The Sounds and Feel of American Muscle: A Car Enthusiast's Perspective

As I stood there, surrounded by the sleek lines and powerful engine of the Mercedes AMG GT, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and admiration for this beautiful machine. Despite being a technological marvel, it still retains that raw, unbridled energy that is characteristic of American muscle cars - the unmistakable V8 rumble that speaks to the heart of any car enthusiast. "It's like there's so much technology in this," I thought to myself, "but it still has that kind of raw power."

I have had the pleasure of driving both a completely stock GT and its high-performance counterpart, the GT4 race car version. Both experiences left an indelible mark on my senses, with the stock model delivering a thrilling ride that was all too familiar to me, while the GT4 variant took things to a whole new level - a true exhilaration that I can only describe as "mean." With every gentle touch of the throttle, the turbos and intakes kicked in, unleashing a cacophony of sound that sent shivers down my spine.

One of my ultimate goals is to take this car to 1,000 horsepower, with plans to upgrade it with suspension, a widebody kit, new wheels, and other performance-enhancing components. I want to build an absolutely insane driver, one that will push the limits of what's possible in a production vehicle. With the GT4 parts being bolt-on for many of these upgrades, I'm confident that this is achievable.

To bring this vision to life, we'll need to disassemble and inspect the engine block, crankshaft, and other critical components to ensure they're in good condition. We'll polish the crankshaft, mic it, balance everything, and then replace it with a new core - all part of our meticulous process to build this monster of an engine.

Next, we'll send the heads off to get CNC ported, using yours as the reference point since your head is slightly different from mine. With the new engine block and upgraded components in place, we'll hand the car back over to you, along with some high-performance bits that will take it to the next level.

With summer approaching, I'm eager to get this beast on the road and enjoy the fruits of our labor. The AC fan is already charged, ready for when things start to heat up - figuratively and literally! As we work to diagnose why this car overheated in the first place, I can only imagine the thrill of watching it roar back to life with its new engine and upgraded components.

As I reflect on my experience so far, it's clear that there are still many unanswered questions. Why did the radiator hose crack? How did the coolant leak out of nowhere? While we've looked high and low for any signs of damage or wear, none have been found - leaving us to wonder if something more sinister was at play.

Despite the mystery surrounding its overheating incident, I'm confident that with our attention to detail and dedication to excellence, this car will roar back to life in no time. Until then, we'll keep digging deep, using every trick in the book to unravel the enigma of what went wrong. With each passing moment, my excitement builds - for when this beast is finally unleashed upon the world, I know it's going to be truly unforgettable.

For now, as I stand here and admire this magnificent machine, I'm reminded that sometimes even the most technologically advanced cars can benefit from a little bit of old-school American muscle. And who knows? Maybe one day, we'll look back on this experience and wonder how we ever lived without it.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enso guys behind me is my AMG GT which I bought for very cheap and it was in terrible Condition it's still in terrible condition when my old friend told me that this car was sitting at his house that he sold he wants me to go pick it up well that didn't work out he sent it to the dealership the dealership said that he needed to spend $100,000 to put a new engine in this car it was that bad I didn't believe that I had them drop the car off over here to the HQ we put the car in the rack we drained the fluids we pulled the engine out of it and the engine was completely full of water the worst I have ever seen it overheated so badly that every single cylinder was full to the brim with water and this is what we're left with so this is what remains of the heart of the AMG GT this block this 4 L twin turbo block it is literally rusted and corroded it looks terrible I didn't think that it was savable honestly I've done a lot of engine rebuilds in my life I've never seen an engine that has overheated as badly as this one has but there may be hope and that is Premier tuning group that's in Southern California and they're an AMG specialist they hit me up and they said they think that they can save this engine possibly can rebuild it sleeve it build this engine into what was my goal and that is 1,000 horsepower to the wheels AMG GT so we're not going to waste any time we're going to get this engine loaded up and we're going to get it over to the guys at Premier tuning group to see if there's a chance that they can save this engine wait but what if they say that uh it's unsavable anything's possible probably uh the last of it nope there's more a lot of parts that came off of this car okay surely that's the last thing right oh there's more what are you there's more what else is there we still got the turbos I am planning on upgrading the turbos but they might need a lot of parts off of the outside so we're going to bring everything with us give them everything and they can say no we don't need this we don't need this but I'd rather have everything and I have to make another trip back here cuz it is an hour away we'll bring everything for the car except the car and the transmission everything everything love this thing so much so good I mean this is literally how we took the engine out of the car too two of these one in the transmission one in the engine we lowered the whole thing down so handy and I've done like I don't even know how many Porsches so we've got the engine and all the components loaded up now let's head over to ptg and I hope that they can salvage this engine because that's the real goal with this car is to build the engine into into a crazy high horsepower engine I don't want to just buy a stock engine and drop it in this thing so fingers crossed that they're able to make it happen so I've had a lot of cars over the years I've had some street cars and I've had a bunch of race cars but I haven't had a really cool street car in a long time the last time I had a really cool street car was probably 15 years ago maybe even longer than that it was an RX7 and FD rightand drive that I built I loved that car but it was just a pain to drive on the Street being right-hand drive here in the states it just was always difficult to drive around but I've always loved that kind of body style with a front engine rear wheeel drive car everything back to my first car that I ever had which was a dotson a 240Z I loved that car and I still want another one but I don't know if it's going to be the same going back to when I had it when I was 17 but now something like this GT is really kind of where my heart is is set horsepower v8 twin turbo front engine rear drive but that long nose that Coupe styling that goes back to probably the 60s right just that body style has always been kind of like the ideal look for a car for me and that's one of the reasons I'm so excited about getting this AMG GT back together not just rebuild it to stock proper components in here that's going to allow us to make that thousand horsepower that that goal that I have I need to hit that it's a number yeah but it's also how the car drives I've driven all of these cars with so much power like my drift car has 1100 horsepower at the wheels and I'm going going to say I'm spoiled but once you drive something like that and you get used to that amount of power everything else feels slower and it's a crazy problem to have but it's a real problem that I have hey guys quick Interruption to think our sponsor better help I'm currently in Virginia and I was reading some comments earlier today from our last promo with this company and it was honestly really surprising how many people are feeling more safe to open up about the challenges they've been through whether you've been through a divorce the loss of a child I've read so many stories people are battling illness forget sometimes we get distracted by The Glitz and Glam of the distractions of our life to really understand what matters and when we have these problems in the way sometimes we need some help to figure out how to get to the solution I know I've been through this I've shared before through my divorces the challenges of my life to losing loved ones and having someone to talk to that you can trust an unbiased opinion to help you through it what I love is people are open up way more now than ever about mental health it used to be a fuxa there still some people watching probably maybe even you right now at home thinking well if I ask for help does that mean I need help no it just means you're not alone better help connects you with a licensed therapist who's trained to listen and give you helpful unbiased advice unbiased is key first step right now click the link in description go to betterhelp.com DDE and fill out the free questionnaire use the link below answer a few questions and better help will match a professional who has years of experience helping people with struggles just like your own the best part you can do it from your phone computer there's a messaging service you can call them video chat there's tons of options we're all very unique in how we like to communicate for me it's definitely messaging once you fill out your questionnaire you'll normally be match with the therapist within 48 hours so that's it really simple you guys click the link in description go to betterhelp.com DD rightow and your special deal in your first month I know you'll feel better after you've had your first conversation and it literally feels like weight lifted off your shoulders I love reading the stories now I don't have to share I'm not asking you guys to share below but I've read a lot of comments sharing how it's helped you and that makes me really happy thanks better hell for sponsoring the video and back to the Vlog it looks like we may have arrived I don't know looks like a lumber yard over here possibly maybe the light building yeah I see a Mercedes yep oh wow yep there it is there it is um yeah we've arrived what do you think about this Mike this one runs mine doesn't I'm jealous what do we have here 6x6 these things are pretty rad never seen one in real life before Oh really pretty insane barely fitting in the frame look at that hey Steve nice see you man thanks all for coming thank you very much thank you so much for trying to help us out with this project def yeah we've got all of the parts in the back of the truck but before we get all that stuff unloaded maybe he could give us a yeah definitely come on in guys come on in like when we pulled up in the parking lot and I saw the lineup of amgs I was like this is like the only place in the world where we only work on amgs there is a Mustang in here though so just ignore that talk about ler dude every shop there's always like one kind of Oddball car one Oddball one weird thing going on obviously we do a lot of stuff with Mercedes we're kind of like the a toz one stop so we do a lot of engine parts which we come in handy for you we make turbos uh fuel systems a lot of tuning Solutions so we're again it's we've been developing for like 20 years on just this platform yeah so we're at the Forefront of it and this shop is kind of like our R&D shop sub assembly we do a lot of Machining for things and you know we're pretty deep into it honestly I hadn't heard of you guys before cuz I've never really been into the AMG scene so you guys all know that I'm a big BMW guy and Porsche Guy this is kind of like my first step into the AMG world I looked you guys up and I saw all the stuff you're doing and I was like all right I I really get what these guys are doing they're not trying to do every single kind of car you're focusing on one brand and trying to make the best products that you can it's a major Focus Mercedes in General like compared to BW BMW does have a lot of Community Support there's so many people doing it especially with now the Toyota being BMW thing right so a lot a lot of import tuners came in and it became really big with Mercedes is still kind of pretty infant and again we're at the Forefront of not only the parts but the tuning a lot of pressure is on us to do really good these cars got to go fast because of us and sometimes they do or sometimes they don't and it's really on our shoulders to make it go fast when we see something that kind of is hindering the performance we're diving so deep into it yep whether you're not letting like a roadblock St you're finding a way to solve an issue and continue the development and like we we'll walk through it and I'll show you guys some of the stuff we do like from fuel systems to transmission part it's not just for like the m177 178 platform you know there's supercharges on the bench which you guys will see for like the older 156s yeah and these are all learnings from me and the team over the past 15 20 years of like hey what works on these what doesn't yep obviously blowing things up like that's what we do we have to do that for it to get further and further you you push the limit you find the failure points correct you figure out solutions for those failures correct we give the customer honestly a pretty a toz solution hey if you want to make 1500 horsepower here's we got everything for it so that's where we're at yeah that's awesome that's awesome I mean just looking over here and seeing like engines at different stages of completion obviously you got superchargers that are being assembled correct and and I know your yours was we got to see it still and hopefully we can fix it I hope so I know that like a lot of rust in the boes so that's like the worst thing you can see with these engines but we do have solutions for it so hopefully we can solve that problem and we have an example of one here so yeah this is a sleeve block is this the same block that is in the GT we always have on deck m177 and 178 cores okay I'll show you the difference between 177 and 178 I want everyone to know the yeah I haven't been able to figure out the either so so in essence 90 mm on Center boards same piston same Rod same crank y effectively the same block but because the 178 is a dry some we need a 178 block there are internal differences I'll flip this over the windows inside there okay um and the and the passage here where my finger sticking through those are all blocked off on the 178 to allow the dry sump to work properly oh got it otherwise it wouldn't scavenge you're going to always constantly have like PCV going on yeah okay that's the difference between 177 and 178 in essence but this is a dart and sleeved 1 177 block that's you know ready to be built and it's extremely beautiful of course it I mean it looks great the sleeves look yeah the sleeves look really good so a lot of strength has been added to this block with those sleeves yeah a lot of strength there is a whole pressure test system for these we don't want these to have issues on the field that's the big one yeah um so we reiterated the sleeve design with Darton like five times we pressure test the blocks we even put them in a heat cycle um in our carbon fiber oven like we we go above and beyond and make sure this is like going to work for you years you don't assemble the whole thing and then a couple years down the line go yeah ah we missed something yeah so you actually do all the testing before you assemble the engine correct so we have a whole pressure test for these we have plates that we bolt on you can actually see the outline of it Y and yeah we pretty much go all out and then we do a final bore in this case you're running our CP cillo setup yeah when we do the final bore obviously want the clearances to be perfect so we use that actual piston setup and we do a final bore and we punch them out to be like exactly what they need proper tolerances in every single cylinder correct you know we do CNC ported heads we have valves for these man we take these far we actually do take them far yeah yeah I mean honestly you guys were the only the only company that I saw that actually made Parts specifically for these engines so it's a CP and cillo combination just like we're putting in the F12 but every Rod and every piston is different and you guys worked with CP to develop these parts to exactly what you needed correct we've developed the 177 probably since 2014 I want to say and we have our own custom ibeam rod with them so they made a forging for us for the piston and Rod like specifically for this which would be different if you called and so I want one they would use like an off-the-shelf forging piston would typically be a little bit heavier or whatever the case may be but it's specific for this sunk that Coston years ago to have like the right setup for these but what you're getting is a special forging the special Rod forging and it's really nice actually something has been tested it's tried and true it's not like yeah put these in and see see how it works exactly and like if you like kind of scroll around like some of the things we do with these cars obviously going fast is the end result and that's our goal but like we've gone really especially with the GTS we've gone like really fast with these cars for what they are um to get them like in the 360 to 130 you're making like, 1500 1,600 horsepower yeah so we got them down they're pretty good yeah so my my goal is 1,000 horsepower so it sounds like you guys are well beyond that Beyond um so yeah I'm hoping that the block is salvageable and we can uh we can get that all this all this is fun to talk about we got to make sure what you have is good so we can have a good core otherwise you're going to be spending 25 Grand on a core engine so woo I don't want to do that I do not want to do that to save you we're here to save you all right so I brought pretty much everything a lot of parts grab grab it all yeah have you tried rotating the engine by the way we did we cranked it over before we pulled it all apart okay it actually did crank it did crank okay yeah that's fairly good news it's a crusty Rusty looking block right now we'll get it yeah I think we'll get it yeah yeah let's see what it looks like probably the worst High Performance Engine I've ever seen I've seen some stuff in like old like Chevy 350s or something that were rusted junk but not an AMG aluminum block but I've never seen anything like this I'm looking at it like is this even a part that goes like is this more of a chassis part no I think this does go cross over from the back trying to remember where all these parts went it'll clean up very well actually this one yeah like very well and just be blast everything and then I'll pop a head out cuz we CNC Port the chamber yeah it'll just remove oh okay so you actually machine the we'll we'll put two of them next to each other you'll see what it looks it looks beautiful yeah looks absolutely aming oh man we're getting excited well ours does not look as good as that one yet we're hoping that these guys can save this completely trashed block and turn it into 1,000 horsepower engine which is not an easy feat it's not supposed to look like that guys it's looking pretty rough but I think we can definitely repair this yeah obviously water was sit in here for quite some time years years years wow Mercedes doesn't rebuild these yeah they would take it out and put a brand new in it actually just recently they now offer a block with eight Pistons cuz you have to do the final Board of the Pistons like we talked about and it's like $26,000 retail just for the block and P yeah wow $26,000 when you get water in here these are done is done yeah and I you can see on the top here also where the head gasket lifted M right so the space where the water was going through into the cylinders it is just an absolute mess so yeah I'm hoping that the decks are not so warped that you'd have to cut off too much material which would make them unusable so we can control that as long as it's like you said it's not totally warped but if we do have to cut off a little more there is obviously a maximum minum Max you can go we can control your final compression with the CNC port on the head okay you take out a little bit of material there to compensate for your deck going down if we absolutely have to if you have to if we have to yeah this thing's yeah it's got rat poop all over it yeah that was the other thing yeah there were also rat Liv rats living it's good y good stuff so we still have to like we still have to inspect the entire car and just check all the wiring in the car make sure that the rats didn't get anything else can we try to turn it right now we can try to turn it that'll tell us if the $7,000 crankshaft is good or not did you even know it was $7,000 I did not know it was $7,000 hold it yeah there we go oh it does turn oh oh it turns nice there's something in it it turns good it's it turns so so let me let me just stick this piston all the way okay where that bottom dead over there that's not horrible yeah I think we're in good shape M I think we're in good shape we're in good shape yeah I've seen worse it doesn't it doesn't look good but it doesn't look I'm going to take your word for it I've SE much worse than this that's crazy I mean I've seen a lot of terrible engines like that were blown up right but this is the worst engine that I've seen from just overheating yeah this well he was putting water in there all this cooling was gone just throwing water in there and that's what all this is so I'm sure if a little bit of cooling was in there it would have like prolonged the rusting process yeah he could have just drained the coolant and none of this would have happened he is not a car guy he does not know anything he was literally like I don't know why I just shut off it won't start any yeah cool here you go yeah exactly cool awesome well I'm I'm pumped to hear that there is a chance that it's salvageable because all these numbers are making my head hurt how much it's going to cost for a donor block or a crankshaft or any of the other parts so I'm going to keep hoping that uh everything's okay and you guys can save it but I'm looking over here and I'm seeing all these cool parts and I want to those are the turbos that so those are our bigger turbos I'll show you the thousands as well I don't know if you guys saw this but we're partnering with Garrett so all the internals are Garrett we'll show you a bunch of Garrett stuff like that go along with it it's really nice and yeah we have obviously I'll show you a set of heads what it's going to look like oh yeah literally like a head that you know your head ends up looking like that that big enough for you Mike it's like it's jewelry over here checking all this stuff out so this is like our X based on like a GTX 35 wheel and 82 these are good for like 1,300 wheel, 1400 wheel and then like this is one of our gar 1,000 cartridges is going to go in your car actually that's the guy those are nice those are so much bigger than the factory turbos they're bigger these are ball bearing the factory turbo is not ball bearing so you know you obviously you go bigger you get a little more lag that's just the way physics are y um but we are combating that with a really good ball bearing turbo that's going to bring you closer to that to that factory range yeah stock turbo is good for like 550 560 yeah and also like just just the power band with the stock turbos it's it's all in and then it's so flat and falls off correct at the top endre which uh you know in a sense and I'll say this out loud this is what I tell every customer like when you tune these cars like stage two stage two right like tune and downpipe or just a tune their Peak power is really like 5,500 RPM and they ref to seven plus right so the feeling and and what you get is not that inspirational from the car although the dyno might show it and really just a small turbo change not you don't even have to go this big if you didn't want it but even a small turbo change shifts That Power Band all the way to Red Line and even though you're making the same power at Red Line the car is going to be way faster yeah so um you know it just allows it to Breathe Right you get that exhaust out you get exactly exactly and the tunability is challenging on those small turbos especially on 91 octane out here you got to do a lot to combat detonation and you know if you're running cats it's obviously everybody runs cats in California but you know it's it's challenging it challenging so size comparison for everyone to see the difference between these turbos which is absolutely massive we'll L it the same way so you guys are actually casting your own housings to fit the bigger correct yeah turbo centers into again we're probably among the only that actually do like we cover all the amgs so as we talked about earlier it's it's two different housings but in this case right here we're uh We've optimized and designed around that CHR that we use and um you know obviously new castings y uh a lot what a lot of people do is actually modify the factory turbos yeah they'll bore them out they bore them out you know whether there's something wrong or right with that that's a different discussion it's a different approach completely we do know that that like driving the RPM that high on the turbo you want a stronger shaft and the only way to get that is to run a new CHR and you got to build housings around it so y like that's our approach we're sticking with it right theend Factory is like you know I got two fingers in there and this is like two fingers on one side it's almost double the size on that compressor wheel alone so yeah and they and they bolt up you know if you actually look at it sitting up like this you kind of see it a little better they literally bolt up the same way that's awesome yeah so we packaged in that tight little V which you know really well now yep we packaged these big turbos in that spot they're awesome man these are probably one of our best sellers they're easy to install too they take hours you know yeah exactly it's right there in the middle easy to access correct that's very cool and then I've been staring at this the whole time that CNC port a head over there yeah so we talked about that I brought a head out that's what it looks like when it's done so we completely clean up and optimize the chambers obviously there's a bit of studying that goes on on what to do here um that's that's real science yeah it it actually is this very challenging to get this right literally cut heads apart to really you know analyze the flow yep and you have to so not only are you trying to optimize the flow and the combustion chamber and all this stuff but you also need to worry about how thick the material is behind here how much can you cut off safely how thick are the intake ports before the water jackets Come into place so there's all these things you're kind of like working around so you guys will actually split them and cut them in different ways to see how thick it is yeah because there's an you know it's a direct injection so the injector um Hol is right there and your spark plugs there there is coolant flowing between those to cool that area down if you go too far on the CNC Port yep you will you will pierce through yep so that's why we had to cut them apart and really make sure we don't have problems on the field once again look at the exhaust ports mhm yeah that's a thing of beauty that's the exhaust Port that's the intake ports beautiful intake Port those have to flow so much more air than the factory ones uh yeah they do they do they definitely do these are these are beautiful you know Mike now that I think about it there is a car outside that is almost exactly your setup when you're done that GT that we walk but except that thing runs doesn't have a fountain coming out of yeah yeah well a little a little different than mine at the yeah we should start and you know run that thing a little bit make you hear it just so you can you know start building up the energy and the courage to right this setup is is effectively what Mike will get this is a stock motor however and again like we discussed the engine's from the factory can handle thig power but yours but mine uh yours yours is can't even handle one horsepower yeah yours you're pushing it so um but we're going to build it it's going to be just like this thing it's going to be you know real nice so we'll give it a we'll give it a start we'll give Mike what he hopefully we'll get in like a month so yeah wow all right so you know this looks completely different for one there's no ratp poop or anything like that but that's new yeah but you've got the the carbon fiber inlets I can see that you got the pg100 turbos in there you can see these are our inlets this our pg1000 turbos it's got our fuel pumps on it so this thing's making like a healthy 850 800 850 wheel on a on like an E30 blend a bit of ethanol in it yeah so we throw a little bit ethanol for the octane fuel pumps can handle it or tune adjust for it y um and we do have which I'll give you when the car is running on the Fly map switch so through your phone you can switch Maps if you want to go pump gas E30 G so yeah we we'll get it to like the safe limit of whatever Parts you have yeah and you know you can play around with for Tunes it's pretty cool actually yeah that's great so I mean obviously trying to make 1,000 horsepower wheel on pump gas is just not going to happen no it just won't like what people want to think let them think what they want to think but I got news for YouTube like it's not going to do it 4 L and 91 octane are like Max 720 wheel no matter what you got really yeah yeah but being able to switch that between the maps so if you're on a rally or driving around or whatever correct you can run pump gas and then if you want to go fast you can switch the map put some ethanol in it exact you build the engine you do all these upgrades and then you're kind of limited like you said to about 700 on pump gas and then it's like all right so do I build this into where it just runs on E85 or you have to always have a 50/50 blend or whatever it might be it's a hassle and I don't want this car to be like that I want to drive this car every day and no matter where I'm going or what I'm doing if I'm going to do some track events or a rally or you know take it down the drag strip or whatever and the best thing is you can hand the keys to somebody and say here drive the car like whatever you put in it just the maps you know you could switch it yourself before they take it turn it down yeah before driv it turn it down yeah let's start this thing up let's let's have Mike hear it all right let's hear this beast wow thats that sounds really and this is still a stock engine too this is just all the bolt-on upgrades out well man I cannot wait this is this is wild this sounds like I don't know if the sounds coming across but uh it's want to shut it off yeah it is like there's so much technology in this but it still has that kind of like American Muscle just that that raw V8 sound to it um man I I love it it sounds so grunty but then you give it that blip of throttle you hear the turbos and the intakes like woo it's mean no these things are cool man they're cool again it's like this little niche with the Mercedes AMG thing yeah but these are beautiful cars they really are they drive unbelievable the GT the c190 chassis yeah it's one of the best cars to drive so yeah so I've driven a completely stock one and then I've driven the race car version the GT4 race car version okay so you got a good you got a good taste for it yeah kind of like both both levels right um and like my goal with this car is to build it to 1,000 horsepower do some suspension do a widebody kit uh Wheels some Arrow all that kind of stuff on it and just have like an absolutely insane driver yeah and honestly the GT4 Parts I don't if you're aware of this a lot of them bolt onto this like real easy yeah yeah like all the suspension stuff exactly um I need to find some of those you guys know any about uh any AMG G all right now what is the next step to get to this it's going to be a pretty comprehensive thing a we got to 100% verify that block is good we're going to dissect that thing make sure the crankshaft's good we're going to polish the crankshaft we're going to mic the crankshaft magnaflux it also uh and then from there we balance uh Pistons rods crank we do have a core uh block for you once we know that's good just to shorten the time frame so we'll give you the core and we'll take yours in exchange and then we start the build process like I said it's going to take about a month to build it all we'll send the heads off to get CNC ported I'd like to use your heads for that cuz a 178 head is slightly different although not much you're going to build the engine and then it goes back to you guys you're going to put it in the car you're going to hand you some turbo some good you know some good bits and then from there we'll probably come to you you're not far and we'll do the tuning there or we can also do it remotely I mean it's it's not hard and from there she'll be running man I think by like mid to late June this thing will be running summer car oh yeah here we go yeah get the AC fre on ready man Char charge that thing up just noticed that these are not pointing in the correct direction so we've got the the fuel injector right here and this should be 180° so the spark is not shielded by this but it's actually sparking right at where the fuel is so that's backwards that one's off that one's like 90° off that one's almost in the okay range almost at least it's pointing where the spark can can reach the fuel but that's 180° off all three of these are like definitely not good it's got a factory Mercedes plug in it so somebody put like these are indexable yeah from the factory so someone just put them in wrong small things to look at just try to I don't know figure out what happened right no exactly and that's kind of like that's kind of the mystery is why did it overheat we couldn't find any broken hoses we couldn't find a like a water leak so that's hey easy right oh blew a radiator hose cracked whatever when went off dumped the coolant out that's why it was overheating but we haven't found anything like that so just going through and kind of looking at every single possibility or anything that you see that might be out of place and trying to figure out why it overheated cuz if we do all of this and we build this engine and we put this in the car with all these upgrades and then it overheats again I'm literally going to cry Mike thanks for coming thank you so much you're good hands we'll get this thing taken care of yeah I'm really looking forward to it and then just hearing that GT outside um and knowing that's still a stock engine man I cannot wait to get this back this thing's going to be brilliant brilant I'm excited for you so excited I haven't had a cool street car in so long i' all of these race cars but I haven't had a cool street car I'm excited for you man I'm glad it's with us yeah definitely thank you sir all right man we'll talk soon thank you guysso guys behind me is my AMG GT which I bought for very cheap and it was in terrible Condition it's still in terrible condition when my old friend told me that this car was sitting at his house that he sold he wants me to go pick it up well that didn't work out he sent it to the dealership the dealership said that he needed to spend $100,000 to put a new engine in this car it was that bad I didn't believe that I had them drop the car off over here to the HQ we put the car in the rack we drained the fluids we pulled the engine out of it and the engine was completely full of water the worst I have ever seen it overheated so badly that every single cylinder was full to the brim with water and this is what we're left with so this is what remains of the heart of the AMG GT this block this 4 L twin turbo block it is literally rusted and corroded it looks terrible I didn't think that it was savable honestly I've done a lot of engine rebuilds in my life I've never seen an engine that has overheated as badly as this one has but there may be hope and that is Premier tuning group that's in Southern California and they're an AMG specialist they hit me up and they said they think that they can save this engine possibly can rebuild it sleeve it build this engine into what was my goal and that is 1,000 horsepower to the wheels AMG GT so we're not going to waste any time we're going to get this engine loaded up and we're going to get it over to the guys at Premier tuning group to see if there's a chance that they can save this engine wait but what if they say that uh it's unsavable anything's possible probably uh the last of it nope there's more a lot of parts that came off of this car okay surely that's the last thing right oh there's more what are you there's more what else is there we still got the turbos I am planning on upgrading the turbos but they might need a lot of parts off of the outside so we're going to bring everything with us give them everything and they can say no we don't need this we don't need this but I'd rather have everything and I have to make another trip back here cuz it is an hour away we'll bring everything for the car except the car and the transmission everything everything love this thing so much so good I mean this is literally how we took the engine out of the car too two of these one in the transmission one in the engine we lowered the whole thing down so handy and I've done like I don't even know how many Porsches so we've got the engine and all the components loaded up now let's head over to ptg and I hope that they can salvage this engine because that's the real goal with this car is to build the engine into into a crazy high horsepower engine I don't want to just buy a stock engine and drop it in this thing so fingers crossed that they're able to make it happen so I've had a lot of cars over the years I've had some street cars and I've had a bunch of race cars but I haven't had a really cool street car in a long time the last time I had a really cool street car was probably 15 years ago maybe even longer than that it was an RX7 and FD rightand drive that I built I loved that car but it was just a pain to drive on the Street being right-hand drive here in the states it just was always difficult to drive around but I've always loved that kind of body style with a front engine rear wheeel drive car everything back to my first car that I ever had which was a dotson a 240Z I loved that car and I still want another one but I don't know if it's going to be the same going back to when I had it when I was 17 but now something like this GT is really kind of where my heart is is set horsepower v8 twin turbo front engine rear drive but that long nose that Coupe styling that goes back to probably the 60s right just that body style has always been kind of like the ideal look for a car for me and that's one of the reasons I'm so excited about getting this AMG GT back together not just rebuild it to stock proper components in here that's going to allow us to make that thousand horsepower that that goal that I have I need to hit that it's a number yeah but it's also how the car drives I've driven all of these cars with so much power like my drift car has 1100 horsepower at the wheels and I'm going going to say I'm spoiled but once you drive something like that and you get used to that amount of power everything else feels slower and it's a crazy problem to have but it's a real problem that I have hey guys quick Interruption to think our sponsor better help I'm currently in Virginia and I was reading some comments earlier today from our last promo with this company and it was honestly really surprising how many people are feeling more safe to open up about the challenges they've been through whether you've been through a divorce the loss of a child I've read so many stories people are battling illness forget sometimes we get distracted by The Glitz and Glam of the distractions of our life to really understand what matters and when we have these problems in the way sometimes we need some help to figure out how to get to the solution I know I've been through this I've shared before through my divorces the challenges of my life to losing loved ones and having someone to talk to that you can trust an unbiased opinion to help you through it what I love is people are open up way more now than ever about mental health it used to be a fuxa there still some people watching probably maybe even you right now at home thinking well if I ask for help does that mean I need help no it 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your shoulders I love reading the stories now I don't have to share I'm not asking you guys to share below but I've read a lot of comments sharing how it's helped you and that makes me really happy thanks better hell for sponsoring the video and back to the Vlog it looks like we may have arrived I don't know looks like a lumber yard over here possibly maybe the light building yeah I see a Mercedes yep oh wow yep there it is there it is um yeah we've arrived what do you think about this Mike this one runs mine doesn't I'm jealous what do we have here 6x6 these things are pretty rad never seen one in real life before Oh really pretty insane barely fitting in the frame look at that hey Steve nice see you man thanks all for coming thank you very much thank you so much for trying to help us out with this project def yeah we've got all of the parts in the back of the truck but before we get all that stuff unloaded maybe he could give us a yeah definitely come on in guys come on in like when we pulled up in the parking lot and I saw the lineup of amgs I was like this is like the only place in the world where we only work on amgs there is a Mustang in here though so just ignore that talk about ler dude every shop there's always like one kind of Oddball car one Oddball one weird thing going on obviously we do a lot of stuff with Mercedes we're kind of like the a toz one stop so we do a lot of engine parts which we come in handy for you we make turbos uh fuel systems a lot of tuning Solutions so we're again it's we've been developing for like 20 years on just this platform yeah so we're at the Forefront of it and this shop is kind of like our R&D shop sub assembly we do a lot of Machining for things and you know we're pretty deep into it honestly I hadn't heard of you guys before cuz I've never really been into the AMG scene so you guys all know that I'm a big BMW guy and Porsche Guy this is kind of like my first step into the AMG world I looked you guys up and I saw all the stuff you're doing and I was like all right I I really get what these guys are doing they're not trying to do every single kind of car you're focusing on one brand and trying to make the best products that you can it's a major Focus Mercedes in General like compared to BW BMW does have a lot of Community Support there's so many people doing it especially with now the Toyota being BMW thing right so a lot a lot of import tuners came in and it became really big with Mercedes is still kind of pretty infant and again we're at the Forefront of not only the parts but the tuning a lot of pressure is on us to do really good these cars got to go fast because of us and sometimes they do or sometimes they don't and it's really on our shoulders to make it go fast when we see something that kind of is hindering the performance we're diving so deep into it yep whether you're not letting like a roadblock St you're finding a way to solve an issue and continue the development and like we we'll walk through it and I'll show you guys some of the stuff we do like from fuel systems to transmission part it's not just for like the m177 178 platform you know there's supercharges on the bench which you guys will see for like the older 156s yeah and these are all learnings from me and the team over the past 15 20 years of like hey what works on these what doesn't yep obviously blowing things up like that's what we do we have to do that for it to get further and further you you push the limit you find the failure points correct you figure out solutions for those failures correct we give the customer honestly a pretty a toz solution hey if you want to make 1500 horsepower here's we got everything for it so that's where we're at yeah that's awesome that's awesome I mean just looking over here and seeing like engines at different stages of completion obviously you got superchargers that are being assembled correct and and I know your yours was we got to see it still and hopefully we can fix it I hope so I know that like a lot of rust in the boes so that's like the worst thing you can see with these engines but we do have solutions for it so hopefully we can solve that problem and we have an example of one here so yeah this is a sleeve block is this the same block that is in the GT we always have on deck m177 and 178 cores okay I'll show you the difference between 177 and 178 I want everyone to know the yeah I haven't been able to figure out the either so so in essence 90 mm on Center boards same piston same Rod same crank y effectively the same block but because the 178 is a dry some we need a 178 block there are internal differences I'll flip this over the windows inside there okay um and the and the passage here where my finger sticking through those are all blocked off on the 178 to allow the dry sump to work properly oh got it otherwise it wouldn't scavenge you're going to always constantly have like PCV going on yeah okay that's the difference between 177 and 178 in essence but this is a dart and sleeved 1 177 block that's you know ready to be built and it's extremely beautiful of course it I mean it looks great the sleeves look yeah the sleeves look really good so a lot of strength has been added to this block with those sleeves yeah a lot of strength there is a whole pressure test system for these we don't want these to have issues on the field that's the big one yeah um so we reiterated the sleeve design with Darton like five times we pressure test the blocks we even put them in a heat cycle um in our carbon fiber oven like we we go above and beyond and make sure this is like going to work for you years you don't assemble the whole thing and then a couple years down the line go yeah ah we missed something yeah so you actually do all the testing before you assemble the engine correct so we have a whole pressure test for these we have plates that we bolt on you can actually see the outline of it Y and yeah we pretty much go all out and then we do a final bore in this case you're running our CP cillo setup yeah when we do the final bore obviously want the clearances to be perfect so we use that actual piston setup and we do a final bore and we punch them out to be like exactly what they need proper tolerances in every single cylinder correct you know we do CNC ported heads we have valves for these man we take these far we actually do take them far yeah yeah I mean honestly you guys were the only the only company that I saw that actually made Parts specifically for these engines so it's a CP and cillo combination just like we're putting in the F12 but every Rod and every piston is different and you guys worked with CP to develop these parts to exactly what you needed correct we've developed the 177 probably since 2014 I want to say and we have our own custom ibeam rod with them so they made a forging for us for the piston and Rod like specifically for this which would be different if you called and so I want one they would use like an off-the-shelf forging piston would typically be a little bit heavier or whatever the case may be but it's specific for this sunk that Coston years ago to have like the right setup for these but what you're getting is a special forging the special Rod forging and it's really nice actually something has been tested it's tried and true it's not like yeah put these in and see see how it works exactly and like if you like kind of scroll around like some of the things we do with these cars obviously going fast is the end result and that's our goal but like we've gone really especially with the GTS we've gone like really fast with these cars for what they are um to get them like in the 360 to 130 you're making like, 1500 1,600 horsepower yeah so we got them down they're pretty good yeah so my my goal is 1,000 horsepower so it sounds like you guys are well beyond that Beyond um so yeah I'm hoping that the block is salvageable and we can uh we can get that all this all this is fun to talk about we got to make sure what you have is good so we can have a good core otherwise you're going to be spending 25 Grand on a core engine so woo I don't want to do that I do not want to do that to save you we're here to save you all right so I brought pretty much everything a lot of parts grab grab it all yeah have you tried rotating the engine by the way we did we cranked it over before we pulled it all apart okay it actually did crank it did crank okay yeah that's fairly good news it's a crusty Rusty looking block right now we'll get it yeah I think we'll get it yeah yeah let's see what it looks like probably the worst High Performance Engine I've ever seen I've seen some stuff in like old like Chevy 350s or something that were rusted junk but not an AMG aluminum block but I've never seen anything like this I'm looking at it like is this even a part that goes like is this more of a chassis part no I think this does go cross over from the back trying to remember where all these parts went it'll clean up very well actually this one yeah like very well and just be blast everything and then I'll pop a head out cuz we CNC Port the chamber yeah it'll just remove oh okay so you actually machine the we'll we'll put two of them next to each other you'll see what it looks it looks beautiful yeah looks absolutely aming oh man we're getting excited well ours does not look as good as that one yet we're hoping that these guys can save this completely trashed block and turn it into 1,000 horsepower engine which is not an easy feat it's not supposed to look like that guys it's looking pretty rough but I think we can definitely repair this yeah obviously water was sit in here for quite some time years years years wow Mercedes doesn't rebuild these yeah they would take it out and put a brand new in it actually just recently they now offer a block with eight Pistons cuz you have to do the final Board of the Pistons like we talked about and it's like $26,000 retail just for the block and P yeah wow $26,000 when you get water in here these are done is done yeah and I you can see on the top here also where the head gasket lifted M right so the space where the water was going through into the cylinders it is just an absolute mess so yeah I'm hoping that the decks are not so warped that you'd have to cut off too much material which would make them unusable so we can control that as long as it's like you said it's not totally warped but if we do have to cut off a little more there is obviously a maximum minum Max you can go we can control your final compression with the CNC port on the head okay you take out a little bit of material there to compensate for your deck going down if we absolutely have to if you have to if we have to yeah this thing's yeah it's got rat poop all over it yeah that was the other thing yeah there were also rat Liv rats living it's good y good stuff so we still have to like we still have to inspect the entire car and just check all the wiring in the car make sure that the rats didn't get anything else can we try to turn it right now we can try to turn it that'll tell us if the $7,000 crankshaft is good or not did you even know it was $7,000 I did not know it was $7,000 hold it yeah there we go oh it does turn oh oh it turns nice there's something in it it turns good it's it turns so so let me let me just stick this piston all the way okay where that bottom dead over there that's not horrible yeah I think we're in good shape M I think we're in good shape we're in good shape yeah I've seen worse it doesn't it doesn't look good but it doesn't look I'm going to take your word for it I've SE much worse than this that's crazy I mean I've seen a lot of terrible engines like that were blown up right but this is the worst engine that I've seen from just overheating yeah this well he was putting water in there all this cooling was gone just throwing water in there and that's what all this is so I'm sure if a little bit of cooling was in there it would have like prolonged the rusting process yeah he could have just drained the coolant and none of this would have happened he is not a car guy he does not know anything he was literally like I don't know why I just shut off it won't start any yeah cool here you go yeah exactly cool awesome well I'm I'm pumped to hear that there is a chance that it's salvageable because all these numbers are making my head hurt how much it's going to cost for a donor block or a crankshaft or any of the other parts so I'm going to keep hoping that uh everything's okay and you guys can save it but I'm looking over here and I'm seeing all these cool parts and I want to those are the turbos that so those are our bigger turbos I'll show you the thousands as well I don't know if you guys saw this but we're partnering with Garrett so all the internals are Garrett we'll show you a bunch of Garrett stuff like that go along with it it's really nice and yeah we have obviously I'll show you a set of heads what it's going to look like oh yeah literally like a head that you know your head ends up looking like that that big enough for you Mike it's like it's jewelry over here checking all this stuff out so this is like our X based on like a GTX 35 wheel and 82 these are good for like 1,300 wheel, 1400 wheel and then like this is one of our gar 1,000 cartridges is going to go in your car actually that's the guy those are nice those are so much bigger than the factory turbos they're bigger these are ball bearing the factory turbo is not ball bearing so you know you obviously you go bigger you get a little more lag that's just the way physics are y um but we are combating that with a really good ball bearing turbo that's going to bring you closer to that to that factory range yeah stock turbo is good for like 550 560 yeah and also like just just the power band with the stock turbos it's it's all in and then it's so flat and falls off correct at the top endre which uh you know in a sense and I'll say this out loud this is what I tell every customer like when you tune these cars like stage two stage two right like tune and downpipe or just a tune their Peak power is really like 5,500 RPM and they ref to seven plus right so the feeling and and what you get is not that inspirational from the car although the dyno might show it and really just a small turbo change not you don't even have to go this big if you didn't want it but even a small turbo change shifts That Power Band all the way to Red Line and even though you're making the same power at Red Line the car is going to be way faster yeah so um you know it just allows it to Breathe Right you get that exhaust out you get exactly exactly and the tunability is challenging on those small turbos especially on 91 octane out here you got to do a lot to combat detonation and you know if you're running cats it's obviously everybody runs cats in California but you know it's it's challenging it challenging so size comparison for everyone to see the difference between these turbos which is absolutely massive we'll L it the same way so you guys are actually casting your own housings to fit the bigger correct yeah turbo centers into again we're probably among the only that actually do like we cover all the amgs so as we talked about earlier it's it's two different housings but in this case right here we're uh We've optimized and designed around that CHR that we use and um you know obviously new castings y uh a lot what a lot of people do is actually modify the factory turbos yeah they'll bore them out they bore them out you know whether there's something wrong or right with that that's a different discussion it's a different approach completely we do know that that like driving the RPM that high on the turbo you want a stronger shaft and the only way to get that is to run a new CHR and you got to build housings around it so y like that's our approach we're sticking with it right theend Factory is like you know I got two fingers in there and this is like two fingers on one side it's almost double the size on that compressor wheel alone so yeah and they and they bolt up you know if you actually look at it sitting up like this you kind of see it a little better they literally bolt up the same way that's awesome yeah so we packaged in that tight little V which you know really well now yep we packaged these big turbos in that spot they're awesome man these are probably one of our best sellers they're easy to install too they take hours you know yeah exactly it's right there in the middle easy to access correct that's very cool and then I've been staring at this the whole time that CNC port a head over there yeah so we talked about that I brought a head out that's what it looks like when it's done so we completely clean up and optimize the chambers obviously there's a bit of studying that goes on on what to do here um that's that's real science yeah it it actually is this very challenging to get this right literally cut heads apart to really you know analyze the flow yep and you have to so not only are you trying to optimize the flow and the combustion chamber and all this stuff but you also need to worry about how thick the material is behind here how much can you cut off safely how thick are the intake ports before the water jackets Come into place so there's all these things you're kind of like working around so you guys will actually split them and cut them in different ways to see how thick it is yeah because there's an you know it's a direct injection so the injector um Hol is right there and your spark plugs there there is coolant flowing between those to cool that area down if you go too far on the CNC Port yep you will you will pierce through yep so that's why we had to cut them apart and really make sure we don't have problems on the field once again look at the exhaust ports mhm yeah that's a thing of beauty that's the exhaust Port that's the intake ports beautiful intake Port those have to flow so much more air than the factory ones uh yeah they do they do they definitely do these are these are beautiful you know Mike now that I think about it there is a car outside that is almost exactly your setup when you're done that GT that we walk but except that thing runs doesn't have a fountain coming out of yeah yeah well a little a little different than mine at the yeah we should start and you know run that thing a little bit make you hear it just so you can you know start building up the energy and the courage to right this setup is is effectively what Mike will get this is a stock motor however and again like we discussed the engine's from the factory can handle thig power but yours but mine uh yours yours is can't even handle one horsepower yeah yours you're pushing it so um but we're going to build it it's going to be just like this thing it's going to be you know real nice so we'll give it a we'll give it a start we'll give Mike what he hopefully we'll get in like a month so yeah wow all right so you know this looks completely different for one there's no ratp poop or anything like that but that's new yeah but you've got the the carbon fiber inlets I can see that you got the pg100 turbos in there you can see these are our inlets this our pg1000 turbos it's got our fuel pumps on it so this thing's making like a healthy 850 800 850 wheel on a on like an E30 blend a bit of ethanol in it yeah so we throw a little bit ethanol for the octane fuel pumps can handle it or tune adjust for it y um and we do have which I'll give you when the car is running on the Fly map switch so through your phone you can switch Maps if you want to go pump gas E30 G so yeah we we'll get it to like the safe limit of whatever Parts you have yeah and you know you can play around with for Tunes it's pretty cool actually yeah that's great so I mean obviously trying to make 1,000 horsepower wheel on pump gas is just not going to happen no it just won't like what people want to think let them think what they want to think but I got news for YouTube like it's not going to do it 4 L and 91 octane are like Max 720 wheel no matter what you got really yeah yeah but being able to switch that between the maps so if you're on a rally or driving around or whatever correct you can run pump gas and then if you want to go fast you can switch the map put some ethanol in it exact you build the engine you do all these upgrades and then you're kind of limited like you said to about 700 on pump gas and then it's like all right so do I build this into where it just runs on E85 or you have to always have a 50/50 blend or whatever it might be it's a hassle and I don't want this car to be like that I want to drive this car every day and no matter where I'm going or what I'm doing if I'm going to do some track events or a rally or you know take it down the drag strip or whatever and the best thing is you can hand the keys to somebody and say here drive the car like whatever you put in it just the maps you know you could switch it yourself before they take it turn it down yeah before driv it turn it down yeah let's start this thing up let's let's have Mike hear it all right let's hear this beast wow thats that sounds really and this is still a stock engine too this is just all the bolt-on upgrades out well man I cannot wait this is this is wild this sounds like I don't know if the sounds coming across but uh it's want to shut it off yeah it is like there's so much technology in this but it still has that kind of like American Muscle just that that raw V8 sound to it um man I I love it it sounds so grunty but then you give it that blip of throttle you hear the turbos and the intakes like woo it's mean no these things are cool man they're cool again it's like this little niche with the Mercedes AMG thing yeah but these are beautiful cars they really are they drive unbelievable the GT the c190 chassis yeah it's one of the best cars to drive so yeah so I've driven a completely stock one and then I've driven the race car version the GT4 race car version okay so you got a good you got a good taste for it yeah kind of like both both levels right um and like my goal with this car is to build it to 1,000 horsepower do some suspension do a widebody kit uh Wheels some Arrow all that kind of stuff on it and just have like an absolutely insane driver yeah and honestly the GT4 Parts I don't if you're aware of this a lot of them bolt onto this like real easy yeah yeah like all the suspension stuff exactly um I need to find some of those you guys know any about uh any AMG G all right now what is the next step to get to this it's going to be a pretty comprehensive thing a we got to 100% verify that block is good we're going to dissect that thing make sure the crankshaft's good we're going to polish the crankshaft we're going to mic the crankshaft magnaflux it also uh and then from there we balance uh Pistons rods crank we do have a core uh block for you once we know that's good just to shorten the time frame so we'll give you the core and we'll take yours in exchange and then we start the build process like I said it's going to take about a month to build it all we'll send the heads off to get CNC ported I'd like to use your heads for that cuz a 178 head is slightly different although not much you're going to build the engine and then it goes back to you guys you're going to put it in the car you're going to hand you some turbo some good you know some good bits and then from there we'll probably come to you you're not far and we'll do the tuning there or we can also do it remotely I mean it's it's not hard and from there she'll be running man I think by like mid to late June this thing will be running summer car oh yeah here we go yeah get the AC fre on ready man Char charge that thing up just noticed that these are not pointing in the correct direction so we've got the the fuel injector right here and this should be 180° so the spark is not shielded by this but it's actually sparking right at where the fuel is so that's backwards that one's off that one's like 90° off that one's almost in the okay range almost at least it's pointing where the spark can can reach the fuel but that's 180° off all three of these are like definitely not good it's got a factory Mercedes plug in it so somebody put like these are indexable yeah from the factory so someone just put them in wrong small things to look at just try to I don't know figure out what happened right no exactly and that's kind of like that's kind of the mystery is why did it overheat we couldn't find any broken hoses we couldn't find a like a water leak so that's hey easy right oh blew a radiator hose cracked whatever when went off dumped the coolant out that's why it was overheating but we haven't found anything like that so just going through and kind of looking at every single possibility or anything that you see that might be out of place and trying to figure out why it overheated cuz if we do all of this and we build this engine and we put this in the car with all these upgrades and then it overheats again I'm literally going to cry Mike thanks for coming thank you so much you're good hands we'll get this thing taken care of yeah I'm really looking forward to it and then just hearing that GT outside um and knowing that's still a stock engine man I cannot wait to get this back this thing's going to be brilliant brilant I'm excited for you so excited I haven't had a cool street car in so long i' all of these race cars but I haven't had a cool street car I'm excited for you man I'm glad it's with us yeah definitely thank you sir all right man we'll talk soon thank you guys\n"