Dino DC: The Shop Building 3000HP Supercars!

Dino DC Video Transcript

Foreign Foreign Hey welcome to a new episode today you probably joined me on the highlight of the Texas trip that we’ve had here for the last couple of days it took us about five hours to come up from Houston all the way here to Dallas but it’s a trip I

Really really needed to make because we are at T1 race development today just outside of Dallas and it’s a shop that I’ve followed through the years as they kind of established themselves as you know the go-to place for you know our hardcore R35 drag and high speed setups

Especially drag and this is actually the place I bought my ID injectors for so injector Dynamics are a sub brand of T1 they do the Bosch Motorsport injector kit all match from Bosch and basically they Supply kits that fit cars like the rb26 or Scotland GTR it’s a pleasure to

Be here I mean these guys do amazing work we just met with Tony Palo The Man Behind the operation who’s been involved in racing you know pretty pretty much through his entire you know adult day starting in high school doing Hondas and stuff and then in 2011 kind of moving

Onto the R35 scene kind of owning that let’s head inside and take a look Okay so we’re here with uh Tony and I’m just blown away by your shop like the setup is even more incredible than I thought like after following you for so many years online can you just quickly run us through you know how you started and how you progressed into what you’re

Doing today yeah so early on we were doing I was doing Honda Dragway stuff so Building engines fabrication wiring tuning whatever started this in 2005 continued doing the Honda stuff because I already had a name in that market and had people to do me

Um and but early in early on you kind of take whatever walks through the door so we’re doing some some unique stuff here and there some local stuff whatever um I was drag racing an Acura Integra in 2008 we were the first front-wheel drive street car to run an eight second pass

But an 891 and that that continued for a few more years after that and then in 2010 I bought my first GTR and I literally had no intentions of modifying it at all not even kidding I drove it home from the dealership and I was like this thing’s perfect I’m not

Going to touch it so that didn’t last that didn’t last long um but I had the GTR because I thought it was a cool car I I just wanted it to drive it uh we’re still working on Honda stuff and slowly people started asking

Do you work on GTRs I’m like I mean yeah we can you know they’re all cars right there’s things to learn and things to get familiar with but at the end of the day if you can work on one of these you can work on another one sure so GTR work

Started started coming in it didn’t take long to realize that that was a better market for business than the Honda Market was for me so we started working on GTRs in 2010 to 11 and then by 2012 we were exclusively doing the R35 platform and so we did that for about 10

Years exclusively and a lot of the cars you see here are a pretty extreme race cars that have been through many many revisions and stages along the way and um you know anybody who’s who’s worked with a shop or had a project car uh has dealt with good shops has dealt

With bad shops has been burned we have a great group of clients that are happy with the performance they get and so they keep going further and further with the GTR because that was the only platform we worked on and so just to give us an idea like

You’re you’re speaking of evolution but like when you started what were you looking at time wise and then you know how did that progress because numbers you pulled out earlier on were going to blowing me uh well when I started I don’t think anybody would run a nine

Second pass yet right with a GTR yeah and um now there our fastest one runs a six five yeah so yeah power’s gone from you know seven seven fifty eight hundred used to be a huge deal and now 3 000 plus is a huge deal that’s insane yeah

So let’s shifted a little bit um and then a couple years ago we started to get into the V10 platform with Audi R8 and Lamborghini Huracan um so we’ve been doing a lot more of those lately the GTRs that we’re working on have been pretty extreme race

Projects for the most part and um the v10s are getting there quickly have you kind of reached the plateau with the VR do you think you’re pretty much it’s getting hard yeah it’s getting hard and I mean we’re making over 3000 horsepower and they’ll do it but we’re still dealing with a crank

That was the size that barely clears in a Nissan casting block so I mean it’s not like you can just make the crank bigger sure to support more power because there’s no room for it um so the VR platform is getting hard to go further with reliably

We are working with some stuff in the future with a Elmer racing out of Finland with a five liter from scratch br38 replacement and that one being designed around its end goals hopefully we’ll we’ll have a little more reliability at the bigger power level so this is the main Workshop

And you know it always blows my mind just the amount of space that shops have in the US I’m used to you know Japanese sized workshops and this is just like a hanger basically so this is what T1 is basically known for these insane Wild drag R35 setups with turbos pretty much mounted

Right in front of the car they make a one-piece cow that basically covers up it’s one piece with the fenders the bumper and the hood so that once they pull it they have full access to the entire front end of the car so as you can see there’s a big

Charge cooler here and everything is so well fabricated and arranged and positioned it is literally a work of art you see all the sensors running in and out of the engine this is a fully fledged dry car of course roll cage and everything twin parachute

Setup I love the fact that it runs te37s front and back p275s 45 r18 race Masters absolutely incredible pretty crazy still running the stock Bilstein it’s got KW eaving with the accessibility on there for roll cage Even more up but um can you maybe like run us through what an engine set up like this will kind of Intel because it’s it’s a lot to take in and digest here so this car has gone 660 at 228 miles per hour with previous owner it is the

Identical setup as it was then but it’s gone down to 68 millimeter turbos now to run in a 68 millimeter turbo class um this starts out with a AMS Billet block we run our rotating assembly it’s 4.3 liters now there’s still Factory cast heads ported with other valve train

And whatnot intake manifold Big Turbo System we put the turbos up front this helps them get some rammer effect at high speed and these 68 millimeter turbos they’re precision 6885s they’ll make without the ram air like this we’ve seen about 72 pounds of boost

Out of them I expect 75 plus out of this one right so I’d like to see 680s or so out of this car with these turbos at this level this will be 27 2800 horsepower we go to methanol for the fuel it’s the only fuel that really has

The knock resistance for this kind of boost level in power right and transmission wise you’re still using the the get truck yep still has dr6 trans still all-wheel drive everything in the trans is upgraded but it’s still the factory working assembly yeah amazing and and if we kind of Step It Up

Over here this this usually runs bigger turbos right yeah so that car was 68 millimeter this car runs 80 millimeter turbos um for the most part the turbo and engine and transmission setup is the same between the both right um you know very small differences but the power difference between this car

And that car will be from the turbo size difference so from a 68 to an 80. this one will make a little bit over 90 pounds of boost and of course the R8 this is something that really interests me quite a lot like this is one that’s

Being put together right now but just look at that setup look at the turbo setup in the back here so this is uh good for 2 200 or 2 300 horsepower complete package so that includes the engine the transmission modifications everything needed for the complete conversion one

Thing that really impressed me is that they’re still running the stock coils apparently there’s no issue with the stock coils which blows my mind yeah I can even imagine what this might feel like out on the street again look just look how well everything is arranged

From the k n filter into the massive turbos and back down into this treated exhaust Outlet the one outside actually had two outlets next to the number plate one that’s being worked on right now so it’s missing the transaxle and the Turbo setup over here some Billet end caps with the intercoolers

And as we kind of transition towards the new platform here so you have a great example here on the silver car yeah so we started off doing these with the factory engine and pushing the stock engine further and further we’re at a point where our stock engine packages

Will make 14 to 1500 horsepower pretty reliably and then once you step it up and build the motor and trans that’s what this car is here this one will make 22 to 2300 horsepower and this car as it sits here right now with street legal tires and all the interior and the ace

You know nothing’s removed for weight uh we’ll run a mid seven second pass at about 200 miles an hour in the quarter that’s absolutely insane and you basically keep it stuck looking I mean you don’t really fiddle around with the overall design on the car yeah

You know it’s up to the customer what they want cosmetically but the reality is uh wheels are all these things need yeah so and yeah it’s um it’s got impact that’s for sure it’s almost a Pity to kind of hide it away with the bumper I know it’s a shame once

You put the bumper on you put all the panels on you know you can see the intake manifold the side panels cover anything that’s going on there so you see the intake and about this much of the inner core yeah that’s why you see so many people running around with the bumpers off Thank you Foreign Side of things this is one of their customer cars this is a Huracan sto that they’re doing a twin turbo conversion on of course this being rear wheel drive only they’ve actually gone for a smaller turbo setup so in the 1200 horsepower range as Tony was telling me which is still

A lot of power for a rear-wheel drive car so incredible like that you know they’re doing these sort of conversions to special versions like the sto and the customers actually request this stuff absolutely incredible and the the color on this thing this is a stock blue but it’s got this really

Incredible depth to it kind of like a candy blue and here’s another R8 that’s being worked on it’s a race VR 38 and a more Street Tuned setup for this 35 here on Advan RGS interesting carbon rear wing here so yeah but uh I think uh 1200 you were saying for this

One so you can actually see the the one piece front cowl that has come off the dry car over there of course very light and it has the cutouts here for the side exit exhaust and the next foot is another crazy customer drag car this is actually without turbos right now

They’re waiting for the new set to arrive but you can you can see here and there where they bolt on kind of similar setup to that one over there where it has the charge cooler here you fill it up with ice and you can see how the manifolds extend into the wastegate

And then power the tourism in there just dumps into the exhaust so the exhaust on this one actually come out through the the hood this is the motec PDM up there put all these cars run a motec M1 system and t37s for this one too the cells

And one really cool thing is so Tony actually collaborated with the designer that designed the original stock GTR rear wing and created a passive active Arrow so it’s a passive system in that drag basically pushes the wing down I’m not going to try and do that now but basically it’s creating

As much down for it as possible as the car gets into about what second third gear and then kind of uh rakes up or breaks down to allow for Less drag and all the power to be Unleashed here’s another sick R35 build love these cars in red and this

Particular one is actually from Hawaii on actual drag tires Mickey Thompson’s another R35 here so this is actually owned by the wife of the guy that owns this one here and this is running the same passive system here for the spoiler only four have been made and over here

And work on Evo with an insane turbo setup oh man that is unbelievably cool so massive Garrett turbos turbo smart external wastegates that dump into the really short pipe that you call an exhaust I guess this must sound absolutely insane so of course with all these kits all

These turbo kits the package includes the engine the bottom end all the work needed for the engine of course the the rebuilt transmission and all the clutch packs so you know you’re getting something extremely reliable all right we’ll take a step into the next Workshop up here so this is where their Mainline

Hub Dyno is set up so he’s playing around with it the car actually runs aftermarket turbos and he’s just getting things dialed in and he actually was doing a power check today and he’s left the number here so we can actually see the result so this managed a

996.4 horsepower to the hubs past 627 pound speed that would be fun considering the car is rear wheel drive that’s going to be a handful it makes little sense and uh there’s another cool car you have in there can you maybe talk us through the McLaren

That you have on the diner yeah so occasionally we have a client that has another car that they want to do some some light modifications on at the level that we are with the GTR you have to know a lot about the platform and the engine and transmission and you know to

Be able to provide a product on that level that doesn’t fall apart uh this car client bought it with upgraded turbos on it and just some bolt-on so intake and exhaust we work with M Engineering on the tuning it’s got a flex fuel setup that we’re about to

Release that we developed on this car and this car made 986 at The Wheels on the stock engine on race gas we did a 93 octane tune a race gas tune and then we’re gonna do an ethanol tune the ethanol tune will be limited to a little

Bit less power than that but the primary goal for this is road racing and he wants the benefits of it running cooler on the ethanol so he’s not going to need that much power if he wants it he can put the race gas in and turn it up to

That map but it’ll probably make a 5900 on the ethanol map and run cooler and be plenty safe on the road course you use a motec system on this as well no this one’s a factory ECU Factory so M Engineering out of so they’re able to

Get in there yeah and then there’s this idea so yeah we didn’t I didn’t you didn’t see that one this is George’s other car okay so this one is basically an identical engine and turbo setup to that one yeah except this one’s rear wheel drive with a th400 automatic transmission in it

Full tube chassis and a very large Tire oh yeah there’s the transmission so this is a I had to learn a lot with this one being an import guy my whole life I’ve never raced something with an automatic transmission if you look at any Pro Mod almost all of them are

Running this type of transmission but I have no tuning experience with it and there’s a lot going on in there different from you know automatics of the old days with dump Valves and all these things to manipulate uh fluid and pressure to the converter so we had some

Issues early on with this one that something wasn’t working right but I didn’t know that it wasn’t right I thought that’s just how they were so we were chasing the problem incorrectly finally figured out what was going on fixed that and now the car acts completely different so I don’t have any

It’s gone 683 at 223 the first time we took it out and it had a lot less power than but this thing should be very very low sixes or high fives once we get that sorted That a ton of fun over here is where they do alignments so including as Tony was explaining basically when you drop the engine and the whole subframe and the 35 you need to realign stuff once it goes back in so they’ve gone ahead and invested in that

Entire setup so they can do everything in-house right here is another insane drag cars so this would be a six second car incredible Knight’s Terror so this has proper drag transmission this is in all effect a pipe frame car built for one thing only a quarter mile I love kind of having a

Look around all the engine blocks and heads and got even a twin turbo kit down here and so many wheels and tires and over here is the external storage so this is where some other customer cars are stored while either the engine is out being worked on or you know

People are awaiting parts or maybe cars come from other areas of the country tons and tons of tires up there wheels and tires another R8 one up there as well and Lamborghini Huracan so yeah this particular Huracan of course has the engine out waiting for parts so it’s currently sitting here

See the tires that it runs as I was being told like even with a 2200 horsepower setup they drive like stock and of course they’re a bit louder a bit kind of like you can feel it through you know the chassis that it has a lot more power but they’re really reliable and

Totally usable I’m really surprised nobody’s doing this kind of stuff in Japan yet mind you Texas does have the space and this is the fabrication area where the stuff gets welded up there are two workbenches here and stuff gets prepared as it’s needed with the various builds going on

Any given day so with the T1 being one of the biggest uh motec distributors in the world it’s no surprise seeing so many of the ecu’s ready to be installed into you know the Huracan as the name suggests here so this is basically the Plug and Play unit that motec has

Developed through the uracon of course motec does all their systems for the trophail as well so um they know these cars inside out and therefore are able to create these amazing packages that allow tuners like T1 to control everything and anything in the car to maximize performance and control

So of course there’s always plenty of trophies and Tony was saying how the tx2k event actually um has to get moved because they closed one of the venues I believe in in Texas and a story from d-sport 2009 Nissan GTR so this is from 2013. 10 years ago already

2160. this is where all the wiring is gets taken care of you can see like random sensors and a little wiring looms being created and it’s funny after looking at all these all the big turbos on everything and then we come over here to this and they look like little toys

But there’s a reason for that that’s yeah so this one is built just for road racing so being rear wheel drive we don’t know how much power it’ll ultimately be able to take but 600 was it wasn’t enough so putting our base turbo kit on this one

Um we’ll turn it up to 12 or 1300 and have that available yeah and then we’ll see what it takes on the track the the way the the power management is on these with the motec uh it’s all torque based and so we can limit torque in each gear

Which at the end of the day your whatever your reason for limiting power is whether it’s strength of the engine strength of the gearbox or traction it all boils down to torque not horsepower right so your typical torque curves comes up and it’s going to fall down

Well if if you could take this part then you could take it up here too and if you keep torque flat you’ll make a lot more horsepower yeah so the way the torque management works on these it really helps optimize acceleration so I think we’ll be able to make it work really

Good on a road course and is there any difference to the transmission from a four-wheel drive to a two-wheel drive uh there’s a couple pieces that are missing right to drive the front but no it’s the the same gear ratio the same clutch all that stuff so go ahead yeah

Cool well thank you for showing us this insane setup you’re getting me really interested in these Audis and the whole V10 setup you really get to see the size of the turbo there so these this one is uh g42 1200 so it’s a 73 millimeter compressor inducer and

Then our smaller kit is uh 68 with Zona turbos this would be good for how much power 2300 2300 so it’s the same as the yep the silver car yep amazing so there you have it I am over the moon that I got to visit T1 development I

Mean it’s it’s been a shop that I’ve followed for so long and just seeing how they push the VR to pretty much stratospheric limits and seeing them move into the R8 V10 the platform it’s just really cool to see that there’s a progression there you know we don’t

Really know how the whole GTR world is going to evolve with a new car if that’s even coming or not but you know to hear that they’re actually pushing the whole GTR VR setup with a 5 liter setup coming from Finland that’s going to boost the whole you know potential speed of these

Cars even further and then seeing them diversify and do v10s absolutely incredible it’s really an eye-opener to see how power is uh approached here in the states especially here in Texas where there’s so much space big thanks to Tony and his team for allowing us to

Just you know roam free around the shops and around the customer cars and taking a look at everything in detail so really really uh happy I came to visit I hope you enjoyed this really special tour check that soon for more there’ll be more stuff from Japan coming up soon Thank you foreign