Westfield Mega S2000?

[Davemk1]

Does anyone have direct experience with the Westfield Mega S2000? I wonder what your experiences have been - the car looks interesting to me.

 

dave

[JohnCh]

I don’t have the Mega S2000, but I’ve had my SEiW for about 12 years. The only real differences between the Mega S2000 and my car are engine/gearbox, and the transmission tunnel is a little wider to accommodate the bigger Honda unit. Therefore, foot room is a little tighter than in my car. Although Westfields are very popular in the UK, they’ve never really seemed to catch on over here, and for some reason, virtually none of the owners participate on USA7s.com, so not lot of information on this side of the pond. However, the forum at WSCC.co.uk is a vibrant community and a great resource. Westfield places a larger onus on the builder than Caterham, so the end result is a little more dependent on their thoroughness. There’s nothing that requires additional skill, but there are more opportunities for shortcuts that can impact the end product. The flip side is there are more opportunities to take things to the next level and make the car exceptional.

 

My Westfield started life as a crossflow powered car that was used for magazine tests in the mid 90’s, including Road & Track who gave it a positive review and praised the build quality. I disagree with the latter. I didn’t seem that the assembly was done with great care, and it looked a bit cheap in places. This is when Westfield seemed to have some steam in the US marketplace and most of the cars were assembled by the same person in the US. My personal opinion is that the build quality of these cars, including the chassis setup, was not up to par and negatively impacted the marque in this country. The car was fun, but it definitely had a kit car vibe to it, and underway it felt more vintage sports car than back road weapon.

 

After undergoing a complete rebuild in ‘03/’04 where virtually everything but the frame was replaced and upgraded, the car was transformed. Even the fiberglass quality of the body was noticeably improved in the intervening years. The cars are sensitive to a proper alignment, and getting the rake wrong can really impact the handling, but get it right, and it handles beautifully. I’ve driven a highly specced Caterham on several occasions, and even considered buying it, but at the end of the day, I didn’t like it any better than my car. There were aspects about each car that I preferred, but ultimately it was a wash -- they are both great cars.

 

There is more info in the Westfield section of my site, including some build pictures. Feel free to ping me if you have any specific questions other than engine/transmission.

 

Edited to add: I forgot to mention that the Mega S2000 uses some of the chassis improvements from the Sport Turbo, so it has a revised front suspension, and improved stiffness from my earlier generation chassis.

 

-John

[manik]

There are no members on this forum who own the Westfield MegaS2000 kit/car, although there are a few under construction here in the U.S. at present.

 

The Complete Kit Car magazine article on the MegaS2000 is a good reference point:

http://manikllc.com/reference.html

 

 

tom

[Davemk1]

There are no members on this forum who own the Westfield MegaS2000 kit/car, although there are a few under construction here in the U.S. at present.

 

The Complete Kit Car magazine article on the MegaS2000 is a good reference point:

http://manikllc.com/reference.html

 

 

tom

 

Thanks for the reply - I just sent you an email at your company address.

 

Thanks again,

 

 

dave