Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzRgOGGgisI
the jurogan experience so what was the motivation to build this v8 tesla that's a good question so i let's get pull up a video of uh rich's uh youtube channel tesla got a um as i was building you know different teslas over the years a lot of the i guess the fanboys got to me after a while i mean have you have you been around like tesla fanatics like ultra fanatics that are just i try to avoid all fanatics yes in every single area every genre yes whatsoever it's just they're too crazy it's a bit much so what started happening over time was tesla kind of pulled the reins in on ordering parts for car if i want to order like a battery or a motor a battery a motor charger i can't do those things like those are restricted parts you can't do that so what that tells me is that the product that i bought the product i spent all this money on i can't i don't really own it right because they're in control of the parts for it like an iphone correct yes exactly like iphone so i said to myself you know what oh that's a funny clip that's what i actually ran out of gas there got a figure out of gas and that's actually an electric tesla bringing me gas that's a different story but um what ended up happening was it over time it got worse and worse over time it's like well well what's the what's the vin number to this car oh we don't we don't believe in selling these parts this this isn't going to work that car is a salvage car you can't do it and i said myself you know what what um what can i do to this vehicle to make it so that i can get parts easy and it's easy to service and i have full control over it i said you know what i'm a chevy fanboy i'm going to throw an ls in there throwing an ls in there that allows me to get parts literally off the shelf from autozone for tesla if i tell us a break let's just say you're in your plaid right now right and you break down the side of the road and the toaster driver says what am i going to bring you you're going to say autozone or advanced auto parts or pet boys no there isn't a single part sold for those cars there if
i break down the v8 tesla you pull me anywhere i could get pistons rods you name it lifters valves for that car literally anywhere and i have full control over it how did you make the v8 engine interface with the tesla dashboard that's a great question so all cars have what's known as an accessory mode right the drive rails aren't on and it's the engine isn't on but the accessories are on you're going to record like the screen turns on but the engine isn't on right so the tesla effectively believes it's an accessory mode right now all the windows work the headlights work the turn signals work everything works it's just that the last button to turn on the drive rails and actually start the car that's no longer there and that's what the v8 engine takes over so imagine imagining um you have your i don't know you have your porsche right your gt3 you get in that car you're sitting it right now and you do everything but turn the engine over all the accessories work the lights work the radio works everything works except for that last phase to turn the fuel pump on set the spark plugs on to turn the engine over so the tesla just thinks it's on and idle but not ready to drive really yeah and how did you rig that so the v8 so basically any tesla will do that you pull tesla out of a junkyard you could get in it sit in it make sure it's getting power and you can at least get to that step now the way the v8 takes over is v8s are probably the it's the dumbest engine alive you you give it you give it a battery to start it over and you give it fuel it's going to run so there's a separate control system for the engine itself so we have a haltech system that communicates with that so there's actually two separate systems that control the car and if one of those systems dies the car will still function if the tesla screen dies all of a sudden the tesla says you know what i had enough of this that v8 it'll still turn on and i could still go wherever i want you just won't have a speedometer and you want to have a fuel gauge well actually i will because the the separate system the hall tech system controls the the gas engine still oh so there's two independent systems that work separate
of each other so the separate system what what kind of dashboard are you looking at are you looking at the same dashboard that a regular tesla has the same so that speedometer still works too because it goes by the wheel speed sensors that speedometer still works the navigation works the bluetooth works the car works really if you were to sit in that car right now besides the the six-speed shifter you wouldn't be able to tell anything special about it so you have a six-speed manual in there six-speed manual shifter yeah if you see it right there in that video right there to the back it up a little bit you call it ice-t i see yeah yeah i like it so there's a shift there right in the middle and it's a six speed it's sequentially shifted you tap it forward and tap it back to go oh okay that's like a race car that's it right there yep what is that second gear to the left of it uh that's the engage uh reverse oh so you pull back to go in reverse wow yeah so that's the only way you could tell i mean everything else works on the screen like the door indicator buttons work the sunroof works literally everything works in that car how hard was this to do um it took a team of us it was we have a joshua our our fabricator we had to literally cut the car in half really to form the transmission tunnel because teslas are teslas are one of the few cars which are great because they were designed as evs only right right some companies will take a gas car and then throw an electric drivetrain in it and call it a day tussles were designed from the ground up to be electric vehicles what the model s was so the floor is completely flat if for rear wheel drive cars you have a drive shaft that goes from the front to the back well we couldn't put that there because the floor is flat we have to cut the car in half install the engine and then build a transmission tunnel over that drive shaft from the front all the way back also a transmission tunnel as well whoa because there's the transmission you know that sticks out like so this is all fabricated all fabrication all i mean
countless hours have gone into that so how long from the time you had this idea to the actual starting and driving about two years wow so crazy you know how it is like you you the planning stages are like yeah i'm gonna do this right yeah i'm gonna do it i should do it how much is that nah i'm not gonna do it then you i was contemplating for a while and then i said you know what i gotta commit to this let's start doing this uh hooked up with joshua he's like hey listen he actually um fun fact so he was watching one of the videos and he's just like hey like you know if you need help with fabrication stuff let me know um he used to build like nascar's like two chassis okay he says i could do stuff never seen his work before i took that v8 tesla dropped it off at his house and i said i trust you on this one and then that was it the rest was history so i would we would go there shoot video the first start video was there and we just worked on it until the end and then it's running and driving so when you cut it in half do you have to do something to ensure this the rigidity structure yeah there's there's bracing and reinforcements all over the car so is it much heavier than the original car it's about 1200 pounds light in the original car really yes because the electric engine in the battery is missing if you think about it the uh the average battery weight of a tesla is well over a thousand pounds eleven hundred pounds in some cases that makes sense there was a rear motor that uh rear motor subframe that was like 350 pounds 400 pounds then there's a front motor as well so the front motor uh after moving all that weight uh putting an engine in the transmission and ls is one of the lightest engines they make with the drivetrain we that car went from 4975 pounds to like 3 300 pounds the car weighs next to nothing now wow comparably speaking 3 000 pounds for a sedan is really light it's very light and that has the full interior of the seats it has everything
in there that's like sports car light yeah it's a light car you'd be amazed at how much you could remove a shot that's the tunnel right there that's all the bracing in the tunnel so we had to build that so that large that was the first starboard that was really fun um we had to build that tunnel all the bracing in it so it wouldn't it wouldn't fall apart so all that structural tubing going across to the car doesn't pancake itself and that's that's that's the work now when you drive this thing it obviously wasn't designed to have an engine in the front and on the transmission tunnel and all that that was a fake yoke we put we were going to put a yoke in it as a joke we ended up not doing that that's a waste of time i don't like the yolk no i don't don't like it as a steering choice it just sucks when you're trying to park and pull into places right um how much did it affect the way the car handles the car handle's great we took it on a race track so ebay motors actually were responsive by them they brought us out to a sonoma raceway and um we were just doing drone outs and burnouts around their circle track the cart it feels you know what it feels like it feels like uh almost like a what's a four-door muscle car a modern muscle car a charger charger yeah cadillac c charger srt yes it's more like a cadillac cts-v wow and it's just it's light it's fun it'll do a burnout i would think i was going like 30 miles an hour stomped on it rolling burn out until like almost 100. the thing is ridiculous it's really fun yeah it's really it's a really fun car but it's that's the thing the biggest debate was rich why are you doing this because the finished product is slower than normal tesla right i'm like that's fair enough 0-60 is not as fast it's rear-wheel drive only now it'll spin the tires until 100 no problem it's um there's no autopilot that doesn't work anymore but i'll tell you right now i took that car to a show parked it next to a plaid
the fastest and most amazing car built right now people didn't even know there was a plaid next to me people went crazy over that car and that's why it was built because of the novelty because it's the novelty it's listen that's the probably the only one that's going to get built there's no sense in making a second one because let's be real the car was expensive to make and it isn't as fast as a regular tesla it's just to show what you can do when you put your mind to it and i'll tell you man i've had offers to buy that car for ridiculous amounts of money just because of what it is you could work on it you could modify it yourself and it's the spirit of car enthusiasts are you going to sell it never never never you said never i have a big problem joe i keep every car i build i keep every car that's that represents a memory for me whether it's friends coming together for a common cause building something having all those memories i never sell them really yeah so the so the v8 test was one of them because i could see myself already that car has made so many memories for as as friends if i sell that car and i see some knucklehead driving it down the street i'll be like that's my car right i want that why are you having fun in that well especially the amount of time involved and thinking that one i get right about the engineering behind it because what's it what's it worth to someone 100 150 right 200 i mean no one's gonna pay 200 for it let's just say 150 for that car that's cool but like now what right i don't have my car back right and then you're gonna make something else anyway right true the ls what is the stock ls out of the box horsepower last i think about four four 25 or something like that and with a 3 000 pound car that's probably great it's really fun i think we did a long tube headers a few other modifications to it it's like 470 or so right now and then we're actually putting a supercharger on it another few months ooh that's going back to sema but yeah that's the thing it's like that's why i enjoy about it like you're plaid right now right let's just say
you get bored of the power right but what do you what do you do to it as a car enthusiast your porsche gt3 rs you could do a million different things to it right it shot works it's been modified already your your old muscle cars you could improve the handling the braking the power you add whatever you want if you're on a regular tesla as an enthusiast i actually got very bored of mine because the way you get it is the way it's going to stay unless you buy a plaid or you get on your knees and beg elon to release a software update to give you 30 more horsepower well there's a company called unplugged you know about them of course yeah performance brand i know them very well yeah so they will take a tesla and they will jazz it up and put wider tires and fender flares and a rear spoiler and right crazy which is cool but i want more power right when i step my foot down i want like my eyes to like go in the back of my head right and in the regular tesla you could add a little suspension stuff you want to feel great around corners but i want that power i want one of the stop light i see everyone in my review mirror so with the v8 tesla granted no it's it's nothing crazy now it's fun to drive but you know what the power of a fully built ls engine is there's no limit there's no limit you can keep going you keep going you can get you know the plat makes about i think you're probably putting out maybe 1100 horsepower now on your planet i think yeah something like that which is hilarious which is which is insane the v8 tesla you could great you only put in the power of the rear wheels but you could have 1500 2000 you name it really ls engine yes infinite power three thousand power if you want what yeah what do you have to do to do that you have to redesign the whole engine you need to build the whole thing but yeah three you can get 3000 horsepower out of an ls engine out of a v8 engine of course you can yeah oh my god yeah i didn't had no idea forge block yeah you have to do literally everything but yeah i mean you're probably gonna blow up in your face absolutely it's a ticking time
bomb but it's fun until it blows up but that's the spirit of car modification like yeah you drive it you blow it up you rebuild it and then you do it all over again you