StanceWorks Video Transcript

Foreign This is without question one of the biggest days of my entire life the first test drive of the Ferrari on track was a huge success I am beyond stoked with how this car drives it is everything that I hope that it would be whether you’re

Here just to see it rip or if you want all the details of what it took to get comfortable behind the wheel and to turn those laps I’ve got it all for you in this episode this is going to be a good one so buckle in and if you haven’t

Subscribed yet you should consider doing so it helps support the channel and we’re going to do one more test session in this car before we put it in a container and ship it across the world to Australia for the world time attack challenge later this year enjoy the

Episode this has been a long time coming two and a half years ago almost to the day I bought a 1981 308 gtbi it is without question one of the nicest cars I have owned even to this day but that did not stop us from doing what some might consider to be unthinkable

In the name of building a time attack car we ripped out the Italian V8 we cut off all four arches to install wider fenders and with that came wider wheels and tires most important though was the DraStic change in power plant we bought a four piston Racing 1 000

Horsepower capable Honda K24 to drop weight add power and increase reliability we paired the engine with a quave sequential transmission and a massive gear at turbo only to have this Snowball Effect take hold where we slowly but surely replaced every single part on this car and almost all of it has been

Custom we’ve designed our own control arms and uprights and suspension geometry as a whole to all of the systems within the car down to the wiring that makes it work the resulting car represents nearly every dollar I’ve had to my name since the project began and it represents

Nearly 5 000 hours of Labor after a number of Dino sessions to work out the drivability Kinks we took this thing around the block for the very first time last week it’s a project we’ve chronicled through 128 episodes so far and to be totally transparent there were certainly times

It felt like this project may never actually get finished but today that changes two and a half years of hard work comes together for this moment right here backing the car out of the trailer at Buttonwillow Raceway Park where we’ll be driving this car the way it was meant to be driven

For the first time ever I would be lying if I didn’t admit that this felt like one of the biggest days of my entire life so far so much has gone into this car to get to this point and for those of you that have watched every episode you know what’s gone into

This project and what it took to get here So Begins the final checklist but this time it’s not one that takes us to a car show or Fairground instead it’s one with real consequences it’s a checklist that ensures all of the time money and effort that has gone into this car keeps it in one piece while I strap myself inside to

Find out what I’ve truly built but before we actually drive the car let’s clear one thing up I want to be clear in saying this is a test session a Shakedown a run where we find out what the car needs most and what will break first

As many of you know I’m no professional I’m just a guy chasing a dream and given that there’s nothing on this car I haven’t had my hands on literally anything it could fail but I gave this project my all and built the best card that I could

So it’s time to find out what it’s actually made of however I won’t be undergoing this process alone because with me is Will dries for those of you that don’t know will is a class record holder here at Buttonwillow but more importantly will lives for the science of the setup

Like me will knows how to build a car but unlike me will knows how to make that car go fast and I don’t mean in the sense of just pushing down the loud pedal instead will knows how to take the sum of a car’s parts and make them work

Together in total Unison to turn faster and faster laps he also knows how to transition from a project that exists in the garage to one that is a functional race car to put it in its simplest terms will is fluent in the language that race cars

Speak when they ask to go faster and luckily for me he’s willing to share his experience and listen to what my car has to say so let’s start the conversation hang out onto the actual racing surface will deemed that it was critical we take a few slow laps around the paddock not

Only to bring the car up to temperature but to do our best to shake anything loose before it matters most the first goal was to bring all of our fluids up to operating temp but more important than that was to yank the wheel back and forth and to disrupt the

Car in an effort to shake anything loose that could come loose before we get out on the racing surface thankfully the process of nut and bolt checking the car before heading to the track paid off and it feels solid enough to take that first lap however unlike the track cars I’ve had

Prior to this one the Ferrari requires real safety gear not only is it fully caged and hard to get in and out of it only weighs 2 600 pounds wet with me in it on low boost it has 640 horsepower at the rear wheels and the fuel cell sits immediately behind me

This is both a fast and potentially dangerous car so we’re gonna take this seriously once I was in the car strapped in and fully geared up Will made sure I was comfortable and confident and then we fired up the Beast once more for the moment I had been waiting for Will’s assignment was for me to drive the car for two laps and bring the car back to the paddock to be clear these were two very slow relatively boring laps it wasn’t about speed or traction it was just about making sure I was comfortable in the car

As a reminder I’ve only driven this car up to about 20 miles an hour around the shop this was the car’s first chance to start stretching its legs and my first opportunity to see what that feels like there is an immense amount of stress that comes with driving a completely

Untested hand-built car for the first time so I really wanted to ease into this process and not push it rest assured though we’re gonna get there later in the episode those first two test laps though were a success the car felt good it felt connected it felt compliant it felt confident

They might be slow laps around Buttonwillow but their slow laps around button Willow in a car I built from the ground up and that felt amazing I am so stoked right now two and a half years in the making and the car works in my excitement will swooped in to

Celebrate but then reminded me to focus on both the positives and the negatives of what I had just experienced he was curious to know if I was comfortable in the car and how it felt behind the wheel going around the track I’m happy to report back that the seating position feels fantastic

The pedals feel correct and the steering wheel is pretty close although the steering ratio could use a little bit of improvement the car itself seemed happy there were no surprises it felt solid there were no shakes or shimmies it gave me the confidence to go back out on track for

Another couple of laps and start leaning on it a little bit harder one of the most promising signs though was how the car was handling the heat I was worried that we’d get out to the track and fight our cooling system endlessly it’s been through numerous revisions and it’s only had Dino Time

Under its belt so it was my assumption that the cooling system would plague the day but the CSF radiator did the trick and our coolant temps during the first session never crested 70 degrees Celsius or 160 fahrenheit that was confidence inspiring to say the least on the list of stuff that needed small

Tweaks and fixes first was our brake lights which we needed to change to pressure activation for the safety of those around us we gave the car a thorough once over for any potential leaks or drips and thankfully all we found was residual fluid from our time on the dyno

Last but not least we needed to change one of the O-rings within the HD clamps on our charge piping I had made a note that I had snagged this o-ring during installation previously and then it should be replaced to prevent any potential boost leaks but of course I forgot to do that before

Heading to the track so it was a paddock fix thankfully I brought spares with me and Will was able to tackle this in just a few minutes but given that this is the first outing of a fully hand-built car we decided to pull some stuff apart and give the

Suspension components a once over to make sure that all of the bolts were still tight ball joints are still in check and everything was ready to be leaned on even if only a little bit harder feeling good about how everything looked we put the car back together one more

Time and made sure to torque our lug nuts to 110 foot-pounds because in Will’s experience titanium nuts on steel studs can and will loosen up under track usage I put the gear on again got behind the wheel and took the car out for another two laps And this time around I gave the car Full Throttle on the streets and to say it’s fast is an understatement this thing has some serious Boogie to it I was also feeling a little bit more comfortable in the turns enough to start experiencing some lateral g-forces and

To feel what the mechanical grip of the car is actually like although to be clear I got nowhere close to the actual grip limit After my second pair of laps I came back to the paddock for one more once-over before hitting the track again for a third session this time the goal was to do five consecutive laps and really start putting heat into the tires I was feeling more comfortable in the

Car and it was time to start trusting it to do what it was built to do however it was Will’s suggestion that I trust my nose to identify if there was any impending problems it was more likely that I’d smell something going wrong before I’d hear it

Or see it and it turns out that was good advice because I came in after smelling something getting hot only to find that my foolish self forgot to remove the plastic plug from the fill port on the top of the transmission and replace it with a steel one

Fortunately this is a very minor issue we’re only talking about a few ounces of total fluid loss although it did happen to spray up and land directly on the header but no harm no foul thankfully I had this on my checklist to do and thus I

Brought the new plug with me to the track so it was just a matter of installing it and cleaning up the mess that we made while we were at it will added black duct tape to the tops of the aluminum closeout panels I put on the dashboard

Because the sun reflecting off of them made it impossible to see out of the windscreen now that the sun was high in the sky finally we installed the engine cover feeling somewhat confident we wouldn’t need to remove it in a hurry and then put together a game plan for the next session

This time we wanted to record pressures and temperatures of our new Falcon rt660s so that we could begin to dial in the alignment and extract the most traction possible out of these incredible tires because the fill plug cut things short the goal this time around again was to

Do five flying laps and to put as much heat as possible into the tires as we could [Applause] At this point in the day we had six to eight laps under our belt which is admittedly not many but I was growing in confidence in all of the systems of the car especially the brakes so I was heel toe shifting into the braking zones and braking later in later as each

Successive lap went by I was also growing in confidence the suspension wouldn’t come apart as I rode higher up under the curbs and pushed it harder through each turn according to the coolant temp the oil temp the oil pressure and the air fuel ratio the engine was happy so I was

Leaning on it harder and longer through each Strait building more and more speed overall accumulating into faster and faster laps as the day went on Oh Even still I know I’m breaking very early the braking system requires the most confidence of all blowing the braking Zone means going off track and given that we’re not even 10 laps into a test session I’m still building my confidence to rely on them at the last second [Applause] thank you each consecutive lap though was getting several seconds faster which started at three minute laps at the beginning of the day by putting around in borderline slow motion was knocking on the door of a two-minute lap and a personal best only a dozen laps in

And I’d say that was only at about half pace I was hardly asking much of the car I was still largely just finding the edge of my comfort zone it was about three laps into this session and on my 12th lap overall that I was really starting to get temperature

Into the tires and feel a sense of confidence in the seat of the car I was starting to pass others and catch the pace that I had accomplished in my E30 M3 about a year ago Foreign However it was on this lap my fastest one that disaster struck listen closely I was holding some great Pace on this lap it was going to be by far the fastest yet and I think that if I had continued it would have been no problem to set a new personal best and cross into the 159 or 158 territory before the end of the day

However something about the car was unhappy I was at the end of this lap and so I pulled into the hot pit and still let will take Tire temperatures and pressures because it’s useful data to understand what might need changing with respect to suspension and Alignment but

Once I was back in the paddock we pulled the engine cover off and took a look around trying to understand what could have gone wrong before we realized one of our HD clamps took a hike now these things have a burst pressure of over 800 PSI so we didn’t blow it off

So chances are the pin wasn’t fully engaged but because I didn’t have a spare with us it meant we couldn’t put the car back on the track we couldn’t build any boost or manifold pressure as you may guess this was a huge bummer because it was finally starting to build

Some Pace I was feeling confident in the car and going faster and faster with each successive lap but given that we couldn’t drive the car anymore we took the opportunity to analyze everything that we had accomplished so far and began putting together a list of everything we needed to change fix or modify

Will looked at the data from the aim solo and says it’s clear there’s a ton of room for improvement but more importantly this car has the potential to be crazy fast I’m leaving an immense amount of time on the table in both the braking zones and in lateral G’s through the turns so

While it might be optimistic for my personal skill level I’m setting a goal of breaking into the 40s here at button Willow someday in the future but that does mean we have a lot of development ahead of us I guess that just means we’re gonna have

To come back many many times in the future despite the fact that this day was cut short it was the most exhilarating part of the build so far and to put it simply this is the beginning of a brand new chapter while the heavy lifting may be done as

Far as fabrication there’s still a lot to do to extract everything we can out of this car and I’ve got a lot of learning to do as a driver to make this thing as fast as we possibly can so it’s time to head home make some changes make some fixes and work on

Getting ourselves back to the track as soon as possible so that this build can continue to the next step all right so it’s the next day obviously we’re back at the shop and I’m gonna ramble on for a minute here but it’s two and a half years in the making so you

Gotta listen to it or skip I don’t I don’t care whatever yesterday was one of the single best days of my entire life two and a half years of just so much work so much money so much effort all into this car all came into how yesterday was one gonna go and

I couldn’t have asked it to go any better I’m not upset whatsoever about losing our clamp and having the day cut shorter than anticipated it was still Picture Perfect the car feels so good I am so excited every bit of this feels so worth it I’m so eager to get back out on

Track again I’m gonna try to go out again next week before the car has to leave for Australia honestly I don’t even want to let the car go to Australia at this point I want to drive this thing but I can’t miss this opportunity we’ve been pushing for it we’re gonna let it

Go and it’ll come back so with all that said I’m sure some of you guys are wondering how the car feels you want to hear my thoughts on it so let’s talk about it um there’s definitely room for improvement lots of needs adjusting Lots needs working on you know so on and so

Forth there’s a ton of development that will happen here this is just the first step and I also didn’t really get a chance to start pushing the car hard unfortunately the lap that I lost my clamp on was probably going to be my fastest one so far and we were just

Getting faster and faster with each session of the day I feel really comfortable in the car everything about it feels really good so far the amount of traction is insane I can’t believe it doesn’t wheel spin at all I can’t believe that it has the amount of

Traction it does in the turns I’ve never driven anything like this it’s so far beyond my own Comfort level and experience level with how fast it can take turns and just hold it to the pavement it’s ridiculous the seating position inside feels so good I was

Comfortable I was able to heel toe uh I wasn’t hitting my elbows on the seat the steering wheel position felt really good just everything about it was right where I wanted it it felt proper it all came together I’m just I’m thrilled um driving wise I just I don’t even know

Where to begin it feels great and again I know there’s so much more work that’s going to have to go into this thing before it’s you know truly a fast car but I think I said many times over early in the build that I worried I’d get all the

Way down with this project and that it just wouldn’t feel good the car would just kind of suck like yeah it looks really neat and it’s a cool car but it’s not a good car and I can tell it it can be a great car I’m so

So thrilled with how it came out this is the best this is so sick um I don’t even know where to cook to go from here I could probably ramble for hours but I’m also speechless yesterday was incredible I hope you guys enjoyed the episode I want to give a

Special thanks again to will for making yesterday as smooth as it was I wouldn’t have been able to do it without him it would have been a disaster by comparison his experience his knowledge and his help made yesterday what it was so thank you again will for everything you are an

Asset I am so fortunate to have have made yesterday even happen so thank you and then some of you guys probably noticed that I wasn’t filming yesterday uh I brought out Anthony Pham uh he reached out on Instagram and asked if I was looking for any help filming uh he

Came out he did a beautiful job as you guys can see I’m super appreciative for his help hopefully we’ll have him on more stuff in the future and with that said I’m gonna get to fixing I want to get back out next week thanks for the support I’ll catch you guys soon