planning my project...

I'm still a few years away from being able to start building, but I'm
already looking into possible kits.

What I'd really like, but would probably be unable to afford, is an RV-7
or -8. I could try to scrounge it all together,as one guy in my dad's
hangar did; he built a -6A without ordering a single part from Van's.
Came out a lot cheaper, but it probably took him longer and was fairly
stressful. So, failing that, do you guys have any recommendations?

What I'd be looking for:

Two-seat, sbs if possible
Available as taildragger
Fast (160-180mph)
Rated to 6G (even if that's at a reduced weight)
All-metal preferred
Efficient
Able to at least mostly keep up with a flight of RV's

The KR-2S looks interesting, but it's wood and composite; I don't know
much about how these hold up and I've never worked large-scale with
either of them.

I've looked into some smaller kits; something like the sonex would be
nice, but it's rather ugly and slow. Fixing the former would be
somewhat involved, but how much of an improvement on the latter could I
expect by adding fairings, flush rivets, etc?