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Almost as bad as the 700+vat that westfield want for a pair of led headlights

Couldn’t resist the lure of the MSV buy it now...

Tell her its practice for future races. And as you will have already done the track then it will be safer for you. Safety worked for the cage so might be worth a shot

Look it up in a hen-cyclopedia

Sorry, but either Bluefin are spinning a line, confused, or something illegal is happening. New cars sold must comply with their homologations- installing new code at point of sale on a new car would be scandalous.

Last one from me, some terrible driving around 5 mins.

well it makes hilarious reading, so Mr Bagpuss you may keep hijacking my threads. Back on topic, if I am allowed for a moment , Hammy and the Mrs are coming on Sunday too, so that's a table for 9 and it's only Thursday today That's all, back to running, you are running and not driving this distance? I am reading this right aren't I? up two three cake, up two three cake, up two three cake

March 16th, 2018 Spend: £997.40 I picked up my engine from Jody (JA Kit and Customs) today! Complete checked over, and with most parts replaced she almost looks like she just rolled off the factory floor. March 17th, 2018 Spend: £0.00 With the Beast from the East making a return the conditions outside and in the garage are awful. But I'm determined to not let it spoil my rekindling with the Westfield! Ensured the gearbox input shaft and spigot bearing were not interfering and then put the gearbox back into the car with the help of my son. March 18th, 2018 Spend: £28.80 Putting an engine back can take 5 minutes, or 5 hours. I ended up somewhere in the middle when after yet another minute change in position the engine finally mated with the gearbox and bellhousing. March 24th, 2018 Spend: £32.59 Miserable weather outside so had to do all the work inside the garage. Not ideal. Connected everything up and then discovered that I should have bolted the PCV breather pipe that goes just above the bellhousing from one side of the engine to the other should have been one of the 1st things to go back, not the last. Oh well, I'm not taking it apart again, so managed to lock it in place as well as I could. Another thing I now discovered is that my water temp gauge sensor wire seems a bit short. Weird as nothing changed in the location, so I need to fix that as it looks a bit strained at the moment. Could not start the engine due to the weather, but forecast is really good for tomorrow March 25th, 2018 Spend: £0.00 Up early (not helped by the bl**** clocks going forward and a AUS F1 race early in the morning) and got the car out of the garage. Fluids checked and topped up, plugs removed and hit the starter button so it would start to build up oil pressure. With the gauge now part of my system the needle rose nicely and after doing this a couple of times decided to fit new plugs and go for it! Asked Mrs Q to film the start, but to my surprise nothing happened. The engine would just turn over and over and over, but not fire into life. b*****ks. Mrs Q asked if the battery was charged, and like last year I'd fallen into the trap of trying to start the engine with a low battery. Doh! Half an hour on the charger and then... Had to change the accelerator cable tension slightly to set the RPM to a steady 1000RPM, and still have to adjust the clutch cable. March 30th, 2018 Spend: £0.00 With the threat of p*** poor weather, I sneaked out early and rolled the car out of the garage. Adjusted the clutch cable so it now seems to work ok for 1st, 2nd and reverse. Can't test it any further as I'm still on SORN. Put the nose cone and air filter back on and replaced the batteries in the security gate opener. Am leaving the bonnet off for now, until I've triple checked everything. Also taxed the car online starting from the 1st of April... no joke! Last month: £ 6379.80 This month: £ 1058.79 ----------+ Total: £ 7438.59

@Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Secretary @AndrewBClarke @Martyn Vann - Joint Warwickshire AO PLEASE BE READY TO LEAVE AT 11.30 AM BECAUSE THE PUB CAN ONLY FIT US IN AT 12.30 ANYONE ELSE CAN STILL JOIN US BUT I CANNOT GUARANTEE A SEAT INSIDE THE PUB FOR FOOD

It’s a good event, I went with the Corvette club but we did upset the Aston Martin mob by making too much noise when they were eating their cucumber sandwiches. Lots of history and a little flying.

Everyone making egg jokes at the chairman's expense needs to get ova themselves.

Just spoken to a nice chap at Bluefin. He said that they work with Ford to get data and will fit Bluefin at new cars at Ford dealerships. They even instruct Ford engineers on data from cars. As for warranties, my mate isnt worried ! Apparently Bluefin said its very common that they do this at a service as they just plug in and if it says update, they say yes. He advised to plugging in the handset and see what it says on the car. It may say installing map, if it is happy with whats on the car , or removing a copy of map, which needs to be sent back to them for adjustments and will be emailed back to go back onto the car. Either way it will get sorted, as my mate wont be going back to Ford as allegedly someone had been rummaging in the front cubby holes as they were open and gained a 3 inch scratch on the rear bumper when there. Bluefin said they will sort it FOC too.

That's a good saving! I'm thinking of a bulk buy and flog them off to Caterham owners at Stoneleigh...

These software updates are standard practise and are usually improvements to the system not only the engine management side. It would be a ‘careful what you wish for’ if complaining!

Isn't there a risk that the car will lose its engine warranty if he admits to the Bluefin mod?

Tel’s Tales Anglesey Sat/Sun 7th and 8th April 2018 After a very disappointing Easter Monday event at Croft which was wet, freezing cold and probably should never have started about 10 drivers were entered for this LDMC extravaganza attended by approx. 70 cars. The Croft event was abandoned before any timed runs had been offered, so we all scored a miserable 75 points (I will be discarding that score). We all arrived on Friday to find plenty of room in an almost empty paddock and plenty of space to get an electric hook up for our campervans and motorhomes. This was a bonus as it was quite cold and heating was essential as we had to leave the onsite café/bar due to too many staff and not enough business. Saturday Saturday morning saw a wet, gloomy start and the rain continued all day until 1700hrs when we finished sprinting! The day saw some great battles between all classes as well as individual personal targets irrespective of which class you were in. This would become the first event in 19 years that I have used wets all day rather than slicks and the competition was close and hard fought on a track that was wet but perfectly driveable and created a bit a level playingfield between cars of different specs/engines etc. During practice the pace was set by Richard Kerr and myself running around 10secs slower than the target time. It was good to see Mick Dent out again after his broken ankle caused a premature end to his 2017 season and his busa was going well. He also had his son as a secret weapon cleaning tyres and checking the car was going ok after the Friday trackday sessions. Their car would not start despite charging the battery and I quickly diagnosed a seized starter motor. Luckily they found a local supplier who had a secondhand one and they did not miss a run !. There was a lot of slipping and sliding mainly on the black stuff as well as a few spins but I did not witness any damage to Westfields. Mike West was enjoying the conditions and during the day he reduced his time down to 78.10secs from 82.74secs. John Loudon kept changing front springs for stiffer ones to improve grip and handling and it seemed to be working as the two of us were having a close battle in class G. Derek Hodder, Garry Bunn and Richard Kerr were after the class H points chasing Mick Dent. Steve Everall and Mick Skidmore were close in terms of times but running in different classes ( D and F respectively) We had 5 times runs and in the end Richard was quickest banging in a last run of 63.23 to better my time of 63.98secs and Mick Dent’s 64.10secs. We were 3rd,4th and 6th overall fastest with John Loudon 9th. Sunday Well it was a cloudless night and there had not been any rain but it was a cloudy start but it stayed dry all day and the afternoon was very good and we had a drying track to play on. Mark Anson had arrived at 0230hrs and was joining us in the Jedi. He had a few jobs to do fixing the front wing brackets and softening the trickshifter. During practice 2 Mark came back to the pits on a tow rope as it turned out he had fried some wires in his harness. This took him around 3 hours to trace the 12v power issues (or lack of power) but eventually he sorted it. I helped a bit by making him a nice cuppa tea. It really was a dream to be able to drive a dry track and push on a bit. We now saw Del and Garry showing the pace of their car whilst Rich K was trying to repeat his Sat performance. Unluckily for Rich when he came in after T1 the engine bay was full of oil and it looked like a blanking plate on the block had come adrift and ended his weekend. My weekend nearly ended too as I was way too quick into the left hander at the end of the garages and as I ran off the end of the outside rumble strip I hit the soft wet grass and soil to do a 360deg spin. I ripped off part of my carbon fibre floor but back in the paddock Steve, Mick Skidmore and John Loudon did a quick and great repair job to keep me running. The car looked like it had been used for grass tracking and the amount of soil and mud under the bonnet was ridiculous and took some cleaning up. Later in T3 Mick Skidmore ran over a rumble strip coming out of corkscrew and split part of his tub. In the end we had 5 timed runs and were well pleased with the day. Garry just beat Del and was 2nd fastest overall with Del being 4th, me in 5th and John Loudon 6th. Mark Anson with only 2 runs was 3rd overall so an impressive performance by him. That made 5 Westfield speed series drivers in the top 6. A newcomer was Chris Griffiths in his class H car and he was 9th overall behind Rich Kerr 8th. (7 cars in top 10!) We return in 4 weeks time to do the MGCC weekend. Terry Everall Class G Competitor

I was supposed to be away this weekend, but may not be now, so yes I will try to attend. I think Paul is attending and Josh is working out how to lift the thumb off his head!

So having bought the Caterham in October of last year, I had still yet to drive the car. As part of the purchase, I had negotiated that the seller (who runs a Caterham motorsport outfit) to attend a trackway with me to help prepare and set up the car. I booked a trackday at Donny for Friday with MSV trackdays. I can recommend to anyone with a race or sprint car to attend one of these days as they are race car friendly, in fact, most cars were race cars on the day - Mini's, Exiges, BMW's, Clios etc. I had approx 30 hours work on the car over the winter: 1. Trimmed and re-covered the bag seat 2. Perfected the fit of the tonneau 3. Greased the extinguisher lines 4. Replaced all the stickers 5. Painted the interior 6. Fixed the exhaust (which was squashed to say the least - record and re-packed for only £65!) 7. Given the car a blooming' good clean and tidy up I should have been looking to this day but I was bedridden for 3-days earlier in the week. I still felt rough on the day but it was too late to cancel. Nonetheless, the day was dry and bright even if a little breezy. I got up early and trailered the car to the track, only to find one tyre had picked up a puncture on the way. No bother as I swapped the spare at lunch. So how does it compare to the Westie? Well, its hard to compare when I have been off-track for 6-months, but for sure, the chassis is more communicative and the turn-in is much better (it's got a quick rack). Its better on the brakes too, presumably due to the weight saving. The bag seat is not as comfy as the Tillet and the layout of the dash and pedals to too compact initially, until you get used to it. Power is comparable. Overall, I would say an improvement over the Westie, but not by any significant margin. In fact, my best lap time was a 1.21.5. I think there is more to come when I heel and toe (one step at a time I thought) and can use the whole of the track (the grass was so wet a lot of the kerbs had sods of grass on them!) and under the pressure to perform during Quali....but my best time in the Westie at Donny? Yep. A 1.21.5. Funny how these things work out! My first race for the dark side is on the 22nd of April at Pembrey. I'm in a difference class now with the 1.6 so I hope to be competitive. Wish me luck! Mike Pics below inc. some nice historic racers who occupied the garage after I had packed up. Interior shot in my garage at the end

I have a single black AA composites driver side half door kicking around- but never bothered with a pair as I have a tonneau and no friends

Sir Bad Wily Gingers. Epic, almost laughed mine off.

OK, that's just about en-oeuf of that...