Story of my Yellow Devil so far!

[MWMSport]

I've always loved 7 based cars. For me they tick every box in owning a raw drivers car. They make no apologies for what they are, if you want comfort, and a radio.. Don't buy one. Everything fitted to the Westfield is fitted for a performance purpose and that I absolutely love!

I started out building one, but due to work commitments and not much free time, over a 3 year period, not a lot got done. I had a fully track prepped Clio 172 that I used for trackdays. With around 10k poured into it, it wasn't a shy piece of equipment. I remember this like it was yesterday. We were at Bedford. My mate had just picked up his 1.6 sigma powered Caterham 7 and I was quietly confident my Clio was going to disappoint him. Especially with 120 more horse power! Ha no! I pulled about 5 car lengths down the back straight, he flew past me in the breaking zone and I never saw him again. 24hours later my Clio was in bits and for sale along with my rolling chassis and I decided it was time to buy something I could use and enjoy.

My car was advertised on here, in the pictures it wasn't really the colour I was after, but it was a very very cared for example and around my budget. So I decided to it was worth a look.

As soon as the guy I brought it off opened the garage door, I was in love. The chrome Yellow was awesome in the flesh. The spec wasn't ideal but it was certainly a great base.

A deal was done and I was like a small child on Christmas Eve waiting the week to pick it up. The car was in Exeter and I lived in Staines so I couldn't wait for the drive home. I got the train down and drove it the 200+ miles home in the worse rain we'd had that year!

Never the less I was a very very happy bunny.

There were a couple of niggles on the way home that I didn't like, and even though I promised myself I wasn't going to get carried away and sink a load of money into this car, they were niggles I weren't really prepared to put up with.

The engine felt lazy and the suspension was incredibly soft and squishy. I also had an LSD diff, better seats and some suspension from my old project, so I wasted no time getting to work.

[MWMSport]

I've never built a diff before, so I had to get the book out and have a little read first, but it was actually really easy. It took longer to get it in and out the car that the nitty gritty of the diff install itself.

The diff I was fitting was from a Cosworth. Not ideal, I'd rather have a gripper but better than the open diff. I wanted to retain my 3.39 final drive ratio that the Westfield came with.

Next up was the suspension. I had these Gaz Gold sitting about and the spaxs were leaking and horrible so it made sense to fit them.

Next was the seats. Again I just prefured the ones I have brought for my previous project rather than the opens that were in the car. Strangely the new ones are more comfy too.

[MWMSport]

The Westy was now driving awesomely after a full set up from bubble and kick racing. I was really really enjoying my Westfield ownership bar 2 things.

One of the injectors was messing about causing an intermittent loss of power and a cough and splutter.

The wheels were just offensive. They just weren't in with the style of car I was looking for.

The wheels are easily sorted. I've always loved the Caterhan CSR wheels and there was a set fairly cheap on eBay.

I also removed the spare wheel and rack, there was no point carring one odd wheel around.

The next problem wasn't so fast to sort. I'm a bit of a secret ECU nerd. I enjoy the technical data, mapping side of things.

I wasn't able to source a new injector so I knew the current MBE was going to need mapping, and if I going to go to all that effort, I was going to ditch the MBE and use something more modden.

I did a deal on a MoTeC M800 which is a great little ECU.

A good friend of mine, Will Pedley from WPR came down and helpped me build the loom. As far as technical features, it kept it quite thin on the ground. I only added fuel pressure and oil pressure monitoring as I always planned to swap the engine.

After a full mapping session the little Scholar 1.8 was an absolute trooper. You really had to keep it on the boil but it was a great little engine.

[Kevin (Mr T)]

Looks good. Great to see pics. Enjoy!

[MWMSport]

The car was absolutely spot on over the summer, however the quest for more power had bitten! The long term goal is to fit the New 1.6 Ecoboost from the Fiesta ST, but I wanted something to tide me over.

I manage to find a Powerworks supercharger kit for the ST170 engine. But sadly due to the design the engine would need to be moved foward around 6-9inchs which I didn't really want to do, so the Powerworks ST170 engine now lives in a friends transit connect.

I was a little bit lost as to what to do at this point but a lot of people rated the ST170 engine just on throttle body's. Being a slightly bigger engine, with VCT and slightly higher compression it has to be a goer.

Obviously all the ST170 engines that are for sale have been to the moon and back by now, and I didn't want to remove a 15k engine and replace it with 100k one so I decided what ever engine I was going to fit needed to be at the very least refreshed.

The head is currently away getting ported, having uprated valve springs, cams etc fitted and I'm expecting to see it back soon.

I went for Titan Throttle bodies. They came up reasonably cheap on eBay with a brand new filter from an aborted project.

[MWMSport]

There were 2 more changes I wanted to do to the outside of the car to finish the "look". Catherham do 9j versions of the rear wheels and I desperately wanted a set. I'd been looking on the website for around 6 months and they were permently out of stock, but then one day it popped up saying 2 in stock. Hello credit card!!!

The other thing was a set of Micks carbon side pannels.

Going at my perfect condition Westfield, my baby, with an angle grinder took balls! But Micks Carbon pannels look amazing.

[MWMSport]

Now this is where I got a bit carried away!

MoTeC have a nasty habit of making everything a paid add on. I needed to add VCT and a knock control which was a lot of money...

So I decided to go for another ECU change. I decided to go for a LifeRacing F88RS with all features unlocked. Just looking at the mapping software, this I a serious serious ECU!

In my opinion a serious ECU needs a serious dash. So along came a load more money! Carbon_NV supplied me with a fantastic carbon dash to replace my contour item. I really liked the contour dash but it really suit the style of car I was trying to built.

I went for the Syvecs Plex. Syvecs and Life use the same Can addressing so the will instantly talk.

The dash is awesome.

I've finalised my sensor package for the ECU. For an NA ST170 engine I know this is more than overkill but it's the technical side of it and the mapping I really enjoy. So this is more of a technical exercise than a necessity!

I've gone with

Oil temp

Oil pressure

Gearbox oil temp

Diff oil temp

Front brake pressure

Rear brake pressure

Fuel pressure

Knock sensor

X4 EGT sensors

All 4 wheel speed sensors

Fuel level

I was quite lucky. Will Pedley came back to help me and unpinned the MoTeC plugs and changed it to a bulkhead connector. We've started making the new loom, but we have decided to not use any original wiring. We are renewing all the relay powers, fuel pump wiring, level sensors etc.

http://s1155.photobucket.com/user/mwmsport123/media/7E0BDA8C-2CF6-45BF-BE18-EF6A53F050CE_zpse4elcblk.jpg.html]

http://s1155.photobucket.com/user/mwmsport123/media/DA371650-F5A4-4B24-A0AD-AA9C8D1D550D_zpsi0tqftg7.jpg.html]

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Restored the thread for you, hopefully got all of it!

Dave

[MWMSport]

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

No problem, an interesting read!

[Mighty Mart]

Lovin it mate. Great pics and info and a lovely job mate.

Mart.

[MWMSport]

Not much of an update but this week I've done a couple of little jobs.

I've removed all the water pipes and set them to be blasted and re powder coated as they weren't looking their best. I also ordered a new coolant bottle from Ford. £75.00 was a little steep I thought!!

I fitted my gearbox oil temp sensor. For this I just drilled and tapped the standard drain plug. I didn't really want to take the box out and strip it down when there wasn't anything wrong with it to weld a boss in the casing for the sender.

Also got my brake pressure sensors mounted and bolted up. Once the front lines are back on I'll need to bleed the system and all should be good again.

[Murraymint]

Great work so far...

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Just curious, is there some kind of bleed point on that brake sensor, that we can't see in the photo? (Just looks like a tricky high spot to get the air out of, otherwise....)

[MWMSport]

Just curious, is there some kind of bleed point on that brake sensor, that we can't see in the photo? (Just looks like a tricky high spot to get the air out of, otherwise....)

The sensor has a -3 fitting right at the base of it so I'll just crack the fitting to bleed it up.