1994 Mazda RX7 -Tamon Designs...... Mystery Machine
03-03-2007 | 06:45 AM
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1994 Mazda RX7 -Tamon Designs...... Mystery Machine
Perplexed? Confused? Baffled? Befuddled? Mystified? Besides inciting a trip through a thesaurus, those are the exact emotions I felt when I first glanced at the photos. Fresh off the plane from Japan, Nads, who to our utter bewilderment somehow always manages to squeeze past Homeland Security, produced an envelope filled with images of a bizarre orange spectacle. Rummaging through the envelope to satiate the George-like curiosity as to the vehicle specs, I found that the object of my search, the tech "cheat" sheet, was missing like a child beauty queen. When I confronted Nadsy about the make and model, his terse response was, "Beats the crap out of me, it's something JDM." Ahh, Super Street, investigative journalism at its finest.
Now that the task of identifying the mystery machine fell to me, I searched for subtle clues in the body. The first obvious giveaway should have been the roadster configuration. But the low profile, shape of the front fenders, and the protruding *** belies anything resembling a S2000 or 350Z convertible. And it couldn't be some new German, Italian or Swedish creation-by my last count we haven't made the mistake of featuring a Euro since May of '97 (check this month's Classic Super Street in the Street Speak section). So that lead to the conclusion that this was some sort of chop top coupe conversion. After a lengthy five-minute brainstorm, I did what our staff is renowned for, giving up. Just kidding. Instead, I did what all good editors do, pass the buck onto someone else, preferably onto one who is ill-equipped to defend himself. Thinking of someone along those lines, it dawned on me that Tetsu, our lovable yet mildly diminutive and incredibly passive JDM correspondent, would be the ideal target. After forwarding him a blank tech sheet and the arduous task of completing it, Tetsu and his god-given abilities to speak Japanese and rebuild Honda motors contacted the owner of the vehicle and design house credited for the build, Tamon Shoji (no, not the feminine product, silly-that has the letter P) of Tamon Design.
With the tech sheet handy, let's play a little game. I'm going to drop some hints one at a time (no cheating by reading any cover blurbs!) and let's see if you can figure out the mystery behind the machine. Here we go. The mother that gave birth to the car you hold in front of you was Mazda. For the next clue, the heart and soul of the tangerine beauty is a beating turbocharged Wankel rotary engine. Getting warmer? The measurements of her sexy figure are F and D with a 3S waist. OK, if you haven't gotten it by now put this damn book down and walk away.Go read Teen People. Cuz' on a wack scale from one to ten, you're about an eleven. For those of you that guessed correctly, yes, it's that still hot yet extremely unstable chick from the '90s, no, not Kate Moss, but the Mazda RX-7, or for rotaryheads or admirers thereof, the FD3S.
hopping and reworking the near-perfect shape of the FD to many might sound blasphemous. Sort of like taking the Mona Lisa and thinning her eye brows, fixing her nose or collagening her lips. You just don't mess with perfection. Tamon, however, a practicing clay model artist with a degree in car design, found perfection and saw a blank canvas to create a masterpiece to commemorate Tamon Design's fifth year anniversary. Studying the stock lines, Tamon's initial undertaking was to create conceptual sketches based on the body lines of the RX-7 with a heavy infusion of his own style. "I need to know the stock car's original body design very well in order to start designing a body kit," affirms Tamon. During this creative process, he decided to incorporate a dramatic chop top twist in the design from his deep-rooted passion for exotic roadsters. Once his ideas were sketched out on paper, the hard task of realizing his vision was at hand.
Starting from the top (pun intended), Tamon spent much of the three months allotted for getting the project finished in time for its Tokyo Auto Salon debut cutting the fixed roof and engineering ways to reinforce the body.Because an FD chassis wasn't designed from the factory to have the pillars scalped, ala Custer, the structural integrity was compromised. The last thing Tamon would want is for his creation to fall apart going over a small JDM speed bump. To illustrate, try pressing an milk carton from the sides, then cut the top off and try pushing it again.Hopefully you performed this exercise with an empty carton, otherwise it not only illustrates the physics of a top, but the dynamics of spilling fluid. Moving on, with a bit of welding, fabrication, and copious amounts of warm saké, the chassis was finally reinforced to allow for the next step in the car's metamorphosis.
With the hard part over, Tamon's next step was to start applying his design to the now open air RX-7. Tailoring it with an emphasis in creating a car that looked like a production spec model and not some freaky homemade Frankenstein Fiero knock-off conversion, Tamon began by sourcing a custom headlight from Trial to give the car a distinguishable fascia. Going for an exotic super car look, the next step was to widen the fenders for a total increase of 30mm in the front and 70mm in the rear. Wrapping the widened stance are Tamon's own front and rear bumpers with a carbon fiber duct and side skirt. As for the non-existent rear hatch, Tamon had to fabricate a new trunk and rear to replace the stock configuration. With trick bodywork, Tamon didn't want to run the stock taillights, so with some research he found that the ones off an '03 Infiniti M45 best fit the new lines of his design. After adding custom side mirrors and cooling vents in the hood, the entire car was sprayed with Show Up Eki Show's bright Jade Orange paint.
With the exterior completed, next on Tamon's to-do list was to add his own custom accents to the interior. Upgrades to the al-fresco ****pit include a series of Trial products starting with the re-upholstered TDC057 seats, carbon door panels, dash and console. A Sparco steering wheel, shift **** and pedals combined with a Stack ST-8130 display and Pivot boost gauge and engine starter further lends to the exotic car feel. With some help from Panasonic, Tamon installed its CN-HDS955MD GPS head unit, speakers, and sculpted a custom enclosure in the trunk using Panasonic subwoofers and LCD panels connected to a Panasonic camera.
With time running out from all the custom fabrication, Tamon wanted to upgrade the performance of the 13B-REW motor and quickly bolted on HKS' T51RKAI turbo, stainless manifold, blow-off valve and GT series wastegate to a huge small-mouth RE Amemiya Level-Man intercooler, plumbing and aluminum radiator. To free up the exhaust, the stock catalytic convertor was scrapped for an Amemiya unit and now flows out the Tamon Design exhaust. The increased power goes out through an ORC twin-plate clutch and is good for an estimated 450 hp, necessary for a car rocking four ultra-wide 19x10.5 Rays CE28N wheels wrapped in Falken stickies. As the clock ticked with urgency like an episode of 24, Tamon addressed the suspension needs for the roadster with a set of Ohlins adjustable coilovers, Amemiya front and rear antiroll bars, a custom roll cage and AP Racing brakes, all with seconds to spare before Falken scooped up the car to display at the recent '06 Auto Salon.
While most of us staffers are content with installing a filter, header, exhaust, couple of car fresheners, and maybe a car wash in every three-month span, Tamon was able to build almost an entirely new car. Hate it or love it, you have to appreciate the energy spent on the design of the former FD and how clean the entire car looks. It's so different, in fact, that it wouldn't do it justice by calling it a common RX-7 with an aero kit. To put it into perspective, there are cars in production today by manufacturers with millions of dollars spent in design and manufacturing that don't look half as good as Tamon's exotic creation. Given the resources and more time, it would be very interesting to see what other wild mystery machines he could come up with. Oh, and if you were wondering about purchasing this kit from your local dealer? Forget about it. Because of the complexity, Tamon has no immediate plans on distributing the kit as a package; however, if you happen to know a good customs broker and have $25k in cash handy, feel free to ship your car to Tamon Design in Mie-Ken, Japan. Tell him I sent you, maybe he'll consider doing my FD as a two for one.
Super Street
Now that the task of identifying the mystery machine fell to me, I searched for subtle clues in the body. The first obvious giveaway should have been the roadster configuration. But the low profile, shape of the front fenders, and the protruding *** belies anything resembling a S2000 or 350Z convertible. And it couldn't be some new German, Italian or Swedish creation-by my last count we haven't made the mistake of featuring a Euro since May of '97 (check this month's Classic Super Street in the Street Speak section). So that lead to the conclusion that this was some sort of chop top coupe conversion. After a lengthy five-minute brainstorm, I did what our staff is renowned for, giving up. Just kidding. Instead, I did what all good editors do, pass the buck onto someone else, preferably onto one who is ill-equipped to defend himself. Thinking of someone along those lines, it dawned on me that Tetsu, our lovable yet mildly diminutive and incredibly passive JDM correspondent, would be the ideal target. After forwarding him a blank tech sheet and the arduous task of completing it, Tetsu and his god-given abilities to speak Japanese and rebuild Honda motors contacted the owner of the vehicle and design house credited for the build, Tamon Shoji (no, not the feminine product, silly-that has the letter P) of Tamon Design.
With the tech sheet handy, let's play a little game. I'm going to drop some hints one at a time (no cheating by reading any cover blurbs!) and let's see if you can figure out the mystery behind the machine. Here we go. The mother that gave birth to the car you hold in front of you was Mazda. For the next clue, the heart and soul of the tangerine beauty is a beating turbocharged Wankel rotary engine. Getting warmer? The measurements of her sexy figure are F and D with a 3S waist. OK, if you haven't gotten it by now put this damn book down and walk away.Go read Teen People. Cuz' on a wack scale from one to ten, you're about an eleven. For those of you that guessed correctly, yes, it's that still hot yet extremely unstable chick from the '90s, no, not Kate Moss, but the Mazda RX-7, or for rotaryheads or admirers thereof, the FD3S.
hopping and reworking the near-perfect shape of the FD to many might sound blasphemous. Sort of like taking the Mona Lisa and thinning her eye brows, fixing her nose or collagening her lips. You just don't mess with perfection. Tamon, however, a practicing clay model artist with a degree in car design, found perfection and saw a blank canvas to create a masterpiece to commemorate Tamon Design's fifth year anniversary. Studying the stock lines, Tamon's initial undertaking was to create conceptual sketches based on the body lines of the RX-7 with a heavy infusion of his own style. "I need to know the stock car's original body design very well in order to start designing a body kit," affirms Tamon. During this creative process, he decided to incorporate a dramatic chop top twist in the design from his deep-rooted passion for exotic roadsters. Once his ideas were sketched out on paper, the hard task of realizing his vision was at hand.
Starting from the top (pun intended), Tamon spent much of the three months allotted for getting the project finished in time for its Tokyo Auto Salon debut cutting the fixed roof and engineering ways to reinforce the body.Because an FD chassis wasn't designed from the factory to have the pillars scalped, ala Custer, the structural integrity was compromised. The last thing Tamon would want is for his creation to fall apart going over a small JDM speed bump. To illustrate, try pressing an milk carton from the sides, then cut the top off and try pushing it again.Hopefully you performed this exercise with an empty carton, otherwise it not only illustrates the physics of a top, but the dynamics of spilling fluid. Moving on, with a bit of welding, fabrication, and copious amounts of warm saké, the chassis was finally reinforced to allow for the next step in the car's metamorphosis.
With the hard part over, Tamon's next step was to start applying his design to the now open air RX-7. Tailoring it with an emphasis in creating a car that looked like a production spec model and not some freaky homemade Frankenstein Fiero knock-off conversion, Tamon began by sourcing a custom headlight from Trial to give the car a distinguishable fascia. Going for an exotic super car look, the next step was to widen the fenders for a total increase of 30mm in the front and 70mm in the rear. Wrapping the widened stance are Tamon's own front and rear bumpers with a carbon fiber duct and side skirt. As for the non-existent rear hatch, Tamon had to fabricate a new trunk and rear to replace the stock configuration. With trick bodywork, Tamon didn't want to run the stock taillights, so with some research he found that the ones off an '03 Infiniti M45 best fit the new lines of his design. After adding custom side mirrors and cooling vents in the hood, the entire car was sprayed with Show Up Eki Show's bright Jade Orange paint.
With the exterior completed, next on Tamon's to-do list was to add his own custom accents to the interior. Upgrades to the al-fresco ****pit include a series of Trial products starting with the re-upholstered TDC057 seats, carbon door panels, dash and console. A Sparco steering wheel, shift **** and pedals combined with a Stack ST-8130 display and Pivot boost gauge and engine starter further lends to the exotic car feel. With some help from Panasonic, Tamon installed its CN-HDS955MD GPS head unit, speakers, and sculpted a custom enclosure in the trunk using Panasonic subwoofers and LCD panels connected to a Panasonic camera.
With time running out from all the custom fabrication, Tamon wanted to upgrade the performance of the 13B-REW motor and quickly bolted on HKS' T51RKAI turbo, stainless manifold, blow-off valve and GT series wastegate to a huge small-mouth RE Amemiya Level-Man intercooler, plumbing and aluminum radiator. To free up the exhaust, the stock catalytic convertor was scrapped for an Amemiya unit and now flows out the Tamon Design exhaust. The increased power goes out through an ORC twin-plate clutch and is good for an estimated 450 hp, necessary for a car rocking four ultra-wide 19x10.5 Rays CE28N wheels wrapped in Falken stickies. As the clock ticked with urgency like an episode of 24, Tamon addressed the suspension needs for the roadster with a set of Ohlins adjustable coilovers, Amemiya front and rear antiroll bars, a custom roll cage and AP Racing brakes, all with seconds to spare before Falken scooped up the car to display at the recent '06 Auto Salon.
While most of us staffers are content with installing a filter, header, exhaust, couple of car fresheners, and maybe a car wash in every three-month span, Tamon was able to build almost an entirely new car. Hate it or love it, you have to appreciate the energy spent on the design of the former FD and how clean the entire car looks. It's so different, in fact, that it wouldn't do it justice by calling it a common RX-7 with an aero kit. To put it into perspective, there are cars in production today by manufacturers with millions of dollars spent in design and manufacturing that don't look half as good as Tamon's exotic creation. Given the resources and more time, it would be very interesting to see what other wild mystery machines he could come up with. Oh, and if you were wondering about purchasing this kit from your local dealer? Forget about it. Because of the complexity, Tamon has no immediate plans on distributing the kit as a package; however, if you happen to know a good customs broker and have $25k in cash handy, feel free to ship your car to Tamon Design in Mie-Ken, Japan. Tell him I sent you, maybe he'll consider doing my FD as a two for one.
Super Street
03-07-2007 | 02:56 AM
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Posts: 451
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...
Originally Posted by Midnight Racer
not a fan of it, the side profile makes it look like its got the engine out back(too long)
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