Hit the Brakes!!

00:00:05:06 - 00:00:08:23
Ken Bjonnes

00:00:08:25 - 00:00:29:18
Ken Bjonnes
Hey. What's up? Ken from Palm Beach Dyno. Here. Welcome to the latest episode of the Hit the Brakes podcast, where we sit down with industry leaders and racers and have some long conversations. The next guest you may know as the Godzilla expert all over YouTube, but did you know he was the director of Global Engine Engineering for Ford, head of Ford Racing.

00:00:29:23 - 00:00:54:14
Ken Bjonnes
Father of the Cobra Jet and an outlaw racer. Today we sit down with Brian Wolfe. Well, thanks for joining us, Brian. it's great to have you here at, Palm Beach. Dyno. I chose you as one of my very first guests because I think, people need to know a lot about you. Everybody knows you as the 7.3l Godzilla guy that plays with Godzilla on the internet, and that's certainly true.

00:00:54:17 - 00:01:21:06
Ken Bjonnes
but there's a big story that leads up to you doing that for everybody on YouTube with Evan, his channel. ravin Evan is his YouTube channel for people that want to check out Brian's content on, on the 7.3l. It's awesome. you guys do great hands on stuff, testing and all that stuff, but I thought it would be great if we could sit down, just have a conversation about the history of Ford Mustangs and everything that led up to the 7.3l, Godzilla.

00:01:21:07 - 00:01:38:02
Ken Bjonnes
So let's start off there really quickly. What made you decide to take this on in the way you're doing with a company and all that? People don't, you know, you to some people, you just popped up out of nowhere. But let's launch. Tell us how you came upon the seven.

00:01:38:07 - 00:01:59:21
Brian Wolfe
Oh, yeah. Sure. For first, thanks a lot for having me on. It's really a pleasure to be, be on your podcast. I wish all the great stuff you guys do at Palm Beach. Dino. super, super impressive. But, yeah, the seven three kind of started. I retired from forward after about 36 years at the end of 2017, and loved cars my entire life.

00:01:59:21 - 00:02:17:15
Brian Wolfe
And like I tell people, being retired and doing what I do is kind of like being 16 all over again, just with a little bit more money. I do some of the stuff I'd like to do, but, my last job at Ford was I, was the director of global Engine engineering, said about 1300 people that worked for me around the globe.

00:02:17:18 - 00:02:26:26
Brian Wolfe
So we were accountable for all the engines Ford did, whether it was the one liter Fox, which was a three cylinder, one liter engine all the way up to the 6 or 7 diesel.

00:02:26:29 - 00:02:47:24
Ken Bjonnes
Let me stop you right there. We'll kind of pick through this a little bit, because that's an interesting thing to me. a lot of people, talk about different engines and different vehicles globally that are available here, but not they're, you know, something that's available in Europe versus here. so you were all of that, at top of all that?

00:02:48:00 - 00:03:05:16
Brian Wolfe
Absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, you had people, a team in, Europe team and Asia team in South America, and, of course, team in Dearborn. So, yeah, it was, it was, I was very fortunate. and I want to get your question on the 73 and how that came about, but, I was, you know, like, probably the luckiest guy in the world.

00:03:05:16 - 00:03:21:00
Brian Wolfe
You know, how many guys get to have two dream jobs at a major company? Yeah. So that was the position, if you will. I wanted at one point in my career when I first started Ford, I was just super tickled to be an engineer and to work on engines. That was, you know, that to me, that was it.

00:03:21:00 - 00:03:55:29
Brian Wolfe
I didn't ever imagine going into management, but I was fortunate enough to run, for, racing. So I had Ford, you know, of known as Ford Performance today. So I had NASCAR. Funny, all the racing, all the performance parts, all that stuff at one point in time. And then, I only I was there for about 18 months and then went to transmission, ran trans global transmission for Ford was in Europe and then came back and had this global engine engineering job, which is the one that I, you know, wanted from, I'd say 2002 when I first became a director.

00:03:56:02 - 00:04:17:19
Brian Wolfe
but when we were going through that, there was a need to replace the V8 engine, mainly, on the dyno, certain vehicles. So a dinosaur vehicle is one where it leaves Ford incomplete. So you can't do an emission test on the rolls because the vehicles are complete. You don't know what the frontal areas, you don't know what the final vehicle is going to be like.

00:04:17:22 - 00:04:41:11
Brian Wolfe
And so there is a process to certify those called dino cert. And with the CO2 regulations coming up, that was what really drove it. So I'm kind of happy that we had CO2 regulations. So the V ten needed either a major upgrade or to be replaced. The V ten originally was a very cost effective platform because it was A54 with two more cylinders.

00:04:41:11 - 00:05:21:24
Brian Wolfe
So same valve springs, pistons, rods, all that was, you know, very, cost effective for Ford. But as the five four went away and that then all of a sudden became a very low volume, high cost engine. So to update that was going to be pretty expensive. So the original plan, was to take the six two single or cam engine and make it a larger displacement to replace, the 68V ten and when I looked at that, it was a very, very expensive program because it was all new, and expensive from the investment perspective, because it was a new plant.

00:05:21:27 - 00:05:44:28
Brian Wolfe
So, you know, that's hundreds of millions of dollars to trans like that. So I looked at it and I said, you know, I was never a big fan of the 62. I liked the romantic part of it. Like it was kind of like a, a 427 single road cam architecture. But it was a really big engine, and it had two spark plugs per cylinder.

00:05:45:00 - 00:06:10:05
Brian Wolfe
And to be fully open, in my opinion, it didn't have a lot to offer versus the competitive set. So the competitive set in the truck market was strictly, you know, the platform in the Hemi. So when we were when the first prototype was already designed and parts were ordered and it came through me, for my, you know, for approval as we're taking it to the board for further approval.

00:06:10:08 - 00:06:29:01
Brian Wolfe
And I said, you know, I just don't know if this is the right architecture. And you guys got approved. To me, it's right. And to the credit of the engineers, because it was difficult for them, I can't remember. All of our stuff was over at cam at this point. I said, I don't think so. So, the guys did a benchmarking and, you know, every company benchmarks.

00:06:29:01 - 00:07:00:03
Brian Wolfe
I don't, you know, if they tell you they don't they're not being fully transparent with you. So, you know, I've made them benchmark the other two competitive sets in the truck market size function, etc.. And they came back with we have we can probably put cam the block and we can make this thing a lot more compact as we make it more compact, we don't need, all the complexity of different oil pans, different exhaust manifolds, a different intake manifold, one is going to fit where all where we're going to have three different variants.

00:07:00:06 - 00:07:19:03
Brian Wolfe
with the was a variant of the 62 is going to be actually a 6.9l. so we took that forward. It was a late change, to the program. We had cut program time out and, the seven three was, if you will, born. And, I knew it was gonna be a really good truck engine.

00:07:19:05 - 00:07:36:20
Brian Wolfe
I suspected it would probably be good in the aftermarket, because now you had something smaller to fit. The problem with the 62, I think why it didn't take off. It was so wide, you know, kind of like to 427 back in the 60s. I mean, that was a big engine. I mean, it was hard to make it fit and stuff or like the boss for 29.

00:07:36:22 - 00:07:55:06
Brian Wolfe
So when we were going forward, with it and I retired from Ford, I thought, you know, I'd like to kind of kickstart this in the aftermarket because I think this could really be, a challenge to the last. Now the coyote, don't get me wrong, I love the coyote. I think it's the best engine Ford ever made.

00:07:55:08 - 00:08:06:20
Brian Wolfe
And I put it against a Ferrari, a Mercedes, any engine. Because I tell people, how many engines do you know? Naturally aspirated. Make 100 horsepower per liter. And the only maintenance is change oil every 10,000 miles.

00:08:06:27 - 00:08:07:08
Ken Bjonnes
Right.

00:08:07:10 - 00:08:28:02
Brian Wolfe
You know, you look at a Ferrari, you gotta change timing belts, all of that stuff. So, coyote's great, but I like what I look as, like, Ford fans have two really wonderful production engines in production today that they can choose from if they want to, go into the performance area or do a swap in older vehicles.

00:08:28:05 - 00:08:47:01
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's, that's what drew me to it because obviously I'm a huge coyote fan. I've been tuning well before the coyote. One thing you mentioned that was, interesting. we were talking about the B10 being like a variant of the five four. I mean, that's pretty much what the whole modular term comes from, right?

00:08:47:01 - 00:08:59:05
Ken Bjonnes
Where it's sharing parts and, I'm assuming costs, you know, and for, you know, in the lines and all that, is that really like, where that came from, that whole theory of the modular engine and everything being kind of similar?

00:08:59:05 - 00:09:16:27
Brian Wolfe
Yeah, you're spot on. As a matter of fact, I was part of what was known as the modular Mafia at the time when, you know, we were replacing the pushrod engines. Kind of ironic, right? I was part of the team that was replacing the pushrod engines. My last thing I took to the board for approval was replacing, over a cam engine with the pushrod engine.

00:09:17:00 - 00:09:37:08
Brian Wolfe
Right. So kind of full circle. But you're right. There's a guy named Jim Clark. Super smart guy, super intense. And he was, if you will, the architect, and the modulars. And that was it. We're gonna, you know, take this. And it was A46 to start with. And we did, like a four liter variant at one point in the continental.

00:09:37:10 - 00:09:58:01
Brian Wolfe
And then we needed something to replace the truck engines through 50 ones. And, you know, I remember them coming to me. Well, can we make it any bigger? And I say, well, 100 millimeter bore spacing with the rod reach. And know the only way to make it bigger is to, you know, raise the deck height and make the stroke longer or, you know, we have to change the bore spacing, which is then changes the architecture when you change that bore spacing.

00:09:58:04 - 00:10:05:18
Brian Wolfe
So yeah, that's that's where it started. And then from there, you know, well how do we get more displacement in five fours. Well we added two cylinders.

00:10:05:21 - 00:10:23:18
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. so you know circling back to the coyote versus seven three, it's funny that you said that were people you were part of the modular mafia. And then the pushrod thing, from a tuning perspective, or like what I talk about, you know, I ran into that a little bit. Everybody was like you, you know, you were the modular guy.

00:10:23:18 - 00:10:42:01
Ken Bjonnes
I mean, I when I started in this business 20 years ago, my website was called modular Depot. and I was like, you know, no push rods, you know, anti-Bush rods raised an arm array. And it was in pure street. It was the push rods versus the super slow modulars that were slowly getting quicker and quicker. And we were like, you know, not even taken seriously.

00:10:42:03 - 00:11:00:11
Ken Bjonnes
and now now all of a sudden, you know, I've got my super duty and, and the seven three and I've been pushing that and, a lot of people ask me, you know, why? Why are you doing that? Like, well, coyote, coyote, coyote. And I'm like, I get that, but, you know, there's not one solution for everybody.

00:11:00:13 - 00:11:20:06
Ken Bjonnes
and the potential I saw in the seven three over the coyote, is for the swap market because there's so many people putting a coyote into an older, like, street rod or, you know, which I'm not really part of that. We tuned a lot of those. I don't know a lot about that, but say like a 32 Ford or anything.

00:11:20:09 - 00:11:41:11
Ken Bjonnes
For me, I'd much rather have a pushrod engine that sounds like your car or my truck than a coyote in it from, you know, just a experience of just driving the vehicle and add on top of that, it makes great power. It's awesome architecture. I saw the potential immediately, and a lot of people didn't quite understand that.

00:11:41:13 - 00:12:04:11
Ken Bjonnes
And then as soon as you know, you immediately came out with all this stuff, and got everybody's attention. And, I think that was really critical. in our last podcast, we spoke about Jerry, we spoke to Jerry, and, he was talking to we were talking about there being like one particular person that's responsible for the branches of how things go.

00:12:04:14 - 00:12:43:04
Ken Bjonnes
And, you know, you play a double part there because not only who responsible for the engine existing from a, management perspective, but then you immediately pivoted to promoting it in the aftermarket. And I just wanted to really state that because, I mean, has that ever happened in the world, like where, you know, a performance engine or a engine is released in the OEM and the guy who's really kind of responsible for that happening, not that you design every little bit of it, but you were the mastermind and he just suggesting that it even happened then to retire and take up all that work to promote it.

00:12:43:06 - 00:13:02:16
Ken Bjonnes
You know, if you didn't do that, would we be talking about A73 right now? I'd just be like, oh, that's a truck engine. Or maybe we would, you know. So, you know, I appreciate you doing that. And, you know, that that really brings in another big part of your background that we'll touch on a little bit later.

00:13:02:19 - 00:13:12:27
Ken Bjonnes
but your racing background, that's another level to this that's truly phenomenal. Right. Like how many executives at Ford, race outlaw Mustangs? You can probably answer that.

00:13:13:05 - 00:13:15:03
Brian Wolfe
Yeah, but not many, many.

00:13:15:06 - 00:13:39:01
Ken Bjonnes
Many. Yeah. You know, so, you know, we we are fairly new as far as being friends. but before we were friends, if somebody on Facebook said name the top ten influential guys in the early days of Mustangs, your name was mentioned because you not necessarily because you were an engineer. It's because you were actually out there racing these vehicles.

00:13:39:03 - 00:14:03:00
Ken Bjonnes
so why don't we talk about that a little bit real quick to pivot to, to the race car deal? or even really your beginnings in this whole hobby is really kind of what's interesting to me for everybody. Yeah. did you always see yourself on the path to, to something along these lines, like when I'm talking like, you know, junior high, high school days or did this kind of develop over time?

00:14:03:00 - 00:14:14:19
Brian Wolfe
No. You I always loved cars since I was, as you say, knee high to a grasshopper. Right. And you my dad was a big four guy. My brother raced for 27 Fairlane, that super stocker in the 60s. And,

00:14:14:25 - 00:14:18:06
Ken Bjonnes
Real quick, what you guys did you grow up in, in the Michigan and.

00:14:18:06 - 00:14:34:16
Brian Wolfe
Yes, you grew up, in, on the east side. So more GM country. That's where the tech center is. But my dad was always a big Ford guy. Okay. And, you know my brother as well. So you know what I remember? You know, it's funny. There's so much I forget. Right? You. I'm at my age. I mean, I forget a lot.

00:14:34:16 - 00:14:51:26
Brian Wolfe
And there's a few little things you remember. I remember my brother starting up that 427 Fairlane at home and Saint Clair Shores, and I was probably is a 66 Fairlane. I was probably eight years old, and he I got in sit in the passenger seat when he started up. No big grin on my face. And, you know, like I say, from there I was hooked.

00:14:51:26 - 00:15:03:10
Brian Wolfe
Right. So I always, you know, really enjoyed it. I bought my first car when I was 15, somewhere before I turned 16. I still own that. It's a 1969 Fairlane Cobra 420 Cobra Jet.

00:15:03:10 - 00:15:04:00
Ken Bjonnes
Oh that's awesome.

00:15:04:05 - 00:15:27:02
Brian Wolfe
And, so I race that a bit. And the best that car ran was like, I think 1290 the way I had it. So I mean, it wasn't overly built, you know? and then when I started to race the five liter Mustang, it was, you know, kind of like the Gt40 parts, right? So I had, like, the beta0 three cam and a Gt40 cast iron head and the Gt40 intake and.

00:15:27:02 - 00:15:32:26
Ken Bjonnes
Headers, and this is like, what time period? 89, 89. I was way off. I was gonna say mid 90s. Yeah.

00:15:32:26 - 00:15:55:08
Brian Wolfe
89. And the first time I took it out it went like 1257. I remember saying, wow, that was way too easy. And that's what really got me hooked on the five liter stuff. And back then, I was an 86 Mustang and a lot of guys were pulling the fuel injection off and putting carburetors on. I said, well, I'm really never real good with carburetors.

00:15:55:08 - 00:16:17:29
Brian Wolfe
And being an engineer, I kind of like the fuel injection. So that ended up being the first, you know, Fox body, five liter fuel injected Mustang, naturally aspirated around elevens, tens and nines in the quarter mile. And that was really cool going through that. And we did a dabbled in Pro five a little bit. and then then around 92 I kind of backed away because work was getting pretty intense.

00:16:18:01 - 00:16:37:14
Brian Wolfe
And guys like go to Silver and Danny Walsh and, Jimmy LaRocca and, you know, race and Jason Storm, Norman all those guys were still, you know, you know, working hard and progressing going faster and faster and faster. and then I came back into things a little bit later, but, yeah, I was always, a really, good time.

00:16:37:16 - 00:16:46:08
Ken Bjonnes
And then as far as you know, the types of vehicles you raced over the years. you did, didn't you do a lot of the Na stuff at one point?

00:16:46:15 - 00:16:47:25
Brian Wolfe
Oh, I do a lot. Yeah. Then.

00:16:47:25 - 00:16:49:00
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. Like that ten five.

00:16:49:00 - 00:17:12:00
Brian Wolfe
Anyway, yeah. What I did is Mainland Dragway, which is only six miles from my house. the had a class very similar to Nasca, an eight and five. So it was the rules were a little different and I started with a small block. This was like in 2012, and I started to come back into it. So it was a stroke small block was like 470 cubic inch Windsor type.

00:17:12:02 - 00:17:38:08
Brian Wolfe
and I wasn't it was, Windsor deck height, but a Cleveland type had on it. And you know, we race that that one. And I think the best, quickest I went with that in a was an eight, 16, like 168 miles an hour. And it was competitive. And when my first race, in that car and Chris Holbrook was building my engines at the time, being at Ford, I mean, that was a 12 to 14 hour day job.

00:17:38:08 - 00:17:56:13
Brian Wolfe
I did not have time to build engines. And Chris, super good with, you know, Fords and engines. And he was my, you know, the engine builder. So, Brian, if you really want to be competitive and win a championship, you probably need to go to big block in that class. So we did we built a, you know, big block Hemi.

00:17:56:15 - 00:18:21:20
Brian Wolfe
695 cubic inch. Dave Zimmerman built the chassis. It was a new Mustang. Beautiful car. and, you know, Jason Lee from day one was tuning it. Not that. Didn't know how to tune, but I didn't know how to tune. Like, Jason tuned. Right. And having somebody. Is it him and Patrick Barnhill, both as good and efficient as they were like the first day out the car?

00:18:21:20 - 00:18:39:22
Brian Wolfe
I remember this like yesterday. It was a I did a track running at mile End. And then I remember the trial was up and you know, we got were getting things sorted on it. And I said, okay, well we'll come back, you know, tomorrow and do it. And Patrick goes and goes, hey bitch, we're here. You're going to pay the same if we stayed the next four hours or if we leave and come in, you're going to pay us again.

00:18:39:22 - 00:19:01:03
Brian Wolfe
If you have to come back tomorrow, let's just get this done. And that first day out in the car, you know, one, I didn't hurt it, right? And two, it went like 788, which was, I think quicker than the record in the class was at the time. And again, the value of having somebody that as good as they were tuning that car, from day one.

00:19:01:03 - 00:19:18:14
Brian Wolfe
And then since then, you know, people say, why don't you do your own tuning? I say, it takes so much pressure off when you're in the driver's seat, you're worried about the engine. You're about the mechanical to know that the guy at the keyboard or the guy opening the door after do the burnout, change the tune because the track changed is covered.

00:19:18:20 - 00:19:22:20
Brian Wolfe
There's not going to be a mistake there. And, that is super, super. Well.

00:19:22:23 - 00:19:42:02
Ken Bjonnes
That's a super interesting, thing to bring up because here you are with your background. You know, you have one of the best backgrounds to be able to do this by yourself. And anybody build the engine in the car. There's people that do that. You know, I think Billy Glidden was probably well known for that. Like he did everything himself.

00:19:42:04 - 00:20:03:01
Ken Bjonnes
But there's a value in having people around you, to as a team. Right? Yeah. And that's that's what you did because you had Holbrook building the engine. You had, Jason and Patrick tune in the car. Even though you're completely capable of that, I would assume you feel like you were more successful by making those decisions. Because you're not trying to do everything yourself.

00:20:03:01 - 00:20:26:16
Brian Wolfe
You know, there is no doubt. And I give tribute that to time at Ford. Right? Because, you know, I was, you know, an executive for quite a while. Right? And I remember I first became a supervisor. The one question that I was asked that sticks in my mind is he goes up to this point in your career, you were judged on what you can accomplish yourself, what you did, how you did it.

00:20:26:19 - 00:20:46:00
Brian Wolfe
going forward, if you get the supervisory job, you're going to be judged on your team's performance. How do you feel about that? And, in that was kind of like going off is that, you know, to, to be successful, you need people around you that want to be successful and, you know, pick them and stick with them.

00:20:46:00 - 00:21:12:29
Brian Wolfe
Right? You know, be wise and how you pick and, and do that going forward. So, you know, not only did I do that at Ford, but also, you know, in the racing as well. And with that car, you know, we won the championship the following, you know, we debuted the car in 14 and one championship and 15, 16 and 17 and then, we I sold the car and we, started to do the, that's when we did the, x 275 car that.

00:21:12:29 - 00:21:17:15
Brian Wolfe
Then I switched over to a Godzilla, platform.

00:21:17:18 - 00:21:36:29
Ken Bjonnes
And that's an interesting place to go now. So now you're racing the Godzilla engine that you're designing. But what's the life cycle of something like that? So, you know, it debuted in 2020 and 2020. So when, when did you guys have a running version of that engine?

00:21:37:01 - 00:21:43:29
Brian Wolfe
let's see, probably 2000 and. 16.

00:21:44:03 - 00:21:51:03
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. So that's and that, that's when it was running. You had a running version first running and then obviously, but.

00:21:51:03 - 00:22:13:21
Brian Wolfe
It was super, super, again, because it was a 2020 model year. But then you got a back up, probably production first production engine, pre-production engine. That roll off the plant would have been in early 2019, you know, and then, so you think about that's like kind of 24 months from first engine run to until you got the whole thing tooled.

00:22:13:21 - 00:22:19:15
Ken Bjonnes
And what, what, how much time preceded that from the when you guys said we're doing this to having that running?

00:22:19:16 - 00:22:42:18
Brian Wolfe
well, we well, I came back from Europe in 15 at the end of 15, and I probably Damon review that program till sometime in 16 because again, you're worried about everything going through. Right. And then they already had the first prototypes ordered. They're coming. So I think we probably made that change in late 16. So it's probably I mean they don't they didn't.

00:22:42:23 - 00:22:55:19
Brian Wolfe
And that was the thing. Right. So again yeah let your team do their job because as soon as you try it out I mean I could talk about the architecture is right thing and say I want to see the benchmark. I want to make sure this is the right thing. We got it, you know, and go through that.

00:22:55:22 - 00:23:16:27
Brian Wolfe
But I wasn't the guy designing the ports or dictating the valve angle or any of that. Right. Or you know, but when things came forward, because you recognize these guys are in a tight time frame, if I start meddling with, you know, minute details of it, you know, they're just going to back off and say, well, okay, well, wait, wait, wait.

00:23:17:01 - 00:23:32:02
Brian Wolfe
He does what we tell us to do, right? Right. And that's not good. That's not how you get people motivated. so, you know, you just, you know, there were things I probably would have changed a little bit, but, I think the one thing I made him change was a damper was going to be like 25 pounds.

00:23:32:04 - 00:23:48:29
Brian Wolfe
And I said, you're, you know. Yeah, yeah, show me another one. That's heavy. so the, the, they had to do a little bit of rework there, but most of it was, you know, as a team design. So it wasn't that long prior from the time I asked him to start the benchmarked, we probably the first engine running was probably like nine months.

00:23:49:01 - 00:23:49:26
Brian Wolfe
Wow. And then.

00:23:49:26 - 00:23:50:11
Ken Bjonnes
Amazing.

00:23:50:17 - 00:24:13:18
Brian Wolfe
And then when we, you know, did it, I remember going forward, to my boss who was vice president of powertrain. And, you know, I told what we're doing. He's okay. You know, I guess he comes in, we went in with the manufacturing guys. They wanted another x millions of dollars to make the change. Right. So I won't go through the specifics, but it was, you know, millions of dollars.

00:24:13:20 - 00:24:28:07
Brian Wolfe
And at that point in time and Ford, a lot of programs were going forward, like new vehicle programs, new vehicle programs on the oil scale of billions of dollars. And the guys come back and say, we need another 40 million. You know, they said, get out of here. You know, you get this much money, figure it out. So he said, look, I'm not I.

00:24:28:07 - 00:24:44:01
Brian Wolfe
So we were in there with the manufacturing team or going forward. And Bob said, look, I like everything here, but I'm not gonna go forward and ask for any more money. We're not going to get it. So we get out of that meeting. And this was another trick I got from Jim Clark, the guy manufacturing guys. Well, Bob's really not behind it.

00:24:44:01 - 00:25:05:14
Brian Wolfe
He does want to do this. Well, I guess we're just kind of fold the cards. I said no, Bob wants. It's really bad. He just can't go forward. We got to figure out how to get this, you know, get this extra investment out. And, and, you know, again, trying to get my counterpart same levels. I was motivated manufacturing to get his team motivated to figure out how we're going to make this thing at least investment neutral.

00:25:05:16 - 00:25:26:03
Brian Wolfe
And then by the end of the day, we took a significant amount out of the investment of the original program approval, significant, like probably 25% out and several hundred dollars out of the variable costs, too. So, everybody was pretty happy at the end of the day. But again, you had to know when to push, when to back away.

00:25:26:05 - 00:25:29:15
Brian Wolfe
And you kind of read the cards to to get things to happen.

00:25:29:17 - 00:25:58:17
Ken Bjonnes
I think, at least I'm very interested in hopefully everybody else is, a little bit more detail on like this process. Right. So now you've got this design on paper for seven, three, obviously. Like how does, how, how does the, the first engines get built. Like are they do you make a CNC head first or like, do they go directly to a casting.

00:25:58:19 - 00:26:12:07
Ken Bjonnes
how do how does that like how different is it from when they designed it. Like through the process are a lot of changes made? You know, obviously you just don't pop out a block in a production head. So is there some intermediate.

00:26:12:09 - 00:26:37:11
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. So the block itself, you know, first you all the all were cast. Right. Because you know, the cast water you know, because. Yeah. Get the water jackets in there and all that cooling correctly. and you don't Ford's seeing CAD is, a computer aided engineering. Those computational fluid dynamics is very, very good. In fact, Ford does not even have a flow bench anymore.

00:26:37:14 - 00:26:38:23
Ken Bjonnes
Wow. So it's all computer.

00:26:38:26 - 00:27:01:18
Brian Wolfe
So the so they were very, very good. And of course I respected that process. So first answer direct question. They were all cast cast. You know rapid cast you know parts. And you're paying, you know, expedite expedited tooling to get those things done. But one of the things, you know, being a racer, respecting the engineers, respecting the toolset, but also knowing the aftermarket is very good too.

00:27:01:19 - 00:27:21:11
Brian Wolfe
So I said, you know, as we only have one chance at this, I want to go and get some input on the cylinder head design from the outside, performance part. So, we had Roush, Yates, look at it. We had Roush Livonia, look at it, two different engineering teams. One was their race team. One was, you know, the guys that do more production related stuff.

00:27:21:11 - 00:27:45:28
Brian Wolfe
And we also had, Davison or look at it as well, who's in Grand Rapids. And, you know, they all came back and they said, well, with the constraints we have because you need a lot of cooling in that head, especially around the plug in the valves, because if you told, you know, a 28,000 pound trailer up Davis Dam, you know you're out wide open power for a long period of time and you need to get the heat out.

00:27:46:06 - 00:28:07:24
Brian Wolfe
So there's a lot of water and the head. That was a design requirement. So he said, we really can't, you know, you know, offer suggestions for improvement on the port. So again, validating. So again, I wasn't accusing. It was like, I want to get validation because we won't have a second chance of prototypes because we lost our first prototype series because of the change from overhead cam to cam and block.

00:28:07:26 - 00:28:30:28
Brian Wolfe
But, David came up with he goes, you know, he goes, why did you guys point the spark plug at the intake valve? And kind of the exhaust valve like convention and, you know, just in a very innocent way, you know, asked the question and to the team's credit, you know, again, no one got defensive. Everyone looked. He said, you know, they were doing the fluid dynamics while the design was being reviewed.

00:28:31:00 - 00:28:50:03
Brian Wolfe
And, he said, wow, you know, is we open the valve, we the injector was going to spray right at the spark plug, which would be a disaster. Right? So they quickly change spark plug and go to, you know, be conventional and aim towards the exhaust port. And you know, if you will, the rest is history. Right.

00:28:50:03 - 00:28:57:11
Brian Wolfe
But again, the value of because if we would have waited for that first prototypes or prototypes, we would have been in deep.

00:28:57:11 - 00:29:18:00
Ken Bjonnes
Because it had all kinds of problems. We'll see. That's a super interesting thing to maybe because, you know, we're talking about, you know, what can change through the process. And to me, that would be the last thing that I always think about. You know, where the I would think about the port. And you know what? You know what, cam how the valve train going to work.

00:29:18:00 - 00:29:27:14
Ken Bjonnes
But just something as simple as that. it's interesting that something like that could get a little bit overlooked, I guess I would say, you know, I.

00:29:27:15 - 00:29:48:24
Brian Wolfe
I believe the reason it was, I believe the guys were thinking, well, in the future cycle upgrades were probably going to want to direct inject this. okay. And that would have been the right conventional for direct injection. But, you know, I was very adamant on keeping the engine as simple as possible because like I remind people, I said, yes, the engine is bigger displacement wise than the competitive set.

00:29:48:24 - 00:30:10:23
Brian Wolfe
But I get this same or better fuel economy in the truck. I don't have variable displacement. I don't have direct injection. I don't have all those complexities or things that can go wrong in high mileage. Right. So the team did this with I'd call it the old fashioned way with, you know, compression ratio or expansion ratio, because that's where you get the the work is at compressing the charge, but expanding the charge when you're burning it.

00:30:10:25 - 00:30:29:18
Brian Wolfe
And so it was, you know, ten and a half to one. But it runs a it's a big bore, 4.22. But with the cam timing that was selected and, you know, it does have dual equal these heat, you know, you close that exhaust valve late so you are less detonation prone. So you still get the advantage of the expansion ratio in the work.

00:30:29:21 - 00:30:52:18
Brian Wolfe
But you don't have the, you know, quite as octane tolerance. And the engine's extremely fast burn like it only wants. in a about 23 degrees spark max at wide open throttle. So I had nothing to do with that. Right. That was the team that designed those features into it. So it's a very, very simple engine. And I wasn't you know, I was okay with moving the plugs.

00:30:52:18 - 00:30:58:20
Brian Wolfe
I, I had no intention over the life cycle of making direct injection. Just you know, it's very expensive.

00:30:58:23 - 00:31:23:21
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. And you know, for you to pick this as a, as a race engine and were you mentioned you consulted race level people. People for truck engine. Is that because of your background or is that would that be typical like that doesn't seem typical to me. I don't see GM going to, you know, racers to say, hey, how does our head look?

00:31:23:21 - 00:31:25:21
Ken Bjonnes
You know, that's that's awesome. Yeah.

00:31:25:24 - 00:31:47:29
Brian Wolfe
It no, it's not typical. I'd say it's probably more from, you know, my background in knowing and respecting what these people could do and their insight. Right. Because, you know, again, the engineering team is super strong, super good. but again, when you're on a, when you can't afford a mistake, the more input and feedback you can get is good.

00:31:47:29 - 00:32:03:29
Brian Wolfe
And, you know, to me, those were extremely good people to ask the question too. So, you know, you want to get again, you want to get the input from the best, right? You're only as good as the people that you surround yourself with and help you to accomplish your goals.

00:32:04:01 - 00:32:25:20
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. You know, and what really impresses me about that whole process is, comparing it to other times, and I don't I'm not going to give a specific example, but when you come up with a product and you go, what were they thinking? Why didn't they talk like, did they not talk to somebody about this? Or, you know, you, I'm not an engineer.

00:32:25:21 - 00:32:50:09
Ken Bjonnes
You are. This isn't negative towards engineers, but sometimes when you're not an engineer, you go to they get lost in the math and not really actually think of like practical examples of this. And I think that's where you bridge the gap because you're not just doing it from an engineering perspective. You're out there actually racing these things and understand it.

00:32:50:12 - 00:33:13:06
Ken Bjonnes
obviously not everybody who buys a super duty are very small. People are going to go race the super duty. But the engine in general, if it can succeed in a race environment, it's probably going to succeed everywhere, right? Because the architecture is solid. So and I'm not a pushrod guy at all, but I know there's some advantages to this engine over like the competitors.

00:33:13:06 - 00:33:24:29
Ken Bjonnes
Like, isn't that camshaft, bearing much larger than, like what you would have the journals like, in, like, say the GM equivalent, things like that. Like where people would upgrade that the seven three is already that way, right?

00:33:25:00 - 00:33:42:10
Brian Wolfe
No. You're you're you're right. So I remember, going to, the camshaft engineer and saying, hey, you know, because again, I, you know, I was thinking they may even be like a 50 millimeter kind of conventional. And I was going to push them to make it bigger. So cams stiffer. Okay. what's cam bearing size? Looks at me.

00:33:42:10 - 00:34:07:05
Brian Wolfe
Smile goes 60 millimeter. I go, that's good. Good job. You know I know that was know the discussion. The one thing, that we do get criticism for is, that I've seen on the internet is the lifter bore diameter is 842, which is the same as a Gen three hemi in the class. And it was kind of the same thing is that if the guys were, you know, because again, my question is you on the benchmark, you know, why do we need these unique things?

00:34:07:05 - 00:34:29:22
Brian Wolfe
Because again, tight timeline we buy the always buy from very you know from the same supply base. Right. So if they would have wanted, you know an 8.92 or 912 lifter, why do we need something unique. Because I know that's going to be unique tooling, unique cost unique in the field. so you know the camshaft is unique, right?

00:34:29:22 - 00:34:46:11
Brian Wolfe
We we machined it, you know, at Ford. But lifters were buying from the same guy, the other guy you're buying from. So, you know, that would have been something that I wouldn't of, you know, wanted to happen without proof that we're actually getting. You. Show me the performance I'm getting it for. Show me the fuel economy I'm getting for it.

00:34:46:14 - 00:35:09:24
Brian Wolfe
And then, you know, we would, you know, have that discussion, but, so, yeah, to answer your question, the, you know, looking at the cam design and other aspects of the engine, you know, the the ride ratio, the bore spacing, you know, you want to look at the competitive set, but then if you're going to be unique, you gotta understand what you're getting for.

00:35:09:27 - 00:35:33:08
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. And, you know, I've run into that myself. designing much, much simpler things where I have, you know, a vision in my head, how it's going to turn out. But then when it comes to actually manufacturing it and what's available and how difficult that's going to be to pull off, that's where the rubber meets the road, right?

00:35:33:10 - 00:35:57:15
Ken Bjonnes
no matter what you're, you're manufacturing, you can, man, you can design something that's perfect. But if it's difficult to service or manufacture or any of those things, yes, the final product might be great, but over the life of the product, it might not be because there's just a lot of pitfalls to getting to that point, whether it be cost or serviceability down the road.

00:35:57:18 - 00:36:17:11
Ken Bjonnes
So those are all the things, like pretty much said that go into the decisions here. And people don't always understand that. They'll look at that engine and go, man, this is great, this is great, but why the heck did they do that? Or why did they do this? And it's like, no product is perfect, right? There's always constraints, time, money, requirements.

00:36:17:11 - 00:36:37:19
Ken Bjonnes
You know, you may have wanted certain things like the camshaft, maybe that the guy who designed the camshaft was already on the same page as you. But if he hadn't been, maybe you would have had a campaign for that. Or showery, like, let's do it this way. And speaking of that, so you're background running the whole thing is a at a racer.

00:36:37:19 - 00:37:00:07
Ken Bjonnes
But I think, I don't know many, engineers that work at that level, like the guy that designs camshaft at Florida, the guy that does the cylinder head port design. what type of background do those people have? Obviously they're engineers, but I'm assuming most of them aren't really hardcore car guy. I mean, are they or aren't I don't know.

00:37:00:09 - 00:37:23:21
Brian Wolfe
There's there there there's very few. Yeah. Right. But, like the guy that designed it was a cylinder head guy, a guy named Tim Taylor. he did a fantastic job. You know, he's a he's a very, you know, introvert, very polite, very professional. And I don't think he was a big car enthusiast, but his goal was to do, you know, is to be a super good cylinder head engineer.

00:37:23:21 - 00:37:46:25
Brian Wolfe
Right, right. And that was always important to him. And he and he is likewise got the design, the ports on the, coyote Ganim John Rich. Now, he kind of was a little bit more of a performance enthusiast, but, he was, you know, not he wasn't a racer, but again, he was jet, but he was very good at with the CFD tools and again, wanting to be best that he could be.

00:37:46:27 - 00:38:14:23
Brian Wolfe
So, then we got another guy, this Telford Adam Christian, who is a, you know, he's what? I wish I was right. I mean, he can he's super good analytically. I mean, he, the computational fuel fluid dynamics, he he knows, the tools that we use for engine simulation, he spearheaded and kind of resurrected those from kind of a, stagnant place to taking them to like two levels beyond.

00:38:14:25 - 00:38:32:17
Brian Wolfe
But as an example, what Adam can do. So when NASCAR was maybe a little bit behind with the four cars, he, you know, did these engine simulation, the Ford tools, the NASCAR engine and came up with the header design. Now you come up with the heater design and CAD. He made them in his garage and sent him to the race team to test.

00:38:32:20 - 00:38:33:01
Ken Bjonnes
Wow.

00:38:33:07 - 00:39:01:06
Brian Wolfe
You know, so, he worked, with a guy named Nolan who was a super famous, recently passed away Ford engineer that raced, that was in Lamar. He was pretty much and every Ford performance engine from the 60s and retired out of Ford performance. his last program was, Pro Stock engine. That was done. when I was there, but Adam, you know, worked with him on restoring the Ford GT.

00:39:01:08 - 00:39:12:28
Brian Wolfe
That's in the Henry Ford Museum. Super, super talented guy, super smart, analytically. You know, just, so there's a guy that I would say is way beyond what I, you know, ever accomplished, you know, from a well.

00:39:13:05 - 00:39:34:18
Ken Bjonnes
maybe a very focused area, but what makes you valuable in my eyes is your diversity. You know, you're dealing with both ends of the spectrum. Like a guy like that. Who would, you know, like you said, introverted type of personality. that just so laser focused on one thing. Yeah. And they're so valuable to us. Yeah. because of their their brain power.

00:39:34:21 - 00:40:07:24
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. But. And motivation and motivation, but without, you know, other people to take their, what, their small part and put it into a bigger picture, you know, that's just as important. Like somebody like yourself. so when during the life cycle of some or the, the planning of something like this when it started. Right. Don't we have a 6.8 where I'm a little behind the, you know, the learning curve on on that I don't know much about the six eight.

00:40:07:24 - 00:40:12:27
Ken Bjonnes
Everybody talked about it. Why don't we talk about that really quick? Is that just like a smaller version of the seven three?

00:40:12:27 - 00:40:36:11
Brian Wolfe
Right. And that, was just kind of being chatted about a little bit when I retired. So, basically, you know, the six two is going away and the replacing it with the six eight and that's a, you know, an entry level version of the seven three. So I believe it's I believe I could be wrong. I thought I read somewhere it could be a cast crank instead of a forged crank.

00:40:36:13 - 00:40:47:18
Brian Wolfe
So, I think a couple other things that are going to make it more cost effective to be more of an entry level engine, but I believe the block, the cylinder heads, good parts like that are going to be the same.

00:40:47:18 - 00:40:58:08
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. Well, you know, we kind of glossed over the whole forged crank even in the seven three, is that typical of like a truck engine or is that the what, the forged crank in the cycle.

00:40:58:08 - 00:41:22:25
Brian Wolfe
Right. Well, you know, I attribute this. I want to mention this earlier too, about the, the cam stuff, but Ford scat. and I'm sure all companies do very rigid design guides. Right on what they need, from either a strength or reliable 80 psi attribute like the 60 millimeter cam bearing before I asked. And the investment cast, rocker arms that are super stiff is we did so many overhead cam engines.

00:41:23:02 - 00:41:51:19
Brian Wolfe
You know, there was a design criteria for valve train stiffness deflection. So it didn't matter to the engineer if it was a pushrod or over it. Cam. They needed to meet those criteria. And by the way, you know, it's not the only pushrod engine we have because the six seven diesel is also a pushrod engine. Okay. So so the super duty to have our pushrod but same thing with the with the crank, with the horsepower is making and the reliable and the durability that, that needed and crankshaft bending, you know, it demanded a forged crank.

00:41:51:21 - 00:42:04:27
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. So basically when you were there doing the 73, you're not even like the six eights, not even know like they don't plan that way. I had like, we're going to have this and then we're gonna have A68 version of it that's kind of like just that.

00:42:05:02 - 00:42:25:00
Brian Wolfe
That evolution and evolution. Yeah. In fact, you know, when I was there at one point, you know, we were discussing, and again, it was more around the water cooler as opposed to in any official, you know, thing. But we're saying, hey, does it make sense to do a variant of this that fits in the F-150 or replace the coyote, which we did like?

00:42:25:01 - 00:42:40:15
Brian Wolfe
I you I don't know, you know, because, you know, if you take the f one, if you take the coyote out of the F-150. Now, this was like, oh, man, the fumes can be really low for the Mustang. Well, you know, and, I wasn't like, over you enjoyed with that as an option because it was, you know, already in there.

00:42:40:15 - 00:43:05:18
Brian Wolfe
But they said, hey, if we did, you know, aluminum block and it's going to be a lot less expensive. And, you know, same thing with the, late intake valve closing and get the fuel economy, you know, is that something that made sense? But again, that was more of a chat around the water cooler. So same thing. with the six eight, it was just something that, you know, is, is there going to be you know, an appetite in the future to, you know, replace the six two.

00:43:05:18 - 00:43:08:00
Brian Wolfe
But it was nothing serious at that time.

00:43:08:03 - 00:43:29:09
Ken Bjonnes
So being, you know, involved in all the engines, this question has come up and people have asked me that this and I don't know. So you take the seven three and you want to make a lower cost alternative, like where obviously you mentioned the crank being cheaper because it's cast, but like why make it like why making it smaller.

00:43:29:09 - 00:43:32:21
Ken Bjonnes
Like what. Why would you just put the 730 with the cast crank and something.

00:43:32:22 - 00:43:54:10
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. big reason would be fuel economy. Right. So again, you know that that's, your CO2 drives in an enormous amount of what we do do for the good and and sometimes for the not as good. like, one of the things I was funny, unsuccessful in was I did not want to do a variable displacement coyote and the f 150.

00:43:54:12 - 00:44:09:09
Brian Wolfe
Right. But, you know, it was like, well, you know, we booked fuel economy for it. And, you know, what's your answer? If you take it out, you know, and we couldn't come up with something that would offset that. But, you know, that was all, you know, you didn't always get your way just because you were the guy that ran the organization.

00:44:09:09 - 00:44:15:03
Brian Wolfe
Right? Right. Because there are other interfacing groups that you had to, you know, deliver to.

00:44:15:06 - 00:44:32:19
Ken Bjonnes
So now we're talking about the new seven three and, you know, different variants and possibly the coyote, you know, is in danger. And F-150, it was. And let's fast forward a little bit. What do you think about the whole electric thing? You know, what's your opinion on that?

00:44:32:21 - 00:44:58:14
Brian Wolfe
my my opinion on electric vehicles. interesting. Right. So, Electric vehicles, I think, have a, have a place I believe that the environmental impact is oversold. In my opinion. I think it's more about wealth shift than about the environment. In my humble opinion. I think that's not anybody's opinion but my own. I don't want to, you know, reflect on Ford or anything in that regard.

00:44:58:16 - 00:45:26:02
Brian Wolfe
But, where I think electric vehicles might have I think a really like a good purpose is, you know, when you get to these large cities Paris, LA, New York, London, where you have vehicles idling for long periods of time and a lot of people walking on the street, there is, you know, studies that say hydrocarbons and NOx emissions are carcinogenic and bad for, you know, lungs.

00:45:26:02 - 00:45:47:10
Brian Wolfe
Right. So when I was in Europe, one of the studies that was done by the government was as we as a tighten the emission standards from, you know, X to Y to Z, these are hey, these levels are coming down. But then I'll suddenly plateaued off. Even though the certifications Sanders were tougher, they really weren't necessarily seeing that, you know, in this city.

00:45:47:10 - 00:46:08:12
Brian Wolfe
So, you know, my view is that if you wanted to have the biggest impact quickly on health and again, I haven't done a deep dive into the impact on the respiratory system of NOx and hydrocarbons. So I'm going to take that at face value that it's true. I don't know it's true, but let's assume it's true for argument's sake.

00:46:08:14 - 00:46:34:06
Brian Wolfe
So you can to me I say you could draw a ring around London, Paris, Shanghai, LA, New York and say if you're within this circle where there's a lot of people walking, a lot of congestion, only electric vehicles, and if that if there is truth to this, has, you know, of respiratory impact, then that would have a big, a big help.

00:46:34:08 - 00:47:01:11
Brian Wolfe
Now if I'm driving out, you know, in the panhandle of Florida or if I'm driving, you know, out in Willis, Michigan, it doesn't make a difference, right? You know, because those are what the NOx and hydrocarbons are, local gases that kind of come out of the tailpipe. And then there's some native to the ground where CO2 goes in the atmosphere and CO2 that's created in, you know, let's say Canada by the forest fires ends up over Shanghai something because it goes up in the atmosphere.

00:47:01:18 - 00:47:28:01
Brian Wolfe
So CO2 is a global gas. NOx, hydrocarbons are local gases. So, you know, I think that it's a bit oversold. I don't know if they've talked about enough about the total impact on the environment and humanity, for an electric conversion. I mean, there's almost like when I was at forward, I think the global vehicle sales a year were globally, you know, was like not Ford but total market.

00:47:28:01 - 00:47:33:20
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. It was like, I think 90 to 100 million vehicles annually. Wow. You make all those electric really, you know.

00:47:33:21 - 00:48:08:23
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. And that's that's how I see it in theory. You know, looking at the data that I don't even know is 100% true. It seems okay, but the scalability is the problem, right? Scaling electric to that level. And like you said, the impact we have no idea. You know, so the only benefit I see to it short term, which, you know, there's all these, you know, a lot of these manufacturers are saying they're getting rid of gasoline vehicles, which to me seems way premature at this point and almost impossible to pull off.

00:48:08:25 - 00:48:36:05
Ken Bjonnes
I do see a value in the small cities or the big cities and small trips and public transportation and maybe autonomous vehicles that can pace each other, and everything's at slower speeds in the big cities anyway. It's not like you're going across New York City at 80 miles an hour, so I see the benefit there. But I just I don't understand the how extreme this push is or how it could be that way.

00:48:36:08 - 00:48:59:09
Ken Bjonnes
And, you know, you can we can really go off, into another direction and talk about, you know, the politics of it and the economy of it, and who's going to get rich because of it and all those sorts of things. And I do think that's a major influence. But I'm still shocked with how quickly it seems to be accelerating.

00:48:59:15 - 00:49:06:29
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. In a way that, like, it doesn't seem like it's actually going to be able to happen that way, even if they want it to happen that way. It just it just doesn't seem like it can.

00:49:07:01 - 00:49:33:05
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. And again, you without, you know, just talking facts. Right. So the way I look at it again now being political, just looking at what's happened over time, to me I said Chrysler couldn't couldn't spell electric vehicle during the last administration. Right. They never talked about it. New administration comes in very tough regulations come out that were not debatable.

00:49:33:05 - 00:49:56:05
Brian Wolfe
Normally when there's new regulations, the presented to the auto companies, they get feedback. They go back and forth negotiation. These count very tough. So that's like you Ray. We remember Chrysler saying well we can't meet the new regulations with the Hammies. right. And so that came out that that quick. And then of course, the very quickly, you know, looked at electric vehicles, you know, there's other answers to like, hydrogen.

00:49:56:05 - 00:50:17:05
Brian Wolfe
But again, this is where I say it's about wealth. Wealth shift more than the environment because hydrogen vehicles, which can emit cold planets don't allow work on that. You Toyota's announced a bunch of work on that as well where you know, water comes out tailpipe, you know. So but again, it's not in line with the marching orders.

00:50:17:07 - 00:50:32:15
Brian Wolfe
So, yeah, I mean, if you're an open minded person just analytically looking at facts, you, you gotta scratch your head right, and say, is there more to it than this? But I think, like you said, for, you just kind of gotta leave that where it is because, you want to talk about cars and cool stuff as opposed to politics, right?

00:50:32:15 - 00:50:43:21
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah, for sure, for sure. It's just, the thing that bothers me the most is in these electric dragsters. Like, to me, it's just soulless. Like, it's just not that exciting to me.

00:50:43:21 - 00:50:53:19
Brian Wolfe
And I don't think I again, I can share it with you. Like, Nancy, my wife and I went to the Isle of Man races. If you haven't been on the Isle of Man for the TT, are not aware of what that is.

00:50:53:21 - 00:50:55:14
Ken Bjonnes
I'm familiar with it. I would love to go that.

00:50:55:15 - 00:51:20:02
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. So. But for people listening, you know, go to YouTube and go Isle of Man, Isle of Man. And what this is, it's, Isle Island, called Isle of Man between England and Ireland. It's a very small island. There's a 37.5 mile course which are public roads before these guys take off, and they race motorcycles around there.

00:51:20:04 - 00:51:49:22
Brian Wolfe
it's five laps, 37 miles a lap, 200 turns. And, you know, these guys are amazing, right? If you have, it's just an amazing race. But they also have a thing called a TT zero, which is it's one lap with an electric motorcycle in pretty much no one watch said, yeah, it's magic. So, I think, there will be some interest because I think it'll bring people in that maybe haven't been involved in drag racing, but like someone like myself, you know, I don't have any desire to go play with that stuff.

00:51:49:22 - 00:52:00:06
Brian Wolfe
And there will be people that you know will be interested in follow it. That brings a few new people in. But I think a lot of people will just say, no, that's not, you know, for me. And I figure that pans out. But,

00:52:00:09 - 00:52:02:15
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah, I mean.

00:52:02:17 - 00:52:26:07
Brian Wolfe
And they're super heavy. I mean, they're super, super heavy, like, that electric Cobra jet. You know, rumor had it that it was over 5,000 pounds and they had to do a, they had to do special work to get the, you know, the, the vehicle safe enough because, again, you know, to be able to stop and if something horrible did happen unexpected, which does happen at the dragstrip, I did totally car there myself.

00:52:26:10 - 00:52:28:20
Brian Wolfe
you know, it's got to be safe for the person driving it.

00:52:28:20 - 00:52:49:21
Ken Bjonnes
Well, you know, from your drag racing background that the, different SFI certifications have maximum weights because of that reason, because it's just so much mass. If you hit the wall, the heavier it is, the bigger problems you have. So, that's from a racing perspective and safety perspective. I've never really thought about that safety perspective as far as the batteries catching on fire.

00:52:49:21 - 00:53:13:18
Ken Bjonnes
I've thought about, but not just the sheer weight of the vehicle, especially in a drag racing environment where you know it's not completely out of the norm to to hit a wall. Yeah, especially on a fast vehicle. So. All right, enough electric stuff. Okay. I want to, circle back. you touched on it earlier. what is now Ford Performance, Ford Racing when you were there?

00:53:13:21 - 00:53:18:20
Ken Bjonnes
obviously, I don't even know what Dodge. Does Dodge have something equivalent to that?

00:53:18:20 - 00:53:21:27
Brian Wolfe
I think the, Yeah, they do.

00:53:21:29 - 00:53:23:17
Ken Bjonnes
but we don't even know the name of it, so that.

00:53:23:20 - 00:53:28:09
Brian Wolfe
Might be a part of the SRT guys, you know? But yeah, they do direct connection, you know.

00:53:28:12 - 00:53:46:06
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. But to me that's different. Yeah. Like and then you know GM does have GM performance parts with I don't know how well you know, Doctor Meyer Jamie Meyer he's going to be a guest here soon too. he turned his back on us for guy and went to GM for a long time. Just kidding. so, you know.

00:53:46:06 - 00:53:47:06
Brian Wolfe
And he did a great job there.

00:53:47:06 - 00:54:09:09
Ken Bjonnes
He did a great job. I love Jamie, he was very important to me getting into this business period. so, but, maybe because I'm not a GM guy, I don't really put GM performance in the same breath as Ford. Ford Racing, Ford performance. a lot of people don't really understand exactly how that works, maybe even myself.

00:54:09:17 - 00:54:21:15
Ken Bjonnes
So maybe you can describe that to us a little bit like, what? Like at what point did Ford even launch that separate division? Sure. Or is it a division? How does it work?

00:54:21:20 - 00:54:45:21
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. So it's, evolved through the years. Right. So in 1982, same is the first year I started at Ford. I think it was Edsel that wanted to push. We should get back into NASCAR so that Ford, Reagan Ford Motor Sport at the time. And that's another sore point with me. Let's come back to branding. Okay.

00:54:45:21 - 00:55:04:00
Brian Wolfe
Time to come back to brain. But, Ford Motor Sport, I think at the time, was formed and they formed a small group and they reached out and they needed Ford Motor Sport because to run a NASCAR. I think the block, the heads. And I think the sheet metal needed to come from the OE. I believe I could be wrong.

00:55:04:00 - 00:55:28:27
Brian Wolfe
So if I'm wrong, someone didn't correct me. So the reach out to Jack Roush at the time and Jack had a small little, you know, pamphlet of performance parts. Jack offered that Ford used to kick start their performance parts, business as well. And that started, I'm pretty certain, in 1982. And that was the genesis of the wise.

00:55:29:00 - 00:55:54:03
Brian Wolfe
and was Nolan was part of that team. A guy named Dan Sullivan was part of that team. Sully was a name, he, you know, he was he was, quote, old when I was young. And, he's no longer with us. But, you know, I think he did the tunnel part for 27. I mean, a lot of the stuff that was done similar to those Nolan models was a little younger than than Sully was done.

00:55:54:06 - 00:56:10:11
Brian Wolfe
you know, you know, back in the 60s. And then they brought those guys in to help with this. And, Sully was I didn't really know Dan Sullivan, personally. But one of the things I remember is that if you don't, you know, like, people would like to come by and talk to him because he had so much knowledge in history.

00:56:10:14 - 00:56:36:21
Brian Wolfe
And we put a sign up because if you don't have something to do, do it elsewhere, you know, don't bother me. He was very focused on, on his job. but that side, that's how it started. And then it grew, you know, significantly from there. and then in the late 80s, there was a team of three guys that were mainly the performance parts guys, and that was Hank version.

00:56:36:24 - 00:56:48:27
Brian Wolfe
Dan Walsh, senior, Danny's father. And Danny Walsh for those, you know, is guy that races down his daddy performance or I think Walsh Motorsports he has and he.

00:56:48:27 - 00:56:50:06
Ken Bjonnes
Is both names. Yeah.

00:56:50:08 - 00:57:15:00
Brian Wolfe
And Ed Lyons. And they were kind of the performance parts guys. Lyons kind of had small black stuff. Durkin had kind of a hodgepodge of many things. And Walsh senior was, kind of the the driveline guy. And that's, you know, the kick started that, performance parts. And then when the, you know, when the five year Mustang.

00:57:15:00 - 00:57:27:18
Brian Wolfe
That's an awesome story to how the five liter Mustang came back into existence, with a guy named Jim Clark again was the one that I would say is, if you love Fox Body mustangs, it wasn't for Jim Clark. I don't think he'd be around. we can come back to that.

00:57:27:18 - 00:57:28:18
Ken Bjonnes
We'll definitely come back to that.

00:57:28:21 - 00:57:54:14
Brian Wolfe
But, so, there was a guy named Wally Beaver who was in the five liter group, and he was another older gentleman, you know, again, old when I was young, he was in his 60s when I was in my 20s, super performance enthusiast. And, the Gt40 stuff came about with while he was well under Jim Clark's, you know, kind of leadership was developing those parts, and the program got canceled.

00:57:54:14 - 00:58:07:24
Brian Wolfe
So he called Hank Hirsch and said, hey, I got this stuff. It's already engineered. You want to put it in the catalog? You know, Anderson said, yeah, sure. You know, we'll put in the catalog. And then, you know, I friends with Hank and he said, hey, you want to try this stuff on your 86 Mustang? We'll see how it works.

00:58:07:24 - 00:58:29:19
Brian Wolfe
So I got two parts from them. We put it on the car. And of course, you know, I'd say the rest is history because the Gt40 stuff took off really well. So Ford Motor Sport, was mainly the racing and the performance parts, you know, then they changed the name to Ford Racing and then, you know, Ford Performance and it probably had some other name in between.

00:58:29:21 - 00:59:01:14
Brian Wolfe
but with that, when I ran the division, I mean, I came from a super intense line job. So, I was what was called an L to one level below a corporate officer. And, you know, yeah, you had to go to the races on the weekends, but, like, that's like, it was nowhere near intense. I mean, I was, you know, when I ran, like, engine engineering or I ran controls and calibration for a period of, for a long period of time and as installed components, I mean, I would get to work at 530 in the morning and leave at seven at night.

00:59:01:14 - 00:59:25:06
Brian Wolfe
And you're there's hair in Sunday's game. It was intense. The Ford performance, the Ford racing job wasn't that time demanding. And and we were going to my boss and said, you know, if we rolled Ford Performance vehicles along with us so we'd have the Ford Performance vehicles at one end, the Ford Racing support at the other end, and the Ford Performance parts to bridge the gap.

00:59:25:06 - 00:59:48:25
Brian Wolfe
I said that would probably be a job that would be intensive enough for this level of compensation. They didn't do it at that time. but a few years later, Ford Performance is born. and so here's I'm gonna get my my gripe on branding, right. People talk about how long it takes to develop a brand. Right. So we had SVO and it was SVT.

00:59:48:25 - 01:00:10:04
Brian Wolfe
Then it was Ford Performance Vehicles. And that was more to stroke executives equals like corporate officers. I mean, they could have said, we've got a new division called Ford Performance, and it's made up of Ford Racing and SVT, and it's all of Ford Performance brand and still respect to me, the people that bought all the Ford racing parts and the old SVT customers.

01:00:10:11 - 01:00:24:00
Brian Wolfe
But no, they had to put their name on it and change it to Ford Performance, which always really kind of pissed me off, to be quite blunt. It was like, you know, why do you do that? I mean, you only did Stroker Eagle. I mean, I think the SVT guys fuel analogy. You don't. Yeah, anymore.

01:00:24:00 - 01:00:38:06
Ken Bjonnes
I remember when that happened and everybody was like, why are they getting rid of that name? Like, you know, people like, I mean, that's the point of a brand, right? To identify with it, pull it all together and then just boom, you just get rid of that brand. It was.

01:00:38:09 - 01:00:57:22
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. And Ford Performance products are awesome right. So you know, we have a, you know, and an SVT, I think it's SVT Fiesta st, I don't think was Ford performance yet. then we had a couple Raptor pickups. Now my wife's got a right Raptor Broncos. I love their vehicles right there. They're not. They're awesome.

01:00:57:25 - 01:01:04:20
Brian Wolfe
I just wish that we would. You know, you'd think with a company like Ford, a family company with. Stick to the brand, right? Yeah. Names.

01:01:04:20 - 01:01:08:01
Ken Bjonnes
What, what time period were you, there. When did.

01:01:08:01 - 01:01:11:02
Brian Wolfe
You. I, I was there, oh, 8 to 10.

01:01:11:06 - 01:01:22:22
Ken Bjonnes
Okay. So, I think that'd be an interesting take on the vehicles. Well, first off, let's the big, big one that you are, I believe, responsible for was to go Jets, right?

01:01:22:24 - 01:01:42:05
Brian Wolfe
Yes. So what happened to the Cobra Jets? Interesting story in the Cobra Jets, right. And probably if you ask three different people, four different people that were close to, probably put a little bit different spin on it. But, as I mentioned, I ran, that was it was called Corn Advanced Powertrain. And then we changed it to Powertrain Engineering.

01:01:42:05 - 01:02:11:20
Brian Wolfe
So what I was accountable for was the powertrain control software, powertrain control modules and all the as installed components. So intakes, exhaust catalyst, fuel systems, cooling systems. So I had basically everything with the base engine and transmission was a pretty big job. And Jamie Allison, who was the performance, Ford Racing, performance parts manager at the time, you know, he would occasionally need help with stuff.

01:02:11:22 - 01:02:38:08
Brian Wolfe
And of course, being, you know, performance enthusiast, you know, hey, you know, Jamie needs help. Let's, you know, get this help and would get this through certification or whatever. So one of the things that was going on in the background was in HRA was talking to Ford, GM and Chrysler about bringing back some type of matter and, you know, heads up class that would appeal, you know, to, to fans, you know, and I had two friends, guy named Jimmy Brown.

01:02:38:11 - 01:03:00:02
Brian Wolfe
So have him had you have two friends named ones and Jimmy runs out and the other night named Mike Bastani. And they were saying, yeah, you know, NHL is having this meeting with Ford. Guy that represent him just doesn't seem too enthused, you know, can you do anything to maybe push those guys a little bit? So I called Jamie and I said, you know, I'd really like to, you know, help with this because you guys don't really know NHRA Sportsman racing.

01:03:00:04 - 01:03:17:23
Brian Wolfe
You know, you're only kind of helping the Funny car guys, you know, you're okay if we start a NHRA advisory committee. And so what I wanted to do was, you know, reach out to the sportsmen who put their own money into polishing the Ford Blue Oval. I thought that was important because that's what I always did. You know, I did.

01:03:17:25 - 01:03:44:05
Brian Wolfe
I had a lot of time for that. So we started the discussions and then I kind of mentioned on this new class a little bit. And, Jim and I invited so it was the Ford Performance guys myself, his not really accountable but wanting to influence. And then, Jimmy, Ron Zullo was there too, who was a experimental build, engine experimental build technician at Ford.

01:03:44:07 - 01:04:10:08
Brian Wolfe
But super long history. And in NHRA racing he was a stock Superstock racer for many years. And we started this, you know, these discussions. And then, there was a guy, a very popular guy who you probably know, named Jesse Kershaw. Yeah, he was a marketing guy and, Ford, racing. And, you know, he sent me and I said, we ought to do something like this and support this class.

01:04:10:08 - 01:04:28:01
Brian Wolfe
You know, so the way I described as Jamie and a guy named Andy Schleicher, who was a supervisor that work for him, were coming to the meetings and talking to me more to pacify me because I was a director and I was helping them, and they respected the position and okay, we'll pass fine. But we're never going to do this thing.

01:04:28:01 - 01:04:45:16
Brian Wolfe
Right? Right. And, and Jesse had this. He told me this PowerPoint that he was carrying around for three years, and no one would take it seriously, but it was talked about doing a drag car, you know, and he took the name from past Cobra Jet. That kind of defined what it would be, which was a kind of a Gt500 powertrain.

01:04:45:16 - 01:04:58:17
Brian Wolfe
And, I don't remember how much detail he had in that to be open. I don't know if he had the powertrain in there or not. I think he did, and I remember him sending it to me as well. Yeah, that's exactly what we were talking about. You know, I sent it to Jamie. He sent it to me.

01:04:58:17 - 01:05:18:25
Brian Wolfe
I read it within the first half hour of receiving an email. I sent it to Jamie, and then Jamie was back at Jesse's desk. And what the hell did he send Brian Wolff, you know? Right, right. And, so, you know, there pacify me a little bit. And then this was in, beginning of oh eight maybe.

01:05:18:25 - 01:05:39:01
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. My time frame is a little fuzzy because I'm an old guy name. I don't remember the exact dates, but, long story short, all of a sudden, Dan Davis retires. And who comes in as the new director of, you know, Ford Racing, you know, Ford Racing technology. So it was called, me and I remember Andy's telling the story.

01:05:39:01 - 01:05:55:15
Brian Wolfe
Said he goes, oh, shit, we're really going to have to do this thing now. And, I said, look, I'm not big. You don't have to do because I want to do it. I said, if we can't sell 50 of these because what happened is we had 500 asses, which was the road race car, Spec Racer, and we had like 20 some of them sit in the warehouse.

01:05:55:15 - 01:06:17:20
Brian Wolfe
We cut it off. I said, we're not going to do that again. That's a we're not. I said, if we don't get at least 50 preorders, we're not doing it, you know? So, Jesse put the notification together for the dealers, and there's a guy named Brett Hyuk who is, super Ford enthusiast, historian, and the head of has a museum.

01:06:17:22 - 01:06:33:13
Brian Wolfe
in Oklahoma, I believe, because he's got, like, all this corn fields there and he's. Oh, you know, in there, you see, it sells the 85, corn to the 85 guys that make and stuff and and called him and said, look, Wolff said, if we don't sell 50 these, we're not going to do it. And he said, I'll take ten.

01:06:33:16 - 01:06:46:03
Brian Wolfe
And these, I think were 70 grand at the time. Yeah. Okay. So, between him and I think Jackie Jones bought six of them. and, you know, so again, got 50 orders in 48 hours. Wow. Commitments.

01:06:46:03 - 01:06:46:22
Ken Bjonnes
That's amazing.

01:06:46:22 - 01:06:48:01
Brian Wolfe
So that car.

01:06:48:01 - 01:07:02:24
Ken Bjonnes
You think, a lot of it had to do with it being a Cobra jet? A name like the nostalgia of. How do you get all the guys that knew those cars when they were younger, and now they're going to afford it? And it's like, this is my opportunity to have, you know, I agree, I agree. That's what seemed like to me.

01:07:02:24 - 01:07:24:09
Brian Wolfe
Yeah, I agree, I think the name had a lot to do with it. And again, I think it was I think it was Jesse that came up with the name. I had a discussion, with the other guy that was super instrumental guy named Larry Farren, who was I worked in Andy's Linkage group to get the prototypes made and stuff, and I was a little fuzzy on the name, but, Jimmy Randall said, no.

01:07:24:09 - 01:07:31:10
Brian Wolfe
Is Jesse in that PowerPoint that had the name? So I think that was, Jesse's, idea to have that name.

01:07:31:13 - 01:07:50:06
Ken Bjonnes
Jesse, I don't know how long he was there, but he seemed to have a pretty big impact, because Jesse is the person that I worked with to get coyote stock founded. Because when I went to that animal, right with the idea, they said, well, that sounds great, but you have to get Ford to do it. And I don't think you're going to get Ford to do it like the shield engine part.

01:07:50:08 - 01:08:09:02
Ken Bjonnes
And at that point, Jesse was going to all the races and he was very approachable. Super didn't realize how good we had it till Jesse was gone. Honestly, not speaking badly about whoever came after him. But Jesse was very, good at bringing people together, I would say. And I approached him and he's like, man, I like that idea.

01:08:09:02 - 01:08:21:26
Ken Bjonnes
Let me go see what we can do. And then he was the one that pulled off being able to sell the engine. So the coyote stock program could get off its feet. So I didn't realize he was that instrumental in getting the ball rolling on Cobra Jets. Yeah.

01:08:21:26 - 01:08:40:06
Brian Wolfe
No, he was, Yeah. you know, and he, he, you know, he was in a tough spot because there wasn't a lot of support for drag racing because, you know, we had John Force and, you know, and, you know, people in the executives typically like road racing cause drag racing is for, you know, sleazy rednecks like me.

01:08:40:06 - 01:09:00:11
Brian Wolfe
And that for the champagne crowd. Right. So that was, so, you know, he he was kind of always in an uphill, you know, battle. Until then, you know, the short time that I was there. But, I remember keep him bring coyote stock and this you. I thought, let's say he could be an engine guy. Why the heck would you want a, you know, seal the engine?

01:09:00:11 - 01:09:17:26
Brian Wolfe
I mean, you know, what fun is that? Well, and, but but I was 100% wrong because, you know, you, you know, the guys buy the sealed crate motors, you know, and they're in the car for three years. I mean, and as in, there's no other place you're going to have that much fun. Barrel race heads up for the amount of money it takes to build a competitive car.

01:09:18:00 - 01:09:32:16
Brian Wolfe
I think I have more had more in my I've known I had more of my x 275 engine. I could have built a car and had a complete backup powertrain for coyote stock. So I think it was a super good idea. And, you know, I mean, there's 20 of them out there at that in a Marina when they jump.

01:09:32:17 - 01:09:53:18
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah, every race. I mean, it's been, you know, I didn't do much after it got started, but I felt like, I was pretty instrumental in getting it going and also keeping it healthy, because when the class that class launched, it wasn't a success. It took a year or two because people to build cars, and then they wanted to allow automatics in, in a way break.

01:09:53:18 - 01:10:21:24
Ken Bjonnes
And the whole concept of the classes, there's just one set of rules. There's no this combo gets this way or this combo gets this way. And I think that's been the reason that it's been successful, because it's a no BS class. Right? There's just other than like trying to find somebody cheating or anything like that, you're going to show up and have the same basic horsepower and you know, ability to go as quick as anybody else.

01:10:21:24 - 01:10:38:11
Ken Bjonnes
But yet, you know, the new guys are, you know, two hands off. And then each time they keep going. But the coolest thing about it, which, you know, you alluded to as far as like, why would anybody want to seal the engine, mess with it. Most of those engines wind up getting messed with. Right? That's what's so great about it.

01:10:38:11 - 01:10:58:07
Ken Bjonnes
It's such a durable and awesome engine. Somebody will race it for 2 or 3 years and then go, you know what? I'm gonna break the seals on and build the motor on a Morris factory stock now, or I'm gonna build the motor and just put a blower on it, you know? So it's not like you're buying some off variant that's only usable in one area and some sealed engine that nobody would want otherwise.

01:10:58:07 - 01:11:17:13
Ken Bjonnes
Right. It's what everybody wants. And you just seal it for the short term. And then if you want to mess with it down the road and go somewhere else, you're not buying a whole different engine. It's the platform is just amazing. And now you know, at each generation it seemingly was almost a death of the classic, oh, the Gen two is out.

01:11:17:13 - 01:11:32:15
Ken Bjonnes
And like, how are we going to handle that? And then the Gen three came out, oh, they're going to be too fast. And now it's a nine second class. You know very it's it's just crazy to me. so, Jesse, you know, was a huge part of that. I didn't want to go too far off from the coverage.

01:11:32:15 - 01:11:33:09
Ken Bjonnes
I think so.

01:11:33:11 - 01:11:57:10
Brian Wolfe
But one thing, if I could just add to it, to me, that's important of taking the feedback, because, like I said, I wasn't a supporter of it, but I listen to Jesse, and I don't know if it was actually kicked off when I was there or after I left. But, you know, again, you got to listen to the team and respect, you know, like you said, Jesse had a lot of feedback from, you know, the racers and, you know, take it and you know, like did support it.

01:11:57:10 - 01:12:09:07
Brian Wolfe
But again, I don't remember what year it first started off. I was there when they first started selling engines or it was after I left. But again, the importance of if you had people in a team, you got to respect them and listen to them. Yeah.

01:12:09:09 - 01:12:38:14
Ken Bjonnes
And beyond the ceiling of the engine, the other part that really made that important, which is partly why the coyote is popular in the swap market, is Ford Performance comes out with the swap kit, the computer and the harness and all that sort of stuff. So how like, does Ford just basically decide to do that based on, you know, like, do they do they make A73 control package?

01:12:38:16 - 01:12:58:29
Brian Wolfe
They do. the I believe the current swap kit, though, only works with a ten R 140 okay. And I go, you know, you know, how's that going to work? Because at ten, 140 is so big that it's kind of fit in most cars. So this is probably like, if I would've been a Ford performance, you know, like the little difference.

01:12:58:29 - 01:13:17:04
Brian Wolfe
Right. So and makes sense from an engineering perspective. Right. You can just take the software that's there. We can modify the calibration turn off you know some things and you know, and also try to make it more adaptable to a vehicle to the ten speeds. Really hard to calibrate. And yes it is not easy. So the guys you know, but they had a start point.

01:13:17:04 - 01:13:36:06
Brian Wolfe
But I would have said, well yeah we got to do a control pack for it, but you got to do it for manual first, right? I don't care if it takes longer. There's going to be a lot more market for either, you know, putting a different automatic behind it or a manual than putting it in R 140 because it doesn't work with a 10 or 80.

01:13:36:11 - 01:13:37:24
Brian Wolfe
It's got to be a 10 to 140.

01:13:37:29 - 01:13:45:21
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. And I you know, there's a lot of those out there because of probably electric vehicle swaps where.

01:13:45:21 - 01:14:04:29
Brian Wolfe
Well, no, it doesn't work with the swaps because the vehicle that the Amazon swap vehicles that people are selling the powertrains out of is A6R1 40. So I have no idea. Yeah. So it's a six are because again you know again it was about variable cost rates. So to go into that chassis third vehicle 640 is a lot less expensive.

01:14:05:02 - 01:14:08:18
Brian Wolfe
And also we do have to worry about the capacity for the pickup truck.

01:14:08:20 - 01:14:17:26
Ken Bjonnes
To explain that real quick. You're talking about a chassis vehicles where like it's, a Super Duty type platform and there's no bed and or whatever, and it gets built out into something else.

01:14:17:26 - 01:14:23:27
Brian Wolfe
Yeah, yeah. I believe the vehicles that leave the Ford plant is an incomplete vehicle. So it's a Dino search vehicle.

01:14:23:27 - 01:14:29:06
Ken Bjonnes
And those are the ones that came with the six speed? Yes. Is that the only thing A6R1 47.

01:14:29:08 - 01:14:50:02
Brian Wolfe
I believe the answer to that is yes, I can't I maybe the some of the kind of line cutaways because again you know that was another application the cutaway vehicles that they still had, they kind of line for I don't know if it again being gone from Ford for, but I haven't had for six and a half years now.

01:14:50:04 - 01:15:00:16
Brian Wolfe
I don't know if that was there, but when I was there, that was also one of the applications. But again, I left the plant as an incomplete vehicle. So I'm guessing that had those had six r, one 40s in them.

01:15:00:18 - 01:15:14:14
Ken Bjonnes
So, back to the Cobra jet real quick. That came with multiple powertrains at some point. What is that? Basically because of NHRA and rules and trying to fit, you know, certain criteria.

01:15:14:21 - 01:15:44:28
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. So again, the goal was is to allow the sportsman racers, right. Something in a modern vehicle that they could race in stock in Superstock. so that was the purpose of putting like a 352, which was a A302, you know, a larger 302 or a 428, which was a larger 351 or A463 valve, or a five liter in a two, you know, make something so that you could, you know, drive a more modern looking car.

01:15:44:28 - 01:15:57:10
Brian Wolfe
And that also, in my opinion, you know, helps, you know, the marketing and the polishing of blue ovals when people go to the track and watch the stackers and super stackers, oh, I've got a car like that, you know, and again, that being able to relate.

01:15:57:12 - 01:16:11:21
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. One interesting thing that Cobra jet, program and I kind of remember this at the time and you're being there, I like to see some here's some insight on this. So what transmission were in those?

01:16:11:23 - 01:16:22:09
Brian Wolfe
the first year? Oh eight. It had the same transmission that the Gt500 has in 2010. It could be a power glide or a Liberty.

01:16:22:12 - 01:16:24:26
Ken Bjonnes
but you guys can call it a power glide. Did you.

01:16:24:28 - 01:16:25:22
Brian Wolfe
You know.

01:16:25:24 - 01:16:26:17
Ken Bjonnes
I alluded to.

01:16:26:19 - 01:16:28:29
Brian Wolfe
It. It's probably a two speed T4. Yeah. What we call.

01:16:29:03 - 01:16:39:03
Ken Bjonnes
It said like two speed race trans or something. That was like, we'd all kind of joke about it a little bit because it's like Ford doesn't want to admit they're using a GM transmission in it.

01:16:39:05 - 01:16:53:10
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. And, yeah, absolutely. But you know, and again, you know, truth be told, they probably wasn't one GM part in it. Kind of like my next 275 small black Ford. Right. You know, it was it was a small black Ford. But there wasn't one Ford part in it. You know black heads and all that was was different.

01:16:53:12 - 01:16:58:24
Brian Wolfe
But I think we I think I was probably a little sensitive to that. But yeah, but mine was a aftermarket powerhouse.

01:16:58:29 - 01:17:08:26
Ken Bjonnes
That was I kind of remember, like, joking that it was like, what transmission is it? It's, it's got a power going, and it's like, that's not what it says here. I'm like, well, they're not going to say it's a GM power, you know?

01:17:08:26 - 01:17:20:19
Brian Wolfe
So and then a lot of them had, you know, Joel, Joel, Sanjoy, they built most of the in fact, I think about that mostly about all the automatics for that in the future years. It was a three speed.

01:17:20:21 - 01:17:28:17
Ken Bjonnes
So, I'm a little ignorant to this. Where is that program? They don't they don't make them.

01:17:28:17 - 01:17:30:07
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. The last year was 19.

01:17:30:07 - 01:17:30:15
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah.

01:17:30:15 - 01:17:53:06
Brian Wolfe
Okay. So in that, was, he was supposed to be an 18 50th anniversary, but I think it came. They didn't have any of them. They didn't have the program done. So it came out in 19, I believe. Look, in the guide, it's listed as a 19, not an 18. but that was the last one. So I think we did them in 2008, ten, 12, 13, 14, 16 and 18.

01:17:53:08 - 01:18:13:16
Ken Bjonnes
So 19 with Ford Performance, you know, there's all these specialty vehicles like you mentioned, the Bronco Raptor, which I have one which is just one of my favorite vehicles ever, I love it, I mean, I had a regular Bronco, I had them all. I had the small one, I, the Wildtrak and then the Bronco Raptor and they followed the pricing, which is everyone got a little bit better.

01:18:13:18 - 01:18:26:12
Ken Bjonnes
but that's obviously a production vehicle and there's many Ford performance production vehicles, but then there's non-production vehicles like the Cobra Jet. But then, you know, like the newest stuff like the dark, not dark horse, but the, you know.

01:18:26:19 - 01:18:27:16
Brian Wolfe
The GT3, the.

01:18:27:16 - 01:18:53:23
Ken Bjonnes
GT3 and all the different race variants, you know, and they've done that throughout the years, like the, what was did they, they called the GT4, the road race car. Like you're like, that was based off the newer S550 platform. Are those specialty race vehicles Cobra jet road race cars being developed alongside the production version of Ford Performance.

01:18:53:23 - 01:18:55:10
Ken Bjonnes
Are those two different things okay.

01:18:55:10 - 01:19:23:09
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. So the the individual that runs the, if you will, those specialty race prepared cars that you buy from the factory, is a different individual than the person that's in charge of, if you will, like the, the volume production street car. So I classified is not street legal. No Vin in street legal Vin cars.

01:19:23:13 - 01:19:46:08
Ken Bjonnes
Which makes sense because the requirements to design a Bronco Raptor are very different than designing a GT four. Yeah, they're both Ford performance. So in my mind, I'm, like, envisioning, you know, what it looks like there. And I'm like, that's just so very different. but obviously so they're just they're run almost like there's two different people, but the people are separate two.

01:19:46:08 - 01:19:53:20
Ken Bjonnes
Right. That's for working on the GT for the GT three or all the different vehicles are totally different than the GT 500.

01:19:53:25 - 01:20:14:06
Brian Wolfe
There may be some cross-fertilization. And like it was a new platforms coming about talking. You're kind of like I mentioned when I had, you know, the powertrain engineering components. And, you know, Jamie would ask me questions very, you know, ones and marketing ones and PD product development. But again, offering that assistance, I'm sure that type of cross communication has to be going on.

01:20:14:08 - 01:20:18:09
Brian Wolfe
But as far as the team accountable for each, you know, different areas.

01:20:18:16 - 01:20:38:03
Ken Bjonnes
And how did the the a planning of production performance vehicle like a GT 500 or the Bronco Raptor or the regular, the F-150 Raptor, like, how often are those proposed? And they don't happen. You know what I mean? Like like what's behind that? How do they become.

01:20:38:03 - 01:21:01:27
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. You know, I'm not as you know, familiar to be, you know, fully, you know, transparent with those processes, you know, like, you know, when I was there typically, you know, there was, you know, like, you know, quality is probably the most popular outside known guy that, ran SVT, right? And, you know, they would propose stuff going forward just like a production Mustang program.

01:21:01:29 - 01:21:31:10
Brian Wolfe
You know, it would have to make financial sense, etc.. to, to proceed. I think, and I, I think can assume that probably that same process goes, you know, takes place today. So, you know, they'll put a proposal together. there may be money even put in the cycle plan as a holding point, like, hey, you know, we've got, a new Mustang, you know, coming out, in 14, we're going to want to do, a Shelby version of that.

01:21:31:10 - 01:21:42:15
Brian Wolfe
We're going to put a placeholder in the cycle plan with so much money to do that. And then as time goes on, you know, the actual team that's going to do it will start to define what that's going to look like and then take it forward for approvals.

01:21:42:16 - 01:22:11:21
Ken Bjonnes
And that's what I was looking at, like, so they carve out a spot, say for the new Gt500. But a specific team is tasked with really defining what that might be like. So I know that was after you were gone, but like, say, the 2020 Gt500, like who decide decides that power plant like typically or the whole thing like is that it's down to like one guy on a team that's like, hey, I think we should do this.

01:22:11:21 - 01:22:13:03
Ken Bjonnes
And everybody gets behind him.

01:22:13:03 - 01:22:33:19
Brian Wolfe
Now, typically that would be like an if you up there, there's a planning organization for it. So yet you know you have marketing and sales right. That is a lot of the folks that you you know, most journalists and people will interface with the marketing team. Then behind the scenes, if you're making and they'll help with we think we can solve so many of these.

01:22:33:19 - 01:22:53:21
Brian Wolfe
And here's what the price point needs to be. And, you know, trying to define what the customer is, then, there's a team that, if you will, is called planning. So they'll look at the cycle plan, like maybe ten years out, five years out and just kind of put a placeholder in, okay, we're going to want to do a Gt500.

01:22:53:24 - 01:23:21:01
Brian Wolfe
We think that it's going to be based off the coyote engine, you know, an upgrade to the previous one. And, you know, very rough I call it level of assumptions. Right. And then as things get closer, then within the product development team, they'll start to get involved and start adding, if you will, the definition. So like on the the 2020 I was there word.

01:23:21:04 - 01:23:21:18
Ken Bjonnes
Story on.

01:23:21:20 - 01:23:42:22
Brian Wolfe
It. Yeah. When we started on that on that engine. And you know the the power requirements were important. and then also the on track performance was important because one of the things that a lot of the Corvette people were complaining about was, hey, make three laps. Also in the car is much slower because it didn't cool the cat really hot.

01:23:42:25 - 01:24:13:21
Brian Wolfe
And you know, they'd d rated the engine, right. So that was a big things gone wrong, which happened before this 2020 came out. So I do remember, you know, we're doing a lot of discussions. Well you know this has to last like 20 minutes. on a road course. I don't remember what road course it was. It might have been changed from and I don't know, I don't remember I assuming I said that since I don't remember, but it's kind of last like a, a track session without being D rated.

01:24:13:24 - 01:24:31:19
Brian Wolfe
which is probably one of the reasons why, once they came out was easy to maybe tune and get more out of it because, again, Ford was sensitive to that. So I think that was really smart. I had nothing to do with that. That was kind of the vehicle team reading what was going on in the in social media and saying, well, we don't want to have this issue, right?

01:24:31:19 - 01:24:33:03
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. So pretty clever.

01:24:33:03 - 01:24:57:13
Ken Bjonnes
Guys. Yeah, yeah. The insight, I guess I was looking forward, you pretty much summed up, but if you can expand on it, if, you know, like to me, the 2020 Gt500 was multiple steps forward from other performance vehicles Ford's have has released, not counting like the Ford GT and all that, you know, but like under some that $100,000 car.

01:24:57:17 - 01:25:17:21
Ken Bjonnes
Well, that's really the point, right? How who decides to jump from a 50 or $55,000 Gt500 to an $80,000 Gt500? I'm super happy they did that. I never expected us to have a vehicle at the level of the 2020 Gt500. I feel like it was a little bit of a, you know, like a bait and switch in a good way, right?

01:25:17:23 - 01:25:37:16
Ken Bjonnes
Like, here's the Mustang and it's it's it's fast and it's got a lot of power, but it doesn't turn that good and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And then all of a sudden we have like a top level, any brand, any there's there's not a car in 100 grand to me. And obviously I'm a Gt500 guy that could even be in the same conversation as the Gt500.

01:25:37:16 - 01:25:57:13
Brian Wolfe
Yeah, I would say I would attribute that to, a couple things. And this is just my opinion. Okay. So this I'm not gonna say this is the absolute truth and this is what happened. This is Brian's opinion from observation. So I think what was going on was, you know, typically that would be between marketing, how much can you get for it?

01:25:57:16 - 01:26:26:05
Brian Wolfe
And the guys that are defining the product and how much it's going to cost. And then can we make a business case out of this? But I think with people like Jim Farley at the top, you know, and Raj Nair, both of them super enthusiastic road race type guys, and then their guy that was in charge at the time, Dave Paris out, wanted to make sure they were very happy with the project because he was very motivated, you know, director wanting to, you know, deliver and deliver.

01:26:26:05 - 01:26:54:03
Brian Wolfe
Well, there, you know, between the guy at the top and the guys with the desire to deliver, that's probably what it took, right? I think under normal circumstances without, you know, like you mentioned, like a you know, influence the Godzilla around fluency, cobra jet. My opinion is that Raj and Jim Farley influenced that. that GT because I remember I'll be honest, I wasn't a huge fan of the dual clutch.

01:26:54:03 - 01:27:14:24
Brian Wolfe
I said, man, this tends to click. You know, the ten speed in the GT is pretty good. I mean, you go to the and fastness, you know, pretty good. But it's now a dual clutch right. And I remember how much that cost. I'm not going to go into that. and you know, the issues we had at the time with the focus dual clutch, because the dual clutch is really intended for a performance car, not a daily driver.

01:27:14:27 - 01:27:29:14
Brian Wolfe
in other words, something with a lot of horsepower to weight ratio, like, you know, like that car and, you know, it was a struggle because, you know, it wasn't an easy task to make that as good as they made it. But they did. They did a great job. And, you know, again, that was like the Dave Paris hack, right.

01:27:29:14 - 01:27:39:03
Brian Wolfe
The director, you know, again, that was delivering for Farley and Raj to make sure the product was good. So I think that's how it happened. I could be wrong.

01:27:39:09 - 01:27:51:15
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. So, during like a development of a vehicle like that, I had heard rumors that the DCT was even in danger at one point. You know, I don't know if that's true or not or how it.

01:27:51:15 - 01:27:54:03
Brian Wolfe
Probably was at one point when they were having when they were struggling.

01:27:54:06 - 01:28:20:19
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah, they were struggling. And it's not only are they putting a transmission in that they've never really used in a performance, but it's a brand new transmission. Right? Travis Tri makes new to this. You know, it turned out to be. Well, let's back up. The reason I asked about all that is because I remember when the car was announced, the general reaction to it before anybody really understood what they were getting for that money was like, are you nuts?

01:28:20:21 - 01:28:43:15
Ken Bjonnes
Who's going to pay $80,000 for a it's a mustang. Nobody's going to pay $1,000 for a mustang yet. We're, what, almost three and a half years into this race and you still cannot buy a carbon fiber track package edition from SRP. Yeah, and if you're buying a base model, you're still paying mSRP. Maybe even a little markup.

01:28:43:17 - 01:28:46:21
Ken Bjonnes
That's amazing to me. Oh, come on, I mean, obviously at a.

01:28:46:21 - 01:28:47:20
Brian Wolfe
Ford production, at a.

01:28:47:20 - 01:29:11:06
Ken Bjonnes
Ford period, the general, used car market has been influencing that. And all the again, politics around everything and everything getting more expensive and hard to get and supply chain issues and things like that. But, you know, to think, I mean, I just sold, one of my GT five hundreds and yes, it has a few performance parts on it.

01:29:11:09 - 01:29:30:17
Ken Bjonnes
but, I sold it for $5,000 more than that mSRP, you know? And yes, it has a few performance parts, so it's not like I sold it for more. And it's a bone stock vehicle, but even to say that the ten year I have a 2014 Gt500. Oh, that's worth, 50. Oh, I have parts I have things done to it.

01:29:30:17 - 01:29:54:20
Ken Bjonnes
Oh, it's 40, you know, like and now because it's such an amazing platform, the modifications to it allow like it allows us to modify in a way that is truly reliable. Like it's not like almost anything we've done in the past where it's like, yeah, you got all this extra power, but be careful this don't do this, don't do, you know, heat and let it ride.

01:29:54:21 - 01:30:14:28
Ken Bjonnes
Like not really. Yeah. I mean some of them that we make 1300 horsepower with, you still have to be gentle with them. But if you do a normal build and make between 800 and 1000 horsepower, which is crazy to even think about 15 years ago on a production vehicle, it's a bolt ons. Not only can you do it, but it's like if people were like, oh, well, you know, what do I need to know?

01:30:14:28 - 01:30:40:21
Ken Bjonnes
I'm like, nothing. Just for it. It's, you know, it's going to take care of itself. And that's due to all the technology. And Ford continuing to go forward and, well, well, on that note, what Ford has resisted, what the other manufacturers are doing so far as like we're going all in electric, we're getting rid of the V8, you know, all that sort of, theme there.

01:30:40:24 - 01:30:43:17
Ken Bjonnes
How long do you think Ford could hold off on it?

01:30:43:19 - 01:30:59:23
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. You know, boy, I'll tell you, anybody's crystal ball on that is as good as mine being, you know, gone so far. are so long from Ford. But, you know, GM just announced, I think they I kind of feel like it made me smile when I saw GM's investing $900 million in a new V8 truck plant. Oh, really?

01:30:59:29 - 01:31:15:22
Brian Wolfe
Yeah, I think that's I think that's because, like, they saw the Godzilla was much better than what they had. So some years to see what they do to their, you know, do their platform to, to respond to it. but, you know, Ford has, you know, you said they're going do a lot in electric put the evolve.

01:31:15:22 - 01:31:49:22
Brian Wolfe
But, you know, again, you know, the truck market, they haven't been, you know, so fast. The new Mustang, you know, is you know, people are saying was probably the last one with internal combustion engine. I don't know, like the autonomous vehicles, you know, I call it, you know, the kind of the Kool-Aid on that because, you know, the people that are close to it and the reason it was being pushed so heavily was, you know, Google figured out that, you know, people spend like, especially in California, an average of an hour and a half in the day, a car is said, well, that's an hour and a half that they could be

01:31:49:22 - 01:32:13:14
Brian Wolfe
surfing the internet, that we could be making money off of advertising. So if we could do autonomous cars, we can make a lot more money out of mainstream business, of advertising. So they were investigating, you know, heavily into a town as vehicles. But the guys like, you know, just engineers that are used to doing failure mode in effect analysis to say, well, isn't it the first rule of robotics, you know, that the robot can't hurt a human.

01:32:13:16 - 01:32:34:07
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. So if someone steps out in front of the car, it's got to stop. Can't hit the person, right? Yeah. So if someone stepped in front of it and someone step behind it, the car can't move, right? Yeah. And if you take the steering wheel and gas, breakout car can't move and people inside are sitting ducks, if you will, for something bad to happen.

01:32:34:07 - 01:32:51:24
Brian Wolfe
So how are you going to address that? Or how are you going to address the light hour working in Michigan in the middle of winter? You know, there's a lot of these issues. I mean, they were you can do an enormous amount of things, but even airplanes have to go off autopilot when the weather is really bad, right, right, to land them.

01:32:51:27 - 01:33:17:11
Brian Wolfe
So a lot of it, like you said, you know, people get caught up in I don't want to say propaganda because that's not the right word, but the excitement maybe of the day without fully thinking everything out. And I think as you we talked a little earlier about electric vehicles. I think sooner or later the elephant will come out from behind the curtain and then say, well, how are you really gonna charge all these things?

01:33:17:11 - 01:33:40:18
Brian Wolfe
How are you really gonna mine all the material, raw materials for the batteries? How are you going to make all this possible? And, you know, things are going, you know, you know, so far in some regards where you if you look at, like we used to call that at Ford, well, like mining the raw materials to wheel actually getting, you know, producing CO2 out the back.

01:33:40:21 - 01:34:07:27
Brian Wolfe
you know, what's the real total picture story, you know, and at one point in time, it was like, well, an electric vehicle would have to go, 100,000 miles to make up for the CO2 it cost to put it in the showroom, if it would have been an internal combustion vehicle. So, you know, you kind of look at the total picture and, you know, so many people are so I guess opinionated.

01:34:07:27 - 01:34:32:12
Brian Wolfe
I don't understand the full impact. So, you know, there's a lot of issues to address. But again, as I mentioned earlier, I think there are things you could do quickly to have an impact on society that make sense. Anyways, from a in my mind, from a total, you know, humanity perspective, like these large cities where you got diesels, you know, idling and spewing out particulates even though you got a particular filter.

01:34:32:12 - 01:34:43:17
Brian Wolfe
I mean, you know, when you live in Europe and you drive behind these vehicles, you know, that are diesels and the app particulate filters, you know, you there's a lot of black on the bumpers. You know, it's not there for because they're clean.

01:34:43:17 - 01:35:04:00
Ken Bjonnes
Right, right. Yeah. I mean I guess I maybe this is like wishful thinking, but I'm hoping the whole electric thing is sort of how, when we look back on when we were supposed to switch to the metric system in the United States, I'm hoping it works out the same. It's like, well, we thought it would be a good idea, but the logistics of it all and everything, it just wasn't going to work out.

01:35:04:00 - 01:35:26:01
Ken Bjonnes
And yeah, there's people that I use the metric system all the time. Everybody does. You know, I, design work. I work in metric a lot. But in general we still, you know, use Imperial here. And, I'm hoping we have the same resistance to the electric thing. And over time, we realize that, it may be a good, focused use, but it's certainly not going to become the.

01:35:26:01 - 01:35:41:28
Brian Wolfe
Standard, I don't think. Yeah, I don't think it's a complete answer. I think it does. I think it's great for a lot of folks. Yeah. You know, especially like if you live in a place where you, you know, can get the 50 amp for charging, you know, in your home and not impact other things, you got enough electricity there.

01:35:42:00 - 01:35:59:20
Brian Wolfe
if you drive your commute, you know, 30 miles one way to work and, you know, you know, there's a convenience factor there. but again, to me, it's just like, it's not the only solution. Just like you don't only we don't only have gas, we don't only have diesel, we only have fiestas. We only don't have three F-350.

01:35:59:22 - 01:36:03:28
Brian Wolfe
Right. So there's different solutions for different needs. And I kind of think that's where it's going to kind of fall.

01:36:04:00 - 01:36:30:24
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. And I think that's what makes me question things like the lightning, you know, the truck, electric truck. It's like in theory when it was announced, it's I was like, wow, that's pretty cool, actually. And the generator and all that. And as a vehicle, I heard it's great. But as a truck, I mean, I don't think anybody could say it's anything but a failure as far as towing stuff or moving stuff around.

01:36:30:27 - 01:36:49:29
Ken Bjonnes
And obviously Ford had to know that when they released it, like how it was going to wind up towing. So is that, you know, I feel like they're pushing it beyond like sensibility, almost like, why would you even push that out there? with it being such a poor performer as an actual truck, you know?

01:36:50:02 - 01:37:07:06
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. And I, you know, I don't know that, you know, you're being fully transparent. but on the other hand, I would say, like a lot of F-150 owners never hook a trailer on their vehicle. So, yeah, if you're if you're, you know, if you go Home Depot and you're picking up lumber, you're doing yard work, you're driving 30 miles.

01:37:07:06 - 01:37:32:14
Brian Wolfe
One way to work, it's probably a real good solution for some folks. But again, you know, I would say don't advertise it as something that's maybe not as good at, like, you know, towing, you know, like I remember there is, every towing YouTube stuff I've seen has been pretty damning, right? Yeah. Except there is one that was done in California and it was an open trailer.

01:37:32:16 - 01:37:56:14
Brian Wolfe
They set the AC at like 79 degrees and they told it 55 miles an hour. I go and it perform reasonable, right? I go, yeah, like who does that. Who paid these people to to make that their duty cycle. Right. so, you know, you know, talk about, you know, like there was a guy we had it for that was a very, you know, he's a group vice president, retired a guy named Richard Perry Jones.

01:37:56:16 - 01:38:15:12
Brian Wolfe
And he was a real car enthusiast, super smart dude. But like most of us, myself included, I've got so many faults, I can't begin to list them. So I don't want to, you know, pretend like I, you know, my opinions are correct. And, you know, I there's a lot that's that's wrong there. But he used to make a statement.

01:38:15:12 - 01:38:37:29
Brian Wolfe
We want to be the most knowledgeable for our customers needs. But the problem that many people have, especially successful people, is they believe everybody wants what they want. They don't really reach out to what people want. And I thought when I think I do that, you know, reasonable. Well, like when I was at Ford Performance, it wasn't just road racing.

01:38:37:29 - 01:38:56:26
Brian Wolfe
I mean, I loved drag racing. It wasn't just drag racing. And I remember up here I, you know, we had like a, a hot rod section of the booth, Roundy rounds, you know, or, you know, round, round a road race section. We had a drag race. We had, you know, street performance. And, you know, one of the guys came in, he said, wow, this is the best, you know, Booth I've ever seen at Ford.

01:38:56:26 - 01:39:18:03
Brian Wolfe
Because normally you guys just focus on that. You only nurture one person. I said, well, to me, anybody that wants to modify their Ford is special because they're paying money to make us look good. Right. And I think that's what, you know, I see the biggest fault in some some successful people is they don't take into account what, you know, the total population.

01:39:18:05 - 01:39:27:24
Brian Wolfe
You know, they're kind of thinking what they want. And, you know, likewise big with that lightning as well. We'll make it, you know, make it look good towing. Yeah. Okay. We will. But, you know, it's like no one's going to tow like this.

01:39:28:00 - 01:39:54:06
Ken Bjonnes
Exactly. So, one question I wanted to ask you, and I don't know how much insight you have here, but even your opinion, since I'm a tuner, it's very. The most important thing to me is the OEM allowing us to flash IT security, trying to stop us from tuning those vehicles. Did Ford have any real position on that?

01:39:54:06 - 01:40:15:13
Ken Bjonnes
Obviously, Dodge I think was like the first ones to really lock it down and GM got aggressive there a few years ago. We have a few locked PCBs and there's different reasons to lock the computers. Of course, some of them are newer things like over-the-air updates, but purely from an aftermarket perspective, because you had mentioned that, you know, these people make us look good, right?

01:40:15:13 - 01:40:22:08
Ken Bjonnes
So, you know, we're taking GT 500 and doubling the horsepower. Does Ford care about that at all?

01:40:22:10 - 01:40:42:20
Brian Wolfe
Well, again, from a, I think, corporate perspective, yes. Right. Because again, you know, where it comes into effect is, you know, play is warranty. Right. So, you know, if the aftermarket tuner, you know, puts a bunch of spark in customers got the wrong fuel and they put holes in pistons, you know, that's not good. I remember when the Taurus show was out and I remember the videos were coming out.

01:40:42:20 - 01:40:59:26
Brian Wolfe
The guys are only 1218. He's got, you know, he's modified a bunch of puts artist and all sudden, you know, someone saw that video and then they saw the car come in for an engine replacement. you're not going to get it. You you changed it. I remember one of that Ford performance. And whereas in controls and calibration, they were talking about locking down the Mustang.

01:40:59:26 - 01:41:21:09
Brian Wolfe
I was adamantly against it because I said, oh, you're part of the reason people buy the Mustang is they want to be able to modify it. Now they got them out there modifying it at their own risk. Yeah, but to lock them out is kind of locking away one of the, in my opinion, one of the historically great parts about a mustang.

01:41:21:11 - 01:41:39:29
Brian Wolfe
Right. And so I was, you know, not in favor of, of that. But on the other hand, you know, you know, at your at your own risk, right? Because, you know, in a big thing like the diesel's right, like, you know, guys are going to modify the diesel trucks and get tons more torque and they'd be blowing smoke out the back.

01:41:39:29 - 01:42:10:28
Brian Wolfe
And you know, and like I say, it's not that Ford engineers are stupid and can't get that right, but there's reasons they don't. Right. So sometimes it's reliability limits of the vehicle. And you know, Ford has, you know, stringent durability requirements. one of the things that when I was, you know, still there that we ran on durability on engines was we had run at the torque peak 50 hours and borderline detonation 50 hours, wide open throttle, borderline detonation torque peak, followed by 50 hours at the power peak.

01:42:10:28 - 01:42:12:09
Brian Wolfe
And the engine, you know, cannot fail.

01:42:12:09 - 01:42:18:02
Ken Bjonnes
Pistons and and all the engines do that. Yeah. And that's just like 50 hours straight. Yeah. Like no.

01:42:18:02 - 01:42:25:00
Brian Wolfe
Break. No. But they shut them down to, you know, check oil and, you know, at the end of a shift and do you know, integrity checks but you know.

01:42:25:03 - 01:42:26:29
Ken Bjonnes
Then right back to water. Yeah.

01:42:27:01 - 01:42:46:27
Brian Wolfe
So again and again we did change. And again they you know they did a good job at revising durability requirements. I remember that as a as young engineers that's, you know, pretty harsh. But I heard someone else talking about like the, the five fours were pretty borderline, you know, known for pinging at, you know, hard throttle, pretty, pretty insensitive.

01:42:46:27 - 01:43:08:21
Brian Wolfe
Nico and Tony asking question. Well, when is detonation bad and why did these engines live? Well, one, it was not a super heavy detonation, and we used to call that the weight set because, you know, detonation is also a function of environmental conditions, right? So if you're pulling in 100 degree air with its dry versus 40 degree air that's wet, they have two different borderline limits.

01:43:08:21 - 01:43:29:14
Brian Wolfe
So when we would run that test the operator would have to listen for incipient or borderline just, you know, just starting tipping detonation. That's the way that we would set it, you know, where a customer, you know, might, might just barely pick it up. But so, you know, but now, you know, the durability test, you try to combine them and you know, so again, less testing but getting the same results.

01:43:29:14 - 01:43:38:07
Brian Wolfe
But yeah, I mean, they they have some pretty stringent durability requirements to make them. So you can still give that warranty and have them live a long time.

01:43:38:11 - 01:44:07:03
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. I mean, know, even to this day, I mean, you know, the Bronco Raptor isn't tunable at least easily. the F150 21 and newer wasn't obviously, the aftermarket is inventive at times, and they found ways around that. And I think that's the newest locking is more related to over there updates to the vehicles and related to them updating the view, you know, used to have to go to Ford and right, there's a new program and they're going to load it.

01:44:07:03 - 01:44:21:00
Ken Bjonnes
They're doing that stuff up or on the air now over the internet. And I can see why they would have to lock it down at that point, because there could be conflicts right? Like, oh, I have a tune on my vehicle. And then all of a sudden they're updating something on the vehicle. Who knows what's going to happen, right?

01:44:21:00 - 01:44:21:20
Ken Bjonnes
You know, so.

01:44:21:21 - 01:44:33:12
Brian Wolfe
Or you know, as you know, as you say or you know, somebody, you know, trying to do something bad like can get into your vehicle over the air and all of a sudden and say wide open throttle like command that.

01:44:33:12 - 01:44:58:09
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. They did. Yeah. They did a story on that on one of the news shows of taking over somebody's vehicle and all and all that and so yeah, that technology brings a lot of benefits, but it also brings a lot of pitfalls with maybe being able to control that vehicle. But for the most part, well, they lock down the they lock down the F-150 in 2021, but a 2023 Mustang is still good to go.

01:44:58:12 - 01:45:07:03
Ken Bjonnes
Now. Is the 2024 going to be locked down? Probably. I would guess, you know, maybe in the same way as, F-150 that we can get around it, I don't know.

01:45:07:06 - 01:45:28:15
Brian Wolfe
In the At. Yeah, I don't know. Again, being gone so long, I'm not sure what what they're doing, but chances are, if it does have over-the-air updates, you know, I would think the security team at Ford, you know, worrying about what could go wrong, the failure mode, in effect analysis would say we got to lock it because, you know, we don't know if it's accessible via Wi-Fi.

01:45:28:15 - 01:45:42:09
Brian Wolfe
What, you know, people can can get in, right? They can go in and get into your bank account. All right. I mean, the hackers are really, really smart. Smart doesn't equal good people. But smart people, you know, can do bad things at times. Yeah.

01:45:42:09 - 01:46:01:10
Ken Bjonnes
I mean, and whenever you release a new technology, you feel like, you know, all the possible pitfalls of it, but you have no idea until it gets out in the wild and how inventive people are going to be. Like, did Ford predict that, you know, they would find a way around doing the F-150 21 plus? Who knows?

01:46:01:10 - 01:46:25:14
Ken Bjonnes
Right. They maybe they knew like, well, they'll eventually figure out, but we're just going to make it more difficult for them. Or do they? There's somebody sitting there going, I can't believe they figured it out. You know, they they beat us again. I doubt that's the case. and sometimes I wonder if, you know, they make it difficult but not impossible to get around, whereas other platforms are employing a much more difficult.

01:46:25:16 - 01:46:47:22
Ken Bjonnes
You know what I mean? Like with the F-150, for instance, there's a box and you go under the hood and you plug it. You're basically like bench flashing the PKM right? You know, Ford had to leave a door open for that, in my opinion. Maybe not on purpose, whereas you take a new, you know, the Corvette T8, that's still not a solution, right?

01:46:47:22 - 01:47:10:07
Ken Bjonnes
If that was a solution for Corvette C8, somebody would have done that by now. They just now released a solution for that. But it requires physically modifying the PCM, which is of course a little bit concerning. You know, when you're sending out your brand new PCM, to HP tuners, for instance. Whereas, with the F-150, you don't have to modify anything, you know what I mean?

01:47:10:07 - 01:47:25:10
Ken Bjonnes
So in my mind, and maybe I'm a little bit of a conspiracy theorist, but I go, I wonder if Ford, like, thinks about that at all, or they just didn't really care if it was impenetrable as say, GM and Dodge are doing, you know.

01:47:25:13 - 01:47:34:24
Brian Wolfe
Yeah, yeah. You know, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because just again, I was last time as in controls and calibration proper was oh eight.

01:47:34:26 - 01:47:51:08
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. So that was a long time okay. Any of this stuff was really even being discussed I'm sure. Yeah. I guess it's just part of it is me just being a little bit romantic of being a Ford guy. Like, Ford's looking out for us, and they're making it, you know, easier on us than everybody else. And maybe that's by chance.

01:47:51:08 - 01:48:14:18
Ken Bjonnes
Maybe that's by design. I don't know. I wanted to talk a little bit more specifically about, your race car. Now what? The Godzilla? I'm sure a lot of people have seen pictures of it on the internet. I mean, it's a full out, serious race car. I believe you are building in for Ultra Street. You know, like, like a mid to high for second type e.t.

01:48:14:22 - 01:48:27:15
Ken Bjonnes
I would think somewhere in there. And they smile. Of course. but you mentioned to me that you're, going to upgrade the blower and, really go for it or what's, what's the current configuration of the car and plan with the car.

01:48:27:15 - 01:48:44:17
Brian Wolfe
Yeah, yeah, it's a little bit of a sore point because this is a bad, you know, good side, bad side of like, you know, having customers is, you know, the car is basically been ready to go for over six weeks. but I haven't I need like a day and a half with the car because I, you know, it's got oil in it and got water in it.

01:48:44:20 - 01:49:05:12
Brian Wolfe
It just doesn't have fuel and no, it doesn't have. Yeah. Just doesn't have fuel or trans fluid in it. And then I need to take it out. with Jason and Patrick available, you know, to test it. And I haven't had the time because I got some customer stuff that I just need to address and get out. but that being said, you know, the plan was to go out Ultra Street.

01:49:05:12 - 01:49:18:28
Brian Wolfe
There was supposed to be a crankshaft available last year, then again this year, and then in January when I didn't have it, I got to kind of get a clean answer. I said, heck with it. I got to work with what I can. And, you know, to me, part about keeping the excitement around Godzilla is doing cool things with it.

01:49:19:00 - 01:49:45:18
Brian Wolfe
So I think everyone's seen, you know, Cletus McFarlane's done with with his, which has been super cool, the six week type drive and he's gone, you know, 750 with it. I think 750. Yeah. And, I think there's more in there. So our goal with this car is we went from a, we went for 61 or 4, 64 at 161 to the eight with an F one, a 91 blower on it.

01:49:45:18 - 01:50:05:06
Brian Wolfe
So smaller pro charger. And, so what we did was we put an F3, D 106 and it was just kind of an extended 75 size blower and put a fresh engine, engine, a fresh engine in it. So same basically I had except we dry deck the heads, put copper head gaskets on just because no one's done it yet.

01:50:05:06 - 01:50:26:27
Brian Wolfe
And I kind of want to know what's involved with doing that. And so that's ready to go. And the goal with that is to run a six second quarter mile. So again, until I can get a ultra street legal cubic inch motor car. So maximum cubic inches in Ultra Street is for 40 stock, Godzilla's for 45 teeth.

01:50:26:28 - 01:50:43:05
Brian Wolfe
And, you know, some people really want to go after AMC or, you know, John Sears and say, well, you know, let this in. I'm going. There's probably not a car out there, with the exception of the guys who are running coyotes that have a stock crank in. And how do we go with the coyote guys, too? But I assume they do.

01:50:43:07 - 01:51:00:13
Brian Wolfe
so why should I be special in that need to buy a crankshaft? I mean, I'm, I'm always of the opinion if I want to go play somebody else's game, the first thing you don't do is ask him to change the rules for you, right? Right. You know, you go in, you do the best you can in their rules and then see where the cards fall.

01:51:00:16 - 01:51:19:17
Brian Wolfe
So, I'm I'm pretty passionate that way. I mean, I, I get it. And, so until we get that worked out where I can get a, a legal engine, we're going to go run, try to run a six second quarter mile. Now, at my age, I'm not anxious to go. Anyway. This is a stock firewall.

01:51:19:17 - 01:51:27:17
Brian Wolfe
Stock floor pan. Even though the six. Oh, car. You know, I'm anxious to go, you know, 200 miles in and a bunch of passes. I just want to, I think.

01:51:27:19 - 01:51:28:29
Ken Bjonnes
Set the bar and.

01:51:29:03 - 01:51:44:21
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. And then let other people improve on it right as they will. but I think it's kind of, you know, cool. If you have a car with a stock cylinder block that came in a truck, stock crankshaft that came in a truck, stock cylinder heads that came in a truck.

01:51:44:21 - 01:51:46:21
Ken Bjonnes
Starting to talk like a coyote guy. Yeah.

01:51:46:24 - 01:52:04:07
Brian Wolfe
And, and can go, you know, and you can run a six second quarter mile in a car that got stock floor pans and stock fire wall and stock tower suspension. Of course, it's not the stock, talk box down there, but they're all in stock locations. That'd be pretty cool. And, I coin, I coined this phrase.

01:52:04:07 - 01:52:23:22
Brian Wolfe
I didn't coin it. I stole it from a guy named Greg Kiesel who used to. I was one of my mentors when I was a young engineer. He raced a, and altered with a six cylinder Ford in it. at 306, he goes, it's just an old Ford with the truck motor. So now I say my Fox body Mustang is just an old Ford with a truck motor.

01:52:23:24 - 01:52:27:10
Brian Wolfe
So I think if we could do that, it'd be pretty cool. I don't know if we'll be successful, but we're going to try.

01:52:27:12 - 01:52:37:19
Ken Bjonnes
If you had to estimate, with that blower at full tilt or as hard as you plan on running it, like, what kind of power are we talking? You think.

01:52:37:22 - 01:52:45:12
Brian Wolfe
18, maybe again, because you're still running through the stock cylinder head. Yep. You know, and it's still stock head, you know.

01:52:45:12 - 01:52:55:09
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. Well, that's I actually that that's a perfect Segway because I wanted to go there next. Now I'm a coyote guy. The chance of there being an aftermarket kind of is zero, I'd say because.

01:52:55:09 - 01:52:57:22
Brian Wolfe
It's a custom built ones, aren't there.

01:52:57:25 - 01:52:58:21
Ken Bjonnes
heads there?

01:52:58:25 - 01:53:00:14
Brian Wolfe
I don't know if his mar do a billet had.

01:53:00:14 - 01:53:27:00
Ken Bjonnes
No they might do one now. It's a newer thing. Okay. they do the block. they might do the heads. But for the most part, you're not going to see a street aftermarket coyote head, whereas you go to the 500 market. How many different cylinder heads are there? do you foresee, the aftermarket, grabbing onto the Godzilla in the same way and like, you know, like, like you said, you're saying, you know, we're limited by the that.

01:53:27:02 - 01:53:37:08
Ken Bjonnes
Okay. So you know, how much of a step forward would it be if somebody decided to do a head for that? Do you think it's a pretty significant jump or just everything is just a little improvement from there?

01:53:37:08 - 01:54:03:02
Brian Wolfe
I think, you know, depending on depending on who does the cylinder head and what their goals are. Right? Because the thing about the aftermarket, there's a couple different customers, right? So if you want to go after the race, customer like to me, for every guy that's building a car like this Mustang, you know, that's you want to run, you know, 699 at 195 to 202 miles an hour, there's probably a 150 guys.

01:54:03:04 - 01:54:30:02
Brian Wolfe
That just would be super tickled with, 750 horsepower in a street car. Right. So I would say, I think there's a really good market for, good cylinder head that will make in the seven 5800 horsepower bolt on type range, with it. and I think with the architecture of it, I think there are also the other a market for someone that wants to build a cockpit.

01:54:30:06 - 01:55:01:26
Brian Wolfe
Titian had like an, like an SC one had or, a pro king inline head that, you know, for the small black Ford. so I think those you'll see those coming, probably in the next 12 ish 18 months I think. Yeah. I think because the Godzilla, even though it's not going into a car, you know, I think the capacity is probably 250 to 300 and some thousand units a year, you know, and they're going to end up in junkyards.

01:55:01:26 - 01:55:19:16
Brian Wolfe
They're going to end up, you know, coming out of the Amazon vehicles. And because it's a nice package, it's large cubic inches, even it's a small block. And again, I believe it's a small block. And we can talk about that. and it doesn't really matter because all matters, you know, only matters to the sanctioning bodies. Right.

01:55:19:18 - 01:55:42:22
Brian Wolfe
But, I think it's going to really, you know, do extremely well, because, you know, we, you know, with, I kind of limit when I build an engine for a customer, too, if you want to keep stock rods and pistons, I want to keep it to about 60 to 6300. As a hyper. You test hyper protected cast piston with a powdered metal rod with a 422 bore.

01:55:42:25 - 01:56:00:26
Brian Wolfe
let's not you know, I'm not the guy. I'm too old. Want to we wash my down or sell out after I, you know, scatter a motor? So, I kind of limit it to that. And we've, you know, 626, 40 horsepower, you know, pretty. You know, I'm pretty good with that. but then, you know, if you want to put pistons and rods in.

01:56:00:26 - 01:56:10:24
Brian Wolfe
Okay, now we can spin at 7500. You know, I think, you know, even with the stock head, I think with some of the cams that we're working on, we're going to see like know seven and a quarter, 750 horsepower.

01:56:10:26 - 01:56:35:06
Ken Bjonnes
That's awesome. So yeah your your opinion on the stock, rotating assembly is got me like a little worried on my truck. I mean, in the business I'm in, if it blows up, it's not as bad as, like, a normal person because I'm doing R&D and everything. But of course, I don't want anything to blow up. but, you know, my truck has, camshaft that you specked out the heads and then, of course, the Whipple on it and full exhaust.

01:56:35:06 - 01:56:45:16
Ken Bjonnes
And I think all that helps also helps it live a little longer. The camshaft, probably. And, and the better exhaust. But, I mean, I beat the snot out of that thing.

01:56:45:16 - 01:56:47:26
Brian Wolfe
What do you shift it?

01:56:47:29 - 01:57:10:17
Ken Bjonnes
like, probably like 6800 or so. Yeah. Yeah, it's that's why that's what I'm talking about. When that's why you scared me. Because, you know, I'm a coyote guy, so, like, if it's not 8000, it's low. It's not. It's too low. so, you know, I was spinning it even higher than that, I think. And then you, you know, you had mentioned something to me.

01:57:10:22 - 01:57:31:02
Ken Bjonnes
I didn't ask you, but just in conversation, it came up as far as, like, yeah, I wouldn't go above 65. And I'm like, going like 7 or 800 above. That's, I should probably bring it down a little bit. but it's been phenomenal. I mean, I haven't had any problems with that vehicle. Even the normal problems, like the spark plug wires where people have issues with those.

01:57:31:02 - 01:57:49:28
Ken Bjonnes
And maybe that's because I have an aftermarket exhaust on it. And, you know, maybe things are staying cooler in that area a little bit. I don't really know. but it's been extremely reliable for me. And, you know, I absolutely love it. And I see a huge potential in there, much more than I saw when I first bought the truck.

01:57:49:28 - 01:58:18:00
Ken Bjonnes
I bought the truck on a whim, like, hey, this is great. Nobody knows anything about this engine. maybe it's going to be the next LSS, you know, like everybody wants one. That's that was my idea. And I'm sure that's, you know, crossed your mind to, But. You know, even right now, trying to think about what's going to happen in the future, the one way to really give yourself some perspective, which is means you don't really have any clue, as when the coyote came out.

01:58:18:06 - 01:58:36:10
Ken Bjonnes
I remember when the coyote came out, everybody flipped out in a negative way, like 11 one compression before we actually had that. Right. that's going to kill kill it. You can't put boost to that. No way that's going to work. And you know, it's going to be one of the baddest engines. But we all put boost on these cars.

01:58:36:10 - 01:58:58:12
Ken Bjonnes
So really it's a step back. I remember that being discussion in the beginning and I'm just like, I can't I'm not going to claim that I didn't agree with that. I wasn't on either side. but to see where that has come, I mean, we just did a Gt350, which is way higher compression than the initial coyote, pump gas.

01:58:58:12 - 01:59:18:13
Ken Bjonnes
I made 800 wheel horsepower with a Whipple, you know, and that's common, right? You know, and to think that you could have done that one way and you couldn't have done that with a Gen one coyote, of course. But to see that how that has progressed, it makes me extremely excited about the Godzilla, because we're already at a really good point.

01:59:18:13 - 01:59:40:26
Ken Bjonnes
I mean, I you know, I wish I knew this better off the top of my head, but, the the progress that you made on the Godzilla from inception to going fast with it is either equal to or faster than anybody really probably did with the coyote. You know, I'm guessing, from the very beginning.

01:59:40:28 - 01:59:42:22
Brian Wolfe
Could be very close.

01:59:42:22 - 02:00:05:00
Ken Bjonnes
Or at least close. Yeah, right. I think a lot of people would never have, predicted when the seven three came out that you would be doing what you're doing with it, not just now, but even when, you know, whenever you first started going fast in the fox body. but that the next question is beyond the heads.

02:00:05:03 - 02:00:29:15
Ken Bjonnes
Like, so like on a coyote, you know, we can make up to, say, 1800 or 2000 horsepower. And no matter what you do the block, it starts becoming questionable. Right? So do you see similar, you know, power limits on on that engine like before. You would have to maybe go to a, you know, obviously we're just talking about full on race stuff at this point.

02:00:29:17 - 02:00:45:00
Ken Bjonnes
So you know or is that block going to give up. Well you've got a stock block in your car. Yes. And you're hoping to make 1800. So that kind of answers that you think it could go up to there. but is there anything about that architecture that you see as a smoking gun of a limit?

02:00:45:08 - 02:01:05:26
Brian Wolfe
Yeah, yeah. The thing the again, this is like, oh, that's all right. you know, where you are, where you were, which I was still at Ford Performance. Right. Because I think the block is really good. If I can make two changes. Right, I would have a team of engineers go to the casting plant and make the bores thicker.

02:01:05:29 - 02:01:39:17
Brian Wolfe
So. And I would eliminate the saw cut between the bores. I think if you did that, it would be, I don't know where I think the limit would be very, very high because that block is, is very good. And, I think those would be the two areas that where you could go to like a four and a quarter for, you know, 4.25, 4.27 bore, don't have to worry about the bridge anymore because now what I do with the bridge, like on this motor is a, I originally wanted to weld, you know, down the center of it.

02:01:39:18 - 02:01:55:22
Brian Wolfe
There's a guy in Michigan named Chris Razor. Probably. I guarantee there's not a better wall there on the planet. I hate to say the guys do best because, you know, you're insulting everybody else, but he is like a genius of the welding. And I called him and I said, Chris, I'd like to hire you to weld that up for me.

02:01:55:24 - 02:02:16:23
Brian Wolfe
He goes, won't live. Don't do it. okay. And again, it's talking again. The team your circle knowing people. So I said, well, if he can't do it, he knows what he's talking about. So someone else can try it. I'm not going to. So he did is that you start to look at that saw cut. And it really only goes down about three quarters of an inch.

02:02:17:00 - 02:02:33:26
Brian Wolfe
It's a radius, you know. So I said okay what else can we do. So we took Dave Zimmerman made for me these kind of like little half moons that we slide into there, in Taplin. So they're kind of a press fit. So at the top of the bore, you don't get this deflection if it if possible.

02:02:33:26 - 02:02:50:17
Brian Wolfe
Because just a small part of the park. So if you're worried about that or wiggling a little bit. So I figured well if I, if we wedge that in there maybe it'll stop. So on this engine it's in the car now we did that with the block filled. It's going to be I on an M1 with the copper head gasket with the dry jack.

02:02:50:20 - 02:02:59:01
Brian Wolfe
so we'll see how that works out. And until we run out, we don't know for sure. I'm a little nervous on the head because it's got so much water in it, but we'll we'll see.

02:02:59:03 - 02:03:10:26
Ken Bjonnes
what is the purpose? I remember when I was up at your, your shop, you were showing that to me, the saw cut. And we were talking about that. I think you actually told me that story at that time. What's the SoC out there for?

02:03:11:00 - 02:03:11:16
Brian Wolfe
It's for.

02:03:11:16 - 02:03:12:17
Ken Bjonnes
Cooling. Okay.

02:03:12:18 - 02:03:17:04
Brian Wolfe
It's yet to get some more coolant. air flow, in the critical areas.

02:03:17:09 - 02:03:33:27
Ken Bjonnes
Gotcha, gotcha. And in your if you just had to guess is, you know, like something like that from an engineering perspective, is that one of those things that could have been left out and probably been fine, or you think it's actually important? I mean, I.

02:03:33:27 - 02:03:34:15
Brian Wolfe
Know you don't know.

02:03:34:15 - 02:03:40:20
Ken Bjonnes
I don't know, but if you had to guess, like, you know what I mean? Like, that's the one thing when I see things like that, I go, man.

02:03:40:23 - 02:03:41:12
Brian Wolfe
Well, here's what we.

02:03:41:13 - 02:03:42:28
Ken Bjonnes
Really need that.

02:03:43:00 - 02:04:04:19
Brian Wolfe
You know? So as I mentioned, I left forward at the end of 17. So engineers design the program was approved. It went through what's called par. So all the money was allocated. So no chance of really canceling it. That's when I retired and it came out, you know, and you know you know in production and, you know, pre-production of the plan, you know, in 19, but,

02:04:04:22 - 02:04:22:04
Brian Wolfe
If I would have been there a bit longer, I was okay, I've got to rebuild proven take tech saw, cut out and run the same durability along with the vehicle durability and prove to me that we lose the head gaskets without it. which would have been insulting to the team. But sometimes, like I said, you want to trust your team.

02:04:22:04 - 02:04:31:19
Brian Wolfe
It doesn't mean you don't challenge your team. Right? So that's probably what I would have done because I don't know definitively. Right. So how do you know definitively go over on the test to test it.

02:04:31:22 - 02:04:54:24
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. So I don't I know again I have asked you a few these questions and I'm just asking you to guess, you know, Ford, performance has released Specialty Box over the years, right? that we're never in a production vehicle. Is that even in the realm of possibility, do you think for a platform like that or it would take the right person to push for it?

02:04:54:27 - 02:05:19:23
Brian Wolfe
I think it's probably in the realm of possibilities, but I think anybody that's been reading the news has known how Ford is really cutting back, cutting back, cutting back. And we start to talk about Ford performance a little bit. And I didn't kind of finish that story. So Ford Performance, when I was there, I had, you know, the two elements of it and which was the performance parts in the racing in the vehicles were under a guy named Hermes Hollenbeck and PD.

02:05:19:25 - 02:05:46:05
Brian Wolfe
So one of the things and I gave, you know, Roger, a lot of credit for, I think the way the Gt500 and Jim Farley way it is. But one of the things they did was when they moved the performance vehicles from marketing, the racing support from marketing to product development. it left the Ford Performance parts being part of vehicle personalization and Ford customer service division.

02:05:46:07 - 02:05:55:27
Brian Wolfe
So I don't know this, but my impression from how long some of this stuff is taken, like the mega Zillow, where it looks like it was pretty ready to go, but we haven't seen it yet, although the intake has now been released, which is awesome.

02:05:56:03 - 02:05:56:24
Ken Bjonnes
I did see that.

02:05:56:25 - 02:06:08:24
Brian Wolfe
Yeah, but, I'm kind of thinking that they probably cut their engineering staff, so. Well, it, you know, I don't know if they will have the resources to make that happen any time soon. Yeah. I.

02:06:08:24 - 02:06:12:01
Ken Bjonnes
Did hear they they caught a lot of stuff. There was that rumor I heard.

02:06:12:06 - 02:06:33:27
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. But again, it's one of those things, like. And because there's so much going on in Ford right now, I mean, to be open, it's something where like, the cylinder block supervisor without anybody knowing could say, hey, you know, Ford performance guy, if I went and got like 50 blocks, I sent my guys down there to run the course for you, and you sent them through the plant.

02:06:33:27 - 02:06:42:06
Brian Wolfe
And we did a special run where we didn't machine at. You want them? It could happen at that level. But I think it's so intense now at Ford, I.

02:06:42:09 - 02:06:43:11
Ken Bjonnes
Think the right time is.

02:06:43:11 - 02:06:58:28
Brian Wolfe
That it's going to be very it's going to take somebody very courageous to kind of go do it. Like when we did the Cobra Jets, for example, I was a director, so I was a pretty high level. But my boss I worked for directly didn't even know we did it until they were all delivered. You know, that's crazy.

02:06:59:02 - 02:07:01:06
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. Well, you know, and I think the.

02:07:01:06 - 02:07:04:04
Brian Wolfe
First that was in oh eight, the first 50, that is not.

02:07:04:06 - 02:07:17:28
Ken Bjonnes
Right. And I think that could also be due to the environment, you know, economic, political, all those sorts of things. You know, it's just our general.

02:07:18:00 - 02:07:46:27
Ken Bjonnes
Hope of the future versus being cautious, like what's going to happen where, you know, you do. Everybody does that personally with your own finances. Businesses have to do that. So in today's you know, today talking about that I see what you're saying. But, you know, I'm being hopeful that, you know, things change over time. And, you know, I my biggest fear with, you know, and I love this business obviously I didn't I'm not like you.

02:07:46:27 - 02:08:02:24
Ken Bjonnes
I didn't start out as a car guy. I was a computer guy and got into cars because I could afford the Mustang, you know, which wasn't expensive. But for me, it was at the time, like I could buy a mustang. Look at that. That's cool. Look. And I wasn't really into the performance side of it. And then it just completely is taken over my life.

02:08:02:26 - 02:08:29:19
Ken Bjonnes
And I realized that I was in a very sweet spot. Maybe everybody thinks that, but maybe not of technology combined with automotive and still gasoline to where I fear in 20 years I'll be telling people like, you have no idea how good it was back in the, you know, early 2000s and like, we had all this stuff and now you guys all drive the same exact thing.

02:08:29:26 - 02:08:53:14
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah, they're fast, but they have no soul. You don't know anything about it. You know, I fear that just the same way when maybe I don't remember this time, that maybe, like, in the late 80s, everybody would talk about, like, the muscle car error and then the whole downfall of that with fuel economy and then the cars just all were kind of really crappy for a while.

02:08:53:14 - 02:09:15:05
Ken Bjonnes
And then now this is almost like a resurgence of that same gearhead mindset, with a whole huge helping of technology on top of it that is like quadrupled the performance of the muscle car here. So, you know, I just really fear that that's where things are headed again. And I want to do everything I can to stop that, you know.

02:09:15:06 - 02:09:15:21
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah.

02:09:15:23 - 02:09:35:26
Brian Wolfe
Well, first, yeah, you said a lot there that I would really like to comment on if I could, you know, first, I like your first. I like your optimism as opposed to fear. I hope your optimism improves, to be the future. as far as it'll get better again. I won't go back to muscle cars.

02:09:35:27 - 02:10:11:13
Brian Wolfe
Right. So, you know, as I mentioned, you know, I was born in 1960. So the muscle car was when I was a little kid, and then we got into emissions and, you know, 460in³ inch engines making 140 horsepower with, you know, meeting emissions. And, you know, I remember telling my mom, my brother, man, I was born ten years too late, you know, and, you know, when I was a teenager and, you know, you know, in the, you know, through, you know, the end of the 19, you know, you know, go to my teens and then, you know, into my, early 20s.

02:10:11:15 - 02:10:30:17
Brian Wolfe
But then the five liter Mustang came out and it was like I was born at the exact right time, right? You know, and, you know, younger folks thinking this or hoping that they're born at the exact right time, because hopefully the future will be, as you hope it is. But I do wanna go back to my little Jim Clark story on the Fox Body Mustang.

02:10:30:19 - 02:10:51:11
Brian Wolfe
So the five year Mustang, I think people can say, was pretty instrumental to the modern muscle car era. And what happened was, you know, the Mustang was revised in 1979. The five liter was in in 79 with a whopping 130 horsepower, I believe, with a single rod overdrive three speed with four year old drive. I owned one of those.

02:10:51:13 - 02:11:10:15
Brian Wolfe
I broke seven transmissions and three rear ends in that car and but again, then I think they took the five liter out of it. In fact, you know, they took the five liter out of it. And then they had a turbo four in there. You might remember. Yeah. And the sales were kind of going down. And Mark, you wonder what they're going to do.

02:11:10:17 - 02:11:32:15
Brian Wolfe
And there's a guy named Jim Clark and he was the manager of the five liter group. And he went to Dave Hagan, who was several levels above him, who was the what my equivalent was when I retired. running. Well, in fact, he wasn't because he only had North American engines. I had global, but he was a director at that time.

02:11:32:18 - 02:11:55:07
Brian Wolfe
And he said, let me put the five liter back in the Mustang, you know, in the marketing guys. And man, you know, I don't know, we may self get a 5% mix, you know, but maybe it'd be something to stimulate it if we can do it cheap enough. But back in that time Jim had the collaborators. He had the Daniel Development Group, he had the component engineers and what was called the systems guys.

02:11:55:07 - 02:12:24:11
Brian Wolfe
Okay. So he owned the entire, if you will, path from engineering to production. He had the certification. And, you know, the the design and the development. And this was in 19 I think it was either late 80s, the beginning 81. And this was an 82 car. So this is unheard of. Right. So he goes with his team and you know he gets them all motivated.

02:12:24:11 - 02:12:50:06
Brian Wolfe
And Jim was and is today he's still around super confident man. Super motivated kid and wanted to have an impact. So he said, you know, let me put it back in and, you know, so he kind of got people behind it a little bit. So they put the lever back in. But it wasn't the 130 horsepower five liter that came out the car in 79.

02:12:50:09 - 02:13:16:04
Brian Wolfe
He wanted to do an H0. So he told his team, you can put anything in that engine you want as long as sorry been validated in another application. So, that's where the cam came in, which is a little different than the previous cam and the dual snorkel air cleaner. And, you know, Jim tells a story about how these old guys, you know, which, you know, were younger than I am now, you know, we're excited about these little bits and pieces that they could that they could do.

02:13:16:06 - 02:13:37:28
Brian Wolfe
And so the boss found out this Dave Hagan that was multiple levels above him, calls him in his office. And, Clark, I hear your doing an old version of this saying goes, yes, here we are. Goes goddammit, Clark, you know, you better not screw this up, but this thing tanks. It's on you. You're on your own. In fact, don't even do it.

02:13:38:00 - 02:13:53:23
Brian Wolfe
Just stop. So he gets out of this meeting, getting his ass chewed out, and he goes back to the team. And I had to go with Dave. He goes, he is super excited about this. We've got, you know, we've got to deliver, you know, and just got everybody pumped up, you know. And he didn't he didn't change course.

02:13:53:25 - 02:14:14:22
Brian Wolfe
But one of the things he did do was the torque curve the single rod overdrive which was in it in 82 made more torque than the transmission could handle. So my friend of mine, Greg Kessel, who is a base engine development engineer, took the torque wrench. Him. There's a problem. Torque curve looks like this. And we go up here and we exceed the transmission torque.

02:14:14:22 - 02:14:29:28
Brian Wolfe
So they're not going to sign off. And Jim goes to Greg. And this is when we had no data acquisition. Everything. The dyno sheets raw handwritten. It was no Greg you're looking at that curve wrong. So it goes like this and it peaks here and then goes straight across to we get to there and then it comes back down.

02:14:30:00 - 02:14:46:02
Brian Wolfe
Greg being this Stuart guy, says, yeah Jim you're right. Let me get that corrected. And that was the official curve. So how they were able to release it and and then I think two months after it was announced, it was 50% of the mix.

02:14:46:09 - 02:14:47:19
Ken Bjonnes
Oh, and the Mustang.

02:14:47:21 - 02:15:04:06
Brian Wolfe
So super, super successful. And then Jim tells a story when he got called back into, Hagan's office, he goes, well, Clark, you were right. You know, this guy didn't like too many of us wrong. So here's another million. I don't know what you did or how you did, but here's another million dollars to your budget next year.

02:15:04:08 - 02:15:09:29
Brian Wolfe
Keep doing what you're doing. So that's how it had all the, iterations after.

02:15:09:29 - 02:15:31:19
Ken Bjonnes
That. That's that's amazing. And, you know, again, it it just goes back to what I had mentioned was you with the Godzilla. and, you know, we've talked about it a lot, which is it's so amazing how I mean, the I mean, what would we be without a fox body Mustang? Yeah. There's just one guy that it was in total control of that happening.

02:15:31:19 - 02:15:33:01
Ken Bjonnes
It sounds like to me, based on your story.

02:15:33:01 - 02:15:38:24
Brian Wolfe
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And you'll put everything on the line and. Yeah, he. If he got fire, he and Carrie, you know.

02:15:38:26 - 02:15:56:19
Ken Bjonnes
In order to stop doing it, you know, which obviously he it takes somebody with a vision like that to go. I know I feel so strongly about this that I'm willing to risk my career, or at least at this particular place, to prove to you that this is the way to go.

02:15:56:25 - 02:15:57:14
Brian Wolfe
Yeah.

02:15:57:17 - 02:16:15:05
Ken Bjonnes
And I think that's often and it's not always that way. Right. Like you can't just go, hey, I'm going to go against the grain all the time, and I'm going to be successful all the time. A lot of times you're not. But you know, and it doesn't have to be cars. You can use that example across all industry, right.

02:16:15:08 - 02:16:38:11
Ken Bjonnes
You know, you know Elon Musk is a good example. Who would have ever thought that you'd have a company building spaceships? Okay. Like a private company, right. Is he doing that now? But he's the right guy to make it happen, obviously. Right. Maybe there's a guy under him that's more critical than him, but he's at the top and he's the one that made it happen.

02:16:38:13 - 02:17:07:06
Ken Bjonnes
And you know, that story is everywhere. And it makes me excited about the human race that it's like we're not all like the same. You know, there's so much value in every individual person and their ideas and the people that rise to the top are the ones that determine what everybody else experiences. So I like that guy is it is responsible for like, if that never happened, what would have happened with the Mustang in general?

02:17:07:06 - 02:17:11:15
Ken Bjonnes
It might have just been like a mercury Cougar. Yeah. You know, it's gone.

02:17:11:18 - 02:17:17:08
Brian Wolfe
Well, you know, at one point in time I, I don't remember what year it was, but the Mustang was able to replace the problem or the.

02:17:17:08 - 02:17:22:25
Ken Bjonnes
Ford I do, yeah, I do I always never knew that was 100. I heard that as a rumor. Well.

02:17:22:28 - 02:17:42:24
Brian Wolfe
What happened was, is that they had the car and the probe and done. Patterson. Or is it Peterson? Because the CEO at the time, he drove the car, you know, and they said, you know, what do you think it was a nice car. This is not a mustang, though. and the and that's that that is what happened.

02:17:43:01 - 02:17:45:18
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. And that's why that's why they named it probe and kept the Mustang.

02:17:45:25 - 02:18:12:21
Ken Bjonnes
That's that's amazing. if you had to, Really look back and, you know, I have you here because you're an inspiration to me and all the people that have been helpful to me. do you have anybody that was, like, super instrumental in you, in your path that you want to even talk about or mentioned?

02:18:12:24 - 02:18:33:23
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. Well, obviously, you know, my main, you know, dad, my brother, obviously, you know, begging in the cars in the start and then, you know, from, high school drafting your teacher. We had a lot of confidence in me where I got my first job that allowed me to work my way through college. Called Burton. I was a pretty crappy student until, you know, like, 10th grade.

02:18:33:23 - 02:18:56:08
Brian Wolfe
And I had this cool, math teacher that, you know, made math interesting. And from his class, through my graduate studies, I never got anything other than an A in math after, you know, just the motivation I got from him. been caught. Right. then at Ford, there were so many. I mean, this guy named Bob Stein, he's, he, you know, he was my mentor, right?

02:18:56:10 - 02:19:22:11
Brian Wolfe
I mean, he is, you know, a super smart engine development or MIT grad, but a farm boy, you know, you talk about, you know, when I go to schools and I like shit because he had to clean the, you know, milk the cows in the morning. And but he ended up, you know, went to MIT and, but, you know, he's really good with combustion analysis and engine development and so, humble, you know, and and answering questions and always taking time for your course.

02:19:22:11 - 02:19:29:12
Brian Wolfe
Jim Clark, who I mentioned, so, you know, yeah. Just have for and I know I left a bunch of folks out.

02:19:29:12 - 02:19:32:20
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah, that's a tough question because you don't want to leave anybody out.

02:19:32:20 - 02:19:33:16
Brian Wolfe
But there is a ton.

02:19:33:17 - 02:19:53:19
Ken Bjonnes
I want to circle back to what you just before we wrap things up, because I think this is super important to talk about is, yes, you were a car guy growing up. Your family. Yes, you went to school. But like, I know a lot of people that come to me all the time that say, hey, I want to get into this business, how do I do it?

02:19:53:19 - 02:20:19:27
Ken Bjonnes
How do I make that first step? And obviously my path was totally different. I went to college, but for totally different thing. I'm more of a enthusiast turned professional type of thing where you're a professional that is also an enthusiast. So where was that spot where it was clear to you that that was your path? Like, was it college that like put like what was your first real job in, in this industry?

02:20:19:29 - 02:20:46:03
Brian Wolfe
Well, first job was at Ford. Right. Again, it was it was real simple because I wanted to work for Ford. and my brothers grew up with guy that used to treat race with name John Clardy. Okay. And, you know, so, when, John graduated from Wayne State, he hired into Ford. So when my brother said, hey, Brian wants to work for Ford, and he's real good draftsman, you know, what would his path be?

02:20:46:03 - 02:20:58:21
Brian Wolfe
So he's never gonna get here as a draftsman. We, you know, he needs an engineering degree. And, so that's when I decided to, you know, go to school to get an engineering degree so I could work for Ford, right? Yeah, I mean, it was that.

02:20:58:23 - 02:21:23:17
Ken Bjonnes
So instead of going to school and deciding what I'm going to do, you decided, here's what I'm going to do. How do I get there? Yes. Yeah. And that's how I answer, the question when people ask me, unfortunately, there's really no school for, stock computer calibration in the aftermarket because it's kind of like an, a very niche thing.

02:21:23:17 - 02:21:44:09
Ken Bjonnes
And, you know, you can't get a book, you know, nothing's documented. It's kind of like hacking, really. I mean, not necessarily. most tuners don't do their own hacking. The software company does the hacking and opens the tables, but it's, I call it, almost like it's never going to be a science. It's always going to be a little bit of voodoo.

02:21:44:10 - 02:22:06:18
Ken Bjonnes
What I do because we don't have access to all the proper information. We don't have access to all the tables. but the answer is still the same, right? If you want to do this, you have to do what it takes to get to this point. And the only way to do that is get a car, get the software, and learn how to do it on your own.

02:22:06:21 - 02:22:31:23
Ken Bjonnes
Because if you can't motivate yourself to learn the simplest things to get to that point, to come to me and ask a real question, not how do I get in the tuning? But hey, it's at idle. And here's the timings that this and this is happening. And then all of a sudden it starts, you know, if you can't get to that point before you know on your own, then you're don't really want to do it is what I tell people.

02:22:31:23 - 02:22:56:00
Ken Bjonnes
I go, you might be in love with the idea of being involved in cars, but if if you don't find yourself research in the software and like watching YouTube videos about it or whatever, you know the way you learn and your only question is, how do I do this, then you've already answered that question. In my opinion, you shouldn't be doing this because you haven't put any effort into learning it organically, you know?

02:22:56:00 - 02:23:01:18
Ken Bjonnes
So that's what you did is you went back and learned what you needed to learn to get to that point.

02:23:01:21 - 02:23:26:08
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. You know, I think open you know, probably what I did was easier, right? Because it says, well, you know, I wanted to work at Ford was my goal. And to be able to work at Ford, I needed to get an engineering degree. So once you, you know, and I was fortunate enough to have a job where I made, I mean, in 1979 as a draftsman, I was a really good draftsman.

02:23:26:11 - 02:23:44:09
Brian Wolfe
I made $10 an hour in 1979. It was easy for me to pay for my own school and tuition. No parents. I stay at my parents house. I went to University of Michigan at Dearborn, but that was. And then I was, you know, I did real well at school, but I also worked really hard, you know?

02:23:44:09 - 02:23:45:26
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah, you say it's easy, but.

02:23:45:29 - 02:23:46:07
Brian Wolfe
You.

02:23:46:10 - 02:23:54:23
Ken Bjonnes
Worked really hard. You got a draftsman to pay for it, and you didn't just get good enough grades to go to Ford magically, you know, you put the work out, of course.

02:23:54:26 - 02:24:01:12
Brian Wolfe
But it was a more direct, you know, it was a more laid out path. I think there's a post, you know, into it. You know, there was a you know, there was a.

02:24:01:16 - 02:24:08:24
Ken Bjonnes
It's a path that you could say, if I want to do this and work hard enough, the roadmaps there, you didn't have to figure the roadmap out. You just had to go, I'm going to do it.

02:24:08:24 - 02:24:25:01
Brian Wolfe
I'm going to get on the road and yeah, we're going to do it. Yeah. But but on the other hand, it might be a good business opportunity for you is, you know, there are other people that teach classes on how to tune highly or all tech in that and might be, you know, people pay a lot of money for those classes, so you never know, kind of make for another.

02:24:25:04 - 02:24:44:25
Ken Bjonnes
yeah. I mean, I've, I have a background in, not official teaching, but, like, when I went to school for video production and audio production, and I worked at the local cable public access TV thing, and we would teach. You wanted to come in and videotape your kid's soccer game. You would have to come in, and I would teach you how to use the camera, and I.

02:24:44:25 - 02:25:16:09
Ken Bjonnes
I've always loved instruction. and I've always thought about that. And the thing that has always stopped me in the past, honestly, was, self-doubt, I guess, you know, like, okay, I'm pretty good at this, but, like, it's way different. Like, if somebody hands you a puzzle to do it yourself might be somewhat intuitive, but to try to explain that to somebody else, like, here's how you think you know, it's difficult.

02:25:16:09 - 02:25:41:04
Ken Bjonnes
But as I've gotten older and, you know, gotten better at this and more confident in my skills, you know, I do feel like I can do that. And I already do that here. You know, we have, you know, new training people occasionally. And I have a great staff here right now, and they're absorbing things. And it's it's actually reignited, my love for the business in tuning because of that.

02:25:41:04 - 02:26:00:16
Ken Bjonnes
Right. Because something that's very simple to me are very straightforward. Only because I've messed it up 20 times in the past, somebody that doesn't know that at all. And they talk to them about it and have them absorb it and, and and apply it and go, wow, I just learned this and thank you. And I'm like, I didn't know I did anything.

02:26:00:16 - 02:26:22:19
Ken Bjonnes
I just told you what I already knew. You know what I mean? So I find that very rewarding. And, you know, I might wind up down that path someday. The biggest issue with with charging to do, say, stock computer tuning versus Holley is Holley is fully documented that you could take a Holley and make it like a college course because there's no unknowns in Holley, right?

02:26:22:19 - 02:26:42:21
Ken Bjonnes
They're going to tell you what every table does or how to make your tables. But to this day, every time a new platform comes out, there's so much to figure out. And I couldn't do it myself. Right. There's people like Jerry who was on our last podcast is, you know, my mentor from tuning to this day, he's helping me every other day with, with things like that.

02:26:42:21 - 02:26:58:11
Ken Bjonnes
And it's because there's not that resource to go to, to go. Oh, well, hey, a new computer came out and added all these new tables and their different names, and HP tuners hasn't defined them yet. And we have to find them and see what they do. And hey, I just modified my Godzilla truck and when I went what?

02:26:58:18 - 02:27:17:06
Ken Bjonnes
The throttle stayed open because they got real aggressive with dash pod on the new trucks. And once you put the blower on, it's going to kill you unless you address it. So, you know, that's always the the challenge of what I do versus that is like, I could never fully answer every question. Yeah, well, you know.

02:27:17:08 - 02:27:33:13
Brian Wolfe
You probably could, you know, better than most. And the only thing I always, you know, I learn from, a lot people, somebody in real estate, when we're closing out a house and the other person was having some issues and I was like, oh, man, is this going to happen? He said, we got a couple issues. We'll say inch by inch, it's an inch.

02:27:33:16 - 02:27:58:07
Brian Wolfe
And so to me, with what you do, it might be you say, well, what's a popular car that is tuned a lot like if it's a 2015 to 2017 Mustang and all that is out there, and you've done it many times, I mean, that would be your 101 course, right? This is our reality. This is document. And then your last, it'd be a five day course and it's your last two hours of the last day.

02:27:58:07 - 02:28:25:22
Brian Wolfe
You say, okay, now you know all this. And however the next advanced course is how do you interface with HP tuners on, you know, the next, you know, are on an unknown and then you walk through that. So yeah, I think in bite size elements, you know, with all the work you guys have done here and how successful it's been and the reputation, of the business, I think it's, it's very doable.

02:28:25:22 - 02:28:34:04
Brian Wolfe
And again, you only you mean those people pay a lot of money for those classes, and you only need five students, you know, in a class to make it, I think, profitable.

02:28:34:10 - 02:28:55:01
Ken Bjonnes
Yeah. And the way I look at it, not necessarily like that. I'm the most qualified to do it, but somebody has to do it, right? The only reason I know what I know is because Jerry took me under his wing and taught me a lot of stuff and continues to mentor me, and I need to do the same to other people to keep the whole thing going.

02:28:55:01 - 02:29:15:09
Ken Bjonnes
Right. Because otherwise over time, they'll just be a degradation of overall knowledge. And it's not like obviously everything comes through. Jeremy. There's other people out there that know a lot, but it takes it takes those few key people to continue to pass that down, which, you know, at the level you were working at, happens on a more official education level.

02:29:15:09 - 02:29:42:03
Ken Bjonnes
And then, you know, very specific job titles and passed down. But in my world, it's like more of an outlaw kind of mentality. So it's a little hard to always wrap your head around like, you know, there's there's so much to learn on stock computer. You know, this came up, somebody asked me recently about, Holley. A friend of mine was building a car, and he's putting a Holley on it, and somebody else wound up tuning it, or he's going to tune it.

02:29:42:06 - 02:30:02:19
Ken Bjonnes
And, he called me up and he's like, hey, man, I just saw the thing on Facebook. And you turn that card in a mirror with a Holley. I know you did, Holley. I got do if I can tune a stock computer, I catina Holley. But the only difference between tuning any standalone is understanding of the architecture and how the log works.

02:30:02:21 - 02:30:27:28
Ken Bjonnes
Okay I see the log. How do I apply that to the tune. But there's nothing to figure out right. There's directions for everything. Yeah I go so if you think I'm a good stock computer tuner, I could do the Holley, you know, easier because there's one fuel table not, you know, this fuel table and 8000 other modifiers and you know, and that have nothing to do with performance.

02:30:27:28 - 02:30:45:25
Ken Bjonnes
Right. It's for for for emissions reasons. And it's doing this on startup. Why does it sound like that on startup? Because it's got to get the cat hot, you know, that you don't even have anymore. No. They have the cats. Yeah. yeah. But anyway, you know, so it's just all those things that make stock computer tuning, you know, very confusing.

02:30:45:27 - 02:31:06:09
Ken Bjonnes
and, you know, and maybe that's the path forward is we may not even wind up with stock computers long term. And these vehicles, as you know, all these regulations come down harder and harder on us. And the computers getting locked down. You know, we may be transitioning more to like, a plug and play deal, like Motec makes a kit for a lot of these Mustangs.

02:31:06:09 - 02:31:36:18
Ken Bjonnes
Now, that plug right in where the factory computer does with every single feature on the car running like on a Gt500, everything works. You know? So that's kind of the absolute ultimate version of what I do. Because, Holley, you know, you can't really put a hollow in a Gt500 and get the launch control to work and the dash and easily, whereas Motec has gone that extra level and just you plug it in and you if I, if you drive one of these cars, you don't even know it has a Motec in it.

02:31:36:18 - 02:32:08:26
Ken Bjonnes
Everything works exactly as intended unless you want to modify it, like to work better. So, you know, that's that's really the big thing. So speaking of that and handing down that type of knowledge. Do you how do you like, do you feel like I know you do all these videos with Evan because I know you're trying to promote the seven three in general, but, like, do you like teaching people?

02:32:08:26 - 02:32:24:21
Ken Bjonnes
Like, is that important to you? Like, do you know, I know, like, in your business, like, do you do that all yourself is your, your son and involved in it like, do you feel like there's something that you need to hand off to, like the next generation? Like, how do you handle that?

02:32:24:24 - 02:32:59:21
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. And I think the thing is, with the engine stuff, it's a bit easier, right? Because, you know, take a 1966, 289 and a Godzilla, right? I mean, they got they got cranks, cams, rods, pistons. Right. And there's, there's, you know, yeah, there's a few little it is secrecy that we try to talk about. but it's, you know, it's very, very, you know, there's a why there's new technologies in there, whether it's face heat or direct injection, some of those things that depending on the engines, you know, they have is still an engine.

02:32:59:27 - 02:33:18:29
Brian Wolfe
Right. But we do. That's why we do like to do the videos to explain how to do things, whether it's a cam swap or some of the other stuff we do. Just not that there's anything special about it, but because of the lifter tray and maybe the possibility of dropping a lifter into the valley, some of the things you can do to make it, you know, to overcome the hurdles.

02:33:19:03 - 02:33:41:10
Brian Wolfe
Right. so I think, you know, with that regard, you know, I try to use the videos as a way to, you know, transmit that information. And, you know, I, I think I mentioned I'm going to, you know, cut back on engine builds for customers and focus a little bit more on some development work and maybe, you know, putting up, you know, how to book together.

02:33:41:15 - 02:33:44:17
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. Yeah. So it's, you know, documented for people on the Godzilla.

02:33:44:17 - 02:34:06:07
Ken Bjonnes
I think that would be super helpful for you to pull all that stuff together and even, you know, working with somebody on it, like back in the day on the modular motor. And it may have not been gospel, but I believe in the hobbits or somebody did like, a book on, on the modular stuff, you know, and at least gave you something to look at.

02:34:06:07 - 02:34:24:14
Ken Bjonnes
And it was pretty accurate, you know, so, you know, I think that takes somebody like you that's the Godzilla guy to document and all that, and you're doing that with the videos, and people don't understand how much work goes into some of those videos. You know, I know it's Evan's channel, but you're still there doing all the work.

02:34:24:21 - 02:34:45:15
Ken Bjonnes
You know, we got to say this. Let's talk about this. Let's not forget that it's way more involved than people might think. It's not difficult, like, you know, digging a ditch or something, but it's just there's a lot of thought that goes into it. And people don't understand how long people are going to be watching those videos. Like my most popular video on my YouTube channel, Corvette.

02:34:45:15 - 02:35:07:05
Ken Bjonnes
And as far as, now, well, that's my biggest, views as far as, but that's like a time sensitive thing to you. Corvettes out. But to this day, the most hours viewed on a video. And one of my most profitable videos is the camshaft swap in my truck. And it's because I didn't just stand there and go, hey, I'm going to put a cam in.

02:35:07:07 - 02:35:21:28
Ken Bjonnes
All right? It's in now. I'm going to do that. We showed every step. All right. Now we're going to talk the heads. Now we're going to you know and it's a I'm like thinking about it. I'm like, why are so many people watching this video? I go because they want to know how to do it. Like, yeah, is there that many people, putting a camera to 50 right now?

02:35:21:28 - 02:35:39:14
Ken Bjonnes
Probably not. But there's people that want to. Right. So they want to watch it and learn. And then when they get to that point, they're ready to go. And that's I do that all the time, whether it's computer stuff or videography or anything. You know, I consume a lot of YouTube videos, on on learning how to do things.

02:35:39:14 - 02:35:54:23
Ken Bjonnes
It's just the easiest way to learn for me is watching somebody else do it. Even if, you know, you're like, oh, it's it's not a big deal. Well, it's not a big deal to you. But for the guy that's never bolted a set of cylinder heads to a motor to see you do it and talk about it and just confirm that he's doing it right, is is priceless for people.

02:35:54:23 - 02:36:14:25
Ken Bjonnes
So I hope people appreciate all the extra effort you've done just on the sharing of information, not the fact that, oh well, I have a can that it's going to work or I have a cylinder head port that's going to work, or here's what I'm going to sell you, but it's more like, here's how all this works. Here's why we did it this way.

02:36:14:25 - 02:36:29:15
Ken Bjonnes
Here's the advantage of why, you know, the camshaft set up this way, things like that. So I just want to say I really appreciate that because, you know, even though we're friends and I can call you a lot of times I just go watch one of Evan's videos because I'm like, oh, Brian already talked about that. I'm not even going to bother.

02:36:29:15 - 02:36:51:26
Ken Bjonnes
I'm just going to go watch his video. So, you know, the YouTube video is a good way to pull it all together. But even the next step beyond that is like a very comprehensive reference, you know, for that. And there's nobody more qualified to do that than you because you're involved in designing the engine, or at least, you know.

02:36:52:03 - 02:36:53:15
Brian Wolfe
Overseeing and managing.

02:36:53:15 - 02:37:10:10
Ken Bjonnes
You know, not every individual part but the whole thing. And then now you've taken it to the next level, like there's almost nobody on the planet that's done that on almost any engine platform. So, you know, that's that's just amazing to me. is there anything you wanted to touch on before we wrap things up? I think we got we covered quite a bit.

02:37:10:15 - 02:37:23:01
Brian Wolfe
Yeah. No, nothing I can think of. We talked about it a lot from, you know, how the Fox body Mustang is still here to godzillas and coyotes and Cobra jets. you know, lots of cool stuff. So I really appreciate you having me on and being able to chat about stuff.

02:37:23:01 - 02:37:24:02
Ken Bjonnes
Awesome. Thanks for coming.