Being the YouTube junky that I am, I’ve been following Alex Lista on his YouTube channel Spooling Up Performance since the beginning. I reached out to Alex and wanted to get a backstory and the juicy details of his crazy drag car build, the MS-8. It is an RX-8 that will be powered by an MZR DISI motor. Check out what Alex has to say about the project.
When did you get started with the Mazdaspeed platform, and what drew you a mazdaspeed?
Funny you ask - a lot of people think I’ve been in it since the beginning with all the OG’s. In fact I started with the platform in 2014. I had the 4 door turbo 4 cylinder fever and I had to get one. Originally I wanted an Evo or Sti but there was just something about the MazdaSpeed3 that made want it just a little more. Maybe it was the fact that it wasn’t the popular choice over the other two options I had, or maybe because when i drove one for the first time it was so raw and “wild” feeling I was hooked!
When did you start the YouTube channel for Spooling Up Performance, and what was the goal originally?
After buying the car stock and owning the car for about a year and a half I had already modified the car. This consisted of actually finding some Nator Washington guys at a local meet and getting to know things about these cars. I started with basic bolt on’s and a tune. Then upgraded from a ko4 to a gtx3071r. This is when I really wanted to do more to the car but couldn’t at the time. Fast forward to 2016-2017 I was in Afghanistan and when I was able to access a computer I would look up parts and pictures of the car all the time. The problem was that there were not many video on YouTube at the time of anyone doing anything on video that showed how to do anything on them. I would just watch the same short videos on them racing or something of that nature. So I started talking to the pros of the platform, Justin (Freektune), Bryce Williams & Brent Sipe. After multiple times of hounding them with questions about parts and suggestions I decided to build a stock block monster. When I got home I had a stock pile of parts and wanted to get after it. In the back of my mind i thought man I should record this or something just in case someone wants to reference a real world regular guy doing this stuff. That’s when I picked up a camera for the first time and decided to film a video for YouTube which then turned into a mini series that a few people liked to watch and wanted to replicate. This had motivation soaring and had eventually led me to thinking of naming the channel Spooling Up Performance. This is because I wanted people to watch and have the videos “Boost” their Want to go fast and build fun cars!
I know you took a brief hiatus from the mazdaspeed platform, selling your gen2 Speed3 for a Camaro. However, you sold the LS and came back to the speed community. What brought you back?
Guys I’ll tell you what have you ever had a girlfriend / boyfriend and you break up and get a new one? Then while with that new one you are content but just compare everything to your ex???? Ya so kinda like that with my story lol. I had now lived in the south in Tennessee where it was a very LS car prominent area. It grew on me , I had an impulse moment and decided to part out my Speed3 and buy a Camaro SS 1LE. Beautiful car and loved a lot of things about it. After a year or so I started realizing I had a lot of people messaging me asking when I would build another mazdaspeed car on the channel etc.. Well after i exited the military i had the itch again that I needed to scratch. Sold the camaro and picked up the red Speed6 which is a current car on the channel that has had its multiple iterations of parts and setups. There’s just something about these cars that keep me tied to them. The feeling of pure insanity you can have with these cars at any power level makes it so much fun to be around. I’m an all around car lover and I’m not brand loyal by any means but I have a soft spot for these mazdaspeeds cars.
Tell me the backstory your current build of the RX-8/Mazdaspeed-8. What was the original plan, and how has it evolved to what it is now?
Rx8 was a spur of the moment side project that i wanted to have to keep my hands busy. As I said before I lived in a big LS community. Where everything had an LS in it. So I bought this car to do a nice LS turbo swap and really had no real direction just was kinda winging it. One day I was sitting there thinking about Mazda’s again and had a crazy idea that maybe we take what we love and swap it into the rx8. This sparked a lot of interest and had people buzzing about it so we ran with it. It was just meant to get a MZR swap and just send it until i wanted to have a cage put in and my fab shop got it and plans evolved and well got out of hand very quickly . At this point I had a lot backing and support of this build and we decided to go full send on it and make it in to what it is today and that is a full on MZR Swapped Drag car. We had extensive fabrication work done on this car with 3 things in mind...Safety, Speed & Detail. We now have the safety and detailed perfection of a race car now we just need to finish up with the speed and get the car put together to get out to the track. We want to set out to be the quickest and fastest MZR Disi powered car in the world. I have an insane team behind it and I’m so grateful. It will have a sleeved and built 2.5L engine from Speed Performance with a Motec ECU on board from Justin at Freektune tuning it. With a plethora of other parts and long hours we hope to have this car out to the track this season.
Right now you have a lot going on - the speed6 build, the RX-8 build, a new shop, and recently started taking orders for parts. What can we expect to see next?
I wanted to take what I was doing to the next level and use the momentum and motivation I have to take the time to grow professionally and personally. I have had goals and dreams for a while to make some moves where I could create opportunities for myself to be better than I ever have. I had more and more messages piling up from fans of the channel and other outlets about wanting to get the parts we had and to send them links to everything constantly. This was all fine but I needed to find a better way. I started researching about becoming a business and developing my own company that could take these questions about parts I was getting and turn them into an opportunity to create builds with customers on their cars and have the honor to be a part of them in some way. After months of making sure I had my ducks in a row and gaining dealer account after dealer account to build a base of companies I could source parts from I started www.SpoolingUpPerformance.com. At this time I had been looking for a shop for a while but it’s just hard to snag one in this area because they’re in high demand. I happened to find a brand new building through a Facebook ad that my mom had seen and I called. We got a beautiful new shop where we are now making it into our own and making moves to push ourselves and the business in a positive direction to bring very awesome content but also start to focus on building and being a part of fans / customers car builds.
Anything you want to say to someone new to the Mazdaspeed platform or new to the channel?
I like to always remind people that no matter what you do in life you’re never going to make everyone happy. Someone is always going to hate on what you do, the parts you choose, your track times, what you consider a “mod”, and so on. At the end of the day you need to make sure YOU are happy and having FUN doing what you're doing. I encourage each an every one of you out there no matter what car or build your doing, set a goal and write it down with a plan and stick to it. Never deviate from that plan unless it’s in your best interest to see out your dreams. If not, you’re going to have everyone else’s negative two cents saying “you should’ve done it this way” and getting in your head. Be you, Be creative.
Go check out the RX-8 build, as well as his Mazdaspeed 6 street car for yourself on Alex’s YouTube channel Spooling Up Performance. He’s also taking orders for parts on his website at spoolingupperformance.com.
