David C

I like the hanging on aspect to it rather than sitting in something. Kind of like what's-his-name riding the nuclear bomb down to Russia. You can tell the Blastolene guy had a hand in this. Was wondering about the 4-wheels also. But what is the swoopy red car in the background with the twin rocket pod like things?

The engine, tranny, & diff to handle it alone would probably weigh as much as some of the bike engined 7's out there. It would be an interesting exercise, but if I was going to start from scratch, I'd rather do it around the inline 6 motorcycle engine that BMW is supposedly coming out with. My old inline 6-cylinder CBX had the sweetest exhaust note and think that the Bim motor would give me the same goose bumps as well as being more compact, lower CG, and another 75 horses wouldn't hurt either.

Got two of them mated to BMW 6-speeds laying around (in cars). Fab a dry sump, make a new low-profile intake manifold, & shrink wrap the frame and body around it & it'd be an interesting ride.

Dolly Parton becomes flatchested when you hit the gas.:jester:

I've seen ventiliated blocks before from rod failure but that - ouch. Must have made a heck of a noise. Probably more than my Mom's lawnmower was making running with a broken crankshaft (she's not terribly mechanically inclined).

Thay way you could blow smoke up their........ Well I guess you could do lighted end in, the intended use would be FDA Hemorrhoidectomy cauterization candles.

At your next meeting with them, tell them you've decided to rename your product in their honor: Rear Candles. :jester:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/magazine/life_of_reilly/news/1999/09/14/life_of_reilly/ Kevin would be driving :driving: and I would be :puke:

Perused the FDA website. Looks like they brought a howitzer to a checkers match. Will PM you

My cat would be a medical device if I said if he sat on your lap he would cure depression. Besides the fact that he does. The way the laws and definitions are setup almost anything can be classified as a medical device if you make claims about it. And in this case, from what they said, and how it works, it meets the legal definition of a medical device. Oh joy, here cometh the FDA. It's kind of a wierd concept & hard to grok initially but how else would you define a medical device? You can't go by what it is, or made of, or designed, as the range is too broad and constantly changing. So they went with what it does and how it does it (not chemical). And who defines what it does? The person or company that manufactures or markets it. So people/companies making claims just made themselves the bullseye. Normally if someone is crossing the line, they go after just that company. In this case it sounds as if it is pervasive enough that they are moving against the whole industry. As far as the FDA is concerned, annecdotal evidence and $3.91 wil get you a grande mocha at my local starbucks. A well designed clinical trial is what counts to them and to most of the scientific community. But the trial is not to establish whether something is a medical device, but whether it is safe and effective. The problem is, those cost lots of moola and more fun times with the FDA or an Institutional Review Board getting the trial approved. And unless someone can get market control and make a pile of dough, no one will front the money. If it works for someone and there's no harm then to me there's no foul. If it had stayed low key, it probably wouldn't have elevated it to the FDA's attention and now you are in legal limbo land. I wish you luck. Class III - that doesn't make any sense as that is for critical devices such as implantable pacemakers or defibrillators. More likely Class I as that is for fairly innocuous devices and yes you can get some medical devices without a prescription. An example of a fairly complex device anyone off the street can buy - an Automatic External Defibrillator (AED). Non-disclaimer: If you haven't guessed, I'm in Regulatory Affairs and have worked for several medical device companies and my primary responsibility is getting FDA clearance to market our devices. And I worked for the FDA for a while doing inspections. So I know the boat you are in. Sometimes the agency can be reasonable, sometimes not. It depends on the current political climate, for what the FDA has been hammered on for lately, and who you are talking with. Side note: L-tryptophan was banned initially as there were deaths linked to it and they didn't know why. It was determined that a manufacturer changed to a new genetically altered bug to produce the stuff and a dimer form of it was found in small amounts and it was what was causing the problem. AFAIK, none of the other companies had this problem. I don't fault the FDA for pulling it initially, but they should have lifted the ban and required manufacturers to test for this contaminent if they changed to a different strain of bug to produce this amino acid. Problem solved and prevented if the rules were followed. But it stayed on FDA's shelf for some reason - I don't know why. Shoot me a PM if you want some advice, be warned however, my fees are quite stout - a ride if I'm ever in your neighborhood :-)

Have two 850's 24 cylinders, 12 speeds, no waiting. :auto: I don't know what you are talking about. They are simple cars really. Just take all the hydraulics & electronics in a 747 and cram them into 3000 lb car to make it a 4000+ lb car. The computers make vista running on a 286 look good. Case in point: the windows raise and drop out of the rubber channel to allow the door to open. Some anti-electrons must have gotten into my system and the headlights now jump up and down in time with the windows. But it does look like a sweet motor & electrons be damned I'd love to hear it sing at 9 grand.

I had a CBX & posted a while ago that I thought it would sound aweome in a seven, but with an air-cooled engine that would be a wee bit of a problem to cool the motor. Now this is much better, although a bit lower redline IIRC. The CBX motor was around 24 inches wide and this is supposed to be 4 inches narrower, or around 20 inches. Ballparking it I'd say the output shaft is 1/3 over so the engine would be about 2/3rds offset to the passenger side or a tad over a foot. Sounds feasible. Plus the weight distribution would be offset to compensate for a solo driver. Intake tract & throttle body location might need to change for height. Did not see any mention of a reverse but if its first debut would be in a tourer, maybe it might have one ala the Goldwing. Dave

Here I am in the Seattle area, newly laid off, and this pops up to torture me. I'll trade you a 1991 BMW 850i with a six-speed manual and all my future unemployment checks What a deal - you'll get three times the car. 12 cylinders instead 4 lonely little ones, 4100 lbs instead of a third of that. Dave

A while ago when I asked USAA wouldn't have a problem insuring a Westfield kit car. Don't remember the cost though. For those taking their 7 to the track this was an interesting post on our local BMW Club board:

1.8? And more importantly - what color? With the help of my 5 YO son I was able to do some pretty ugly combos on their configurator. :ack: The "sales" tax (they call it something else) would have added yet an additional $1,500 or so to the cost.

If I understand it correctly and all you need to start the car is a pushbutton, how do you keep someone from driving off in your Birkin other than a "This car protected by Smith & Wesson" sticker?

Congrats on your order. Nice also that there's no sales tax in Oregon . I was lucky with the truck I bought in Oregon and I lived there just long enough to not pay "sales" tax when I moved to Washington. I agree that the Westfield kit probably is not a big money maker for them. Got your donor parts lined up? I get down to Oregon sometimes, if you don't mind, shoot me a message with your contact info - I'd like to see how your build goes. Dave

Was highly anticipating the price drop as the dollar pound exchange rate has swung in our favor to the tune of about a 33% drop from it's high. It is even below when the kit was first introduced at around the $14K mark. So was kind of let down by the price drop. The kit price of $17,590 plus the quick steering ration (that was an option that is now included) was around $17,710 (guessing at $120 for quick steering) so a drop to $16,865, including the quick steering) is only about a 5% drop. At current exchange rates, the Westfield price for a single donor Miata kit (about 6,745 pounds) is about $9,200 US including VAT (for left RHD model). The LHD is probably a bit more and there might be a few bits different from their kit to the FM kit version but that probably isn't too far from the mark. Just the cost of the kit alone in dollars due to the exchange rate swing (not adjusting the transatlantic shipping) should have dropped over $4,000 so a $800ish price drop didn't leave me giddy. As someone else pointed out it is like the cost of gas - the price decrease never seems to equal the price increase when oil drops back to the same level. For me, especially since I'd probably have to pay the equivalent of sales tax in Washington state, with a few options and shipping to my door it just doesn't quite pencil out (especially in light of my investment accounts, IRAs, & 401(K) I should be able to retire when I die). I've got the Miata donor parts in my garage and am scratching my head a bit about what to do. I had shifted gears to learning to weld and have been researching the locost route but knowing me and with a 5 YO wanting me to play, a completed (well running) car would be years down the road. Flyin' Miata is a great company & provide lots of cool parts & are very responsive & walk the talk and the Westfield kit is probably one of the better kits available short of a Caterham (which is not in my budget) so it is still tempting. But no matter what I do, I'd still like to roll my own someday so I'll continue in that vein for a while.

Like many others - The Prisoner. Watching that show with an impressionable young mind just starting to get hit with waves of testosterone left a permanent impression. Don't have one yet - have to finish parting out the Miata for the donor parts, sell one truck, sell one BMW 850, re-assemble and sell another project BMW 850 and am taking evening welding classes. Too many balls in the air. ps - Raquel Welch from that era also did a number on said mind.

What, a V-8 not enough for ya? Got the hankerin' for a V-12 6-speed seven? :_deadhorse: The Arrest-me red one is some assembly required and was bought as a project. A friend had health problems and I bought it midstream in a complete interior changeover & some body panels need to be reinstalled. After wrenching on & driving the Miata my enthusiasm is waning for overly complex heavy cars. Basically you take a Boeing 747 and stuff the hydraulic and electrical systems into a car sized space and drape a bodacious sheetmetal body around it and that's an 850. As a daily driver the car is reliable. As an occaisional use car it is more of a PITA. There are so many computers in the car and they all interconnect that if the voltage isn't maintained one will go insane and affect 10 others so good luck finding out where the problem lies. Recent example: the windows drop down out of their tracks when you pull on the inner/outer door latch. Imagine my surprise when the pop-up headlights started dancing up and down with the windows and then would get hung up part way through their cycle. Or seats and power mirrors that start moving in the reverse direction of the command. Or power adjustable steering wheels that just start moving on their own. Or my auxillary fan that has decided to run forever (due to AC refrigerant running low), or windshield wipers that do a few cycles and then quit mid-wipe (bad windshield squirt motor (one of two of course) that caused a fuse to blow that freaked out a relay that affected the computer that runs the wipers). And there are two of everything so there's twice as much to go wrong (two fuel pumps, filters, systems, two ignition systems, two DOUBLE-WALLED exahust systems, two intake systems, two sets of computers to keep everything running and one computer to keep the two problem children talking to each other). Running it often seems to keep the fluid leakage & electrical gremlins at bay. I've autocrossed it a few times and it does surprisingly well however tire wear equals the GDP of many third world countries. I'm ready for something simpler and lighter.

Just a seven wanna be (dismantling a Miata for a Westy kit) but safety is not black and white. You can add degrees of safety (painting you car a bright color, driving with lights on, adding bars, running a fuel cell instead of a regular tank, driving with a helmet, nomex suit, HANS, etc etc.) And a modern small sedan or even a sub-compact is safer than an older SUV/truck/large sedan. You won't be able to do much about the impact forces but whatever you can do to avoid being squashed/crushed/burned will help as those are the most likely way you will be injured/killed. My son slid the Miata into a power pole (power poles and trees win over any vehicle) sideways and the impact was enough to total the car but it hit right smack on the down tube of a diagonally braced Hard Dog roll bar and he was secured in a Corbeau seat with 5-pt harnesses. He only had a small scratch on his knee and a severly bruised wallet and ego. But mass is certainly a BIG (haha) factor. A lot of crash testing results are smashing into a fixed barrier. So you can have a 5 star rating with a big Mercedes and a 5 star rating with a Smart car but just watch the video of the head on between a Smart car and a Mercedes and the big Merc hardly slows down and the Smart car is punted backwards and sideways and tumbles several times. But my seven will be a bright color, I'll probably drive with my lights on, I plan on running a fuel cell, and plan on adding additional protection. I think being an EMT and going to accident scenes pushes me towards adding whatever degrees of safety I can and still have fun (I was riding a motorcycle at the time and always wore a helment even though it wasn't legally required). I've got two (don't ask) BMW 850's, both with modded V-12's and six-speeds, and they are quite safe but they will never feel like the Miata, much less what I imagine a seven to feel like. Any body want to trade a seven for an 850? You can take your pick - Arrest me red with a 350 HP V-12 or Calypso Red (burgundy) 320 HP V-12. Dave

Um OW!!! I'm trying to visualize your trajectory - next zip code? You are one lucky guy. So what do you think of the idea of a CBX 7?

Thought about it, but looking at the photos of that Jag v-12 custom 7 project abandoned onto e-bay last year was not encouraging. The proportions would probably be ungainly and it would probably lose a lot of appeal of the 7 and cooling it would be an issue. Overheat a BMW v-12 and you are looking at a new shortblock at least as the bores permanently warp. But yeah I thought about it. The motor probably puts out about 350 HP now but the added weight of the engine, tranny, driveshaft, diff, axles, rear suspension & chassis reinforcements, bigger brakes, bigger wheels/tires, bigger car, etc etc.... I'd hazaard a guess that it would weigh 1900 lbs. A dry sump, custom intake manifolds, and externalizing the exhaust headers to give people burns would shrink the size of the lump a bit to allow tighter body work but the length of the motor plus the width of the tranny would lengthen and/or widen the car. And it still wouldn't sound as cool as the CBX.

Yes the drive chain for the tranny comes off the middle but tranny output sprocket is on the left. I'll have to do more research and look at build blogs to get more of idea about typical layouts. Sometimes engine heat is welcome. I'm probably one of the few that have ridden a CBX on snowy roads and tucking my icicle hands down behind the engine was welcome heat. Went everywhere with it - had over 50K miles on it when I sold it. Also have a dead Miata that gave up its parts for a planned Flyin' Miata Westy kit. May do that first & then take on a BEC. But even the Westy is behind another project - bought a friend's BMW 850 with a tweaked V-12 & custom fabbed roll bar. Some assembly required though (cough cough). All the wiring, computers, hydraulics, nose picker servo motors, sensors, gizmos, and the sound proofing probably weigh as much as a Seven.