Throttlecast: Episode 21

Dave and Grant visit Emran Alborno and Dak at their shop in Atlanta for a detailed tour of their high-end automotive customization facility. The visit showcases a showroom filled with premium audio brands like Focal, JL Audio, and Alpine, as well as their advanced Helix digital signal processing technology used for live-tuning sound. The tour highlights the shop's extensive fabrication capabilities, including a custom wood shop with CNC machines and a full metal fabrication area. Key projects featured include a custom-built two-door Ford Bronco with specialized audio and interior work, and a sophisticated, virtually undetectable Escort Redline CI radar and laser system integrated into a vehicle using 3D-printed parts. Beyond audio and radar, the shop handles exotic car maintenance like Ferrari sticky button replacements and performance upgrades such as Soul Performance exhaust systems, all within a fully air-conditioned and professional environment.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Cartoons Atlanta throttle cast. So we got Imron here, Jack here. Show us some bills. I'm sure there'll be some pretty cool stuff in here.

SPEAKER_04 0:07

There's some cool stuff just out in the parking lot right now. We can do a whole segment just out here. I know. This place is special. It's one of the coolest places in Atlanta. It really is. Let's go do it.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Hi! Hello. Welcome.

SPEAKER_04 0:25

What's up? What's up, man? How are you? Good, good, good, good. Good. Yeah, thanks for coming.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

Yeah, absolutely. Alright. Did you want to tell us a little bit what you got up here first? Yes. So let's talk about it. So this is our showroom. Actually, let's turn that down a little bit, because it's probably picking up all of that. This is our showroom. We've got several displays. So we've got Focal here, JL Audio there, Alpine, Kenwood, everything. So we've got all the stereo stuff here. We've also got all our new wheels that we're doing. We've been doing a decent amount of wheels recently, and we do the performance side too. We have a couple displays like factory shifters, and we can talk about focal. And you just kind of start out at the entry level, which is their access series. You walk up to Polyglass, Kevlar, and then the big bad boy Utopia. That's what everything's about. Everybody wants these. I mean, they're shiny, they're cool looking. Why wouldn't you want that in your door? So open checkbook, I'm going focal. That's it. Oh, that's it. I'm going focal and I want the utopias. And then we've also got their counterpart, which is a Moscone amplifier. That's basically what's powering this right now. And we've got a couple other really cool displays too that can kind of show up the best of the best as far as audio is concerned.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Sweet. And then uh budget's one step down. What's the next go to? Alpine. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

Tried and true. Maybe one or two steps down. Um that's this kind of has the hey, I just want a nice set of speakers, it's still a really good upgrade. Way better than anything factory, so it's not a paper cone. This is actually made of some actual material. Um, and then you've got the enclosures, the subwoofers, things of that nature that basically just give you a little bit more bump.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Cool, and I see JL. JL is super popular. Old school. Where does this fit into the dynamics?

SPEAKER_03 2:04

Yeah, it's been around forever. Uh, this is like our mid to high end tier. Um, this is JL Audio is JL Audio. It speaks for itself. It's been around, it's American made, it's an American company. They got recently bought out by Garmin, so they're part of the Garmin family now. Right all right. And now that they got a ton of money behind them, all they're doing is sinking it in RD. So they're coming up with some really cool products.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

I remember listening to my first set of WOs like way, way back in the day. Yeah. Then when the W7 came out, it was like groundbreaking. WOs, WOs, man, look at that.

SPEAKER_03 2:34

W7 still exists. That's still, it's it's old school and it's still around. Amazing. They haven't changed it. Yeah. So 20 years ago or 201 years ago when I started here, that was the best of the best. Absolutely. Nothing's changed. And you've all they've done is they changed that little W7 logo and it just says A E, but it's the exact same subwoofer, nothing has changed. And you can literally get it done with one woofer.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:58

Yeah, there's the W6, and you've still got the TW1, so a lot of guys they don't want to sacrifice the space, right? So flat, yeah, exactly. But the little flat woofer in there, doesn't take up any room, and you can still ride around.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

And these guys are doing a ton of marine audio too.

SPEAKER_03 3:11

Yeah, I mean that's part of the reason why I think Garmin bought them was because they really wanted all that marine technology. That's awesome. I love that carbon box too.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Yeah. What does that fit in? It's in a 4-5-8 aperta. Oh wow, so right behind the seats then. Oh nice. With the stripe, I love that.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

He even matched up the Kepler. Yeah, the carbon. I mean. Sold the system, guy sold the car, and guess what? Guy did not want the box. Wow. So now we have it. I mean it's a nice piece of artwork here. We've had it for 10 years. Yeah. It doesn't have done anything else.

SPEAKER_03 3:44

Yeah. Yeah, there's not too many 458 apertas that we can go. Hey, look, we've got it in stock.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Maybe somebody that watches this video they'll pick it up. Wink wink in hand, come on by. Yeah. You will get a deal. There's a good deal. There's a good deal we made on it. But I don't know, it's a good di display. Yeah. No, it's awesome. It is, yeah. It shows what's possible. And you can take that idea and you can put it in like a new Lamborghini Rivelto or whatever. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 4:08

I mean, that's the the concept is there.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

It works. And it actually matches up the weed perfectly. Yeah, it is. What else we got in here? Helix. So come around the corner here. Okay, that's a brand I'm not too familiar with. So all German engineering. This is, as far as digital signal processing, this is the best of the best when it comes to that. So we can put one of these little boxes here, the magic black boxes, and we plug it in, wire it up to your car, and then everything is controlled on the equalizer through that black box with this little laptop. So we go in after all everything's installed, said and done, and you can go into the software, you can adjust every single level. I mean, it's it's beyond full control. Gives you full time alignment, gives you all the power that you need, gives you everything. So this is part of our demo process. We bring you over here, we've got a cool concert playing in the background, and you can actually actually act like an audio engineer and sit there and just adjust levels and all that and kind of live tune all of that.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

And then this is all their uh their car audio stuff.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

So this is their audio stud. So this is like the bigger amplifiers. So if you're not wanting to go like the little black boxes, these are the more flashy amplifiers. I love the carbon cones, that always looks good, you know. Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, and these are their speaker lines. So it's the BLAM audio and helix together. Um BLAM is actually a spin-off of Focal. And they they were all the engineers, well not all of them, but several engineers from Focal said, hey, look, we want to do something a little different, and they came up with Black. Wow, that's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

So yeah, we've got both. And then these are like full powered units right here, like amps, uh, box all-in-one. Is that what I'm gonna do?

SPEAKER_03 5:39

Yeah, that's basically like an all-in-one. That guy is, that's, and then that guy's not, that's uh basically just a sub.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

So if I've got like a pickup truck or something like that, I can put this underneath the seats and the bag sort of thing.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

Yeah, or like underneath the Jeep seat. You know, a lot of jeeps have that little bit of room right under that passenger seat, these guys will fit that.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

That's a good solution for somebody, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:56

Yep, yep, yep, yep. That guy right there is also one of the Bronco boxes, so that actually attaches to the tailgate on the lot cleaner than what we had back in the day.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

We have the old bazooka tubes that were real popular that barely did anything. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

They didn't do much, but hey, they looked cool and they sounded cool. Yeah, yeah. Did something good name too, yeah. Definitely did. Definitely did. Very cool. You've got the big alpine board where you can sit here and design an alpine system on their board. Um, they've got a couple cool things in there. Um they're constantly updating it, so they they brought it in here and you can sit and design a system. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Yeah, yeah. So this is this is a fully installed RDM there system.

SPEAKER_03 6:33

It's on the back of the car right now. Two sensors on the back.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

All right, Steve, stop playing with me. Laser sensor is duplicated in here. We replicated all of the factory tabs, and you pop the reflector out, trim a little bit of meat out of the bumper, and this clicks right in there. And the head just sits flush right here. It's got an IR behind it. That's an IR transparent a clear.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

No way. How cool? That is insane. How cool, right? Completely undetectable. Exactly. Drop through Virginia with that. What sensors?

SPEAKER_03 7:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

That is incredible. So is this the you 3D printed this piece?

SPEAKER_04 7:09

Yeah, pull that up on the wall. Did they have this? Like show them the as a shape already? The thing. Or you had to make it this as a made all that.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_03 7:16

So that'd be worth making a video of him showing you the actual. Heck yeah, dude.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

You know, nobody's doing this.

SPEAKER_03 7:22

Alright, this is rare. So that's it. I mean, he basically designed that from scratch, measured it all, put it all together, and there you have it. Yeah. So and when you think about it, you know, it's like, oh, it's just a flat piece with a couple clips on it. Well, I mean, imagine all the rounded off designs and all the edges that he's had to come up with and actually make that all work.

SPEAKER_04 7:45

Oh, so that's it's not a flat piece. No, it's got like a little curve. Look at the curve in it. Oh, it does, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:54

So you have to find all of this art. Crazy, right?

SPEAKER_04 7:58

So yeah, it's yeah, because if you made it perfectly flat, it would just stick out on the engines and be like, wow, that looks funky. Right, because most of our eyes would be like, oh, it's just flat.

SPEAKER_03 8:05

Oh no, it's it's got a lot of bevel to it.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

That is very cool. Cool, right? Yeah, it's next level. Yeah. Yeah. It's all straight on this right here. Oh, yeah, the bamboo labs. Yeah, we got two of those. We got one H2D. Where would a shop typically say, Oh, we could put it right here. Like where would you put it if you didn't have it? You put it in these options.

SPEAKER_03 8:28

So we put it in this opening here, or we have to put it like right here. But man, that's the next level.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Yeah, imagine you did the readout built into the mirror on the side.

SPEAKER_03 8:38

Built into the mirror, of course, and then the front, which I'm not sure if the front's done yet, but I thought I was just cleaning up. So check out the front.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Same situation. Oh, that's clean. That's really clean. Cool, right? Yeah, built into the uh front sensors. Yeah, that's amazing. So this piece is added right here, but it looks completely factored.

SPEAKER_03 9:02

Yeah, exactly. So the intended to kind of like eight, like eight ass and all that, all the factory style sensors. That's gotta be the best radar laser install I've ever seen. Yeah, isn't it cool? And it's the latest and greatest tech, right? That's the latest and greatest. Redline CI from escort. Wow. Yeah, you see the ones in the middle? Yeah, this thing's up. Oh, dude added these two right here, too.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Yeah, that's insane. See? That is insane. Did you 3D print all those?

SPEAKER_03 9:29

So some of it is 3D printed, a decent amount of it is actually built on the car, but yes, it's it's designed in 3D and then finished with it.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

It's actually panel bonded to it, so it matches perfect.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Yeah, it does. And by the way, this spec is insane. The bad thing. It would be like my first paint color choice, although I I get the allure, but the amount of carbon, the wheels on it, just all the orange trim on the mirrors, the interior. Look at the back of the gauge cluster, too, you know, like that's just it's definitely a beast. That's like all that makes it.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

It's so cool.

SPEAKER_03 10:09

Alright, so this is a Bronco that we built. Uh it's two-door bronco, so kind of the OJ style. With the door swinging open. Two of the focal subwoofers in the back. Look at that. Uh custom enclosure. Built it for a guy named DFresh, because he's his actual name's Doug. Um, but yes, Doug's car. And uh he wanted to go buy DFresh. Wow, that's awesome. Dougie Fresh. Yeah, and we stitched a panel, made it look cool, kind of goes with the seats. Watch your head there, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Yeah. This is like something you'd see on like a whiteboard boat right here. Exactly what it is. It's pretty cool. So it's like a speaker tower. Yep. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 10:47

And then we kind of matched into the seats too, so it's got the leather interior with the diamond tuck and all that with the yellow stitch. Um, so kind of a little cool package. Did you have to make the brackets for all that, like yourself? So the brackets are actually available. Okay. Yeah. I mean, they're designed for Broncos, you just paint the thing and go, baby, go. What brand are we running of audio back? Focal. This is Focal. Yeah, so if you take a look at the Dash 2, it's got Focal Kevlars, those bright yellow speakers. I mean, and and the reality was we just said, hey, look, these are yellow, your car is right, your car is yellow, they sound awesome, so this all works out.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Yeah. Yeah, and it's got the rock lights, you got yellow beadlocks, looks like.

SPEAKER_03 11:26

There is a left pedal. It's real. And it does something. Yeah, it looks great. Yeah, it's got a little blow-off valve, too, so it goes. Oh, really? Yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

No, we're all coming the age where all of them have to be restored now, believe it or not. Oh, dash was uh shrinking. Shrinking. All of them shrink. I mean we're we're seeing 360s, 458s, all that now.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Even the F-12s that little luggage panel in the back, they almost ceiling start yeah, falling down a little bit. Sticky buttons. You guys do sticky buttons replacement? We do all the sticky buttons.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

Okay. Yeah, we do it all. That's important to know. Yeah, we do it all in-house. Really? We have, yeah, we do all the sticky stuff in-house now. Most people want us taking it all apart. Before we had to take it all apart and then send it off. Yeah. Now we don't have to do that.

SPEAKER_03 12:11

All the toys in here. Right here is our base, is our wood shop. This is where all the wood cutting, all the designing happens, all the box building that we do here. And then right there is our C machine and our router table. Just some additional work, computers right there set up to cut, print, adjust, do. See cooling up over there. Get rid of the cut something.

SPEAKER_04 12:36

Built it.

SPEAKER_03 12:37

Got the sand plastic table back there. We have all the welding. We've got a full metal background with welding back in that back corner to the right. A little bit of upholstery and a tiny little paint area for a small punch to do. And that's and then all our storage. So flex and wood and everything that you need to build and do something cool and custom. It's all here. And down there. I've actually never been in here before. Very I mean. Then obviously it's a pretty dusty environment, so we've got dust collection vacuum all around the whole area. Basically pull the chute right there on any of these areas and it starts stuck in all that. Keeps it clean. You can literally make whatever you want in here. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it's all sealed off from the main shop so we don't make a mess in there. It's all in here. The back office. Yeah. Behind the scenes. Yeah, that's right. That's really cool. Yeah. You got air all over the place. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's ventilated, it's filtered, and it's over the actual AC. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so that's that's pretty comfortable. It is comfortable, but it's pretty rare to walk into a shop that's fully air conditioned, too. I mean that whole thing is air conditioned as well. So that having an air-conditioned bag is a pretty nice benefit. Oh yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

Yeah, Ferrari just got it five years ago or something.

unknown 14:11

Before that.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

We could show up over there to help them work on a car and just sweat and go, guys, like why don't you put an air conditioning here? Yeah. We're working on a million dollar car. Everybody's sweating.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

I've been in some freezing cold detail shops too, man. Oh yeah. Those guys are out there, they're watching the cars, and it's literally freezing on the car. Yeah. So keeps your employees happier when they've got a lot.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Absolutely. If you want to look up there. That's our technology to make sure all of our radar systems work. We actually have a dragon eye and a regular radar.

SPEAKER_04 14:45

One last spot to go in and check out. Right, yeah. This is like the back secret secret area. Going in here? Yes. Alright. The hideout. The hideout.

SPEAKER_03 15:02

So this is my little office. I hide back here. Generally, Dak and I are plotting our takeovers. The world takeover. World domination. Yeah, yeah, that's that's it. I've got a bunch of Legos that me and my daughters have built. My daughters have built over the years. That's awesome. Up on the walls. Love that. Yeah, this is kind of mission control. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

And if Imran doesn't behave, I grab one and throw it down the stairs.

SPEAKER_03 15:26

Yeah, he's threatened me many a time. Many a time. Yeah, I'm always terrified. That's why I kind of stay in line most of the time. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever you want. You gotta zip time onto the wall then. Yeah, they are.

SPEAKER_04 15:38

They are zip time on the wall.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

The bass sometimes shakes a bit off. Very interesting. I like this right here, a little powered by Brabus right there.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

That's it. Yeah, power B Brabus, actually. Power B. Power B, yeah. Yeah, and then I've got the F1 tag off of one of my cars. I've had that tag in the family since '96. You're gonna put up anything. There was a retired. It's retired. Retired. Like a retired driver. It's retired, yeah. But still got the tag, it's still there. That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Well, you got some exhausts over here. Is this some portion looking stuff?

SPEAKER_03 16:07

It looks like it's it is, good eye. So that is uh GT3 exhaust. Sole performance. Sole performance GT3 exhaust and headers up there. Um and then we we do Valtronic. We've got a couple inventory intakes in here that we're doing this week. Uh so as far as the performance stuff is concerned, and then behind you uh is our uh tower of escort, um, or at least our smaller tower of escort. Yeah. We generally try to keep a lot of that here. We're still consider us to be the the the big boss the big boys in radar. Um so we do uh we're proud to say we're like I said, of uh we're we're number one in the world with escort. Um there's no other dealer that does as much radar as we do, and we're very proud of that.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Yeah, this is this is low inventory currently, right?

SPEAKER_03 16:47

This is a little low, yes, yes, yes. That's weekly. That is our weekly. That is our weekly. No, that's weekly.

SPEAKER_04 16:54

Who's decision to put the water in the Red Bull thing there?

SPEAKER_03 16:56

Uh me because I was tired. We were all hard on Red Bulls and Red Bulls and Red Bulls. Um, and yeah, it was like full on heart attacks basically. So we're like, you know what, let's put some water in here. Let's actually mix in some water ones away. Something relatively healthy.

SPEAKER_04 17:12

There you go. Awesome. Yeah, cool. I know. Thanks for showing us around. Yeah, thanks for having us by, man. Always a pleasure. Thank you. Dad, good to see you again. Good to see you, Grant. Yeah, Dak enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Thanks guys. Thank you. Yeah, and I guess just uh stay tuned to see who we're gonna have on part two next.