Feature: King Motorsports - Meet The Kings

King Motorsports was founded in 1981.This was a natural progression of successful Milwaukee, Wisconsin based Honda auto and motorcycle dealership, King Honda. The King guys already had extensive motorsports background with karting championships, 1/4 midget championships, motocross, F-1 snowmobile (hey, it's Wisconsin) and even Top Fuel Dragster experience! To race the car that was being sold off the showroom floor seemed to be a great idea. But at that time the idea of Honda and performance were not exactly an everyday occurrence.

“We've been in business since the early 80's—we basically invented the market,” says Scott Zellner, CEO of King Motorsports and success Honda racer by his own right. “We won the first auto road race championship for Honda on American soil—progressed through all the different racing ranks, won at all of them—and were chosen to be one of the original Mugen performance centers.”

The motto for the King Motorsports team back in the day was: They make it simple. We make it fast.

“In 1988 we were chosen to be the authorized distributor for Mugen in North America, and we have run with the ball ever since,” says Scott. “The business has grown from being more of a race team to being a worldwide manufacturer of racing chassis, sub assemblies, and engines.”

“We can't give away all our recipes,” says Scott. “There is a lot of time and money invested in all that R&D work, so some of this stuff is very proprietary.” Even so, we were able to talk Scott out of one of his favorite recipes, the King Motorsports 1990 Integra LS.

“Our cars showcase what you can do with their chassis,” explains Scott. “The Integra is an example of an early car with lots of miles on it, which has been refurbished from the ground up to take on even the most modern cars, while still being every day drivable.”

“Even though the DA has a 13:1 compression, it starts and idles like a normal car, it doesn't overheat, and it doesn't do anything stupid,” says Scott. “That is what a lot of cars we see from other shops... don't do.” We all know the kind of basement builds Scott in referring to. The ones that go really fast in a straight line, but can't stop worth a $#!@ (darn). The cars with over 200,000 miles on the odometer, yet the owner still insists on installing a brand new turbocharger, as if it were a prescription for Geritol.

“I think people tend to focus on how fast the car is, and don't look at how fast it will stop, the handling, and that all wraps around how safe the car is,” Scott explains. “We try to educate people on how important it is to make your car an all-rounder, and not be so one-dimensional.”

An Integra LS is an older model Honda we've seen countless times on the road. They are usually not too expensive, but unfortunately in stock form (130 horsepower) they aren't as competitive as they used to be, either. They may be a smart daily driver, but certainly not a potent street performer.

This is where the King Motorsports DA9 recipe comes into play. It offers 235 streetable wheel horsepower from its 1.8-liter LS V-Tech motor that is reliable, comfortable, and easy to drive. A few of the highlights to this daily dominatrix are its ported cylinder head, Crower Maxi Lite connecting rods, Wiseco pistons (13:1 compression), Skunk2 cam/springs, AEM adjustable cam gears, King Motorsports modified Edelbrock intake manifold, RC Engineering fuel injectors, 68mm throttle body, King Motorsports long tube air intake, and Hondata S300.

To minimize power loss to the road and offer quick off the line take-off's, the King also recommends beefing up the transmission with a Mugen limited slip differential (3.00 first gear, 4.40 final drive), Synchrotech carbon coated synchros, and a short throw shifter. On the side of handling, a Type R 5-lug conversion is in order, along with ARP extended wheel studs. They also recommend a Skunk2 rear camber kit, Vision front camber, H&R sport springs, Bilstein shocks, Mugen suspension bushings, 26mm rear sway bar, and a King Motorsports full race traction bar to eliminate the possibility of wheel hop and suspension slop. Everything is then tied up neatly to a Mugen Racing 3 steering wheel.

And if you like to go fast, you better also like to stop fast, meaning that a Stoptech Big Brake kit (13.75” front rotors) should be a priority for this build. This should also include a set of powder coated Integra Type-R rear calipers/rotors, stainless steel brake lines, Type-R master cylinder/power booster, and Motul 600 brake fluid. To complete the build, King Motorsports likes to add a few subtle touches to the appearance package, which in the case of the Red DA included JDM headlights, side moldings, front/rear bumper reinforcements, 9000 RPM tachometer, and proper badges.

Many of these parts are bolt-on performance, which means you can do it yourself provided you have the basic tools and a working knowledge of Honda's. “We always advise people to come here, and we can analyze their car and point them in the right direction,” says Scott. “But they also need to know that cheap doesn't always equal better—there are times you just have to spend the money to move forward and do things correctly.” If you don't know what you are doing, you're going to wind up spending the money twice to get the desired result, and this means you, if you are currently installing a brand new Garrett turbocharger on a motor that hasn't seen a decent tune since President Reagan was in office.

“We pride ourselves in our R&D work,” says Scott. “There's nobody in the country that spends as much time dyno testing products or working on the flow bench—when you buy something from us, you can rest assure that we know for a fact they work—there is never any guess work, and we always back up what we do 100 percent.”

What's coming up for King Motorsports in 2011? “We've got another dyno day that we'd like to do in the Spring—if we can ever get to spring,” says Scott with a snicker, referring to the harsh weather they've been getting. “We'll have people on hand from Mugen like we did last year.” In other words, as soon as the winter wonderland thaws out in the mid-west, get your Honda down to King Motorsports to see just what kind of recipes Scott has up his sleeve for your own ride.

For those of you with a DA9, consider the parts list below an early Christmas gift from the King. Now all you need to do is shell out the cash to get it done. Remember, there are no free rides in the tuner world, only cheaper ways to spend your money until you have no other choice but to get it done right anyway, so you might as well do it right the first time!