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Building King Kong!
ATV Scene’s 12 Hour Winning Project Suzuki King Quad
Words: Lance Schwartz
Video: Brad Dedon, Joe Tolle
Photos: Brad Dedon, Nathan Delebar, Lance Schwartz, Tom Simpson, Tim Miller
Test Riders: Lance Schwartz, Dave Porzi, George Richards
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Victory Awaited in Greenville, TX so we went down and picked it up with this Suzuki King Quad we rightfully call "King Kong". |
The Birth of Kong
After competing for 12 Hours in 2005 with my TPC PowerCenter teammates aboard a well broken in Brute Force 750 4x4i, which we took to a runner-up position, my teammates and I vowed hell would freeze over before we put our bodies through this type of punishment again. Well, a year later, my addiction to quads has me building the baddest King Quad 700 on the planet. It is so bad, that it immediately inherited the moniker “King Kong”. The machine, which was built with the help of some of the greatest sponsors in the world, will embark on a 1500 mile journey from my home in Pennsylvania, where it will be put through more punishment in 12 hours than most typical utility ATVs would see in five lifetimes. My passion for the sport and the Maxxis 6 and 12 Hours of ATV America events os so deep that the blood, sweat, and tears my team shed holding onto that uncooperative 750i a year ago is nearly out of my memory. So here begins the build and the subsequent journey of ATV Scene’s project King Kong!
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Mechanics/Crew
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Team TPCPowerCenter/Suzuki rider and mechanics (left to right): Tom Simpson, George Richards, Denny Schwartz, Lance Schwartz and Dave Porzi. |
I would be remiss to talk about building and racing a machine in an event like this without first recognizing the guys that selflessly enable us to compete in these types of endurance races. Skip Porzi, Tom Simpson, Denny Schwartz and Danny and Dave Broadt, the owners of TPC PowerCenter in Bloomsburg, PA are the real heroes behind this whole project. They’ve spent countless hours wrenching on the bike or as the fearless wheelman in the driver's seat carting us to and from these events. They are the guys that force us to stay hydrated and feed us meals and snacks to keep our energy levels high. So for this, I thank them for their contribution to this article. Without them, Kong Kong, the 12 Hours of America victory and this article would never have happened.
The Team
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We've kept our exact team together for six consecutive 6 and 12 Hours of America events and wouldn't change it for anything. The stories and memories we have together are priceless. |
My two teammates and I, the pilots of King Kong, could not be physically more different. If I had to describe our appearance, George Richards resembles Woody Allen, Dave Porzi is a spitting image of Ron Jeremy, and I have the build and sometimes hair, of Cosmo Kramer. The best advice I could give is when putting together a team, you should try to recruit team members that are similar in stature. For us, this team thing was an accident. We thought we’d try one race together just to see how it worked out. Six races later, we’re still together, and I wouldn’t want to race with anyone else. With that said, building a quad that fits all of us comfortably is really difficult. There are definitely sacrifices that need to be made. Since I’m the tallest and in the middle as far as weight goes, we generally set the machine up for me. George has to deal with suspension that is a little too hard for him. Porzi, on the other hand, needs to contend with suspension that bottoms out over more things than he’d like. It’s “bass ackwards”, but that’s the way we choose to do business. After all, we're all about challenges.
The Build
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The handsome King Kong ran even better than it looks! |
The 2006 Suzuki King Quad 700 turns out to be a really good starting point to build a capable utility class race machine. Our stock black King Quad became the canvas for creating what would ultimately become known as King Kong. For this project, I chose manufacturers with a reputation for building reliable high quality aftermarket parts geared towards our needs. These manufacturers are responsible for supporting, and in many instances inventing parts for the quickly expanding market of utility quad enthusiasts trying to get the most out of their “tractors”. Participating sponsors in project King Kong include Suzuki, TPC PowerCenter, Elka Suspension, Maxxis Tires, OMF Wheels, Dalton Clutches, LRD Exhausts, Dynojet, NiteRider Lights, Spider Grips, Moose Racing, World Class Racing Products and JRZ Fabricating.
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A custom Ryan’s Fab rear bumper in combination with an OEM Suzuki bumper did an excellent job of protecting the LRD exhaust and delicate Elka reservoirs. |
We purposely left many things stock, like the engine. My team has always believed in the “less is more” approach. So, if we felt it didn’t need to be changed, we left it alone. One of the most important changes we made to King Kong came from a company called World Class Racing Products. It is no secret that a stock Suzuki King Quad has a major “steer-in” issue. The bars will go from straight to a full lock left or right turn in milliseconds. Myself, Donny Banks, and ATV Scene founder John Pellan have been on the losing end of being tossed over the bars by an angry stock King Quad with turn-in issues. World Class Racing Products produces a replacement set of A-arms that will completely eliminate the “turn-in” issue. After 18 hours of hard core racing on our silver vein powder coated set, we never had the “turn-in” symptom reappear once! This is an incredibly important safety upgrade for all King Quad owners. The increased safety does come at a very small price though, in the form of a slight increase in steering effort. One of the nice things about the stock King Quad was how easy the machine steered. But, the steering is not precise or predictable. The steering geometry that produces that easy feel is also the main culprit responsible for allowing the steering to go postal with no warning. With the addition of the WCRP A-arms, the steering effort is increased a bit. But, these works-of-art transform the steering on the King Quad into a precise and mannerly beast that is much easier to ride aggressively without the worry of wadding it up unexpectedly. The arms worked so well that we actually don’t use a steering stabilizer to help mask the steering geometry issues anymore. If you plan on keeping your King Quad for the long haul, do yourself a favor and invest in a set of WCRP A-arms. You won’t regret it!
The 6 Hours of New Hampshire Experience
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The 6 Hours of New Hampshire, on scenic Mt Whittier in Ossipee, was used to help setup and fine-tune project King Kong. |
Midway through our build, we decided it would be a good idea to take our partially completed Kong northward for the 6 Hours of New Hampshire event in order to shake it down a little bit. We showed up with a nice looking machine running Elka Suspension, Maxxis Bighorns mounted on OMF Beadlocks, World Class Racing Products A-arms, Spider Grips, Bub Exhaust, and Moose Racing skid plates and handlebars. At the start, I got a killer holeshot and within two minutes of the start, I almost ended our day by wadding up the King Quad. The Elka’s, which I only had time to ride around in my yard a few times before we left, were way out of adjustment. A small kicker stood the rear of King Kong straight in the air and I had visions flash before me of the mighty Kong drilling me into the New Hampshire rocky soil. I nursed it back to the pits to make adjustments to the shocks after only completing one lap. It’s not ideal, but I knew if we didn’t pit right away, we chanced the possibility of someone getting really hurt. So, for the next fifteen or so laps, we made suspension adjustments with each pit stop and rider change. By the end of the day, the suspension performed much better. We didn’t have it exactly dialed in, but it was good enough to ride hard and most importantly, remain safe. However, there would be more serious drama to ensue at this awesome track in the mountains of the northeastern United States which is home to “The Falcon”.
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A killer holeshot at the start of the 6 Hours of New Hampshire put our King Quad in the top 5 overall at the start. |
With about an hour and fifteen minutes left in the race, we had a healthy lead over 2nd place, who were also coincidently running a King Quad. I started to question myself whether the Bub exhaust sounded like it was starting to get louder. I convinced myself at least five different times that it was my dehydration and exhaustion that was responsible for telling the voices in my head something was wrong. But, deep down, I was sure it wasn’t those wretched voices. Then, something strange happened. Suddenly, the seat began to feel spongy to me. My immediate thought was, “Oh great, now I broke the plastic seat pan”. After all, it was rough and the three of us surely put that seat through some torture. The voices returned and I began a conversation with them about how much it sucked riding with a broken seat and an exhaust that might possibly be getting progressively louder. I thought to myself, “could this possibly get worse?”
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| We ironed out a big problem in New Hampshire. Our King Kong project actually caught fire! The screws on the Bub exhaust came apart, which redirected the exhaust upward, and eventually caught the seat foam on fire! It caused $1000 in damage, and could have easily resulted in a total loss of the machine if we hadn't caught the problem in time. |
It was just about at that point that I began to feel a burning sensation in the seat of my pants. It’s a strange feeling indeed. It becomes even stranger, and downright scary, when the dehydrated brain finally calculates everything that is happening. I couldn’t believe it……King Kong was on fire!!!!!!!
Fortunately, I realized I had only a few hundred yards before I reached the pits, so it was hammer down! I pitched King Kong into a 50 foot long sideways drift, reminiscent of The Fast and the Furious, with the tires howling on an asphalt section as they objected to stopping this 700 pound flaming projectile. As I pulled into the pits, I jumped off the quad and started screaming to my crew and team,“we’re on fire!” That was the first time I’ve ever seen those guys panic. We all grabbed anything liquid within reach to douse the fire. Our experiment concluded that water, Mountain Dew, and Gatorade all work very well in snuffing a smoldering seat fire.
So, how does one catch a King Quad with less than 100 miles on it, and ultimately one’s ass on fire? It turns out the screws on the Bub that mate the header section to the silencer came apart after only four and a half hours of use. When the parts separated, the exhaust got redirected upward, melted through the right rear fender, then the seat pan caught the seat foam on fire, then proceeded to sting my derrière. Our crew scrambled to remove the scorching hot Bub and bolted the stock exhaust back on. After sticking the stock exhaust on the machine, we really never noticed a deficit in power. This was likely due to the fact that we unfairly bolted the Bub on without pairing it with a fuel management system like the Dynojet unit. What we did notice throughout the day was the King Quad felt like it was progressively having more problems building rpm’s. I’ve had enough experience with CVT transmissions that I was almost positive we had a clutching issue that we would have to tackle once we landed back in Pennsylvania. Even though we experienced more drama in New Hampshire than I’d like to relive, we overcame an 8 minute deficit with one hour remaining and were able to pull off a win with a flaming King Quad that wasn’t even broken in yet. Plus, we learned some valuable lessons that we would use to incorporate into our 12 Hour bike preparation.
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