SEMA 2024 and the Future of Hot Rodding

[@jjkoferl]

Hot rod's lead the way... I love the idea of being emission compliant and I also love the idea of electric cars being hot rods. To see the future one just has to open your eyes to what is possible.

[@isalmankhan1]

Good to see you Eric👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[@rollerdragon]

hey now!! good to see you, Eric!!

[@vijayantgovender2045]

Eric very happy to see you are back watching from South Africa

[@chrishernandez2490]

Hi Eric, I wanted to touch on what you were talking about around 5:00 as a California resident myself. Believe it or not, engine swaps can be legal in California. There's 3 major rules that you need to follow for an eligible legal engine swap: 1. You can not interchange truck and car engines. 2. The engine going in the donor car has to be the same year or newer. 3. All emissions equipment must be present and working, including the stock ECU for the new engine, cats, evap plumbing Etc. With that being said, California Ironically doesn't give a rats ass whether the car pollutes more or less, as long as the aforementioned steps are followed. If you took that turbo 1.5 and put in a car that was one year newer than the turbo 1.5, that would not be a legal CA swap. If you took a 2001 Honda civic and somehow crammed a 7 liter LS in it, and installed all the GM emissions equipment, theoretically that would be perfectly legal engine swap as long as that LS was from a car newer than 2001. All CA engine swaps have to go through a thorough inspection at CA state ref center. If everything checks out, they give you a special tag that states you have a legal engine swap.

[@mgene63]

Great video Eric. So happy to hear you share your opinion again. Brings great perspective and some light during these short days.

[@Motorsportsgeek]

Welcome back!

[@ToolDemos]

Honda wasn’t there, but Honda racing was. Stuck back in the corner, way smaller than the Toyota booth.

[@chrisbrady1490]

That Integra was interesting. I might consider doing something like that to my 2001 if it was affordable.

[@clevelandmaker386]

I've known about the century for 5 years now ... can't wait until they're legal here

[@sergeymatpoc]

yeah... Toyota 1GZ-FE engine, 5-liter v12.

[@edwinc9948]

About the EV conversion on older cars, I really wish company come up with a kit that some how bolts onto the spindle, so let's say you have an old FWD car and you install this kit on the rear axle and BOOM!! 4WD!!

[@hvu6037]

And where's the battery gonna go?

[@MrTonyPiscatelle]

Just an FYI- Those trucks and other RC vehicles like them are Radio Controlled not Remote Controlled

[@NotmeGK123]

Yeah until electric cars can go across the country in 40 hours in the cold it’s just a wet dream in my book

[@akshonclip]

I heard the EPA and CARB had agents snooping around the vendor displays this year.

[@BlackSuburban]

No, they weren't.

[@22_floW]

My opinion is that it's all going shit. Every goddamn bit of it. SEMA's great to awe and ogle that lone wolf of a shop or two who threw into some Chevette a holy grail V12 Frankenstein, but it should never be used or even implied as being a barometer of what to expect for everyone else or even what can be possible in the after market industry when it's always those one or two shops in the entire continental United States who ever do that kind of work, do the work mostly for themselves, and are always on an attrition timeline where the old farts who do the work are always one or two years away from retirement. It's all a wash for anyone younger who wants to either get into the business or who simply wants to hire someone to do the work for them. And people wonder why the customs industry is a dying animal? If I had a dime for every time every shop I've ever called tell me that, "We don't do that here," or, "You'll be better off just buying a new car if you want that," my wealth would rival Elon Musk's. In other words, yeah, sure, it's great that we're seeing these things in the industry per-SEMA exhibits, but make no mistake: One or two shops showing off what they can do at SEMA does not at all represent what the industry can or will do. EVER. Those guys you see at SEMA are your unique use cases usually homed from major metro centers like Los Angeles or New York City and the resources they have rarely proliferate to the rest of the country. And let's be honest: The majority of people will never use their services either because it's too expensive, too inaccessible (because really, who wants to ship a car off to some shop [assuming they're willing to even do that] and be without it for probably a year for work to be done that they then have to wait to be delivered back just to see if everything's copacetic?), or because those shops never want to do that kind of work for the normies and even when the normies are willing to pay for it? I mean, clearly you're living in a world where you have a better network for these things with people who are willing to do things for YOU, but the rest of us are fucked and will be fucked until the major manufacturers get off their asses and find a way to justify for themselves providing those services to everyone else in an equitable business model that they're able to accept. And now that Trump is in office, we're more likely to see major revisions to CAFE standards if not have them completely killed-off entirely. If that happens, THAT will be a bigger representation of what might be possible in the automotive / aftermarket industry and or customs fields since it's primarily responsible for so many things that cause the problems I'm talking about. Hell, it's primarily responsible for none of us seeing a standard bed, normal cab truck like we used to have back in the late 80s mid-to-late 90s. Anyone remember the Ford Ranger? The S-10? Yeah, thank CAFE for those no longer existing. Case in point: Where I live, it's almost next to impossible to find anyone who does rust repair work that involves fabrication of custom panel parts, which is relatively simple for anyone who works in the fabrication industry. Need brand new rockers and cabs when nobody supplied them anymore? Yeah, you're fucked. And there's only 1 provider within a 100 mile radius who's willing to do LS swaps where I live and that's at an INSANE cost (i.e. - I once got quoted $20k+ to do an LS swap for a 2006 Chevy Colorado). And it's always labor that causes the massive costs. Yes, I know the work is time-consuming, so I understand how labor plays a massive role in that. I also understand how much needs refined or swapped when you're talking about such a monumental project, so I'm not exactly disputing the cost... But it's just hard to think that the things you've seen at SEMA might be the future when you can't even get access to shops who are capable and or willing (and at a decent, practical cost) to do the more simpler things we should all be able to find providers for without being forced into hauling off to some custom shop that's thousands of miles away. It's just unrealistic and proves how all of this is dying.

[@4BillC]

Plug in EV's are not the answer to the "problem" mainly because of battery construction.