Singer RX-7, refined
 

Some of you may have read about Singer that is making $350k Porsche 911s. I really like what they are doing. They are high performance, refined, beautiful cars. Not street rods.

I've been tinkering with my RX7 for the past couple years trying to make it reliable, quicker, quieter and more comfortable. I think it is relatively easy to strip off everything (AC, twins, PS, interior) to make them faster but they lose a lot of the streetability that they had stock but much more difficult to improve on stock while keeping the streetability.

Is anyone else into making their car nicer than stock while improving the performance within reasonable limits? I think Gordon has been doing this for years and i appreciate his efforts but his budget might be a bit higher than mine:).

Examples on a smaller scale than those awesome 911:

51R battery tray, lightens up the front of the car, allows more room for SMIC.
Shaved and polished JDM UIM. No EGR or AWS features in the casting, removed double throttle, shaved brake booster nipple and engine lifting hook, matched the exterior of UIM/LIM for a cleaner look.
Removed from engine lifting hook.
Relocated brake booster line to custom port located where Double throttle was. Cleaned up firewall
Relocated brake reservoir sensor to the opposite side of reservoir, removed bracket holding harness.
Relocated MAP sensor and entire harness pigtail.
Custom aluminum crossbar (holds battery tray and IC) to match the angle of the IC and has rubber mounting bumpers to keep vibration down as well as not wear through the bottom of the IC.
Modified the drivers side aluminum motor mount used on early cars (lighter by 1lb) to use the same rubber mount that the later ones use.
Miata/Nardi steering wheel, smaller airbag, lighter, cleaner look.
CF door sill applique. May sound cheesy but all FD door sills get scuffed up and these will prevent that and/or cover scuffed sills. I think it looks much cleaner than the bigger Mazda Aluminum sills.


Future plans.

Make a better fitting M2 med IC duct. The M2 version just doesn't fit well and looks bulky.
Custom intake and intake piping. The stock intake piping is ridiculous, many of the smaller hoses can be plumbed into the intake hoses rather than being run all the way to the airbox. The M2 CF airbox is nice but again doesn't look that great and can't be removed without taking out the IC.
Custom upper water neck. The stock one looks horrible. Some guys run w/o AST and some with. I think that the small chamber in the water neck could be made larger and perform some of the function of the AST. This eliminates the AST while keeping some of it's function. It can be also made to look a little cleaner.

Pics to come later:).

Oh, I forgot the link to Singer.

Singer Vehicle Design

Eibach springs with Tokiko adjustable shocks falls within nicer looking than stock, and performance oriented. R1 front lip.

I also really like my JDM armrest :)

I like this approach. In terms of design...the KnighSporst CAI for the twins looks great, much nicer that the boxy M2 intake. That's one of the things on my wishlist.

You might like this: DM motorsport short oil filler neck

Attachment 635260

You could also replace the plastic vacum and pressure tanks with aluminum ones and place them under the UIM

I'm familiar with Singer, and really enjoy this sort of work with the RX7. You, Gordon, Crispy too. If I had the luxury of a second (not tracked) RX7, I'd be doing some myself. Lots of ideas.

I feel like I've seen those AST-integrated-in-the-filler-neck setups, and could run one now that an airpump is permanently gone... where do you get them?

P

I really dig what Singer has been doing, there's a lot of that philosophy that can be applied to the FD.

Once nice, simple, and cheap touch is the chrome Miata e-brake button. Unscrew chewed up stock black plastic one and screw this on. Small touch that makes such a difference. It's like $9 last I checked, Mazda OEM part.

Dale

I'm 100% with you on how to build an RX-7 Jeff. My last FD was purpose build as comfortable as possible. A/C worked, P/S worked, radio worked, sunroof worked... and it started every time. :)

I think one of the every first things anyone has to consider is sound deadening. This helps with sound suppression (obviously) but also heat suppression, specifically from the trans tunnel into the cabin. The added benefit is a more 'solid' car in terms of doors shutting with a nice 'thump' and interior acoustics sounding maybe a tad better.

I agree the newer Nardi wheel is a must - another nice upgrade in the interior is the double DIN radio from the Mazda Protege / Miata. I also ditched a pillar gauges and went with just the Pettit (RE-A) column mount.
Attachment 754735

As for battery mount, I just saw this on Ericsworld build and think it's by far my favorite battery relocation. I always thought it was a shame to chop up the rear bins:
http://grandmighty.com/wp-content/up...earbattery.jpg

Do you have the part # Dale? :)

I'm trying to do similar to my car...Its nearly finished actually. But yeah, if you want inspiration, a quick browse at Singer cars is awesome :icon_tup:.

it appears to be from the 2001 special edition miata, which makes it NC35-44-033. the parts catalog says wood knob, which refers to the actual handbrake handle....

http://www.miata.net/news/images/miata-se2.jpg

Can't mention Singer and "budget" in the same post, really. Part of the motivating idea of Singer is "How would I do this car if I wanted it to be perfect, just the way it should have been, regardless of cost?"

With that said Singer is always a good inspiration and I agree that if you're doing an all-arounder sports car you can't go wrong with their kind of taste and balance.

Some of the basic things people do with FDs are seemingly in the Singer tradition of taking the best parts of various years. Take an R1 for the lightest weight maybe, add a '99 bumper and taillights and whale tail (or go wingless) if you like those better. Seems like the Spirit R recaros are the forum consensus for "they all should be that way." Replace the USDM center tach with a 6 o'clock unit that's custom made but which you'd never guess is not factory. So not the speedhut ones. Or maybe stick the Spirit R tach in there. Just the tach, so the silver stands out among the other black gauges. I'd really like to do that myself.

But Singer would go further. Don't CF-wrap the parts. Send all the plastic console and gauge hood pieces out and rebuild them in a different material. Either real CF or to be more Singer-subtle probably a black anodized brushed aluminum, something like that. While you're at it make sure every single rattly connection of every part in the dash is inspected, re-thought, and further insulated to keep rattles and squeakes away.

Lose the bus wheel for the Mazda Nardi or take another nice racing wheel and re-wrap it in nicer leather. Custom horn button in that case.

Wrap every other surface in leather. You shouldn't be able to touch plastic anywhere. Maybe an alcantara headliner.

Before you do all that gut the whole interior and get a acoustic engineer who does luxury aircraft cabins to come in and design custom lightweight sound deadening. That's what Singer did.

Don't even know where to start with the engine but I bet it would still be TT in keeping with the spirit of the car. Definitely the later turbos. I'll tell you this, a Singer RX-7 would not be too loud to drive, it would not smell of exhaust fumes, and it wouldnt buck on decel or have hesitation anywhere in the RPM range. Probably the best aspects of the stock and aftermarket ECUs, so get to tuning...

Or maybe a three-rotor? But again, I'd have to be a driveable, civil, no exuses setup.

Singer would probably spend a year or so getting subtle flares in the fenders just right.

...to fit some wide 3-piece BBS RGRs in the style of the factory Spirit R wheels.

But not toooo wide on the wheels or fenders. No rocket bunny or RWB nonsense.

Modded parts

Many of you know this already but this is a JDM UIM w/o AWS compared with a US UIM with the AWS blocked off.

I'm really digging the booster adapter

I believe RGRs are all one piece. Maybe you're thinking RS-GT or LMs? In either case, I'm with you on the RGRs - I have those as well as a ode to Spirit-R.

Attachment 754734

Thought there was a three-piece variant at some point. Could be wrong.

Looks great!

Agree whole-heartedly with you on the refinement thing. Stopped trying to make the car faster along time ago. My goal is to just make it 'better'.
Have already done many of the things on the manifold, interior and sound deadening that someone else mentioned. But added stainless hex-head fasteners replacing all the 10mm bolts and nuts visible under the hood. Went with Noltecs for engine mounts. Better control than my worn out stockers but no NVH. Even my WI system is nearly invisible.
Interior I went with an understated but quality (IMO) aftermarket Nakamichi head unit and already upgraded all the speakers. And I always felt the mono-colored interior was a little bland. Way back when Dale Clark first posted about that chrome ebrake release button I bought and installed one. As he said...it's small but makes a difference. And it nicely matches the polished trim on a 5 speed RX8 shift knob and picks up the chrome around the gauges. Bought an aluminum dead-pedal cover too. Most recently installed the updated/later steering wheel with a Nardi bag (thanks again ZE Power MX6). Maybe against consensus, but prefer the Nardi since there's not a "Flying M" symbol anywhere else on the car with it. Regardless I love this wheel, wished I'd done it long ago.
Personal taste, but exterior I did the stock round tail-lights. And swapped out the toilet bowl emblems with a red insert "efini" emblems front and rear. The red matches the VR nicely.
Really tempted to go back to stock suspension to make it a little more civil, but hope to get back to autocrossing seriously. Maybe get some softer springs though.
Really interested in your brake booster and water neck.

That's what I've been focusing on lately too. I already removed a bunch of track mods since I now race Spec Miata and have been doing small things that make the car 'nicer'.

I can't keep up with all the wheels that are out, but the RS-GTs look like a 3-piece version of the RGRs:
http://bbs-usa.com/wheel_images/whee...-2011_1958.jpg


Thanks! Great thread and discussion. I think I might snag a few of your tricks. Any other ideas you have kicking around?

More info on this relocation!?!?

Check Post 141 on Page 6

...then he replies in Post 149 with some good info.

-M

Awesome, thanks. I'd never have found that! Just ordered one :).

BTW, part number for that e-brake button is NC35-44-033 -

BUTTON,RELEASE (NC35-44-033) - $12.84 - NC3544033

About $12. Probably want to get it from Ray.

Jeff, more I look at it the more I like that brake booster nipple relocation. That's super clean!

I bet you could make an adapter and sell it.... :)

Dale