Brent Mann with American Engineering purchased his first SxS and went with a 2020 RZR Turbo 4 S Velocity Edition. Brent has begun the process of getting it set up how he likes, so we chatted with him about his initial impression of the Turbo S, what upgrades he’s done so far, and what’s coming next.

It’s interesting that Brent can build anything he wants, but decided to go with the CageWrx Baja Spec kit for his roll cage.

Transcription:

What’s happening everybody nick olson here with brent’s man american engineering chupacabra off-road back here at peoria arizona airport shop and um last time you guys saw brent we did a video about getting the motor back in the race car and I showed wes and andrew but really it was all the heavy lifting getting the car going so we haven’t been following the channel the race car build brent took it from a chassis to a full race car raced a few times had motor issues when we were out shooting with queen and mark queen and have a student noticed that after we had something go wrong taking it back to the shop there was grass in the oil so we decided to have the motor rebuilt we would start fresh with a new motor brand you took apart the old motor and you kind of confirmed what cleans up yeah the the topping is really great um but yeah I once we took it out I kind of did some inspection and yeah there’s a lot of bearing material in the bottom in and when I took the filter off it was you know a full fit so yeah definitely queen was correct that some of the bottom ends letting go so after that brent got the motor running not only did he put in the new motor he added an additional oil cooler from holtz we got what two extra quarts at all capacity yeah about almost a little over two quarts so um yeah it’s a real nice with a c-trap oil cooler in it and actually did a little bit of old-school aerodynamic testing with fans in the front to see I kind of wanted to have a scoop on it but with the way the car was overhead it didn’t the air went over it so I kind of put it down below above the engine and that actually from the air from the sides goes in and through so um worked out real well that’s something I’ve been learning too with each race car specific how guys tune them how the chassis built how the airflow so we’re hoping with that improvement we’re gonna have some cooler temps this car has really never ran right because the first shooter we took it to unfortunately basically screwed the car from the get-go but we’re starting fresh a whole lot of life lessons and money later but um that and then the final upgrade is we bumped up the stock stator 660 watt out of a 2018 triple motor right to turbo west 900 watt dynamic stator our voltage was not high it was okay but we’re gonna do some racing fishing with the lights on now we’ve got some more voltage yeah um it’s a dual the dual setup on the voltage regulator had to do some wiring for that make some adjustments but so far the few tests that we ran the voltage is up and it looks good so far so so there we go guys onto the trail again the race car more dot we’ll report on that later but here we’re here to talk about brant branches in the side-by-side game as you guys can see we got a very picked up a 2020 turbo s velocity horse heater yeah and you’ve been looking for a long time we’ve been talking I’m really excited for brent and first question why did you go polaris over canaan versus anything else a couple reasons one is everyone that I know has them I built a lot of these I have a lot of parts um and the deal that polaris gave me I took advantage of their great deals they had here a few months ago and I we really like the style and the look of this so that’s why I went with this and you built some x-speeds as well you’ve kind of seen both of them down and dirty down to the bear frame so I was it real bass was it just like the stoutness of the polaris like it was you’re taking two-seater for a while too yeah I was I was thinking two-seater and then I want to be able to take my daughters with us and that so um I’m glad with this I’m gonna build a storage department when I’m not have four people with me and the rear seat section but um it this turbo last comes long travel stock you know and you don’t have to do anything it’s just build the stuff and go and that’s one of the reasons why I did it the wheelbase is a little bit less than a 4c pan am and I wanted to be able to do some things with that so that’s why I made my decision awesome man um well as I can see you already got some improvements on you got some new vfg tires with some method wheels and I’m really interested to know the cage here I mean if you’ve been following brent um paul said he’s going to close the cars and go he built cars from scratch or I’m from scratch for chopping up a two-seater making the four-seater doors basically break and do whatever he wants and cage you’ve got the baja spec shot cage from pageworks yeah um so when I started putting together my list to do it and all that cageworks had a I got an email for it was a holiday I think it was memorial day or whatever but they had like 20 off so I started looking at it and this is how I wanted I wanted a flat top roof because I want to put a roof rack on and you know for baja and all that but um by the time I got all the plates the door hinges the bones and by the tubing it was actually cheaper for me to buy this kit and then to do it myself so I went ahead and did that I mean it’s deal it’s chromoly it’s all pre-bent it fits together really nice I’m tape welding all of it and I did a couple different things I changed it to a single bar instead of the v um did a couple I’m doing a couple different things but it was really it was cheaper and less of my time to bend everything up and notch it and do all that to buy this cake so you bought the kit which cage works sells a bunch of tube free vents pre-notched right to your door here in arizona yeah and then you’re mounting it up essentially and then starting the attacking process yeah so it came yeah it came in a box unloaded it everything was pre-bent it’s something it has it’s all laser cut it has notches in it you know where it goes it’s really a nice kit and yeah I basically unbolted my stock cable put on the bums and start packing everything up and prepping everything and within a couple hours you have a skeleton of the cake that’s really cool if you guys been following the channel you saw that our buddy west laflin just got his car wrapped he also went with the cage we’re going with the more radius design of the super shorty what’s cool about the cage workstations they work with any type of door option versus my cages madigan cage great looking cage we um at the madigan doors get a lot of compliments but you could only run the mannequin doors on the magic and cage where you can do whatever you want like unless so far is pretty happy with this have needle doors yeah and this I’m actually gonna have the stock board for now and I have the chupacabra lower inserts in them with the chupacabra door bags so I’m going to run that for a while and then decide what I want to do on the doors next but it yeah it gives me the options to put on whatever I want that’s one of the reasons why I did you know so so you talked about some of the changes you did I like the the single intrusion bar versus the double like you said I know you’re giving your personal flair so what else are you gonna do fabrication wise roof rack tabs lights what do you what do you think about yeah so it’s gonna have a roof rack it’s gonna be similar to the ones I did like on the savage utv and the latest pre-runner I built um it’s gonna be removable sleek um I have a windshield I’m gonna do my own windshield port and all that um I’m doing my own style of rear tire carrier it’s gonna be unboltable I’m not gonna do this swing up one it’s gonna be to the back it’s gonna be like baja style um but it’s gonna be removable I’m gonna have spare fluid containers like that um putting switch pros in this for all the lighting making the custom bumper I have rigid lights on it so um yeah it’s here we go yeah nice well it’s the middle of summer so you got a few more months before prime riding season kicks off so you can do a custom bumper it sounds like any other custom fabrication stuff once you get the cage roof rack all that dial you set a front I’m doing a custom rear bumper on it as well it’s already on the table ready um chase rear chase bike bar um it’s gonna have you know dome lights and lights route you know on the trail I’m building this basically as a you know trail baja pre-runner type of car that can go on the road you know here in arizona or fortunately we can drive them on the street so you know it’s going to be that’s what I’m going to use it for nice nice um see obviously some more lights guys for everything and like you said it’s kind of open up handle this box so obviously you got a lot of your major components but big wahoo rides your communication and any other electronics yeah so um I’m deciding I’m gonna put an ipad in here for my navigation for right now I do have an older loran somewhere I’ll make a mount for that um I have all the radios set up already got all the intercoms all that um so that’s kind of all the electronics right now ipad are you going to be using any apps in particular I’m going to use the on x off-road alex yeah very cool so I use that I did take this out it has 100 miles but I did take it out one weekend and used it on my phone it was a fabulous app so that’s cool onyx reach out to us to kind of be an influencer or work with them so I’ve been kind of playing around with it I haven’t done a video on it yet I know we get some questions on the YouTube channel um I’ve used leadnav a little bit one time in baja a couple times for a race I know they’re popular particularly in the race crowd there’s a lot of other apps I’ve heard of as well players right commands not bad for free but the onyx in particular the guys that are hunters I wouldn’t really know I’m not a hunter but I do have access to the hunting app and hunter guys great about all these capabilities making sure you’re not on private land and that affects us too for up in northern arizona where you come across a close fence of some property you can go around or avoid I went I went like castle hot springs on the trip that I did and I wanted to go over to the road that goes to crown king and it actually gave me you know I told him where I wanted to go and it gave me three options and gave me like this one is not as very rocky so they told me to go this other one was better so I was really impressed with it that’s cool and you could track it so I you know at the end of the day we got back it showed me everywhere we went the mileage average speed and I was very impressed school we both live in the similar area we both ride two wheel stuff and I know sometimes more so in the side-by-side world and two-rule two-wheel some new trails might pop up I like find out where those are so I think it’d be fun if we kind of map some local stuff on our tools if we find anything we might be missing and compared to the app right um it’s kind of easier to cover a lot of ground and check certain things out and then it’ll be fun in a backyard that we know really well to see how that app works compared to some of the other apps so we’ll get into more of that in the future at school that they’re using it too um obviously you’re going to do some safety harnesses some longboat sidelines yep doing that then eventually seeds all that um yeah this thing’s gonna be ready to go to bob that’s awesome yeah um storage what are you thinking about for the back storage box cooler tools yeah so um tool bags in the back for tools and I’m making my custom jack that I’ll be having come out here in a couple months a jack kit that goes for this um fire extinguisher mount safety stuff um yeah I’m gonna get a cooler for the back a soft cooler that goes in there some storage stuff in the for fluids on the cage and that like we do in the free runners and then up top I’ll probably have one of those small deals for extra fuel and yeah yeah I like how andrew’s got his extra amounts for his roto packs up top it’s great he only use them maybe once or twice a year but they’re up there when he needs them and they’re out of the way and they’re lightweight when they’re not full of fuel here the heat and the exhaust and all that so yeah um speaking of coolers guys I’ve been using three budget coolers for the last while I’ve owned a razor for a long time and I still struggle with the right amount of cooler size the right amount of tool size to have an impact and I have enough cooler space for an day ride let’s say you and I were in one vehicle to have enough drinks and stuff for food so I’ve been using the ao I used it cheaper igloo from the utv giant setup and then I’m also using arctic so I think comment below if you guys want to hear more about that I know some of you guys are going to ball out and go with the yeti I’m a little bit cheap for that I’m curious if these workouts good are good enough for an all-day ride so I’ve got kind of mixed results when it comes to just like these all day triple you really want to keep stuff cold and fresh for a tour and I’m also going to put a lot of epco carbon I got the carbon fiber you know front cv guard nintendo guard shop guards putting those on this as well nice um I guess um last topic suspension how does it feel so far first off yeah you said you got 100 miles in so how’s everything feel the car in general suspension tires were your first comments really with the suspension these walker shocks actually work really good um the car just feels it goes wherever I want it’s very stable very smooth even with four of us in it on our first ride the bfgs hook up really well and both on the pavement and on the dirt you know whether I’m in sand I went over some rock sections um you know gravel roads the bfg’s handled awesome well I’m excited I think now it’s get your car buttoned up and like I said earlier working on my trailer getting it all dialed for a camping trip so we need to do a camping trip with the two wheelers and this yeah go ride two lives during the day we’ll ride this thing at night get the lights all set up and have fun and live it up so it’s been a long summer a lot of events have been canceled a lot of big group rides have been canceled but you know um we’re in August now and the tide’s going to change and we’re excited man we got a lot of stuff coming up all kinds of stuff so yeah yeah it’s the that’s why I’ve been you know getting all this other stuff done so I can get this done so we can go riding because we’re fortunate where we live that we can just leave from our house and go to a lot of places so yeah even just for like a quick yeah Sunday right not be gone more than half a day or so and yeah got box candy in there backyard I’ve never even been still so I hope we get to check out a lot of local stuff another thing too I’m part of a big group and um lucky you know where they put on all these rides I just get to be the guy who shows up but it’s time for me to step up I know some of you guys been asking for a super copper ride not that we could maybe plant something and invite the whole internet but at least us kind of map out a ride I’ve been loving the idea of us going from here up to prescott stay in the night maybe heading over to sedona I mean I guess we’re so lucky that options are limitless here in arizona so it’s time for for the chupacabra to step up here and organize our own ride that type of stuff where these have a car is kind of really how we think you want to be ready for all situations french race for years been down in baja if I have been caught without the right tool or the right part and um that’s the beauty of these things we can take them and do all that on a good place yeah yeah no we need let’s we need to do that so what’s the top three lists of places going places in terms of big epic rides like what’s first thing comes to mind um I want to go to I want to go to parker around parker but I want to do that peace trail for one and I I want to go everyone talks about that sheets cheese bridge each bridge now you go to the dam and the water goes over I want to take that there but I mean obviously the goal is bob I wanna I want a baja ride mexico ride where we go there for four or five days and go all over baja so yeah yeah so hopefully once things get going back to normal that’ll be us we’ll be ready to go and yep having a good time so yeah cool brent thanks for your time excited for your new ride um let you get back to work on this sucker but yeah if you guys like the content please like and subscribe you guys I’m not sure if you’re familiar we also sell parts like remention door bags lower door inserts mirrors check us out on our website chupacabraoffroad.com and we’ll see on the next one.