Vintage NASCAR Cars With Modern Horsepower: Aaron Brown's “Garage Shop” Custom Creations!

If they had today's resources, what would those guys would have built? There it is. We built these cars completely from scratch. This is a really neat car. It's got a kind of a cool story. We used to take care of all Daryl's cars for him. Well, we still do. We built this entire car here. Was laying on its side in a barn for the last 40 years. So, we're here at the garage shop and we're going to show you what they got going on in the new shop here. You might remember the garage shop and Aaron done some stuff together. It's been a good time. I'd like to welcome everybody to our new shop and we're go for a little walk to see some stuff. All these cars are cars that either I've worked on or restored throughout my career. This is a engineering department. This is where all these ideas start. Now, is there a reason Spencer's desk is closest to the fridge? Yes, there is. Back here is where they do all our 3D printing. These are our printers. They're Fordish 450s. Um, like this is a mockup carburetor, radio boxes and the little nacaducts for Infinity cars and we print 13 different types of materials. So, we can print NG projects, you know, pieces is uh we even print carbon fiber. And now here's where we start go into the uh parts room years ago. I bought out CNR, all the CNR race transmissions when PWR bought CNR and and then with that uh X-Track called me and cuz X-Track used to make all the internal parts for CNR transmissions, the NASCAR transmissions. So, we made a deal and I bought I bought all the remaining X-Track parts from them. So, we're the only people if you have a CNR transmission that have parts to fix them. And that's what we've been racing in our cars for a lot of years. So, when the opportunity came up to have all the parts and all the transmissions, you know, we might as well. The same thing with our rear our gear inventory. This was one of 200 engines built by Ford for NASCAR, but NASCAR banned them, so they ended up using them in drag races. A 427 Cammer. Do some googling, read about some cool history on engines. Google that one up. We did a video with Ed Pink about this, but he talked about the drag racing side. We don't we don't know much about the the original intended purpose of it cuz he never did that. Yeah. So, you know, NASCAR was like, "No, we're not playing that game." We built a roadster for Bonavville that this engine fits in. But in the meantime, we had also bought two 427 home and movie 427 engines and three Boss 302s. So before we, you know, dove off into the 427 in there, we ran the uh 427 tunnel port motor. And then right now the car is on the way home from California. It has a a Boss 302 in it. Jeff Collins built. There's 560 horsepower out of a Boss 302 motor. So we're we're going to get to that one. Uh but this is some of the complete transmissions that we have. We have enough parts and pieces to build probably 30 transmissions. 30 to 40 and still maintain the entire fleet. Only 30? Yeah. Are you sure you don't need more? You never know. I've seen the way some people drive. This thing's really cool. Yeah. What is that? This my friend Vance, I think it's a Starfire or something like that. He bought this car. that was a it's the very first turbocharged engine in America. So he has the car, you know, it's all restored and everything, but he finds this motor on the internet that was laying on its side in a barn for the last 40 years. It was terrible. I mean, he sent they sent it down the shop and it's all aluminum block. It looked like it I mean, I was like, just put that in a dumpster. Yeah. So, I called Jeff Collins and I said, "Hey, this is going to be a longterm project. It's not doesn't need done now, but you know, take this with you and tinker with it. And it took him about 6 months, but that's what he showed up. It was brand new. It's perfect. 6 months isn't really a long time in engine world either. Yeah. Wow. I mean, and that's these are unobtainable parts that he had to find. What year would this have come out of? Like 62 or 63. That's crazy. I didn't know there was a factory turbocharged car in the early 60s. Yeah. Is it have water injection? I mean, it's a really neat super neat piece. And it's all aluminum the whole thing. Sounds like some guy came home from World War II and was like, "Guys, we got to put this on a car." Yeah, we got to do something. Some airplane mechanic. Maybe one of them Tucker engineers decided they had to do something cool from the 40s. You know, the Tucker cars. And these are our spare motors. This engine right here is a brand new Ford uh C3 motor. That is a 35 cubic inch engine. Is Trans Am motor. H. So, that engine right there is one of five remaining or one of five that Ford built, all aluminum for 24 hours of Daytona. Uh, ECR, SB2s, uh, there's some F FR9s, and I think there's five or six Dodge R six motors that are all brand new. But, yeah, this is kind of our part. We're just getting moved in, so we're still sorting through, you know, kind of a lot of stuff. What's really cool about moving is I found so much stuff I forgot I had. This is our machine shop area. We got to have capabilities to do little things, you know, but any of the big stuff we'll send out. But, you know, any trim this, do that, you know, got to have capabilities to do little something something. Kind of our sheet metal fab area here, out here. And then back here is the heavy FAB area. Pretty much all quantum tables, fixtures for all the cars we build. We have, I think, over 100 ft of quantum fixturing tables. We can build anything you want as long as you want. motorcycle sidecar streamliner that we're finishing up a restoration on that's going to Bonavville. Who's driving that? I think Vance is going to give it a shot before he drives a big Streamliner. That sounds terrifying. This car here, I got this car from Ray Everham and we started restoring it. It's mine. This is Mike Stfanics Big Red 2 from 9596. And this is the car that Mike won the championship in. Won all the won all the races. It's kind of a side project, but we were real fortunate to get it when we got it that we put we hung up new front clip on it, blasted it, repowder code chassis, new body. So, we got all new suspension parts we built for it. Yeah. You know, I'd like to actually go race it. I don't want I don't want to be a garage queen. You know, they got the vintage series, which is a lot of fun. That'd be cool. For people who don't know, I don't know much about modifies, but I know Mike Stefanic is a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. Mike was like I would call I would say Mike was like the Dale Nhard of modifies. You know, he's ranks right up there. Richie Evans and you know, Jeff Bodine and all them, you know, guys. So, what's this thing back here? We can't just walk by that. This uh this is a dragon drive car that we're that will be a dragon drive car eventually. We built this entire car here uh from scratch. Uh right now this car has a seven-speed Liberty transmission in it. The noon and heavy with the single turbo. This is all the stuff we're going to run in the in the Streamliner, the 400 mph car. So we needed a smaller platform to go, you know, to test all this. You know, hauling the 38T car to see Morris to do Eddie dyno, you know, not not real productive. So, you just built a drag car for a a test sled. Yeah. So, all this everything here was built everything was built in house. Uh we're going to use this car to mainly gather data uh for the traction control, boost controls, all that different stuff. Uh have yaw sensors for parachutes. We're going to use this car as a test bed for electronics for strip. We've got over a 100 pools on it. They made 3700 horsepower up there at Steves with only like 35 lbs of boost. So, they really got some stuff figured out. Um, the Procharger just wasn't going to get it done, you know, for what we were wanting. It just wasn't controllable. And we tested it and tried it and they made good horsepower with it. And we just chose once we saw all the data, we just chose to go a different direction. The reason that we're using the single big turbo versus a twin turbo is we don't need that instant bam of power in the streamliner. You know, it needs we need to be able to control the power. And and honestly, through our race simulation models that we already wrote, we're not going to we're we're not going to need near the horsepower that this motor is capable of. We'll have it on tap so when we find something, get it better arrow. We got active arrow on that car and everything else. So, when we get it better, we'll have more on tap. But, I mean, Steve and and them guys, you know, 3,700 horsepower. Uh, runs 2500, 3,000 horsepower all day long. I mean, can't go wrong. I know he did some videos up at his place. So, if you go to over to Steve Morris engine, he has videos of this engine's package on the dyno. Huh. On the test stands and everything they built. So, do you have two of these or is this the same one that's going to go in this? Oh, okay. This is just a mockup. Of course it is. That's what you get around here. Whatever there whatever you can see, there's more that you don't see packed away somewhere else. Yeah, there's always some. Actually, this is the rear end that we're going to be putting into the pro mod. And if you notice something different about it, it's a quick change. Uh we work with Don Ferguson out California. and they had built the original hand machined the original ones, original center sections for these quick changes for the speed demon and the streamliner. And so we were just going to buy one from him. Well, he didn't want to build them anymore. So we bought the right, you know, scans. So we took his rear end, scanned it, re-engineered it with all the tolerances for CNC instead of the hand machining. Uh had Gleon make the make the ring and pinion. every all the specs were done here between uh Jeff Horton, Spencer, and uh you know, Fuzzy and them. So, they put all this together. They take this the 10-speed Liberty transmission to Indianapolis to ARC and the whole package 97% efficient. It's only losing 3%. And what's a normal number for a rear end of efficiency? I mean, not a non-ra one, probably in the 80s. You know, you'd be high, you know, like a street one. That's a massive difference. And that's horsepower, you know, especially at 450 mph. And for a garage full of some old NASCAR guys, you're doing like some aerospace level R&D in here that would rival like large corporations. Well, we surround ourselves with really good people. uh you know like Jeff Horton from SADV you know he was a big player in this project uh you know Spencer you know on on his end and you know a few other people arc and Indie Automotive Research Center when you take on a project like this thinking you can do it all on your own unless you're like Ford or Chevy or something it ain't going to happen. So you need to find people that are passionate about the project and and want to see it succeed and then those that small group people in and make it happen. This is the 88 car which is the sister to mine the 281. Uh Ralph Yates engines and this these whole cars both these cars were built in less than six months here from start to finish. You could definitely see the stock car DNA in the in the construction of this. Not just the engine, but the way you kind of did everything. These things are crazy. What's it like to drive something like this? I drove I set the record at Bonavville at 233 mph. Two-way average, you know, two two run average 233 mph. And we were 233 at the 3 mile, which is moving unsalt. It's hard to say. You don't really understand how fast you're going because other than the cones when you go past the three and you're wide open for two miles and you know you're not picking up much speed but everything's good and those cones are going by like a baseball bat trying to hit a ball. Yeah, that's the only, you know, that's the only thing you can really judge it by because everything else is so far away, you know. Is it bumpy? Do you have to do what? Steering or if you set it up right, is it good? I mean, mine I mean, if you have to steer it, you might as well stop what you're doing. You just let that dog hunt. You know, it'll kind of let it do its own thing. Just the only time you steer it is when you're getting ready to run out of the cones. Yeah. You kind of help it bat, you know, let them hunt the other way for a little bit. Sure. The the you know, 230 m an hour, you're roughly 5% wheel spin. So, that's a lot. So, 5%, you know, 230 at 15 mph. And you land speed raced the the car in front of it also. What was the I guess what was the comparison of this thing at its terminal velocity versus that the roadster? The roadster to me was that this car particular the roadsters to me were actually more comfortable than this car. This car in my opinion it has zero side force. Like it has no yaw moment in it. And if you look down if you look down the side of it, it kind of comes back like a like a like a teardrop. So it's it's like a reverse kind of wedge shape. And when you get going down through there, I spun this one out at oh two over 200. Slid for a mile and a half. Went around like eight times or something. I don't know. But the thing was with that car, it would sit there and it would just go. You could feel it like a pendulum just go back and forth and it would go and it would it would hit the yaw and then it would kind of bounce back and then it would go the other way and then it the harmonics of it it would just start hunting like that. So you're just sitting there and you can feel the whole thing. But you know this car here honestly I don't know how they drove them at Daytona and Tallaladega as fast as they did without like spinning out every three laps. I mean, they were going 200 some miles an hour back then. When you built this car or were building it, didn't Donnie Allison come to your shop and tell you he's something? Tell what did he say about I I remember that. But he said he get Donnie came up and and I had worked with Donnie Hut at the 26 car when I worked there and Donnie was always nice to me and he we were building he said Aaron he said don't do any of that speedway crap where you drop the back of this car down and you know expect it to go faster and all that stuff. Don't do that. And I'm thinking, "Yeah, okay. Whatever. Whatever. Whatever." Well, we did that. Well, the first pass I made in this car in a mile and a quarter, a standing mile and a quarter on asphalt, it went 226 mph, but it was all over the racetrack. And I was like, that was like the first car I thought I was legitimately going to destroy, but I held on to it. And so, we started raising the back of the car up and it went away. So, Donnie was right. So, you were like, "Yeah." And I called Donnie and I'm like, you know, you were right. We raised the back of the car up and it actually started driving better. So, it didn't go much faster, but it drove it wasn't terrifying. So, yeah, there was that one. We also got the Daytona over there, too. We'll get to that one. This has an FR9 in it, too, doesn't it? Yes. Yes. And we built both of these cars completely from scratch. We didn't stretch out some roached out bush chassis. You know, these these we built these cars completely from scratch. They drive good. They're just a fun car. It's just a fun car to run. But, you know, the body's all steel. I mean, we did we did everything. And everybody says, "Oh, the noses droop too far." Yeah, of course it is. If they had the opportunity to do that in 1969, don't you think they'd have done it? Yeah. Yeah, we built these these cars with the intention of what would those guys do now. Like if they had today's resources on that car, right? If they had today's resources, what would those guys would have built? There it is. That's my opinion. I feel like this right here is the epitome of what a significant portion of people wish NASCAR was today or had. Like imagine a whole series of cars that were built like this like with a modern type chassis under it but these older bodies. Well, and the ability to work on it and work hard and the ability to, you know, work with your team and and like really do something you you know I mean spec racing to me is is mundane at best. I mean that's just how I feel about it. I mean it what's the point? I'll get rental cars. the last generation of real cars. Whichever generation would be like the preoot. Yeah, that would be the four. The cool one. Yeah, everybody always says that. I don't understand that gen thing. Who made that up? You just stop it. I don't know. Right now, I'm in a 2019 Cadillac Escalade that I rented on Turo. Turo is the world's largest car sharing marketplace. You can rent any car you want, whenever you want, wherever you want. You coordinate directly with the host or the owner of the car. When I booked this Escalade, it gave me the option to message the host through the app, text them, or call them who was sitting outside their house all cleaned up, waiting for me. You go on the app, you say you're there, and it asks you to take a bunch of pictures from different angles. It shows you where to do it just to kind of show this is what it looks like before I got it. You can skip the rental counter at hundreds of airports in the United States and coordinate directly with your host through the app. Click the link in the description, download the app, and check it out. You don't have to do anything with it, but it's one of those things that's really good to have in your back pocket in case uh you might ever find a need for it. Whether it be a birthday, anniversary, or you just want to go do something different. Please help us help you bring you more awesome videos and download the Turo app just to see what they have. Just keep it in your back pocket for a rainy day. You'll never know when opportunity arises and you'll be glad it's there. Some of these are my cars. Some of these are Vanc's cars. I just got this car. We're going to thinking about running the vintage race at 24 hours of Daytona with this, which I think would be a lot of fun. That looks wild. Yeah, it's a it's a world spec racer. They Toyota made them in the '9s and so they take them all around the world. This world spec racing thing, world sports racing thing. And uh I found it and I'm like, you know, that's a that's a neat car. It's one of those things sometimes you just got to have it. You got some stuff that piques my interest back here. Yeah, we'll take a walk back there. This is another one of our vintage modifies. The truck that's a old 39. That was our first land speed vehicle. It's all steel. Went 214 miles an hour in a in a mile and a standing mile and a quarter. It holds over 30 records with a Ralph Shates FR9. I think we were the first people over in at Bonavville as street roadster to set a record in a street roadster with a Ford. It's a Ford. Put a Ford motor in it. Why would you put something slower in it? Doesn't make sense to me. So, and then this car here, this is a really neat car. It's got a kind of a cool story. We used to take care of all Daryl's cars for him, or we still do. We still do a lot of stuff for Daryl and Stevie. But Daryl had this car and he was going to give it to the MRO you you know to do whatever. And my friend Vance was like, "Well, how about if I just make a donation, you know, a goodsized donation to MRO, I'll buy the car and if the MRO ever wants to use the car, just call us and we'll let him use the car." So, they all worked it out and Vance ended up buying the car. And uh this car supposedly when Daryl retired I guess some people from juniors built it and gave it to him. It is an old junior car but we don't know don't know what the history is it or where it was or when it went or you know did it win anything. I don't know but you know that is it was given to Daryl for his…