When pushing OEM engines to their limits, factory components often fall short. Platinum Racing Products in partnership with Crest CNC addresses these issues with their new cast cylinder head for the Subaru EJ series.

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✅ Solving EJ Series Problems
Known for head lifting and cracking, the EJ20 needed a robust solution. PRP's cast head offers improved intake port spacing for larger valves, thicker head material, and a redesigned exhaust port for better flow and reduced back pressure.

☝️ Why Cast Over Billet?
While billet is great for prototypes, casting is ideal for mass production, offering better thermal expansion properties and consistent quality.

🔥 Enhanced Performance
The new design supports 14mm head studs and versatile coil mounting options, making it easier for high-power builds. Customizable port designs allow for CNC porting up to 420 CFM, ensuring optimal performance.

Creating high-end race cars and parts for a living is a dream for many of us, but how do you turn that dream into a reality? We don’t have all the answers, but we can pick the brains of the people who’ve pulled it off, like this week’s guest, Joe Scarbo.

Use SCARBO50 to get $50 off HPA 3D Modelling course: https://hpcdmy.co/CADb

Joe Scarbo of Scarbo Performance and Scarbo Vintage began his love affair with all things motorised like many of us — young and elbow-deep in a deconstructed radio control car trying to fix and improve it. This episode first covers Joe’s early days as he gained an appreciation for all things automotive through his love of both RC cars and go-karting. After a few too many crashes in the kart, Joe steered his passions towards the engineering side of the game, and began building his first car completely from scratch.

With little experience and zero computer power, Joe designed and built a four-seater 350 SBC-powered off-road sand car that’s still hitting the dunes to this day, despite it being finished before Joe was even out of his teens.

While he was still studying mechanical engineering at university, Joe found himself employed as a fabricator and machinist at a high-end race shop. From there, his career began to snowball as his design skills became more and more in demand. We dig into the design side of Joe’s career in this conversation, discussing the creation of strong and light wheels, chassis’, and everything in between.

After that, Joe talks us through different fabrication and manufacturing processes, discussing some of the pros and cons around CNC, water and laser cutting, notching, materials, and more. This chat also goes into the business side of the equation as we attempt to answer age-old questions like: how do you accurately quote your work? And when is it better to just outsource certain jobs?

The star of this episode, though, is undoubtedly Joe’s current passion project, the SV1 Rover. This monster off-roader is a marvel of engineering, and a machine that Joe has labelled the world’s first “hyper truck”. Whether he’s right or wrong about that we’ll leave up to the listener, but either way, the details we get into on this 30-inch travel go-anywhere-at-very-high-speeds beast is well worth a listen. Find out how it was designed, what powers it, what it’s capable of, and much more in this episode of Tuned In.

Check out Method Race Wheels here: https://www.methodracewheels.com

Follow Scarbo Performance here:
IG: scarboperformance
FB: Scarbo Performance Corp
WWW: scarboperformance.com

Don’t forget, you can use SCARBO50 to get $50 off HPA 3D Modelling course: https://hpcdmy.co/CADb

Time Stamps:
3:30 How did you get interested in cars?
8:32 What did you become passionate about through your mechanical engineering degree?
14:27 Designing a car at 19, how did you figure out how strong to make all the components?
18:20 What happened after your degree?
25:31 Design work for Method Wheels
31:35 How do you balance weight, strength vs looks when designing wheels?
36:27 Starting your own company
52:18 Overview of Scarbo Performance
1:08:48 SV Rover — what was the initial concept?
1:18:13 How much did RC cars influence your design?
1:46:43 Engine configuration in the SV Rover and an EV option?
1:50:01 Did the SV Rover work out of the box or were there teething issues?
1:57:28 Where is the SV Rover at? Are you going to be offering this to customers?
1:58:59 Final three questions

What do you do when you're bored of being one of the fastest 5-cylinder drag cars in the world? Double down and reach for a V10 is the answer Hank Iroz of Iroz Motorsport went with, and we're glad he did!

Use ‘PODCAST75’ for $75 off your first HPA course here: https://hpcdmy.co/hpa-tuned-in

With world-leading experience gained on the RS3 platform, the switch to the Audi R8 V10 is a similar area for the Iroz team, and with the R8 and Huracan platforms being similar and very active in the drag racing world, it's a great platform to be active with.

It was early days for the car during this interview with a lot of work done but limited testing yet, however, the car was setup with weight balance as a primary focus, and as such the Xona Rotor X5C TR9980 performance turbos were not located out the back as we commonly see, but rather don't he side where some cooling is usually found, and a GT4 chassis was used as the starting point given they are already well caged and come with all the sensors you need, and probably some you don't for drag racing.

With an AMS Performance and Dodson parts package plus a MoTeC electronics system as part of the puzzle, we're interested to see where this project heads in the future.