Davemk1

Does your car have a live rear axle or IRS? dave

I did that on my Birkin whose fenders felt like they were made of paper mache. The one side is protected by the exhaust pretty well and that helps.....combine that with the fact that Westfield made the things really strong and heavy and it seems to be a non-issue so far. I opted for the detachable rear fenders (stock they are moulded one piece with the main body) so I can remove them if repair is needed or I can just replace the if need be. All that said I've hit a few with the rear fenders and they didn't show and sign of stress. dave

Thanks so much. It's funny - one can drive most anything that rolls on the highway here in Montana as long as it has a front plate - it seems to be the only thing the cops really care about and I got pulled over a few times for not having one on the Birkin and Elise I'd owned in the past and thought it best to not 'invite' such visits in the future. But finding a way to attach a plate to the front of the Westy was problematic. I didn't want to drill any holes in the bodywork and I didn't want the attachment or the plate to damage the car should I whack a cone with that part of the car. So the plate has a few bends it in and it is only attached to the splitter and had a foam backing where it sits against the nose. This allows the splitter to flex upward and the plate with it doing no damage to the nose and for the most part the plate looks normal to a cop passing by. State law says the plate can't be modified in size or shape but it doesn't say it can't be bent....and it seems that 1/2 the front plates on cars here are bent up pretty good from being pushed into snow banks during the winter and no one gets pulled over for this reason. As for the different tire/wheel sizes - it works out well that the skinny street tires are taller and they allow room to get over speed bumps and the such and the smaller race wheels/tires lower the car by just over an inch and of course lower the weight and gearing so that it will pull much harder out of slow corners. So I use the 205/50-15's on the street and the 9 x 20 - 13 tires for solo and I get ground clearance on the street and low ride height on course. The smaller tires would limit top speed on track but this isn't a concern with solo. I'm looking forward to this weekend and come canyon carving and next weekend for some solo. dave

Hey - A post in a different thread suggested I post a few more current photos of my Westfield Mega S2000. I've had it on the road for about 10 months and 3300 miles now and it's been nearly flawless. Nothing big has fallen off, the fluids haven't all gushed out in hot anger and it's never even hesitated to start. All good stuff. I built it to use as a mixed street/autocross car and did a few events late last summer on street tires just to make sure everything worked and to get a good baseline. This spring I put it on rather fat slicks and the grip went up more than just a little bit as you might imagine. I opted for wide tires that are smaller in diameter to lower both the car and the gearing and it's working very well so far. My first event of the year I took my class and FTD and it should get better as I get the alignment optimized for the bias ply slicks (Hoosier 20 x 9 - 13's). The wheels are lightweight steel 13 x 10. Over the winter I pulled the engine and installed a baffle in the sump and an aluminum flywheel and it rev's a good bit quicker now with a flywheel that weighs 1/2 of the stock Honda part. I also installed a new replacement limited slip diff sent by Westfield when the original started making evil banging noises. The new one is a Quaiffe and works perfectly and is quiet. One thing that is new to me is trailering the car to events. I've always driven my race car to events......I had a Birkin S3 and a Lotus Elise that I drove 100 miles one way to events and rather liked it. But my wife liked it much less and wanted me to buy a trailer and start towing so that I wouldn't be on the interstate in the Westy. She gives me all the support in this odd hobby I could ever ask for so I got the trailer and at the first event backed the trailer into my own car - don't worry the trailer wasn't damaged! The damage to the nose cone was really limited and I got very lucky that I really just tapped the Seven. The tough part of repairing the Westy is that it's not painted but instead has a gel-coat finish that it near impossible to match. So I made zero attempt to match it and instead masked off the lips and had the body shop spray it the same color as my daily driver a Mini Cooper S. The color is Liquid Yellow. I like how it came out and took the opportunity of having the grill out to spray the Westfield logo white so that few folks would stare blankly at the car and ask what brand it is. I'll be going back in at least one more time to tweak the alignment to work with the race tires (lowering ride height just a tad and reducing camber a bit) and then checking the corner weights and I should be good for a while. Dinner time here - stay well. dave

I solo my Westfield a good bit........it's as much a street car as a race car but I love racing it. We have events that take place at a very large facility and speeds are consistently pretty high with 70 mph slaloms being common. My Westfield would get front end lift and dramatic understeer at 65-70 mph under full throttle and it would barely change direction. I think is is largely due to the rearward weight shift of being full on with the throttle as it will cruise and turn at 70 mph and the front didn't feel overly light. I designed and built the front splitter to reduce the front end lift and it seems to do the job. It feels much more connected and the high speed understeer is gone. On the road it has a more settled and hunkered down feeling at speed. So does aero make a difference in solo? I'd say it depends. If the solo is being held in a small lot with just s short burst to 60 mph in a straight line and turns being taken at 35 mph then I would guess there is little to be gained.......if on the other and the event is big and open and one is making turns at 70+ mph then my experience says that yes it makes a difference. dave

The Seven shape is pretty darn good at creating front end lift - my Westy would lift and understeer in a big way when accelerating hard above 70 mph. I then made a very simple splitter and the push is gone and things are nice and stable at speed. dave

Looks good! dave

PM sent. dave

You might also consider a Westfield. I've owned a Birkin (1999 small body) and I'm 6'4" and it was a very tight fit in that car. I built my Westfield about a year ago and I chose it for two reasons - the first is that the longer cockpit fits me perfectly and secondly they offer a version that uses the Honda S2000 engine and trans and it's one of the finest lumps ever made....it really suits the character of a Seven IMHO. The finished product is a ball to drive and very quick. Something to consider. dave

I realize I will be in the minority here but I think Lotus offering an SUV is a very good thing. Mind you I will never buy any SUV regardless of brand but SUV sales very well could shore up the bottom line at Lotus allowing them to continue to produce the cars I love the brand for. I recall the uproar when Porsche announced their SUV and many said this would be the death of their sports cars but of course the exact opposite has been true. The SUV profits allowed Porsche to survive and continue to make the cars that sports car fans know them for. I think there is almost no way that Lotus can keep the lights on with the very small number of specialty sports cars they currently put out the door and if the SUV diversifies the product range enough to turn the bottom line from red to black that can only be a good thing. dave

It's an interesting question and so far most responses have concerned themselves with the supply side of things......I think this wrongly assumes there is demand and that "if you build it they will come....." I don't think this is the case. I think many a car builder has gotten into the biz thinking that they can't be the only ones that think a certain design would be really popular just because they themselves like it so much only to find out that no one feels as strongly as they do and that the phone never rings. These are very cool cars with very limited appeal and my guess is that the supply and demand are pretty well balanced. dave

Very cool to see another one about to hit the road. I'm having a great time with mine. dave

Stunning - a real piece of history. dave

I agree - pull all the jets and air correctors and give them a good spritz of carb cleaner. The holes are so small that typically you can't see build up of vanish or junk in there but so often the car will run better after the jets get sprayed clean. dave

Cool - there are a few out and back drives one can do from town that will take two hours at the most and the roads are twisty and fun and the views to die for. There are also great hikes just out of town and of course some great museums to visit. I don't know where you plan on staying but there is a place (Hilton Garden Inn) that hosts the 'Going to the Sun' rally most years and they seem to have no trouble blocking off a section of the parking lot for the car guys and they have lots of room for trailers. Lots of high rollers bring in their million dollar cars and leave them in the lot overnight without issue. Let me know what you need and I'll see what I can do. dave

Hello - I doubt I can join you all for much of the trip but I live in Bozeman and will for sure join you here. There's some good driving roads in the area if folks want to venture out for an hour or two from Bozeman during your rest day. I can also recommend restaurants and the such if folks need a local's input. dave

what?..........catholics aren't allowed to like tits? dave

Trust me........neither the beads or the breasts they struggled to cover were really something anyone really wanted to see! dave

No punch line - this really happened a few years back and a friend who knew the story compelled me to write it down. I suspect that the two good folks did something upstanding like sell meth and they had some money and blew it on the car they knew nothing about...........and then used it to try to get guys to come home with them. Odd stuff. dave

I live in a small city of about 30,000 people and this means that one tends to know much of what’s going on in their local community so when I was driving my little sports car (a 1999 Birkin S3 Lotus Seven clone) through town and came on a wild, white, mid 1980’s, Lamborghini Countach parked in an awkward place under the I90 overpass, it stuck out like a sore thumb. The car had Montana plates on it so I guessed it to be a local but it seemed really odd that I’d never seen it before. How could a white Lambo, with its massive V12, funny doors and huge scoops never have been seen or noted by any of my car friends before in our little town? Odd. I drive by and note that the Lambo is ½ on the shoulder and ½ in the lane of traffic in a vey busy and dangerous intersection and I can see that there are two people in it. It just seemed so wrong. If the car had died why weren’t they pushing it out of the way? I spun around ¼ mile later and drove back past and it was still there, with two people still sitting in it in a place where a semi was going to come around and just roll over the thing. So I pull over and climb out of my tiny Seven and go over to offer to help the driver push the car up the road 150 feet where it could be fully, and safely, off the road. The driver awkwardly opens the supercar door and I ask him what the trouble is and he says the car is running hot and that they stopped to let it cool down. I share my concern about where they are parked and offer to help him push it out of the way – it’s the least one car guy can do for another. He manages to climb out as I go round to the rear of the car and I note his passenger is getting out too. He’s 40ish but high mileage, tall and very lean, dressed mostly in black leather. He doesn’t look like the kind of guy who would own a classic Lamborghini – but then again I don’t really know what a Lamborghini owner should look like. He joins me at the back of the car as his passenger makes her way out. He and I start pushing before she gets back there to help us and I really don’t get a very good look at her at this point. The guy is in the middle, I’m on the left and his passenger is on the right and we push. I’m nervous about being out in traffic and that no one is steering the car that’s now rolling but it’s pointed in the right direction so I just push. The car comes to a stop in the entrance to a driveway of a local hot rod and body shop and I start really looking at the people I am with. He looked pretty strung out – like there were meds he was supposed to be on but wasn’t, and she was something else altogether. She had the classic biker gang chick look and had spent a lot of time in dark bars, bright sun or both. She was tall and thin and had black, black hair, weathered skin and the look like she was hungry – I’ll bet she was very pretty at some point in the past. Then I noticed what she was wearing. She wore painted-on black leather pants and a string of beads vest that biker chicks might normally wear over a tank top…..but there was no tank top…….just strings of beads and bare breasts. I tried not to stare but as everyone knows this is nearly impossible and she was clearly enjoying the attention, and oddly, so was her male companion. It seemed the way the strings of beads were parted by, and hung up on, her nipples and I recall thinking it must feel funny to her. Trying not stare I force myself to make eye contact with the guy and ask him what’s wrong with the car. He says it’s overheating. I suggest we open up the engine cover and take a look at the coolant level. This seems like a novel concept to him as the struggles to find the release for the lid. I ask if the car is fuel injected or carbureted and he tells me plainly that he doesn’t know. I’m thinking ‘how in the hell can you not know?’ – if it’s got carbs there’s going to be 6 whacking huge carbs sitting proudly right on top of the engine. This is something you can’t miss. He gets the cover open as I sense the near topless woman is right behind me. I do my best to subtly move away from her to take a look at the engine – fuel injected it turns out. The driver now seems less concerned that his car is ‘over heating’ as I look at the coolant level (normal) and he starts telling me about how he won the ‘best import’ class at the local Belgrade MT car show – I’ll bet he did since he probably put his car up next to a clapped out rubber bumper MGB or something of the sort. I’m still focused on the engine (it’s HUGE) and once again I sense the woman close to me. I turn to see just how close and realize that her vest, and its overflowing contents, are pretty much pressed against my back. The guy is clearly enjoying this more than I am. Now I’m a simple small town guy who isn’t the most knowledgeable in the ways of the big bad world but even I could tell something didn’t smell right here. A supercar, parked oddly by the side of the road, which seemed to have nothing outwardly wrong with it, being driven by someone missing his meth and a woman with nipples harder than the beads not covering them, makes a distinct impression. This just ain’t right. At this point the woman and I are playing a slow game of follow the leader around the big white Lambo while the guy tells me he’s always wanted a Countach and it’s a dream come true. The guy is pretty much standing in one place while the woman does her best to get close to me and we make slow laps of the big car. I’m still in boy-scout mode asking about the car while trying to figure out how I’m going to get the hell out of there. I finally tell them that things seem to be fine with their car and start moving toward mine. The woman, I think sensing her pray was going to escape, drops any attempt at being slow and subtle and rushes to my car declaring loudly she wants a ride in it. She has run to it, bouncing her vest off her bouncing tits the entire way and I note some old guy in a Camry breaking his neck trying to get a better view as he drives by. I, for an instant, see the scene through his eyes and get even more scared. She arrives at the Birkin just before I do and stops dead trying to figure out how in the hell to get in it. She’s standing at the driver’s side looking down where her little leather butt wants to be but can’t figure out how to get it there (if you’ve ever tried to get into a Seven you’d know why bank robbers don’t use them as getaway cars) and this is my chance to squeeze by her, get in the car and speed off before I end up being the inspiration for an episode of CSI being chained to the wall of a storage shed out behind a trailer in some very rural part of Montana. At this very moment, the owner of the hot rod body shop comes walking out to see what the hell is going on in his driveway with a Lamborghini and Seven being parked there (what an odd sight really when you think about it) and the three of us awkwardly milling about. Lucky for me the two Lambo folks get distracted by fresh meat and this gives me the time to drop into the Birkin’s seat, sitting right on top of my hat and the four point harnesses, push the start button to fire it up, and pull away. As I’m making a tight U turn in the drive to get on the road the woman instinctively faces me and leans back to give me one last good view of her bare tits with strings of beads in her cleavage. Seconds later, I pull onto the road I see the two of them leading the hot rod guy over to the Lambo so he can have a look and ‘help them.’ I got home and my wife sweetly asked ‘how was your drive?’ and I didn’t quite know where to start. I never saw that car again nor did I ever read of a hot rod body shop guy going missing so I guess it all turned out well. I also never heard of any supercar owners turning up dead in a basement chained to a cage so who knows where they got that thing. The take home lesson is if you see a white, mid 1980’s Lamborghini Countach, with Montana plates, parked oddly by the side road, approach with caution. dave

You might also consider the Westfield Mega S2000 which of course uses an engine you are already very familiar with. I'm really enjoying mine. If you build it yourself you'll know it's right and just how you want it. dave

PM sent. dave

Do you have any photos of the seats you can share? dave

It is not the stock mirror. I found the stock mirror to be way too big (blocked forward vision yet gave me a great rearward view of the seat headrests) so I mounted a small hotrod mirror to a custom bracket. Being so small and mounted so high it doesn't block the forward view at all but it's large enough to give a full effective out the rear. It's worked out very well. dave

I thought I'd share the results of my first winter project. I wanted to be able to tow a small trailer to autocross events so I designed this quick connect hitch for the Westie. There are 4 small plates bolted to the underside of the car that are receptacles for the hitch and they weigh 4 oz in total. The hitch goes on and off without any tools and it takes about 15 seconds to take it off and 30 to put it back on. The trailer has a tongue weight of only 30 lbs but the hitch will take my full body weight of 190 lbs bouncing up and down without issue so it should be more than strong and stiff enough. Now I just need wheels and tires to put on the trailer. Happy New Year all! dave