Thank you and Good Bye

As of March 2014 I sadly bidded farewell to the Westfield.

It was a tough decision but after thinking long and hard between me and Dad we decided that we were just not getting the use from the car that it deserved.

We had our ups and down, screaming and shouting, blood, sweat and even a few tears at times,

Do I miss the car? the truth is no not really.... Would I do it again? Maybe........maybe not.....

I will leave the blog up as I hope this will help people out with information.

Here we go again

Now that the weather is finally getting out of the minus figures and march rapidly approaching I guessed it was time to get some work done on the car this week.

First job up was a strip down and check up of all the fuel pipes. After a few posts on the forum of people saying to check the condition of the rubber hose. Luckily everything seems to be ok on this front.

Next up was since the car had been put away in November, I had noticed a few small drips of coolant ending up on the floor underneath the radiator, but not on the inlet / outlet side. Meaning that some where I had a small leak. So off this came and I took it to work for a closer inspection.

Once I had it at work it became apparent that the core had developed a small leak at the point in which the water gallery meets up with the header plate. This is probably down to how the rad was hard mounted onto the chassis and the vibration. This was easily sorted with the aid of some aerospace glue the rad was quickly repaired and heading back onto the car. To stop this happening again I have now mounted the rad onto anti vibration mounts. So this should stop it from happening again.

Some time ago the exhaust developed a really loud and annoying rattle / grinding squeak, which at high revs was so loud you could hear it above the exhaust note itself. After getting the exhaust off and peering down into the exhaust it appears the centre perforated section of the exhaust has completely disintegrated and fallen to pieces. So out comes the death wheel and the end of the exhaust was promptly cut off to reveal what damage has been done. On closer inspection it appears to be the result of the section where it joins to the cat getting too hot and becoming brittle and subsequently snapping through the welds. This means now I have to replace all the internals of the exhaust, I am also deciding if I should remove the cat and and have just the silencer. I could also put the overheating of the cat down to the oil contamination that it might have suffered during the engines spell of drinking oil at an alarming rate and the initial over fuelling problems I had when I first installed the engine. Luckily I have some more perforated tube and have some race spec matting to pack the exhaust back out.

Other jobs to complete.

Fit a bolt to act as a clutch stop, this should stop the problem of the clutch slave cylinder leaking / blowing the internal seals.

Trim the carbon dash to remove an annoying squeak that is cause when it vibrates against the GRP of the scuttle.

Replace the poor / cheap / soft aluminium that Westfield supply to make the tunnel cover.

It's nearly time to put it away....but not just yet

Where has the summer gone? I seems like only yesterday that I was getting the car out of it's winter hiding place only now to see it's time to put it away again. But with the weather forecast this week I don't think I will be putting it away just yet.

So far this year we have only covered about 2500 miles, and these haven't always been without an issue or 2.

A few weeks ago, the engine developed a serious thirst for oil, consuming about 3/4 litre in 200 odd miles. With no sign of obvious leaks this means it could only be going one way - out of the exhaust!!

So after a bit of investigation, with no oiled up plugs, very dry cylinder bores across all pistons, a lack of smoke from the exhaust under hard acceleration or on start up it started to become a bit of a mystery as to which cylinder was burning the oil.
After a bit of research and a bit of head scratching online, I ended up coming back to the MX5 owners 'must have book', Rod Graingers guide to all things MX5. This book has been a godsend during my build. And looking back at it I should have refered to this book from the start, under diagnostics at the back, a section entitled 'excessive oil consumption' to which it's first port of call Is the PCV valve on the top of the engine being faulty, I read on one site some where that if the pipe that goes from this valve to the inlet manifold was wet with oil, it was likely that the valve had stopped working causing the oil to be burnt. Off out to undo the pipe on the car and guess what I come across, a very wet and oily pipe. So a new valve was ordered and fingers crossed after a few hundred miles things seem to be running ok.

Also are some pictures of the LED light upgrades that I purchased at the kit car show, these were well worth the money and are seriously bright bits of kit. I will do any thing to make sure that I am seen by others road users, one thing you get to learn whilst being out in the car is that other road users do not see you what so ever. So with some bright brake and indicators I am doing my best to ensure this is not the case.

stoneleigh kit car show

well the time had come to go and visit the stoneleigh kit car show, and what a lovely
day it turned out to be!

fantastic turn out from the WSCC, i don't think i will ever see that many westfields in one place again.

it was really nice to chat to people and put a few names to faces, ( thats you Dean!!)

now i have to admit it was rather hard to go to the show and manage to keep my hands and wallet firmly in my pockets. now sadly i failed at this and ended up buying a few bits on the day, i managed to pick up a set of floor sill covers from carbon mods cheap, and a full LED light upgrade for the rear of the car, including the fog and reverse.

these are currently half fitted but i am hoping to have this all installed by the weekend. as usual it turned out to be more than just a five min job, as the plastic light housings have to cut and modified to fit the new lamps into them.

i also bought a little some thing for the front of the car but i am keeping this quiet for the time being.

colour change of doors

another job to complete was the doors, now originally i purchased a set of blue doors for a very good price on ebay, now blue doesn't really go with the rest of the car, so after some research i found a product that should hopefully change the colour, and the results are above.

The time has come ....

I am finally able to sit down in front of my laptop and do some much needed blogging updating.

after being so busy at work these past few months with the F1 season starting i have been lacking in much needed time to get parts done to the westie, but just in time for the sun to start coming out the road tax is back on and last night it was taken out for a quick spin around the block after getting a few jobs done over the winter period.

first job was purchasing a playskool MSA roll bar, this has been stripped of the original black powder coat and repainted in a Zylan black finish which is a matt finish and more in keeping with the rest of the coatings on the car.
to go with this i also got a new carbon mods boot box cover, as the last cover was a vinyl carbon effect one, again to keep in with the carbon theme running on the car.
to add a little more finishing touches i turned up some stainless steel spacer bushes with a collar on for the seat belt eyelets.

next up was the carbon mods front mud guards, i have had these for some time, but after buying them i was unsure about liking them or not on the car, so over the winter i got them in and out the box a few times to see if they finally grew on me, and i have to say they have, i am now kind of regretting not fitting them sooner.

Updating for Dean. How's the snow again?!

Dean I am updating my blog just for you!! 

It's nearly time to get back out on the road so I have been trying to get the final jobs done and dusted. 

Really looking forward to finally being able to get the car to stoneleigh this year and show off all the hard work I have put into it. 

Now due to a busy schedule I am having to update my blog via my iPhone which means I cannot upload any pictures of the work in progress but once I get back infront of my laptop I will add some. 

The roll bar has been off for blasting and has now been painted Matt black and is looking very nice. Just need to re install my high level brake light on to it. The new carbon mods boot cover has been cut to shape and and has been marked out ready to cut the holes in for the rear stays with the assistance of some string and auto cad to generate my Ellipse shape to cut out where the stays pass though, to keep the gap as small as possible and tidy. 

Now some time last year I purchased some carbon mods front mud guards, now at first I was unsure if I actually liked the look of them so never got round to fitting them, but over the winter I sat them on the brackets to see if I did get to like them. So last weekend I finally decided to fit them as they grew on me, and now they are fitted I have to say they do look very good. I decided to go with drilling and bolting them on as the safest option. But to make it a little less noticeable I have ordered some anodised black bolts to blend in with the carbon.  Will get pics up of these soon. 

The new clutch slave cylinder has been fitted after the old one shit itself. Easy job to get sorted. 

All of the suspension bolts have been regreased as I was suffering from a few squeaks which was driving me mad. 

Still awaiting for some dye to re colour the side screens, purchased some dye which after doing a small sample looked terrible as it was very shiny. 

Upgrades have started

Now the weather has started to warm up and you no longer freeze when in the shed it was time to get a move on and do some work.
First job is getting round to fitting the new playskool roll bar which I purchased back in December. This like every thing else on the car needed some work to get the bar to fit. First hurdle to get over was the fact that the lower plate where it bolts to the chassis do not quite line up. Now they are not far out but it still needed the holes slightly enlarging or dragging across with a grinder to get them to line up. once these had been sorted the next apparent problem was that the plates on the bottom of the bar slightly overlap the bushes welded to the chassis for where the harness eye bolts go, so once again out with the air tools and a light scallop was put in place to give me clearance for these. But the fun doesn't stop there...
Now i could get the roll bar bolted to the chassis the next issue came along.... The rear stays on the roll bar that go into the boot and bolt to the chassis are 20mm to short of lining up with the holes. (nothing is ever easy with this car) so a quick phone call to Luke a playskool confirmed that Westfield have 2 chassis jigs one of which is longer than what the roll bar was originally jigged from. Luke apologised but said they have come up with some exstentions that need to be either bolted or welded in once the old ends have been cut off. I have opted for the later option and weld these in properly.
Now I really like the shape and look of the roll bar but the only downside in my eyes is the fact that it has been powder coated, which is ok but nothing else on the car has a shiny appearance. So I had decided from the outset that I would have the bar repainted to match the satin black that goes with the rest of the car. So today I had the bar shot blasted and all the powder coat removed ready to be welded and be repainted. Luckily for me the company next door to where i work deal with specialist material coatings. So hopefully by tomorrow I will have a nice satin black roll bar to fit.

Another job that had to be taken care of was a new clutch slave cylinder, now for some reason whilst the car has been up on axle stands I noticed a small few drips on the floor. On closer inspection the seals in the cylinder had given up and started leaking. I wouldn't have minded but this was new when I rebuilt the engine and as it had been ordered over a year ago there was nothing the supplying company could do any more. So a new one was ordered and has been fitted but now just awaits bleeding.

Next job will be getting the doors dyed black, now I have managed to get hopefully a good quality black dye in a satin black, the out come might be interesting but worth a try.

I am also having a rethink about the carbon mods front mud guards, I wasn't sure on them at first, but after sitting them on for a while they are starting to grow on me.

a little update

Well i haven't managed to get much on here for a few months, but the car finally passed the IVA test and within 2 weeks we finally had a registration number, so out onto the open road it went, in the 6 or so weeks the car was registered before it was sorned for the winter we managed to rack up about 1800 miles, and touch wood, every thing seemed to go very well.

the first few thousand miles have been pretty gentle on the car so far, mainly just making sure every thing settles in well, and that nothing has worked it way lose or wants to drop off.

ear plugs have become the must tho i have to admit whilst out in the car, as the exhaust is a little on the noisy side. during high revs it sounds good, but at steady cruising speed it becomes pretty droning and boomy. this may need some attention!

the car is currently tucked away for the winter period and due a few winter upgrades, which i will hopefully get on here as they get on the car, but apart from that a good clean is in order ready for plenty of use next year.

oh dear......

What sundays are for......

well i have had it sat in the shed for 6 months, and i thought it was about time that now it has passed the IVA that i should fit the carbon dash, i knew this wasnt going to be an easy task but with the car going for inspection tomorrow it left me with one day to get it all done.
but i am pleased to say it was well worth the effort.

IVA done and dusted and DVLA

So my last post was a little short and sweet, but at long last i have passed the IVA, after rectifying my few little problems, phoned them up on tuesday after the bank holiday and was told i could bring the car in on the friday.
So friday comes round, and this time the car was driven up to the test station, i drove it up there, and dad drove it back. Now i have come to the conclusion that it is most definitely not a car to be driving if you don't want attention.
After a very conservative drive up the motorway we arrived in good time, and was only at the test station for 30min, after testing the emission this time it passed with flying colours, now running at 0.19% CO, instead of the 11% it was pumping out last time. so heading home with an IVA cert every thing was finally coming together.

So on the monday after the IVA, the paperwork for registration was taken to my local office, they took it in and told me they would be in contact, so on thursday a phone call came asking me to bring the car in for inspection on monday, and after this we should finally have a reg.... fingers crossed.

PASSED IVA!!

As above!!

Specification and work run down

Engine:
1994 Mazda Eunos 1800cc
Standard bore
15mm shortened sump and oil pick up
new big end shells
new oil seals sump
full new piston ring set
.09mm total head and block skim to bring back to tolerance
full de-coke of pistons and combustion chamber
full new genuine mazda head gasket set
new inlet / exhaust valve stem seals
reground valves
new spark plugs / leads
rocker cover gasket
block painted satin black
new water pump
new cam belt
all related tensioners
cam shaft seals
modified 2 1/2 inch polished alloy intake with ITG cone filter
MAF sensor relocated
Adjustable fuel pressure regulator

Transmission:
Standard mazda 1800 manual gearbox
new clutch release bearing
new clutch slave cylinder
2L 75/90 fully synthetic transmission fluid
new prop shaft seal
new gear shaft oil and associated gaskets
Baily Morris shortened prop shaft
Torsen LSD differential

Cooling:
one off alloy fabricated radiator
full coolant re-route
silicone hoses with alloy pipe work
after market rad fan switch
5 year advance pink coolant
standard mazda cooling fan

braking:
AP racing split master cylinder
dot 4 fluid
Goodrich braided brake hoses
EBC Green stuff pads
CRN grooved discs (front)
Standard discs (rear)
Mazda calipers and hand brake system

Electrical:
Mazda loom
with the following removed:-
air con
power steering
headlamp motor controls
electric windows
speakers
auido system
heating controls
heater motor
standard mazda ECU

Interior:
Carbon mods dash
Trilogy Savage blue illuminated switches
Revolution gauges:
Speedo
Rev counter with shift lights
fuel
temperature
oil pressure
Momo 290mm steering wheel
Westfield 4 point harnesses

Exterior:
Post office red ZK body work
V8 bonnet
black mesh vents
Carbon mods cycle wings
Carbon Mods rear arch protection
Caterham font indicator pods with clear lenses
Carbon rear light upgrade inc reverse and fog
Hella Thinlite high level brake light
Team Dynamics 1.2 pro race 15" wheels in satin black
Toyo T1R 195/50/15

westfield SEiw walkaround

Sorting out the emissions

After failing the IVA, with the car back home it was time to get to the bottom of why the emissions are so high, turns out after little bit of research and a test gauge, it turns out the fuel pressure regulator has packed up, the fuel pressure in the rail should be 35 - 40 psi, but it is currently running at 65 psi.

a new pressure reg has been ordered, so here is hoping that this cures my problem,

IVA test day!

So tuesday the 27th was the big day, after about a 4 week wait from sending off my paper work it was time to head to the test station, the car was taken to Birmingham VOSA, i had booked an AM appointment, should there be any problems i might have allowed me time to rectify any problems there and then if possible.

To save the hassle of driving the car up to the test station, i managed to borrow a van and trailer off a friend of mine, i didnt want to have any problems on the way up there and not be able to make my appointment. the car was loaded up the night before and at 6 am that morning we headed off to the test center, we were going to arrive mega early so a steady drive was taken up there. the test center was very easy to find, it was even well sign posted off the motorway.

Once we arrived at the test center, the car was unloaded out side, and the opportunity was taken to give the car a warm up around the the industrial estate, and my god did it sound good, roaring down the little road with high industrial units for the sound to echo around, barking at passers by.

with the car now nicely warmed up it was time to head into the test station, as i headed round the building and parked up waiting for the tester to arrive.

My testers name was Paul, he was very polite and explained every thing that he was doing during the test.

test took about 2 hours to complete including a break, every thing seemed to go well,
every thing was checked over for projections, sharp edges, etc, the car was put onto the ramps and checked every thing underneath, he commented on how tidy the installation was, and how every thing was very neat and tidy. the speedo was checked for true speed indication, and we then moved onto the brake test, where every thing was good.
afterwards it was time to go outside to give the car a test run, make sure the mirrors were all in order and steering self centered, after this it was onto the noise test, to which the car stuck out 95db so just within the limit at the 3/4 engine power, but on the overrun the pop of the exhaust took this 104db, but he over looked that.

once that had been completed the test was over and he went in to do some weight calculations for the braking and issue me with the fail certificate.

Double bogs dollocks!

Paul had informed me during the emissions test the the car was running a little on the rich side, as the car had produced 11.2% on the co2 emissions, where the tested limit is 3.5%. seems we might still have a slight over fulling issue......

Apart from that the car sailed through with no problems, so it was back into the trailer and we headed for home, disappointed in one way, but happy in others.

Remember when going to the IVA test, the best way to think is, expect to fail, and a pass is a bonus.

a couple of bad points

Not every thing has gone so well, unfortunately a few weeks ago when fitting the side repeaters, one of the cycle wings has shattered on the gel coat around one of the bolts, i have no idea how this happened as the bolt wasn't even tightened up.
this mean the carbon cycle wings will have to come sooner now.

Another problem that needs to be sorted is that the fuel tank is leaking from one of the welds, which goes to show that westfield cannot properly pressure check the fuel tanks for leaks, i am going to try and fix this myself, as i am really not in the mood for removing the fuel tank at this moment in the build, and i have a few tricks to try and fix it with out the need to remove it, just need to pin point the exact location of the leak first.

Car is now progressing well....

things have been busy, and have not found much time to do any blogging so i suppose i best catch up on where things have been going......

in my last update the car was finally moved from the workshop to the great outdoors where it got to see day light for the first time as a complete car, and i have to say i felt like it has given birth and become a proud father.

now with the car finally out the shed a few little more odd jobs were able to be sorted, the main one being able to correctly do the tracking using a gunsons drive over trackrite. this has been set to currently toe out to aid the self centering of the steering, and once the car has passed the IVA it will set up to its correctly alignment.

with the car now outside temptation took over and it wasn't very long before we found the car going for its first drive under its own steam just down the road and back. yes this was a big moment but it was over shadowed by the fact that some where on the ECU i had a bad connection that was causing the car to run rough every time i moved the ECU and unless it was in a certain position the engine wouldn't even run, during these issue the ECU kept throwing up a fault code to do with MAF sensor, so this was replaced ( altho it turns out the fault didn't actually lay with the MAF sensor the original one was dead any way )
trying to diagnose the fault took a little while but i eventually tracked this down to bad connection on the earth for the MAF sensor where it plugs into the ECU, so after a lot of swearing this issue was finally overcome. which then moves me onto the next problem....

After getting the engine to run correctly it was time to give the car a little shake down on a private stretch of road, every thing was taken very gently to begin with, but there was one big issue, it appeared that the engine was suffering heavily with air locks, which was not allowing the cooling system to work at all. now to aid problems with this, my temperature gauge gave completely the wrong readings, every time the engine was run after a few min the gauge would go off the scale, with no real way of telling what temperature the engine was actually running i have had to wait to get my hands on a laser temperature sensor.
after a bit of head scratching and some trial and error trying different ways to jack the car up and fill the cooling system up, last week i remade the blanking plate the covers my original thermostat housing, but this time with the addition of small threaded hole and a dowty washer which enabled me to jack up the front of the car, this in turn allows the head to be fully bleed and removes all the air from the system which had been causing me all the problems.

also today i fitted some ally panels to provide some ducting of the heat that is given off when the fan kicks in to stop the air intake sucking in loads of hot air.

other jobs that have also been completed....

Side repeaters have now been fitted to the front cycle wings to comply with the new IVA regs, now these were supplied by westfield, but in a fetching shade of chrome, these really did look out of place on the car, so with a little rub down and a can of satin black paint, these where given a much better look.

IVA caps have now been fitted to most of the parts that need to be covered for the IVA test, all the front suspension bolts etc etc along with some inside of the car.

Brakes - now this is a very interesting section that seems to high up on the much asked questions on the WSCC forum, how to bleed them correctly procedure?
After my initial fill up and bleed of the brakes it turns out there were rubbish, and i had managed to get a lot of air into the system leaving me with a very spongy pedal.
after another bleed it seemed that they were getting no better, so off the forum and have a look through the much asked questions and theory's on how to do this, now one post caught my eye which said that you needed to take the calipers off the mounts and try to get the bleed nipples higher than the pipe work that feeds them, so with this info in had i set about whipping them off and giving it a go...
now during this attempt to bleed the brakes with the calipers higher up, straight away this time i was able to notice loads of tiny bubbles being pushed out, so all the calipers were done in this manner and i have to report that so far the brakes are feeling so much better, the pedal is still not as hard as i think it should be, but at the moment i am not to worried as i fitted a new set of grooved discs, which these are yet to be bedded in.

Coolant re-route 1800 engine in a westfield

a lot of people have gone on about the poor cooling of the mx5 engine when fitted into the westfield chassis, the biggest issue is now due to fact the the westfield does not have a heater, now this causes problems because when the engine was in the MX5, mazda relied on the heater matrix to provide cooling for the rear of the cylinder block. now the heater matrix has been taken away there is nothing to provide adequate cooling for the rear of the block, as now the water is returned straight from the back of the cylinder head and fed back into the lower water pump inlet completely missing the radiator, and because the thermostat sits right above the water pump the majority of the water just gets pumped directly back up and out the thermostat to the rad, and not actually supplying any cooled water to the back of the cylinder block.

So to cure this problem the solution is to move the thermostat from the front of the cylinder head to the back of the head (this was its original position in the MX6)

to do this you will need the following,

Thermostat cover from an 1800
Thermostat cover from a 1600
1 1/4 aluminum pipe work
2 90 degree silicone bends
1 dog leg silicone bend
1 90 degree mx5 specific silicone bend
(the above were designed by Mark on the forum)
m16 bolt - to fit the 1600 thermostat cover thread
lots of jubilee clips

the pictures below show how the assemble the above parts to move the coolant flow from back to front. the thermostat itself has now be relocated to the back of the cylinder head, which now has the 1600 thermostat cover fitted to it. the bolt fitted is to block off where the 1600 engine has it temperature sensor fitted, on my engine i have relocated my temp sensor to a tapped bolt hole just to the right hand side of the new thermostat cover, all i did was remove the bolt and screwed the temp sensor in with a new sealing washer.
then the first pipe you see is the MX5 specific pipe which bring it to the right angle to start running the ally pipe work towards the rad.
Now in the picture you can see that i have relocated and fitted an after market fan switch into this pipe, now i have done this because my ECU for some reason has decided to no longer operate the original fan switch.
next pipe is the dog leg silicone hose, this then fits to the top hose on the rad after another section of ally pipe work.
you will then need to take off the original water pump inlet fitting and all the associated pipe work with it, and replace all of this with the original 1800 thermostat cover from the front of the head. this will the allow you to take the 2 90 degree silicone hoses and with the aid of a small section of ally pipe work get this pointing towards the bottom hose of the rad. now this small section of pipe work has had 2 pieces of pipe welded to it, one is for the feed from the header tank, the other is for the feed back from the idle control valve, now the idle control valve feed originally connected to the thermostat housing on the front of the engine,but this has now been blocked up.
The original outlet on the head has had a blanking plate make up and fitted, now if you want you can actually remove this fitting all together, but you will need to remove the cams pulleys in order to do this, now seeing as i have already had this engine apart many times, i left this in position for the moment. now one key element to this plate that it is worth noting, is that i have fitted a small M5 screw into the front of this, now this is to enable you to bleed the cylinder head correctly when filling the water system back up, as after the past few weeks i have discovered that the head is prone to air locks if this is not done, and has now actually cured my cooling / air lock issues that i have been having.