AdamR 2,040 Posted August 10, 2018 But of a yarn to start, but bear with me...! I had a nice Westy a few years back... SEiW with a pretty highly-tuned XE engine: Much fun was had with it, then @mauricibought it off me and we became great friends! I was Westfield-less for a bit, but then bought another via Luke @Plays-Kool. This time a more simple car, SEW with tuned 1.8 Zetec - the Canary: Once again, much fun was had, but I wanted something else to play with... So I bought the below item to put into it over winter: A 2012 CBR1000RR engine with a Stage 4 head, courtesy of Mr @mark.anson Andy Bates reckons these make ~180bhp at the hubs with a good installation (increased power over the bike due to non-restrictive exhaust packaging and improved igniton map) so that's, er, pretty exciting. With a 3.54 diff and 205/60r13 tyres that means 64mph in 1st and 128mph at the top of 6th, perfection! However, Maurici then sold his car and made a very sensible offer for the Canary. So it trundled off on a trailer down to Crewe and I felt a bit sad (can you see the theme here? ) Well, it continues. Weights of the Westfields I'd owned came down from 590kg to 520kg and with each step I noticed the car became even more alive. So, I decided to go all out and build something very light. This meant an SE, preferably a rolling chassis but a complete car would do. A bit of Whatsapping with @tkm_dave via @John led to a phone call to Luke @ Plays-Kool again and then this ended up in my possession. Behold, the Lobster! I was happy about this: It's a very early 1988 SE which was put on the road in July 1992, but doesn't seem to have done much work at all since (the clocks show around 9200 miles and it's been dry stored for over 10 years). I like how the W has been squashed in before the SE! It came with most of the car minus engine, gearbox and prop - quite a lot of stuff to sort through! Why the Lobster? Well. It's a pretty fetching shade of red / orange / brown On second thoughts, maybe I should call it the La Langosta because Maurici will probably end up buying this one off me at some point too It WAS red once, honest! (Peeled some stickers off to check) What's the plan? Well, I couldn't resist chucking it on the scales to start. As it is there with rear axle, brakes, steering rack & column, wheels, wishbones, roll bar, etc it came out to 243kg. The wheels and tyres I plan to use take nearly 20kg off that. It also has M16 calipers with meaty discs, and steel front hubs, so I'd guess I'm starting at somewhere around 220kg once I swap them out. How much am I going to put in? Well the engine weighs 70kg, not sure about the rest of the stuff but I doubt it'll be more than 150kg. So that's my target - a genuine sub-450kg car without spending loads of cash on specially lightweight bits and all the carbon Mr Mickmade can muster! A no-frills build - but with some nice bits in what I deem to be the important areas: ergonomics, brakes, handling. It'll get used on the road so it needs to be completely usable in that respect, but also at home on track and given the power:weight should end up a very quick sprint car, with as much of the work done 'in-house' as possible. It's going to be a 2 stage build; first up I'll get it working mechanically with the current bodywork, then chuck it through an MOT so I can drive it a bit and learn the car. Then stage 2 will be a strip back down for titivation (either a new set of bodywork or a respray, probably) and any tweaks needed to the mechanicals. I've got quite a lot of the bits either on the way or already in the workshop, but the next few months look pretty busy so I think it'll be a case of chipping away rather than huge leaps forward. I'll update when important things happen, not going to take photos of every fine detail because these write-ups take as long as working on the car otherwise! A big thanks to all the guys tagged in this post for helping me get thus far Adam 16 1 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Secretary 6,132 Posted August 10, 2018 Has Maurici pre approved this one? Lloks like it should be an interesting build to watch! 2 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ben (bunje) 799 Posted August 10, 2018 This is going to be one to watch Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Andrew 826 Posted August 10, 2018 A re spray? Do you know how heavy paint is! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AdamR 2,040 Posted August 10, 2018 Yes, about 4-5kg Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BCF 875 Posted August 10, 2018 Love it dude! I feel a build weekend is in order... 1 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Chris King - Webmaster and Joint North East AO 3,647 Posted August 10, 2018 I spotted the Lobster lurking at Luke’s last time I was there. It’s like a Westy Aladdin’s Cave! 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
maurici 752 Posted August 13, 2018 @AdamR i managed to miss this despite im tagged twice... Well. La langosta sounds great. In fact, in Spain wee call this sort off cars Langoustins... witch are te tiny brothers of the "langosta". So, the name is great. "La langosta" Sticker is on me. Design is under maturation now... Please put some decent JK's on it, and leave some space for random stickers for when i buy it... p.d. im pretty sure you can cut with abrasive and polish back the gelcoat to recover the actual colour!! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Chris King - Webmaster and Joint North East AO 3,647 Posted August 13, 2018 On 10/08/2018 at 22:12, Chris King - Webmaster and Joint North East AO said: I spotted the Lobster lurking at Luke’s last time I was there. It’s like a Westy Aladdin’s Cave! Was at Luke’s today. Turns out I was wrong about La Langosta, but still right about the magic lamp dude’s abode 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AdamR 2,040 Posted August 14, 2018 Haha, yeah it was stashed at Chris' place, which I didn't realise was so far away That was a long day... Cheers for the logo Maurici! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AdamR 2,040 Posted August 19, 2018 Some progress, mainly taking apart today... but I did sand back the windscreen fillet and the gel coat is still red underneath. @maurici has offered to help sand the whole bodywork back. I think he's an idiot Spent quite a lot of brain power thinking about various parts of the car recently and thought I'd cracked a solution for using a 2.9 rack with Cortina uprights and still ending up with quick-ish steering. Sadly I'd been a muppet and forgot the rack was in front of the hubs, so the Ackerman would have been totally screwed up rather than going in the right direction. I'll get some alloy uprights and short steering arms instead, means I have an extra item to add to the list of parts for sale (Cortina uprights!). Spent a couple of hours this afternoon tearing bits off and here's the latest - all 91kg of it (lighter than I expected!). Rear axle, diff, shafts and brakes weigh 40kg. It's clear why live axle cars are so much lighter than independent, a Sierra diff alone without the Lobros is about 29kg! Got a heap of parts on the way but don't think I'll get any time on it for the next 2 weeks due to busy work and a short holiday. 3 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
maurici 752 Posted August 19, 2018 2 hours ago, AdamR said: Some progress, mainly taking apart today... but I did sand back the windscreen fillet and the gel coat is still red underneath. @maurici has offered to help sand the whole bodywork back. I think he's an idiot F@ck off. Your mate is up for doing the most tedious and useless of the jobs so you can have a nice car, and is an Idiot. I don't like you anymore. 4 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
syman84 324 Posted August 20, 2018 22 hours ago, maurici said: F@ck off. Your mate is up for doing the most tedious and useless of the jobs so you can have a nice car, and is an Idiot. I don't like you anymore. Maybe we should all get an invite to a beach party at Adams place. He provides the sand(paper),food and beers and he might end up with some free labor and a good looking body. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dave (OnliestSmeg) - Manchester AO 1,134 Posted August 20, 2018 15 minutes ago, syman84 said: Maybe we should all get an invite to a beach party at Adams place. He provides the sand(paper),food and beers and he might end up with some free labor and a good looking body. Assume you're referring to the Lobsters body not Adam's! Could be entertaining. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
maurici 752 Posted August 20, 2018 You obviously havent learnt anything... if you do that, you become an idiot! 2 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
