Newbie: Building a Megabusa soon

[Hank]

Great site you all have here. I am about to take the plunge and purchase a Westfield Megabusa kit from Manik LLC. I found a 2005 'Busa engine, harness, ECU, radiator, oil cooler, airbox, etc. for $3000 in Texas. The engine just turned over 8k miles. I'll order the kit the first of August and it should arrive in Louisiana approximately 12 weeks later. I checked out the Frappr map and it seems the Texas folk are the closest to me. Maybe I can make a meet sometime soon. I did view a few prime Westfield examples at the Carlisle show a few years back. Beautiful cars!

 

Anyhow, I'm going to spring for a triple black, full FIA rollcage, LSD, and a few other options for my future roadracing beast.

 

Any current owner feedback would be appreciated.

[slngsht]

Welcome aboard. Looking forward to seeing your car being born

[JohnCh]

Welcome aboard Hank! For Westfield-specific build information, make sure you also check out WSCC. Lot's of good information in the archives including links to build sites. Feel free to drop me a PM if you have any questions along the way. I have a Duratec powered Westfield, so BTDT

 

-John

[BusaLoco]

Greatings fellow Busa "BEC"ite!

Good luck on your build.

. Will your kit come with a "Quaife" reverse or are you using "Push"?

. Are you using the Busa airbox? ... It will make a mess of your bonnet. ... You can get a power commander (or others) to solve the air mix thing.

. If your engine is a 2005 there are a few little things you might want to do to get the extra revs in 6th.

Keep in touch!

 

[Al N.]

dude, be crazy and go matte black for all.

 

There's a guy down in Texas (Chris F.?) with a matte black locost and it looks menacing.

 

Welcome aboard.

[powderbrake]

Welcome aboard Hank.

 

Lots of fellow ME's here on the forum. Lots of help available too. You are in the minority with a BEC, but you have your own technical section, so make use of it.

 

We are looking forward to pics of the build, and reports on your first drive. Good luck with the build.

[manik]

Greatings fellow Busa "BEC"ite!

Good luck on your build.

. Will your kit come with a "Quaife" reverse or are you using "Push"?

. Are you using the Busa airbox? ... It will make a mess of your bonnet. ... You can get a power commander (or others) to solve the air mix thing.

. If your engine is a 2005 there are a few little things you might want to do to get the extra revs in 6th.

Keep in touch!

 

The Megabusa comes with a Westfield reversing box as standard, and the intake from the Hayabusa is not used, so there is no issue with the bonnet.

 

BusaLoco, have you swapped out the xtal in your ECU?

 

There is a rather good, and unbiased(?) build log over here in the U.K.:

 

http://www.megabusa.co.uk/

 

 

 

 

tm

[BusaLoco]

No.

Our Busa is a 99 model and so it doesn't have a rev limiter in 6th.

In any event, tampering with the electronic bits (Like This) is well out of my skill set.

I don't really know about "swapping out the xtal on the ECU", I was talking about Derestrict the Hayabusa - Speed Limiter by Doing This.

 

[manik]

No.

Our Busa is a 99 model and so it doesn't have a rev limiter in 6th.

In any event, tampering with the electronic bits (Like This) is well out of my skill set.

I don't really know about "swapping out the xtal on the ECU", I was talking about Derestrict the Hayabusa - Speed Limiter by Doing This.

 

 

Oooh, this forum looks fun.

 

http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?forumID=99460&subForumID=392256&p=2

 

Removing the speed limiter on the Hayabusa for a Clubman is irrelevant. You'll never get there with aerodynamics, right? The better mod is the one that produces more torque.

 

I should point out the company Sportbike Center outlined in one of the links above just built a Busa engine for a customer of ours. The owner is a trained electronic engineer, and knows his way around the Hayabusa engine and ECU. He's also got a patent on some fuel system bits for the Hayabusa. He also runs Drag Bike Direct if that give you any indication of the type of engines he builds. Fun stuff!

 

 

tm

[Hank]

I'm trying to get my salvage motor running in the garage without the kit. Do I need the gauge cluster, handlebar switch, and keyswitch to get this thing running? Does the Westfield kit come with any wiring? I know the brochures say "wiring loom", but one had mentioned a fuse block as well. Does the Megabusa kit come with any gauges?

 

Should I purchase the 13" race wheels & tires with the kit, or should I shop around the states for the wheels/tires?

[manik]

Henry,

 

The Megabusa comes with a chassis wiring loom, but because of the proprietary plus on the Suzuki harness, you will need it, along with the ECU and Hayabusa dash cluster for error codes, troubleshooting, etc. The Megabusa kit comes with a full set of gauges, so you will not need the Hayabusa cluster mounted on the dash, although you could certainly mount it if you liked the look. We have an engine builder that can supply a custom engine harness.

 

You need the full set of Hayabusa sensors and ECU and harness to get the engine fired up.

 

Wheel-wise, you need to use wheels that have the correct PCD (4x108) and offset (ranges from et24 to et35). While they are available, they are not overly common in the U.S. There is a might greater selection out of the U.K., and certainly Westfield supply the optimum package. The 13" race wheels are probably the most used for the Megabusa because of weight, but there are at least two Megabusas here in the states that are running 15" wheels. Same offset and PCD apply.

 

 

 

tm

[Hank]

Thanks for the information, Tom. I guess I'll call the salvage yard and purchase those items. Another question comes up, how do I calibrate the speedometer for the rear axle assembly if I want to use the Hayabusa dash? An alternative would be a digital dash or autometer speedometer that is calibrated in a standing mile.

[manik]

The Westfield speedometer is clocked by a hall-effect sensor mounted on the rear axle. To use the Hayabusa dash, you would have to recalibrate/compensate for the wheel size difference and diff. I've seen some guys go with a 'Universal Signal Interface from Dakota Digital

http://www.dakotadigital.com/index.cfm/page/ptype=product/product_id=126

 

Have a look down the forum for the Bike Engined Sevens subsection. They might be able to give you some additional ideas. There's no one way to do things naturally

 

 

 

tm

 

[andrew7]

Welcome Hank, its nice to have another BECer around.

 

Your speedo can be fixed with SpeedoHealer, I have it on mine its an easy and inexpensive box. I set mine dead on with a GPS unit.

 

The tire and wheel package weight will make a BIG difference in how lively your car will feel even more so than with a 4cyl car engine. I had 14" aluminum wheels and went to 13" steel, total weight went from 35# to 28#. It was so much more responsive, one of the best changes I did. As you know or will find out the clutch is either in or out and a heavier combo will be that much harder to slip the clutch and get it rolling.

 

My other suggestion is to stay with the motorcycle gauges to pull up error codes. When I went to start my engine for the first time my R1 told me it wasn't starting because the car was laying on its side and the kickstand was down.:yesnod: :toetap:

 

So.....I picked the car up and put the kickstand up and the R1 fired the engine up without hesitation and has run great since. (I move the fallover sensor 90 degrees and shorted the kickstand wires) I could not have started the engine without the gage and diagnosing error codes from the manual.

[evotell]

The Power Commander makes a HUGE difference to the Busa engine not only does it make it smoother but increases the snap.

 

My car here