rmaurer Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 Hi all, I bought a 2002 XE powered SEIW earlier this year as a personal distraction to the usual stresses of work, kids and recent house move (renovation project!). In fact the house move was a motivator - we moved to Harpenden in January (I say we, my wife conveniently decided to spend a week in NY with work while I moved house with our 2x kids single handedly!) and a major driver for finding a Westfield was the fact our new house has a decent sized double garage and pit! In fact the previous owner was building a full sized kit aeroplane in the garage when we looked around it! Another factor was that I am a big fan of track days and a mate of mine had just taken delivery of a Caterham Supersport R kit and he was cracking on with his build... So onto the car I bought, it is a 2002 year SEIW chassis with normal track front end that was recently converted from a Pinto engine to an ex Formula Vauxhall Lotus c20xe built by Swindon Race Engines. This meant it also had the dry sump kit used in that series and a fairly aggressive 7.25" flywheel and AP race clutch setup. While it has AP brakes on the front, they are the old Austin Princess anchors (quite literally when you feel the weight of them!) but they do a good job at the moment. My first port of call was Northampton Motorsport to investigate an increasingly loud noise on the overrun from gearbox/bellhousing area and also to give the car a once over. I also wanted to convert from the original DCOE 45s to throttle bodies and mappable ECU so having received the news from NMS that the gearbox all looked ok decided to go straight ahead with the new Omex throttle bodies and 600 series ECU - final result was a respectable 196bhp which I am very happy with. Unfortunately the noise on the overrun persists though and I will get a new thread started in tech talk on that... Plans for the car are to use it 50:50 road/track although as I work from home the temptation for lunch time blats gets the better of me when the weather is nice so this may become 70:30 road/track. I have also done several road trips in previous cars around the top of Scotland, Wales and also through Europe (Nurburgring etc) so hopefully I will be joining in on some of the organised events arranged on here. And finally a picture of the car as of the bank holiday weekend: Engine and box out to investigate the overrun noise and get a more road suited clutch installed... I've never done anything like this before but decided to crack on and have a go! I am sure I will have questions to follow 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingster Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 Welcome aboard. I see the upgraditus has infected you already, good show Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XTR2Turbo Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 Welcome A few of us in the area (Harpenden, Redbourn, Luton etc) Try to get along to the meet (Leighton Buzzard) 2nd Thursday of the month if you can. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin (Mr T) Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 Welcome! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matta Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 Welcome and glad you've picked one with the best engine! Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murraymint Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmaurer Posted September 3, 2015 Author Share Posted September 3, 2015 Thanks all Can't do the local meet this month but will aim to come along in October. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markcwalker Posted September 3, 2015 Share Posted September 3, 2015 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.RAD Posted September 3, 2015 Share Posted September 3, 2015 Welcome! Look forward to meeting you at the next area meeting, we are the fastest area in the country you know... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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