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Ready for the 2023 sprint season

Good morning folks, Latest new member here….I’m the very proud owner of a 2012 FW my dear old Dad built meticulously a scarcely believable, decade ago…sadly we lost him last year and I will forever treasure what I saw him painstakingly build rivet by rivet. It is a wide body car, blacktop Zetec with Jenvey’s and the all too common Omex ecu. It has the sports brake kit (hi spec I think…) and a few other nice touches. I fully intend to refine and improve, starting with a proper rollcage, wider wishbones and a map (it has a real drinking problem) ive already indulged with a carbon diffuser from mofast, can’t wait to get that on! I would welcome any advice or guidance, particularly on the cage front as I do intend to do some trackdays etc and don’t trust the low level factory one, one bit. cheers Chris

We are blessed with some fabulous roads in South Derbyshire and the surrounding area, so @Steve Bosworth met up early to take the long way to Curborough. After a "brisk" drive we landed at Curborough to find Tony already ordering his breakfast at the Cafe. Shortly afterwards we were joined by @ianali and @Martyn Vann - Warwickshire AOin their tintops and Michael from Burton Car Club in his 288GTO replica. Track action was quite fun, with loads of MX5's, hot hatches, M3, 200SX etc drifting around on cold tyres! Late morning a supercharged K20 engined Ariel Atom arrived. Interestingly, the car had been purchased by the current owner as a write off (rear nearside suspension damage and 2 small dents in the main tube!). New wishbones and a geo session and it's back on the road! As with all Atoms, on track it was blisteringly quick but handling does look a handful at the limit... My son also joined us with my grandson George who is already a car nut. George is only 3 so has to wait another year before he's big enough to come along in "grandads racing car", but judging by his cake eating skills today (polishing off a flapjack at least half of his bodyweight!) he is going to fit in well on the Peaks meets with @Julie Hall - WSCC AO Representative 😂😂

Haha, it's old age I think 😂

Zero degrees tonight up on the Buxton road, rising to a toasty 4 degrees by midday tomorrow when we will be there, may I suggest that Vicki is not alone in being 'the wrapped up' one 😁

Good morning but was rather cold 🥶, my plan was to follow rob back to Swadvegas and then onto my parents for a warm cuppa but the dark grey clouds on the A38 were a sign so i headed straight home. Low and behold i got wet a little. 🤣

@ianaliits was me 🤪 @Rob Hunter Derby & Notts AOclearly needs glasses or a brain transplant , god only knows what his vaping🤔 . Great to see some smiling faces today in the cold, but I did manage to motivate myself into the garage this afternoon 😜

This engine reached 294 Bhp at7230. Previous owners went to 312 at 7500 ish. Documented Dyno run at the office. The tuner advised Zetec could rev higher to gain more, but I did not need to explore this as I had just spent a lot of money rebuilding. All I do know is there’s plenty of supercharged capacity left as the charger was still climbing fast. Track should be this cars play ground.

Yup, with the Rotrex blowers, broadly, they feel just like a bigger capacity version of the same engine. Boost builds directly with revs. So the greater the rev range, the more spread the boost, up to whatever your maximum is.

I’ll take your expert word for it.

Low volume sports car makers exempt from the EU's 2035 IC engine ban. Good news unless they can't be sold in the UK as we're not in the EU...! https://www.hagerty.co.uk/articles/news-articles/low-volume-sports-car-makers-exempt-from-eu-2035-ban/

My parcel arrived yesterday having been impressed by seeing Hedley’s videos and wanting to capture some of my own. This neat little thing arrived and looks just the job. I just need a decent sized MicroSD card now, plus I’m waiting to the mounting bracket for the roll bar. As soon as I’ve recovered from this ‘orrible chest infection I shall be out giving it a go! If there is no other similar thread, feel free to post up whatever has arrived for your Westie upgrades or projects. ‘Postie’ can be in the broadest sense ie also including collecting or suspicious looking meet ups in Motorway service car parks (etc etc) to exchange strange shaped objects in brown paper bags 😉.

We did consider popping over, but since Ali found out that Rob has a chest freezer, she seems a little reluctant to be in his company.

Shes wont be joining us now, she has family over. so i might steal her dry robe

works surprisingly well 😁 (eta… with full waterproof gear and lid of course 😛)

Well they do say we all have doppelgängers…

It sounds like a very similar engine spec to my turbo black top zetec. I wonder if mine could make 340bhp! According to the guy I bought it from Northampton Motorsport said it could take more than it currently is, boost I guess he meant. Tbh on the road it's already scary enough but more power on track is generally desirable right? Have to say, I REALLY like your car Hedley, if I were in the market for one I'd definitely be considering this one. I've never owned a supercharged car too. Zero lag presumably?

Welcome! The new Westfield factory’s parts shop should be open in the next couple of weeks. (Early March). So the factory options should be back available. What you have currently is a cosmetic bar, with no pretense to be a safety device! Very popular amongst those using Westfields for touring. As it works with all the different hood options. But for actual roll-over protection, the factory has (had) two options, the MSA bar, a single, but fully braced hoop. This gives good protection for doing a few trackdays, alongside regular touring use in the road. It doesn’t work with a full hood, but half-hoods, (which many prefer, anyway) are available to go with the MSA bar. The second option, a requirement for many forms of competition, and the better option for a heavily tracked car, is the full braced cage. This is not really compatible with any of the hoods, though some have tried experimenting with half hoods, with fairly mixed success. (I know of way more that gave up than have been successful!). The normal approach here, is either dry use of the car only, or for wet weather, strip the interior of carpets, vinyl surfaces etc, so there’s nothing to soak up water, and wear an all in one rain suit with a crash helmet!

Mine are working on different circuits. I think the problems occur when their on different sides of a split board or where the outbuilding is separately earthed.

hope you had a great birthday Scott see you soon.

My wife asked me if I changed my name to Dexter...

@TableLeg@Quinten You have to take some brave-pills before cutting away the slats! As you've mentioned in your DM, the slats come right up to the leading edge, all that has to be cut away so that there is no 'return' on the leading edge. I masked out where I wanted to cut to, and did it with a dremel with cutting discs, and hand files. The thickness of the nosecone GRP is now the return. The fibreglass is tinted black same as the gelcoat, so the raw edge is also black - I just filed, sanded and polished it to sort of match the gelcoat next to it. Black shows all imperfections like dogs balls, but a blind man would be rapt to see it - you should get away with it better than me if your cars are another colour. For lighter colours, I would be inclined to give the inside of the nose cone a shot-coat of black rattle-can to make it all dark and mysterious behind the grill when all done (hide the sins). The top edge was cut straight across, rather than follow the contour of the shallow shark-snout - this made mounting the grill easier. The grill is just bonded to the inside with black CT-1 adhesive sealant, with a couple of little bent alloy tabs to help it stay there. The crack in the gelcoat is from the original damage by the previous owner - not from cutting out the grill. It can't be seen til you lie on the ground with a camera flash and look up!

There is another option....