Fiat Twin-Cam Powered Westfield

Fiat Twin-Cam Powered Westfield

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benedwards64

Original Poster:

2,343 posts

133 months

Wednesday 6th August 2014
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Thought I'd put a few word up on my latest purchase - something I admittedly have very little previous experience with. I should explain that I'm good friends with the previous owner of this car, so (hopefully!) it's not as much of a punt as it might initially seem...

How not to buy a car, vol. 17:

Drive 2 ½ hours north in an MR2 with a freshly built top-end in Friday evening traffic. Arrive c. 9pm, kick the tyres a bit and have some pizza. Have a quick whistle-stop tour of the purchase (“That’s your windscreen-wiper switch. Don’t forget that one.”) and then head off at 10.30pm in a newly purchased car you’ve never driven before, in the dark, in a fixed seat that doesn’t fit you, to Shorpe. Panic about the amount of fuel in the tank (no gauge!), get lost in Shorpe and eventually get directions off a pair of very jealous chavs in MacDonald’s carpark. Place cover (pond-liner and bungees, crude yet effective!) over car, check into hotel and collapse into bed.

Next day: sleep through alarm, miss breakfast and walk out of the hotel as it starts raining. Drive newly-purchased and still very alien car (with no windscreen!) to Blyton Park circuit in the rain: terrifying. Feel silly for organising Toyota trackday and then turning up in a British car with an Italian engine, then gingerly head out onto a patchy damp track. Dodge rain storms, damp tracks, faster cars, slower cars (not many!) and eventually decide that I should probably point my plastic nose-cone down the 180 miles to home. Rains: get wet. Sunny: dry off. This cycle repeated pretty much all the way down South, until I came off the M40 onto the Oxford ring road into a truly biblical rainstorm. Never been more wet or more terrified in my life, aquaplaning at 50mph whilst looking up into the wheelarches of passing lorries is definitely not the one! Arrive home, car into garage and drip my soggy way straight into a hot bath.

Oh what fun biggrin

So there we have it, I’m now the owner of a very silly and fantastically fun little Westfield. It’s a great little car with enormous potential, and my plans basically are to tinker with it, improve little bits here and there and generally enjoy it whist keeping a steady eye on the weather forecast hehe

The engine is a recently-rebuilt Fiat Lampredi 2-litre twin cam running R1 carbs, high compression pistons, high-lift cams, a Volumex head and plenty of other tasty little bits and pieces. It also has ARBs front and rear (rare for a kit, I understand), a front wide track kit, Quaiffe LSD and a digidash. We think that it was originally built as a racer or sprint car and then later converted and SVA’d for road use – the underlying build seems to be pretty good but a lot of the cosmetic bits are a bit slap-dash (uneven front wheelarches, wonky numberplates and loose mirrors are a bit of a clue). I think the wiring needs some attention as well as the temperature readouts seem to vary depending on how many electric things I have switched on, and the suspension is clearly set up for track use so that’ll need some attention and setting up as well to make it a little more supple over Oxfordshire��s finest back-roads. I may also look at a couple of other things to make it a little more friendly, such as swapping out the GRP seats, sourcing a tonneau cover and maybe even fitting a windscreen if I get excitable :lol:

Having spanked all my spare money on a pile of stone and mortar most of this will have to wait for a while, so in the meantime I’ll be doing plenty of local (sunny!) journeys in the westy to get used to its little ways and see if there’s anything else that needs attention. I’m already having to completely re-calibrate my ideas of what are acceptable cornering speeds biggrin

A few phone pics will have to do for now until I sit down with the proper camera....

A rare dry moment at Blyton:



Obligatory petrol station shot:



With its stablemate!





After a quick wash:







Sumptuous interior:



Wonk!







The family all together:



Yes, ramps necessary!



Mixing with the big kids at Homebase biggrin



Italy’s finest (and god it sounds good!):





Edited by BenWRXSEi on Tuesday 8th November 01:48

Uncle John

4,269 posts

190 months

Wednesday 6th August 2014
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Looks very nice and makes me wish I had my old car back.

Different engine option to the norm but those Fiat Twin Cams are decent as standard so with the work it must be a little belter.

LSD and ARB's are a great addition.

Needs a grille on the front and the photos of the build looks fine. Love the red. Enjoy.

Jealous? Mois........

FRA53R

1,077 posts

167 months

Wednesday 6th August 2014
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Amazing! sounds like it was a good adventure to get it too! Do you have any vids so we can hear the great sound?

grenpayne

1,975 posts

161 months

Wednesday 6th August 2014
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Very nice indeed thumbup I think the colour looks great and the spec seems pretty good too. What does the engine weigh out of interest?

I tend to favour early Sunday morning blasts in the 7 across rural South Oxfordshire so I'll keep an eye out for you beer

wongthecorrupter

2,382 posts

170 months

Wednesday 6th August 2014
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Cracking engine that fiat twin cam, I had a fiat strada abarth 130 some years ago. That had the fiat twin cam engine

viggyp

1,917 posts

134 months

Wednesday 6th August 2014
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wongthecorrupter said:
Cracking engine that fiat twin cam, I had a fiat strada abarth 130 some years ago. That had the fiat twin cam engine
The 130 had the definitive naturally aspirated version on the twin cam lump. Great engine.

Great car OP. Looks a riot.

benedwards64

Original Poster:

2,343 posts

133 months

Wednesday 6th August 2014
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Thank you all. I rather like it biggrin

No video as yet, although I'll try and get some this weekend. It's pretty special when it comes on cam though.

In terms of engine weight I'm not too sure tbh. A quick internet search turned up this:

Block & caps 45kg
Head built less manifolds 25kg
Crank 18.5kg

So wet weight with ancillaries should be the right side of 150kg with any luck. The rest of it is pretty minimalist, certainly!

tr7v8

7,185 posts

227 months

Wednesday 6th August 2014
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I built & sold a Westie with a Fiat Twink in it quite a few years ago. Bought a crashed SEIW & had the factory repair it. Rescued a 131 Mirafiori Sport engine & gearbox & set to building it up. The Fiat box was too big so ended up with a Ford type 9 on an adapter plate. Got a fair way down the build then sold it, to a guy on the 7 forum (Phil Lawrence?) He built it up got it running & then was offered a large sum for it before he got it on the road. All of this was 11 years plus ago.

BoRED S2upid

19,641 posts

239 months

Thursday 7th August 2014
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Very nice. I picked up my Westfield in the rain and it broke down 20 miles from home not a great 1st trip but I soon forgot about it. Top marks for the track day booked the next day!

benedwards64

Original Poster:

2,343 posts

133 months

Friday 22nd August 2014
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So, what's new? Not a lot in all honesty, turns out moving house takes up a lot of spare time! :lol:

Still, a bit of progress has been made with the little westie...

First off, the entirely useless mirrors have been replaced with some lightly convex units:

Before:


After:


It's hard to show through photos, but if you compare how big the rear wing is in each pic it should give you an idea as to how much more you can see with the new mirrors smile


Couple more engine bay pics, just because:





Other than that, I've just been driving it and compiling a list of what needs attention. The main issue is that it has clearly been set up for track use - the suspension is too low and too hard for road use, so I've got it booked into Northampton Motorsport in a couple of weeks time for full suspension setup, corner weighting and alignment which should make it far better behaved on the road.

I've given myself the job this weekend of fitting the seat in a position that's comfortable for me - so it'll need raising slightly and moving forward slightly to accommodate my 'compact' frame :lol:

I'm also getting a bit of sticking brakes which I think is the pedal mechanism - I'll investigate tomorrow as well.

Other than that, the electrics will need looking at. The digidash in particular is in complete fantasy land (either that or my coolant temp really does fluctuate between 80 and 149 C on a seemingly random basis! Not to mention tho oil pressure shooting up when I turn the lights/fan/indicators on...) and I'm starting to think I need to fit an indicator/full-beam stalk in place of the current dash buttons which are pretty hard to find in the daytime, let alone when it's dark. Still, didn't stop me enjoying a nice evening blat earlier on smile


firemunki

361 posts

130 months

Saturday 23rd August 2014
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I love the exhaust + manifold. Dunno why but 4 very individual pipes sticking out the front looks very cool.

Tickle

4,879 posts

203 months

Saturday 23rd August 2014
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Good buy, it looks really good.

Keep up the thread posts too, enjoyable reading.


benedwards64

Original Poster:

2,343 posts

133 months

Saturday 23rd August 2014
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Thanks guys, glad you're enjoying it. I have to say it's all a bit of a learning curve for me - I've historically been a Japanese car man and relied a lot on specialist garages, but I'm determined to do as much of my own fettling as possible on this one. Even if it does take bloody ages to do a seemingly simple task...!

Little update from today:

Shower cap purchased!



And, thanks to the British summer, tested:



All dry inside! biggrin

Today's achievements also include refitting the seat in such a way as I can actually reach the pedals. No more pillow/cushion combo for me! No pics of the during I'm afraid, was too busy swearing at it, but here's an 'after' shot:



I now have some storage space! Hooray for being short!





Also managed to sort out the sticking brake mechanism. It turned out the bias adjuster was too biased towards the rears, and the position of the mechanism meant it was twisted slightly and thus not moving freely. A quick adjustment (once I'd worked out what did what!) and I now have freely moving brakes again. And, now the bias is roughly where it should be, bloody fantastic brakes as well! Seriously, the first time I used them in anger was like hitting a wall :shock:

benedwards64

Original Poster:

2,343 posts

133 months

Monday 25th August 2014
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Today's contemplations....

From this:




To this?





idea

benedwards64

Original Poster:

2,343 posts

133 months

Wednesday 17th September 2014
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Well, had a very constructive trip up to Northampton Motorsport on Saturday. As I sort of expected, it wasn't going to be as simple as just setting up the existing dampers and doing the geo from there – there are a couple of issues with the existing set-up. First of all, while the fronts have the full 20-odd clicks of adjustment, the adjusters on the rears are FUBAR. On one side I have 5 clicks, and on the other none. Hmm.

Being a Saturday we weren't able to get any replacements there and then, so given that the geo was so far out I opted to continue with the corner-weight and geo set-up. First off, to stop the rear tyre rubbing and the sump-guard dragging itself along the road quite so often, the ride-height was raised an inch at the rear and half an inch at the front. Following this a full alignment done based on track/fast road settings. These changes highlighted another issue with the shocks: they're too short. They need to be about an inch longer all round to give me the suppleness and travel I need. This, coupled with the stiff springs and my sub-10st weight means that the back end can still feel quite skittish over bumps, as effectively it will easily lift the inside rear on bumpy corners. There’s barely any sag. Not ideal, but still the difference now that all the wheels are pointing in the right direction is still night-and-day – it’s far more driveable and controllable as long as the road is pretty smooth. The A43 roundabouts were a lot of fun on the way home biggrin

I was also met there by a chap from the Westfield club who had a lovely box of goodies for me – a complete set of analogue gauges which will eventually make up my new dash layout. Barny will be having my digidash for his new build, which I’m very much looking forward to seeing!

I also spent Sunday at the Javelin/TSS Sprint day at Croft, playing pit-crew for a friend with his MR2. Had lots of fun watching a certain Duratec-powered SEIW blitzing almost everything else there – think I could be tempted to join in with this next year as it’s a good mix of cars, people and talent.

So, jobs for winter:
- New dash set-up (argh, electrics!)
- New longer and softer shocks and springs all round, plus another set-up at NMS
- Purchase tow-hook (and possibly new tow-car, more on that soon...)
- Get noise-tested somewhere…

Up she goes!


Geo before:


And after:


And the ride-height now (yes, this is raised an inch!)

Mr MXT

7,691 posts

282 months

Wednesday 17th September 2014
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wavey from Barnys chauffeur...

benedwards64

Original Poster:

2,343 posts

133 months

Wednesday 17th September 2014
quotequote all
Ah, hello! wavey

sideways man

1,306 posts

136 months

Wednesday 17th September 2014
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Hi. Saw the topic an thought I'd call over.
I'm an ex multiple westfield owner,the first having a lancia delta 1600 turbo motor. Not claiming this to be a unique combination,just very rare! Seemed to handle well,a nice combination of torque and progressive power- unusual in a turbo,especially one that old.

Looking forward to this thread immensely smile

benedwards64

Original Poster:

2,343 posts

133 months

Thursday 18th September 2014
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Blimey, that sounds like an exciting combination! I'm still learning my way around the car really, it's so unlike anything I've had before (in a good way!). Might see if I can get down to an Abingdon trackday at some point as it's only half an hour from me, be a good starting point to see what else needs doing before next year.

sideways man

1,306 posts

136 months

Friday 19th September 2014
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Have done a few track days in mine,they really are quite at home on a track. Light weight means they don't use up tyres/brakes, unlike a normal car.

With a set of competition brake pads ( I use mintex m171),new brake fluid,and some decent tyres ( again ,I use yokohama a048) that is all you really need to change on them. The major differences between my road car and the race guys is lack of windscreen and heater!