What makes automotive aesthetics so important to the modified car scene in Australia? Who plays with JDM hardware like no other panel sculptor? The man who blessed this awesome street-stalking FD RX-7, Danny Hoang of Sydney's Cyber Motorsports. He's a philosopher of sorts of modern car styling. If you can dream it up, it can be built, as far as Danny is concerned.
Danny's skill with designing and handcrafting vehicle body kits is astounding; he probably has one of the most overloaded trophy shelves we've ever seen. Dating to when Danny created a first-gen CRX named CYBER1, he's wooed crowds and has continued with a long lineup of Hondas, including his jaw-dropping Honda Prelude CYBER2, which in its first iteration earned itself front cover of British magazine "Max Power." That's not to mention how many times his own and his customer's cars have been front and center on Australian magazines.
Meet CYBER. Not only is this one of the nicest looking FD RX-7s to shed rubber against bitumen in Australia, but this is the first time it's been featured in a magazine. The car belongs to Danny's younger brother, Ben. He'd seen Danny's collection of Hondas grow and shrink over time and wanted something different for his own parking space. Danny didn't complain about it not being a Honda; he was always fond of the RX-7's awesome factory styling. Ben wasn't after a top show award winner, but rather a car that could be driven daily, yet with looks to make anyone green with envy.
Subtlety wasn't the game plan with the wheels as Ben skipped the normal 17- and 18-inch rims available for the FD. He wanted big, expensive and sexy looking rims and given that a large percentage of Danny's cars had been fitted with MOMO rims, he opted for the same.
Following a visit to Sydney's leading MOMO importer, Roman Autotek, a set of four 20 x 9-inch MOMO Magnums wrapped in super-grippy Pirelli P-Zero rubbers were fitted. Danny says that although the offset was perfect, without a few minor body modifications and a set of Tein HA coil-over struts accommodate the wheels perfectly with a 1.5-inch suspension drop. Had they not done this, Ben would have been scrubbing the tires every time he turned the wheel or went over a bump.
Next was the body work. As the car is a 1995 Australian delivered RX-7, Ben was keen to freshen the look, yet not mess with the panels too much. Yet when it came to paint, Danny gave Ben two options: PPG or PPG. As all of his own cars were beautifully soaked in the gloss, he wasn't about to deviate. When prepared, Paul Wellington from PPG Paints sprayed the car in several coats of PPG silver/green Harlequin followed by multiple layers of clear. The finish is superb and combined with the rims, Cyber side striping and Japanese Ganador aluminum mirrors, the car looks perfect.
When Ben first purchased the car, the original engine was getting low on compression so he insisted on buying a replacement import unit. With the new engine installed, the car was going great for a couple of months before encountering a slight engine problem (it stopped running). It was found the extra boost he'd been squeezing into the engine wasn't making it happy, thus causing to one of the apex seals in rear rotor to get into an argument with the housing. It was time to either rebuild it or replace it.