westy Posted October 21, 2002 Posted October 21, 2002 thats it Nick, take my space for replying after I slowly typed my response, must upgrade these typing fingers Quote
Nick Algar - Competition Secretary Posted October 21, 2002 Posted October 21, 2002 Nick Pleased you added the bit about the Busa, before I took exception. You right really, because they have so much torque as well, that you can use a higher gear to stop the wheels spinnnnniiiinnnggg. Very easily done Nick PS I only bought the Busa, because I thought I am never going to be fully in control of this, where as the Blade engine car and the Zetec engined ones I tried I thought, Yeh fast, but I will get the hang of controlling them. Can't control the Busa properley yet, but trying. Quote
Al Yupright Posted October 21, 2002 Posted October 21, 2002 I'm so sick of this discussion... just when you think its dead, it crops up again. I should save a standard response in a text file and cut and paste it each time... I've done 7 trackdays this year in a megablade, with a 1994 18000mile engine. The engine cost 900quid including vat and delivery with all the carbs, ecu, loom etc. A bare engine is ~700 (although I know someone who recently got one for 300! It has been totally utterly reliable. Hasnt missed a beat all year. And this is on ACB10s... All I do is regular oil checks, I've added an oil cooler to keep the temperatures at ~100 and I run it on redline full-synth. I would not swap it for ANY other engine... In terms of comparison to other Westies... I believe in a straight line, one up, it is far comparison to a 180bhp spec XE. If both cars go two-up, then the XE wins true enough. Saying an XE costs 500 is a little misleading. Say you blow an XE up at a trackday, especially a modified one. The cost of the repair is more variable. It could be a regrind, it could be a 500quid new engine (which will probably need reconditioning anyway). Heaven help you if you've got a modified head, or if it takes out a gearbox (which could've cost a grand alone for a HD). Its a _lot_ more work to repair a blown up car engine than a blade. You could easily swap a blade engine in an afternoon. I believe my blade to be capable of a 4 second 0-60 and 13second quarter. It achieves this by weighing only 400kgs... I based this entire reply on the megablade, because value for money it is amazing. The busa is not so clear cut, a blow up in a busa is a lot more expensive, thats why I wouldnt want one, but I wouldnt want a 3grand car engine in my Westy either right now... Nick, regarding comparing the ride in my car to Pauls 215bhp XE. #### right Pauls would be quicker. My car has 130bhp, and weighs 400kgs. With me in it, it weighs 475, and so has a driver'ed power to weigh ratio of 273bhp per ton. However, when you rode in it, it had the heavy wheels and tyres on, which add about 15kgs to the weight of the car. And it had you and me in it. So I'd say it then weighed 560kgs. So power to weight was then reduced to 230bhp per ton. Pauls Westy must be about 600kgs (15inch wheels etc?) So say 750, two up. Thats 286bhp per ton... and magnitudes more torque I bet! But his engine, tbs, gearbox etc must be about 4grands worth, compared to my 900quid! And I get 12000rpm and sequential gears, and its not _that_ unfriendly on the road! I've said more than I'd like to, cos hopefully it wont generate a whole load of response... but for me, there is no better engine. When I start suffering unreliability, I'll perhaps start to agree with you. But 7 trackdays (in 6months), on an old high mileage engine, on ACB10s and it doesnt use a drop of oil.... Now, best cut and paste this into notepad.... Cheers, Al Quote
Nick M Posted October 21, 2002 Posted October 21, 2002 I do think the car engined route gives those of us with more of an inclination towards "bearding" the opportunity to play around and develop the cars more. In my case that's have the fun of owning the car. Very few BEC owners I know have the inclination to build their own engines - they just buy one, plonk it in and run it. Which is fair enough but a little unsatisfying to my way of thinking. I enjoyed building my engine (and the ongoing development of it) as much as I do driving the thing. While I know you can improve the performance of bike engines it's interesting to note the cost of ringing yet more performance out of them - it's not much, if any, cheaper than a car engine by the time you've finished, particularly the Busa engine. Given time you will master the power you have available. And then you will crave more.... It's then that you discover you have contracted the incurable disease known as upgraditis !! Quote
Al Yupright Posted October 21, 2002 Posted October 21, 2002 Yes, but the more you develop/tune _any_ engine, the more expensive it will be when it blows up. And the longer you spend building your own engine, cleaning parts, collecting parts from a machine shop etc etc, the more pi$$ed off you'll be when you blow it up. And lets face it, if you like doing trackdays or racing your car you are risking blowing it up. No matter how many dry sumps its got!! I realise tuning my car would not be that cheap (although you can choon them, the bikers all do it...) but that really is not the point of BECs. Value for money, quick and easy replacement, beauty thru lightweight. And in my experience, brilliant reliability. They're not great roadcars, and they're not great if you want a windscreen, full trim etc, but they're awesome lightweight trackcars. Dont forget the times from the fatchat curburough shoot out, where a well driven blade was quicker than possibly badly driven high power XE's For that reason, I've got plenty of development to keep me busy. Rather than spending money on new head, etc etc, I will profit more from spending the same money on more trackdays, more tuition etc etc. I've got LOADS of tinkering to do over the winter too. I think I can easily save another 15kgs off my car, taking it to about 390kgs I think (although we shall weight and see) Cheers, Al. Quote
Nick M Posted October 21, 2002 Posted October 21, 2002 Ed, the point I was making was that bike engined power isn't the be all and end all, and I think we agree on that point. People (other than yourself) suggesting that Blade engined cars are the quickest things around (bar Busas) is misleading. And the point with Paul's car was that the money he's spent on the engine / gearbox is directly comparable to a Busa engine (see my later comments about other derivatives being somewhat more cost effective) with the tweeks necessary to help its reliability. As for engine rebuilds, let's not forget that not all car engined blow ups are total losses. If a highly modified engine goes bang then the chances are that at least some (or maybe if you're lucky all) of the important components are salvageable. No denying there's more work involved but then at around 230bhp a VX engine isn't that stressed so a blow up is hopefully an uncommon event. I hadn't intended to fuel the BEC vs CEC "discussion" - if I've done so it was unintentional. I was simply trying to make, IMHO, a valid comparison between two specific engine options and their relative merits / costs. Quote
Nick M Posted October 21, 2002 Posted October 21, 2002 Hmmm, seems our responses are crossing "in the post" !! My comments, I believe, hold true for the Busa vs. VX discussion. I did point out that when you get into the cheaper end of the bike engine market, e.g. Blades, R1s, etc. then there is little comparison with CECs in terms of performance per GBP - bikes win. If you gave someone the same budget - say GBP 12K - then you probably couldn't build a CEC that would be as quick as a bike engined one (assuming you built the same basic spec car). Quote
Al Yupright Posted October 21, 2002 Posted October 21, 2002 Ed, the point I was making was that bike engined power isn't the be all and end all, and I think we agree on that point. Yep, but conversely, car engines arent the be all and end all too! I get a bit miffed to see people wading in all the time (almost every single time someone mentions BECs in a thread!)with the "BECs are crap, CECs are better" gist when they're just going on reliability hearsay and have very little direct experience. Its got to the case that I can very rarely be bothered to argue... And thats not really directed at you, cos I think you see both sides of the argument, although I think you should do a session by yourself in my car sometime...(before all these yankee v8's go to your head preferably! Its a tad annoying. Us BECers dont wade into all the CVH or XE threads with "CECs are cack etc etc" This stuff about BEC's being unreliable has gone on too long really... If BECs were unreliable, do people really think Westfield would launch a brand new car (the XTR2) with only bike engines available? Would companies like Radical base their entire range on bike engines alone? Putting rather a lot at stake if they were going to be constantly failing... Quote
windy Posted October 22, 2002 Posted October 22, 2002 I've been reading this debate with interest and would generally agree with most of the opinions from both sides. However: I've done 7 trackdays this year in a megablade, with a 1994 18000mile engine I guess this is probably the exception to the rule since I have observed several engines blowing up on track days. One resulted in a nice impression of a conrod in an ally side panel. All engines were wet sumped by the way. I've not seen a dry sumped unit blow up yet. Saying an XE costs 500 is a little misleading. Yes they actualy cost a lot less. I bought a complete car (Astra GTE) for 50 quid the other day, removed the engine, and sold the rest to a specialist VX breakers for £70. Stripped the engine at the weekend to find that it has a brand new head on it. All parts will come in handy if an engine failure results to crank, head, valves or block etc so will go on the shelf for spares. Windy Quote
Nick Algar - Competition Secretary Posted October 22, 2002 Posted October 22, 2002 Look on the bright side everyone, if we all thought the same we would all be driving Mondeo's. It's the different views that create all these different cars, great heh !! Nick Quote
Mark Stanton Posted October 22, 2002 Posted October 22, 2002 It's the different views that create all these different cars, great heh !! Oh no it isn't Quote
Westfieldman Posted October 22, 2002 Posted October 22, 2002 Look on the bright side everyone, if we all thought the same we would all be driving Mondeo's Don't knock these cars they have the Duratech engines in them. Paul. Quote
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