The meeting featured a discussion with Ryan Basseri, founder of Riwire Motorsport Electronics, focusing on the evolution of custom builds in the automotive industry, particularly in the context of the upcoming SEMA 2024 event. Basseri shared insights into his journey from selling wiring harnesses on eBay to establishing a successful business that specializes in high-performance custom builds and EV conversions. He emphasized the importance of standalone ECUs in modern motorsport, which allow for advanced tuning and calibration necessary for high horsepower builds. The conversation also touched on common wiring mistakes in custom builds, the significance of proper grounding, and the challenges of preparing for SEMA. Basseri expressed excitement about innovations in electric and hybrid systems, highlighting the potential for alternate fuels and the future of automotive technology. The discussion concluded with Basseri’s commitment to inspiring the next generation of builders and his involvement in the Battle of the Builders competition at SEMA.

Cole Strandberg: Welcome to another episode of the Collision Vision podcast driven by Auto Body News. As always, I’m your host Cole Strandberg. Today we’re continuing our Art of Restoration series as we quickly approach SEMA 2024. I’m excited today to welcome Ryan Bosseri, founder of Riwire Motorsport Electronics. Ryan is known for his work in high performance custom builds and his expertise in wiring and electronics. More recently he’s been making waves with his EV conversion builds, a couple of which he’ll be showing at sema. Today we’re going to discuss his journey, the evolving world of custom builds and what is next for rywire@SEMA 2024. So buckle up and enjoy this conversation with Ryan Basseri. Ryan Basri, thank you for joining us here on the Collision Vision.

Ryan Basseri: Thank you for having me, man.

Cole Strandberg: Looking forward to a fun conversation. The energy this month with SEMA coming up has led to some really exciting, fun, relevant conversations. I think today is going to be the very same. But I’ll start it off with kind of just an open ended question about your background. You’ve built some really unique builds. You’ve built a very unique business. Tell us about your journey into the world of what you’re doing today.

Ryan Basseri: Well, it really started when I was a kid. I was in college and my uncle was into the Honda CRX and he kind of got me into the CRX and you know, Hondas in general. My whole family I grew up with all. Everybody owned SI Hondas, from a Prelude to a Civic to crx. Everybody had sis and my whole, like, dad side of the family. It was really cool. So my uncle was like, yeah, the CRX, you could put like a. This B16 engine in it and all this stuff. So I had a. Coincidentally enough, at the college I was going to at Monterey Peninsula College, one of the professors there was actually a Honda technician. And he kind of told me, like, you know, you see, see, like, you have a passion here. If you want to just, like, forgo the, you know, curriculum, just maybe pick up an engine and let’s try to swap it in, and then if you get it fired up and running, then I’ll give you an A. So I was like, cool. Um, so he really kind of coached me through doing this B16 swap. And I started, you know, doing the wiring. At the very end, you had to add, like, vtec, VTEC solenoid. You had to add a secondary oxygen sensor and a knock sensor. And, you know, there’s only four wires with the ground, so it’s five wires total. Not the hardest thing in the world, but, you know, when it’s your first time doing it and you’re trying to sort stuff out, I learned a lot and I mix some stuff up, and I really got a big understanding of it. So that’s really where the kickoff happened. And I started doing the wiring and starting to sell those products, and then it just snowballed from there.

Cole Strandberg: Love it, man. It’s an awesome story and always, like, hearing kind of where those passion projects form. At what point talk to me about how your business rightwire was born.

Ryan Basseri: So the business was born, actually. We just kind of started just selling on ebay. And I say we. But really it’s just myself, right? I eventually. I eventually started going to some CRX meets and I met a friend, and we just decided to basically start the business, you know, together. And after that, we kicked it off with a website. Got a website going. I started selling some wiring harnesses on there, and it quickly turned into, you know, well, we need to buy certain things. And one of them was these little ECU jumpers. So I was taking these engine harnesses and I was stripping them down and I was modifying them. But then sometimes we changed the computer, and that needed a little jumper. And this guy Jason sold these patch harnesses. So Jason was interested in selling his business because he was actually going to start working for Honda corporate doing programming and tuning for OEM vehicles. And he said, hey, you know, you guys are our best customers. Are you interested in buying like this business and kind of incorporating it into your guys business? And I said absolutely. And that kind of turned into like a loan from my father. Didn’t take much, it was like 30 grand. And he borrowed against his house. And you know, my other buddy that was helping me, Peter, he was doing the website and you know, we were working super hard trying to get it established and that’s really how the business was formed. So acquiring one company early on that was super small and putting our two together and getting a website, that’s how it kind of like launched the whole, the whole thing.

Cole Strandberg: I love it, man. And I want to get into SEMA here in a little bit. I’m getting a little ahead of my skis. But talk to me about how you spend your time between that business. You got a couple builds coming to sema and again we’ll, we’ll keep that detail for a little bit later in the conversation. But talk to me about what your life looks like these days.

Ryan Basseri: Well, these days it’s crazy. I actually like just got back from an overseas trip and I got kind of a cold. So kind of maybe bear with me a little bit. But I’m like, I’m kind of like halfway there right now, super jet lagged. So that’s always fun. But yeah, I have some employees that really help me with day to day stuff. The website flows really well. You know, we have that set up very strong. We also have turn 14 distribution. So turn 14 is, you know, one of the biggest aftermarket companies in the world as far as distribution network and they purchase our products, sell our products. So we work really closely with them and they’re a huge asset to our business. And you know, the guys under me are making all that happen. I’m mostly in charge of bespoke wiring jobs and you know, new applications coming to the table. And this year for example, I have two cars and their EV conversions that I want to kind of get into a little bit later. But it’s their prototype builds. So they’re things that I want to learn and their direction that I see interesting moving forward. And so I spend my time, a lot of time R and D and that’s what I’m doing this year is a lot of research and development while my team behind me kind of supports me.

Cole Strandberg: Love it, man. That’s an awesome progression and yeah, looking forward to diving into some real SEMA specific conversation. Those builds sound super interesting. I do want to talk about the business and the wiring harness piece of it might not be the most glamorous part of a build, but obviously very, very critical. Talk to me about the role that these wiring harnesses play and wiring in general plays in the world of high performance and COD custom cars.

Ryan Basseri: Okay, well, you know, maybe 10 years ago is a little bit different. Where, you know, a lot of, a lot of builders were. I mean, GM LS is like a huge market, right? And you know, back, back 10 years ago, your solution was you throw an LS3 in there or you know, an LS1 or whatever, you throw that in your build. You have a, you know, factory wiring harness that, you know, uses the factory computer. It’s super easy to power up. It’s got some relays on board. You don’t really think about it, you just kind of power it up, run maybe some fan and some fuel pump wiring and you’re kind of done. Well, you know, in the recent years, I’d probably say in the last like 5 to 10, it’s really started to get gain a lot of traction and that’s the implementation of standalone ECUs. Standalone ECUs are critical to motorsport environment because they allow tuning and calibration on the engine. You know, guys that are doing 2,000 horsepower builds nowadays, they’re not being able to even achieve that on a factory computer. Let’s say you’re talking about the Toyota 2JZ. That’s a huge aftermarket support engine. That engine is well capable of making 2,000 horsepower, but it’s not capable of making 2,000 horsepower on a factory computer. You need to add more fuel injectors, so that means more actual drivers on board on that computer. You also need to start logging and viewing critical sensors. You need wide band feedback, which is an amazing asset. You need proper NOX sensor to be able to sense how much, you know, how much you can advance your timing and not detonate and not blow up your engine. Also, things like monitoring fuel pressure and oil pressure are totally critical for engine calibration. So to be honest, like 10 years ago, 15 years ago, that wasn’t really a thing. Now five years or so, everybody’s doing standalone computers. And you know, we were doing that from the beginning, but our business has really like ramped into that and now we’re like hardly ever doing any factory replacement style wiring harnesses. It’s all standalone engine management and they all need bespoke, properly sorted, properly set up wiring harnesses. So that’s really like, it’s massive and I see it as a huge asset and it’s critical and 100% essential to building a race car nowadays.

Cole Strandberg: Man, such a complex conversation where frankly, I’m out of my depth. But super interesting. So many of our listeners come from the collision repair world. I think maybe a little bit expanded this month here with our focus on SEMA and the custom car world. But you know, we talk about wiring harnesses and collision. It’s complex enough. We talk about wiring harnesses in the world of custom. So many places it can go wrong. And I know we’ve touched on that a little bit. But what are some of the most common mistakes, the common misconceptions, the common themes that you see when someone messes up in this world and how can we avoid them?

Ryan Basseri: Let’s see. When, when people mess up, I think that our number one thing happens a lot to our clients and also, just like in motorsports in general, is not having proper grounds. I think that that’s a spot where people really don’t, they don’t understand it. They don’t understand that like for example, your alternator, they see the big red cable to your alternator, right? And that’s basically charging your battery, right? So that’s taking the. In most cases it just depends. But you know, it’s going to take the crankshaft revolution on a belt, it’s going to go to your alternator. Your alternator is going to then feed back energy into your battery, keeping your 12 volt battery alive. And that keeps your, your engine control system happy. And then that keeps your fuel injectors firing, for example. Okay. So if you have a bad ground somewhere, you have, let’s say that you just are missing one or they’re corroded. If that battery strap is not connected properly to your engine, to your frame rail, for example, or there’s paint in it, let’s say collision guys, you paint over a ground and then you go put that ground screw back into the chassis and you don’t chase those threads and grind that down to bare metal, you’re going to have issues. First you’re going to see your battery not charging and then if it does charge a little bit, you might see low voltage. Low voltage could actually turn into the engine management being unhappy and then the injector duty cycle getting screwed up and that could result in at high RPMs, engine failure.

Cole Strandberg: Man, you are no stranger to SEMA. Interested in how many you’ve been to, by the way, but what can we expect from you and the RW team here at SEMA this year?

Ryan Basseri: Well, I think I’ve Been to, I don’t know, I’m guessing around 15 years in a row, I guess. Except for the year for Covid, sure. Yeah. As far as. As far as this year for what we’re bringing. And I’m building the two cars, so it’s a lot of lot on me, for sure. I definitely have some help and I have some, you know, some team of. Team of guys kind of helping with fabrication and stuff like that. But yeah, I’m building two Honda Civics. And they’re both electric, but they’re very, very different from each other.

Cole Strandberg: Talk to me, man. Let’s start with number one.

Ryan Basseri: All right, so the flagship car is a dual motor, all wheel drive, right? So there’s a motor in the front, motor in the back, 85 kilowatt battery pack. So that’s the range of the kilowatt hours. And the horsepower would be around 600. And the curb weight is going to probably add about a thousand pounds to the factory vehicles. Curb weight, man.

Cole Strandberg: No joke. Talk to me about how this kind of came about.

Ryan Basseri: So I actually built a rear motor, rear wheel drive, S2000 electric several years ago. It was at the SEMA show. It was going to be in the turn 14’s main booth inside. But that was the by year for Covid. The year after, it ended up being in the pit and paddock outside booth, which is kind of like a sister company with turn 14. It got some good exposure, but there was some really cool, like, Ferrari F40s and like, amazing builds that it was kind of out outshined by it. But I would say that, you know, people still took interest and there were still a lot of people that were excited and intrigued and a lot of people really mad at me for, quote, unquote, destroying Honda S2000. And, yeah, so that’s kind of where like, the idea kicked off. I actually really wanted to do a Civic first shop next door to me at the time, they had an S2000 chassis that was literally just scrap. And I said, you know, maybe I’ll do that one first instead, because it’s right there. Um, and so instead of going to scout out a Civic and finding one, I actually just, like, had that S2000 just given to me. I’m like, okay, let’s do this. No engine, nothing. It was, it was not in good condition at all. And yeah, so that was a successful one. Uh, people really liked it. I learned a lot, but I was like, man, this is. It was my first rodeo. Um, a lot of EV builders hit me up and they were just like, wow, for your first car, this is, like, absolutely incredible. We’re amazed. So I really wanted to hit it hard with a new build, and that’s where the dual motor car kind of came into play. About two years ago, I bought chassis, just started fabrication, doing a bunch of CAD work, trying to figure out, you know, how the motors are going to work, what size motors I use, battery module selection. Honestly, building this car is a logistical packaging nightmare. And I’m so glad that I have CAD to help me do that. I mean, I’m literally just spending my time, like, designing bus bars and then going on send, cut, send, and then just, like, submitting, and then. And then, like, nickel plating, the bra, the copper bars when they, you know, arrive, and it’s just like. It’s crazy. So it’s a completely different kind of car build than what you’re used to in a typical situation where it’s just like, all right, engine’s here. Let’s drop it in, you know, get somebody to wire it. Okay. Let’s throw some plumbing in the car and, you know, get the car painted. This is, like, completely different in the sense that it’s the same, but, like, my whole. What I know about cars is, like, flipped upside down. So just implementing all these new ideas and modern technologies, yeah, I kind of really got my juices flowing. So that’s the. That’s the red car.

Cole Strandberg: Love it, man. Take me to the next car as well. And then I want to zoom out a little bit and talk about, as you mentioned, getting a little bit of hate on, quote, ruining an S2000. I want to talk about the purists. But. But first, take me through the second build this year.

Ryan Basseri: Okay, so second builds, all build is also a Honda Civic, and that is the. The first car. Jump back to that really quick. Is a 96, 2000 Civic hatch. The car that we’re talking about now, the simpler one, it’s the white one and is a 92. 90 92, 95 Civic. So that’s a. Eg. Both great cars. They’re the same, but different. This white car is my idea to manufacture a kit for these vehicles. So what’s incredibly interesting is the 92 to 2000 Honda Civic have a very similar engine bay when you use the 92 to 95 Civic engine, rear subframe. So you use that subframe, and now the cars are the same. Also. The acura Integra from 94 to 2001 is also the same engine bay. So this got me thinking, and I teamed up with a company called House Sport. They do all the Honda engine mounts for everything that you could think of for engine swaps. And Brian over there said to me, for probably the past like six, seven years, hey, when you want to do an EV thing, let me know. I want to do an EV thing. And he doesn’t even, didn’t even have a grasp of what was going on with that. He’s just like, if you could figure out something for electric. I want to make a mount kit. So I got with Brian and I’m like, this is what I want to use. I want to use a small Tesla drive unit. They’re plentiful, they’re super easy to get, they’re low in price, and you can actually reverse the rotation, turn them, sit them the opposite way in the engine bay, and you can run them basically backwards, if that makes sense in reverse. And that way the differential sits back just like a Honda engine would sit, so it fits in the engine bay better. And that’s my reason for reverse rotating it. And then I chose a battery module setup that is quite small, but keeps the price down. And also it keeps packaging a lot more minimal. So that car has the front Tesla drive unit and then it has a battery pack that I designed from a Chrysler Pacifica hybrid. So it’s only a 16 kilowatt pack. Um, it’s only gonna probably take the car about 50 to 70 miles in a charge, but it’s gonna be a very small kilowatt hour pack. So it’ll charge very quickly and it’ll also be able to discharge fast enough at the rate to be able to get hopefully a full 300 horsepower out of that front small Tesla drive unit.

Cole Strandberg: Man, that is so cool. And that scene is fascinating to me in terms of the electrification of these kind of custom builds and custom cars. We’ve had some EV folks here on the Collision Vision earlier this month, and I always appreciate their perspective of how do you balance like the soul of that car, the feel of that car, with modifying it to today’s kind of EV performance? Feels like it’s a very different thing. But how do you view that?

Ryan Basseri: I’m still kind of trying to wrap my head around a lot of things about that. I, you know, I love Hondas a lot, obviously, but I also have a bunch of 911s and I have a GT3RS. I have a air cooled car. I have like a bunch of different, different like 997, 993G body. And anyway, I love driving those cars and they Give you a feeling. So that feeling that you’re talking about, I think is 100%, like the easiest thing to just relate it as is to like 911 driving passion. Right. For me personally, I’m not big on the idea of electrifying a 911 because I like that driving experience. Shifting, hearing the engine, you know, having the engine push me in the canyons and stuff. Like, the 911s are no better and I think that they’re great as is. So I guess you could say that I’m sort of a purist at times for the 911 cars. The Hondas are different because that’s been my passion since I was a kid and I have a bunch of them. So, like, I haven’t. I have an S2000 with a factory engine in it and I drive it every day. I love it. I love shifting gears. It’s the best transmission feel possible. But when that gets kind of. I don’t want to say old, but you kind of like, strive for more. I really like the power and performance of ev. And then there’s also a lot of interesting ways that you can potentially incorporate some driving style, like feel into an EV vehicle. You know, everybody says, oh, you know, like the number one hate is you have is their soulless. There’s no soul when it comes to a 9 11. I mean, sorry for an electric vehicle.

Cole Strandberg: Yep.

Ryan Basseri: So. So, like, I have ideas. If you look at some of these new, these new EVs that are coming out, a lot of people are gonna say, this is super corny. It’s stupid. It has no place. I’m open minded. Like I said, I love gas stuff. I wouldn’t ever want to take that away from anyone. That’s not. This is not the point here. Um, but there’s a. There’s a Honda that just released. It’s a full ev and they’re actually paying homage to all their classic vehicles. The S2000, the NSX, the Integra Type R, they have. It’s an EV vehicle. It has a digital screen and then it throws back to like an NSXR digital cluster. Okay. And then you can rev the engine and you could drive the car. And it’ll sound exactly like the NSXR engine. Okay. And it’ll shift and it has quote, unquote, vtec. Right. So that’s this like engine simulation thing. And I got the opportunity to drive some Hyundai products and they had this engine simulation as well. And they had like this kind of cockpit noise. And it wasn’t any noise outside the car. And it was a very light noise inside the car. But it gives you a lot of reference points. And I want to, I want to take a moment and say this. I have friends that were a part of Ken Block’s Hoonitron. So that’s the electric hooning car. Do you remember? Like that one? Yeah, yeah, Most recent. Right. So rest in peace, Ken. But he had told his engineers at Audi, like, listen, I need reference points. I can’t drift this car the way you guys want me to without reference points. So what they actually did is they were the first ones I’ve ever heard of, even before Hyundai that gave Ken reference points with paddle shifters. So they’re like, okay, what we’re going to do is we’re going to have it. We get, we’re giving an engine sound and we’re going to give you limiters. So we’re going to give you this much torque x torque at gear one, and then we’re going to give you this much more torque at gear two, this much more torque at gear three or whatever. Right. So what that allows him to do is it give him reference. So he goes into this turn or this corner and he goes, okay, well I’m going to be in third gear at 6,000 RPMs. That’s what everybody knows with, with ice, right? Internal combustion. Well, with electric, if you could give yourself that kind of feedback and kind of trick yourself into thinking, well, now I know that I can enter this corner at 65 miles an hour in third gear and then I power out and then I shift like two seconds later or like however you, you track your line. Right. There’s ways to implement this into EV cars, obviously, because that’s what they. For Ken’s car. And that’s what some of the OEMs are doing. And that’s definitely a direction that I want to look at in my programming. I’m running a products and they have control systems that are really advanced. So I can do torque limiting, I can do digital inputs to my vehicle control unit, which is basically my ecu. And I can do all these different strategies. So I could have noises if I wanted to, I can have shifting if I wanted to. Simulated of course, with paddles. And there’s a lot of this in the future, I think, for the OEMs, because they’re feeling it too. They’re seeing people. Oh, there’s no soul. It’s a single speed transmission and you go, you know, 160 miles an hour and it tops out and there’s no, there’s no feel. You have no reference points, and you can’t race one of these cars. So I think that everybody’s kind of seeing that and looking at that opportunity as a. Well, that as an opportunity, I guess. And I’m no different. I’m excited to kind of see, like, what I could do to. To play a role in kind of curing some of those. Those naysayers and. And maybe, like, yeah, have a cool solution for my own vehicles.

Cole Strandberg: Okay, interesting. All right. All good. My bad. Yeah, it’s having connectivity issues with my mic now, so anything that can’t go wrong today is. But we’re good, we’re getting through it, and you’re doing a fantastic job carrying the team here. I am going to resume here at the top of the 29th minute, but good, good stuff, man. It’s a balancing act keeping the purists happy and then the next generation. This EV performance is crazy. So kind of to hear the innovation in that field is super inspiring for those who are kind of hoping for that balance of innovation and that soul of the car, the feel of the car, to continue moving on. Talk to me about how you prepare for sema. At what point, hey, you got two builds coming into the show. At what point do you start to stress about, here we are, sema’s here. I’m running around like crazy to do whatever it takes. Or do you have the process down enough to where, hey, we’re cruising right in.

Ryan Basseri: Oh, I’m stressed.

Cole Strandberg: You hide it well.

Ryan Basseri: Yeah, thanks. I think that since I don’t have a booth and both of my vehicles are actually in my friend’s business booths, CSF Radiators is going to be the red car, and that’s our, you know, dual motor car. And then Toyo Tires is going to have the white. I guess you can call it the kit, eg. So I don’t have to do as much, really, for the SEMA show. Also, I’m a judge for the Battle of the Builders. I’m not entering my cars because I’m a judge, but I think you guys should. If you have builds, you definitely should enter them because it’s a pretty amazing, amazing event. But I have, you know, SEMA puts me up. They make sure that I’m. I’m good. My hotel’s all sorted, so they kind of have me there so I don’t have to worry about It. And then I don’t have to worry about a boot space because I have my buddies with their boots. So really the only thing I got to do is get these stupid cars done and get them driving. And I don’t want pushers. So that’s my one job, man. That’s my one job.

Cole Strandberg: I love it, man. Well, the Battle of the Builders, fantastic event. I’d echo that. Anybody who still can get in there, please do. And anyone who can attend and take a look. That’s some of the most exciting stuff at the entire SEMA show, which is full of exciting stuff. But being a judge there, man, how does it feel to know you made it? That’s awesome.

Ryan Basseri: Yeah, well, I did pretty well with a couple cars, man. I think it was like 2016, I want to say. I brought an Acura Integra and it was a Japanese Integra Type r. It was GT3 RS Orange. It was inspired by my GT3. And it had pneumatic shifting. It had a K20 swap or K24 swap with a turbocharger. It was like full circuit prep car. It was so cool. And that car was meticulously built. Motorsport, plumbing, motorsport, wiring, just so nice. And a lot of people took, you know, to that one. And I actually got top 10 that year for about all the builders. And then I, you know, built another car maybe two years later. It was a really cool S2000 with like full, like fully built engine, you know, dual feed, individual throttle bodies, like full, like wide body, Mugen body kit, like custom everything. And that car did really well as well. And then we had a few more after that. And yeah, like, SEMA kind of took notice. And my buddy RJ Devera, he was the judge at the time. And then he’s like, hey, I’m actually gonna start working for SEMA in a corporate level and I can’t. I can’t do the Battle of the builders anymore. So he asked me if I was interested because I was successful and understood the process and, you know, knew the builds and knew the people also, you know, a lot of our products go on these vehicles, so I know what’s coming to the show a lot of times.

Cole Strandberg: Sure.

Ryan Basseri: You know, you kind of get like the, hey, you know, I need this for sema. Can you get it done in time? And you’re like, oh, well, show me more about your build. Like, what, what do you need done? And then. And then you’re like, kind of ready for him. So that worked pretty well. And yeah, I mean, one thing I wanted to just mention was, man. For anybody that’s under 29 years old, the Battle of Builders has a young guns category where you submit your car. Me and the other judges will look it over, we’ll give you a live interview, and you can explain your vehicle, explain your build, and if we deem it good enough, we will literally tow your car for you, transport your car to SEMA show, put you up in a hotel and put you on a stage where, you know, we’re not doing filming this year for a show, but, like, you know, there’s massive TV and everything going on. Like, it’s huge, man. Like, to be able to kick off for. For a kid that’s building their first car and you do a good job, and then to be able to kick off a career is, like, absolutely amazing. So that’s incredible. I just want to mention that, too. That it’s wild.

Cole Strandberg: Oh, that’s absolutely incredible. And how cool, too. I mean, we heard your story of inspiration. How does it feel to be the guy who can be inspiring the next generation of people kind of following in your footsteps?

Ryan Basseri: I mean, it’s awesome. I love that. I can also help guide a little bit. Like, I don’t want to say like, oh, my way is the right way, but I want to, you know, guide them in the right directions. And I think that’s the most suiting for our culture and our passion in general. So if, you know, everybody’s doing crazy JDM stance, ridiculous nonsense with no contact patch on your tires, and I’m not really interested in that, which, I’ll be honest, I’m really not. And you don’t, you know, get judged very well. Well, I don’t know, maybe then it’s inspiring people to build proper cars and, you know, cars that have tires that maintain proper contact patch. That’s just an example. So it’s pretty cool to be able to kind of like, steer. Steer the young guys in the right directions. And I guess that’s kind of what I’m getting at. So.

Cole Strandberg: Love it, man. That’s awesome. Want to zoom out a little bit? You’ve been around the block a while here. When it comes to sema, you’re at the forefront of innovation, trying some new and crazy things. With such rapid evolution here over the last 5, 10 years with the rise of EV and hybrid powertrains, what are you looking for next in terms of innovation, and what are you going to keep an eye out here this year and beyond at sema?

Ryan Basseri: I mean, electric’s definitely cool. The implementation of hybrid Systems, which you just mentioned is really cool. And I haven’t seen a lot of that. I mean, there’s only really a very small handful of guys that are incorporating parallel hybrid systems, if you want to call it that, performance hybrids into builds. And that’s, I think, kind of the future. Also alternate fuels. I’m definitely interested in seeing alternate fuels. Just if somebody. If somebody can come out with a nice engine that runs on water, I’m interested. Tell me about it. I want to see it. The technology is always amazing for me. I’m not biased in any direction, so I’m always having my eyes open and looking out for the newest, coolest, most intriguing thing. Because I’m like a lot of you guys. You know, I just want to learn and I just want to, like, better myself, and I want to see what’s out there. And I’m always up for a crazy challenge. So challenge is number one for me.

Cole Strandberg: Love it, man. Nope, I’m with you. Super intrigued by a lot of the stuff going on at SEMA here this year. Any builds or builders you’re especially excited to check out here coming up early November?

Ryan Basseri: Yeah, I mean, all the typical suspects. I think my buddy Kyle Kunhausen, I think that he is not going to get his car done this year, or he might. We’ll see. But he has a really exciting build. That’s the whole car is CAD design. Like he literally designed the whole car in cad. There’s a couple guys like the Ring Brothers, Foose, those guys. I’m always interested in seeing what they have. I think that the CAD stuff, super exciting and seeing builders completely rendering their cars in CAD on the computer and then having it, you know, built in billet and CNC designs and, you know, different, different, different ways of using CAD technology. All those guys I’m definitely behind. So any builder that’s bringing the heat, I’m looking for them for sure.

Cole Strandberg: Love it, man. For our listeners who want to check out your builds, where can they find them at SEMA this year?

Ryan Basseri: So the red Civic is going to be at the CSF radiators booth. There’s also going to be a BMW there. So if you see a red Civic and a BMW at the red CSF logoed booth, that’s where I’m going to spend some of my time. And then also the Toyota tires Tread Pass is going to have the white car. So the white car is the kit version. The smaller build, still super refined. Like it’s a resto mod. It’s beautiful. But that’s going to be in the Toyota tires. Tread Pass. You can’t miss the Tread Pass. That’s where all the coolest cars are. All your tuner cars are going to be at the Tread Pass.

Cole Strandberg: Love it man. You’ve been very generous with your time under the weather. Couple builds to finish up before we head to sema, so I’ll let you go. But before I do, where can people follow along with you? Where can they follow along with Rywire and anywhere else you want to plug.

Ryan Basseri: Yeah, rywire.com is my website where you can help help me by purchasing some goodies. Also my Instagram is probably the main spot. It’s Rywire underscore Motorsport and I do have a YouTube channel. I don’t post very much but you know I do. I would recommend looking there too. I think it’s just Rywire. You should be able to find it when you search right wire. So most if not all that stuff’s just a search of R Y W I R E. So let’s we’ll throw.

Cole Strandberg: Those in the show notes as well. Make that easy. One click. Check that out. Ryan, thank you so much for joining us here on the Collision Vision. Best of luck at SEMA this year. Look forward to seeing you out there.

Ryan Basseri: Well, thanks for having me.

Cole Strandberg: That is all for today’s episode of the Collision Vision. I hope you enjoyed our conversation with Ryan Basri as we explored his journey in the custom car space and the EV conversion space and the wiring and electronics space. Be sure to catch the next episode in our Art of Restoration series next week as we bring you more insights from the industry’s top builders in the lead up to SEMA 2024. If you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to follow the Collision Vision wherever you enjoy your podcast or on YouTube where you can catch the Collision Vision in video form. On behalf of the Auto Body News team and myself, thank you for coming along for the ride.

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