from experience, and I've got I've got more than just hey, I was a field bachelorette contestant as my history. I've got all these different things that I could talk about. Most of them are rotaries, but like it's just cool to be able to tell stories. That's why I went to high rounding cosmores. But you know what I mean? Like, just to be that is a success in my book.

SPEAKER_04 50:32

I have a feeling um you're not going to stop because curiosity, curiosity is what fuels you, and even for somebody like me, um, it's just seeing the result after you put your hands in a modification on something and seeing it work. In our case, uh we were getting drunk and figuring out how to, you know, front my my forte is front-wheel drive drive racing, dyslexic racing, right? And so, you know, when you drink, when you're drinking and looking at the car and just going, hmm, what can we do here? What can we do there, right? And lo and behold, well, we need wheelbase, and then when you enact it and you take it on track, you're like, shit, it fucking works. Yeah, and then especially with with the rise of data loggers, oh my gosh, it's cheating.

SPEAKER_02 51:28

In my opinion, it's it's the most like fair cheating ever. But yeah, but here's the thing about this car this car is now capped. This is this is one of the hardest things I've had to do, is that this is my free road. Okay, it is a rear-wheel drive car. It will this is with within reason, this is the final version of the car. I promise myself, I swear I'm swearing to you, swearing to myself, this will not get crazier because I have the all-wheel drive forward. That's my Magnum Opus. And so one of my hardest growth moments has been yes, but okay, this car, we could we could get really crazy with this, this, and this, but I just blew it out. Exactly. But I have a car to do that with. So this car has has hit its like final form, make some modifications, maybe on old the rear wing, old different rear wing. I'd put a bigger splitter on the front of it. Exactly. From hell. Yeah, yeah, you know, have little front wings that added to it, but like that's it. Modify it a little bit. But this car is fundamentally finished. And I'm telling myself that even now. Because like I want to see.

SPEAKER_04 52:40

It's on the camera. You know why Rob is saying that? Because he does not want to open Pandora's box and go down this rabbit hole into this vehicle. Nope, nope, it's done. It's it's perfect. Yeah. It looks so familiar and so painful from my experience with my RX8. But the beauty, the beauty behind every every detail I see, the datalong and that sort of thing. Yep. Tell me about some of the yes, what's been going through your mind with this thing. I will I'll treat this like a business. Wait, how many years has this been?

SPEAKER_02 53:14

This uh this is painting. This is Theseus Ship, where it's changed, it's the same car, but it's not the same car. I've had this car since 2012. Oh, nice, okay. Um, and I think the intake manifold and the rear three-quarters is the last of it that's the same. But uh the thing is, this is my my theory, my working theory of what it takes to run a thousand horsepower rotary at full tilt for 15 minutes. Uh-huh. So that that's everything, everything you see is my my guess, oh, and it's been proven in some ways, of saying here's what it takes for a thousand horsepower at the wheels, rotary non-stop. So obviously it's mostly thermal management.

SPEAKER_01 53:54

Yeah, I can see that.

SPEAKER_02 53:56

Two radiators, the main radiator in the front, second radiator over there. These aren't oil, right? That's radiator. Oh, really? Yeah, and then this is oil. Oh, wow. And then uh thick but tall, like not tall, intercooler, uh-huh. Um, very efficient core, so I don't need to take up too much of that front area. Uh-huh. And so that main radiator is doing a lot of work, side radiator, everything's doing a lot of work here. So uh the engine is just doing what I've my formula, I guess that you call it, since I've made a thousand horsepower years ago. And you know, it was really awesome. But I made a thousand horsepower dynamic, not sustained gear and gear, gear. This is this is a six-speed sequential. Uh, currently it's manually shifted, but for Pike's Peak, I do air shifting. Uh-huh. So I keep my hands on the shifter. Keep your hands on the wheel, yeah. I love I love messing with a shifter. Why my four-rotor just play just pulling the shifter is one of the most enjoyable automotive experiences. Just click, click, you know, shooting flames on that. So, so this is really uh in one way you say a thousand horsepower rotary, and the other way you'd say this car is a thousand horsepower turbo, and everything else supports that turbo. Yeah, you know, it could look like a pump style. Yeah, so everything that's that's the goal with this car, and so oiling, cooling, electricity, everything as stable as possible. So it's really like an operating room for this engine is making it the instable environment where it doesn't know that it's racing up pace because it doesn't know it's doing anything extreme, it's got nice supporting modification. So uh in here, I it was a full uh you know interior car. Uh-huh. Uh now you know, not so much.

SPEAKER_04 55:36

So oh, are these your plates on it for down force? Yeah, yeah. And you implemented these last time you were up there? Yes. Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_02 55:43

Yeah, so that was my first time of like I machined a piece and was a possibility, and so uh they add about 250 pounds of down force in the front. And you still want more. Oh, yeah, yeah. I need more. What's funny? I can tell you right now, because of the shock level and the motion ratios and the spring rates and all that. This wing in Denver, so we're already a mile up in the air. Uh, this wing, as you see it at 130 miles an hour, produces 1700 pounds of force in the rear of the car, and without those, lifts the front of the car 500 pounds. Yeah, that's why you have to have that balance of between front and rear. Yeah, you I never thought that there's a motion arm of this is pushing back. It's a lever. Yeah, it's a lever, it's picking the front of the car up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that was a that was blown away. Because uh in Denver, there's a uh racetrack, Pueblo Motorsports Park, where there's a front straight and it's their drag strip. So it's the smoothest straight.

SPEAKER_04 56:36

I'm surprised you haven't put potentiometer uh strain gauges on the uh on the wing mounts.

SPEAKER_02 56:42

Yeah, that'd be that'd be sick. They make those, right? Yeah, right. I didn't even think about that. My thing was okay, the shock level sensors. Ah you know, so I know the force of like it's obviously shaking, but at least on that stable surface, I can take the average of this whole time. Did you put that wing in the front? Yeah, like a group B or some wild air, you know, Pro Amp can right here. Yeah, yeah. Uh but yeah, so that's the thing is that this car is locked in at this. This is this is I'm not changing this one.

SPEAKER_04 57:12

Just make sure it's reliable, that way you can do some driving. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 57:16

So wow, is that the down pipe?

SPEAKER_02 57:22

Yeah, uh a lot of people don't know this. Oh no, wait, no. It was. It was. Uh oh, you have it off the side now. I caught the car on fire my first run of Pike's Peak because I had the the I was trying to blow the diffuser with the exhaust. Uh-huh. Uh, and all the things. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh worked, except it caught the back of the car on fire. Yeah, you don't want to cut your fire. So maybe Jesus helped me. Yeah. They're like, do not burn a first though. So yeah, so again, uh, that ended up shooting the exhaust just out there. It was Pike's Peak who told me, hey, just shoot the exhaust, uh, exhaust out the fender. I'm like, duh! Okay. Yeah, so like I said, this is this is my best attempt at a really fun. What trans uh sequential transmission are you running? That is a PPG box. Oh nice tick and tick is our main supporter of this car. Um they they sent me that transmission, and so uh they've been absolutely incredible. And that transmission's a tank. I've drag raced with it, I've done everything with it. What dry stump uh unit are you running on there? Yeah, so uh I have a custom thing I did some machining on. Um you know, rotaries are weird with their whole dry stump, but yeah, then a massive ARA tank, uh, and yeah, just three gallons of oil just to keep her happy. Yeah, and because that adds in part of your cooling capacity, right? Yeah, yeah. At the top of Pike's Peak, you know, I'm sponsored by Malvlium, right? And what I do want to say is I talked to their their uh tropologist, that's like the official like chemist of oil. Well, what is it called? The tropology. Oh, nice, yeah. And so I was like, how hot can I get the oil? Because I was like, let me just like run it to the limit. And they said basically get it to 300 degrees, anything above that, it starts to double in how fast it degrades. At the top of Pike's Peak, I was at 290. Nice, yeah. So uh and car bearings, everything perfectly fine. Nice. That was first year, second year was much colder, but yeah. So, like I said, limit. This is this is done, uh, you know, with within reason. There's so much more I could show you, but this is this is like I said, a place and time.

SPEAKER_04 59:22

Well, it so happens your uh your Iron Man cave is right next door. Secret location, yeah. I I with seeing all your content, right? Um Rotaries is your first love, but now you're getting involved in open-wheel vehicles. Yes, yeah. I got I got I got a lot of really cool stuff to show you. This has been like let's go over there. I want to check it out because it's there's nothing beats going to Rob Dom's Bat Cave and seeing the bearded lady all over the place.

SPEAKER_01 59:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:58

Let's see, let's see what curiosity is in Rob's garage now. This is about the cleanest thing. You know what's funny? Is the cleanest garages are the ones where work's not being done. Exactly. The dirtier, the better. Yep. We're gonna head over to uh Tony Stark's cave.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:18

Yeah, a couple minute drive. Look at this thing. Oh my god. I I'm really excited. Uh oh, we can't get a lot. Uh I'm really excited because I finally got a chance to set stuff up.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:34

Oh, it it it's it you can yank the sleeves out of it. Oh, I yeah. Sick! Look at this typical high dollar stuff, all anodized plugs and everything. Yeah, yeah. So this is definitely not Rob Dumb style, by the way. Not at all. Not at all.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:52

I'll show you my style, but yeah, uh so I bought all of uh the used Cosworth XD engines, well, all the indie car engines, in an effort to get the parts for this car.

unknown 1:01:03

Shh.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:03

So started it starts with this car, and I bought this as I didn't know this when I bought it.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:09

Uh if you want to learn some shit, you buy something like this. This is why you got it, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:12

I bought it as yeah, that's as I thought. My theory was if I buy this, I know how to have the fastest cars in the world. Let me learn from how they're built. Yeah, and I could be a better builder. Well, I bought this as a show car. It was set up as put it in a uh lobby type of car. It was not it was not a race car, even though it had been raced, all the parts had been gutted. I didn't know that. And so I set out to buy the engine for this, and then I was like, well, screw it. If I'm putting this much money into this, I want to have the parts to push that until it pukes. Learn. Yeah, yeah. You know, and I didn't realize I that the remaining 20 some engines in the world uh were for sale, and that they wouldn't sell me parts for that engine without me buying all of it. All or none. All or nothing. Sounds like something Rob would do.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:01

All or none. I'm in. I'm in.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:04

So um I know zero, I've never built a piston engine in my life. I get how they work. Rotary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so everybody else is like, oh, it's so mystical with the rotary. No, a valve train is mystical. And so uh I took apart that engine to one to a certain extent, to the point where I was like, okay, I'm out of my league and then put it back together. Uh and we just got you got scary? I did. Because what it was was the timing. Rob Dom is here. It's mortal. I didn't I didn't know what everything was timed to. I didn't know how to undo it, I didn't know how to redo it. I was like, was this is this isn't that engine, but this one I'm learning how to do all the you know cam timing. Yeah. So I built the the short block, and now I'm working on learning how to build the heads, but uh you know, this this whole intake manifold is in Ohrel! Holy shit! I knew I would get that response from a barrel!

SPEAKER_04 1:03:01

Okay, you have to understand, right? Your typical vehicles, even to this day, use a throttle plate, right? There's a big hole, there's a throttle plate. And this throttle plate's in the way. So in higher forms of motorsports, especially well, this one's turbocharged, but normally aspirated, they call this a barrel throttle body. So there's no throttle plate whatsoever. If you're at full open, there's no no restriction. There's no restriction. Yeah, so that's just mesmerizing.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:31

Look at that.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:32

Yeah. So wow. See, and if you look inside, it's it's completely and utterly open. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:44

So that this has been just what year uh was this? So these first came out in 96, and then they ran until 2000, 2001. And they tried doing some other things with them afterwards, but I this is the uh the hill I'm gonna die on. Is that I feel, and I dad approves this, is that this was the pinnacle of performance. Uh when I bought all this, you can see that top shelf. Nice! That that looks beautiful. Yeah, all of all is there's 50 different pistons, but you could see their innovation occurring. Like, this is this is a moment in time because nowadays they already know all this. So, like I got to buy and then become like uh your Sherlock Holmes and see, okay, this is this one, this is the difference, this is what's better.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:26

They were getting better throwing you know infinite amount of and so their logbooks are up there, and now you're deciphering their logbooks through the act. Oh, I'm see this. Okay. Mad scientists, and we're at the that we're at the lab. You'll be able to hear it.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:43

Okay, so whoa! This is just engine number 77. And this is Are they dated?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:51

So this is back in uh 99, and this is build number 14. And so within build number 14, I have all of their cam timings. Uh they show all their uh like offsets, um, what parts were used. Wow and then that one's not even a like.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:12

Sorry guys, we're kind of nerding out right now.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:15

Yeah, so like there's these notes, okay, they they mileaged out stuff. I mean, you know, obviously, you know that they're like, we don't want to take a chance. It's not that they were bad, the parts are bad, it's just that they couldn't take a risk.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:25

You know, we did the same thing in drag racing where we I because I was the guy building me and my buddy Vince were building the engine, we'd after with the best part after a race, right? The best part after a race is not racing it. The best part after a race is tearing it apart and going, ooh, look what happened here, and then we'd do the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:46

Yeah, so this has been incredible because nobody's taught me how to rebuild these things. Uh huh. Um, I I see it hidden within these notes. And so this one's a good example where this is like all the tolerances of what type of Bearings to use. And then here's how tall the fire rings are. Here's here's how they did all the deck height. Holy shit, they gave you everything. Exactly. So so I can look at the valve to piston clearance. What's wild is one of the cosmos guys after I was like, hey, there's like there's like whatever, 15 or no, 35 thousandths of clearance on your pistons. Does that make sense? He goes, yeah. When it's sitting right here, but he goes, at 15,000 RPM, it stretches and touches. It will leave a witness. And I was like, holy shit, it's 35,000 rp. So that way you get max, max compression. That piston's moving so fast that that our thing's stretching and just touching. He goes, yeah, if you if you clearance this motor right, which is 35,000 to 37,000ths of piston to valves, it will tap and touch right at it.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:47

Look at how short this stroke is. Look, yeah, it's this the piston's probably that big. Yeah, yeah. And then this, if you know anything about motors, right? This thing, what's this thing rev to? Uh 15,000. That's gonna sound like beauty burning. Look at how short that stroke is. This thing's gonna rev to the moon. Here you go. Woo boy, that is a beautiful piece of metal. Oh my gosh. Look at the stroke ring on it. Look how small, and you can see how short the stroke is on that to achieve 15,000 RPM. Yeah, this definitely is not no fast. Have you ever wondered? Yes, look at the thing. Have you ever wondered? Of course it's wondered. Um, what the F1 technology looks like.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:42

So this came out right before Cosmoth's uh CA, which is the fastest engine ever to rev. So that's 20,000 RPM. And so the Cosmoth guys, the ex-Cosworth guys that have retired, were giving me hints and pieces that this shares a lot of that. Really? Yeah, they were building, those teams were building and innovating at the same time. Now that CA came out right after this one, but again, it's that golden era, yeah, early 2000s. And so you can actually see, yeah, exactly. Wow, look at how cute and short that is. Yeah, so this is actually a rate, these are race pistons because they have two rings instead of a qualifying.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:19

Yep, these are anti-detonation rings right there.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:21

Yeah, so that's the big piston. Oh wow, they're running a three-ring pack. Yeah, is that the three-ring pack? Yeah, two two compression and one oil. Yeah, wow. So did they run gas ports? Yep. Oh wow. So this is the uh qualifying piston.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:38

Here, just give you an idea, all right? This is super if you even look at the side profile, right? You'll see that the one that needs the last for a long time is taller, whereas the qual So they ripped the motor out for two? Two motors. Oh wow, and you can see how short, if we were to put this on a scale, this is much more shorter, and lighter, and lighter, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:01

Yeah, so the qualifying was meant for that 50 mile or so uh just all out just make it fast as possible.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:11

Oh, this one's obviously your your race piston right there. Yeah, and this is the qualifier, yeah. Sick. Oh, yeah. So they were they run uh they run gas ports to help seal the ring on two. You may people may think well, for nerds like us, right? People may think this is just a regular piston, but there's a lot of sexiness that you can see on the piston from the late 90s. So now let me ask you this, right? Obviously, rotors rotaries gave you a fair amount of uh awakening, right? That's so cool. Yeah, do you feel reborn? Uh uh grap getting getting all this high-end stuff. Do you feel like you you just got born again? So here's the thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:58

Uh if we if we just look at it, it's got a flip. I pause because I know he's like, Look at how cute this little bastard is, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:08

Yeah, all right. Your typical rod's gonna be this long, right? And this looks, and mind you, the the this your typical rod's gonna be long and this, and but look at how short this bad boy is. But in order to run 15,000 RPM, right? You're you're you're sloshing around, you're sloshing around this rod. You're throwing this rod around, is this called Molly?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:29

Uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:30

I don't know what it is. No, I think it is. It'd be lighter if it was titanium. So you're sloshing around this, throwing this rotor around, this rod around at 15,000 at 15,000 RPM, right? And so it's gotta be able to handle that much RPM. But look at how short it is. But you produce more power because it's more cycles per minute. You know what I mean? Yeah. RPM. If you're just swinging 9,000 cycles, and that means how many cycles of fuel and air were going into the motor produced that power. But with 15,000, guess what? You're gonna produce more power because it produces more combustion cycles in one minute.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:08

Yeah, yeah. So this this engine makes about, we'll just say, just shy of 300 foot pounds of torque, but it makes 900 horsepower because it's 15,000 RPM. Yeah, so it's way a wow SPS highs.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:24

Oh, you know, it's standard, it's probably H11.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:28

So that's here's the here's the optimism coming back is that I felt like alloys technology has improved since then. It sure has. That you could build this and be even faster. Yeah, you know, not me, but me learning. I could learn and talk to experts.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:44

What are the chances of spinning it at 18,000 or something?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:47

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:47

That's what we're communicating without spinning.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:52

It looks like you need to hire him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's bad. That's bad. Okay, what when you figure the enjoyment, I mean, for me personally, uh drag racing back in uh 05-06, right, is we'd race, you'd run a number, and you'd figure that was your enjoyment, right? But for me personally, when we finally got back home and tore the motor apart and finding things when you push a limit, it'll show up inside the motor. You know, like the way Cosworth did it, where they wanted the most max, maximum amount of compression. So the believe it or not, something like this is gonna stretch at 15,000 RPM. So to get the most amount of compression, they have the piston touch the head, right? Yeah, you know what's another thing that I I'm not gonna say where my source is, right? There's an acceptable amount of detonation. They have uh in uh I can't say the team because I'll give it away. Um in let's say LMP or LMP2, they allow that they will intentionally see if it'll live with detonation for 24 hours. So they allow the motor, they call it an acceptable amount of detonation. Yeah, just like how you said the limit. Yeah, yeah, and if it could last detonating for 24 hours or 26 hours, then they're cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:19

Yeah, so so to answer your question, the idea here is I I didn't get in over my head overall, was with a rotary, I don't think of it as an engine, I think of it as a collection of parts that have to just keep doing a thing together, and I don't know why they do, but they keep it keeps making power. So the pinnacle of that being it's hidden in the corner because it's been a bad boy, is the 12-rotor. The 12-rotor is just a chunk of metal and another chunk of metal, and Tyson built this thing originally for a boat loader, and it works. And so I I gotta believe that okay, if I can control a rotary engine that happens to work, the same core theory should apply here. And granted, there are a ton of really smart people that help build this. Technology's gotten to the point where somebody like me, right at my limit, uh, I have no data on how to tune it, but I was able to get it fired up. It's an air pump. Yeah, exactly. That's what that's what I thought. Just focus on it as a simple concept.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:15

Here, and I'm gonna finish back real quick because I don't want to ruin your uh thing shui here.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:20

Yeah, and so so that was it. And that that's uh you know, it fired up, and uh it just you it it you just give it what it wants, which is an easy statement, yeah, as you know, it takes a lot of years of learning what an engine wants to give it that, but that it's become very simple to tune it. But one of my favorite things that you were kind of alluding to is at 15,000 RPM, uh it takes so much uh time to get a spark to ignite fuel relative to how fast the engine is moving. So, you know, normal engines, you time it but don't detonate it. Uh this engine is moving so fast that you you spark it so much earlier than because it's just moving so fast, it's moving so fast, it's still the same amount of milliseconds of ignition and exposure, but the engine's moving so fast, it's just per it's just so crazy how how uh that works. So I'm learning, you know, you're doing math to do that, but it's just yeah, so yeah, to answer your question, yes. I felt like if I could do a rotary engine, I could do one of these cars and tune it and then work my way backwards and then you know disassemble it and then ultimately reassemble it. So that engine, that bottom is uh I'll show you. Um just take these two bolts off. That's a magnesium head.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:43

Oh, bucket motor! Yep. Look at those keepers. What? Oh, that's uh so that way I can hold the the button, though, bablap.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:51

Yeah, so I didn't put the little things in yet. Um, but the the point I'm gonna show you is that I just have this, this head was just like a can I build a head? Uh but wait till you see the the engine.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:02

No, I I I totally understand what's going on here, I'll tell you that. I don't. Oh really? Just kidding, just kidding.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:10

I'm getting further, but yeah. So there. Ooh, fire rings!

SPEAKER_03 1:16:14

Wow! Sick, built into the sleeve! Yeah, so then holy shit. Damn! And this was the oh no. Yeah, yeah. So these are it's a man.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:34

And then an o-ring goes on the outside.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:36

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:39

And this is from the 90s. Yeah. And so the thing that's important is that this is all so new to me, but then I ended up buying what I didn't know at the time, was all their equipment for testing and getting the heights of everything, and and all it's so sick that not only did I get engine parts, but I got their tooling to rebuild parts, and then also their things for measuring everything. So I actually was taking all their like measurement equipment. Yeah, going what you got the measuring equipment too. Holy shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:07

So uh maybe show it right here. Where would you like me?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:15

On the ground for real? Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll put it back. Yes, I got these ready because I knew you you'd geek out too.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:22

Oh, wow! Digital mintoi! All my minutoyal stuff, I gotta, I gotta take off my glasses and read it in analog, but you, you got this Beverly Hill shit right here. Fancy.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:35

Oh my gosh. Yeah, and so that's this is the stuff I bought. I got this little, like, I got this piece from them, and I I sat there, I'm like, what is this? It's a measure your valve height. It's a flute. Yeah, so I didn't I didn't, you know, I was like, okay, clearly it matches that, and that's how I worked backwards. And then I was able to figure out okay, that's for doing your your uh your bucket height. Yes, yes, yeah, yep, yep, yep, yep. So it's just like tools that they made. And now I I have. And then this you know, valve drops, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so again, I didn't know what to measure, but this giving getting their tools, I was like, no way.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:14

Oh shit, cassidium uh is this a cassidium coating? Yeah, the wrong person down. Oh my gosh. All right, you have to understand on a valve train, right? Is I'll make sure to put it back because I'm OCD of you, yeah, right. These these these lobes slide onto that bucket. This is a cassidium-coated bucket. Okay, okay. I'm surprised they didn't put a lubrication hole. Whatever. Ooh. Has this been ran or is it brand new? There should be ran. Wow. Usually there's supposed to be streaks on the side of this, and there's nothing because of the coating. Uh I could be mistaken on uh what kind of coating this is, but this is this is a Beverly Hills Rodeo dry bucket. But this cams even gosh, look at this. This this looks like it's never been this is this is pure, this is pure sex right here.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:06

Oh my gosh. I'm gonna let you take this in for a minute and then we're going back to rotaries. So you're recharging this is nah.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:14

I I I'm oh wow. Anyways.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:18

It's made my day because this has been so overwhelming for me.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:22

Yeah, no, this is all familiar to me. Oh, yeah. Because what we did what we would do, because this is this is a lot of friction. This is all we knew back in the 90s, right? Two Jay-Z, one buckets, and it's it's it's metal to metal, right? Before they invented roller uh rollers and stuff like that, so that way there's zero friction, but just the coatings alone, and you're telling me this stuff is RAND? Yeah, yeah. This is all like space shuttle shit, right? Here, yeah. Oh my god, oh you 3D printed it. I printed that to keep track of it. My ghetto ass was using uh egg crate, you know, the egg for your eggs? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I would use, and then I'd label it. Wow, this is sexy. Is this a rifle drilled one? No, I can't tell. Oh, it is rifle drilled. These are the plugs. So, what they'll do is they'll rifle drill this thing so that way it's lighter.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:13

So it's hollow on the end. Yeah, so you can see there's a plug. Yeah, there's a plug. Yeah, so I have the thing is, is like with this, uh there's a column of stuff or a row of stuff in the middle. Those are all different cams. They have 40 different cam profiles, and so the older cam profiles are fatter than these, so I can grind them down. Like, you know, instead of adding material. So if I need more cams, I can take their older.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:38

Webcams just down this tree. But I don't think they can grind something. Maybe they can grind. Oh, well, they'll probably take the heat treat away from it and then grind it. Dude, you got you gotta feel reborn with all this stuff. I mean it's one thing to learn about rotaries, but yeah, dude, you gotta be awakened like crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:55

It's it's it's such uh scratching an itch. Now the problem is it's a pretty big itch. And so it's up there on the top. Now, this is this is you know this is my drug dealing moment, so I'm gonna take you over here.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:13

And behind these sexy. There's nine, uh one, two, three, four, five, six, two rows. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:28

And then there's Oh shit! And then same thing over there. So uh these are all oh no! Oh no! This is me opening the back of the van, showing you what I got.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:43

Finally, we came to a number, and yeah, like we finally have some jerk that's willing to buy it. It's useless motors to anyone else. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:51

And then I'll close it off. Oh, yeah, I'll make you a good deal. Um, but the the thing is is that my goal is to get these rehabilitated and get them rehomed, you know, get them get them a new life with a foster parent. But uh the more I understand about being able to build it properly, the better I could turn around and say, hey, I can take maybe half of them and sell them, and those people can beat the crap up.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:15

I I think what you've done here with all these Causeworth motors, right, is you've opened up Pandora's box. And you you you thought you wanted to put an end to like this is how this arc seven for Bright's Peak is, and that's that. I think with you purchasing these motors, you've you you're gonna create at least two to three years of learning. Yes, yes because you're a rotary guy's too much for the time frame I thought it would be. Do you ever I mean looking at that, is there a point when you at first you bought it because it was cool, right? Uh I bought them because I needed they wouldn't sell me the parts for that car. Okay. So now you now they're cool. Now that you've opened up Pandora's box, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:01

You ever feel overwhelmed that so uh the last three months I've made so much less content because I'm trying to understand what I have. I don't want to be the person speaking without the authority of what I'm talking about. Just have some guy follow you around going, like, wow, this is cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:18

Like it's like discovering, it's like uh discovering the light bulb or something along those lines where I mean, even opening up that and seeing how people see a air pump in a certain way. That's why when I when I see that, I'm like, oh, I see what they did here, I see what they did there, but there's other things like when you opened up and I saw that fire ring built into the sleeve, I was just like, fuck, why didn't I do that?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:46

Yeah, yeah. So do you ever worry? Yes, but here the the thing is is that again, I have to kind of shut one door, open another, and then kind of peek back in that door, and then I gotta close the door again because I'm focusing too much on it. The issue I have right now is this is one fraction of what I'm doing. And that is really exactly that's that's actually that's the actual overwhelming part of not biting off more you chew, but I'm chewing a lot every day. But the thing is, is that I'm trying to take everything I can, absorb it, and then make something better. And so the the thing I'm gonna I'm gonna take now that you've recharged, we're gonna go back into rotaries and show you this is my ultimate uh I guess I guess Magnum was. One, two, three, four. So I'm known for the all-wheel drive four-rotor car. Um I built I rebuilt the engine, now it's fully billet aluminum, so it's lighter. But I realized This was in this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The ver the previous version had more metal plates, steel plates, but I I learned so much and realized how what I was I needed to learn more, hence this stuff, that I stopped where I knew I couldn't really change. Before I make the intake manifold, before I do the whole oiling system, before I do anything more with this, including the entire car, let me learn this. Because the technology from there will overlap. Everything on this does three things. You know what I mean? Like it's it doesn't just do one thing, it's not just a pedestal for a thing. It also supports this or that, or it's it's the load barrier, it's the chassis in the middle. Yeah, it's a structural member of the whole chassis. And so that's where I was like, okay, I don't know enough to finish this. I really pause because I'm like, I need to learn more before I can do the I don't I don't want to be known as the rotary guy and not be the rotary guy. Yeah, and so that's what this has forced me to learn is how to be the cosmos rotary guy. And so what I've realized with this is this heart is pure. And this car, which is like I said that's the OG! Yeah, that's the city.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:58

That's the OG, that's Santa Mino Valley.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:00

Yeah, I I've learned so much. That's and like I said, that's the car I owned since I was whatever, 18. Yeah. Um there's one more version. That's why you're not gonna touch that. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. That car, that car can't be touched because all that energy. I found the limit where I can't do too many things at once. Yeah, and so so the final version of this has been the cute the reason I bought this, everything else that I've done is to make the final version of what I want to be known for. This is R D to make the symphony. Yeah, yes, yes, exactly. And so, um, let me show you this. There's cosmore stuff everywhere. Okay, here, check this out. So, with with prototyping and all that, this doesn't look like much, but this is actually the scan from that turned into a digital model, and uh we are uh building a final chassis for the car. Prototyping. Yeah, exactly. And what's really funny, this is really funny, is you can actually, when you grab it and grab it by the suspension mounting print, you can actually see I broke uh this. I'm like, that is actually the weaker part of the chassis. That's why they put a diagonal here now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like, I mean, obviously we have computers to simulate stuff, but you can really we had we had too much triangulation in one spot. See kids, stay in school. Yeah, play with play play with 3D printers too, because it it turns into like a obviously exaggerated, but it's like okay, 3D printing can really accelerate your learning.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:35

And so And you can see where the the open where where if you're to merely add an X or a diagonal, it would solve that issue.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:42

And like, oh man, do I need more here? No, I don't need more there because that part's not flexing at all. Yeah, and obviously there's there's you know caveats and all that, but this is uh uh I guess version two uh proposed of what we're gonna do the final chest. Okay, here.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:56

Let me let me give I don't know if this is gonna help you at all, right? It's not. When I was building the Mazda 6 drag car, right, and the fabricator that taught me Paul Alabav, right? And something as simple as a stupid bracket, or let's say a radiator bracket, right? It would be perfect. And he'd go, and my fabricator guy who taught me, Paul, he'd always go, dude, what are you building the space shuttle? Just get it done, right? Yes. So we have a tendency to go overboard on even the most minuscule things to the point where we're not building the space shuttle, and we have to go, all right, this is enough. You know what I mean?

unknown 1:28:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:37

That's the balance I keep talking about. Yeah. So that is a perfect segue into this little car right there. Simple kiss.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:44

Tried. I tried simple. People like me and him don't use the kiss policy to keep it simple, stupid, but in this case, Oh my god!

SPEAKER_02 1:28:51

What on here? We were I wanted to fire this up for you, but at the very least I can turn it over. Uh this is hot off the press. I've wired it last night and we're testing everything. But this is the Turbo One Rotor. And my goal was to try and keep it as simple as possible. And that was the hardest fucking thing ever because I managed to complicate it. I'm like, yeah, this is sickness. This is a major problem. I'm like, but on this car I already did that, so I need to take it up a notch. And this car was way overdeveloped, but I I can excuse my I know why. I know why there's so many reasons why I wanted to overdevelop it because that one rotor has to run really well. It's not you. No, no, no. It's not you.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:34

We could be repairing a Hoover vacuum cleaner and we'll figure a way to complicate the situation.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:40

Yeah, so so that was uh this is like I said, you this is the first site. Oh, we got a cute little turbo! It's a little baby, and so it it looks perfect for Miano. I know it matches, right? Put the square tire down there. Yeah, so uh so this is like the baby, like there's projects like this where it's kind of like scratching that itch, uh, and then again trying not to overdo it. Like it took failed miserably with that. Do you know how hard this is, Ron? To not cut this off and do it myself.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:16

It hurts my soul knowing that this wire that uh I know what happens is things like that, or at least from my experience, it makes your your your skin crawl. It hurts. Yeah, it hurts. And you can't you can't just leave a simple situation with stock components around it.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:36

You want to make it yeah, I'll give you this though. Okay. I'm gonna turn this thing over. Okay, go on. Uh oh wait, we'll make sure everything's yeah, make sure it's all away from that thing. And so the the thing that cracks me up is just hearing only one rotor. Oh, that's gotta be interesting. Yeah, it's just thump, thump, thump. So it's not on, obviously. It's just one like I'm I'm betting the house or whatever on one rotor. It's gotta do 100% of the work. So that's the first time the world's heard it turn over. Uh and if it we're mid, like I said, mid-process of about ready to fire it up for the first time, but it's just like I was not expecting it, it sounds so dinky. I'm curious single piston one side button.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:25

Yeah, yeah, I'm very curious how the harmonics is gonna work on this because there's no opposing uh combustion to offset it to create a circular uh movement, right? Yeah, so now you have one, and so I was thinking maybe when he's driving down the road, the car is gonna rotate like this according to the rotor on the opposite direction because of the door. That's why has anybody done this?

SPEAKER_02 1:31:49

Uh there's been one rotors, but they've not worked well. Oh, really? Yeah, car-wise. Now, the drones are typically 30 horsepower one rotors. I don't know if the drone does this, but uh, you know, yeah, I don't I don't have a clear answer of somebody that's done it to this level to be able to trust the data they're getting. But but that's the thing, is that I just I I wanted to do a fun little project and it spirals out of control. As usual. Yeah. Um, but but here the thing we were kind of talking about is like I still have to push my limits. I'm not gonna build a car just for YouTube. I don't want to do YouTube just to play the YouTube game. That wouldn't be genuine. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:26

You're true, true to the the what's going on in here. Yeah, you know, and stay stay true. I mean, especially with a what you assumed wouldn't be.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:42

It didn't happen, it didn't happen. Yeah, so that that's that's kind of a glimpse into the world of what uh is open and causing me headaches and nosebleeds. It's it's absolutely beautiful. But you've got to be fully enlightened, yeah. Yeah, I have my purpose, like that, that feeling of purpose is maxed out. Like that slider bar is a hundred percent almost too. I want less purpose than that.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:07

Enlightenment and curiosity is is so paramount because it keeps you the there's many people that climb a mountain and they don't they don't want to climb the mountain. The process, right? The journey is where it's at, and you get enlightenment. That's why you gotta be. The these this is this is your crack cocaine, methamphetamines right here.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:31

It is, and it's but it's also kind of like uh I've now become the unofficial like historian for this motor. Like I've become I have this liking kept it to themselves. So I I I've I I take this very responsibility as well of not just like, oh, this is mine personally, and I get to play with them. That's that's cheating. I love that. But I also feel obligated to like document it for the world.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:57

So I just finally getting to talk to you uh and and digging into your brain and what drives you, I totally get it. I totally get it. Man, Rob, you truly are the mad scientist. I mean, this curiosity that killed the cat. Seeing all this, right? Um where do you see yourself in five years?

SPEAKER_02 1:34:26

Uh I certainly see myself being capable of telling some really good stories and at least trying to put my money where my mouth is in piloting and enjoying some very fast cars.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:38

With that, um, I mean, did you have a 12 rotor, what, 10,000 horsepower dragster there? Potentially. Apparently you're gonna drive, right? You have this this this open-wheel car, right? Yep, that you're learning a lot from, right? Where you have no business or no qualifications to drive it. Do you ever worry that one of your projects is gonna kill you? Oh, that you know, you know, same thing with the Pike's Peak. We're talking about Pike's Peak. Oh, what happened there? Oh, whoa!

SPEAKER_02 1:35:10

This is from this? Oh, yeah, yeah. It's a little bit of art I've been working on, but yeah, that the idea is that you gotta work your way up. And so I'd rather, you know, that's it. So when you fail, you get back up. Yeah, that's right. Those parts are easy to replace. But uh yeah, I I take my life very seriously. I have a lot in the future I want to do. So even when mishaps happen, try to do it at a low speed and then have everything buttoned up when you go for a fast days.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:38

Um Wow, you have a lot on your plate. We could talk for hours. No, just what you have here. Um what any I hate to ask this, and any anything on the horizon that you're curious about. So again, rocket ships, oh yeah, uh space shuttle, uh, internship at F1. Yeah. How are you gonna how are you gonna screw up your life any more than it already is?

SPEAKER_02 1:36:04

Uh you know what? Thankfully, I still have that urge to put my money where my mouth is. So I've got a couple years of fulfillment here. And then and then your question becomes extremely uh uncomfortably relevant. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:17

I've been asking that myself too. One thing's for sure, I I I tip my hat off to you. Um this is how I like my life too. Uh it's it's it's a sickness, yes, right? But the the enjoyment we have from learning is just I can see it, and I get excited too when I say, dude, look at this! Oh my gosh! Uh but whoo! Uh you have a lot on your plate. You have a lot on your plate. Um, what what what would you like to tell your viewers out there? I mean, yeah, this guy truly is a savant. Truly. What do you want to tell your viewers out there?

SPEAKER_02 1:36:58

I want them to know that the story for the four-rotor is gonna enter the final act where myself as a driver, the car as a performer are gonna do everything that I've ever dreamed of doing with it. And so uh And what's that dream? You know what? Uh Pike's Peak? Pike's Peak is one aspect of that. I I think that just the way that Ken Block lived his life really, you know, it was an inspiration to me. And I don't think I can be Ken Block, but I think I can do my own thing inspired by him, and I think that that's my vehicle in many senses, the vehicle for me to do that. So yeah, I think the four-rotor, that's that when that comes out, I think that's gonna drop to the well there's a lot of there's a lot of heart with that.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:41

How old you don't mind me asking me about how old are you? Uh 42. So 42. So close to half over half your life has been that vehicle. That specific car. Yeah. So there's a lot of heart there. I I'm I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with that, your opus. Your magnum opus? Yeah, your magnum opus, and just man, this this I I it it was it's such a pleasure uh digging into your brain. Um you are truly Tony Stark, and not crying, I'm sweating, but it is a very compliment, good compliment. Thank you. Yeah, you truly are Tony Stark and curiosity. Yeah, it's rewarding. It's beautiful, it's rewarding. Oh, and oh, and Rob, tell everywhere to tune in to your crazy madness.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:34

Yes. Uh so I I am very unoriginal when it comes to finding me. It's my first and last name, or just my last name. Or if you don't even remember that, just look up 4-rotor RX7 and you'll be able to find me. But it's Rob Dom. Like whenever you're trying to find me, that's how to find me.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:52

So, um, that's the latest episode of Psychotics Anonymous. Um, OCD Anonymous. And this is for me personally, Rob, this this has been it's been a great podcast, especially from an engineering curiosity level. But uh, hope you guys enjoyed it. Thank you, Rob, a lot for letting us into your brain. Thanks for joining. That means a lot to me. We can go on and on for another two hours, but uh thank you for tuning in. I hope you guys enjoy the show. Follow Rob uh for Driving Line. Be sure to like and subscribe on Driving Line on the podcast, and we have some more crazy people that were coming up, so stay tuned.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:20

That's amazing. That's kind of commenting on this. That's it. That that is it. He's right, it does sound like a lawnmower.