BEC

[toonbarmy]

Hi guys,
I have been looking at bike engined kit cars for a few weeks now and just want some pointers, i am looking to buy one, possibly this weekend. I am looking at the smaller engined ones such as the zx9r and fireblade varieties but the 0-60 times i have seen dont really look that impressive (over 5 seconds). Am i being sucked in by the 0-60 times and overlooking something or ................? I have about a 6.5k budget.
Cheers

[Jon Ison]

There was a R1 engined Mk indy for sale on locostbuilders may still be there, £5k, forget the numbers quoted and ignore whatever anyone else tells you, you will not out accelerate a BEC to 60 (and more) unless you have dug into your pocket to the tune of 10's of £ks.

[toonbarmy]

Thats just what i wanted to hear mate, thank you very much! i was beginning to think i was going to be wasting my money!
I rang that car at the weekend but its been sold, utter bargain and not far from me either, i was devastated. There are a couple of contenders around at the moment, unfortunately they are no where near me so i am praying for the weather to stay decent so i have the option of driving it back at the weekend!

[Sam_68]

Jon Ison said:

...you will not out accelerate a BEC to 60 (and more) unless you have dug into your pocket to the tune of 10's of £ks.

Oh, I wouldn't necessarily say that.

£15K will buy you 3.1 seconds to 60 and 8 seconds to 100 with a car engine, if you know where to look, and 4.2 seconds/circa 10 seconds is easy enough to find in a comfy touring sports car with leather and walnut for around £12K... and you won't be bouncing off the rev limiter at motorway cruising speeds, either.

You do need to be realistic and not get obsessive with acceleration figures, though: even if you can theoretically achieve very low standing-start acceleration times, they're difficult to manage in practice on road tarmac (due to traction issues on very light cars), very abusive to the drivetrain (particularly on BECs - make sure you have a supply of spare clutches and gearbox dogs if you plan on making a habit of it), and pretty pointless.

[Stubby Pete]

If you fancy a trip down to the West Coutry, I'll take you out in mine!
(any excuse to scare people when the weather's fine)

[jason61c]

I wouldn't worry about those sorts of figures..... A CEC will be just as quick on the road in the real world, whatever you buy will feel fast, just get the one that looks the best built, there's some cracking BEC's for sale at the minute, have you seen the yellow fury on ebay?

[toonbarmy]

Stubby Pete said:

If you fancy a trip down to the West Coutry, I'll take you out in mine!
(any excuse to scare people when the weather's fine)

i'd love to mate but i am oop north! cheers for the offer though

jason61c said:

I wouldn't worry about those sorts of figures..... A CEC will be just as quick on the road in the real world, whatever you buy will feel fast, just get the one that looks the best built, there's some cracking BEC's for sale at the minute, have you seen the yellow fury on ebay?

Yeah i have been looking at that one along with a tiger b6, if they are both the same real world performance then i'd rather have the BEC i think, it'll be lighter and so more agile (in theory) plus the sound track would be quite addictive i'd think!

Anyone any opinions on MK indy vs Tiger B6?

Edited by toonbarmy on Friday 4th June 07:59

[Jon Ison]

How far up north are you ?

Not going to get involved in which car is best debate that's your choice I'm afraid, what I will suggest though is pop over to locostbuilders, you will be able to blag a ride over the weekend then you can make a more informed choice.

I'm just off J29 M1, with a user name like yours I guess your just a tad more north ?

[toonbarmy]

Jon Ison said:

How far up north are you ?

Not going to get involved in which car is best debate that's your choice I'm afraid, what I will suggest though is pop over to locostbuilders, you will be able to blag a ride over the weekend then you can make a more informed choice.

I'm just off J29 M1, with a user name like yours I guess your just a tad more north ?

Thanks for the advice mate, i will get myself over there now, i already have an account on there.
I'm from Newcastle mate so yeah a little bit more northerly than you.

[Busa_Rush]

BEC versus CEC . . . yawn . . . It's not that one is faster than another, it's that one makes you feel different and has a seq gearbox for free. Running up through the gears on a BEC makes you 'feel' like a racing driver (!) . . . OK, bit of a weak point but it makes you feel like you're working the car harder, getting more noise and changing gear more often in most cases, it's a different experience.

A CEC for similar price doesn't have the noise, the gearbox or the lack of weight. You can certainly feel the front suspension is much lighter and more agile on a BEC compared to a Zetec or Vx CEC.

But as for 0-60 . . . irrelevant and both sill be fast, maybe a BEC slightly faster.

All this changes if you spend more money and get into CEC's with 250+ bhp Vx or Duratec engines or Honda S2000 etc . . .

[Toilet Duck]

Busa_Rush said:

But as for 0-60 . . . irrelevant and both sill be fast, maybe a BEC slightly faster.

All this changes if you spend more money and get into CEC's with 250+ bhp Vx or Duratec engines or Honda S2000 etc . . .

Sorry for the derail, but is this the approximate tipping point; i.e. BEC is "better" unless comparing to CEC with 250BHP+?

I've been wanting to get a 7 type kit car for a long time and regularly read up on threads/look at the classifieds etc, but I'm not yet in a position to buy one. I had it in my head that I either want a BEC or a CEC specifically with S2000 running gear; as that gives good power as standard and can be safely supercharged if desired.

[rhinochopig]

Not once in any of the cars I've owned or driven have a I done a 0-60 run. I think I'm in the majority here with this too. 0-60 is pointless. TBH I think a BEC is more about corners than speed. The lack of weight really does help in those bends, and seq box allows you bang through the gears mid corner with less affect to the handling balance of the car - you really can take liberties when you swap cogs.

[jason61c]

Toilet Duck said:

Busa_Rush said:

But as for 0-60 . . . irrelevant and both sill be fast, maybe a BEC slightly faster.

All this changes if you spend more money and get into CEC's with 250+ bhp Vx or Duratec engines or Honda S2000 etc . . .

Sorry for the derail, but is this the approximate tipping point; i.e. BEC is "better" unless comparing to CEC with 250BHP+?

I've been wanting to get a 7 type kit car for a long time and regularly read up on threads/look at the classifieds etc, but I'm not yet in a position to buy one. I had it in my head that I either want a BEC or a CEC specifically with S2000 running gear; as that gives good power as standard and can be safely supercharged if desired.

For pure straight line 1/4 mile stuff it seems a cec needs a healthy 200bhp to beat a hayabusa engined car over a 1/4 mile, think the MK club went to a drag strip and over the measured distance the 'fast' CEC were quicker. I'm sure on a twisty track it'd take more skill and bhp to match a large 1200CC+ BEC.

One of the quickest cars that day was a vx redtop running 210bhp.

[toonbarmy]

jason61c said:

For pure straight line 1/4 mile stuff it seems a cec needs a healthy 200bhp to beat a hayabusa engined car over a 1/4 mile, think the MK club went to a drag strip and over the measured distance the 'fast' CEC were quicker. I'm sure on a twisty track it'd take more skill and bhp to match a large 1200CC+ BEC.

One of the quickest cars that day was a vx redtop running 210bhp.

I see what your saying about needing a 200bhp CEC to match a busa engined car, but what sort of CEC would be needed to match a BEC putting out 125-140bhp? Would a C20XE do the job?

[rhinochopig]

toonbarmy said:

jason61c said:

For pure straight line 1/4 mile stuff it seems a cec needs a healthy 200bhp to beat a hayabusa engined car over a 1/4 mile, think the MK club went to a drag strip and over the measured distance the 'fast' CEC were quicker. I'm sure on a twisty track it'd take more skill and bhp to match a large 1200CC+ BEC.

One of the quickest cars that day was a vx redtop running 210bhp.

I see what your saying about needing a 200bhp CEC to match a busa engined car, but what sort of CEC would be needed to match a BEC putting out 125-140bhp? Would a C20XE do the job?

Ignore the straight line stuff it's largely irrelevant. One of the key benefits of a BEC is the box and engine weigh (relatively) nothing compared to a CEC engine and box making a BEC typically 100kg lighter than a CEC. This has a huge effect on cornering and braking, which is where lap times come from.

[mr_fibuli]

toonbarmy said:

I am looking at the smaller engined ones such as the zx9r and fireblade varieties but the 0-60 times i have seen dont really look that impressive (over 5 seconds)
Cheers

What car is that? The official figures for my Fireblade engined Westfield are 0-60 in 4.2, and 100 in 11.7.

While people rarely do aggressive 0-60 record attempts in real life, I still find the figures (along with 0-100) a useful benchmark when comparing how quick a car will feel on the road. They tend to be fairly proportional to power to weight ratio.

This site gives surprisingly accurate figures based on just power, weight and drive type: http://www.letstorquebhp.com/calculator.asp Put in 130bhp + 460 kg for a Megablade and the numbers agree quite closely with Westfield's.

[rhinochopig]

mr_fibuli said:

toonbarmy said:

I am looking at the smaller engined ones such as the zx9r and fireblade varieties but the 0-60 times i have seen dont really look that impressive (over 5 seconds)
Cheers

What car is that? The official figures for my Fireblade engined Westfield are 0-60 in 4.2, and 100 in 11.7.

While people rarely do aggressive 0-60 record attempts in real life, I still find the figures (along with 0-100) a useful benchmark when comparing how quick a car will feel on the road. They tend to be fairly proportional to power to weight ratio.

This site gives surprisingly accurate figures based on just power, weight and drive type: http://www.letstorquebhp.com/calculator.asp Put in 130bhp + 460 kg for a Megablade and the numbers agree quite closely with Westfield's.

Except your megablade will be closer to 550kg than 460kg.

[matt frost]

rhinochopig said:

mr_fibuli said:

toonbarmy said:

I am looking at the smaller engined ones such as the zx9r and fireblade varieties but the 0-60 times i have seen dont really look that impressive (over 5 seconds)
Cheers

What car is that? The official figures for my Fireblade engined Westfield are 0-60 in 4.2, and 100 in 11.7.

While people rarely do aggressive 0-60 record attempts in real life, I still find the figures (along with 0-100) a useful benchmark when comparing how quick a car will feel on the road. They tend to be fairly proportional to power to weight ratio.

This site gives surprisingly accurate figures based on just power, weight and drive type: http://www.letstorquebhp.com/calculator.asp Put in 130bhp + 460 kg for a Megablade and the numbers agree quite closely with Westfield's.

Except your megablade will be closer to 550kg than 460kg.

Really? How do you work that out?

Most Megabusa's come in around 500kg's and the blade is a much smaller engine with no need for a dry sump. Most blades are probably 460kg! I don't know where you are getting 550 from? Or are you referring to weight with a driver being in the car?

[Jon Ison]

My locost, a loose copy of the megablade weighs in at 440kg wet with a busa fitted.

[mr_fibuli]

Where do you get 550 from? Mine definitely weighs 460, and that's not particularly light for a Blade...

Or are you including the driver? Which granted, does make a much bigger dent in the power to weight ratio of a BEC than a 2 ton barge - but the figures from Westfield were probably set with a driver on board And that website I quoted takes driver weight into account too.