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November 12th, 2017 Spend: £0.00 @maurici kindly offered some free stickers on the forums, providing they ended up on a Westfield and a picture was shared on the thread. Well, here's mine November 18th, 2017 Spend: £0.00 Created a nice puzzle on the garage floor. Last month: £ 6379.80 This month: £ 0.00 ----------+ Total: £ 6379.80

When we converted @Captain Colonial s car from Webers to injection, it took at least 25man hours just over the weekend, plus plenty more in preparation. You could easily be charged 30hours at £40 plus VAT for the conversion, so although £1500 sounds a lot at first, for a quality job, it probably isn't. Of course, most of us here would go DIY and hence you can save a huge amount potentially. For DIY, bike throttles are fantastic, but if paying for all of the work, best to discuss your options with the garage really.

This is going to end up as one of those, if you want to get to point Z why did you start at point A you should have started at point X type debates. Everything in competition ends up as a compromise against a set of regulations that have been drawn up at a point in time and of course may subsequently change. Only my personal opinion but lovely as these cars are they just aren't ever really the "right" car to win Trophies in Sprints & Hillclimbs. Have some fun, drive something different, absolutely. Enjoy them for what they are, beautiful, stylish cars that are fun to drive due to the relative low power and grip.

Open Invite! Following our afternoon meal, the 14 of us will be continuing our frivolity around various Manchester Centre Pubs, into the evening. All are welcome & joining us so far are @marcusb @Shaggydoo & Co. We'll be heading to The Deansgate 321 Deansgate M3 4LQ for around 1600hrs ish to meet up with Marcus, Nakki, John (Shaggy) and Jen to carry on the beverage consumption. If we finish our meal early we may pop into Cask (if there's room for us all) 29 Liverpool Road M3 4NQ on route to The Deansgate. If you fancy joining us, drop me a pm with contact details and we'll look out for you.

We had a sad loss a short while ago. Our 2017 WSCC Calendar which features our photos 'disappeared' & tigger is gutted as she had more published than me (now there is no evidence to show visitors) We assume the offence happened during a frantic tidy up prior to visitors stopping with us SO - With the 2018 model imminent, does anyone have a 2017 one they do not wish to keep? Preferably pristine condition, but will consider those with unobtrusive writing. If so, PM me with your request for recompense for the supply

Yup I'm picking up Deano

I thought you had a blue CB aerial on the back of your car for a moment.

We have dash cameras in all of our vans and for protection they are good, but there is a problem with them .The problem is we now have a whole army of self righteous wannabee traffic officers deciding they are going to report anyone they do not like. We have had footage sent in showing our vans overtaking, "Breaking the speed limit" "forcing me off the road" and more often than not the complaint will contain lines like, "I had my small child with me" or "my aged relation" and yet when we look at our own footage they are not speeding, not doing anything wrong the footage sent in is distorted, wrong speed shown etc. Yet the people who have no idea of road use are arbitrarily deciding they are in the right and want action from us and the police. Now if you are driving your car and you have been reported for an incident by such a person, unless you have saved your own footage you have no proof of what actually happened. If you save it and a police officer demands the footage then you may find you have incriminated your self not necessarily for the claimed wrong from the original complaint. Add in anyone who drives anything remotely sporty is more likely to be the subject of a complaint as any overtaking appears to be a thing of the past with many roadusers not wanting you to pass. In some EU states it is illegal to film other roadusers but the UK police love this whole new army of snoopers that they have recruited. YouTube has whole channels devoted to people going "OOH look at this" It make the Stasi look like amateurs at getting people to snitch on each other the way this has spread. I am not a conspiracy nut but the surveillance of every one of us by people who feel justified just in case seems wrong to me. A chap I know who has a camera fitted says that if it is the other persons fault he will wave the chip as a weapon of proof, if he is at fault he will eat it and hope the other person has not got one. Are we so afraid of every thing in life we need footage, if so how long before we all feel justified to walk around with a go pro just in case? I find it very sad we have got here

Seems a much more balanced and thorough review this time. Points out a fair comparison of performance vs price of the catering van. Handbrake easily rectified with an s2000 lever as lots have done. The ford KA one is too ungainly and f ugly in my opinion. I chopped a good chunk off the pushrod to align the pedals, surprised the factory don't. They must have also addressed some of the handling issues as whilst they acknowledge it's not as nimble as a Caterham they don't really criticise too much so a to the factory if they are finally listening to the feedback. The factory know about the noise and judder of the race brake upgrade as Simon warned me about it when I was discussing my order. Maybe a tweaked design with Hispec is in order? Or reverting to the sweet AP calipers as the upgrade option. The comment "people will always pay a premium for a factory car" always make me chuckle. I'd pay a premium for a well built home assembled car over a factory built any day of the week! Some af the care and attention shown in a lot of the builds on here vs the built to a deadline of a factory, I know which I'd have. Anyway am sure the factory will be much happier with this review from a massive mainstream car magazine

It's here https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/westfield/sport-250

Who's brave enough to wear this in the Peak District? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Santa-Kini-Rudolph-Mankini-Mens-Novelty-Christmas-Gift-Male-Xmas-Sexy-Thong-New/161501229200?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160908110712%26meid%3D15c1bbca627e4499ac1cf15057fcf730%26pid%3D100677%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D29%26mehot%3Dag%26sd%3D142562121768&_trksid=p2385738.c100677.m4598

Thanks for your kind words everyone. It’s in the press now. Feel better knowing the guys name and a few of his details. RIP Ray. http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/15689145.A66_crash_claims_life_of_local_man___Lorry_driver_arrested/

I started my Westfied XI "journey" as the owner of a couple of Toyota 4A-GE engines and a suitable gearbox for the same and thought one of those would be idea for the Eleven. When I visited the factory, Mark Walker suggested that for retaining value on the car I would be better to stick with the traditional A series engine. I sold the Toyota twin cams and commenced my "traditional" build. I started my motoring in Imps and one of those engines in an Eleven would be an interesting thing to do, particularly with the historic Climax connection. A very useful feature of an A series is its torquey nature, which any Imp engine would always struggle to achieve. However, Imp engines are expensive things nowadays, needs are serviced by less specialist engineers and parts suppliers, and always did need frequent attention. I am very happy with my 106bhp A series which has an old car feel and noise and I have a fast road track day cam to keep the torquey nature and keep it "roadable". The overall package at bang on 200bhp/ton is in keeping with the rest of my interesting car fleet and feels quick on the road compared with many other cars and, most importantly for me, my daily VW Passat. My Type 9 box and Midget axle gives me 22mph/1000rpm meaning that 3,500rpm is 77mph and is, as a result, is happy in the fast lane on dual carriageways and easy to cruise along empty A roads. With slightly amended suspension, the Eleven is an enjoyable car that shows how right the original concept was. The engine bay on the Eleven is quite small - as it was designed around a previous generation of engines. There might be some ideas for alternative engines to be had from the Sporting Trials community whose little cars have led to some less than mainstream power units. Modern 16 valve (at least) units tend to be tall and wide (at the top) which doesn't suit the Eleven's packaging but the Lotus Fifteen did set a precedent with a bulged bonnet to accommodate the larger capacity Climax engines. The alloy construction of more modern engines means that the weight penalty over an A series may not be too much and save a drastic rethink of springing / damping. The wonderful Lotus Buick from the 1950s even squeezed a 3500cc (forerunner of the Rover unit) V8 into an Eleven and is fearsomely quick as it still takes parts in hillclimbs today - but those alloy engines are not dissimilar in weight to a crossflow Ford. As has been said above, the SE easier lends itself to an exponential rise in power with wider track suspension, more mechanical grip with much wider tyres and an ability to have a tighter turning circle without faired in wheels. If you were to aim for a more aerodynamic SE, you undoubtedly would not start with an Eleven wheelbase/track combination! However, we are all kit car builders / modifiers and don't always restrict ourselves to the obvious, or to the norm. One of the best bits of my build (and subsequent ownership) was all the daydreaming, scheming and planning - I just ended up back with an A series as my perceived best source of motive power for my Eleven. Simon

Stickers look great!

There's a spare seat in my car if anyone wants to join us and is without wheels oh and 'My steering column is still giving me some grief' ooooo eeerr

That looks really nice. Glad to have been an inspiration.

Got the harnesses fitted today. So very comfortable and so easy to adjust. Feel very secure and in my own opinion it was money well spent. Really happy with them.

Finally, I have my Sport E repaired and working again - just in time to miss the season! It's been a long haul - over 2 years actually. Last month I completed the wiring and so took the car over to Potenza Technology for electrical testing (my sponsor). Here is a picture of the car in the workshop alongside the original Westfield iRacer. The iRacer had been recently recommissioned (and painted) for a trade show. This is a quick car. About the same power and weight as today's Formula E cars. A car before its time I think. Initially my car was checked over for electrical safety and to ensure all the original safety features were still in place and working. Tick. After a nut and bolt check I we tried to drive it. First problem, the motor rotated backwards! I'd forgotten that the motor/diff had been reversed. Digging around in the Potenza document archive, we found the original instructions and passwords to reconfigure the power controller. The direction was changed and we tried again - it went forwards this time but cut out at 10 mph - not a great start. This fault was eventually traced to an interference issue caused by a missing ground strap on the power controller. The second test drive was much more successful with the car pulling away strongly. After a few tentative runs, I did a full power, zero to 'sorry officer' run. It cut out again this time under full power. After some head scratching and several more runs the problem seemed to go away. Anyway, I booked the car into Northampton Motorsport for a geometry check and dyno test. At Northampton, the high power cutout problem reappeared but only for the first few runs. It became clear that the battery voltage was sagging badly under heavy load causing the power controller to stop working. After a few runs the battery warmed up, the voltage drop was less and so the power controller continued to work. I'll have to add a power limit to the control software at low battery temperatures to stop it from tripping. Back in 2014, I had the original car dyno tested. The graph below shows the 2014 graph (red) alongside the new graph (blue). More power - yay, but the new power curve is now a different and odd shape. One factor is the gearing. This year the car is fitted with 15 inch wheels instead of the original 17 inch so the gearing is lower. This could account for the steeper initial slope. Also the original Sport E limited power to about 120 BHP at the wheels. I removed this limit (it's a race car after all) and now the controller gives maximum torque at all motor speeds but power now appears to be limited by the lower battery voltage at high speed. Overall a good result - especially considering the car is also 200Kg lighter than the 2014 car - it's still 660Kg plus me though. Now if I can just up-rate the battery before next season ........

Following the Monarch debacle and resultant holiday cancellation, we are now holidaying next week. So will be unable to Cheshire Curry Free bump!

Can't make it sorry. Westy SORNed and in bits and is taking up all my free time. Have fun.