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Young Newbie Westfield Owner :-)


DAN_B

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OI, nought wrong with the CVH. Miles and miles of smiles and smiles.

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None taken! ;)

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Personally, unless there's anything actually "up" with the car, I wouldn't rush into doing upgrades if you can help it. If you can give it a bit of time to enjoy the car as is, you'll get a much better idea long term of what works for you and what doesn't.

Though that doesn't stop you doing a few cosmetic bits to stamp your mark on it of course!

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Cant see the images at work, but I thought I would post up another relatively young wesfield owner.

I bought mine, a 1991 CVH engined SE, four years ago aged 21, and rightly or wrongly, have managed to hold onto it during house buying by borrowed the deposit and have two lodgers making the bills pay!

Mines on twin dellorto 40's (basically the same as webers) and cold starting performance is a little reduced, although its not so much the starting thats the issue, but managing to keep it alive on the acellerator jets without the choke. Fitting a choke cable/linkage/etc would proberbly help, although they arnt the best, but it depends how much you use it in the cold, ive yet to consider it worthwhile.

Upgraditus is a very easy way of loosing a lot of money, but equally I have found its also possable to spend really very little on the car year-to-year, depending on what you want to use it for and what breaks! I had to have new rear dampers for my first MOT (£90 each for protechs+springs from procomp). I also fitted grp seats (£70 each) and custom made 'rac' braced rollbar (a £100 bargin buy) because im a lanky sod. Megajolted it when the distributer fell apart (£100ish) a then treated myself to a new silencer after a year (£200) for trackdays and the good of my hearing.

In the first year or two I did a couple of trackdays, which where good fun but not cheap, but more recently I have been autotesting in it, first at club level, and then this year entering into the btrda national newcomers autosolo, which I have found to be great fun and very cost effect. Cars still factory standard bar a quick rack that came with it, and a £3 ball k**b for the steering wheel. £25 entry and a tenner fuel gets you a sundays motorsport. After the first event my £10 each partworns where clearly a weak point, and my 'trackday tyres' not allowed, but a full set of tyres new at £280 should last 2-3years and are a great improvment on the road also.

Plus ofcause, obligatory drives to work and jollys at the weekend anytime the suns out, which does and half make it all worth it! A trip to nurburg with some mates made a cracking holiday, as did a run to the middle of france with the girlfriend who likes the car a lot.

Daniel

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Hello Daniel... Thank you for the post! All sounds great advice! And as per the earlier posts, I think your right, and I think I will be leaving her as she is for the time being!

The nurburg sounds amazing! Would love to hear more about that! How long did it take to get there? And how much did it cost to get in? There seems to be several from Staffs on here, it's not far so will have to have a trip up I think :-)

Thanks again for the warm welcome guys, I'm very glad I joined :-D

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Not too far from me (and others) in Redditch, I know a few good routes and hotels at the Nurburgring, go a few times a year (long story) Well worth a visit but always remember your not insured!!!!!

Enjoy the car mine is in the garage for a winter re-work!!!

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Thanks Simon! Yeah Redditch isn't far from me at all, so please bear me in mind when your cars back on the road! :-)

Look forward to the future runs! Westfields are rare on the roads, so being part of this really does show you just how many people are out there and local.

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The nurburg sounds amazing! Would love to hear more about that! How long did it take to get there? And how much did it cost to get in? There seems to be several from Staffs on here, it's not far so will have to have a trip up I think :-)
It was a good trip.

About 15people went in total, in about 10 cars, with about half going out for the week before, half for the week afterm, with evenyone there for the middle weekend and a couple staying for the full fortnight, which was the best we could do given peoples comitments.

We where travelling from the northwest/eastmidlands and broke the journey with a night at someone parents in south london on the way out, getting a ferry from Dover to Dunkirk the following morning, and taking about 6hours from there. I was the onlyone in a kitcar, but there where a rang of other cars such as an MX5, Supra, stripped Mr2, audi quattro, bmw's, etc.

We camped, a bit down the road which was something like £12 a night, lap prices are on the wiki page, I bought four laps which was about right for me, although others where doing more ten. We tended to go out in ones or twos, passengering in other people cars. The roads around there are as much fun as the track, driving to Adenou for lunch of curried sausage, etc. Crate of bitburger wasnt stupid money assuming you kept your empties and returned them and the crate. Happy days. Really good trip, really good feeling all week, and a bonus to be able to say ive been round the ring.

One our number was a bit of a sterieo-typicaly 'ring idiot' who had spent the month before playing the PS2 game to learn the track, gone there with the aim of setting a time, mail-ordered 20 or so laps in advance, etc, stripped the interior out and spent money on aftermarket parts and posh tyres, and then proceded in spinnning at the end of Pflanzgarten and writing the car off 3/4 of the way into lap three causing one of my freinds who had gone out without a crash helmet on (we will never know why, as 10minutes ealier he had pronounced that noone should go in the car without) to gash his head open on the exposed roof and ended up being airlifted and having 4inchs of stiches. He managed to do it right at the end of the day without damaging the armco, and had ADAC cover which paid for recovery from the track and then on the weekend transporter back to the uk but it is a reminder that its not something to mess with.

I was told at the end of the my last lap by one of my passengers who had been every year for several years that I had put in consistant times around the 10minute mark, which was nice to know retrospectivly while i was very glad he had quite deliberatly kept them to himself till i had used my laps. You have to treat it as an unknown country road, rather than a track, as there is far too much to learn in a week, let alone 4 laps, and bikes come from nowhere. Might go again one day, but if not, it was a great holiday and a great life experience.

Daniel

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As for coming to Staffordshire, I am in Uttoxeter seconds from the A50, and while im busy most weekend can be around with notice including this Sunday, or am here every evening Mon-Thurs and you would be more than welcome to come over for a nose at the car and a talk about kitcars.

There has been a small meet in Uttoxeter before now organised by StephenH on here, and I have also been the Nott&Derby Shardlow meet a few times, both from Uttoxeter, and before that, from Loughborough while at uni. PM me.

Daniel

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Welcome to the club, Great place to be :)

Glad to see there is another young person interested in them. I'm 21 myself and I will have had my car 2 years tomorrow. I've met some great folk through the club and the runs and weekends away are just great :)

Kev

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The Nurburg sounds amazing! Your so lucky to have been, really got to get myself there one day :-) It also shows the important of track insurance! Lol.

And I think I may know StephenH through going on various runs with work colleagues, so I'll have to keep you posted and I'll pop up sometime when the weather picks up, I'll PM you.

Thanks Kev - Again being part of this opens up the world of Westfields and shows you all ages that have them :-)

Thanks Guys.

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The Nurburg sounds amazing! Your so lucky to have been, really got to get myself there one day :-) It also shows the important of track insurance! Lol.

I do an annual pilgrimage to the Nurburgring (and normally Spa Francorchamps in the same trip) and would say its definitely something any serious petrolhead should try and do. However the insurance situation is complicated and after years of doing "public" days (touristfahren) we had a sharp awakening as to the legal issues in the event of a crash and now will only do proper track days.

The problem is not the damage to yourself or your vehicle, its what you could do to others. If for some reason you are responsible for damages to another car or worst case scenario injuries/death of another person on the 'ring you could find yourself in a very very bad position. Take the worst case example: through no fault of your own your engine spews out some oil onto the track and you are initially unaware of this - you could be driving like Miss Daisy but the Ferrari behind slips on your oil, kills 1 passenger, paralyses the other and the car is a write off. If it is proved that your oil caused the crash you are liable for all damages. UK insurance will not cover you - sure they will live up to their legal obligation to provide 3rd party cover, so the injured parties claim off your insurance, but as ALL uk insurance excludes the nurburgring then they will pursue you to recover all their costs, and ongoing costs through life for the medical care required for the paralysed passenger - this could mount into millions fairly easily.

Track day insurance only covers you for damage to YOUR car, there is no option which will cover 3rd party damages, so IMO its not worth it on a relatively low valued car like a Westfield given the excesses etc.

So we now go on private trackdays - which follow standard track day indemnification rules - i.e. you're on your own, you cannot claim off others for loss/damage and they cannot claim off you, ragardless of blame. The guys with more expensive cars still take out track day insurance (cars worth >£50K) but for me the large excess and cost would make it pointless claiming. These days are very expensive (approx £600 for a day) but IMO worth it.

Don't let me put you off, when you get there you'll appreciate the brilliant madness of the place and become addicted. To give you a flavour here's one of my laps from last month:

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Well, this is not totally untrue, however we all did it without insurance.

I mean, we had road cover for germany which as said must include some 3rd party cover, and some had adac cover, but we did not ring-inclusive cover for the car, which as said isnt economical for the value of cars we where driving. As you say, apprently if you cause damage to another car it is possable that they could come after you for damages, but equally I have not heard of anyone having an issue with this when I was looking at it two/three years ago. At which point, you just have to not drive like a nob.

Maybe thats the naiveity of youth, but its certainly not uncommon. If now slightly off topic.

Daniel

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To start from cold, make sure you have the clutch depressed to help reduce the drag from the box....just helps turn the motor over easier. Also make sure everything else electrical is off, basically you want all the ampage to crank the engine and to the fan or lights etc.

Some say 3 pumps, some say 2 good long throttle pushes to the floor, others......etc.......

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