Davemk1

Are you asking if I added vents? No....I didn't cut in any additional vents. I wondered about the airflow after it passed through the radiator so I did some string tests so i could see the way the air was moving. I suspect that much of the air that came in through the rad (as well as the openings inboard of the front wheels) went out the bottom of the engine compartment. This would of course raise the air pressure under the car and help create both lift and drag. When I closed off the underside of the car it changed the way the air flowed through the engine compartment. I now have air coming out the side openings inboard of the front wheels (on a Westie these are very big). I also have air coming out the vents at the top rear of the engine cover. These smaller triangular vents actually pulled air in before enclosing the underside of the engine compartment and now air rushes out of them. This would seem to be an indication that I used to have a low pressure area in the engine compartment largely caused by the open bottom and now I have a high pressure area that pushes air out the sides and top. Does that make sense? dave

I did this on my Westfield a number of years ago....a splitter at the front, filled in around the sump in the engine bay, stock flat floor pan, and then a diffuser out the rear. Many will say that it's a waste of time given that a Seven is shaped like a brick and I completely disagree. To me it means that there's some big low hanging fruit and the flat bottom was easiest to pick. I get MUCH less lift at speed, it's quieter, and it doesn't feel like you've hit the brakes when you drop the throttle at speed. It works. Why wouldn't it? It's worth the time - go for it. dave

I have a 2015 VW Golf wagon TDi. One of the nicest cars I've owned. More than quick enough, has the firm suspension of the handling package and I've averaged 43 mpg over the past 35,000 miles. Quiet and composed and the seats fit me very well (I'm 6'4"). It's awesome for road trips or running around town. The other 'daily' is a 2006 Honda Ridgeline truck that is used to two my Westie around. Many will poo poo it for not being a 'real truck' and I get it. But I don't need a real truck and this truck-lite is awesome for my needs. Default FWD (slips into 4 wheel of the fronts loose traction) means it handles great in the snow and it's got more than enough grunt to tow my Westie up and over Montana mountain passes all while getting 15 mpg towing and 20 around town. It's a pleasant place to spend time and the handling is surprisingly good for the size of the thing. I'd buy another in a heartbeat. dave

Merry Christmas from Montana! dave

That's interesting and I guess not all that surprising. I was looking at the Federals some time back after a friend said he liked them for autocross and noticed that in most sizes the treadware rating is 260....but for some odd reason 13" tires have a treadware rating of 460. They might not have much grip at 460 but I'll bet that they will last an annoyingly long time. dave

Cool - I wouldn't worry about maintaining a small amount of toe-in....there's no tipping point that happens when you cross from toe-in to toe-out. In fact when the car moves up and down with weight shift the toe changes anyway. And unless you have solid suspension bushings they deflect when you hit the brakes to change the toe. So toe is kind of all over the place and there's nothing sacred about it. I have rivnuts that are mounted in the nose to support my front splitter and i just take these out and the string box bolts into those inserts. In the rear the bar affixes to the top of my rear diffuser. Dave

Right you are - I must have been thinking of the other guy with the understeer. Sorry about that. You are right on - weight shift is everything. Good on you for getting the feel for that! The attached photo show how much grip one can get with weight shift....the weight has shifted to the rear allowing it to hang on tight. Just look at the sidewall flex on that rear tire. It's working very hard. I've not found tramlining to be a real issue on the road when using lots of camber. Toe out can make it feel funny but camber has never been an issue for me. Unfortunately it seems very unlikely that you can make major changes in camber up front without messing with the toe a lot. Dues to the geometry of most front suspension and the Ackerman effect any changes in camber typically result in large toe changes. So I'd say that you might need to pick a camber setting and then set the toe to that. Speaking of front toe-in....1/8" is a good bit - I suspect too much. I'll bet if you back that off to 1/16" - 0" toe in that it would feel better on the road and solo course. Front toe tends to make them feel a bit numb and you're no doubt leaving some of the fun on the table. Having 1/8" toe-in in the rear is a great place to start. One thing about alignment - most alignment shops will charge you real money and you may, or may not, get what you want. It's not rocket surgery if you have basic tools. One tool you can make for small money is a string box. I made one for my Westie using electrical conduit and the two sections bolt directly to the car. The conduit has shallow hacksaw slots on each end to hold the string in place. I can bolt it on and check alignment in less than 5 minutes. It takes more time to put the ballast in the driver's seat (worthless without this on a light car) than it does to set up the bars. There's no reason to pay for an alignment when you can do it at home with tools that cost less than $20. Want to make a change for the weekend's solo event?....no problem. It becomes so fast and easy that you can tweak and learn and get very quick and cheap feedback. I hope that helps. dave

Cool - these are my random thoughts based on what ran on a Birkin years ago and what I've learned with my current Westfield - - if you are running any kind of DOT radial tire (even something like a Hoosier A7) you could benefit from more camber all around. Those tires need a good bit, especially in front, for them to work as intended. If the car turns in well but then fades into understeer my first thought is front camber. I run a non-DOT bias ply tire and they need much different alignment....but if I were running 888's or A7's I'd set my car up with a good 2.5° in the front and maybe 2.0° camber in the rear and see how it goes. - I see you measured the toe in degrees and off the top of my head I don't know how that translates to millimeters at the rim. That said I would not be running any toe-in in the front. I'd set it for 0 toe-in in front. Some will go with toe out (I use 1 mm toe out each side in the front) and it aides in quick turn-in but can make the car feel twitchy. But having toe-in in the front is a quick way to understeer. - I don't see any toe numbers for the rear listed. I'd be looking at setting them at about 1-2mm toe in each side. This aides in high speed stability and helps tame snap oversteer in slaloms and transitions. - I know nothing about your ARB's but I will say that in general you can take the rear one off and make a lamp out of it. If you are driving aggressively (as one needs to do to put down quick times) it will only hurt you in the snap oversteer department. You want to keep the front one as it helps keep the inside rear tire from lifting while cornering. ------------------------ So - as I recall you are having issues with understeer.....is that right? If so the car set up certainly could be a large factor in that. Your driving could also be a big factor. Tires don't grip unless they have weight on them and if you enter a corner and just fade off the gas and then turn it will understeer. One needs to brake hard to get a weight shift to the front to get those tires to bit. Charge into the corner, lift off the gas and hit the brake as fast as your foot will move and brake hard.....come off the brake and as you turn the wheel. With all that braking shifting weight forward it will not understeer even a little bit. And...If you pass the apex of the turn and with the wheel still turned nail the gas it will probably understeer a lot. Getting onto the gas shifts weight rearward and off the front tires so they will push....while the rears have lots of weight and they will grip....and then you have understeer. If you'd done the above and braked hard and late into the turn and carried as much speed as possible you can start adding gas as you unwind the wheel and you won't make a big weight shift this way. The caveat here is if you have enough grunt you can give it the boot and get the car to rotate on the gas and point in the direction you want to go without much push. This feels fast but can be slow. Showboating is slow. In the end you need to be aggressive to get the most out of it. At first you will do it wrong because you are human like the rest of us and this will result in silly moves like spinning. But you'll feel it and the car will respond with more practice. I hope that makes the water clearer and not muddier. dave

Support.....enable....not much difference in my book. Tell us about your alignment....what are you running for camber and toe front and rear? dave

It really is fun autocrossing these things isn't it? My season has ended with fall/winter weather having moved in but even after 20 years I still get sad when it ends. I might suggest that one of the things hurting your consistency is the old tires. It's very hard to drive around having old tires. Do yourself a favor and get some new tires (yes.....7 years is old) and your driving will improve to match the new grip. Worth every cent. dave

Under what conditions does it understeer? Corner entry? Mid corner? Corner exit? What tires are you using? dave

I've found that the increments provided by the castle nut are too broad and that one position is too loose and the next is too tight. So I made thin shim washers to put behind the nut that that allow for a more fine tuned adjustment. If you're good with scissors you can make shims out of a coke can which is typically about .003" thick. This has worked very well for me in eliminating any play while not having any binding. dave

I'll echo Scannon's input....the Quaiffe makes it sound like there's too much backlash in the gearing. I had one in an Elise and it sounded the same way. dave

I have one installed in the Ford Sierra diff in my Westfield. I can hear it (not surprising given that it's 6" from my elbow) but it's nothing that really sticks out in my mind. What kind of noise does yours make and when does it do it? dave

Any word on whether they are making or selling stuff? dave

Look for a race shop in your area....they should have a set of scales. Before you spend the time and money to put the car on scales you should have the ride height and alignment done, have the tire pressures accurately set, and you should be mindful of the fuel load you want to consider. Once you get to the scales you should disconnect your sway bar(s) and be ready to put yourself in the driver's seat or have ballast ready to mimic your weight. Once you get the corner weighting done you'll want to adjust the sway bar end links so that the swaybar is unloaded and in a neutral position. With your weight in the car adjust the end links so that the bolts will just slip through. This will assure that the swaybar isn't influencing the corner weighting at all. Once the bar end links are adjusted you can double check by rolling it back on the scales to be sure they aren't messing with things. How accurate do you need to be? Some will say that being off by 20 lbs is nothing and others will say that is WAY too far off. Once you get a feel for how it's done it's not hard to get it down to 1 or 2 lbs. I own a set of scales and as funny as it sounds can set the car up so that I have a perfect 50% cross weight with my hands on the steering wheel but if I put them in my lap it's off just a bit. Does that matter? Probably not. But if you can do it why not? One thing's for sure - doing a corner weighting will make the car better at the limit. Will it make a difference driving around your neighborhood? No it won't. Will it make a difference while on track, solo course or during an emergency maneuver? Absolutely yes. dave

It seems to be fairly simple - the Caterham has more torque than the tires can put to the ground given it's weight and weight distribution. The Atom has wider tires and much more weight on the rears so it can put power to the floor and it doesn't battle power-on oversteer and wheel spin every time the driver gives it the boot. I autocross against a well driven supercharged Atom at nearly every event I do (owned by a local friend of mine) and its ability to put power down far surpasses my Westfield S2000. It weighs just a bit more, makes much more power and can put it all down so the acceleration can't be challenged. Yet it's extremely rare for it to post a faster time and it comes down to two key things....first is that the Westie is narrower and in slaloms and sweepers that makes my course shorter and that adds up quickly. Secondly the Westie is much better in violent transitions with much less tendency for it to wag its tail or spin due to having a more even weight distribution and a much lower polar moment of inertia. I'm sure that on an open track like the Atom and Caterham were on my friend's Atom would just walk away from my Westfield with ease. dave

That is very interesting and unfortunately not surprising. Do you know where Birkin would like to land in the USA? dave

You can use an online spring rate calculator and get really close on your spring rate. It will ask for the diameter of the wire, the number of coils and the diameter of the coils - all of which can be determined with the springs in place. dave

Under what circumstances do you experience understeer? Corner entry? Mid corner? Corner exit? Tight turns? Sweepers? dave

I keep coming back to the coolant temp.....My money is on the coolant temp sensor or a thermostat being stuck open. It's overfueling 'thinking' that it's in warm up mode all the time. dave

I just wanted to say that I still have these wheels and that they have been in safe storage for a long time now. It makes zero sense for these to be sitting and not on the road so make me an offer and let's free up my space and get them on your car. dave

I'm 6'4" with a long torso and like you I don't fit in many sports cars due to the lack of head room. I drive a 2014 Westfield S2000 and it has a longer cockpit than the original Seven and it has lowered floors and I fit very well. If my legs were much longer it wouldn't work but as it sits it's near ideal. When I first built the car I set it up with a full windscreen and weather gear and ironically I fit in it just fine even with a helmet - I don't fit in a Vette but I fit in a Westfield! Go figure. Over time I realized that I almost never used the full weather gear and wanted to try an aero screen and it was one of the best mods I ever made to the car. It's quieter with much less buffeting at speed and overall just more comfortable and fun to drive.....and of course it's awesome in autoX where you can see everything perfectly. Depending on how you want to use the car you might consider an aero screen. dave

I wonder about the coolant temp sensor being bad and causing it to run in warm-up mode all the time. dave

If you're interested I can measure the height of my engine so you could rule it in/out. Just let me know. dave