what do you think of the following as a fun track day car for next spring/summer/autumn?
A guy at one of the meets has a car he is almost done with now and wants to sell. It has ancient technology (Westfield from 1990 with an even older Ford Capri 1998cc 'Pinto' engine), only a daytime MOT and has nothing in the way of heater or luxury of any sort. It only has a rev counter and oil/water temperature gauges. £4K no offers.
The radical route would be a Cosworth 2-litre lump, massaged to an easy 300 bhp, but it would render the rest of the car weak, perhaps and take away from the value for money aspect it has now.
Bamford, four thousand pounds seems like an awful lot of money to spend on a sixteen year-old Westfield. Was it factory built?
_________________________ "Forward", he cried, from the rear, and the front rank died. And the General sat, and the lines on the map moved from side to side.
the car is a waste and its my opinion if you don't like it go and play with your wheel trims. the guy cant even aford 4ooo so whats the point in it asking hes the one wastin time
just buy it, go onnnnn, jus think of the fun... it wont be super fast but it will be more than enough to throw you round a track with some good times, and the feeling wont be beaten...
Originally posted by pantherd90: Buy a more modern Westfield kit and build one yourself. Much more fun.
Disagree. TBH, i would never devote that much time anymore to work mate, of any sort, quite frankly. I much prefer driving and enjoying life out and about, to lying around on the floor building or mending cars or anything else. I like my free time too much to do that.
Originally posted by Boig: Bamford, four thousand pounds seems like an awful lot of money to spend on a sixteen year-old Westfield. Was it factory built?
Home-built.
The engine has had £800-worth of invoiced tuning, just circa 200 track miles done since a full engine rebuild. The engine runs beautifully. The car has new-ish 13" Minilites, again not cheap, the chassis has been restored, in 2005.
I think £4000 is cheap, for a car which will stay with a McLaren F1 to 120 or so.
Originally posted by Bamford: I think £4000 is cheap, for a car which will stay with a McLaren F1 to 120 or so.
Bit optimistic, is it not?
I doubt that, with the poor aerodynamics, a 16 year old Westfield will even get to 120.
Agreed. It sounded strange to me and i wondered, but when Noxide put the 132.5 bhp and 393kgs (without fuel, all manufacturers use that method) into his acceleration calculator, the figures that came up for 0-100 were very similar to the McLaren.
A car with 132.5 bhp would easily do 120 mph, by the way, even with the Westfield/Caterham shape, the guy who bought my VXR Monaro (Channel 4 'big-player' actually) drives these shaped cars at 150 mph regularly.
Ask Noxy for the figures, i don't have them to hand, but you'd be surprised what a car weighing so little can do.
Originally posted by Bamford: I think £4000 is cheap, for a car which will stay with a McLaren F1 to 120 or so.
Bit optimistic, is it not?
I doubt that, with the poor aerodynamics, a 16 year old Westfield will even get to 120.
Agreed. It sounded strange to me and i wondered, but when Noxide put the 132.5 bhp and 393kgs (without fuel, all manufacturers use that method) into his acceleration calculator, the figures that came up for 0-100 were very similar to the McLaren.
First of all, how can you claim to be a petrolhead when you are so wrong about kerb weight? Kerb weight is the weight of the car when all oil and coolant and a FULL tank of petrol is in the car. Most manufacturers also add 68kg for the (light) driver plus a 7kg luggage allowance.
Secondly, your claim of a 393kg weight of the car is in the realms of fantasy since the 2-litre Pinto engine alone weighs in at 418kg!
Thirdly, those acceleration calculators are wildly inaccurate, and only take weight and power into consideration, not things like gearing etc.
Given that your mate "Noxy" is using an innacurate estimate for acceleration, plus using the wrong weight as a guideline, your misguided claim that this old Westfield is as quick as a Maclaren F1 is hilariously deluded.
i'd go for it...
