scannon Posted March 11, 2007 Share Posted March 11, 2007 Cross posted from the Miata.net forum. The Flyin Miata crew brought their new Miata powered Westfield to the Peak to Peak Miata Club's track day at Pueblo Motorsports Park. The car had previously been driven only in a parking lot, so this was to be its first session at speed. The car looks great and the fit and finish are good. During the morning, they worked out a few minor bugs and then started on dialing in the handling. By the afternoon session, things were progressing well enough that I was able to get a ride with Keith. For a car with a stock 1.6 Miata engine (except for a Link in place of the factory ECU) the car is plenty quick. It sounds great, not too loud at WOT, and pleasantly quiet and powerful sounding at less than WOT. At idle, it is almost too quiet. Keith was working on dialing out some understeer and was playing with power on oversteer in a couple of the corners, it made for a fun ride! Turn 7 is a nasty decreasing radius left hander with a patch on the inside that is slicker than the surrounding asphalt. It is very tight and one of the hardest turns on the 2.1 mile, 10 turn track. It is also the slowest, tightest turn. Keith hung the rear out almost every lap, some of them resulting in extreme sideways action, but never spun the car, thanks for the thrills Keith! For a car without any sway bars, it never seemed like the car was leaning excessively. I didn't realize there weren't any bars until after the ride. The ride was supple and not at all harsh on this old, rather bumpy track. The car didn't have the windshield fitted and with nothing to deflect the wind on the passenger side, it was difficult to keep my head upright in the faster sessions, my neck is a little sore from the effort. The passenger footwell is so deep that there is nothing to brace your feet against and with no grab handles, only the seat and the harness keep you in place against the lateral Gs. I found that by pulling my knees up I could brace them against the tunnel and side and I had to hook my right elbow over the cockpit sill and wedge my left arm against the tunnel too keep upright in the corners. This car generates good lateral Gs. The FM crew put in a lot of late night hours during the week to finish the car and get it ready for the track event and the resulting car was a smashing success. AFAIK, nothing broke, fell off or caused major problems. The fact that they got the few bugs worked out early and were able to concentrate on dialing in the handling says a lot for their workmanship. They only took the bonnet off once and I didn't have my camera handy so I didn't get a picture but it looks clean and tidy under there. That's Teri Cardell in the driver's seat and Bill in passenger's seat heading out for Teri's first drive in the car. She was still grinning when she came back in. Skip http://www.usa7s.com/forum/uploads/20070311_110741_DSC02709.JPGhttp://www.usa7s.com/forum/uploads/20070311_110804_DSC02712.JPG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solder_guy Posted March 11, 2007 Share Posted March 11, 2007 Nice! Rob M. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al N. Posted March 11, 2007 Share Posted March 11, 2007 Skip - Thanks for the update and cross-marque info. Hopefully we'll be able to get one of these to make a showing at 7-7-7. I'm keeping fingers and toes crossed — as I feel the Westfield/FM combo will be a very appealing one to people who aren't yet dyed in the wool Se7eners.-Al Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scannon Posted March 11, 2007 Author Share Posted March 11, 2007 Al, I've been working on Bill to do just that ever since he started the Westfield project. I asked again yesterday and he said they were thinking about shipping the car out to the 7-7-7 event, then flying out for the event and shipping it back as they have a busy schedule this summer. I'll keep after him although I was hoping they would trailer it out and caravan with me. Skip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slngsht Posted March 11, 2007 Share Posted March 11, 2007 Lookin' good http://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/images/emoticons/thumbsup.gif Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xflow7 Posted March 11, 2007 Share Posted March 11, 2007 Thanks for posting. Looks great. http://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/images/emoticons/biggrin5.gif Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manik Posted March 12, 2007 Share Posted March 12, 2007 Looks really nice! tmmanik2007-03-12 11:41:43 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Posted March 12, 2007 Share Posted March 12, 2007 Thanks for the kind words, Skip. I was having a bit of fun on that session http://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/images/emoticons/smile5.gif There are a bunch of shots from the track and the build on our website: >http://www.fmwestfield.com. We're really happy with how well the car worked at the track, given that it hadn't even run a week ago. Here's the engine. http://www.flyinmiata.com/westfield/images/IMG_6509.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slngsht Posted March 12, 2007 Share Posted March 12, 2007 Very clean Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R1 Seven Posted March 12, 2007 Share Posted March 12, 2007 Nice job! I think you guys will do very well with the Westfields. Miata + Westfield = match made in heaven. Looking forward to more reports. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
locost7018 Posted March 12, 2007 Share Posted March 12, 2007 Man I hope my enging bay looks that good when I put my Miata engine in. It is going to be a tight fit. I wish you lived closer so I could study it more. Going to be in Colo. in early June but can't get out to see you. My son and I will be at Boy Scout High Adventure Camp near Salida, Russ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kitcat Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 Keith, it is lovely. How much does it weigh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 I haven't weighed it yet. It's not fair to do that until we have all the bits and pieces on. Hopefully tomorrow though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kitcat Posted March 15, 2007 Share Posted March 15, 2007 1315 lbs per their website, with a nearly full gas tank (70lbs?) minus a few bits still to be added. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Posted March 15, 2007 Share Posted March 15, 2007 Yeah, I just weighed it yesterday night. It's a 7 gallon tank, so don't credit it for more than 42 lbs http://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/images/emoticons/smile5.gif Since it's hard to drive the car with an empty tank, I always weigh them full. The remaining parts are probably 10-15 lbs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al N. Posted March 15, 2007 Share Posted March 15, 2007 I'm with Keith on weighing with full tank. Sure, i know we all have different tank sizes...but the whole "weigh with 4 gallons" thing...does that mean you to run the car dry or siphon, then add 4 gal? Keith...will FM lend 7-7-7 some scales? How about if I beg? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Posted March 15, 2007 Share Posted March 15, 2007 Exactly. Fully drained and topped up are the only two easily repeatable conditions, and fully draining a car is a royal pain in the butt and not terribly useful information anyhow. Scales are a pretty expensive piece of kit, Al. I'll ask Bill and I know he's still hoping to make it down there so maybe he can bring them, but I don't know if he'd want to ship them out if we're not going to be around to run them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al N. Posted March 15, 2007 Share Posted March 15, 2007 I've checked into those Longacres...you're not kidding about pricey-ness. Maybe it would make a smart "Club purchase"...and something that could packed up and sent to members on request. How important is finding a truly "flat floor"...and how does one determine what is "flat". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kitcat Posted March 15, 2007 Share Posted March 15, 2007 The race shop that aligns my cars has a special concrete section of its floor that was poured to exact specifications, just to be sure it was totally flat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Posted March 15, 2007 Share Posted March 15, 2007 "Flat" is a fairly simple concept http://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/images/emoticons/smile5.gif Ask any construction worker how to do it. For proper cornerweighting, all the scales have to be level. The floor doesn't have to be, you can spend some time shimming the scales themselves. For simply getting the weight of a car, it's not critical. The cornerweights will be off. I don't remember the lodge parking lot well enough to offer suggestions on where you could set up a set of scales, but it's quite possible that a handy concrete slab would be good enough to get general numbers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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