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October 1st, 2016 Spend: £1500.00 What's the best way to speed up the Mighty Crossflow? You replace it with a Zetec I bought this last month from another WSCC member after he took me out in his car with this engine in it. Complete with ECU, manifold and as much ancillaries as he could spare. 180BHP on the Northampton Motorsport rollers. October 2nd, 2016 Spend: £0.00 Cleaned up the garage and moved stuff about so the engine can be stored for a while whilst I take my own engine out. Borrowed an engine crane from Lewis and placed the new engine on a trolley for easy manoeuvring. October 3rd, 2016 Spend: £0.00 As the car is off the road for a good couple of months, I am also going to take the live axle out so it can have the bearings replaced as it is leaking on the nearside. Also taking the opportunity to replace all the rear bushes and the rear suspension. The fuel tank needs to come out for that, so made a start with emptying it and removing the fuel tank straps. October 6th, 2016 Spend: £0.00 Took the fuel tank out and removed the rear lights. The rear lights need to go back to the manufacturer as they have condensation inside. October 8th, 2016 Spend: £0.00 Time to crack on Removed the radiator, all the coolant hoses, spilling a lot of coolant on my drive in the process. Also drained the engine of oil and removed the tunnel top and seats. Disconnected the engine from everything and left it only on the engine mounts. The pile of parts is steadily increasing October 9th, 2016 Spend: £0.00 Well, that was easy! October 15th, 2016 Sold: £500.00 Who knew old oily Crossflows are worth a pretty penny? Did some small jobs on the car whilst waiting for Andy from Sheffield to collect my old engine. He's going to drop it in a Mark 1 Escort... The Circle of Life! October 16th, 2016 Spend: £0.00 After I struggled last week to disconnect the prop-shaft from the diff in the tunnel, I discovered that it is much easier to remove the gearbox first, then slide the axle and diff assembly backwards so it would all be accessible from the boot. Did not realise that the gearbox would dump all its oil when you lift it out though, so spend half the afternoon cleaning up the drive with degreaser. Doh! Took the angle grinder to the diff flange bolts but it remained firmly connected to the prop-shaft. Time to call it a day. October 22nd, 2016 Sold: £20.00 Finally. Now the cleaning can commence. Also sold my old 15" alloy wheels. October 23rd, 2016 Spend: £0.00 Cleaned up the engine bay until I ran out of cleaning products. Also removed the dash/scuttle by cutting a slot underneath the column. This was something I wanted to do for a long time, as I can now remove it all in one go, for easy access to the electrics. October 24th, 2016 Spend: £0.00 Dropped the axle and gearbox off at Martin Harvey for bushes, bearings and seals. October 25th, 2016 Spend: £20.00 As I am relocating the filler neck to the boot, I picked up some carbon boot side panels and carbon fuel cap cover from Mark Russel. October 29th, 2016 Spend: £0.00 Trial fitted the new engine to see if it would actually fit or not. Turns out the answer is maybe... The alternator is awfully close to the chassis, but as I do not have the engine mounts yet, final confirmation will be once I've got the gearbox back in and the mounts measured up. October 30th, 2016 Spend: £29.10 Continued with cleaning. Felt I needed a little victory so fitted the carbon filler cap replacement and the new Hella high level brake light I bought to replace my half working Ebay Chinese special. Had hoped to remove the rollbar so I could easily get the wire inside it, but seems like the original builder likes his adhesive fixings, as it is glued on with some stuff that I could not yet undo. Will continue with that next week as I need to slide my boot lid sides over the diagonal. Last month: £ 2312.52 This month: £ 1069.10 ----------+ Total: £ 3381.62

This coming Sunday at the Lodge, as usual.

Westfield have a narrow bonnet listed on the website at a reduced price at the moment

What i really hate is........ The correct belt, Tensioner and idlers all arrived today. I put the timing bar through the cam and the lock pin in the crank. Got the belt on. Did the tensioner. Turned it over by hand to check nothing touchs. New cam gasket and rocker cover back on, Spark plugs leads back on. I though lets start it......It ran for 30 seconds before it threw the belt! Sh!T. It was only tick over but!!!!!!! After a bit of turning the cam back and forth I got it back to TDC. Got it all timed up. Same procedue started it up.. sounded a bit off and with some heavy bangs.. then it stopped and the engine will not turn in a clock wise direction any more. If i was a betting man the heads fallen off a valve and its all knackered. The engine was only £200 so no biggy..I did 2k over the summer in it and the engine felt good. I'm really annoyed with myself.! I'm not messing witn with this engine. So the options are an other ebay used engine or.........maybe a new one...... I'm asking myself can I be bothered with "running in" a new one and spend £950 nut have an engine which will be good for a very long time.... Or by an other engine for £200 and rag it to hell and back from day one, but take the risk its a good one!.

Speak to Neil @ Aerodynamix , they are very involved with Narrow cars and may have a spare one .

Another potential option (depending on your situation and Westie set up) I used to run: smaller radius wheel/tyre combo on track = lower to ground and quicker acceleration higher radius wheel/tyre combo for better ground clearance on road This also meant easy change when frequently moving from track-road-track-road.

Not having any of this Paul, flying doesn't count. Still think I'm the highest.

I'm gonna blow this one right out of the sky, sorry Robin. Having a glass of Port in the cocktail bar on an Airbus A380 at 41,000 feet, en route to Bangkok.

Ionian Islands, Greece.

Yes book me in please curry is great and the company i can tolerate......