Modernising an older kit car

[Sea-Doo]

I would like a 'seven' type bike engine kit car that although is road legal would spend a lot of time on the track.

Due to time constraints with work & family and budgets I have thought the best way may be to buy an older Westfield or similar (pinto engine) for around £4-5k and slowly upgrade/rebuild.

Something like this for example:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Westfield-OTHER-1-6-CVH-...

I would want to swap in a bike engine (R1 seems popular), upgrade brakes etc, I am competent with spanners so no worries there.

Is the above common in the kit car world, has anyone else gone down this route?

I obviously want to go into eyes wide open with as much info as possible so if anyone can offer advice on what I need to consider (or a forum) that would be helpful.

[Mr MXT]

My car started life as a 1.6 cross flow, engine swapped by the previous owner then further upgraded by me.

If you started with that car in the link, which looks like a narrow body so not the best start point IMO you'd need

Engine
ECU
Dry sump system
Loom
Diff
Wheels And Tyres
Proper roll bar or cage
New bonnet
Decent Seats

Adding that up you're getting towards 7k+ which would out you in a decent ready done BEC

[Sea-Doo]

I understand your point, but my thoughts were that this could be a work,in progress having a usable car whilst upgrading.

[Sea-Doo]

That link (which was only an example) says wide body, although I'm not sure how to tell the difference

[greengreenwood7]

there's a line between enjoying the process of upgrading/working on a car and the real cost of doing improvements. We often get asked for advice from newbies in our Club and singularly the most often quoted piece of advice - which i believe holds good is this.
If you want to, really want to tinker to the nth degree and arent fussed about money - then upgrading should be considered, however pound for pound in 99% of the cases you'll get more value just buying what you wnat in the 1st place......
rough examples of potential costs ( without selling on redundant bits)
brakes - decent fronts = £4-650
rears - well standard fine, but if someone going the whole hog - another 4-500
seats = 250
wheels = 400
lights = 100-150
mirrors = 100+
engine/ecu/exhaust etc 2500-3500+
tonneau 250-300
and the list goes on. engine wise, no doubt some will say it can be done for less, but there again it can cost more than that.

I realise this isnt quite the same as you asked....but we see guys buying pinto engined cars and excliaming that they'll swap out the engine in a few months.....again 99% of the time they';d have done better to dig deep for another cple of grand and just bought the right spec to start with.

anyway, have fun!!

[Sea-Doo]

Sounds like good advice.

Thinking that a 80-90% complete BEC might be a better option, there seem to be a few around.