Name: Rich Rebuilds Built a V8 Tesla
Uploaded: 2022-07-28T19:26:59.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Rich Rebuilds Built a V8 Tesla' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-07-28. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Rich Rebuilds Built a V8 Tesla' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-07-28. Transcript available.

The Joe Rogan experience. So what was the motivation to build this VA Tesla?
That's a good question. So I
Let's see get pull up a video of Rich's YouTube channel. Tesla got a um
As I was building, you know different Tesla's 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, gosh in every single area every genre yes
They're too crazy. It's 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?
That's a funny clip. That's what actually ran out of gas there
I ran a gas and that's actually an electric Tesla bringing me gases though.
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're not we don't believe in selling you these parts
This this isn't gonna 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 fan boy
I'm gonna throw an LS in there throwing an LS in there that allows me to get
parts literally off the shelf from AutoZone
Like for Tesla if my Tesla brake
Let's just say you're in your plaid right now, right and you break down the
side of the road and the total driver says
What do you want me to bring you you're gonna say AutoZone or advanced auto
parts or pep 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 go into a car
You think the screen turns on what 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 where the V8 engine takes over so imagine
imagine you have your I don't know
You have your Porsche right your GT3 you get in that car
You sit in 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 a Tesla out of a junkyard
You could get in it sit in it
Make sure it's getting power and you could 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 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 hall tech 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 had enough of this that V8
It'll still turn on and I could still go over I want you just want to 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 a regular Tesla has same
So that's pedometer still works too because it goes by the wheel speed sensors
That's pedometer 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 shift
Yeah, if you see it right there in that video right there to the back it up a
little bit you call it iced tea I see
Yeah, internal combustion engine Tesla. Yeah, I like it. So there's a shifter
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.
It has that's like a race car. That's it right there. Yep
What is that second gear to the left of it? That's the engage reverse. Oh 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 fabricator. We had to
literally cut the car in half
Really to form the transmission tunnel because Tesla's are Tesla's 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 today
Tesla's were designed from the ground up to be electric vehicles or 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 here
that sticks out like it's all fabricated all fabrication
all fabric I mean
Countless hours have gone into that so long from the time you had this idea to
the actual starting and driving about two years
Wow, it's a little crazy commitment. You know how it is like you you the
planning stages are like hmm. Yeah, I'm gonna do this
Right. Yeah, I'm gonna do it. I should do it. How much is that now?
I'm not gonna do it and you I was contemplating for a while and then I said,
you know what I got to commit to this
Let's start doing this
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, you
need help with fabrication stuff. Let me know
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 bracing and reinforcements all over the car. So is it much
heavier than the original car?
It's about twelve hundred pounds lighter than the original car really yes
because of the electric engine and the batteries missing if you think about it
the
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 rear motor subframe that was like
350 pounds 400 pounds then as a front motor as well
So the front motor after moving all that weight
Putting an engine and a transmission and ls one of the lightest engines they
make with the drivetrain we that car went from
four thousand nine hundred and seventy five pounds to like
Three thousand three hundred pounds the car weighs next to nothing now. Wow
comparably speaking
Three thousand pounds for a sedan is really light. It's very light and that has
the full interior 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 start baby. That was really fun
We had to build that tunnel all the bracing in it so it wouldn't it wouldn't
fall apart
So all that structurally tubing going across it 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're gonna 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 yoke. 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?
How much did it affect the way the car handles the car handles great. We took
it on a racetrack
so ebay motor is actually we're sponsored by them. They brought us out to Sonoma
Raceway and
We were just doing donats and burnouts around their circle track the car. It
feels you know, it feels like it feels like a
almost like a
What's a Ford or a muscle car a modern muscle car a charger charger? Yeah, Cadillac
CTS
SRT. Oh, yeah, it's more like a Cadillac CTS V. Wow, and it's just it's light.
It's fun. It'll do a burner
I was think I was going like 30 miles an hour stomped on it rolling burnout
until like almost 100. The thing is 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? Mike?
That's fair enough zero to six. He's 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 it was a plaid next to me people went crazy over that
car and that's why it was built because it's a novelty because it's the novelty
it's listen
That's the probably the only one that's gonna 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 a ridiculous amounts of money just because
of what it is
You can work on it. You could modify it yourself and it's the spirit of
Car enthusiasm you gonna sell it never never never you said never 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 Tesla is 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 what that's my car, right? I want that. Why are you having fun in
that?
Especially the amount of time involved and ranking that when I get right yeah
about the engineering behind it because what's it?
What's it worth to someone?
100 150 right 200. I mean no 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, you know, right? And then you're
gonna make something else anyway, right? True the LS
What is the stock LS out of the box?
Force power last I think about four four 25 or something like that 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 medications to it
It's what like 470 or so right now and then we're actually putting a supercharger
on it and then a few months
Oh, that's going back to SEMA. But yeah, that's the thing. It's like that's why
I enjoy about it
Like your 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's short works. It's
been modified already
You're your old muscle cars. You could improve the handling the braking the
power you add whatever you want if you're in a regular Tesla as
As an enthusiast I actually got very bored of mine hmm because the way you get
it is the way it's gonna stay unless you buy a plaid or
You get on your knees and baggy lawn to release a software update to give you
30 more horsepower
Well, there's a company called unplugged you know about them of course
performance Ben. I know very well
Yeah, so they will take a Tesla and they will jazz it up and put rider tires
and fender flares and a rear spoiler and right
They get 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 with a stoplight. I see everyone very of your mirror. So with the VA
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 plaid
makes about I think you're probably putting out
Let me 1100 horsepower now on your plan. I think yeah, well hundred something
like that
Which is hilarious which is which is insane the VA Tesla you could
Greg 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 3000 horsepower if you want what yeah, what do you
have to do to do that?
You have to redesign the whole engine
You build the whole thing, but yeah, 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 had no idea. Forge block. Yeah, you have to do literally
everything, but yeah
I mean you could probably get a blow up in your face. Absolutely. It's a
ticking time bomb, but it's fun until it blows up
But that's a sort of car modification like yeah, you drive it you blow it up
you rebuild it and then you do it all over again

Rich Rebuilds Built a V8 Tesla

The Joe Rogan experience. So what was the motivation to build this VA Tesla?
That's a good question. So I
Let's see get pull up a video of Rich's YouTube channel. Tesla got a um
As I was building, you know different Tesla's 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, gosh in every single area every genre yes
They're too crazy. It's 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?
That's a funny clip. That's what actually ran out of gas there
I ran a gas and that's actually an electric Tesla bringing me gases though.
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're not we don't believe in selling you these parts
This this isn't gonna 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 fan boy
I'm gonna throw an LS in there throwing an LS in there that allows me to get
parts literally off the shelf from AutoZone
Like for Tesla if my Tesla brake
Let's just say you're in your plaid right now, right and you break down the
side of the road and the total driver says
What do you want me to bring you you're gonna say AutoZone or advanced auto
parts or pep 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 go into a car
You think the screen turns on what 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 where the V8 engine takes over so imagine
imagine you have your I don't know
You have your Porsche right your GT3 you get in that car
You sit in 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 a Tesla out of a junkyard
You could get in it sit in it
Make sure it's getting power and you could 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 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 hall tech 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 had enough of this that V8
It'll still turn on and I could still go over I want you just want to 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 a regular Tesla has same
So that's pedometer still works too because it goes by the wheel speed sensors
That's pedometer 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 shift
Yeah, if you see it right there in that video right there to the back it up a
little bit you call it iced tea I see
Yeah, internal combustion engine Tesla. Yeah, I like it. So there's a shifter
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.
It has that's like a race car. That's it right there. Yep
What is that second gear to the left of it? That's the engage reverse. Oh 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 fabricator. We had to
literally cut the car in half
Really to form the transmission tunnel because Tesla's are Tesla's 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 today
Tesla's were designed from the ground up to be electric vehicles or 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 here
that sticks out like it's all fabricated all fabrication
all fabric I mean
Countless hours have gone into that so long from the time you had this idea to
the actual starting and driving about two years
Wow, it's a little crazy commitment. You know how it is like you you the
planning stages are like hmm. Yeah, I'm gonna do this
Right. Yeah, I'm gonna do it. I should do it. How much is that now?
I'm not gonna do it and you I was contemplating for a while and then I said,
you know what I got to commit to this
Let's start doing this
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, you
need help with fabrication stuff. Let me know
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 bracing and reinforcements all over the car. So is it much
heavier than the original car?
It's about twelve hundred pounds lighter than the original car really yes
because of the electric engine and the batteries missing if you think about it
the
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 rear motor subframe that was like
350 pounds 400 pounds then as a front motor as well
So the front motor after moving all that weight
Putting an engine and a transmission and ls one of the lightest engines they
make with the drivetrain we that car went from
four thousand nine hundred and seventy five pounds to like
Three thousand three hundred pounds the car weighs next to nothing now. Wow
comparably speaking
Three thousand pounds for a sedan is really light. It's very light and that has
the full interior 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 start baby. That was really fun
We had to build that tunnel all the bracing in it so it wouldn't it wouldn't
fall apart
So all that structurally tubing going across it 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're gonna 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 yoke. 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?
How much did it affect the way the car handles the car handles great. We took
it on a racetrack
so ebay motor is actually we're sponsored by them. They brought us out to Sonoma
Raceway and
We were just doing donats and burnouts around their circle track the car. It
feels you know, it feels like it feels like a
almost like a
What's a Ford or a muscle car a modern muscle car a charger charger? Yeah, Cadillac
CTS
SRT. Oh, yeah, it's more like a Cadillac CTS V. Wow, and it's just it's light.
It's fun. It'll do a burner
I was think I was going like 30 miles an hour stomped on it rolling burnout
until like almost 100. The thing is 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? Mike?
That's fair enough zero to six. He's 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 it was a plaid next to me people went crazy over that
car and that's why it was built because it's a novelty because it's the novelty
it's listen
That's the probably the only one that's gonna 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 a ridiculous amounts of money just because
of what it is
You can work on it. You could modify it yourself and it's the spirit of
Car enthusiasm you gonna sell it never never never you said never 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 Tesla is 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 what that's my car, right? I want that. Why are you having fun in
that?
Especially the amount of time involved and ranking that when I get right yeah
about the engineering behind it because what's it?
What's it worth to someone?
100 150 right 200. I mean no gonna pay 200 for it. Let's just say 150 for that
car
That's cool, but like
Now what right. I don't h