On this episode of Hot Rod Garage
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00:00 [Music]
00:20 Well it's the end of season one of Hot Rod Garage presented by Lincoln Tech, so we thought we'd give you something special.
00:26 Not only are we going to learn all about Tremec transmissions, but we're going to journey to Sonny Leonard's shop in Lynchburg, Virginia to build a 711 cubic inch Hemi V8.
00:37 Right now though, we've got a brand new quick tip from Lincoln Tech.
00:42 [Music]
00:47 Hi, my name is Chris Montowski and these are my tips for gapping piston rings.
00:51 The job of the piston rings is to keep oil out of the combustion chamber and to lubricate the sides of the cylinder wall.
00:57 The better the seal the ring pack provides, the more power the engine will produce.
01:01 This makes the ring gaps critical to any engine build.
01:04 The gaps in the rings prevent the ends from butting together under the intense heat and cylinder pressure of a running engine.
01:10 This is because when the engine is running, the gap gets smaller.
01:13 To check the gap, use a feeler gauge and slide it smoothly between the gap.
01:18 Too little of a gap, the rings will butt together and destroy the engine.
01:22 Too large a gap and the engine will suffer from blow-by.
01:26 Lincoln Tech can teach you how to have a career working with cars.
01:30 See LincolnEDU.com
01:33 [Music]
01:40 Today I'm going to learn everything there is to know about Tremec transmissions with Nate Tovey, Director of Enthusiast Marketing.
01:47 Did I get that right?
01:48 You got that man.
01:49 Nice! Nailed it.
01:50 Alright Nate, you brought us cutaways of the T5, the TKO, the Magnum.
01:55 Who are these customers? How much torque can you put through every one of these gearboxes?
01:59 Who's the guy for each one of these?
02:01 I mean the T5 is a great transmission, everybody knows it.
02:03 It works great, where space is at a major premium, it's cost effective.
02:07 Great transmission, very refined, good shift quality, can handle some RPM.
02:12 About 300 pound feet of torque is what we rate it for.
02:15 If you need more than that and you need some extra flexibility, you're going to jump into a TKO.
02:19 You can do the electric or mechanical speedo pickup, you can mid-shift it.
02:23 There's even a couple guys out there that convert these things for front shift.
02:26 Additionally, we drill it for the old Ford and GM, you know, four speed bolt patterns.
02:31 So it will bolt up to your existing 60/70's linkage and it's good for up to 600 foot pounds.
02:36 There's a lot to like about the TKO.
02:38 Alright, and then the big daddy, the Magnum.
02:41 The Magnum is essentially an aftermarket version of the TR6060.
02:45 We took a few pages from our TKO 5-speed line.
02:48 You've got the, again, the flexibility features with the shifter, the mechanical and electric speedo pickup.
02:53 However, while it is the most refined, it also does occupy the most space.
02:58 And a lot of guys for an earlier car, it uses a T56 style pattern on the front of the transmission.
03:04 So there's usually a little bit more conversion work to be done there, as you've experienced with your 55.
03:09 Oh yeah, the great thing about this is you can bolt on a steel SFI approved bell housing.
03:14 And there's companies like Hurst Driveline Components, American Powertrain.
03:18 They will sell you everything you need to bolt this into your muscle car, even if it never had a manual gearbox in it.
03:23 And that's what we did with my 55.
03:25 Right now we're going to put it up in the air.
03:27 We're going to show you what we had to go through to put a six speed in that bell there.
03:31 When you're ready to make the jump into a manual five speed or six speed Tremec gearbox,
03:35 there's a couple of installation notes you're going to have to think about.
03:38 First off is clearance issues.
03:40 The bell housing could be an issue with your firewall.
03:43 You're either going to have to fab or buy a transmission cross member.
03:46 Your drive shaft length is going to change.
03:48 And getting this all in here at the right angle is not easy,
03:50 but Tremec actually has an app for the Android and iPhone to help you figure out U-join angles.
03:56 So basically what we got here is a three step app that just uses the level function of your smartphone.
04:02 So it'll take a reading from your engine and transmission, your drive shaft, and the pinion out back,
04:08 and calculate your U-join angles, front and rear U-join angles,
04:11 and then give you an overall differential, your overall driveline operating angle.
04:15 Companies like American Powertrain, Hurst Driveline,
04:17 they sell all the swap parts you need to bolt this stuff into your car.
04:21 And then with a little trimming, you're done.
04:23 Yeah, right. It really varies by application, you know.
04:25 But the quality of the installation is going to have a lot to do with whether or not you love or hate your Tremec transmission.
04:31 You want to pay attention to the details.
04:32 And like you said, you can do some of the stuff yourself,
04:34 or you can essentially hire it out to some of our distributors that make the pieces for you.
04:39 So not only are you going to give us a free app, but you're also going to give us tips on how to buy a used transmission, right?
04:44 Yeah, I mean, I'd love to see you buy a new one,
04:46 but if you're going to go out there and try and find one at a swap meet or maybe off Craigslist or something like that,
04:50 it's probably important you know what to look for.
04:52 God, you're generous. All right, let's go do this.
04:54 I do what I can do when I can do it.
04:56 You're a giver.
04:57 We have a lot of guys, Mike, that call us up, call us up on the tech line,
05:00 and I think they've found themselves a fantastic deal on a Magnum 6-speed
05:04 because of how much it shares in common with the 6060, the OEM version of that transmission.
05:09 But in fact, a lot of times by the time you get done converting one of these transmissions to work with your earlier hot rod,
05:15 you're further ahead to just go ahead and get yourself a new one if your budget allows.
05:19 So this one here is out of a GT500, so this one's going to work with a Ford modular, not much else.
05:25 Right.
05:26 You know, also, yeah, you've got the provision for the semi-remote shifter.
05:29 That shifter that just kind of hangs off the back of it that we were talking about before, that as well.
05:33 That is specific to the GT500, so that's not going to work for your early hot rod more than likely.
05:39 And then the fixed flange at the back of the driveshaft for the two-piece factory Ford driveshaft,
05:45 that is not going to bode too well with your custom application.
05:48 Yeah, and if you've never driven a GT500 before, that's not the shifter you want.
05:52 You want one of these.
05:54 I mean, generally speaking, that's the problem with grabbing one from an OE application.
05:57 In the case of this transmission here, the T56 from a '98 to '02 F car,
06:02 the shifter is going to be and the speedo output is going to be as the general soft fit for that vehicle.
06:08 You think of it as like a universal performance transmission per se.
06:11 We put these flexibility options and features in it so that you can adapt it to really just about anything you can think of.
06:17 Cool.
06:18 Yeah.
06:19 All right, I feel smarter.
06:20 Let's go drive.
06:21 Excellent, man.
06:22 Sounds good.
06:23 All right.
06:24 So what year is this car?
06:25 '64.
06:26 '64 Valiant.
06:27 '64 Valiant Cigna.
06:28 And this has the Magnum 6-speed, right?
06:29 Yep.
06:30 Yep.
06:31 Okay.
06:32 [00:01:00]
06:33 [00:01.06]
06:34 Wow.
06:35 This car is awesome.
06:36 Right?
06:37 I like it.
06:38 When you hear the name Valiant in Project R, you're like, "Okay, I know you got a catchy
06:47 name calling it Violent.
06:48 Okay, that's cool, but it's still a Valiant."
06:50 Right.
06:51 And it's not going to be easy to make one look cool, but these guys pulled that off pretty well.
06:54 Yeah, absolutely, man.
06:55 The car is oozing with cool.
06:56 You want to drive?
06:57 I won't tell you no.
06:58 All right.
06:59 I'll pull over.
07:00 I know everything there is to know about manual transmissions now.
07:01 Thanks, Nate.
07:02 I don't know about everything, man.
07:03 I mean, I still haven't told you about the 3160 or our medium duty transmissions or our
07:04 heavy duty transmissions.
07:05 Did I mention to you that we make the industry's lightest commercial ...
07:06 Goodbye.
07:07 Finnegan, where the hell are you going, man?
07:08 Goodbye.
07:09 This is good stuff.
07:10 I don't care.
07:11 Come on, man.
07:12 I don't care.
07:13 Mike.
07:14 Mike.
07:15 [00:02.00]
07:16 [00:02.12]
07:17 [00:02.14]
07:18 [00:02.17]
07:19 In episode 10 of Roadkill, we traveled to Australia to drive a Holden that was powered
07:31 by a 727 cubic inch V8 engine built by Sunny Leonard Racing Engines.
07:37 And today we're here with the man himself to build our own version of that engine.
07:41 Now we're going to run ours on pump gas.
07:43 How much horsepower do you think we can make?
07:45 I would say she's going to make 1150 to 1175.
07:49 That's reasonable.
07:50 All right.
07:51 Well, Sunny's going to give us a hand.
07:52 Shop Manager Rusty is going to help us.
07:54 And we should be able to slap this thing down pretty quick and get it on the dyno.
07:58 We'll give it a try.
07:59 Yeah.
08:00 So we're going to do this kind of like a cooking show.
08:02 Our short block is actually together already, but we've got some similar parts so we can
08:06 show you what went in our engine.
08:08 And Rusty is going to give you some tips on how to measure bearing clearances for your
08:11 own builds.
08:13 We are running a billet Sunny Bryant crank, which starts out life as an eight inch steel
08:18 solid chunk of metal that gets whittled into that beauty.
08:21 We've got a Ford set of CP slugs that were custom machined for our application and some
08:27 billet Corillo connecting rods.
08:30 All of these add up to a recipe that will withstand any amount of boost I want to throw
08:34 at this thing.
08:35 Everything we're doing here applies to what the average guy would do in his garage.
08:38 So let's show the people what tools we're going to use and how we're going to figure
08:41 out the clearance between all the rotating pieces and the metal surrounding them.
08:46 Well, first you need a micrometer.
08:49 So we'll mic all the mains, make sure all the mains are the right size.
08:52 You don't want to force the mic.
08:54 Most of the custom crankshafts don't vary at all.
08:57 You cannot hardly measure any difference on journal to journal of these cranks.
09:01 So he just turned that into a standard for us.
09:03 So he's going to set it in the vice here in a rag and the vice is just going to get tightened
09:07 barely.
09:08 Now he's putting the dial bore gauge inside the micrometer and he's going to set it to
09:12 zero.
09:13 Once he does that, when he slides the dial bore gauge in all the bearings, the number
09:18 you see is our oil clearance.
09:20 We're running anywhere from four to four and a half, which is right where we like them.
09:24 So that's four and a half thousandths oil clearance.
09:27 And that's the gap between the journal of the crank and the bearing there.
09:32 Now four and a half for you guys at home that have built engines might sound a little big.
09:37 Everything here makes a lot of cylinder pressure.
09:39 So these guys run a little bit thicker oil than you would in your 383 stroker motor.
09:44 And they're building a lot more horsepower and cylinder pressure.
09:46 So they need that bigger clearance to run that wider oil wedge.
09:50 The dial bore gauge is a very sensitive instrument and it's susceptible to temperature variations.
09:56 So you don't want to handle this thing too long while you're measuring stuff.
09:59 You also don't want to be measuring bearing clearances when it's minus 20 in your shop
10:03 or 120 in your shop.
10:05 So you might see a couple of thousandths difference from morning to afternoon just in temperature
10:10 outside.
10:11 Yeah.
10:12 And a couple of thousandths doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're shooting for four
10:15 thousandths of an inch bearing clearance and you're off by two, you may think you've got
10:19 a problem when you might not have one or you could spin a bearing.
10:23 You may set it up too tight or way too loose.
10:26 So handle your tool properly, not too long.
10:31 So we're running a Brodix five inch bore splice block.
10:34 And what that means is this is dimensionally different than your standard big block Chevy.
10:39 A standard big block Chevy has a bore spacing of 4.840 inches.
10:44 And that's the distance from the center of this bore to this bore to this bore.
10:48 Ours is spread out another hundred and sixty thousandths of an inch so you can bore it
10:52 bigger and still maintain a whole lot of sleeve there, which helps it stay around when you're
10:57 running a lot of cylinder pressure.
10:59 Dimensionally, the length is exactly the same.
11:02 So this thing will bolt in place of a standard big block Chevy, but this also has a bigger
11:06 deck height.
11:08 Your regular big block Chevy has a deck height of nine point eight inches.
11:11 A tall deck is ten two hundred inches.
11:14 This is over eleven inches tall from the crank center line to the deck surface.
11:18 So that enables us to put a whole lot of swept volume in this thing, which that's how you
11:24 make a bigger engine, right?
11:26 Now the last tip we're going to give you before we move on to assembling our long block is
11:29 we're going to talk about the importance of rod bolt stretch.
11:32 What rod bolt stretch is, is it refers to the amount that this fastener will stretch
11:37 to apply the proper clamping force to the big end of the rod.
11:41 The reason that's important is there's a torque spec for this bolt as well.
11:45 Say it's eighty five foot pounds.
11:47 You may adjust your torque wrench to eighty five, turn it until it clicks, but the bolt
11:51 might not have actually stretched enough in this steel rod to apply the right force.
11:55 So Rusty's got this tool from ARP and it's going to measure the length of the bolt before
12:00 it stretches at all.
12:02 And he'll zero the dial indicator out there.
12:04 Then you'll torque the bolt.
12:06 Say we torque it to eighty five pounds, he'll put the tool back on and it'll measure the
12:09 stretch.
12:10 And in this case these bolts should stretch between five and eight thousandths of an inch.
12:13 If they don't, adjust the torque wrench some more, click it again and check it.
12:18 And you do that until the bolt stretches the exact right amount to hold this rod together.
12:23 Well the short block is done and it's time to put the heads on.
12:29 And these are not your average Hemi head.
12:31 They are meant to bolt onto a five inch four space Chevy block, which is nothing like a
12:36 regular four space Chevy block.
12:39 They're also unique in that they flow like you would not believe.
12:43 They have six hundred CFM runners.
12:45 They flow six hundred CFM at an inch of lift.
12:48 And for comparison, a fairly decent pro stock head will flow about five hundred CFM at an
12:53 inch of lift.
12:54 Your average aftermarket big block Chevy conventional head will flow three eighty four hundred.
12:59 So these things are ridiculous.
13:01 Part of the reason for that is the valves are giant.
13:04 That's a two point six six inch intake valve.
13:08 That's about a two four hundred valve out of a standard Chevy head.
13:11 So that's part of the key to this.
13:14 We're running manly titanium valves in here.
13:16 Jesse's going to throw on some copper coated comedic head gaskets and we're going to make
13:20 our way towards the finish line here.
13:23 Time to install the valve trim.
13:24 Here's what we've got going on.
13:25 These are Jezyl keyway lifters.
13:26 They don't have a tie bar or a dog bone.
13:29 They ride in a bronze bushing that's in the block.
13:32 Right here that keyway keeps it aligned.
13:34 These are inch oh ninety diameter.
13:36 These are monsters.
13:37 So are these trend push rods.
13:39 These are nine sixteenths diameter.
13:42 Very little deflection going on here, which is awesome.
13:45 These are T and D shaft rockers.
13:47 Both the intake and the exhaust are straight.
13:50 There's no offset there, which is cool too.
13:51 So we're going to put this stuff on now, throw on the intake.
13:55 Throttle body's already on it.
13:56 We can just start putting the EFI together and hopefully in the next few hours we're
14:00 dyno testing.
14:06 Our induction system is huge.
14:07 The Hemi heads are topped off with Sonny's billet intake, which is topped off and fed
14:11 by an AccuFab throttle body that has 2.750 throttle boards.
14:16 So this thing will flow over 4000 CFM.
14:19 For fuel, we're relying on a belt driven aero-motive fuel pump and filter.
14:23 This thing is capable of supporting up to 2500 horsepower, which is plenty for what
14:28 we've got going on here.
14:30 Just for kicks, we're going to run the engine both with an MSD Digital 7 box and an HVC
14:35 coil, feeding the Jezyl front drive distributor.
14:38 We're also going to take this off because the new Holley Dominator EFI system has the
14:43 ability to run coil on plug ignition.
14:45 So it's an ignition system, it's a data acquisition system, it's a nitrous controller, boost controller,
14:49 transmission controller.
14:51 It'll pretty much launch a space shuttle to the moon if you can figure out how to work
14:55 it.
14:56 I can't, that's why Robin's here.
14:57 It's a very adaptable ECU.
14:59 Some of the other features include four stages of nitrous control, a boost control, water
15:06 meth injection, the Dominator has transmission control for 4L80 and 4L60, and it also has
15:12 drive by wire capabilities.
15:15 So 34 inputs and outputs and 4 gig of internal data logging, it kind of rounds out the features
15:22 on the Dominator.
15:22 [Engine starting]
15:25 [Engine revving]
15:27 [Engine revving]
15:29 [Engine revving]
15:31 [Engine revving]
15:58 Holy crap, we just made 950 pound feet of torque and 1225 horsepower with our 711 inch
16:06 Sunnylunard racing engine on pump gasoline.
16:10 That's right, that's the same stuff you can put in your Honda, but you ain't gonna make
16:13 that much power.
16:15 And it's not enough.
16:17 So we're gonna bolt up two of these Precision Turbo billet wheels and go for 2000 horsepower.
16:24 There might not be a video of that, but if you read Hot Rod magazine or check out hotrod.com,
16:28 in the next few months you'll see us pull it off.
16:35 It's that time, the Q&A portion of Hot Rod Garage.
16:38 This is where you go to our Facebook page, pose your most probing question, and maybe
16:44 the producers will pick it for us to drop some amazing knowledge.
16:47 Probing?
16:48 Yeah, what do we got?
16:49 Eric Uzarski wants to know what happened to Pigpen.
16:52 Pigpen is the '50 GMC truck that we pulled out of Turner's Auto wrecking up in Fresno,
16:57 California for an episode of Roadkill, and we blew up the motor on the way home.
17:03 And so we unloaded it to one of our video guys.
17:05 Oh my god, that didn't even occur to me.
17:07 Yet another lemon ends up to one of the video guys.
17:10 That's right, every time we have a straight six car, we blow up the motor and sell it
17:13 to a video guy.
17:14 First, the Gremlin to Travis, and now Pigpen to Dustin.
17:18 Oh, and don't forget, Mark's got your amazing Dodge truck with the shake.
17:22 Also with engine trouble.
17:23 Of course, that's not an inline six, but just as good.
17:26 Aaron Foxworth, 12-year-old son, Aiden, wants to know what is our biggest regret, purchase-wise,
17:32 of an automobile?
17:33 What's the car we wish we had never bought?
17:37 I know, go.
17:38 I was not into the Catalina in episode one.
17:42 It just, yeah.
17:43 I think right out of the gate, we should have done something crazier.
17:47 The trip was crazy, but the car, I think we've learned since then to make the car a little
17:51 more interesting.
17:53 Because Jamie Hanneman put change in our cub cap, I'm going to say the Corvette was a bad
17:57 purchase.
17:59 It should be at the bottom of a sinkhole in Kentucky somewhere.
18:02 God, it deserved to be, it really did.
18:05 Bob really should have let us put that in his hole.
18:10 Lucas Cull wants to know, can you have high compression and boost an engine?
18:14 Yes, you can.
18:15 It's really, how much power do you want?
18:17 I mean, if you're willing to put alcohol in your motor, I know guys that run 14 to 1 on
18:22 Roots Blown deals that make 3,000 horsepower.
18:24 What fuel do you have?
18:25 How much power do you want?
18:26 There you go.
18:27 So it's doable.
18:28 Actually, up at Bonneville, there's a lot of guys who run higher compression than you
18:31 would think.
18:32 Basically, because we're at altitude, the density altitude up there is often 7,800,
18:36 8,200 feet.
18:38 There's less air to begin with.
18:39 I'm sorry.
18:40 I know.
18:41 And so even if you've got a supercharger, that overcomes that a lot.
18:45 But still, you would want to run a little bit more compression because there's just
18:47 fewer air molecules at that altitude.
18:50 Sandre Klepp wants to know, will we take the boggers from the muscle truck and put them
18:54 on the vet cart?
18:55 That's a pretty good idea.
18:58 We did the episode of Roadkill with our lowered '74 Chevy C10, where we blazed the fenders
19:03 off of it and put some boggers on it, which are obviously off-road tires, and went and
19:07 hit the sand dunes with them.
19:08 And then in our vet cart episode, we took the vet cart off-road.
19:11 A lot of people were stoked on that.
19:13 We've been going back and forth on the vet cart, whether it needs to become more of a
19:16 handling autocrossing vehicle with big, fat slicks on it, or whether it needs to go bigger
19:21 boggers and big suspension travel and more off-road.
19:24 What do you think?
19:25 Let us know in the comments.
19:26 The ACBC car, I think it could go both ways.
19:30 So Jerry P. watched the episode of Hot Rod Garage, where I was talking about that new
19:34 ACDelco Green Shield fuel line hose.
19:37 And he's saying he's got a carbureted Chevelle that he runs 45 PSI to the regulator, and
19:43 he wants to know if the hose is okay for that.
19:45 With a mechanical pump, I think is what he said.
19:47 I'm thinking he's got more trouble than just his fuel hose.
19:49 You do not want to run 45 PSI to a carburetor.
19:52 I can't think why you would ever want to do that, except for a situation where it's a--
19:55 Oh, he's making a fountain.
19:56 That's what it is.
19:57 45 PSI Chevelle fountain.
20:00 Like a lawn sprinkler.
20:01 Yeah.
20:02 Now, you would run 45 pounds of fuel pressure if you had 38 pounds of boost in a carburetor
20:09 enclosure.
20:10 That's pretty much what you would do.
20:11 And then it would actually zero out, because the boost minus the fuel pressure equals seven
20:15 pounds.
20:16 So to actually answer the question, ACDelco makes two part numbers for the fuel line,
20:22 one for EFI, one for carbureted applications.
20:24 The carbureted one will actually handle 50 PSI.
20:27 So if you're running 50 PSI to your carburetor, you can do that with the ACDelco line.
20:31 The fuel injected one is good for up to 225 PSI.
20:35 And both of them come in a variety of diameters.
20:37 You can get--
20:38 Everything from 3/16 all the way up to half inch.
20:40 To half inch.
20:41 Well, the half inch-- we actually researched this-- the half inch is only good for 35 PSI,
20:46 but the 3/8 line is good for 50.
20:48 Yep.
20:49 Because you need 50 with a carburetor.
20:51 We also found out that--
20:52 Maybe you have six carburetors.
20:53 I don't know.
20:56 We also found out that that green shield hose is impervious not only to gasoline, but also
21:00 to leaded gasoline, anything with ethanol, and even diesel.
21:05 All right, well that was another awesome addition to the Q&A session of Hot Rod Garage.
21:10 If you would like to pose any question you like to this guy, visit us on Facebook at
21:17 Hot Rod Garage Show.
21:19 Post your query.
21:20 Maybe he'll answer it.
21:22 If you want to do any probing, direct it right there to this guy.
21:26 Well, that was an awesome trip to Sonny Leonard's racing facility, and this has been a killer
21:34 year at Hot Rod Garage.
21:36 We're going to be back real soon with brand new episodes, more parts, and more track testing.
21:41 We'll see you next time.
21:43 Nicholas Cox asks the question many people often do is, "How often do I need to seek
21:47 medical attention for wearing flip-flops while I'm wrenching on things?"
21:51 Only once have I had it really bad on the bare feet while wrenching things.
21:55 I remember I was standing at my house soldering something, and a piece of the solder dripped
22:00 and pretty much went clear through my foot all the way to the pavement.
22:04 That was so bad.
22:06 Man, did that hurt.
22:08 And I still have a big scar for it.
22:09 But aside from that, no real damage.
22:13 Not that it's a contest, but my friend Brian has you beat.
22:17 We did an engine swap in his driveway, and they had just paved the street in front of
22:24 his house a few days earlier, and it was a 90 degree day out, so the asphalt was really
22:27 soft.
22:28 And we're rolling the hoist in the street, and it was sinking.
22:32 And it sunk far enough where it broke the casters off the front of the hoist.
22:35 Oh, I see this coming.
22:36 So the motor ends up bouncing, and it was on a Motorstrike old ratchet strap.
22:41 That's what was holding it on the hoist.
22:42 So that breaks, motor lands on the pan, and this is a blown big block Chevy with an intercooler.
22:47 Super tall.
22:48 And it's laying in the street, and cars are coming.
22:51 We're freaking out.
22:52 And I'm like, dude, we've got to put the engine hoist away.
22:54 And I'm like, OK.
22:55 So I take the bolt out of the top of the engine hoist, and he's standing in front of it.
22:59 And the boom slides out and comes straight down on his big toe and damn near chops it
23:05 off.
23:06 I mean, just blood squirting everywhere.
23:08 Why?
23:09 Because the man was wearing thongs while working on an engine.
23:11 No, because the guy was standing near you wearing thongs working on the same thing.
23:17 So be careful.
23:18 Not that I've never done that.
23:21 Yum!