Acknowledging that “we’re always learning,” Kevin and Willie embark upon a fond trip down memory lane, citing some major lessons they’ve learned along the way. Like the importance of strapping down whatever it is you’re moving, and why not to use a fire extinguisher on an engine. Or the danger of running nitrous at the wrong temp, and the wisdom of making everything foolproof. “There’s so much strength in the struggle, and typically one of your best means to educate yourself is your last mistake,” notes Willie, “and isn’t that really what makes the story so great?” Adds Kevin, “There is no better way to learn and never forget than to just screw something up.”
The owners of this 2017 Camaro love to drive it hard on weekend road trips, leaving it in need of some upgrades to help it cornering and gripping the back roads they love so much. So today, the guys set about transforming the car’s suspension to fully unleash its cornering power!
Kevin Tetz has been a professional painter, teacher, and well-known TV host for decades. His wealth of knowledge and easygoing delivery style have made him THE go-to guy for novices and DIYers. As he tells Kevin and Willie in today’s episode, “The difference between a painter and a paint gun owner is your ability to get yourself out of trouble,” which is something everyone should both expect and embrace. Don’t be afraid to mess things up, he says, because “experience is the ultimate teacher… just get in there and do it!”
Marketed as a two-door, two-passenger luxury car since 1953, the Chevy Corvette is a true American icon, and the one the guys have in the shop has been lying dormant for years. They’ll show how to DIY a fresh new look to its brake calipers and add a new exhaust to get it sounding like a real Vette again. They’ll fix cracked and broken plastic pieces on the car saving the owner money and finish up with some paint correction that’ll bring the original paint screaming back to life!
With winter in the rearview mirror, Kevin and Willie welcome spring and the reawakening of their own automotive dreams. “We’re cars all day long, every waking moment, we’ve got our shows, we’ve got our day jobs,” notes Kevin, “but it’s always about finding our time and what we want to do for ourselves.” Willie’s got his sights set on reviving several projects, including his “Anti-Bandit” Trans-Am, 1980 Blazer, and purple 1970 Charger 500 (1 of 9 Chargers!). Meanwhile, Kevin’s jazzed about his ’65 Mustang Fastback, projected to take him 5 years to complete. “I wanna dive into somewhere I’m not sure I can swim and keep my head above water,” he says about the A-Z build. “I’m gonna see if I can drown and somehow get out of it!”
The Jeep Gladiator has a new competitor in town, the Ford Bronco. Both have their own pros and cons and the guys will discuss one of the major differences, their suspensions. With the Gladiator, they’ll install an important upgrade for the bed before moving on to the Bronco and tackling some modifications that will get it ready for just about anything!
Season 22 of the Two Guys Garage TV show kicks off with Kevin and Willie executing an LS swap on a ‘94 Chevy Old Body Style pickup, complete with EFI from FiTech. VP Mike Wahl joins the guys for a deep dive on how surprisingly simple it is to upgrade to fuel injection, which for a long time was considered hugely intimidating. “We definitely pride ourselves on trying to make the simplicity side of the user end as easy as possible,” notes Mike, as well as affordable. And with 500 new parts numbers unveiled on April 1, that’s no joke!
OBS (Old Body Style) Trucks are becoming more and more popular, and today the guys are fortunate to have one in the shop. They’re going to swap in an LS engine, pick a system to control timing and fuel, and fix up a few accessories to make it look and run great again!
A successful suspension upgrade does not have to break the bank and can be done on just about any ride over the course of a weekend. As Kevin points out, “Sometimes you just need to upgrade a couple of key components, add some stiffness, and wow, the fun factor goes flying!” Kyle Briese of BMR Suspension couldn’t agree more. “You can literally transform a car by just adding a couple simple bolt-on parts,” he tells the guys. “You can take it from boring to being way more exciting to drive just by simple stuff, and you can do it with just a handful of parts.” Stick around and find out how.
By his own admission, the way Terry Fair does things is probably not the way your typical racer would. The owner of Vorshlag Motorsports “needs a car that handles pretty badly, cause the worse it is from the factory, the more we can improve upon it.” Terry’s unorthodox methodology has driven some remarkable results, netting track time improvements from milliseconds to multiple seconds. As he explains to Kevin and Willie, “Most cars are pretty terrible, and that’s great for the aftermarket, it gives us a lot of things to fix.”
