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Preparing to Do Battle

The LRD exhaust spewed melodious tunes in combination with incredible horsepower gains.  The fiberglass wrap was added to help protect the plastic.

We had several issues that needed to be solved before we could make the trip to Texas for the fifth annual Maxxis 12 Hours of ATV America.  At the top of the list were fixing the fire damage, figuring out the clutching issues, rethinking the exhaust, and dialing in the suspension.  It turns out that when the Bub broke, it didn't just alter the appearance of the plastic.  The plastic shrouding around the gas tank was severely heat damaged to the point that it needed replaced.  As you can imagine, our fire could have easily gotten much, much worse, as in explosion. The installation of the Bub exhaust requires the removal of the stock heat shield.  In hindsight, for the abuse that we put this machine through, we should have known better than to do this.  So, the fix for this issue was to find another exhaust that made power and retained the stock heat shield.  This solution was provided by LRD.

The King Quad handled the motocross track with ease.

It turns out that my hunch about clutching issues was fairly accurate.  Under the severe race conditions encountered in New Hampshire, the stock clutch was allowing the belt to slip.  In doing so, the ensuing heat damage required the belt be replaced after only 100 miles.  At this point, we also started looking into a clutching fix to eliminate this problem from happening again.  I have owned a Polaris Scrambler in the past that had a clutch kit installed.  It definitely increased performance.  But, the rideability really suffered because of the higher engagement RPM in the clutch kit.  It was because of these experiences that I was very hesitant to change the clutch.  It wasn’t until I started chatting with the guys at Nyroc’s invaluable website that I felt comfortable bolting a clutch kit in King Kong.  The gentlemen recommended a Dalton clutch.  After contacting Dalton myself, they too reassured us that we would gain performance without any of the negative effects I experienced with my Scrambler.  After installing the Dalton clutch kit, I can honestly say it was the biggest bang for the buck improvement we made on this machine.  The clutch kit is relatively inexpensive, it increases low and midrange power, and it retains all the driveability of the stock setup.  It’s a win-win-win situation as I see it and I’ll never run a King Quad without a Dalton kit in it again.

The WCRP A-arms made it easy for George to attack off camber sections of the course without a fear of the dreaded “turn-in” issue that plagues the stock machines.

The exhaust situation and fire scared me.  The last thing I was looking to do was catch a $15,000 race-ready King Quad on fire….. again.  I chose LRD as the pipe manufacturer for the 12 Hours event for two reasons.  First, I’ve seen the quality of their product first hand on many 250R and 450R race machines.  Secondly, this pipe allowed us to retain the stock heat shield.  When bolting on the new LRD, our man Skip Porzi wrapped the section of pipe just before the silencer with some fiberglass header wrap to cut down on heat loss and the possibility of melting another new set of rear plastics.  From the time we re-fired King Kong with the LRD, we fell in love with the pipe.  The LRD, in combination with the Dynojet programmable fuel module, made this the fastest King Quad I’ve thrown a leg over.

There is no comparison between the stock suspension and our new Elka Sports and Racing series shocks.

The final issue was to fine tune the Elka suspension, which we managed to get fairly close in New Hampshire.  Before we get too far into this, I want to give a word of caution to those planning on investing in a quality set of aftermarket shocks.  Plainly put, fine tuning an aftermarket suspension is one of the most difficult tasks you’ll encounter in the ATV aftermarket.  Putting on a set of aftermarket shocks with reservoirs requires a lot more thought and expertise than bolting on an exhaust system.  Instead, there are many things to adjust, which can successfully or adversely affect the handling.  On our Elka sponsored machine, we opted for the middle of the road Elka Sports and Racing series shock absorbers.  In addition to dual rate springs and preload adjustment, our shocks also had remote reservoirs with adjustable compression and rebound settings.  It is absolutely impossible for Elka to have your suspension settings exactly correct when they arrive at your door.  But, because of the large range of adjustment on the Elka units, there is plenty of room to make the shocks comfortable for your riding style.  During our fine-tuning, we’d keep our adjustments increments to one or two clicks at a time.  We dialed in compression and rebound settings until we finally got the machine where we wanted it.  When all was said and done, we could hit kickers at 60mph with the hammer down with no fear of crashing.   These Elka’s never heated up and they allowed us to launch the 700 pound King Kong off whatever we wanted for 12 straight hours.  The external reservoirs kept the shocks very cool and we never really felt them fade all day.  Elkas are expensive, but they are worth every penny in a dog eat dog race like the 12 Hours of America.

Next Stop - Greenville, Texas

Project King Kong--- 1 King Quad mountain--0

After countless hours of preparation, 30 hours of driving, and help from some of the greatest sponsors in the world, the Team TPC Powercenter/Suzuki King Kong was about to do battle with some of the biggest and most talented utility teams in the country.  Our plan was simple.  We would not allow anybody but ourselves to control the type of race we wanted to run.   We felt better equipped at this race than in New Hampshire and had some extra time to shake down some of our existing parts and get them more fine-tuned before heading to Texas.  Secondly, we made some additional adjustments and added a few essential parts based upon the experiences and problems encountered in New Hampshire.   When we reached Texas, we were greeted by an extremely fast looking course.  After walking the entire six mile track, it was clear that our King Quad would have the throttle pinned for the majority of the 12 Hours.  Being a native of Pennsylvania, racetracks that are flat, wide open, and void of rocks are something I’m not used to. This Texas track would be the fastest course any of us have ever run.

More Muscle for Kong

TPCPowerCenter’s King Kong was just the right balance of form and function.  Plus, it ripped!

New parts that made it onto King Kong between New Hampshire and Texas included an LRD exhaust, DynoJet Powercommander, and a Dalton clutch kit.  When you change the exhaust on an Fuel Injected quad, you have to add a fuel management device.  We chose Dynojet’s Power Commander because of its ability to be programmed and adjusted from a laptop.  That feature is just too cool!  While the carbureted teams setup their jetting in a nearby field, we simply hooked up my Apple MacBook Pro laptop running Windows XP and reloaded a fuel curve specifically for the LRD exhaust.   We almost felt like an Indy car team with all the high tech gizmos hooked to King Kong.  Even with our added power, we came to find out that when running against Team Can-Am’s monster modded Outlander 800 and FD Racing’s Fundy powered Kawasaki Prairie, we were still very much under power.  I watched both of these machines repeatedly out-motor YFZ and TRX 450’s in the jetting area and we struggled to hang with them on the straightaways.  Big motors like this would be handy on a course like this one.  But, big motors also tend to be harder on your equipment.  So, we opted to make very calculated changes to give us a little more performance without sacrificing any reliability that the stock machine possesses.  

Project King Kong cornered better than any utility we’ve ever slung a leg over by capitalizing on the use of World Class Racing Products A-arms and the Elka suspension.

Quite honestly, I was really surprised that we were able to run with the big motored Outlander and Prairie.  In the straights, we had nothing for them.  But, when in the woods, the combination of Elka suspension, low profile Maxxis All-traks, and the World Class Racing Products front end made this King Quad handle like it was on rails.  Without a doubt, King Kong was the best handling machine in the utility class.  We were a bit underpowered compared to the quads that sounded like Harley’s.  But, that extra power would eventually cause Team Can Am and Team Arctic Cat, (with a modded Suzuki King Quad engine), to grenade their transmissions.  Besides, running 70+ miles per hour on a 700 pound quad was plenty fast enough for my taste!

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