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HEATSOAKED is a Florida-based car culture podcast hosted by Cris and KT - two 30-something year old car nuts who live the stories they talk about. What started as two friends having late-night conversation about dream builds, blown budgets, and heat soaked engines turned into a platform for the culture that raised them.
This isn't about perfect cars or polished influencer content. It's about the grind behind the build. Cris and KT bring real conversations about the 90s and 2000s era tuner scene, passion-built machines, and the culture that keeps them alive. Every episode dives into the journey of a typical gearhead; including the victories, mistakes, lessons learned, and the passion that keeps the culture moving.
HEATSOAKED - because nobody remembers the cool nights.
KT (00:03)
Hey everyone, welcome to episode ten of Heat Soaked. We made it to episode ten.
Cris (00:10)
We made
it like this is crazy. So yeah, we've been we've been working on this project for months now. Months now. It feels like forever. ⁓ but yeah, we're back. We're back for episode 10. It's gonna be a fun episode. We're gonna talk about something that we talked about not in a previous episode. And you might see something new in this episode We like to switch things up every time we pull up here. Remember, you are in my garage, so I can't be any realer, then I'm broke as shit. That's why it's a single car.
KT (00:17)
Right.
Cris (00:38)
⁓ so d as you can see here we got a transmission here, but before we get there, let's talk a little bit about, you know, what what it means to actually own a project car. I think we've all gone through some mental instability while owning a project car, being underneath it, you know, being stuck on the side of a road, be it being unreliable and let's get into that man.
KT (01:01)
What's up? Yeah, so this episode we're gonna build off of episode nine where we decided how do you get into a project car. Well you're in a project car now, so we're gonna get into the ten stages of owning a project car.
Cris (01:17)
Ten
stages of mentality, ten stages of psychology. Just want to point out we are not psychological exactly. we are not psychological professors. ⁓ but we did our research and we talked, we sat down, ⁓ shoot we went and picked up this thing, did some work to that, and we were like, man, what are the ten stages that you go through as a car pro a project car owner?
You know, especially sitting there, you know, everyone's excited, no you know, everyone knows what it's like to see, you know, your dreams fulfilled, but how many people actually get there and what do you actually go through?
KT (01:58)
What are you experiencing with this car? But before we get into that, you keep bringing it up, so let's let's take a quick little couple minutes to go into the story of what this is.
Cris (02:10)
For sure. This is a W58 transmission. Manual. Save the manuals, baby. We are back. So yes, this is a five-speed W58 transmission, I believe, out of a Mark III Supra. so we did ⁓ yes, a couple of Toyota products. This one was pulled out. Guy ⁓ we did our one thing that we do very often, which is send each other parts for our cars.
KT (02:13)
A manual transmission.
It was in a couple of the Toyota products
I thought you meant we run to places on s late nights on Sundays. ⁓
Cris (02:43)
Apparently
there's only one time that we go out and pick car parts. Sunday night, somewhere past six to nine, I'm like calling KT and I'm like, hey man, no it's a little late. I also have work in the morning. Early shit. I said, You wanna go pick up transmission? He's like Well yeah, I'm so once again, I don't have social media too much. I'm not that big on it.
I'm sending KT I'm like dude message this guy once again we're starting this over you know it's like he's he's the he's the voice of the of the business. And he's over here, he's like, hey the guy's the guy's saying this much and we're like mmm whatever, we'll see what we can do. And how how do we get out of that?
KT (03:25)
Flashbacks to when you bought your car.
Cris (03:27)
It's the same concept, man. It's the same concept.
KT (03:31)
We ultimately ⁓ settled with the guy, came into an agreement with the price.
Cris (03:36)
We
had to drive all the way down from ⁓ geez from North Orlando to Saint Cloud, which for my viewers outside of Florida, that's pretty pretty decent drive, about an hour and a half. Had to pick you up at darkness, you know. He he had to sneak out of his own house to come come with me. ⁓ so we went out, we went and picked this bad boy up. It was sitting in the back of some old school Toyota and it reminded me of Mil Tacoma. Yeah.
And guy had a motor a motor pulled out of the thing and on a stand and picked it up and here she is. Five speed W fifty eight transmission that's gonna go in as a transmission swap to the Storm Spec IS. And it's gonna be a fun swap. We got a little bit of parts to go though before we can do anything. So right now we got something big, we got it done, have a lot to do, have a lot to buy, and then we'll have a lot to install.
So that's gonna be a fun video, guys. Keep up with us. Definitely super excited for this thing, especially for what we got it for. And going from there.
KT (04:39)
Yeah, stay tuned for ⁓ for us doing things with this thing, get this inside the car.
Cris (04:44)
Yeah,
prepped, cleaned, you know, have
KT (04:46)
Your
YouTube channel and your ⁓ your actual Instagram.
Cris (04:50)
Yes, yeah. Instagram StormFick IS and you will see it at Heat Soak FL. Once again, guys, for all the stuff we're doing. Make sure you like and subscribe. Really helps us out to know that apparently we know that nobody's watching. It's ⁓ okay. but in all seriousness guys we appreciate all the comments. A lot of the a lot of the you guys have actually reached out to us and said, Hey, you know, appreciate it being real. we can't be any more realer because we're broke, guys. We're just doing our best here. ⁓ main thing
Is we'll we I guess the next step and next parts we have to get for this thing is gonna be a drive shaft, looking at a differential, looking at a couple different things, but of course once again we're gonna make sure we take our time, do this right. You are gonna see some stuff on the social about cleaning this up and going from there. Definitely let me know if you guys have any questions and we'll go from we'll go from there. Advice, yes, because we will be under a car for several hours. And I am making him doing the final topic.
He's gonna be so mad at me.
KT (05:50)
Well let's get back into our episode then. So the ten stages of owning a project car starting with stage one and it is excitement.
Cris (06:03)
what I felt when we found this thing and we're driving that way. All right. It's the ten stages of owning a project car guys. It's the possibility of the unknown. Is it what either makes you nervous or excites you? So it's about it's all about the potential. You know, you find something, you hear something, it's all about the potential of you actually getting this dream that you've had for a while. And I think it's important to really like look into exactly what does that excitement mean to you.
That's yeah. Like when y when you were going to get yours, it's is it the build up, is it the time frame beforehand or is it actually turning the key and driving
KT (06:42)
It was it was all about the process for me and that was the most exciting part because even before owning the car it was the process of knowing that I'm gonna get a car. Yeah. So now I'm on marketplace, I'm on, you know, offer up whatever. I'm searching around and I'm like super excited at this point 'cause like I know I want a project car, I gotta find this thing and I'm I'm going to work right now. And then it's the
The excitement when you actually get the keys. So you you meet up with the guy, you exchange money and keys and like
Cris (07:12)
It's
and r and different like levels of excitement as you go along.
KT (07:17)
It's like I got it now. Like here it is. You know, I finally made it happen. But with that level of excitement, you know, it doesn't last forever. So what happens? We go into stage two.
Cris (07:22)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
Delusion. ⁓ and usually after excitement, like you're driving the car home. Story we told on our our previous episode of this guy. You know, the excitement's real. I'm calling him up, he's driving behind me, going, hey man, you know, any issues? What are we seeing? Is it smoking out the back? Anything we we got we gotta worry about? And he's like, No, everything's great, and you know, I'm testing it on the highway. And then of course I roll up my driveway and what do we hear?
KT (08:00)
Yeah, the biggest scrap eleven thirty at night.
Cris (08:04)
Like a wake up half the neighborhood on a Sunday night. Because ⁓ what lead led to that afterwards was the delusion. But I think the when we speak about delusion it's gonna be a couple things, right? Like everybody gets their projects and has their goal in mind, has what they wanna do with it. Some people don't know that yet. Some people ⁓ change their goals or adapt to different goals as they, you know, build up the car. So it's gonna be one of those areas where, you know, you could
start setting it up, it's I think delusion and a great word to put it is the p the imagination of the potential of the project car that you just bought can go and just travel in any direction. You have a blank canvas. I think we talk about that a lot. You got a blank canvas you can put whatever color you want. You can draw whatever you want, have some fun. But also when delusion comes into play is Yeah, I can turn this thing into a rocket ship.
KT (09:00)
So many plans. ⁓ and at this point you're so excited, you're just thinking of what can I do with this thing? You know, like I'm gonna throw a turbo on this thing, I'm gonna, you know, put on a a really nice suspension, I'm gonna go drifting with this, you know. All of those ideas. Yeah. But then you start thinking also like, well, before I do that I gotta change my valve cover gasket. Yeah. I gotta get a new transmission because I can't drift with the automatic Yeah.
Cris (09:02)
So
I gotta do a timing belt.
I gotta change the oil.
KT (09:32)
So
there's that delusion where you have so many great ideas that you wanna execute, but you're still in that excitement phase, like you just got this thing. You're like bright eyed, this is a brand new puppy to you.
Cris (09:43)
It is, yeah, and that's ⁓ my goodness, that's that's such a good way to put it. And like it it's it's like the potential of everything in front of you is endless and limitless, but in reality it's truly not. You just can't see it because you're so far into your excitement that you become just delusional without it. And of course delusion leads to plans of grandeur, you know, I'm gonna make this thing the fastest, you know, IS three hundred for example, or the the
KT (10:12)
The cleanest one.
Cris (10:13)
⁓
without actually somebody going, Alright, what's it take to what is the cost of taking every single part out of this car, cleaning it, getting new ones and putting it back together?
KT (10:24)
Yeah. And that that's that takes us to number three. Yep. Which ends up being
Cris (10:31)
Overspending. The number one thing car guys are good at. Overspending. And that could be that could be parts. That could be something you brought up a while back, which is a great point, was time. We can overspend time on this. I know plenty of guys who have missed out on like legitimate things for cars and for getting it done now. Some of it out of necessity 'cause they needed to. Some of it
wasn't really a necessity, it was hey I gotta get this done about these parts. Yeah. And you know, when you're spending a week and a half on one thing, you know, turns into ⁓ turns into a fun little little little week as it goes through. So that can cause a lot of frustration, a lot of friction, but overspending, make you go broke, you know, make you make you eat those P V J's and then enjoy ⁓ 'cause you had to go pick up a new
KT (11:20)
'Cause your delusion got you to the point where you're like, Alright, I'm gonna turbo this thing, I'm gonna start buying the turbo kit, the naffle, yeah everything.
Cris (11:28)
fuel I wanna make sure, you know, I'm gonna get all the fuel pressure regulated, everything like that. I wanna make sure I'm gonna redo the whole valve system.
KT (11:37)
And even even overspending on time, like you said earlier, it's just overspending on the time to research all of that stuff too. You're sitting in front of your computer late nights after work when you should be eating dinner, but you're there scrolling parts.
Cris (11:49)
You
know, updating my Excel, you know, looking for deals. ⁓ no, I think that's that's a that's a true issue 'cause some people will overspend, which would c sometimes even turn it turns into overbuilding cars what they're actually doing with I've seen, you know, stance cars have like a full fully built motor and the guy was and the and afterwards the guy was like, Yeah, I wasted like twenty twenty grand on just that when I could have really had like another car by now.
and really like been a lot happier with twos in around. So it's just little things. It's that it's that excitement leads to delusion, leads to that overspending, that causes you to see it after you now after you start overspending, start putting some parts on and after you see some changes, well that leads to something else. And this is the most dangerous thing in the list that I absolutely believe in the ten stages of owning a project car. Yeah. It's gonna be
KT (12:43)
Once
you get that confidence built, sometimes it ends up being false confidence. you start ordering parts, you start getting things in and you're like, all right, it's happening, I got this. And then you ⁓ and then you look at your car and you're like, Alright, let's start taking things off.
Cris (12:48)
Yes, ⁓ yeah.
Yeah.
My favorite I swear my favorite version of confidence is every guy who's taken a a standard airbox off and put in a cold air intake and gone, yes, it's a race car now.
KT (13:15)
I think a lot of it has to do with like you hyping yourself up because you just and and rightfully so, you just went through the process of doing all this research, figuring out what to buy, spending the money, it finally comes in, it's brand new, it's nice, it's shiny, whatever.
Cris (13:29)
Together you really set a plan up. Yeah, I guess
KT (13:32)
Mate true, you made it that far, right? You made it four steps in. Absolutely. But there's still six more to go.
Cris (13:36)
Yeah, that's
No and and and confidence can be extremely like a good thing. I've seen it do great things for a lot of car guides. But I also seen it d go the go the opposite way. I've seen confidence put a lot of people into debt. When they start realizing like, ⁓ all I gotta do is take a part off and put it back on and then when they start spending the serious money they think it's gonna be I'll be able to sell that transmission I'm pulling out of it as quickly as I bought it, so I'll be fine. ⁓ calm down over there, Kimo Sabi. Then I like it's ⁓ we wanna make sure everything's all set.
KT (14:07)
And it was a really great example for me too because as we talked about it in a past podcast when I was working on my car, I was redoing the front suspension. And I got that thing done in like a day or two. So in a weekend, I was like, this is going really smooth. This is strange. Let me start taking apart my rear suspension while I'm just finishing up my front suspension. You know, by the time I finish my front, it'll only take me another weekend or two to do the rear suspension, and here we are.
Cris (14:32)
Still working it.
False confidence. But it's the truth. Look, that's a that's a great example because a lot of guys will get ⁓ almost too too confident, too calculated, not realize like there's more time you have to invest. There's other options things will go wrong. You are the biggest proponent I know of a sawzaw underneath a car.
KT (14:49)
Things go wrong.
That
wasn't my fault that they went off.
Cris (14:58)
As an artist with a sawzall, I'm telling you at this point, he's Picasso with a sawzall. You just helped it along, I got you. So just sh and shaves off parts like that tomorrow. All I get is this quote. I'm like, what are you doing? He's just angrily holding a sawzall and all I hear is like metal just screeching underneath his car. It's hilarious.
KT (15:03)
The car decided to corrode itself.
Yeah.
Well the story is that I had my phone under the car one day and I was I had the ⁓ the angle grinder going and you know how it shoots sparks everywhere. And I told you ⁓ right after that I was like, Hey, check my phone out you rubbed your finger on the glass the pits in the in the glass. And I don't have a screen for deck draw life, but
Cris (15:43)
Yes, so he's upgraded soon, ladies and gentlemen. And I don't think it's because he lanted to, I think it's because he has to at this point. Like but yeah, so little things like that. It's n it's having that confidence, realizing you're going and you're you're maybe you're well ahead of something that you should be. Your your build is going on time, but I don't think I've ever heard of a build go one hundred percent perfect.
⁓ with like and this is a built not bought factor. This is a build in garage, you know, we're not talking like lifts shop, we're not talking about paying somebody to do anything, having you know somebody do it for you, talking about doing it yourself. I have never heard of a project that just went, All right, this weekend I bought this and I put it in. Then this weekend I bought this and I put there is always a junkyard run. There's always a this had to come off.
KT (16:31)
There's always some sort of story.
Cris (16:38)
I couldn't get it. There's always a hey man, I need help. There's like if if anyone I like and respect and to all the guys who have been patient and gone through this, this is a big factor in car culture, but that that overspending that led to that confidence that you got ahead of your schedule and you know, like you said on the front suspension you started taking it apart, you're like, This is no problem at all. Everything just goes back easy and then you took the back one and you're like, ⁓ shit
What have I done?
KT (17:08)
⁓ man, I took a step back to three overspending
Cris (17:13)
Yeah. Then you had to exactly you cut so much parts you had to go back to overspending and then you're like, all right, well now that I got a whole new box of parts, I got a little more confidence back, right? So it's like and but remember and that that that will lead to that next step after confidence. Of course it's gonna be step five, it's catastrophic failure.
KT (17:22)
Yeah.
You
said it, nothing ever goes right.
Cris (17:34)
Nothing
ever goes 100% with cars. There's a reason why cars require maintenance. There's a reason why parts on here will fade, will break, will loosen. It it's the car is not a machine that never has to be touched again. There's a reason there's a lot of mechanical functions on it. And catastrophic failure is actually a more common term at every on every car than we would ever know. I I've seen, you know, timing belts blow, I've seen valves bend.
I've seen, you know, all the different fun things that can happen. I say fun, it's not fun. but we it's all the things that we've experienced while working on cars that really leads you to like stop. I've been under an E thirty six for about four days and it led me right into step six. Man, it's just ⁓ but catastrophic failure is when you just have to stop. You've you've done everything possible and you snap a bear you snap a rod bearing.
And you're just like my God spent seven thousand dollars on this motor and I just snapped it off dude, it's crazy. You're right, you can't expect
KT (18:33)
It's unexpected. Can't predict it
But you have to react to it.
Cris (18:45)
Have to. Yeah. Listen there. I'm already elbowed deep in there. Yeah. So I gotta do something about it, man. I gotta make sure it happens. So yeah, I'm not gonna stop. I'm gonna rip it all back apart and we're gonna delve in. We're gonna find a new block. We're gonna put it back together.
KT (18:47)
Part of
Yeah. It's the worst part about ⁓ the whole process, honestly, in my mind, the failure. Because up until that point you you've gained so much confidence, you Yeah, you know, you're excited. You know, everything was positive up until that point. But just like anything in life, you have to go through those ups and downs and you get to the point where you're you're dealing with the challenge at this point. And that's honestly when a lot of
Cris (19:25)
Yeah, absolutely.
KT (19:30)
a lot guys who have project cars they kinda get in that rut and they decide, you know, I'm at a point where I I don't have the time or money to fix it and that's when they give up on their car. They sell their car, they just let it sit in the backyard.
Cris (19:43)
Yep, sitting in garage, like not not seeing the light of day for years and years. It's just collecting dust. I've seen beautiful, beautiful cars that deserve to be driven every day, you know, more than I can count in garages and not being able to move. But, you know, once you get past that failure and you realize you gotta keep moving on, we all lead back to that phase where we start wrenching again and then usually the cabist c catastrophic failure requires you to become
what we like to call YouTube mechanics. Which means you're YouTubing everything that could possibly be wrong with s with something and going, How do I check YouTube? How do I fix YouTube? Yeah. And it's the Google search. It's you know, it's not the how do I change my ⁓ YouTube. It's the hey, my car is doing this funny noise. You start looking at forums. They're like, hey, here's a link of a guy changing his, you know changing the valve covers or valve valve
system on this on this vehicle. You know, it's all it's the springs, you know, little things like that that can go wrong and it's becoming that YouTube mechanic is really actually a fault of delusion. And th this is where I'll bring it back. So remember, this is the five steps we went over. We've gone over excitement, delusion, overspending, all right. ⁓ confidence is number four. Number five is that catastrophic failure. And number six is with that YouTube mechanic phase. And what it is is
think you put it really good. ⁓ it's action before research. And that's man, as as somebody who's who is, you know, very familiar with, you know, how these things are made and how everything is put together, how dangerous can that be?
KT (21:28)
There's just a couple 10 millimeter bolts on there. How hard is it to to put back together, you know? But ⁓ with with catastrophic failure, you're at a point where alright I I need help now, right? So YouTube is the easiest place to find help, really. Because it adds a lot of visual. Back in our day, you know, you're just searching online, you're searching on Google, you go to forums, and they still exist. But YouTube
Cris (21:34)
Yeah.
KT (21:54)
YouTube is great. You can just watch a video and know step by step exactly what they're doing and you can look at your car and be like, All right, that's the same exact bolt. You know, that's the same exact little ⁓ part I need to take off. so the YouTube mechanic phase is actually a really good phase and it's a it's a really ⁓ good phase for growth.
Cris (22:05)
Yeah.
KT (22:15)
Yes. That's where you learn the most, honestly. Because at that point you're already in a rut. You gotta dig yourself out of that rut and hopefully you can find something on YouTube that'll help you. That's not always a guarantee though.
Cris (22:28)
Yeah, no, it's it's it's a it's a great point because like so a lot of guys will what we say, I mean in my industry, like you if you keep digging a grave, you know, you're you're bound to stay in it, you know. at the end of the day, it's exactly right. If you keep digging and going the wrong direction until you ask for help from somewhere, you're gonna be going the wrong way. You could be walking, you know, towards the mountains when you should be going towards the water, you know, and there there's a lot of it different ⁓ ways that I've learned and I used to be the proponent of ⁓ hey, why am I asking for help?
I'll just figure this out until you know I'm you know I have I have clutch apart at two AM I have work in three hours and I'm like I am lost and this was before YouTube has just been had a plethora of everything that was on there. This was like, hey, find a book, find this. I remember I I couldn't get to work for like three days, man. I
Well I'd call some friends who knew a guy who had an uncle who was a you know and he had to come over and he was like why didn't you just ask you know earlier I was like available the day you were stuck? I was like, 'cause I'm a dumbass and I'm stubborn. So it's lose that stubbornness, understand that you two mechanic phase is actually okay. maybe do a little bit of research before you start taking apart those easy to reach ten millimeter bolts.
⁓ and then I mean some guys do this phase and they don't make it out. So if you're going the wrong direction, you don't ask for that help, it's gonna lead you even further into a false negative, I'm sorry, a false positive, and ⁓ reach right over that and basically lead you straight into
KT (24:10)
The depression phase. Yeah,
the depression phase it kinda goes hand in hand with the last three, honestly, or the last two, sorry. The U two phase and the catastrophe phase. Yeah, so obviously when you get into the catastrophe phase, something really bad has happened and at that point you're you're shocked and eventually you're like, man, like I kinda kinda like don't wanna do this anymore because I just failed at it, right?
Cris (24:38)
Yeah, I just broke my car.
KT (24:40)
And it's really hard to even get to the YouTube phase when you're at this point where you're like, and this this thing that I was trying to do, I just wasn't able to do it. And how how do you even get the motivation to want to do it again, let alone go into YouTube to actually watch a video, right?
Cris (24:55)
Dude, I've been so angry I stopped working on a car for a week just because I I I script a bolt. Now, granted, it was a head bolt. So I was in I was in a I was in a rough spot. ⁓ but yeah, you just you you you get you get past what's called your breaking point. So your breaking point, of course, everyone understands the words breaking point. Like we all have a level of patience and we all can understand it, but that breaking point is just
KT (25:05)
The worst bolt.
Cris (25:24)
basically where we just can't take the stress of it anymore. We can't take the the failures, the continuous things, the things we gotta go back and redo. In something a case of s snapping or stripping a head bolt, you're basically fucked. Like in the most polite words possible, you have to remove that bolt somehow or you have to buy a new head. Or you can do what a lot of c you know shops do is drill it out, strip it out.
KT (25:39)
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've been through that plenty of
Cris (25:54)
That go ⁓
and they fill it back in and then give you the s that's just and then it leaks. yeah, yeah, you wanna talk about some catastrophic failures. You're looking at two guys who've probably been through couple. But man, I think ⁓ after that depression, if you finally get that motivation, you start listening to people or start listening to advice and it leads you back into this ⁓ this weird, you know, step which is what we like to call step eight. You know, it's it's a random return
Of the spark or the motivation that led you to start this project. It goes right all the way back to that you remember why you were excited for the car in the first place. You were inspired by something. You saw a ⁓ film, you know, Fast and Furious is gonna be attributed to this really often. You saw a post, you saw a car that you just fell in love with, and you're like, I want.
KT (26:50)
Maybe you watched a better YouTube video.
Cris (26:53)
Or or you did. Or ⁓ you got the money available and you were like, Man, ⁓ life was kind to you and you finally got the ability to go, Hey, I can finally buy the new head for the car that I've needed and once I buy it all I gotta do is put everything back in and it's good.
KT (27:11)
Honestly, this is a really tough step because as it was said, it's a random spark of motivation that comes back to you. And randomness is not planned, as you know, that's the definition of it. So, how does how do you get that spark of motivation? So, Cris was given some really good examples, but you know, just to add on to that, maybe you're just at a barbecue with family or friends and you're chatting with
Cris (27:13)
Yeah.
KT (27:38)
somebody at the barbecue, a family or someone, and they're just telling you a story about how they just got into project cars and you're like, Well, I have a car, it's been sitting for a while, but you're into a car now, that's really cool. I kinda wanna get my car running again too, you know? It's it's just circumstances that you don't plan for and up to this point too, all eight of those steps, you know, there's no there's no timeline. It's all
Cris (27:53)
Yeah, for sure.
KT (28:04)
kinda listed chronologically, but you can be in the excitement phase for a day and you can be in the delusion phase for a day, but then eventually you may be in the depression phase for like weeks, months at a time.
Cris (28:15)
Yeah absolutely. Like I like to just stay in the delusion phase. It's just it just helps me stay away from all the other hard emotions, but being delusional as means I'm being happy, I'm fine with it. You know? I'll just be like, Yeah, I'll have a Ferrari. No. but it's it's it is ⁓ it's that that spark of interest, everything leaning back. Funny enough, I've I've seen it found like I've I I've run into it when I've helped someone else repair their car.
and then just brought the spark back of why I actually wrench on cars. It's little things like that. That's a really like inner focus. Like I said, we're not psychologists. we're YouTube psychologists. ⁓ so if all the steps are followed, the remember the step eight. We're we're talking about step one is excitement, step two delusion. Step three overspending. Step four is confidence. Step five is gonna be that catastrophic failure that you're gonna be going into
Step six is that YouTube mechanic phase Step seven is that depression that's gonna hit you the hardest. Step eight is that random return or that resurgence of motivation. Step nine, and this is all about project cars, is gonna be pretty interesting actually on this. What's step nine, KT?
KT (29:28)
Yeah. So step nine is it's a really infamous phase. Like I'm almost done.
Cris (29:35)
I've heard everybody say that at least once in their in their Project Car's life. I'm almost done. It's been five years since they told me that. It's not done. I think this is a dangerous phase. But I think also because of all the factors that go into the psycholog s psychology of like us as human beings, it's pretty interesting. Once again, we're not professors, we're not professionals. ⁓
The interesting thing is what I see about cars is that people always wanna continue to make it better. Then that means when new parts come out, if you had just bought it the year prior and something comes out that makes it even better than it was previously, you're keeping up with that that motion. So is it is it done yet? yeah, it's running. Okay, well we gonna go to the track or you know, you need help doing the balancing or anything? no, no no, it's almost done. Like we're still we're still trying to
you know, recreate that engineering, recreate that that that image that we have in our heads of what we expect it to be. Mm-hmm. And I think that's a really dangerous phase 'cause we could rip it all apart, put all brand new parts in, yeah. And it's still all stuff.
KT (30:49)
This phase, you're you're gonna have your confidence back in a way, cause you you've pulled yourself out of depression. Yeah. you've gotten to the point where you found that random spark of motivation. So you're actually making progress at this point. You're doing things that you said you were gonna do. Maybe you got back into whatever got you into that catastrophic, depressive state to begin with. You've solved that problem. You're there, you're now you're building upon that, you're
another project, another task on the car. Yeah. And you're building confidence and you're like, Okay, I've I'm almost done now. But in reality there's never such a thing as almost done, right?
Cris (31:29)
someone someone told me this a while back and this is how I usually see it is all right you have this checklist of a car you finally get 90% done those last ten you know boxes on the checklist you check one of those another one pops underneath it yeah you check one of those another one pops underneath it and guess what you're like ⁓ my you know I I didn't finish my interior I gutted it you know but the the motor looks good let's let's redo the interior now
⁓ now the interior looks really good. Mm-hmm. Now I gotta redo the trunk. ⁓ now that I redo the trunk I gotta do re the engine bait could use a little wire tucking. Mm-hmm. Let's go ahead and redo that. And then you're just it's a full circle. You're just coming back around. I've I've seen very few builds be like, it's done, I'm not doing anything else. Full builds completed.
KT (32:16)
And that's actually step number ten.
Cris (32:21)
So bring it up and step number ten. We're never actually done. I laugh because we just went through all of these steps and the truth is, man, cars aren't really ever done. You're always gonna find a part that's even better. You're always gonna have it. Something's gonna break. Yeah, you could I've seen lemon parts. I've seen like what I call a lemon part is
KT (32:39)
Something's always gonna break.
Cris (32:47)
You buy a brand new version of it, you put it in the car, it runs for like couple, you know, miles, just enough to make you confident that you don't have to worry about it. And then you replace everything else and guess what? Now you gotta take everything out just to get that back to that part just to fix that. We've all been there. I mean
KT (33:04)
Yeah.
It's But that's the fun part about being into cars and being into project cars. Yeah. This cycle that we just went through all ten steps, it's constantly going from one to two to three to ten back to what you did like
Cris (33:22)
So it's it's absolutely and and it's finding your balance within this list, within these ten, you know, the ten stages, ⁓ really realizing, you know, what is it for you? Is it, you know, is the is are you okay with your car never actually being done? Or are you the type of person that, you know, or is okay with taking a step back and going, you know what? I'll get to those last couple of things in time and eventually I can just leave the car, get in it and drive it for a little bit. We all have that motivation to make things better.
Or if it's never actually done, a lot of people just sell it. And that's the reality of car ownership, right? ⁓ if you don't use it anymore, you can make a couple bucks off of it. I mean, you'd think I'd slap this in here and you know, what what if I look at that turbo and I get an opportunity to find something better? You know, am I gonna sell it? I don't know yet. I can't answer that because I'm not there yet. 'Cause I'm still on the delusion phase where I'm gonna stay for the rest of my build.
KT (34:19)
I think the big thing is just to enjoy the journey. We talk about it all as we get into project cars there's gonna be a journey and there's gonna be these ten stages as we we go through every everything that we do, whether it's the complete entire refresh of the car or if it's just the transmission. You're gonna go through all ten of these steps. But you have to kinda take a step back and just recognize it's gonna happen and just be in that moment. Just remember it, just be like, all right. When I look back on this
Cris (34:23)
Yeah, yeah, we do.
KT (34:49)
three years, five years from now when I'm talking to somebody else who just picked up an IS Yeah exactly. Like I can re recall everything that I've been through. And we'll we'll bond because of that.
Cris (34:59)
I mean that's exactly like what we bond over. We bond over the pain, we bond over the passion, we bond over the things that we enjoy about working on cars, getting our hands dirty, ⁓ like becoming good friends with people that are random that are going through this. And it's funny 'cause we can all remember that the time that we've sat down I I listen, I'll I'll paint a picture for everybody right now. We can all remember the time we were under a car, we're trying to wrench this down and we just put our hands down on the cool like floor, the concrete floor.
Or just like, yeah, it I'm just done right now. I can't and if I if I reach up and put this bolt on again and anything happens, I just ⁓ I will snap. So yeah, I I've I've had that. But then I've had the research where I I just go, you know what? Try it one more time. Just one more time and then of course I get it loose that w very last time where I didn't want it. You know? y it's little things like that. It's it's how we all react to
all these stages. But we've all been here once. We've all been at the excitement, the delusion, the never actually done phase, you know, i and if it's is it actually done ever? You know, is it on to the next car? Are you you just gonna leave that project, keep it, and then you're happy with it for a little bit and then you move on the next one and go, Man, you know what I could have done with that, you know, that you know, E thirty six? I if I had kept it I'd I could have switched it to an S fifty four, you know
I didn't have to switch to an S fifty two. I could have just OBD, you know, kept it to OBD two and I could have S fifty four, then we would've been perfect. I could have lightened up the chassis a little bit more, strengthened it, and I would have had a stuff. Once again, back in the delusion phase, right? I am ⁓
KT (36:37)
Still living in the delusion phase right now.
Cris (36:46)
staying in the as long as possible because at the end of the day, ⁓ you know, w when we build these lists and we talk about it, we just sit in the garage and we're probably wrenching on something. Like it's it's these conversations that really ⁓ make it happen. And and as we kind of go through, this is kind of the garage talk that we have. You know, as we run your cars we're bullshit and having the stories. So sharing this list with you guys and knowing the ten stages of owning a project car pretty important before you dive in. Because I want you guys to know what it's like.
as we rip everything out of here or I buy a new motor and we stick this bad boy in here, you guys gonna see us go through this stage. I'm staying delusion. He's probably gonna be very mad at me. But ⁓ always a good time. ⁓ I think my fondest memories of going through this is ⁓ always finding a way forward. ⁓ I think something really important to me was always that if I ever hit a roadblock that was too tough for me.
I had people I could count on and that was really important for me. It's what saved me from going absolutely nuts, you know, ⁓ you know, burning a car, you know, basically setting it on fire as close as I was many times. ⁓ it's just ⁓ that those those motions, the notion of thinking of doing those things is gonna make you, you know, really want to take a step back, be smart about your decisions, understand what you're getting into when you're actually in it, and just remember that you know you
KT (37:58)
Yeah.
Cris (38:15)
probably have a community around you that's willing to help. Somebody, something. Not everybody has to be alone wrenching. You know, that's what the car community is. It's all about taking care of each other people. And I guarantee you there's plenty of people who've been through a build like this already. Please reach out, you know, give us some advice. I'm always willing to accept it. You know, at the end of the day, you know, we both have ISs, so we're learning from each other as we go along.
And it's our first time working on two J's, it's our first time working on an IS three hundred. You know, I haven't had one previously that I had, I haven't anything crazy, you know. Mine was mine was a German car and then, you know, other fun stuff, Japanese, Korean, you know. Taking advice is always the best time. But remember when you're at these stages of owning a project car, you always can get to that next step. Always remember positivity is gonna build it. Once again, we're not professionals, we got nothing to say.
We just wanna have some fun and enjoy it. Hey T, what do you think about all this? Yeah.
KT (39:15)
I mean we've all been through those stages. You're going through it again right now, so am I. But we would totally love to hear what you guys think about the ten stages right now. us your experience with them and tell us some really good stories because that's why we started this podcast also. Yeah. This is really the first time we're kind of breaking it down, but every episode that we talk about dives into some of these stages.
Cris (39:32)
For sure.
Yeah.
KT (39:42)
So we just wanna hear you guys' feedback. We're gonna continue doing what we're doing. We're gonna make more content. We're gonna express every stage as we go along. It'll be pretty obvious to you guys what what's going on, what stage.
Cris (39:54)
Listen, if I get out of the delusional stage it's just gonna be anger. All the rest of my te my nine stages are anger. ⁓ so I wanna make sure I stay in the delusional stage but it's fine. But no
KT (40:05)
I'm
hoping for a lot of catastrophic failure stages.
Cris (40:08)
Yeah, so yeah, yeah, for sure. Guys, give us a shout. I wanna know what is your craziest catastrophic failure moment and the funniest like ⁓ YouTube mechanic phase that you have. And it could be something as simple as like like for example for me, ⁓ I I was having trouble getting a ⁓ a banjo bolt out and I can't even remember where the banjo bolt actually was. But I was on a forum once and a guy was like, Hey yeah, just use you know some of this.
So I lit it on fire. ⁓ Not a smart move. I melted the damn banjo bolt. Now I had to had to do a pull a KT and start using a sawzall and cutting the whole thing off and replacing the whole part. Like not a smart move, you know what? I didn't think that threw as much as I should have. And the holes in my fenders didn't agree either, so that was fantastic. it's a reason why I had to sell many cars
KT (41:02)
So you know what one of my catastrophic failures, it wasn't like a massive failure, but it was one that stuck in my mind for a long time, is I had just bought this brand new ⁓ flywheel and pressure plate set and it was nice and painted on the outside on the pressure plate. and I sprayed it with brake clean and all the paint just started like peeling off of it.
Cris (41:24)
It started bubbling. So I I got I got one funny, very similar though. Okay, everyone knows when you're installing a clutch, it's super important to spray it with brake cleaner. Well, of course, doing it for your first time, sometimes you're not reading the small print where it says make sure you wipe with brake cleaner. And then you finish the build. And then you go to put it in gear and you're just like
KT (41:27)
No.
Cris (41:52)
Something's not right. It's just spinning. It just keeps dying. I don't know what's going on. Then you check the whole car. You spend five grand to you know, check the entire car, replace things that it's not, and then you're body go and then your your your friend's un friend's brother, friend's cousin or whoever works at the shop goes, Hey, didn't you just do the swap on that thing? Like, yeah. Did you put brake cleaner on the flywheel?
Fuck. I want more of those. I want to hear from you guys. Give us your worst failure moment. Give us any moments from each of these ten you know stages we want to hear about you and have some fun with it. Alright guys? So thank you so much.
KT (42:33)
With that, you know, ten episodes in. Thank thank you all for the feedback, for watching us. For sure. You know, we want to do more of this, so let us know what you guys want to see. And it's getting hot here, so I think we are gonna get it.
Cris (42:35)
Ten episodes in. I appreciate it all.
I'm
sweating my balls are hot right now, so they're sweating like a motherfucker.
KT (42:52)
All right, let's bounce.