Turbo Westfield Track Build

Yeah I'm loving it. We've already ordered an Eleven.

I have the week off work but so I've started to do a little more. I've had to go home to look after the cats while the missus is away so I've brought back some work that I've been dreading. The wiring harness.

You may have previously read that I've done the back end harness. Well, now I need to change it slightly. I'm running 2 fuel pumps and the Bosch 044 type are quite hungry at 15amps so I want to add additional wiring direct from the battery. I haven't done this yet as I wanted to start on the main wiring.

This is what was waiting for me around 5 hours ago.



First job was to try and straighten it out a little bit. From there I could start to unwind the tape and convoluted tubing.



I spent around 4 hours on the harness. Just getting it set out and starting to take out the wires I don't need. I'm going for weight saving so if it's not used I want it out. So far I've removed the door wiring, the heater, and the passenger side headlight motor wiring. I'm already around 1kg of weight saving, maybe slightly more. I'm saving it all and will weigh it when I'm done. This is just from the few things I've removed.



This was a little scary



Yup, some of the wiring ended up at the ECU. I consulted a trusty pinout diagram which indicates that of the 3, 1 is for the AC, 1 is for the heater and the last simply isn't used. Phew!

So I've taken the week off as this has turned up.







I've decided on this colour to keep the theme from the Mazda going. Keeping it's spirit alive or something gay like that. We'd ordered the cage a few weeks ago so that it could be fitted before the body but it's not played out like that unfortunately and a series of errors, supposedly from the courier, mean it won't be here until Thursday.



Day 1 was yesterday but I forgot to post. We started with trying to finish off the fuel system. Putting the fuel pot in and requiring 2 pumps has really made it a lot more difficult and, although space is plentiful, it's quite difficult to see where things can actually mount. We have a plan now and we're just waiting for painted brackets to dry before final fitment. We did manage to get the low pressure pump fitted though. We've used the standard Westfield location.







I hate the shape of the Facet pump. I really wish it was a more simple inline design, although I think it works well in this particular location.



We also went around the car fitted the custom brake lines that I sourced from Freaky Parts and bled the system. No leaks! Great news!

It's amazing Theyve been building these kits for so long and yet so much stuff doesn't fit properly.

Yeah it can be a challenge. Every time we get to a job that should be very simple it becomes a pain! In many respects the wiring has been easy in comparison to some jobs.

Day 4 of my week off.



I started the day by going back to one of the local engineering shops to buy 3 sets of nuts and bolts. These were for the steering joints that can be fitted or will be fitted after modification. The one to the steering rack is in place and now torqued down to spec. Hopefully Westfield will have modified the other soon and can be fitted as it's the only thing stopping us from dropping it off the stands.



We finally took delivery of the roll cage. It was supposed to arrive last week but the company we bought it from told us that there had been a mix up with the courier so it was delayed. These guys can't lie properly, their postage date was on the documents and it shows it was sent after we enquired about the whereabouts! Either way, it's finally here so we set about fitting it.



We'd read that it was much easier to fit the cage and them the bodywork so that's why we wanted it here. People weren't lying, nothing is in the way to block it. Yes, we have to fit it for the measurements, remove it to drill, Fitbit again to check everything and then remove again to get the bodywork on, but it's still a lot easier than trying to work around the bodywork which is essentially working blind. Here we are half way through







As you can imagine, working with this stuff meant photos weren't foremost in my mind!



After we had this on and off, back on and off again I turned my attention to various small items that would be worth doing before the body went on. One being the fuel tank grounding point. Nothing photo worthy and a 5 mins job to get a rivnut in the chassis and bolt the strap to where it need to be. Westfield even make it easy and weld a boss to the tank..... on the right place.



The second job was to finish the fuel system, bar the hoses. That is waiting for clips, I only want to use stainless with this. We honestly spent hour after hour looking at the rear end of this car looking for locations for filters and pumps. In the end we came up with a really simple solution. I'm happy with the solution but kind of disappointed that it took so long! My brain obviously isn't as young as it once was. We ended up using some angle iron from one diff mounting to the other, mounting that on some rubber bobbins to remove the worst of the vibrations/noise. What do you think?







We finished off the day with a rather big step. Putting the main tub on. It's not fixed down, but it's on. We have to fit the bonnet tomorrow and all other measurements are taken from that. It's the only way to get a decent fit. We've left it here for now.

Right, so 2 months further down the line and I was so annoyed at Photobucket that I didn't really take any photo's as I wasn't going to be uploading more. In the end I thought that regardless of the number of people that read this I'd like to have a record of my work for myself. So lets continue.

The bodywork continued from the last update. The bonnet is the first thing to be fitted to the car, everything else is aligned based on that. It's amazing what Westfield consider to be car parts, in this case we have gate hinges as bonnet hinges. Seriously. I ended up ditching their zinc plated steel ones for some powder coated ones from Homebase, which I've chucked some extra paint on.



They're not perfect, as you'd imagine by now if you've been reading since I started on the kit car. The bonnet is hand made and thicknesses vary meaning that we had to tweak the hinges slightly to work well. It all takes time and think we spent around 5 hours moving it millimeter by millimeter until we were happy. The fruits of our labour:



The bodywork is fairly straightforward from here. We had to trim part but that was 100% expected. The scuttle was a bit of a pain as the scuttle hoop was well in the way. In the end all we could do was hit the tube flat with a hammer so the scuttle could actually fit over. Not a problem as it can't be seen once the scuttle is fitted, and it almost look engineered that way once painted!

The tub itself is held on by about 20 rivets and then the roll cage on top too. The roll cage itself is fitted loosely, all bolts are in but not tightened yet.



We've fitted a few other parts of the bodywork, the rear arches have their lights and the headlight mounts have been fitted to the front of the bonnet. Pictures of this next time.

Another item on the list was the cooling system. As I explained previously mentioned I had a few issues with the fitment with the radiator and intercooler and had to send it back to Coolex for modification. They were true to their word and they modified all my issues. When it came back their were still some problems, but nothing we couldn't solve at home. First problem:



When I called Coolex to tell them about the delivery damage we agreed that I would try to hammer it out and if that failed they would take it back to repair. We did a reasonable job of the fix, I'm not going to send it back. The next issue is that the mounting points are too high and the bonnet wouldn't fit. On the Westfield their are solid steel mounts at the bottom which tale all the weight and some rather flimsy aluminium mounts at the top which really just hold it steady. We ended up making 2 simple mounts for the bottom ones to lower the radiator by about 2cm and just bending the top mounts downward. Problem solved and the assembly fits very well now. It fills the nose wonderfully.





Last update is the fuel system. This is now 100% complete. I have used all new lines including what was in the engine bay. Some of those lines were 26 years old so about time. The rear end looks a little bit convoluted but from speaking with other Westfield owners fueal starvation can be a real issue. The tanks aren't baffled so round long bends the fuel can move away from the pickup at the bottom left of the tank. There is a small sump but not much. The rear end of the system looks like this



The difference here is my inclusion of a swirl pot. I have a low pressure pump to feed that, which is then filtered before going to the high pressure pump (the Bosch 044 type are notorious for failure if the fuel isn't filtered pre-pump), this is then filtered again through the OEM filter before heading to the engine The return line goes back to the swirl pot and there is an overflow back to the tank. All hoses have been covered in convoluted tubing as protection for the IVA. Apparently I need to keep samples of my hoses as they won't be able to read the hose for it's suitability for unleaded fuel. The IVA can be a real minefield!

I'm quite positive about how this is going now. The wiring harness is on the car for it's initial mock up. The ECU is on and the steering is on an fully fitted. I'm still waiting for G19 Engineering to get my sump out to me, I've been waiting for it since April! I spoke to them last week and they are saying it's ready to go, payment details have been handed over, fingers crossed it'll be here soon as I really want to get it fitted so I can test fire the car.