Hello from the midlands

[Ruttager]

Morning all, just registered on the site and doing the standard introductions. 

I'm starting my journey into kit car ownership and a westy is very high on the list. I'm pretty green on all the differences between various westfield specs and I'm here to learn and digest and try get some idea as to what the correct car is for me. I'm looking to buy early next year and have a flexible budget up to 15k the higher price would delay purchase but if the spec I decide on is in that area then I'll have to wait, save more, and hope one comes up. 

My normal dose of speed comes from owning a 2006 R1 for the last 8 years or so. I've toured Europe and done many track days and I love it but I want something a little less lethal on the road and something I can stick the wife in as 2 up on a sports bike is not fun at all. (Not that I'm selling the R1 I might just put it back to track only). The car I'm looking for needs to suit weekend drive outs, medium touring and some very light track day use. Most importantly, It needs to put a smile on my face and be fun. I'm not looking for a lap record breaking tuned to the very limits powerhouse but on the other hand I'm not looking for the entry spec either. Hopefully you get where I'm coming from. It's probably a fairly common scenario. Bike engined is out. I'm quite interested in the V8 offerings. 

I'm hoping to get over to toyboxcars in the next few weeks to get a proper education on westfields. 

Anyway, say hi and point me in the direction of anything that you think will be useful for a newbie. I'm in Leicester area so if your local let me know. 

Ruttager

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Welcome! Your not alone in the path you’re coming from, we have quite a few members that have come that route, and just like you, not necessarily giving up on the bikes, just changing how they’ll get used.

Toybox’s Andrew usually seems to have a great selection of cars in, typically covering lots of stuff from Mega S2000’s, V8’s, Zetec’s etc. So should be good to see a bit of variety.

Try and get along to your nearest Club meets, as well, you won’t always, admittedly, see so many Westfields there at this point in the year, but you usually do get a few still. But it’s worth catching up with the members round a table in the local pubs anyway, as it’s a great way to have a chat about the various specs, and what people have found works well for them, and what perhaps, maybe didn’t.

It can also be a good chance to get some passenger rides in, and have a close look at a few cars, in a non-sales situation. The more hands on stuff you can soak up, the more you’ll be able to spot and uncover, when it comes to examining cars for sale.

And of course there’s the forum, here! Don’t be afraid to ask plenty of questions, some of the more ownership related answers can be quite subjective at times, so you might get lots of different views, but it all helps making your own choices.

Good luck and have an enjoyable hunt. 

[Weekend Warrior]

Hello and welcome , im possibly near you living in Rutland .Ive never owned a bike but can tell you Westfields are great fun and I imagine give a similar adrenaline rush . 

I’m often out and about when the weather is good , where in Leicestershire do you live .

Toy box do have good examples of Westfields and a good selection, however in my opinion you pay a premium.As you’ll come to learn money saved means upgrades

Steve 

 

[Kingster]

Welcome from another long time sports biker turned Westy owner. 

Mine makes me smile every time I drive it and made the painful transition from giving up my 35 year love affair with bikes so much easier than I thought it ever would be. 

[Gary Taylor]

 from sunny snowy Scotland good luck with your search and ask as many questions as you want , there’s a wealth of knowledge on here

[Ruttager]

6 hours ago, Weekend Warrior said:

Hello and welcome , im possibly near you living in Rutland .Ive never owned a bike but can tell you Westfields are great fun and I imagine give a similar adrenaline rush . 

I’m often out and about when the weather is good , where in Leicestershire do you live .

Toy box do have good examples of Westfields and a good selection, however in my opinion you pay a premium.As you’ll come to learn money saved means upgrades

Steve 

 

Hi Steve, I'm right in the middle of Leicester so I have good access to pretty much everywhere around. Close enough to walk into the city far enough that the city... Doesn't walk to me. 

 

Thanks for the comments all. Andrew at toybox is offering to give me a bit of a lesson in westfields and other marques so who am I to turn that down. =) I did reach out to him and gave him a similar background as I put here and they are only up the road. I appreciate that it will be sales oriented but I hope to come out with a really solid idea as to what I want, what body, what engine. I will probably come out more confused. Anyway, I can then go from there, do some really detailed research. Bug the hell out of all of you and so on. Whatever I go for be it  trade or private it will be purchased next year unless I decide on a fixer upper. I'm not overly blown away with that idea currently as the last thing I want is a half built car in the garage right now. Its got enough crap in there and is getting sorted this weekend, maybe next.. 

Looking forward to sat and hopefully being enlightened. 

[Matthew Haynes]

The Derby and Notts. area group meet at Clock Warehouse (Pub) at Shardlow (DE72 2GL) on the first Thursday of every month. So the next meeting is on Thursday 1st November 2018, starting at 7:30ish. We meet in the upstairs room which is reserved for us.

Most of the group will drive tin tops to the meeting as many have dedicated competition cars, but we do have brave souls that arrive in their Westfields as well.

If you want to discuss this please direct message me, or just turn up!

The area Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/groups/DerbyNotts.WSCC/

Matt

[Ruttager]

Thanks Matthew. Won't be able to do tomorrow as getting a new garage door fitted after a break in and need to sort the inside out once they are finished. But I'll keep it in mind and will look out for any meets near me in the future. I'm a pretty quiet guy so may need a little persuasion. 

[CarbonWest - Chris Broster - Bristol & Bath AO]

Hello from Bris'ol!

Enjoy the fun of browsing and happy to discuss ToyBox pros and cons as I just bought one in Sep! I would agree with taking the opportunity to see as many different types of Westfields and some of the areas to check and ensure are good quality - Andrew will definitely help there and as @Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Secretary said get out there and talk to the owners too.

Good luck

[Ruttager]

Went and had a chat with Andrew at toybox yesterday. Nice guy, gave me loads of information and let me sit in a few of the cars. Even offered to take me out in a few if I wanted at another date.  Although I'm still not totally sure what I want i'm more clear on what I don't want. My thinking now is to get something around the 10k mark and have some fun working on it over the colder months. On that note, I've started the clearing out of the garage in preperation. The new door was fitted last week as and I just need to get rid of all crap that's accumulated in there over the last year through various comings and goings in our life. Time to be quite strict and throw out/sell anything that I'm just not using anymore. It's a double garage so apce shouldn't be an issue I just need to arrange it all in an orderly way. 

 

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

The key bits with getting a car to tinker with, (unless money really is no object), is to get the right big-ticket items from the get go. With Westfields, this means, in particular, the engine and bodywork* and to a slightly lesser extent, gearbox.

(*by bodywork, I specifically mean when you're getting into changing tubs, and all the major parts, not just simple wing or bonnet changes)

Engine and body changes can rack up multi-thousand pound bills in the blink of an eye. Worse, an engine change without at least some body work changes, can leave a lot of very visible signs that a car has been modified and doesn't do it any favours, either looks or value wise.

Gearboxes, aren't quite so bad, but assuming going for a specialist 'box with ideal ratios, you can still be looking £1-2000, before you start to get into pukka motorsports boxs, where full sequential dog boxes can cost as much as the budget for the whole car, from someone like Sadev!

Simple engine tuning, braking, suspension upgrades, interior changes etc, are, on the other hand, perfect ways to stamp your own individuality on a car and options in many different budgets are available. Equally things like changing from windscreen to aeroscreen, or vice versa are also quite doable on respectable budgets, and make big differences to the feel of the car.

[Ruttager]

I think the last paragraph sums it up. I'd like to get a decent vehicle and then give it a good clean/strip down where needed. I used to do this on my bike every year. Fairings off, clean lubricate, check bolts, change fluids and so on. Great way to learn about the build of the car and to spot any potential issues. So, as you say, the main components need to be correct. Looking on ebay/pistonheads/here and here there is a few out there. Engine wise it'll be the 1.8/2.0 litre ford's or a V8. Bhp.. Well, any of those engines will produce more than enough to keep me happy. 

So a few questions. 

One of the kits I sat in had the more traditional screen (I don't know the correct name/terminology) essentially a rectangular piece of glass with some trim. I felt that it limited vision quite a bit. Is this generally the case or does it boil down to driver heigh/seating height and so on. I appreciate they can be changed out. I'm not tall at 5.10 and didn't have a problem getting into any of the cars. I wouldn't want to be any fatter though. 

Being that low with such a long bonnet I presume causes some visibility issues on our British roads? Anything I should be aware of when it comes to using a westy on the roads. I did a euro tour on the bike with some kit cars and at some junction I'd be spotter. Essentially giving the cars the all clear as they couldn't see. 

If my bike history is anything to go by I'll have it on the track at some point. I did some training on the bike with the police and california superbike school at silversrone. Learnt loads and really helped me be a better rider (wish I'd done stages 2 and 3 to be honest but it was expensive). Is there anything similar with the kit car scene?  Spending a few hundred quid on being a better driver/rider is money well spent in my eyes. 

Commuting Leicester to London 3 days a week so I have plenty of time to look up cars whilst sat on the train. 

Thanks for all the hellos and information so far. 

 

 

 

 

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

The eye-line windscreen height thing can be a tricky one to sum up, as lots of car options come into it!

Obviously the main one is the type of seat, different seats can have you sitting higher or lower in the car, at which point, the top edge of the screen comes more, or less into play. (It’s also one of those things that you do stop noticing after quite a short time, anyway.)

In addition though, for a good ten years or so, lowered floors have been standard on all Westfields, they were an option for a number of years before that. They drop you by a couple of inches, roughly. There is also a taller windscreen option, if I remember right, by a similar amount, so about 2 inches, roughly, which again, moves that top edge up - obviously, this does have consequences! There are taller widescreens to match it, and for the FW at least, there is a different hood, to go with it, which in turn, requires a different, taller version, of the standard roll bar! I don’t think there is a tall windscreen version of the roof for standard bodywork cars, but you could always use a half hood...

Visibility can be an issue at times, and you do have to position the car so that you can see both ways at t-junctions etc, sometimes even inching the nose out slightly, to see. It’s not that common though, and with no roof up, you have massively better visibility than most other cars, anyway.

Most decent track days will have instructors that can be booked, plus their are various specialists that do courses and/or one on one tuition. Our own @AdamR - Clear 1 is very popular and has helped a number of owners on track. Instruction is always a great idea, pretty much every time, the biggest performance upgrades come from the squidgy human bit, behind the wheel!

[Kingster]

If your a biker and used to wearing a lid, I’d recommend an aeroscreen. Much less wind buffeting and no lump of glass in the way. As long as you have a lid on it’s very comfortable too. 

Of course there are arguments for both types of screen, but a lot of the negatives of an aeroscreen tend to stem from not liking helmets!

[Ruttager]

Looks like the screen is something I'll have to look into once I've bought something. I've no real issue wearing a lid but it might put me off just jumping in and going for a spin. Especially with the wife in tow. I'd prefer to keep the lids for the bikes. I don't see it being an issue it was just noticeable on that particular car. The others I sat in can't say I noticed.