- [Matt] Welcome to Modified, where I, Matt Powers
and this guy, Geoff Stoneback,
travel across the country to visit the hotbeds
of the tuner culture.
At each place,
we're going to check out the local car scene,
source some cars from the area
and enter into the competition, if they let us.
- [Geoff] On each episode this season,
we'll be checking with super street Sam Du,
to see our project Civic comes together.
(upbeat techno music)
(car screeches)
(car engines growl)
- [Matt] On this episode of Modified,
we're at Gridlife Midwest for a wild automotive experience
that's packed with fans, music and of course,
fast cars. (car engine growls)
Today, we're in South Haven, Michigan at Gingerman Raceway,
checking out all that Gridlife 2017 has to offer.
At 2013, this amazing event was founded right here
as a grassroots festival based around time attack,
cannon drifting, and music.
Over the years, it's grown into a huge event
with big sponsors, crazy fast cars
and some of the loudest names in today's music industry.
After taking a look at the Gridlife Event scene,
we'll meet up with Will Au-Yeung Young and Savannah Little
to check out the cars we'll be competing in
for our time attack challenge later this episode.
I've never been to Gridlife,
but I've heard a ton about it and I'm looking forward
to seeing all the cars and people who show up.
Like any event, you got to start by just walkin' around.
So this is Rob Chair Slayer's car.
Dude is like such an inspiration for so many people,
awesome that he's out here.
He built this car by himself.
Yeah, this car is awesome, super fast, super charged LS.
You can see the car is hand-controlled,
so basically, he's controlling everything,
all the power, the brakes, everything with his left hand,
steering with his right hand.
He's tearing it up on track
and yeah, he's looking good out there.
(car engine growls)
- Can I get a Philly Cheesesteak?
As Matt and I mentioned earlier,
we're both time attacking cars.
Matt's off checking his car,
and I'm going to check in with Savannah Little under a 350Z.
(upbeat techno music)
I mean, the car looks super badass.
Tell us a little about it.
- So basically, this is my 2008 Nissan 350Z,
I bought it as a daily driver
about two and a half years ago.
So the climb uphill into the car that it is now
has been a very quick and steep climb.
It's got an LS block, so we're running an LS 3
A crate motor from Summit racing
The team that helped me
put the car together is Enjuku Racing.
So, they do most of the work on the car
that I don't do myself.
They did all the fabrication work for the swap kit
as well as, the roll cage and everything else.
- I mean, it looks super awesome
Definitely not the same 50Z from when you bought it
So, I have no idea about time attack
Give us a little information on it.
- The goal is to beat the clock and beat yourself
and beat your competitors.
So, we're out there usually staggered one car at a time
so you're not going to run into traffic.
There's not much door-to-door action.
We're really out there just trying to better ourselves
and ultimately set the fastest time of the day.
- There's all the other cars in your class out on the track
at the same time, correct?
- They break it up by time.
So, they have you staggered by your time
so, if you best time is a 44
you're going to be grouped around people similar
to your time, that way you don't run into traffic.
The idea is that everyone gets at least
one clean lap.
- You mind if I check the car out and-
- Yeah, absolutely.
- Make sure I can possibly reach the pedals?
Feels good, car feels good.
I can reach the pedals.
Enjuke Racing definitely built an awesome car.
And I'm real familiar with 350 Zs
So, I'm stoked to drive this thing
and not drift, cause, you know my whole life's been drifting
so, it'll be different trying to some of this out.
(upbeat pop music)
It's interesting to see this view.
I've always been on the track doing drifting.
But it's cool seeing everything
and how they come, especially the "time attack,"
cause I've never done "time attack"
and you see their lines,
it's pretty cool to see it from this view.
Before we meet up with Will Au-Yeung
to check out my car for the "Time Attack" Challenge
Let's take a look at a 2017 Project Civic build
that we will be following on every episode this season.
Modified, of course,
is a show that's all about the love of tuning cars.
Honda was nice enough to give us this 2017 10th Gen Civic
to build throughout the season.
The Civic comes equipped with a turbo charged 1.5 liter
that's good for a 180 horsepower,
and a 177 foot pounds of torque.
- What's up, guys? It's Matt.
We're here with my man, Sam Du from Super Street
We're checking out every episode as the tune this
10th Gen Honda Civic Hatch.
This thing is pretty awesome, it's a blast to drive.
It's already got 18 inch alloy wheels,
center exit dual exhaust,
so, what are you guys going to do with it?
- First things first,
We're going to get a baseline dyno,
so we're going to go over to World Motorsports,
we're going to have a windtunnel dyno
that simulates real world driving conditions.
- [Matt] Oh, wow.
- So that we can get the most accurate horsepower
and torque figure before we do things
like the EC upgrade, the intake, and more
to gain more power out of the car.
- Right, well I'm sure you guys are going to have great luck
with this thing.
I can't wait to try it when it's done,
and good luck!
- Yeah, we're going to have fun man.
Thanks!
What's up guys, we're here at World Motorsports,
in Torrance, California
and as you can see, our Project Civic is strapped on
to their windtunnel dyno.
We'll be doing three runs to find our best baseline dyno,
and from there we're going to be able to see
how much power we can add.
So, let's go do some Dyno Runs!
- [Geoff] So after setting up the dyno,
Sam and the team at Super Street did three pulls
to find out the best numbers we could get from this car.
So we ended up with a figure of 164 horsepower
at 60,000 RPM and 173 foot pounds of torque
at 2300 RPMs.
After we wrapped the dyno,
we got a great baseline for our build.
Check in next time when we continue to modify
this 10th gen Civic Hatchback.
- [Matt] So we got Willa Au-Yeung,
in his ninth gen Civic SI.
This guy is an absolute animal on track.
He set the track record earlier.
Then, it got beat, right?
- Yeah.
- But then he broke his transmission sequential.
- Yup.
- Some crazy, high-strength transmission
trying to get it back.
So now, unfortunately, your car is up in the air.
- Right now we're trying to diagnose
what the exact issue is
and, we did bring a back-up transmission.
Not quite as good as our A-game one,
but it's okay, we'll get it in there
and get more laps inside the car.
- So this car's insane.
I mean, everyone I told that I'm driving this thing
they're like, "Holy crap! That guy is killing it!
I think it looks insane!"
Tell us a little bit about it.
What are some of the standout features on it?
- The major thing is that
it's a turbo-charged K24 in it.
It currently makes 771 wheel horsepower.
Which is a pretty high number for a time attack vehicle.
Especially for a front wheel drive
time attack vehicle.
On a smaller track, it's not necessarily
the most ideal set-up,
because it has a lot of power
and you really can't open up
and stretch out the legs on a track like this.
But at the same time,
as our time shows, we're only a few tenths off
what is now the track record.
So it's a very usable car.
You just have to adapt it to the situation at that time.
- Totally.
Well, I'm excited to get back to a H Pattern Transmission.
But at the same time, I was pretty excited
about all that power
and on slicks, I was like
'Man, this could be the fastest car I've ever driven.'
- You're still going to have blast out there, trust me.
Now, it is probably the complete 180 from what you're use to
where you know, you've got that rear end kicking out.
That's the opposite with this thing.
You want to keep this car fairly composed.
Definitely modulate that throttle
just like you would in a drift car,
however, completely different purposes, right?
- Yeah.
- Modulating this throttle to get as much
and smooth of a corner exit as possible,
so you can really straighten that car out
and put that power down.
- Yeah.
- Braking wise, I mean combined with the arrow,
combined with the slicks going on here,
you'll be able to get into a corner
and just lay on that brake
and you'll be glad there's a harness in there.
- Awesome.
Well, I'm excited to take on Geoff in this thing
and I hope I do it some justice.
Thank you! - Absolutely!
Looking forward to it!
- After a full day of crazy fans,
and fast cars,
Gridlife ended the night with a music festival
featuring sets from several popular DJs
and well as a number of other activities for concert goers
who wanted a slightly different experience.
I don't know if you can hear me,
but now is where it gets super weird and wild.
(techno music)
- [Matt] We're back with day two of Gridlife.
We got our cars set and we're ready to go
for our Time Attack Challenge.
- [Geoff] The goal of the Time Attack Challenge
is simply to get the fastest lap time
using the best possible racing line.
With Matt and I coming from the drifting world
and now entering a completely different type of racing,
this should make an interesting
and exciting battle.
(car revving)
- But I'm pretty sure my car is going to be faster
than your car.
- Yeah, dude, I heard all that.
- So, well good luck!
See you, whoever has the fastest time.
(laughing)
(intense music)
(cars accelerating)
(upbeat music)
- Woo!
This thing's an animal!
- So, I think I'm going to build a road race car
(laughing)
Hey, hey, yeah, that was super fun.
- So how'd you do on there?
- I feel like I did pretty good.
The car's solid, it's just weird really wanting to drift,
and trying not to,
I mean the lines are little bit different
but, it was crazy, I mean, you know?
What about you?
- This thing is insane.
I've never driven a car like this.
I felt like, I wasn't even close to hitting its potential.
But I was sliding all over the place
and it's just a freaking go-kart on steroids.
So, it was pretty crazy just getting even to drive a car,
I've never driven a car like that.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- It was a cool experience.
- Yeah, it was pretty crazy
when you came down the front straight
and you were hauling ass
and then you sort of locked it up a little bit.
- On the last lap, last thing in my mind, I was like
'This might be the last time, I better bring it!'
- Yeah.
- I was like all, gung-ho last lap.
- Yeah.
- But I went off on my warm-up lap.
- I saw that.
- Yeah, I just - You made muddy mile
through there - I just, I was just cruising.
- Yeah, it was wild, what happened?
- I don't really know.
I was just trying to feel it out.
Dude, there's so many noises and everything
I just, even the warm-up lap, I'm like
'Oh God! It's so fast!'
- Yeah - Meanwhile, I'm just
cruising by you, I'm just went off
(laughing) and everything is alright
Thanks for checking out this episode of Modified.
We hope you guys like it.
We had a blast out here at Gridlife.
- We got another episode coming up.
Hopefully, I'll be able to beat Matt in it.
Otherwise, I'm going to find a new day job.
- See you in Atlanta.
(upbeat techno music)