Season 2, Episode 76 - Ian Johnson Happenings, GM and Bigger Tires? Five Star Hotline

 

 

The following transcription of The Truck Show Podcast was generated using a speech recognition software, and will contain errors. Please review the timestamp and listen to the corresponding audio for accuracy. 

Quick Link to Previous Episodes

 

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (0s):

Holman. What if I told you that the new GM trucks will not allow you to upsize your tires and recalibrate your speedo?

Sean P. Holman (9s):

What if I told you it’s not just the new trucks?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12s):

What do you mean?

Sean P. Holman (14s):

Well, that’s been a, A ongoing problem. So everything with global B, so 21 and plus light duties 23 and plus mid-size trucks and 24 plus hds are all on global B. Every one of those trucks cannot have a, a aftermarket or the dealer change your tire size to calibrate your speedo.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (36s):

So it’s one thing that we knew we couldn’t do that in the aftermarket, right? Yep. You go and get a set of twenties and put ’em on 30 fives. Yep, 30 sevens, you got a little six inch lift kit. Whatever you do, you can’t even go to the dealer and have them recalibrate your Speedo. So nope, it’s permanently

Sean P. Holman (52s):

Off. So if you want 30 fives on your hd, you’ll have to buy that GMC 2,500 HD A T four X AAV edition that I have in my driveway right now, or Z two Bison or a T four X AAV edition Colorado. It’s funny because the hummers, which are have the same architecture as far as the ECU goes has a cow for 30 sevens, but they did not put that into the rest of the lineup. And so unfortunately there is a whole lot of discussion apparently inside GM that because Global B has been locked down for security, right, with all the different modules that have more and more control over driving. So you have to think about things like Super Cruise, right?

Sean P. Holman (1m 34s):

So that’s autonomous driving. They don’t wanna throw anything off because Super Cruise is gonna be part of their upgrades in the future. They’re not even letting anybody in there. So the only company I am aware of that has cracked global B is HP tuners, but they’re focusing on the cars. So I don’t know if they even know that they’re the only ones or that This Is even something to look forward to.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 55s):

They make a lot of money off The truck market. So they’ve gotta be aware and we can get them on the phone to get their opinion. I mean I

Sean P. Holman (2m 1s):

Would be interested in finding out more. So obviously if you put on bigger tires with those trucks, Speedo error is gonna be the biggest thing. But then the trans and chassis controls aren’t optimal but generally still functional from what? From what I’ve heard. So, I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 15s):

Mean a lot of guys are doing it right now. I mean you guys are driving our own listening to us in your brand new 24 ax. But I’ll tell and you and you got 37, so hate you can do it. I hate,

Sean P. Holman (2m 23s):

I hate vehicles that you can’t calibrate the speedo. I hate gauges that are inaccurate. I hate it. One of the things I look forward to when I’m gonna be modifying a vehicle is, is there a way to make sure I can recalibrate and make sure everything on my gauges are correct Personally a no go for me. For you. For others who are like, Hey F it, I’m doing it. I don’t care if it’s four or 5% off or whatever. Well more power to you. I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 44s):

Think for me personally, over five miles an hour difference is where I start to get a little uneasy. Anything that’s a lot dude. And anything like

Sean P. Holman (2m 52s):

That, five miles an hour over a hundred thousand miles is like a a, a big difference over what reality is.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 58s):

So that’s interesting you say that. I hadn’t considered that until this very second. I had considered just speed. You’re talking about odometer.

Sean P. Holman (3m 8s):

So going from a 33 to a 37 is a 10% change. So you’re talking about six miles an hour at 60,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 15s):

But wait

Sean P. Holman (3m 16s):

A minute. So if you’re driving at 80, that’s eight miles an hour difference.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 18s):

Well, well hold on, hold on a second though. But it’s gonna read slower, which means if I go to bigger wheels and tires then stop. It’s fewer miles on my odometer. Everybody stop.

Sean P. Holman (3m 25s):

Everybody says that. Everybody says that. But it also means that you’re not doing maintenance on time. It also means that your fuel economy is off. It also means that your range is off. So everybody’s like, oh yeah, but dude, I’m totally gonna slow down the odometer. By the way, any of you who are buying one of those Chevy or GMC trucks, yeah that has 30 fives or 30 sevens not from the factory, don’t trust the mileage on it because it’s wrong. So if you’re in the market for a couple year old truck and you’re like, oh, this one looks good. Oh, the mileage are so low, a dude like Lightning didn’t care and it’s all wrong.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 55s):

So there were modules that you could get from like Hypertech and some others that would fool the body control module. Well, and you could recalibrate, but

Sean P. Holman (4m 1s):

Sort of there was, there used to be the old potential. So it, it’s gone in like the technology is as marched on. There used to be a gear that you put in your transfer case, your transmission, then it was a potentiometer that basically intercepted the Speedo signal and you had a knob, like super lift had one where you could slow it down or speed it up the the wavelength, right? And then it became the inline modules and then OBD two came and there was You know and then like on some of the Jeeps and things like some of these manufacturers are super open. Even, do you remember Cadillac Escalades used to be able to do it in the screen on the center console? I didn’t know for all the ballers who are putting big tires, like I don’t understand why they won’t do it. But again, I, I’ve heard it’s emissions and I’ve heard it’s autonomous driving are the two big ones.

Sean P. Holman (4m 42s):

And that GM didn’t think there’s enough of a need out there to do the calibration to certify a 35 or 37 inch tire on those vehicles. Except for obviously the HDS and the mid-size that come with 30 fives from the factory. It’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 54s):

Freaking BS though.

Sean P. Holman (4m 55s):

It is bs and I know SEMA ISS aware of it. I really hope somebody at GM is listening to this podcast and reaches out to us and says, Hey, help push us, let people know because I, I think it sucks that you can’t put a bigger tire on there and then have your gauges be right.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 11s):

I mean, is this, dare I say, the beginning of the end where they’re saying, well

Sean P. Holman (5m 16s):

This goes back to ados and stuff like that

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 18s):

Too. Well that’s what I’m saying. ’cause we talked about this several episodes ago when I told you that with my taser I can technically recalibrate for my 30 sevens, but if I do, it messes with my adas and deactivates my proximity sensing because it thinks that the angles on park sensing and things like that

Sean P. Holman (5m 37s):

Are wrong. Yet on my wrangler with 30 sevens, no issues whatsoever. Un

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 41s):

Understood. All I’m getting at is no, no,

Sean P. Holman (5m 42s):

No. I’m saying no. Hold on. What I’m saying is it’s still a Chrysler product. It’s still STIs product on my Jeep with steel bumpers and all that. All my parking sensors work. My forward collision warning works, my adaptive cruise works. It’s all in there on your ram for some reason. You do that and it freaks out on Chevy. You can’t even do that. And then going back to the ados, which is a advanced driver assistance systems, which is all of the driver safety systems coming back. We’ve talked about how bumpers are, are gonna be a big thing in the future and how you’re not gonna be able to have a plate steel bumper and have like all that stuff work. And

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 14s):

That’s where I’m going with this, right? Is that at what point in the next five years will you, you can’t go get a BDS lift or a Carly lift or whatever it

Sean P. Holman (6m 23s):

Like, well that’s what Seima is working on right now. They’re making sure that those things are allowed. And most manufacturers are You know The truck market’s too big for them to make it. So you can’t do any of that stuff for

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 34s):

Now. I mean, look, GM’s still,

Sean P. Holman (6m 35s):

I don’t think it’s a two or three year thing. I think it’s a 10 or 15 year thing.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 38s):

GM’s already saying you can’t change the tire size.

Sean P. Holman (6m 40s):

That’s tire size, but there’s still, you still lift it, but I mean that’s you

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 43s):

If you lift it, then you got these little marbles under there. You gotta put bigger tires under there. Well, You

Sean P. Holman (6m 46s):

Don’t have to. You should. Well that’s why you would lift it. It’s the only reason you would lift is put a bigger tire, which is the only way you get more ground clearance. So yeah, you should, that’s the, that’s the whole, that’s the whole sequence of events, right? But it’s not like if you lift it, you have to put bigger tires on. It’s gonna look dumb, but it’s, I’m just talking about the logical, how it operates, the function versus the looks. And you could still lift it and have those little itty bitty tiny tires. Are

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 12s):

You dealing with this right now? Do you have a 20 to 24 truck that you’ve put bigger wheels and tires on and you’re frustrated? Truck Show podcast at gmail dot com would like to know your thoughts.

Sean P. Holman (7m 25s):

Alright, well before we get into the show, we gotta thank our sponsors. So after that depressing news, let’s give you some good news. And that’s that Nissan has a bunch of different trucks available for you right now at their dealership lots. And you can head on over to your local Nissan dealership where you can check out the Frontier, the Titan or the Titan xd. The Titans have the industry’s best five year, 100,000 mile warranty. And the Frontier is one of our favorite midsize pickups on the market. If you wanna see what options they have and what pricing and all that good stuff, head over to Nissan usa dot com where you can build and price your Nissan truck today.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 57s):

And as we’re talking about this Holman, it reminds me that if you bought said New truck and you couldn’t read the correct speed on your speedometer, all you need is a bank’s eye dash in your eight pillar. You put in your old tire size and your new tire size and right there on the bank’s eye dash, it displays your corrected speed. What do you think of that?

Sean P. Holman (8m 19s):

I think that’s cool to have. So You know what speed you’re going. So that guy in that police pursuit charger ev behind the billboard doesn’t get you. But I still don’t like that. You can’t, you have an expensive truck and you can’t get the right information on your gauges. That sucks.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 34s):

The ID dash will display it if you care. Head over to banks power dot com and choose the ID dash that’s right for you. Either the ID dash data monster that records up to a hundred parameters at 20 samples per second. It’s the most powerful digital monitor you can buy and also serves as an engine evaluation tool if you’re upgrading your parts. But if you’re looking for the ultimate monitor for your truck, it is the bank’s ID dash. Head over to banks power dot com to find yours.

Sean P. Holman (8m 57s):

Hey Lightning, before you hit that Intro, I’ve got some good news for The Truck Show Podcast.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 2s):

Hmm. Okay, drop it on me.

Sean P. Holman (9m 4s):

We have a new sponsor.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 6s):

A new sponsor. Hold on a second. How do I not know about this?

Sean P. Holman (9m 9s):

And ’cause I’ve been working quietly behind the scenes. So if you wanna know more about them, you need to point your browser over to amsel dot com.

Recording (9m 17s):

The best news I’ve ever heard, news I’ve ever

Sean P. Holman (9m 23s):

Heard, we love our amsel. I’ve been working with them for over a decade back at the magazines, Diesel Power Challenge, all that stuff we’ve used, especially like there’s severe gear in a lot of our magazine projects where we regear diffs or do diff services, their transmission, their oil. In fact, you run their oil in your TRX, right? Zero

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 40s):

W 40 full synthetic

Sean P. Holman (9m 42s):

Signature series. Okay, so here’s the thing about signature series is there’s a very specific standard that has to be met to run in 3 92 6 4 Hemis and also in Hellcats. And they are one of very few that meet or exceed that standard. And you can use it on our engines.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 0s):

Yep. I take a case with me every time I go to the RAM dealer and I say, put this in. Don’t use whatever’s in that Mopar bottle

Sean P. Holman (10m 7s):

In, in that, in that giant vat. I’m

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 10s):

Serious that every time they’re like, they’re like Jay when I roll up editor at the dealership, he’s like, are you bringing amsel again? I go Right here, here’s the case.

Sean P. Holman (10m 17s):

Well, the other reason that This Is such a great relationship with us in Amsel and banks all one Happy family is because banks is also an amel distributor. And you guys include it as an option for first fill on Ram Air diff covers and things like that, right? Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 31s):

I mean you can get 75 W 90 or 75 1 40 a severe gear lube and it comes in those really handy pouches. The

Sean P. Holman (10m 38s):

Pouches are so much better.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 39s):

Fricking brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. So if you go to bank power dot com and you buy your Ram air diff cover, you can option up and get four or five courts depending on your application, whether it’s gm, Ford, or ram. That is super cool. Cheers. High five me.

Sean P. Holman (10m 53s):

High five. High

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 54s):

Five. Nice.

Sean P. Holman (10m 55s):

Yeah. So if you want to go to amazon dot com, you can check out all the things they offer, whether it’s an A TV, A UTV, a snowmobile, RC outboard, a four by four or truck race car.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 5s):

Do they have aerosols? They have gun oil.

Sean P. Holman (11m 7s):

You know what they have that I really love is the NLG number one and number two, a hundred percent synthetic truck chassis and equipment grease. I use that in Wheel bearings because it’s really good, super sticky and it keeps all the dust and dirt out from off-roading. And I know that somebody uses their assembly, lube and stuff, right?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 25s):

So Mike, our engine builder uses their assembly lube. But like there’s so much to say about amwell, I don’t wanna blow it all in one episode. But like to

Sean P. Holman (11m 31s):

Our listeners, Amwell supporting The, Truck, Show Podcast, we’d appreciate it if you would support them. Head over to amwell dot com and man, I’m excited to have ’em on board.

Recording (11m 40s):

The truck show. We’re gonna show you what we know. We’re gonna answer. What? The truck. Because truck Rods with The truck show. We have the lifted We have the lowered and everything in between. We’ll talk about trucks that run on diesel and the ones that run on gasoline. The truck show. The truck show. The truck show. Whoa. It’s The truck show with your hosts Lightning and Holman.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 20s):

Holman. I think it’s time to call

Sean P. Holman (12m 22s):

The hair. You should probably call the person underneath the hair

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 26s):

You’re talking about this guy. I don’t

Ian Johnson (12m 29s):

Like when the body is up really, really high on a chassis. That kind of reminds me of, I dunno if you ever saw them. They were big in like the eighties. Guys were doing like cars on four by four chassis and they just drop the car on top and weld the two cars.

Sean P. Holman (12m 41s):

So you’re saying the, the irony here is he likes his chassis low and his hair high point. What I do is

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 45s):

Exactly,

Sean P. Holman (12m 46s):

Could only be one person and Johnson. All right, let’s give him a call.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 50s):

All right.

Ian Johnson (12m 57s):

This. Is. Ian,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 59s):

Ian Lightning and Holman from The. Truck. Show Podcast. How you

Sean P. Holman (13m 2s):

Do may have heard of us once or twice before.

Ian Johnson (13m 4s):

I, I have You know, I heard you guys like trucks and stuff, so Yeah, I’ve heard of you guys.

Sean P. Holman (13m 8s):

It’s been a while since we talked to you. Dude, what’s up?

Ian Johnson (13m 11s):

Oh, not much man. Just closing up the shop for the night. Let’s get done playing trucks and,

Sean P. Holman (13m 15s):

All right, what is in the shop right now?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 17s):

Wait, wait, wait. You’re not allowed to ask him any questions till after the Intro? Okay. Oh, sorry about that. Yeah, so hang on a second. Here

Recording (13m 21s):

We go. Truck famous zero star VIP, ACE Bigwig, hot shot truck. Famous big shot, big deal. Big gun, big cheese. Heavyweight superstar truck. Famous. That’s what you’re,

Sean P. Holman (13m 37s):

Now you can answer a question. Alright, you’re looking around your shop right now. What are you looking at?

Ian Johnson (13m 43s):

So on one side I’ve got my two-door Gladiator that used to be a four door JKU that I’m finishing up an LS swap in. And then the other side has got a chassis on a fab table for my OJ Bronco Raptor. And then next to that is my bomber fab car.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 6s):

He’s just showing off. Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (14m 7s):

That was humble bragging right there. He’s just showing off. He could have been like, yeah, I got a couple projects, don’t worry about it. They’re, they’re not, they’re not that cool. And then we would’ve had to ask more questions. You think

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 14s):

There’s ever gonna be a day when we’re gonna ask that? And he’ll say, yeah, I’ve got a Lamborghini Huracan. No. And no

Sean P. Holman (14m 19s):

Never. No, no. It’ll be a LM oh oh two or something like that that he’s gotten and made Ratter.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 25s):

Do you think it’ll be some rare Italian off-road vehicle?

Sean P. Holman (14m 29s):

Well, I mean you’re talking about Lambos, there can only be one Lambo that Ian Johnson would ever be interested in. And that’s the SUV. Have

Ian Johnson (14m 35s):

You ever looked underneath the hood of one of those things? Man, they look so old school. Cool. It’s like a bunch of square tubing. It’s, they’re so weird. They’re so weird.

Sean P. Holman (14m 41s):

Yeah, they’re super weird. It looks like Mario was out welding late over the weekend or something like that. And there’s weld splatter and the cast aluminum top to the engine and the intake and the, I think doesn’t that have like the individual butterflies for the cylinders? There’s some, it is been a long time since I’ve seen one, but I can’t believe they shoehorned the V 12 in that chassis unless they just built it around that. Right. Yeah, yeah,

Ian Johnson (15m 3s):

It’s, it’s a weird thing. I imagine it was like a engine goes in then body goes on kind of scenario. For sure.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 9s):

Have you gotten into those? I follow a, a couple of YouTubers that have monkeyed with some older Ferraris and like 3 0 8, 3 20 eights, that type of thing. And they’ll You know one guy case swapped one here in Southern California and he was, he was marveling over the shoddy workmanship of the frame build. Like he just couldn’t get over how absolutely crappy the, the,

Sean P. Holman (15m 30s):

You remember, well who did we see out in the desert? That body drop stuff. We went and he had a Ferrari on the lift. Bobby

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 36s):

Sadistic Iron Works.

Sean P. Holman (15m 37s):

Yes. And he had a Ferrari up and we were marveling at how bad the welds were ourselves because it’s like you look at a Lamborghini and they’re owned by Audi and it’s robotic and it’s super clean and the chassis are, are pretty nice looking now and then you look like a Well, yeah, I’m talking about today. But still, you look at a Ferrari and you would think a Ferrari today would have that same level of craftsmanship and it doesn’t look that good on the last few Ferrari I looked at on a lift. Are you ever

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (16m 3s):

Surprised by that stuff, Ian?

Ian Johnson (16m 5s):

No. ’cause I mean everything in the eighties was trash man. I mean that’s just, that’s just normal. So I like, I was on the bench back in the eighties when GM was shipping cars that should have never have been shipped out to anybody’s, anybody. No one should have been driving ’em, but they were selling ’em anyway, so yeah. And back then everything was not very well made for sure.

Sean P. Holman (16m 24s):

I we’re spoiled now because you can’t really buy a bad vehicle today. And I mean, you could buy an annoying vehicle or you can buy a vehicle that frustrates you or, or lights on the dash flicker or have code, but You know can’t really buy one that’s gonna leave you stranded. I mean there’s a, there’s some out there, but there, generally speaking, any new vehicle you get is going to get you from point A to point B with You know without a lot of drama. Well, they’re

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (16m 47s):

Gonna have software hiccups, but they’re not gonna have like frame hiccups

Sean P. Holman (16m 50s):

25 years ago it was a crap shoot. I mean there’s all sorts of stuff you could buy that would not You know day one, day two might not start or would leave you stranded on the side of the highway. Well

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (17m 0s):

What was the one, Ian that surprised you recently? I know This Is a weird turn to take, but what vehicle did you get up on the lift and go? Well, This Is way jankier than I expected.

Ian Johnson (17m 12s):

Man, don don’t know. I I don’t play with a lot of new cars, so I kind of don’t mess around with that stuff, but I don’t, that’s a, that’s a tough one. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything new

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (17m 22s):

That’s kind of anymore. No, like I, I mean older, let’s say from sixties, seventies, eighties that you got up on the lift man, when You thought it was just everything mess.

Ian Johnson (17m 30s):

Yeah, I would say any early Bronco that you bring into the shop is just garbage. But that’s just early Broncos. That’s just a life there. That’s the length, the need.

Sean P. Holman (17m 37s):

I have been in some of the most expensive Broncos that are redone by a bespoke shop that’s well known that touches every single bolt and they still drive janky and rattly and everything moves on those things, really. And I’ve driven an, an old one with thousands and tens of thousands of miles on it and I always thought it feels like a part spin car. I mean it’s cool, but it completely feels like a part spin car. And I drove a $250,000 one and I’m like, yeah, it still feels like it rides a little bit better. And it’s, you sit up better better’s got way more power and way more power than the wheelbase should have. But it was just as janky as the original. Like everything moved while you were driving. It’s, it’s, they’re, they weren’t like, I love them as a kid.

Sean P. Holman (18m 19s):

I’m like, oh yeah, they weren’t that great. It’s yeah, one of those vehicles.

Ian Johnson (18m 23s):

You You know what that, that’s, that’s, I mean, CJ’s were the same. If you really want to see a pile of garbage, look at a Land Rover defender. Oh yeah. I mean, God Yeah, those are still, yeah, that’s just, that’s a whole bunch of bad decisions all made at once. You know. Well

Sean P. Holman (18m 36s):

They, they took the bad decisions on that one and then they, they wired it together poorly on top of it. So it’s just like, but

Ian Johnson (18m 42s):

They, and they get so much money for them, they ask and that just blows my mind. There’s people who love those trucks so much and they’re just, and they just know they’re not good and they just accept it and they just pay huge dollars for those trucks. But yeah, the def I would say the defender’s probably one of the, one of the worst ones that I’ve seen basically as a factory truck that you pull in and look at and it’s just like, it’s just not a, like, even, even just the ergonomics of it. Brits will get mad for saying this, but even the ergonomics, like you can’t turn the headlights on without rolling down the window ’cause there’s no room for like

Sean P. Holman (19m 13s):

A

Ian Johnson (19m 13s):

Manly hand between the window and the headlights switch. Maybe some tiny little British hand can fit in there, but not a handful of liberty and freedom doesn’t fit. Reminds

Sean P. Holman (19m 22s):

Me of the time I made fun of the head designer at lad rover and was blackballed from ever being on one of their drives again. Well, did you say that

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 31s):

A large American man with meat hooks for hands is ain’t gonna drive this

Sean P. Holman (19m 35s):

Truck? No, that’s the one where I said that the, the new defender had these gratuitous blind spots that were added over the, the rear windows and that the little cavity that looked like a step cavity wasn’t big enough for an actual shoe and may have been designed by designers wearing, wearing pointy shoes. And that’s where they got it. I remember that right up. That was a little, you scathing,

Ian Johnson (19m 59s):

You should have asked them how they could honestly say, I carry seven people when the backseat, like, there’s like the backseat, the bottom of the seat is touching the back of the second row seat.

Sean P. Holman (20m 10s):

So what, what the hell are you doing these days? I, I know for a while there when I was still employed by the mothership known as MotorTrend, you were doing the Four Wheeler TV show, then I kinda lost track of what you were doing once I got jettison. So I I actually, we, we haven’t talked in a while. It’s probably been don don’t know, maybe a couple years. So bring us up to speed.

Ian Johnson (20m 30s):

Well you just got like early jettison because now everyone’s been jettisoned, right? Yeah. I mean don don’t think it was, it was like four people left at MotorTrend at this point, but no, yeah, we’ve been doing Four Wheeler, we were doing Four Wheeler. I guess this’ll, it’s it’s not a hundred percent official been announced yet, but Four Wheeler has been canceled, was canceled along with everything else that MotorTrend makes in the past month. So, but they immediately, yeah, but the irony was, is they canceled the show and then immediately turned around and signed us on for another 30 minute how to four Wheel Drive show. So we got another one

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21m 5s):

Start

Ian Johnson (21m 6s):

This year. I just, we just don’t know what it’s called yet. So we’ve got like 19 names floating around right now. So Cool. when

Sean P. Holman (21m 12s):

You, when You figure it out, let us know ’cause we’ll, we’ll we’ll promote it for you. How about, yep.

Ian Johnson (21m 16s):

Yeah, so it’ll, it’ll still be on MotorTrend, it’ll still have the same, same, basically, I think it’s even the same time slot and everything. They

Sean P. Holman (21m 22s):

Just, how, how are you gonna build a complete vehicle in 30 minutes? It was already hard enough to do it in an hour. I

Ian Johnson (21m 27s):

I I never do a complete vehicle in 30 minutes. And they always do that from the beginning. That was always part of the, always part of the game with them. Yeah, they, they wanted a complete vehicle, but I always said, no, not gonna happen. So at

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21m 37s):

Some point they go to Ian, they say, we need you to build a truck for TikTok You know, like that’s 60 seconds.

Ian Johnson (21m 42s):

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That’ll be a big no, that’ll be a big no.

Sean P. Holman (21m 46s):

What else are you doing as you’re, as you’re waiting for the cameras to return to your awesome shop out there in Tennessee you get ready for, for Moab, which is coming up pretty quick.

Ian Johnson (21m 55s):

Well, the crews actually, the reason we’re at the shop late tonight, this crew was packing gear. They just laughed. So we were packing gear to go out to film our co our production company does the Onyx off-Road build Challenge. Nice. And so we’re getting ready to, to start shooting the second season of that. And so we’ll be flying to Sand Hollow, Utah Saturday to start shooting that with all the competitors and their stock vehicles in the dirt. And then I’ll come home for a couple days and then we’ll drive out to Moab. So yeah, that’s, that’s the next big move after that. Then I’ve got a road trip going through Arizona with Yukon gear and Axel called the Adventure Trek.

Ian Johnson (22m 35s):

And then, then, then we’ll start filming the new show, whatever it’s called, don Don’t know what it’s called yet, but four four something Four Wheeler four wheeling four built to four Wheel. don don’t know it’s got a new name so we call something. So that that’s, that’s the next, that’s the next month and a half in a nutshell right there.

Sean P. Holman (22m 53s):

You sound like as busy as I am, I just got back from driving the new Ford Ranger and Raptor and then I’m headed out to Moab, research Chief Safari. And then when I get back Nice. I’ll, I’m here for like a week and then I head out to Kansas City and then eventually Arkansas to go see the, the full solar eclipse. Yeah, I think

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 11s):

It’s supposed to be about Ian and not got a lot. I’m

Sean P. Holman (23m 13s):

Just saying we’re busy man. Yeah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 14s):

You, you are busy,

Ian Johnson (23m 16s):

Busy game.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 17s):

And I won’t be doing any offroading because my TRX is still missing rear glass after being broken into. Well why

Sean P. Holman (23m 23s):

Do you need rear glass go offroad?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 25s):

I mean, I don’t want it to get stolen when I park it at the hotel. I think hotel or when I’m sleeping in it or something. Wow.

Sean P. Holman (23m 31s):

You just, you just only gave yourself up there. Yeah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 33s):

I was sleep in a hotel f you guys, Ian, how’s the, how’s the theft going down there in Tennessee? Like how many trucks are getting stolen in your neck of the woods?

Ian Johnson (23m 43s):

I, I think I, I I, I’ve see you might not understand this, but in our state we have a little bit more liberal gun laws, so we don’t have those problems.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 52s):

I see. Okay. Alright.

Sean P. Holman (23m 55s):

Oh, by the way, how excited are you that in and Out is coming to Tennessee?

Ian Johnson (23m 58s):

Oh, I, my, I am excited. I don’t think that my, my waistband is excited because I’ll be going there probably on the regular, but yes. Yeah, we’ve already, we’ve been told the, we’ve been told the new first one’s gonna open in Murfreesboro. Apparently they’ve bought the land and they’re starting to build it. So yeah, we’re, we’re pretty excited. But I mean like everyone from California’s coming to Tennessee right now, we’re, it’s, it’s crazy. I’m surprised you guys aren’t here at this point.

Sean P. Holman (24m 21s):

Yeah, You know Nissan started that whole thing when they moved their headquarters there and it feels like, in fact I was, I was just out to dinner at Inn Out with our friend from Nissan, Brent Hagen and he was showing me a picture of the Nashville skyline from I think it was 10 years apart from now. Yeah, I have that. Yeah. And it’s crazy how much building there’s been. I remember the first time I went out there. So they’re out in Franklin? They’re in

Ian Johnson (24m 46s):

Franklin in Franklin area. Yeah, in Franklin.

Sean P. Holman (24m 48s):

Yep. And I remember Franklin to the airport, no big deal. It was nice, nice newer community, downtown Broadway, all that stuff’s cool. You know Hattie Bees or Prince’s Nashville Chicken, the original awesome, great, all love all that. And I had that Nashville experience. I’m like This, Is, This, Is a rad town. I freaking love it. There’s great music, there’s great food. The people are awesome and, and it’s such a, a, a gem that nobody knows about. Well, fast forward to the last time I went there and everyone knows about

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (25m 14s):

It. Took, took

Sean P. Holman (25m 15s):

Me an hour to get to the airport from Franklin and I’m going This, Is like SoCal now. And I’m sorry we did this to you, but don’t blame me ’cause I’m still here.

Ian Johnson (25m 22s):

Yeah, it’s not, it’s not as bad as as California yet ’cause we’re still tax free and we still have a whole bunch of good freedoms here. But it’s still,

Sean P. Holman (25m 29s):

Oh by the way, you’re not supposed to say that on the air because then Californians will listen and move there. So you might want, do you want us to bleep that out? I don that out

Ian Johnson (25m 36s):

Everyone don don’t play that game of don’t don’t California my Tennessee, you can California, Tennessee, my, my Tennessee all you want. As long as my house value keeps going up, I’m good.

Sean P. Holman (25m 44s):

There you go.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (25m 45s):

Ah, gotcha. I’ve

Ian Johnson (25m 45s):

Been here, I’ve been here for 20 years. I got in here when You could buy a 5,000 square foot house for a couple hundred thousand dollars. So I’m, I’m quite happy. Quite happy indeed. So it’s all good. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (25m 54s):

Let me ask you, speaking about Nashville specifically, we always talk about Nashville because it’s like the hub, right? And it’s, it’s the, the center of commerce there and it’s also the center of music. And at what point in, I think in the early two thousands, all the record labels started to move and have or open up offices there and it just became, it exploded in popularity I think what in like 2014 through 19, somewhere in there. I feel like the music scene exploded, more people moved there or they went for fun and then they moved there and then like industry followed. Or how did you see that area grow like from the insider?

Ian Johnson (26m 35s):

So yeah, I don’t think, honestly our big boom happened 2020. That’s when it, that’s when it went, went absolutely crazy. So previous to that, companies were coming and people were moving here and we, we had like a slow burn. Like it was a slow growth. I came here in 2003, so been here for 20 years. So it’s been a slow, slow growth over those 20 years. But probably in, in during COVID when everyone could work from home, they realized that they could move to tax-free state and that was when it, that was when the first big flood came and it just hasn’t stopped since then. It’s just been, it’s just been crazy. But yeah, I, in about fif 1415, we started seeing people move into the area.

Ian Johnson (27m 18s):

Like a lot of people, like people coming from outta state, there’s a lot of outta state people coming, especially to the south side of Nashville where we are down near Franklin and, and Columbia Spring Hill area. And, but yeah, 2020 it was just like drinking from a fire hose. Like everything went crazy in 2020 and it hasn’t stopped since. Wow. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (27m 34s):

Let’s go back in the garage for a second, Ian and talk us through this old school gladiator and why you’re LS swapping it.

Ian Johnson (27m 43s):

So I built a two-door gladiator, gosh, it’d be like three years ago or so now. I wanted, I wanted a two-door gladiator and I knew Jeep wasn’t gonna build one and so I found a four-door Jeep JK, chopped it in half, put a back half CAD kit on it, turned into a pickup, found the gladiator bed, put on the back and, and then I gave it to my son to take to college and it was a great little truck. It’s just You know, it’s, it’s You know how it works. They’re fun, but then they could be more fun and so it’ll make ’em more fun. Why not stab a 500 horse Ls in it and it’ll be even more fun after that. So that’s, that’s pretty much the only reason why I’m doing it. Just to just have a little bit more fun with it. Not gonna

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (28m 19s):

Lie. It sounds fun. Are you going to naturally aspirate it or leave it or are you gonna supercharge it?

Ian Johnson (28m 25s):

No, no, it doesn’t need any of that. I think, I mean, The truck is, the truck’s already good as it is and I think that if I just throw a V in it, I think that’s all it needs. I don’t think it needs a supercharge or anything like that. I’ve got, I got other cars. The way that I deal with my collection is ’cause I’m up to like 22 or 23 rigs at this

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (28m 44s):

Point

Ian Johnson (28m 45s):

And I just, I like to have like, I don’t wanna have all the same car. And then if I have some that are similar, I want ’em to have like different, either different engines or different transmissions or I want ’em to all be slightly different. So I have another vehicle that, that has a supercharger on it and so I’m like, well that one’s already supercharged so don don’t need another supercharged car type of thing. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (29m 6s):

How many tractors do you have?

Ian Johnson (29m 8s):

I’m not a tractor guy. I hate grass. I hate cutting grass. don don’t do any tractor stuff. I don’t do any of that kinda shenanigans. I am now I treat my, any of my off-road rig, like a tractor, I’ll drive it around and use it to pull out stumps, do work around the yard. But yeah, but no, no, I’m not a tractor guy. I don’t, my growing up my old man was like, we had like the best lawn in the neighborhood. Like I was like super pristine and he like was super, super proud of it to the point where like if me or my brother cut it wrong, we were like banned from cutting the grass and we were like, oh, a bummer. That’s, that’s such a, that’s such a bummer dad. So if like any type of yard work like that I absolutely hate. I just despise it. So like my lawn here is like all weeds.

Ian Johnson (29m 49s):

I look at it as if it can’t survive on its own and then don don’t

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (29m 52s):

Need it.

Sean P. Holman (29m 53s):

I don it.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (29m 55s):

It’s not a ton of overgrowth and stuff. And like miniature trees sprouting up through the,

Sean P. Holman (29m 60s):

Through the weeds.

Ian Johnson (30m 1s):

No, no I got this. No, it still gets cut. I’ve got an old dude in my neighborhood who retired and he comes down and he cuts my grass for less than it would probably cost me to put gas in a tractor to cut my grass. So he’s, he’s just, he’s an old retired guy and just loves cutting grass. So he comes down and cuts it, but he’ll always say, You know if we put a little bit of, put a little bit of this on it, we could get rid of the, that crab grass over there and that weed over there. And I said, why it’s all green, don don’t care me like it looks like a lawn to me. That’s all that matters.

Sean P. Holman (30m 31s):

His dad’s probably looking over at his lawn going, man, I thought you better than that. We’re

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (30m 36s):

Gonna find out that Ian’s sitting on a couple acres, aren’t we?

Ian Johnson (30m 39s):

The house is two acres and the shop sits on, so the house is two acres of land and that’s got You know it’s got the garage behind it, which used to be the shop. And now the the new, when we built the new studios, we bought five acres of commercial property. And so now we’ve got the shop and that. That’s awesome. That’s, that’s about 15 minutes from the house is at the drive. I I’m in a tiny little town of Mount Pleasant. It’s got two stoplights between my house and my studios and the town of Mount Pleasant has a custom guitar factory and a restaurant in it and that’s it Is there Oh and like a couple all parts store and something like that.

Sean P. Holman (31m 15s):

Is there a McDonald’s? Is there a McDonald’s?

Ian Johnson (31m 17s):

There is a, there’s actually, yes, there’s a McDonald’s and probably $7 stores. Okay. Oh

Sean P. Holman (31m 22s):

It’s no dollar store. I knew it. I know, but, but You know my rule for road tripping, right? What’s that? Okay. I don’t necessarily love McDonald’s, but McDonald’s are everywhere and so I always tell people McDonald’s don’t trust a town without one. If it’s not good enough for McDonald’s to put one of their crappy food purveying stores there, then you shouldn’t

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (31m 39s):

Be there. I don’t know because they do it just on population. So you might have a cool little town that’s fewer than 5,000 people and they just go, the town won’t support a

Sean P. Holman (31m 48s):

McDonald’s. Yeah. But if there’s a a road nearby, they’re like, they’ll come off the highway for it. I’m telling you.

Ian Johnson (31m 54s):

I I trust I can see it. What’s what’s what’s your go-to McDonald’s road trip meal? Well,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (31m 58s):

The, the,

Sean P. Holman (31m 59s):

The number, number one,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (32m 0s):

Here’s the weird part though. You and I love do wiener schnitzel but do wiener schnitzel.

Sean P. Holman (32m 5s):

Just wiener schnitzel. Now I know that has been dur for

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (32m 7s):

Years. I know that I’m saying it for Ian sake. Okay, so wiener schnitzel, as we call it, they don’t go into any high-end neighborhoods. It’s all middle class and below. And so it’s the, it’s the opposite of what you’re saying. Kind of like with with McDonald’s you’re saying McDonald’s has a minimum threshold? No, I’ll

Sean P. Holman (32m 25s):

Wiener schnitzel has you’re threshold into this. I’m saying if the town doesn’t have a McDonald’s in it don’t stop. It’s probably so bad that even McDonald’s doesn’t trust their brand there. That’s what I’m saying.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (32m 35s):

I’m saying there wiener schnitzel where if you see a wiener sch

Sean P. Holman (32m 38s):

Wiener schnitzels not nationwide. So you can’t use it. No. Can’t alert. No you can’t use wiener schnitzel as a barometer. It’s very local in this part of this region. You can only use a national chain as a barometer for where to pull over at night.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (32m 50s):

Okay. Okay, that’s fine. I’ll, I’ll step back. Let’s go back to your, the garage for a second and the other projects you’re working on again,

Ian Johnson (32m 57s):

I got a, a full tube chassis. It’s basically an OJ Bronco, so that mid eighties Bronco, but I’ve got a full fiber works fiberglass kit for it to make it look like a gen three raptor. Nice. And so I’m doing a full tube,

Sean P. Holman (33m 12s):

Full front clip and everything. Twin

Ian Johnson (33m 13s):

I beam. What’s that

Sean P. Holman (33m 14s):

Full front clip and everything?

Ian Johnson (33m 16s):

Yeah, it’s a, it’s a one piece fiberglass front end on it that makes it look like a gen crew raptor. Yeah, it’s, but it’s like, it’s like seven inches wider than a Raptor so it’s awesome. Oh that sounds rad. And then it, yeah it’s got, it’s got twin i beam trailing arm in the back triangulate four link. It’s got a 10 bolt in the back. We got, we gotta do the upper shocks, gotta lace in the floor next finish the swing set steering and then it’ll come off the fab table and get slung up underneath the body and then we’ll start working on Wheel base and the rest of the fiberglass and stuff.

Sean P. Holman (33m 46s):

I was gonna ask you, are you extending the Wheel base on it? ’cause a bronco of that generation is only about 104 and a half inches. So they’re super, super short. Yeah, I I

Ian Johnson (33m 57s):

Stretched it to 110. Oh

Sean P. Holman (33m 59s):

That’s almost perfect.

Ian Johnson (34m 0s):

The, yeah the fi the when You order the, the fiber works will do the glass. I think it’s like almost 16 inches longer. But I opted to just have just, I’ve stretched it a little bit in the front and then leave the back, pull the back out about an inch. So I think it landed around 110. It’s not the perfect Wheel base for crazy desert stuff, but it lets me still put an actual hard top on it. You know I didn’t wanna do like a full custom fiberglass hard top on the back kind of thing. So no,

Sean P. Holman (34m 28s):

I mean I think people would, it’s still

Ian Johnson (34m 29s):

A little bit longer.

Sean P. Holman (34m 30s):

I think people would say one 10 is perfect for crawling and things like that. One 10 seems to be a pretty happy place. Probably a little short for really? Yeah.

Ian Johnson (34m 38s):

This, this one, this one’s not a crawler, it’s actually only two Wheel Drive. It’s, it’s a twin I-Beam front with, so it’s only a rear Wheel drive but it’s got seven three Godzilla in it. So it’s got some

Sean P. Holman (34m 47s):

Power. Oh dude, right on Shank Casada Bilstein has a, has a white OJ style Bronco and it’s got bypass shocks at all four corners and we call it the marshmallow because it’s white body white top and it’s soft and it’s so soft and he, you You know he’s got the stock Wheel base and he’s hucking it over stuff like crazy whoops. And you’re just watching the body and you’re just going, how do you drive that thing? And he’s like, he’s the master. He loves it soft and and goopy but it’s the marshmallow.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (35m 14s):

How do you like the seven three Ian?

Ian Johnson (35m 17s):

I think it’s a great motor. I mean in all honestly it’s just a really big ls like when You start looking at, it’s a push rod V eight. So when You start playing around with it, a lot of the internals are real similar to an ls. It’s just a big cubic inch LS one really.

Sean P. Holman (35m 28s):

So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (35m 29s):

I I I wanted to ask you as a master fabricator speaking to some of our younger audience, if they wanted to get follow in the Ian Johnson footsteps, they’re never gonna get the hair, but let’s say they want, yeah, let’s say they want the chops. What would you say to aspiring fabricators? What do they need to know? Like things, do they need to know SolidWorks or they, can they get by these days without being with cardboards super computer literate? Can they still squares? Can they still do chipboard like and then do they need to intern somewhere? Do they just go out into the workforce? Like can you lend some tips?

Ian Johnson (36m 7s):

So I guess it would probably depend on what, what resources you have. So yes, I think anyone who wants to get into any type of vehicle fabrication, whether it’s in the off-road space or the hot rod space or anything, you have to be computer literate in either SolidWorks or Rhino 3D or some type used to be able to just get away with a 2D cad but you really wanna be versed in some type of 3D CAD program. I think that’s, I think that’s beneficial. And the reality is, is if you grew up in a computer generation, which any kid nowadays has, it’s not that hard to learn and it, there’s a lot of online tutorials. So if you’re looking to get into the industry and you just want to learn stuff, I would say yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s a no barrier to entry type of scenario.

Ian Johnson (36m 54s):

’cause you can sit there and you can draw stuff all day long. You don’t have to make it. So then I would say if you have the ability to, either if you have a garage or a friend’s got a garage or your parents have a garage, it’s just build something man. That’s, that’s 90% of it. I mean that’s, I think that’s a lot of people get hung up on like, oh, I, I gotta get a job at a fab shop or a this or that. But man, if you, if you can just build something and start there that that’s, that’s a good starting point. But if you don’t have the ability to do that, yeah, go to your favorite fab shop and pick up a broom and start sweeping the floor and offer to You know run and pick up parts or coffee or whatever you can or help out.

Ian Johnson (37m 37s):

And then maybe they’ll You know, help get you on a grinder. That’s gonna be your first job. If you’re, if you’re out of the gate, someone’s gonna put you on a grinder ’cause nobody wants to do it. But yeah, that, that’s probably the, the, those are different ways to get into the game.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (37m 50s):

I met a guy this morning who stopped by our shop to pick up some parts for Kiy Tech. Our friend Ryan Kiy. Did you meet him on Grindr also? I did not. Oh, that’s funny. Yeah. I like you to tie in there. Thank no I did not meet him on Grinder. He was standing outside under the flag pole and I walked over and, and we were having had a quick conversation and he was fresh outta Fab school, which is in San Bernardino, California. And a lot of guys come outta there and they do focus on fabrication and CAD SolidWorks specifically. So right outta school got the kind of an entry level position at at Kiy Tech. He’s like I wanna learn everything I can learn about off-road fabrication. And so to what kind of, to back up your point here, I just saw that in real life, like the guy’s like I want to get into it.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (38m 31s):

I’ll do whatever I have to do. So yeah. How do you feel about 3D printing both plastic and metal and companies like send, cut send where you can, you don’t necessarily have to be able to make it yourself. You can kind of create the part in 3D and send it to somebody else to be punched out with via laser or bent or whatever, more modern technologies.

Ian Johnson (38m 55s):

Yeah, well I think that that’s the kicker of it all. The, the, I mean the super high-end car building guys. So if you were to go back 10 years and look at You know the, or even further than that, go back 15 years and look at the You know it, super, super high-end sand car stuff and a lot of the super high end desert stuff. And then if you fast forward to now, now it’s into the ultra four stuff, which is where some of the best technology is right now. Is the, the beauty of where we’re at right now is, is that technology is, is attainable to everybody. Like I said, if you’re a kid and you’re sitting at home and you drop a bracket on SolidWorks, yeah you can send it out to send cut, then you used to have to like try to find a, a job shop with a plasma table to cut it for you and they’re gonna charge you for a full sheet to do it.

Ian Johnson (39m 41s):

And then you got a deal with a, what you gonna do with a four by eight sheet of three sixteens p and o plate. And I think, I think services like, like that, like send, cut, send, that’s great for the, for the hobby fabricator. ’cause you can get really, really cool stuff. And that used to be unattainable even for like a small shop. Like you had to like really getting something laser cut was, was really, really hard. Now we’ve got, I mean I have a plasma table, I have a four by eight plasma table. I know five people who have four by eight plasma tables. That’s like a normal thing to have right now. I send some of my super super high-end stuff out to get lasered at my friend’s shop in Nashville. But I mean, yeah, the, the computer technology and, and the ability to get to that technology that makes life so much easier for everybody.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (40m 25s):

So, but you would say being well-rounded is probably more beneficial. So not just knowing CNC or I’m sorry, not just knowing SolidWorks, it’s, you do need some hands on.

Ian Johnson (40m 37s):

Yeah, I mean, and the reality is, is there’s, there’s, if you spend any time with an engineer, you’ll, you’ll meet, you’ll meet guys who love drawing stuff in SolidWorks. And then if you meet someone who’s an engineer who actually builds something that’s a completely different engineer because they’ve actually tried to build what they actually drew on paper and then they realize that, oh, that doesn’t fit there, I’ll have to redesign that. So when You get that mix of somebody who’s got the, the smarts and the skills on the automation and our computer side and then they can back it up with understanding the process that that’s like that, that’s a double trap right there. ’cause then, then not only can you, can you take advantage of all the modern technology, but then you can also go ahead and You know you can actually cut it out, weld it, prep it, bid it and use it type of thing.

Ian Johnson (41m 24s):

It’s, it’s no different than like the difference between, if you look in the hot rod industry, you’ve got guys that are You know they’re, they’re basically their 3D printing almost dies that you can now, you can now 3D print a dye to punch sheet metal in small sections. So instead of spending the time of like hammer forming out a rocker panel onto something that has a complex curve and spending time with a shrinker and a stretcher and a and and hammer and dolly and English Wheel and planishing hammer and all those tools, you can just draw it or scan it, import it, print out the dye to make it, and then just punch it out on the press and away you go. And so it picks up a little bit of speed, but what happens if You know maybe the, the printer doesn’t work that day or maybe this part doesn’t fit perfectly, then, then your hands on skill comes into play to make that thing fit.

Ian Johnson (42m 13s):

Right. Alright,

Sean P. Holman (42m 14s):

I’m going to switch gears a little bit. I want to find out what you are using these days as a tow rig because you were one of the guys that bought a Nissan Titan XD with the Cummins and you love that thing. And I was wondering, do you still have that truck or are you using something else? What, what’s your favorite truck out there for for guys yanking around their projects these days?

Ian Johnson (42m 33s):

I mean, I still have mine. It’s got 260,000 miles on it. I would never, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t tell anyone to buy one because they’re not, because it’s been a bad truck. It’s been an amazing truck. Like I said, I’ve got 260,000 miles on it. I’ve had no issues. I’ve had, I’ve had the typical diesel issues. I had an EGR get clogged up, which is pretty normal. And then I had one other issue with the, those things have a a, a ban turbo. So it’s not a true compound turbo. It’s got like this weird actuator in the back and that actuator messed up and that’s pretty common on those trucks. But I, I did both those repairs and, and the truck’s great. I, my fear, the reality is, is now it’s got so many miles on it, it’s not really worth anything.

Ian Johnson (43m 17s):

So I’m just gonna drive it until it stops, stops working. But it’s been working great for You know seven years now, so I’ll just keep driving. I love that truck.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (43m 25s):

It, it may never stop like that, that engine might be a million mile engine. It’s possible. Well

Ian Johnson (43m 30s):

The beauty of the beauty of it is, is, is I know people at Cummins, so I, I can get, I can reach out if something happens. My son now works at Cummins, so he is in supply chain. So I, my only fear is when they stop supporting the engine parts wise Yeah. That’s gonna be when I, when I have to just kill it because they’re, they’re like that engine, the the base motor is still being used, the V eight, but not the on-road version of it, not the emissions compliant. Yeah. So there will probably be a time in the next four or five years when getting parts for that is gonna start to get pretty hard and I don’t think it was popular enough for the aftermarket to step in in any way.

Ian Johnson (44m 12s):

So then I’ll probably, I don’t know, I’ll toss a six seven in it and then keep going. I mean that’s, there you

Sean P. Holman (44m 17s):

Go. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (44m 18s):

Now you mentioned just that your son is at Cummins in supply chain going back, I guess a month and a half or so now with the, with the, the Cummins gate, the one point shy of $2 billion fine levied from the EPA for having defeat devices onboard. I don’t know what was it, close to 15 years cum or whatever. All six sevens. Every

Ian Johnson (44m 45s):

Ram. Every ram, yeah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (44m 47s):

All the six sevens, what was the word? But, but no one ever really said what it was. And I don’t know that the consent decree has finally has come out yet. So we don’t know the, the nuts and the bolts of what they were doing. We, we were theorizing that they weren’t adding death at higher horsepower levels commensurate to those higher horsepower levels. And so they were maybe polluting when you’re pulling trailers but not polluting at You know when they’re sitting. These are

Sean P. Holman (45m 12s):

All your surmising

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (45m 13s):

Opinions. That’s, I

Sean P. Holman (45m 14s):

Just said that, I’m just making sure

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (45m 15s):

I said we were theorizing.

Sean P. Holman (45m 16s):

I understand. I’m just, I use the word theorize. I know, I get it. Okay. Allegedly. We don’t know.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (45m 21s):

We don’t know. That’s why

Sean P. Holman (45m 22s):

I’m asking Lightning. I know. I’m just making sure that it’s clear that Lightning actually doesn’t know for sure. Don’t

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (45m 27s):

Know for sure. I’m

Sean P. Holman (45m 28s):

Just making

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (45m 28s):

Sure. Yeah, I’m saying it out loud. I don’t know. Right. So I’m curious having a son that works there, what was the inside scoop? Well,

Sean P. Holman (45m 35s):

He’s not working in engineering on admissions.

Ian Johnson (45m 38s):

Yeah. You’ll, you’ll, you’ll never, they’ll they’ll, that’s part of that whole like pay the fines, seal the contract. You’ll never hear what it was I, my gut tells me and I it, I think This, Is just the, I think they’re all gonna get hit with it. I think GM will be next with, Ford will be after that. I think they’re just going down the list. My gut would be different tune when in four Wheel drive.

Sean P. Holman (46m 4s):

Hmm. Okay. Interesting.

Ian Johnson (46m 5s):

Because that was actually what most people don’t know is every Duramax has an extra a hundred horsepower from the factory in four Wheel drive. So the, the factory, the factory Duramax diesels, they had a separate tune when You put The truck in four Wheel drive to make it more powerful to compensate for the weight of the engine. So when You were tuning a duramax back in the day for power, you could load two separate tune files into that Duramax ECU and you could have just a switch on the dash that would activate the pin that was coming from The truck to tell it that it was in four Wheel drive. And you could have like your, your super crazy hot tune and just your daily driver tune and you could just have a switch underneath the dash to turn ’em on and off.

Ian Johnson (46m 50s):

’cause you could load two discrete tune files into the ECU for the motor. So my, my gut would tell me now if, if speculating, and that’s just obviously speculating the personal opinions of Ian Johnson and that is old, a normal

Sean P. Holman (47m 5s):

This Is where we insert The Truck Show Podcast disclaimer,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47m 8s):

You just did it for us

Sean P. Holman (47m 9s):

I don, I get

Ian Johnson (47m 10s):

It. But your, your theory on towing is interesting because I had a six seven before I had my Titan, and if I Dr if I was towing with it, if I didn’t turn on the trailer brakes, which was essentially A-A-V-G-T Jake brake in that motor, or actually on the, on the six seven, it was actually a functional exhaust brake. If I didn’t turn on the, the engine braking or the tow braking, I would use less def. So you could be onto something with the towing desks game for sure.

Ian Johnson (47m 51s):

I think you could be right.

Sean P. Holman (47m 52s):

Hmm.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47m 53s):

That’s what we, we spent a lot of time talking about it and that was what most fingers were pointing to in the industry because when they do the EPA compliance test, they have a trace that they follow sitting on the dyno in a closed dyno cell, kinda like you’d find at the SEMA garage. And they would follow this trace and for the most part it would stay within, let’s call it a hundred, 150 horsepower. But as soon as you strap on a trailer and you go up to 6% grade in real life as the horsepower goes up, more def would be injected But that wasn’t represented on the EPA test when The truck was brand new going through that initial compliance regimen.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 35s):

So

Ian Johnson (48m 36s):

I still wanna sit down with somebody from the EPA and have them explain to me how it’s better for the environment for me to buy a small cardboard box with a plastic jug in it and pour that shit in my truck. And like,

Sean P. Holman (48m 49s):

You get the bell, sir.

Ian Johnson (48m 50s):

That makes, there’s no way that’s better for the environment for me to have to have a transport truck, bring a plastic jug to my local Walmart so I can then pour it in my truck and throw that jug in a landfill. There’s no way that’s better for the environment than a little bit of extra knocks coming on the tailpipe. You, you don don’t care who you can throw all the science at me. You want I I I look at it as a bigger picture than that.

Sean P. Holman (49m 13s):

Wow. Lightning has nothing.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (49m 14s):

No, I do. I do. You froze. No, no, I haven’t had too much. Wow. That’s where I couldn’t get it out. Oh. So your

Sean P. Holman (49m 18s):

Processor was overloaded for a

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (49m 20s):

Second for my, my Lightning opened his mouth. Hold on a second. My CCP was overheating. Listen,

Sean P. Holman (49m 24s):

Lightning opened his mouth as if to speak and words did not come out. That’s what that awkward silence was.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (49m 29s):

People, it’s because I didn’t know if I wanted to let him just let it linger or jump right in. Oh, it lingered. So I don don’t know. I am in this diesel industry on the day-to-Day. And I feel like we all don’t have a, an actual clue how bad NOx can be. I don’t know. I try to listen to the signs on both sides and you’re talking about a landfill issue. And then there is the Clean Air Act, which is air. So you’ve got air and land. The Clean Air Act doesn’t, those people who are really fighting for the Clean Air Act are aren’t protecting our landfills. So they don’t really care.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (50m 9s):

They care about the blue sky and NOx, which from what I understand, once it attaches to your lung tissue, it can’t be removed. It like literally you can’t scrape it out. It won’t grow out. It won’t be it, your body doesn’t push it out. It’s permanent. And NOx is what makes the skies brown over metropolitan areas and not soot. The NOx actually does. And it what’s makes, it’s what made me wheeze when I was a kid after a long day of swimming in the pool, get outta the pool and you can’t breathe. That was the NOx. Now again, I’m not saying that one is better than the other, but it’s interesting because you do have a lot of people who says like you, they go, I’m carrying this jug.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (50m 49s):

It’s gonna go in a landfill. It’s not recyclable, blah, blah blah. Then you have all these other people who are fighting for the government, the EPA, who are saying that’s who cares. You’re putting plastic that’s not gonna hurt anybody in a landfill. But what is gonna hurt people is this stuff that’s invisible in the air that all these vehicles pollute. So I’m not saying that one side is right or wrong, but they definitely have very differing ideas about which is worse for the world.

Ian Johnson (51m 16s):

My argument would go even deeper than that. I would also argue on the plastic jug. Yes. But I would say I would want to see a study that showed how many miles of transport trucks have been driven hauling DAF two locations for people to then drive to that. Like I look at it as even with daf, there is still a small amount of knocks emissions coming outta the tailpipe. So if I’m still polluting a little bit with def you, you’re still putting another truck burning six miles per gallon full of plastic jugs delivering this.

Ian Johnson (51m 56s):

It can’t be better. It, there’s no si there’s no map in the world that would make me say, yeah, I could see This Is, what? And then I’m getting worse mileage, so therefore I’m burning more fuel, which then causes them to produce more fuel. And then like I, I think, I think in the big picture, I think at the end of the day, at one point in time, someone’s gonna look back at it and say, now we’re, we need to just not worry about this anymore. We have other things that there’s other, there’s other ways to fix this problem than wearing a goo into my little death tank.

Sean P. Holman (52m 29s):

Listen, nobody can ever say from this point on that Ian Johnson is not an environmentalist and doesn’t love nature. That’s what I’m getting outta this lady.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (52m 39s):

Well,

Ian Johnson (52m 40s):

I I tell everybody all the time I say I see I don, I didn’t, when my, when my EGR plugged up in my, my Titan, everyone told me delete it. And I was like, no, I’m not gonna delete it. I I would not call myself an environmentalist if I was, I would not own vehicles. Certainly not 23 of them. But I am a good steward of the environment. I think that we do need to take care of our planet. But I think that sometimes we look at like, it’s like that old saying, you can’t see the forest from from the trees. I think we spend too much time looking at the trees instead of looking at the forest. Because at the same time you’ve got like islands in the ocean of plastic jugs. And I’ll guarantee you some of those are deaf jugs. I know they are. So yeah, there’s, there’s other games to play out there for sure.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (53m 20s):

You make some great points. Just

Ian Johnson (53m 21s):

Bring back d just bring back, just bring back DPF. Just bring back a nice nice filter that can get clogged and then cleaned. I honestly think that actually might be better.

Sean P. Holman (53m 30s):

He cook s’mores off the back end of it or hotdog or whatever

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (53m 33s):

You want. Well you say bring it back. We, we still have DPFs.

Sean P. Holman (53m 36s):

Well he’s saying just have it without the death. Well

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (53m 38s):

You, but they’re two for two different purposes. One, one collects the soot and one collects the NOx. Or one stop stops the NOx. He, he gets that. There’re different things. Yeah. Yeah. But

Sean P. Holman (53m 47s):

He doesn’t like the one. Well

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (53m 49s):

I also think that like, I I don’t think necessarily that the EPA cares how the hell Toyota, Nissan, GM Ford Ram get rid of the NOx and get rid of the hood. They don’t, they don’t care. There’s like, we’re gonna stick a probe in the tailpipe and you have to meet this level. We don’t care how you do it. And def and DPFs are all that exist to do that unless you can burn everything in the cylinder and not cause knocks. So by the way, you probably heard about the, the GM 8.3 liter, the T Ffl truck was talking about from gm. Yeah. Right. Too big. And we think it’s gonna be smaller. Wait, but the, the, the common again, theory air quotes, the theory is that the only way that they can,

Sean P. Holman (54m 33s):

Hold on, can you pause for a second? This Is the point at The Truck Show Podcast where Lightning pontificates, without having any real information, please take all of it at face value. Face value.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (54m 43s):

You and I both agreed that we think you and I both think that they are increasing the displacement so they can lower the cylinder pressure.

Sean P. Holman (54m 53s):

Do you pause one moment please. Go ahead. This Is the point of The Truck Show Podcast where Lightning continues to pontificate without knowing any real knowledge.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (55m 2s):

All right, I’ll stop. Go ahead

Sean P. Holman (55m 3s):

Sir. No, go ahead. No, no, no, no, go ahead.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (55m 4s):

You just pop my balloon. I don’t care anymore.

Sean P. Holman (55m 8s):

Have I taken the joy out of your day? Yep. I’m just gonna sit

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (55m 11s):

Back here and drink my McDonald’s Dr. Pepper.

Sean P. Holman (55m 13s):

Look how sad it is. Now Ian, I wish you were in studio with us because you would see Lightning completely, completely dejected and de Yeah, yeah.

Ian Johnson (55m 21s):

Completely deflated. I think, I think at the end of the day, I think it, what it boils down to is who are you gonna believe? Are you gonna believe the government or are we gonna believe big oil? And those are two just bad options and all, all ends of the spectrum.

Sean P. Holman (55m 35s):

Well, I vote for believing The, Truck, Show, Podcast, and whatever Lightning tells you.

Ian Johnson (55m 39s):

There we go. There

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (55m 40s):

You go. I’m not telling any that anybody to believe anything. So Ian, what is, what’s next for you? And I guess we know that the, the next series of episodes are coming soon again. Did did you have a date for those or did we not?

Ian Johnson (55m 55s):

They’ll probably come out in the fall. That’s normally when Four Wheeler used to drop. So I imagine it’ll come out August, September. That’s probably, we’ll start filming it end of April and then we usually push ’em out end of end of end of mid August and is when it’s, we would expect it to come out. So we’re still dealing with all the aftermath of the, the mass exodus at MotorTrend slash Discovery. And so once we get that all figured out, then we’ll know a little bit more for sure.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (56m 23s):

I’m gonna ask you a weird question here. Oh boy. No. This. Is. Do I need

Sean P. Holman (56m 25s):

A disclaimer on this one also? No. This. Is a good one.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (56m 27s):

Okay. Just checking. I think I like this one. You’ve been behind the camera for a long time, but I also think you’re probably a fan of some either other te television personalities or YouTubers. What YouTubers do you watch occasionally or on the regular?

Ian Johnson (56m 44s):

Man, that’s a good one. So let’s see. I would probably say on the regular I try to catch anything that my buddy Dirt Lifestyle, Nate clicks out ’cause I like his videos. He does a good job there. Wait,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (56m 59s):

Wait, wait. You said I like wait, wait, wait, wait. One one time You said Dirt Lifestyle?

Ian Johnson (57m 4s):

Yep. Dirt Lifestyle. His name’s Nate Pickle. He does, he’s that like a, he does like a lot of, lot of Overland does vehicle builds and stuff as well. But yeah, I, I always watch him and then I watch a lot of, like, I watch, I honestly will watch almost any car YouTuber, no questions asked. And then I also like to watch a lot of the like off grid people build in junk. So like the container houses. So there’s a, there’s a, a life uncontained where they’ve been building a container house in the hill countries of Texas. Love it. It’s a husband, husband and wife building that. And then another couple, which is Courtney and Casey Riley.

Ian Johnson (57m 44s):

Their channel is ambition strikes and that is, I found them ’cause they built their own truck, like a truck house camper on the back of their ram. And then spent, spent two years traveling and now they’re building a like off grid burnin shop house up in the middle of nowhere. I think they’re in Idaho now. So yeah. So that’s, that’s that, that would be on, on the top of my list there though. That would be my group right there. And then I do a lot of travel stuff. So there’s any, any type of vehicle travel. I tried to jump into that. So it was Eva Zube who’s doing, she’s actually driving her, her, believe it or not, a Land Rover defender. I’m surprised she’s that brave all the way to the arctic.

Ian Johnson (58m 24s):

The arctic circle in Finland right now. So, and then there’s a dude The truck, I think he’s truck house, I think The

Sean P. Holman (58m 31s):

Truck house. I was just gonna bring him him up ’cause he took a seven three basically pre Super duty O bs with a house, like a log cabin. He basically built on the back of that. Well,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (58m 41s):

You and I spoke to him like five years ago, didn’t we?

Sean P. Holman (58m 44s):

Well we need to have him back on because he got stuck up there for days because his fuel jelled and he’s been fun to follow along. Oh dude.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (58m 51s):

So I was on the Las Vegas strip and I see this giant, literally a truck house and he had at whatever, it’s at Truck House or Instagram and I messaged him and we got him on the show. But you’re right, it’s been many, many years. We should catch

Sean P. Holman (59m 2s):

Up with him. Yeah, we should definitely catch up with him. And then there’s also the, the other truck house guys, which are the guys that are building that big overlander camper on a A EV, prospector xl. And Dave Harrington, who’s the founder of A EV, helped them design this crazy mechanism for the house part of it to sit on.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (59m 20s):

Does it like float?

Sean P. Holman (59m 21s):

Yeah. So basically it allows it The truck and the, the living quarter to move separately so they don’t tear each other up. Hmm. And it’s really cool.

Ian Johnson (59m 28s):

Oh, that’s neat.

Sean P. Holman (59m 29s):

Oh, super Ad Truck House co I think is what theirs is. And we’ve had ’em on the show before, but they’re gonna, they’re in Reno. I think they’re gonna have me out there when they, this one gets done to go drive it. And there it’s, it’s these really beautiful carbon fiber. They even wind tunnel tested it. It’s got air curtain vents on the side of it. No Kidding, super high tech. It looks rad. So follow those guys too if you get a chance because they’ve got some really cool products coming out.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (59m 54s):

And my last question for you, Ian, is

Sean P. Holman (59m 57s):

Don’t lie, this isn’t your last

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (59m 59s):

Question. No, it is. I’ll let you finish the interview up. Is there any recent technology that kind of took your breath away? Like, wow, This Is really cool cyber truck. I wish. I doubt it. Is there anything that you said, well, This Is. Neat. Either. Either a handheld gadget, something maybe a tool. What recently in the last six months you said I can’t live without this. Was it a set of pliers that you saw on Instagram that you bought or, ’cause I just bought a s a set

Sean P. Holman (1h 0m 25s):

Of, I was wondering where that reference was coming from. Did

Ian Johnson (1h 0m 27s):

You, did you buy the, did you buy the electrical connector pliers? Four

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 0m 31s):

Pair? Not joking, four pair. Do You know? They were like, because you

Sean P. Holman (1h 0m 35s):

Got the deal where they said, they said that you can buy one for 30 bucks or you can buy 12 for $32. I’ll take 12.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 0m 42s):

So here’s what I did though. I saw the pair of pliers and I thought these are gonna be cheap Chinese junk. And then I went and bought a four pair of the, what’s the really high end? It starts with an L like Lin or something. Lyles Lyle. Okay. So we ended up buying like four or five pair of the Lyles, which are like the actual good ones. What, what’s caught your fancy?

Ian Johnson (1h 1m 2s):

See that would be, that’d be near the C top list right there. I, I bought those. I love those things. Those are crazy. I can’t believe no one thought of those things yet. So it’d be, that would be a, a recent tool that I bought when I signed. I did the same thing, saw it on Instagram and bought it immediately. And that would be, I love that Those things are so handy. I think that’s a great tool. So that’d be near the top of the list. And then maybe

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 1m 20s):

You know what You know what Ian, before you give that away You know what I saw and I bought on. So I do a lot of soldering. God only knows why don don’t know. I just dig it. I’ve been doing it since I was kid. Like anything I can, I never butt splice anything. It I have to, I do have butt connectors and stuff like that, but I’ll always use not what I heard. See what you did there. I, I will always solder when I can. And so I always see these like little things that hold each end of the wire so you can put ’em together and you can do a nice You know nice solder, but I bought those, they’re crimp connectors that you heat up with a, with a heat gun or a torch. And then the solder is supposed to be such a low temp melting solder that it, all you need is a heat gun and the solder melts and you don’t have to do with a soldering iron and they suck ass.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 2m 2s):

They don’t work. Yeah, they do. I couldn’t, I

Sean P. Holman (1h 2m 4s):

Use ’em all the time. Do you really? Yeah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 2m 5s):

The ones that I bought, like the plastic, well you don’t

Sean P. Holman (1h 2m 8s):

Buy the cheap ones,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 2m 9s):

The plastic just melts right away. No, no, no.

Sean P. Holman (1h 2m 11s):

There’s a weight, there’s a technique to do it so that the solder melts before the plastic does. Man,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 2m 15s):

I tried. Yeah.

Ian Johnson (1h 2m 15s):

And then also, yeah, I have the same, I have the, I have the actual sold stick ones. I think that’s what you’re talking about. And you have to, you have to let it cool because when I, first, first couple times I did it, I like heated it up and it melted and I was like, oh, it’s good. And then it’s supposed to be tight and I grabbed it to test it and it just pulled apart and I was like, oh it’s garbage. And then I, next time I let it cool off and then it was perfect. But see I used those on a project, but I, and then somebody sent me a message and they said don’t use them under the hood because it’ll, the heat from the engine will reactivate the solder and loosen it off. And I, I can’t see how that could happen, but I could see how it could happen if You know what I mean?

Ian Johnson (1h 2m 57s):

Yeah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 2m 57s):

Yeah. Okay. So getting back to the gat ga, another gadget you purchased.

Ian Johnson (1h 3m 1s):

Everything else is gonna be like in our, because because in my space You know I own the production company. So probably aside from the tool flyers, oh I know what it is. I just bought the world’s smallest CNC press. So it’s from Langemeier Systems. It is a full CNC press break with backstop. It’s like only 40 inches wide, four feet tall, but it’s a 20 ton press with full CNC capabilities. Wow. And it’s like five grand. So yeah, I saw a PRI I’ve been, I’ve been jonesing for CNC press break for a while, but they’re all so big and I didn’t wanna lose the floor space.

Ian Johnson (1h 3m 42s):

And then I was walking through PRI this year and I saw that thing and I stopped and talked to the guys and I test drove it for a little bit and I was like, yeah, I’ll take my money. I’ll take one. So yeah, I bought one of those and it’s, it’s got an onboard computer where you can like draw on the actual press break and then bend it. Yeah. It’s pretty trippy. I like it a lot.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 3m 60s):

Wow, okay. I thought for sure you were gonna say like a Bamboo 3D printer. ’cause those things are crushing it.

Ian Johnson (1h 4m 5s):

I haven’t jumped into the 3D printing yet. A buddy of mine is, is trying to go down that road and do some stuff and I, I, I know I probably will eventually. I just don’t know when I’m gonna get there. And I, I, I’ve talked to a bunch of people who have ’em and I think it’s just one of those things where I, I’ve probably just gotta bite the bullet. I was, for the longest time I was like anti-tech stuff. Like I, I, I didn’t get a CNC positive table forever. ’cause I kept telling myself that like, oh, I don’t build production stuff. I only build onesie twosies. I don’t need something that can reproduce multiple parts. It’s just silly. And once I got the plasma table, then I’m like all in. I use it. If if my, if this shop burned down tomorrow, I’d buy a plasma table before I bought a drill press.

Ian Johnson (1h 4m 45s):

And it just, it’s a tool I gotta have. And so now I know when I see new technology now in the back of my head, I gotta think I gotta adopt it sooner. So another another thing that I wanna get and This Is, I don’t have it ’cause it’s a hundred grand is the, the hot new thing will be a cobalt robotic welding arm. That’ll be the next big thing we put in the shop for sure. Because that’s just picking up a robot weld your junk for you. That’s just too much fun. Too much

Sean P. Holman (1h 5m 10s):

Fun. Meanwhile, I just You know picked up a Holliston HS 5 0 7 CX two red.site for my staccato C two and This Is the primary arms version, which has the A CSS Vulcan Redle on it. And it’s, it’s sick. So that’s, that’s what I, why you guys are buying like You know things off of, off of Instagram. That’s what I did. Yeah. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 5m 32s):

I bought, I bought you some stuff on Instagram. I,

Sean P. Holman (1h 5m 34s):

I’m not saying I don’t buy things off Instagram. Like right now I’m getting the, I I think, ’cause my birthday was recently, I’m getting all the fat yoga apps. The, they’re like, Hey, are you in your mid forties? Yes. And lazy. Yeah. Do do these eight exercises to to to You know, to, to burn fat. And then like I get on the ground, I’m like, all right, I’ll try that. And then I’m like, yeah, I’m done.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 5m 56s):

I’m done. Next year you’re gonna start getting all the, if you thought Viagra was good, this will make you rock hard.

Sean P. Holman (1h 6m 2s):

Okay. All right. I’m put that on the, on the Future bingo card and we’ll see if you’re right a year from now. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 6m 7s):

You know. I will be,

Sean P. Holman (1h 6m 8s):

You’ll see, you’ll see.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 6m 9s):

All right.

Ian Johnson (1h 6m 10s):

Wait till you get it. Wait till you get into your fifties and then you get the hearing aid junk mail in the mail.

Sean P. Holman (1h 6m 17s):

Yeah. Oh, well Lightning already can’t hear because of his years in in radio and they, he’s got tinnitus pretty bad. And so I just from time to time scream into the mic just to see if You know how effective that is. And I found out over the past six years of us doing this, it gets less and less effective every year.

Ian Johnson (1h 6m 36s):

That’ll happen.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 6m 37s):

Wait, you guys still talking

Ian Johnson (1h 6m 39s):

This

Sean P. Holman (1h 6m 40s):

Is this on? I can’t hear you. What?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 6m 42s):

All right. Ian Johnson. Hey

Sean P. Holman (1h 6m 44s):

Man, if

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 6m 45s):

Ian from Big Tire Garage.

Sean P. Holman (1h 6m 46s):

Yeah. I gonna say people wanna follow you and then I’m sure you’re gonna be posting whenever you can about the new show and that gets finalized, Ian at Big Tire Garage. Anywhere else you wanna send people?

Ian Johnson (1h 6m 56s):

No, that’s probably the best way, best place to find me is Big Tire Garage everywhere we go. So either Facebook, Instagram, even on the tiktoks. So yeah, we’re a little bit everywhere.

Sean P. Holman (1h 7m 6s):

All right brother. Well good to check in with you. It’s been a while and man, keep, keep swinging and, and doing cool stuff. We, we love to hear what do keep swinging? Yeah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 7m 14s):

Keep swinging. It’s

Sean P. Holman (1h 7m 15s):

Baseball season. Oh, okay. So there,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 7m 17s):

Do You know? Is he in a baseball field?

Sean P. Holman (1h 7m 19s):

I don’t know. I am. It’s baseball season.

Ian Johnson (1h 7m 22s):

I I I thought you meant, I thought you meant swinging a hammer and I was gonna be

Sean P. Holman (1h 7m 24s):

Like,

8 (1h 7m 25s):

Keep swinging a

Sean P. Holman (1h 7m 25s):

Hammer. Hey, hey Thor, keep swinging your hammer.

Ian Johnson (1h 7m 29s):

All right guys, it was good catching up. All right

Sean P. Holman (1h 7m 31s):

Brother, have a

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 7m 31s):

Good one. Thanks Ian.

Ian Johnson (1h 7m 33s):

Alright, talk soon.

Sean P. Holman (1h 7m 34s):

All right, bye.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 7m 36s):

All right. 6 5 7 2 0 5 61 0 5 is the five star hotline. Let’s check in.

8 (1h 7m 44s):

Oh come on. And part of the show called the Five Star Hotline. 6 5 7 2 5 6 1 0 5. It’s the five star hotline. Five Hotline. Hotline.

Sean P. Holman (1h 7m 58s):

Sorry I haven’t done that one in a while.

9 (1h 8m 1s):

Hey guys, Ryan just Truckin down the road going through Montana right now and I’ve been listening to some your older shows and I just have a question here on your truck deal on what’s considered a truck and you say a el is not a truck but you consider the unibody a truck. There’s like 63 port unibody, which is a truck, but then you gotta look at the EL and say it’s got more truck characteristics. Then the unibody does because it’s a body on frame, the unibody pickup is not. So the El Camino has to be considered a pickup then bus, new ball.

9 (1h 8m 44s):

There you go. The El Camino is a pickup. You guys kick butt five stars all the time and yeah buddy, have a good

Sean P. Holman (1h 8m 53s):

Five stars for you.

10 (1h 8m 55s):

Five star review. Five stars.

Sean P. Holman (1h 8m 59s):

Yeah buddy. Alright, we have to go over what is The truck. So let’s look at the El Camino. Our five pieces of information we need, it has to be three of the five is, is the drive train longitudinally mounted? Okay. Is the bed separate from the cab? Is the bed open to the world? Yes. Is it body on frame? And is it four Wheel drive or was four Wheel drive available? So this would be a longitudinally mounted drivetrain, a bed open to the world and body on frame that would make the El Camino truck.

Sean P. Holman (1h 9m 41s):

No really we are saying it’s The truck now. Well, I, I think we assumed it was a unibody, but if he, he’s accurate in saying the, the El Camino’s body on frame, then it has to be a truck. Unless the early ones are body on frame and those are trucks and the later ones are You know body. Those aren’t trucks.

11 (1h 9m 56s):

We’re sorry. The number you have dialed is not in service at this time.

Sean P. Holman (1h 9m 60s):

So that’s, that’s our confusing way of figuring out what’s The truck. I don’t like this turn of events to our listener going across Montana. Ryan, thanks for playing

9 (1h 10m 12s):

Hey guys, it’s Justin here. Thank you for playing the Coleman is what I think I just called it at the end of episode 64. It was hilarious and a good little reminder of the funny and not quite as much Suckage. You guys are great You know five stars, all that fun stuff.

Sean P. Holman (1h 10m 42s):

So when he’s talking about episode 64, right when he has another 300 under his belt, he’ll hear us playing his message. Wow. He asked for five stars,

10 (1h 10m 53s):

Five star review, five stars.

Sean P. Holman (1h 10m 56s):

But there’s not much we can do about lowering the suckage. Lower

10 (1h 10m 59s):

The

Sean P. Holman (1h 10m 59s):

Suckage. No, I think he said our suckage was low, which is a lie. But we appreciate it. It’s not getting lower than it is. No, it was definitely not at an all time peak, nor was it the worst in episode 64. You can hear it sucking still had energy back then, but we were stupider, stupider,

9 (1h 11m 17s):

Lightning and Holman. It’s rich up in Hollister. Just checking in with you guys. It’s been a while. A few fun tidbits of information. I might be building a truck for sema. There’s more to come for that. So I will share you more as share you more. I will share more as I have more info. The second thought was Sean, if you wanna make a trip to Alaska, when are we going?

Sean P. Holman (1h 11m 44s):

You pay for gas, we’ll go tomorrow. That’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 11m 46s):

Expensive. Let’s

9 (1h 11m 47s):

Figure out how to make it happen because I gotta cross it off my bucket list too. I’d be willing to invest some money into that one and maybe see if Nissan becomes the sponsor for the trip. Anyways, that just sounds awesome. Lightning, we gotta figure out a way to, to enclose your TRX You. Don’t have to see any more of this stuff about somebody attempting to murder your happiness by stealing your truck. Alright, peace out guys. Five stars as always. Love you both.

Sean P. Holman (1h 12m 17s):

Aw, thanks Rich. Congratulations. You have earned five stars.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 12m 22s):

Yeah, I would love to build a garage over my truck. Not just not possible.

Sean P. Holman (1h 12m 27s):

That’s not true.

9 (1h 12m 29s):

Lightning, I’m with Sean. Get a Remington. Five stars.

Sean P. Holman (1h 12m 36s):

Hey, nothing like an eight 70 going to scare away the bandits. Five

10 (1h 12m 41s):

Star review. Five stars.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 12m 44s):

Ah, Remington. I hadn’t considered that interesting. I was just thinking simple Glock. I know you’re not a Glock fan but A, I

Sean P. Holman (1h 12m 51s):

Hate Glocks and b Remington set up like the one in my house where it’s like birdshot, birdshot, buckshot, slug, slug, slug, slug, slug. You don’t want the third and fourth shot out of that gun

9 (1h 13m 2s):

Up. Lightning and Holman a just calling to have a quick question. I was listening to some back episodes recently and I believe it’s the 2020 review, which I know I listed many years ago. You guys are going over countries where you have the most downloads and I know you guys only did downloads anymore, which is just understandable. But I was curious. I was just in, or my wife and I rather we’re just in Barbados.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 13m 34s):

Is that humble Bragg? We were just in

Sean P. Holman (1h 13m 36s):

Barbados. We’re just in Barbados. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 13m 37s):

Yeah. So he is wondering about our downloads in various countries. Right. I got that much s a little muffled on this call, but we’ll keep going. All right. All

9 (1h 13m 43s):

Right. And when we were down there I noticed there is a ton of lifted trucks, partially because all sugar cane plantations and a lot of the, the workers on the farms drive pickup trucks so they can,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 13m 56s):

So he said there are sugar cane plantations and that is the reason they’re driving so many lifted trucks. Okay. Yes.

9 (1h 14m 2s):

In and around. Nothing big. I saw one Ram 1500, mostly like quite a high license. Volkswagen a I. don know if you consider that a truck, Mitsubishi has a little pickup truck. I’m, I was just curious if there are any listeners down in Barbados. I know when I was down there I listened to a podcast or two that I had. So I’m just curious. So if answer that question would be great. Hope you guys are well, five stars and yeah buddy. Five

10 (1h 14m 33s):

Star review. Five star.

Sean P. Holman (1h 14m 36s):

Yeah buddy. Alright, there is one download in the last 90 days in Barbados. I just checked our, our country downloads. I know we have talked about it before, but in case anybody was curious where the most downloads are or most downloads per country lighting, would you care to make a guess the most downloads? Yeah, it’s in the US and second Canada. Okay. Third Australia. Wow. All right. Fourth, somewhere in the uk, England? Nope. Oh, okay. Believe it or not India.

Sean P. Holman (1h 15m 17s):

India. And are they, are they ripping off our show and the next one, are they duplicating our show? No, because it’s on our feed. I mean they could be. There’s two guys saying everything we say in Indian. No. Taking credit for still just US New Zealand next and then the UK followed by Spain, Denmark, Germany and Sweden. Well that’s pretty cool. Kind of cool. We’re international. Love hearing you guys from around the, around the world. I was looking at some of the like oddball places that you would, we would be like, well really we’ve got listeners in China, in Kenya, Vietnam, Romania, Singapore as well as the Czech Republic, Russian Federation, Brazil, Hong Kong, Oman.

Sean P. Holman (1h 16m 2s):

I mean we are international dude, I don’t even know where Oman is. Could you point to it on a map? How about Slovenia? Sort of maybe those are the Igla people who are listening to that. That’s funny. Yeah, they’re listening to the episode. Right. Interesting. At the Igla factory or something like that. Ireland. Liberia. Cambodia’s pretty cool. We got You know we got some international wings. I think that’s kinda neat. Wow. Thank you for listening all over the world. We appreciate it. 6 5 7 2 0 5 61 0 5 is the five star hotline. Five star, five star, five star hotline,

9 (1h 16m 34s):

Lightning and whole dog. Hey, just listening to this episode with, and Jason and You know Lightning just when I thought you couldn’t get any stupider, you’d go and do something like that and totally redeem yourself. Yes. It was like a complete roll reversal in this episode. Normally Lightning is the one taking us off into random rabbit holes that have nothing to do with the story. What? This time it was Holman.

Sean P. Holman (1h 17m 6s):

Yeah. Dare you.

9 (1h 17m 7s):

We would even, she would start tell an answer and then we would give, we’d like make a right turn and then Holman saw the opportunity to like take us into another right turn. And next thing You know we’re going backwards down the road.

Sean P. Holman (1h 17m 19s):

Just remember three right turns makes a left. Okay.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 17m 22s):

No, it makes a circle.

Sean P. Holman (1h 17m 25s):

No, it makes a left. It’s just behind you.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 17m 27s):

I don’t even, what

Sean P. Holman (1h 17m 28s):

What

9 (1h 17m 28s):

Load in the wrong lane. And, and then Lightning was like, You know what? I’m gonna take it. I’m gonna turn us back around and get us back on track. Wow. Lightning, that’s an applause for you. It’s a

Sean P. Holman (1h 17m 39s):

Slow clap

9 (1h 17m 40s):

For you, us on track. Loved it. That was good guys.

Sean P. Holman (1h 17m 43s):

Wow. I appreciate the, the compliment was that our man Colby kind of sounded like Colby did it. That is, that’s super cool.

12 (1h 17m 49s):

6 5 7 2 0 5 61 0 5. That is the five star hotline. Leave us a message day or night. 6 5 7 2 0 5 6 1 0 5.

Recording (1h 17m 59s):

The truck show, The truck show, The truck show, Whoa Whoa.

Sean P. Holman (1h 18m 6s):

And don’t forget to leave us an email truck show podcast at gmail dot com or if you want to hit Lightning or myself up direct Holman at truck show podcast dot com or Lightning at truck show podcast dot com. You can find us on socials at lbc Lightning at Sean P Holman at Truck show podcast where Dave Graham is still killing it on our social. Dave Go. Dave, thank you so much. And please don’t forget to leave us a review either on the Apple Podcast app or on Spotify or apparently even on Facebook. So those reviews definitely help out the show and head over to truck show podcast dot com. We can go to our featured products tab to see who’s been on the show and get discounts on cool product or hit our event tab to see what shows are happening in your neck of the woods.

Sean P. Holman (1h 18m 51s):

And since This Is April 1st, there’s a whole bunch of stuff happening this month. Mr. Lightning, tell me about it. We got the prospectors four by four crawl 2023 in Calico, near Barstow, California. That’s April 5th through seventh. Same weekend. We also have Florida truck meet with our boy Jordan over at Orlando Speed World. April 12th through 14th is the Havasu Meltdown. 2024. That’s one I want to go to at Windsor Beach State Park. And April 17th through the 20th Bronco Super celebration East in Townsend Visitor Center, Townsend, Tennessee, April 18th to 21st East Mojave Track out at the M-D-H-C-A, the Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association in Goffs, California.

Sean P. Holman (1h 19m 31s):

Also, there’s a, there’s a discount if you want OVR Magazine through Goff’s or through the podcast. Use that discount code at Truck Show podcast for a free year access to our, our digital library from April 19th through the 21st Southeastern mini Truck nationals in Maggie Valley Fairgrounds April 19th through the 28th Jeep Beach in Daytona Beach, Florida. April 27th, there’s the event off, off-Road at the shop off-Road in League City, Texas. And that has you covered for April. So if there’s anything we forgot, send it to Lightning at truck show podcast dot com. We’ll get it added to the calendar. And we still got some great events for May, June, July, August. You guys just keep ’em coming.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 20m 10s):

There’s a lot of stuff going on.

Sean P. Holman (1h 20m 11s):

A lot of great stuff on, on our website.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 20m 14s):

A big thanks to Ian Johnson and that phenomenal hair for coming on the show. We always enjoy him as a guest. He’s, he, he’s, he’s, so here’s the thing about Ian. He’s well-spoken. He’s charming, he’s talented with his hands.

Sean P. Holman (1h 20m 27s):

Whatcha are you gonna see? He’s dreaming next.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 20m 29s):

Did

Sean P. Holman (1h 20m 30s):

Try to go out on a date with him or something. I,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 20m 31s):

I almost did. We’ll have I stopped? Just shy at

Sean P. Holman (1h 20m 33s):

That. Hey, we’ll have him back on the show when the new TV show kicks off. We can talk about that and then you can have him back. Okay. You can tell him all to yourself if you want. I’ll even leave the room. No,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 20m 41s):

I’ll share ’em with you.

Sean P. Holman (1h 20m 43s):

All right. Lighting, before we end the show, we gotta thank Nissan for making this show possible. The Truck Show Podcast is presented by Nissan purveyor of awesome truck. Whether you need a mid-size or half ton or half ton plus truck, you can head on down your local Nissan dealership and pick yourself out a nice little Nissan frontier or a big old Nissan Titan or Titan Xd. You Titans have the industry’s best warranty. Five-year. 100,000 miles. And I love that Fender audio system, the utility track with metal cleats. What truck manufacturers with metal cleats for tie downs. Only one.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 21m 12s):

Nobody.

Sean P. Holman (1h 21m 12s):

One. Nissan

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 21m 13s):

One.

Sean P. Holman (1h 21m 14s):

Exactly. And the Fender audio system. Gotta love that. So get all these great features and more and building price at Nissan usa dot com.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 21m 23s):

And if you’re upset that you can’t see the correct speed on your speedometer, it’s driving you bonkers. ’cause you put 30 fives or 30 sevens in your brand new GM truck, get a bank’s eyed dash because you can program your original tires and your new tires and it will display the corrected speed. So You know when you’re breaking the law. Isn’t that, isn’t that the main reason why you’d want to see your correct

Sean P. Holman (1h 21m 49s):

Speed? I mean, I just like to have correct information being fed to me.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 21m 52s):

And if you like correct information, all the information that your ECM broadcast will be displayed over the bank’s ID dash. And there are calculated parameters that are not available on any other gauge on the market. You wanna see boost air density, you wanna see manifold air density. How about how efficiently your supercharger or intercooler system is working? The bank’s ID dash will bring all that information to life. Head over to banks power dot com and grab one for your truck.

Sean P. Holman (1h 22m 20s):

And we want to once again, welcome AMS oil to The Truck Show Podcast. Why Synthetic oil? Well AMS oil, full synthetic lubricants deliver wear protection engine cleanliness and fuel efficiency conventional oil simply can’t match. They help your vehicles run better and last longer. Whether you need engine oil, grease, transmission fluid gear lube, remember AMS oil shields your truck with 75% more engine protection against horsepower, loss and wear than required by a leading industry standard extending the life of vital components like pistons and cams. You can find out more about AMS oil’s, synthetic lubricants, and how it could save you money in time by lasting longer than conventional oils. At ams oil dot com. Welcome

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 22m 57s):

AMS oil. Happy to have you part of The Truck Show Podcast family The Truck Show Podcast is a production of truck famous LLC. This podcast was created by Sean Holman and Jay Tillis with production elements by DJ Omar Khan. If you like what you’ve heard, please open your Apple Podcast or Spotify app and give us a five star rating. And if you’re a fan, there’s no better way to show your support than by patronizing our sponsors. Some vehicles may have been harmed during the making of this podcast.