Leaderboard

Fitted some new wheels today. And parked it next to one of my other V8’s for some green-on-green action:

Hi everyone, after many years of looking, thinking and pondering I have finally pulled the trigger and bought my first Westfield. She’s called Meg, is and sei with a dunnel 2.0 16v zetec and I’m in love! I’m looking forward to when restrictions lift and getting out for some proper drives and meeting lots of like minded folk regards, Andy

Just thought I would do a quick introductory post to introduce myself. I am hopefully going to be getting a Westfield within the next few weeks or months depending on how the search goes. I have always been heavily into cars since 17 (now 37) and have had various things over the years from a stripped out 205 GTI with a 2.0 Turbo engine that i converted myself (wish I had kept it standard now and I would be in the money!) EP3 Civic Type R with 240bhp, MX5, Seat Leon Cupra, Mini JCW etc...so mostly hot hatches were my thing. However the last 5 years or so houses and children (now 3 of them!) have been taking all my time and money and I have been reduced (apologies to any Astra owners!) to driving a 1.4L Vauxhall Astra and a Seat Alhambra as a family car! However it now looks like I may have enough money - and a new garage to put it in! - to look at getting a Westfield. My Dad has very kindly offered to go halves on one so I am finally in a position to start looking. I intend to join the club as a formal member as my eventual aim is to do some Hillclimbing as myself and my Dad have spent many years at Barbon and Harewood hillclimbs and we always say one day we would love to have a go at it - though for fun more than any significant desire to be competitive as I don't believe my testicles are large enough given the pace of some of the cars I see! I am based near Blackpool so hopefully there will be some meets to go on in the nicer weather as I need an excuse to get out of the house and have some child free time! Having done lots of reading there isn't a specific 'type' of car I want other than it being more road biased, ideally car engined with ITB's (sound is a big aspect of ownership to me) and something that I can do mild tinkering with rather than a full rebuild. Hopefully something will turn up over he coming months and I looking forward to being able to join in with some local activities and meet some people. Thanks very much Alex

Also if you think that the losses are mainly heat, 30-40 BHP (22-29kW), it's an awful lot of heat to dissipate!

For value with a decent camera, I don't think you can beat the Huawei/Honor offerings, but get a slightly older model like a P30 lite which still has Google support unless you're comfortable adding that stuff manually. Pair that with a nice, cheap giffgaff sim and it should tick those boxes nicely. Edit to add - also have the optional benefit of dual sim. Great for touring where you can pick up a local/travel friendly sim card for Internet access etc., but still keep your UK sim active without paying big roaming charges.

Thanks all for the kind welcome 🙂 I am surprised at how many people have already offered to help which is really great. The main problem I have is that every time I see a car come up on here it seems to sell in a matter of hours! I am going to try and get to a local meet when they start again even if it is without a car just to have a look around and a chat. I’ll probably try and post a wanted ad soon but I am conscious I don’t want to be one of those people that joins a club/forum just to buy or sell and then is never seen again!

Dave did mention about upgrading mine while I was there yesterday. I was tempted, but I'm currently suffering from the same issue@corsechris had back then, not enough funds. As far as the diff ratio goes, I'm currently on a 3.54:1 according to my paperwork that came with the car. The tab on the diff is unreadable, so I have to assume the paperwork is correct. That seems to be about right for what I want. It's not on the current list of post IVA upgrades anyway...

Welcome This is what brought me here. My previous car was an E46 M3, it was such a capable car, especially with the fettling I did, Sus, bushes and brakes. But that car that did 100mph in 3rd gear and it had a Tele in it. What bl**** use is that. now I'm picking wildlife out of my teeth. I'm much happier. Good luck with the search

2xl please, was xl prior too lockdown

Welcome, a lovely looking car, enjoy

welcome we all have the same smile sideways at 20mph 😁

Apparently you can get 4XL and 5XL !!!!! and heavier springs for your car

I was with Adrian flux for the first few years of my kitcar days bit they were dear from the off but were the only ones who would insure me at 21, so once I was of an older age I switched across to A plan. Hitting 40 this year I thought may be a winner, thanks for the help guys.

Looks a bit lost in there, doesn't it... 🤣

Ready for Harewood hill next month.

ST 170 engine, colour is well...

@TableLeg Is that not another feature that only came with the later ECU? Confess I've never looked though. Gary & I both have the older M3DK, not the K3/K6. I'm not sure it would help in this situation though TBH - the problem is with the load sensing. Another method that could work would be blended setup with a MAP sensor. I ran that on the supercharged V6 I had, but it's not ideal with ITBs of course. I found a change of diff ratio made a huge improvement. It shifted the operating point enough to almost completely eliminate the problem. It was a bit serendipitous really as we only changed the diff to improve cruising (it's not a track car). We did try a newer ECU on the day ours was mapped - Karl quickly popped a K6 in and closed up the load sites at the bottom and it was an instant and complete fix. I should have just bought the new ECU at the time TBH.

Just don't forget that as said A Plan are brokers and not insurers therefore if you go with A Plan you're in the hands of the insurer they find you. I have my Westfield insured with A Plan but switched the tintop after shockingly bad service after a claim (the insurer itself was the issue although A Plan didn't really help much either!). As with anything insurance related you will always hope never to have to make a claim.

I rarely buy new phones. My current phone, purchased 2 years ago is a Google Pixel 1. If I was buying now a Google Pixel 3 or 4. My brother has a Pixel 3 XL and I used to have a Pixel 2 XL for work and they have all been absolutely brilliant in every way.

Welcome from Scarborough. Car looks fantastic.

Yeah I'll say I am very local to those areas you mention! That's a very kind offer and I would appreciate that as I haven't really been in many - well one actually about 10 years ago! But it left an impression as I felt like I was going about 100mph and looked down at we were doing 50mph! I think for me that is the key as if you can have fun at sensible road speeds you are winning as some of the more modern hatches I have been in literally need you to be doing licensing worrying speeds before you get anywhere near the limits or feel like you are actually driving it. Thanks again

Oh wow, I get over there quite a lot ( or I used to before Covid !!) , I have mates in Pilling and Stalmine. When we are allowed to, you are more than welcome to try mine out, as a car to rule out or in. @Paul Gibney - Lancashire AO. will give you details of meets , if you contact him he will add you to the mailing list. Richard.

I did have the issue that affected Corsechris (I think it was) that the lowdown throttle opening map isn't suited to bike throttle bodies on the Ecu that I'm running. The map position spacings aren't small enough to allow fine tuning as when the bike throttle bodies open just a very small amount, you still get a shed load of air sucked through. I would have liked to upgrade the Ecu before the RR session but funds wouldn't allow it. I'll just add it to the list of post IVA upgrades...

I put that loss down to the age of the gearbox and diff, plus, not knowing the history of both of the above, general wear. The engine is just the bog standard 1.8 with 115 bhp cams, throttle bodies and westfield exhaust. I was expecting to get around 130bhp at the flywheel with my mods so 142 is above my expectations. I think I may look to overhaul the type 9 at some point in the future, along with 2.0 cams and an Ecu upgrade, but that won't be for a year or two (rolling road sessions aren't cheap!) 😂

I've recently changed to a Motorola G9 Play (Mrs D now has my old G6). It seems to work well and is reasonable value from GiffGaff - I have one of their pay as you go SIMs.

New Nokias are pretty good too. PAYG getting harder though prices all been hiked recently. Lebara have some very cheap sim only monthly contract deals through MSE just now. Edited to add that you can buy a new sim free Nokia 7.1 on eBay for £99. That's what I have and it's a good phone

from sunny Norfolk! That's a beautiful Westie in the best colour!

Welcome, sounds like you've got a real fun Westfield there, looks good, too.

Looks a great car!

Wow, what a first post, welcome. Meg looks stunning, love the colour as well , here's to a decent summer and all that. Richard.

I have been with A plan for years and years now, I used to do the yearly hunt for who was best, but A Plan have been so far the most competitive, prices have stayed fairly stable for me, maybe plus or minus the odd fiver now and again. I have tried probably all the more well known classic car / specialist car ones down the years, and of all of them I would not use A Flux again, the others just got too greedy. A Plan will still get my business this year as well. ETA, I have just seen Dave's post above, same reason as he, regarding A Flux.

Losses at the wheels can be caused by a number of factors such as tyre pattern type, pressure, torque of the engine and often the straps securing the car down. All these can have a big impact on the drag on the coast down. I started with about 50bhp and ended up with over 90bhp losses just due to wheelspin and the tightness of the straps trying to keep the wheels on the rollers. Take any losses at the wheels with a pinch of salt.

I have an oppo A53 you can buy this on oppo and get some wireless earbud with it for £135 I use my phone a lot you tube vidos etc instragram etc uses google android comes with a case its a great phone for not a lot of money have a look at the reviews its feels a lot more expensive than it is.

I've always had Android. I've just purchased a Xiaomi (pronounced Sony) Mi 10T Lite for £213:00. 5G, 4 cameras, 64 GB, Dual Sim, I am really impressed with it. I googles "best priced good phone" and it came top out of 10 on 2 comparison sites.

You'd be very welcome Ian - I will keep you posted! Thanks W

Cheers Ian. To be honest, I'm not too fussed about saving a few quid a year of electric at the risk of running my shonky wiring skills. I'll swap the old T8 fittings out for proper LED battens when they start corroding and do a proper job of it.

https://cpc.farnell.com/v-tac/669-vt-8-50/grill-fitting-50w-led-150cm-6400k/dp/LA07402?mckv=swn56tIRM_dc|pcrid|224681022194|kword||match||plid||slid||product|LA07 CPC Farnell £23.28 inc VAT, free delivery, looks good to me and quite a bit cheaper than screwfix...........

Changed mine the other day and have been delighted with the light output as expressed here. got mine from City Plumbing who were much cheaper than screw fix or b&q. hugh

Replaced 6 fluorescents in my garage/workshop with LEDs from Screwfix. Impressive difference light wise and they come on immediately. Very pleased, and worth the money IMHO.

I replaced two out of four with ones from Screwfix. The light they give out is far better than the old fluorescent ones, it's reminded me I need to replace the other two!

Replaced my 4 twin fluorescents with 4 single LED's, what a difference. Bright white light, and the battens are only 25mm deep. Instant light too.

Update - NHS now booking for the 49 and three quarters, that might mean the over 40's can book too. From Julie, aged 49 and three quarters

Thanks all for the advice/well wishes. The results are in... Now having me tea Will update in half an hour... 😁

Look at ledsave.co.uk Batten lights..I have used loads at work and put singles in my workshop..two singles spread a metre apart better than one double.. Simple to connect up and ones at work have lasted well.. Good prices.. I also bought bulk head lights for outside with sensor..really bright and only about 7watt

I used these and very impressed with them. Just disconnected the old neon tubes and connected these. The light difference is impressive. LED Lamp

I did the same during lockdown 1 . My tubes are double 5' and I bought Phillips led because they were £10 each at B&Q. Best upgrade to the garage since the Westfield!!

Hi Terry, I did this last year during lockdown 1 for my garage. I bought Osram LED tubes which came with a dummy starter. They are a plug and play replacement. The LED ones are much brighter and switch on instantly. To make the full energy saving, you need to open the fitting (mains off first 😉 ) and remove the ballast circuit. I'm happy to advise how to do this too. They're not cheap, though! Other brands are available etc, but I've no experience of non Osram items. Some 5ft ones here- LED Lamp or LED lamp Note the different in brightness (LM). If you're on double fittings you may find one tube per fitting is fine or use 2000LM for both. Unlike fluorescent tubes which put light out in 360 degrees, the LED fittings are directional and point the light downwards. So I was able to remove the metal reflectors from mine too (I sometimes caught my head on them climbing into the loft space of the garage). I'd try one to start with and see what you think etc. Best regards, Ian

Last of the flames! After this video, they got mapped out - say goodbye...

A man after my own heart, at 68...two previous Westfields and on the edge of a third, all for the same reasons as yourself.