MPG

I know that orange car! Here it is in my driveway with its regular driver.

That's definitely a good idea. It's pretty cramped under there.

I made some good progress on the dash for my Westfield this weekend. You can find more picutures in this post on my blog. I'm doing it in Aluminum, and I hammerformed rounded edges along the bottom and a pocket in front of the shifter and ignition. Next up, the instruments. I'm also going with VDO's and I also have a RaceCapture/Pro to squeeze in.

My Miata is for when I actually have to get somewhere. The British ones are for days when either getting somewhere, or spending a few hours fixing something by the side of the road would be good. They complement each other that way. I tell people that the Miata is my "sensible car".

That looks really nice! What size wheel is that? You're looking through it at the bottom half of the pod? One problem with the flat dash is that I'll probably either have to ditch the indicators or put the big instruments over at the center of the car. I don't think that they can squeeze in between the binnacle around the Miata's indicator switches and the top of the scuttle. And what's the right-most instrument? I swapped the mechanical sender on the gearbox for an electronic one off a newer Miata so I should be able to use just about any speedo. But I am planning to squeeze in a GPS antennae too, for this thing.

Sure, here you go. There's Dean's, Mark's, Dom's, and Rick's. They're all hanging out on the Westfield Sports Car Club forum, and they're very helpful. That's good, because the build manual is a bit spotty. It's useful to be able to talk to someone who's already done it. One issue is that the kit is particularly spotty on anything that's specific to LHD, and there aren't many people on that forum who have experience with these tweaks. One good resource for LHD specific issues is Dan's build diary. He's often around on this forum, and he made me very jealous with how quickly he completed his build. -MPG-

I'm currently building a Westie from my old NA. And yes, now that I'm working on the interior I'm realizing that I don't really think the Miata gauge cluster would look right. A number of people in the UK have created a real seven-ish dash from scratch. I think I'm going to follow them. It should keep me out of trouble over the winter.

Yes, very similar. I think that the stripe and word "Costin" were in black and a bit higher on the Gremlin-like "sail". It also didn't have that front bumper. There's also a pretty good picture in Ortenburger's book.

On the way home from Logan airport this morning, I stopped in Winchester to pick up some bagels for breakfast. Parked across the street was one of the more unusual members of the 7 family, an orange TMC Costin. I've never seen one in person before. I wish that I'd had some sort of camera with me. I don't suppose the owner is a member of USA7s? I'd love to get a chance to see it up close some time.

I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for, but Summit Racing has been a useful source for a lot of bits & bobs for my project.

Did you see this thing? For when a 7 is just too big.

> I would imagine that I could achieve the same clearance with a > few (?) carbide disks if I wasn't concerned about esthetics. > Hmmmm. Sawzall? > That's exactly how I did mine. It was quite quick & easy. It looks like the Birkin might require a bit more cutting than my Westfield though.

I'm currently in the middle cleaning up my wiring harness so that I can get everything to fit under the scuttle. I'm thinking pretty seriously about adding one of these Gerbing controllers while I'm at it. A couple of jacks in the dash would let you plug in a heated vest, or even a pair of gloves. Might be just the thing for those chilly fall blats.

I haven't been too good about posting pictures, but you can see what I have posted here: http://blog.garritys.org/category/cars/westfield -MPG-

I'm here. Still plugging away at it. I just finished installing the rear wiring harness this weekend. Not looking forward to the bigger harness up front. Engine's back together and I've test fit all of the body panels, so it's starting to look like something. So I didn't import it myself. Manik took care of most of that. All I had to do was pick it up at the dock. That was actually enough of a project. The box was more than 12 feet long and most places I called wouldn't touch it. To top things off, I was in England when it arrived here. My father and my sons found a guy with one of those ramp trucks and fetched the box home. But I didn't have to worry about things like customs. I think that it would be a bit of an adventure to do that yourself, unless you're talking about something more than 25 years old. I know some people who've done that, and it isn't too bad at this point.

A set of adjustable reamers is one of the most useful items for "fettling" these types of cars. It's pretty easy to get them into the tight spots, and they can be very accurate if you go slowly. I've put a lot of miles on mine while working on my Westfield.

There was an Autozam at the Gould's microcar event in Brookline MA this year. Awfully cute little thing.

I'm not sure how much help mine will be to you. My donor is a 93 Miata. That's pre-OBD2, which makes a big difference in the emissions part of the registration process.

Mass certainly isn't the easiest state to get registered in, but you should be aware that the law changed in April 2012 to use a version of the SEMA-model legislation. That means that a lot of the horror stories you hear from people who went through the process before then don't apply anymore. I'm currently building a Westfield near Boston. I'm expecting the registration process to be challenging, but I don't really think that trying to route around it by going through another state would really improve things. -MPG-

I've seen a couple. They're really cute. They've done a very nice job of hiding the right amount of modernity that it appears to be very usable without looking wrong. An example: the rear tire is quite a bit fatter than it "ought to be" on a vintage one. I'm sure that helps the cars balance, and you really don't notice the off proportion because of the way it's tucked up under. The two front tires are closer to the correct size. I've never driven one, alas. But I think that this Chris Harris video does a good job of showing how they compare to a 7 on the road.

> NVP66S said: > > Back to more relevant stuff. I paid my deposit for the Westfield > in August, and ship date was supposed to have been last week. > I don't have confirmation from Flyin' Miata that it has in fact > shipped. > Welcome Dan, This part takes some patience. I ordered my at the beginning of June, and it finally arrived in late October. Part of the delay was back ups at the factory, and part was waiting for room on a ship going to Boston. It will get there soon though, and I'm sure you've got plenty to keep you busy stripping the donor. The move to TX might make the project a bit easier in the end. I understand that CA is one of the more challenging states (as is my home state). - MPG

> Welcome Mike, and glad to see you picked the right color! > Mine actually has a black nose and front fenders, so it won't look exactly like yours. But the red sure does look good. > Are you planning to keep the engine stock or will you be exploring any upgrades? > Stock, initially at any rate. I'm a bit confused by the new Massachusetts kit car/replica car law, but I think it is saying that the engine needs to stay quite close to its original state. I'm sure that once I actually go through that process I'll learn a lot about what is and is not acceptable. Until then I'll content myself with learning how to set the suspension up well. There are more than enough tuning parameters available there to keep me busy for quite a while. I am about to do a basic overhaul since the engine is out. New timing belt, clutch, etc. I'm thinking about putting in a lighter flywheel as part of that. It seems like it'd be more in keeping with the nature of this car.

I've been lurking here for a while, but I guess that it's time to introduce myself since this box arrived from England. http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2863/10496661354_f8bb6ff9b2.jpg My name's Mike. I live near Boston. My first car was an MGB many years ago. I've driven Miatas for the last 20 years. But I've always wanted a Seven. Well, my '93 Miata was starting to develop rust spots around the fenders, but still had a solid engine. Westfield makes a nice kit which uses the Miata drive train, so I called Flyin Miata to order a kit and started stripping parts off of the old Miata. http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5490/10749920433_2556af5f29.jpg Now that the box has arrived, I'm sorting through boxes of car parts which are stacked around the garage and getting ready to start assembling. I'm really looking forward to getting it on the road and I hope to meet some of you in person. I'm not going to do a proper build diary because I'm just mixing posts about this project into my all-purpose blog, but if you're just interested in the Westfield stuff without all of the other nonsense that ends up on the blog, then this feed should filter it correctly. And I'm sure you'll see posts from me in the tech section as I try to figure all of this out. Thanks in advance for your help & advice. -- Mike Garrity (aka MPG)

I was at the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix this weekend, and I got some pictures of some of the sevens in the Group 6 race at Schenley park. http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7303/9360036635_e344b30b9a.jpg http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3736/9360036319_7e52c1b0d1.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7398/9360036307_6ecafc80cc.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7444/9362812042_b94e93d9ff.jpg Lots more pictures here. -MPG-