San Marcos, Calif.'s, Sportcar Motion began as nothing more than an office and a mail-order Web site, catering mostly to the Mazda RX-7 crowd, but has since grown into something entirely different. Its small rotary-based clientele relied on owner Loi Song for turbo upgrades, intercoolers, and exhaust systems, as well as hard-to-find aero pieces. Song, a longtime car guy previously addicted to raw Mustang V-8 power, eventually made the switch to the dark side after a few friends introduced him to boosted Japanese power. His 500-plus horsepower FEED-turbocharged FD RX-7 served as a rolling billboard for the small business. The only problem was that 500 ponies and such a sultry chassis attracted far too much unwanted attention at every turn. A healthy pile of fix-it tickets handed out by San Diego's finest proved as much and was what ultimately led to Song calling it quits with the Mazda for something new. "I couldn't even drive the FD on the street anymore because, even with a silencer, you could still feel the exhaust from a few blocks away," Song says. An encounter with a couple of local Honda heads and a quick lesson in SOHC-to-DOHC engine swaps was all it took for Song to finally see the Honda light.
It was about 2003 when Song got the itch to build his first Honda, a daily driven 400hp Del Sol that consistently clicked off high 11-second quarter-mile blasts and managed to embarrass a few of his close friend's supercars (think Skylines). Much of this is what managed to rope Song into the Honda world for good. "They are just so simple and reliable, even with boost. I could never get that with a project like the FD. I realized there was so much potential with a Honda engine, it blew me away," Song says.
It didn't take long for Song to start saying to himself: Mazda what? Just a few short months later, Sportcar Motion's storefront and garage doors opened up, offering appearance and hardcore performance parts for all imports, even though the guys secretly specialize in all things Honda. Many shops in San Diego have come and gone but Sportcar Motion still stands. The shop was once noted for it's quarter-mile prowess but attention has since turned toward its well-deserved Time Attack records. With two shop cars currently making waves on the circuit, Song and Sportcar Motion are once again making their mark on the race front, only this time it's from the Honda side of things.