Westfield v6

[sdh2903]

So the day of the retest. Nothing really to report, everything went to plan and it passed!! I had an email as long as your arm regarding covid protocols which in reality meant wearing a mask.



I had all the registration docs ready to go already so along with the pass cert they were sent off the same day.

Whilst waiting for the v5 to come back i had managed to secure another slot on the dyno. For a few reasons, 1, i had a very small amount of lumpiness at low revs, 2. a brief hesitation between 2-3k and 3. with the stuck vvt solenoid and the potenially gubbed fuel pump it was probably the sensible thing to do.

All went very well and the car was transformed, the fuel pump must have been really struggling as we gained 20bhp and nother 10ftlb meaning headline figures were now 229bhp and 216lbft at the hubs. Figures aside the car was much smoother and pulled very well indeed. Well worth the additional session.



obligatory video

https://youtu.be/-RLexQA-es4

I had also managed to find a set of TD pro1.2s up for sale at a decent price, had always wanted to try 13's as everyone raves about them, the only issue being they came with r888r and theres little real choice from other brands without spending £££ on a set of zzs, dont get me wrong the 888r is a great tyre when its warmish or on a track, but as this is primarily a fast road car and i live in scotland they arent my first choice. Love the look of the 13's though. They filled the arches a treat with only a small spacer too due being a better offset.





Well despite all the goings on in the world the DVLA worked wonders, only 2 weeks from passing IVA the V5 landed, only 1 slight issue theyd registered it as a caterham, which would have gone down well in caterham circles, well not as much as a caterham owner recieving a westfield logbook!. They confirmed the error would be sorted and the reg remain the same so I was free to get out and about!

[sdh2903]

After a couple of evening runs and with the nights drawing in it was apparent the headlights were crap, thought about uprated bulbs but went LED instead.



This is 1 halogen headlight



Vs 1 Led headlight



Bit of a difference!

After a good few runs out I ended up switching back to the 15s. For late autumn runs they were just the wrong tyre, the michelin ps3 on the 15s are so much more confidence inspiring when the temp drops or theres plenty of moisture around. I think i managed to get around 1500 miles on the car before the roads started getting salted with no real issues to report, i had noticed the engine did need a top up of oil now and again, maybe after a 250 mile day it would take 250ml to bring it back up, nothing alarming but 1 to definitly keep an eye on.

[sdh2903]

RX05 said:

I have had my Zetec Westfield for 5 yrs now and whilst I love it, yours is on a different level. Can't think of anything I would change on your car - a really superb job.

Haha I wish I'd stop tinkering with it. More on that later

[sdh2903]

Megaflow said:

Great build and a great looking car.

Can I ask why the V6? It’s an unusual choice, but then again that maybe answers the why question.

Thank you. Well I like doing things the hard way!
In all seriousness I wanted 200bhp. I think it's a sweet spot for one of these in road trim. In the more traditional choices that left c20xe, zetec or duratec. As the cheap crate zetecs have all but vanished it would have meant a rebuild and fettling. And after seeing a guy over on locostbuilders successfully fit the same engine in an mk indy and rave about it I was sold. Especially with the availability of the rocketeer adapters to get a decent box for peanuts as all the 4 cylinder options would have needed 1500 ish for a decent ratio type 9 too.

I really like the aj30 engine. It's torquey right through the range likes to rev and just pulls. 250ish bhp as standard without being tuned to death. Although it's not been without problems, I'll get to that in the next couple of updates as the car is currently about to get it's 3rd engine. Some my fault, some external suppliers fault.

[sdh2903]

Thanks for all the kind words

Monsterlime said:

Bloody brilliant! What a superb build. It does not help my desire for one of these though.

Was over at Raptor Sports Cars in Athelstaneford at the beginning of December with the TVR Car Club, and I ALMOST ordered a chassis from them there and then (I do not currently have garage room which is what stopped me), and I keep looking at donor MX-5s but I am really liking the Jag V6 idea now..

From a cost perspective, if you do not mind me asking, what has it approximately cost? Raptor indicate that you can get one of their basic cars, using an MX-5 donor for around £10k, and I do like how they have started making their own chassis with some nice changes over the standard Caterham etc (chassis is about £1k).

Cost wise, you really can't beat an mx5 based kit for value, id suggest you would have to be very thrifty to get one on the road for 10k, but it can be done, i knew of a westfield mx5 build, prob 5 or so years ago where he managed to do it for 7-8k, but that was re-using as much as was possible from the donor, stripping donor wiring looms, instruments the lot. Don't forget IVA, first registration fee and 1st tax you are getting on for £1k alone.

For my car to get to the point of being ready to IVA, fag packet scribbles suggest i was approaching 15k. That was with the cheaper part built kit to start with and being thrifty in places. Ive spent a bit more since too. But still considerably cheaper than westfield were selling a new zetec kit for.

[sdh2903]

Megaflow said:

Pretty much what I thought you’d say

How long have you been in the WSCC for? I was very active, under a different name until around 10 years ago, when the chairman changed to somebody I did not get along with, indeed most of the club didn’t at that time

Im no longer a member anymore, was between 2017 and 2022, I expressed an alternative opinion to one of the comittee on there when the factory administration was ongoing and it didnt go down well, rather than make any more fuss i just left. Its a great club with some fantastic people that know these things inside and out, but sadly the comittee that run it seems, from the outside anyway, very cliquey, same people recycled into different roles.

[sdh2903]

into winter 2020 and not being able to sit on my hands, I embarked on a mini project to try and utilise 2 sets of triumph throttle bodies instead of the ford inlet. Its the 1 part of the car that i feels lacks character, the induction noise. These bodies are incredibly cheap, i think i paid under 50 quid for 2 sets. They are effectively just the butterflies, leaving the injectors in their stock locations.



Paul from mofast took on the design work and quickly had modelled up some adapters.



And i bought a cheap 3d printer to have a go at some prototyping.







once I knew theyd fit I swapped the filament to something that would take the heat.



Was at this point i started to look at the linkages, with the banks being offset its tricky. I ended up with a twin cable setup.





The cable setup did work to a fashion, however, the adjustment was a nightmare, breathing on one side knocked it out of sync, so decided this was a project that needed a little more thinking through to achieve reliability, so it was shelved for the time being.

[sdh2903]

Spring 21 was here, so after all the usual fiddling about it ended up back where it started, albeit with a new slightly smaller air filter.



then after a couple of runs out i noted a few dribbles of coolant on the garage floor, bugger it was the rad weeping. The manufacturer took it back and sent out a replacement FOC.



June saw the car on track for the first time at a club day at the Kames sprint circuit, nice little place, we had it to ourselves for the day so really relaxed day. Car felt great although the michelin ps3s did struggle after a few laps as it was a pretty abrasive surface.







Now remember the bit where I said about the oil usage, well, on the last run of the day I got a bit brave on the brakes, the oil pressure plummeted and the dash alarm was going nuts, it recovered but was lower than usual. I had a spare litre with me and that only just brought it up onto the dipstick. another litre needed on the way home. Balls. It was always a gamble engine.

With spring/summer here, the last thing i wanted is to be off the road whilst i made up my mind to rebuild or not, so a pal who uses this engine in his kit had a spare that he could sell me, this had a bit more history and had proof of lowish (80 odd thousand) miles. So i went for that. I also spoke to rocketeer about the oil surge issue and they had an updated sump baffle with gates in to prevent oil surge which was duly bought and fitted.

Old one out



'new' engine



A very quick spruce up.



Sump baffle





And back in and running fine

Edited by sdh2903 on Thursday 19th January 19:18

[sdh2903]

The car was approaching its 1st birthday so recieved a suitable gift of some nice carbon wings



And they obviously needed to be tested out with a run around Dumfries and galloway. I know everyone automatically goes for the highlands but there are some cracking roads in and around the borders area.



Now into winter 21/22

I had a decision to make regarding the original engine, the spare had been fine but was still a bit of an unknown, and was using a bit of oil too, not a lot at all but it was using. So with the capex approved i decided to take on my first engine rebuild.

On breaking down the engine found the bores were scored (common issue on early engines) and were going to need a +0.75mm overbore. Parts for rebuild bits from jaguar are eyewatering, but are much more plentiful and cheap in the states, specifically rock-auto, their service is fantastic. The shopping list consisted of

New +0.75 pistons and rings
Full top and bottom end gaskets/seals
New stem seals
New big end and main bearings
Forged rods, went for these as the engine power was still climbing at the 7000 rev soft cut, the rods are the limiting factor here, so the forged rods could take a lift in rev limit.
New genuine oem timing chain kit

Machine shop work consisted of

Block rebore and hone
Heads skim and valves recut if required and fit new stem seals

Bores



Bearings werent too bad, was expecting worse with the loss of oil pressure



Hope I can remember where all this goes

[sdh2903]

B'stard Child said:

Now it all depends on how you count engines

So first engine (unknown condition retired with an Oliver Reed thirst for oil) - can't see how that's your fault

Second engine 80K miles - modified sump to help with oil starvation on track

Is the rebuilt engine the third in which case all good but I have a feeling there is a twist you are going to reveal

Very diligent reading sir

No there's a 3rd completely different engine involved. A couple of twists and much swearing to come yet

[sdh2903]

Winter 21/22, so some other planned improvements were needing sorted.

First thing was the fuel level sender, this had driven me nuts since day one, the readings were all over the place, you'd get random low level warnings and the next second it'd be half full. I ended up just working on the premise that a tank was a safe 200 mile range (of road use). The sensor was a VDO dip tube, invstigating why it was crap revealed its because its effectively a single wire sender with it earthing through the tank, which subsequently earths to the chassis. The AIM dash is incredibly sensitive to electrical noise, and so the earth through the chassis rather than a dedicated earth back to the dash was messing with its head. So the sender unit was replaced with one for a boat that had a dedicated ground rather than through its body, a cheap fix and one that works!



Another fuel related issue was filling it up, with the filler on the back panel it was a pig to fill, constantly shutting it off the pump and sploshing out of the back. I had swayed between putting the filler on the top panel during build but ended up with it in the standard location. So removed the filler cap and the riv nuts and 3d printed a blank filler piece which was bonded in.





And then covered with a new badge, you can actually see here the spilling of fuel during filling had cracked the fog light housing. Filler fitted up top, and 100% easier to fill up now. Anooyed as its a bit of a bodge, but it needed sorting.



Ive never really been a fan of the rear light pods carbon effect finish, so these were removed and painted gloss black.





And then as im a right wheel slut, a new style of TD prorace wheels were on offer at the factory in a decent offset which meany i could lose the big spacers off the back.

[sdh2903]

The engine rebuild was progressing well at this point. The +0.75mm rebore cleared all the scores, and the crank only needed a polish.





Heads came back with a clean bill of health with new stem seals.



Reassembly started



Timing up is pretty straight forward, marks on the aft face of the chain pulleys and then the new chains are paint marked to align with dots on the front face.







Finished up and back in the car.



I also had a notion to repaint the cam covers in a candy red. Bit of a mistake, they were a pain to paint with loads of coats and ended up like a pornstar's lipstick



All ready for first fire up.

[sdh2903]

So at this point i was properly bricking it, but time to get the big boy pants on and fire it up. Firstly id motored it over with no fuel to check we had oil pressure, which it did, so back in with the fuel and it fired right up! Very relieved. It idled really nicely and it sounded sweet as a nut, much quieter with the new chains and tensioners and guides and oil pressure was very healthy.

So the plan was to put a couple of hundred miles on her to run everything in before a trip back to the dyno. First up had a bit of blue smoke, googling suggested this was normal and would slowly die down with mileage whilst the rings bedded in. I started out doing some running in, revving to a certain point and let the engine braking slow it down slowly building the revs up each time. The engine felt ace, noticeably more lively than previously and a fair bit more than the spare. However even after 200 miles i was getting blue smoke and oil consumption was high. bks. Pulling the plugs showed 3 random cylinders across both banks were oiled up.



As a last ditch attempt before admitting defeat tried the old italian tune up with anew set of plugs, no joy. As it was approaching spring 22 again i didnt want to be off the road waiting for engine work and/or parts so the trusty spare engine was called back into service whilst I sorted the rebuilt one. Id previously ordered some carbon flared side panels, Access on the v6 has always been tricky and these just make life so much easier.



In between getting some more miles under her belt i had alook inside the engine to see what was occuring. Another issue noted on tear down was a coolant weep from the HG area in between banks. As the heads had been resurfaced i put this down to using non oem head gaskets.





Internally it was definitly just the 3 cylinders that were causing the issues.



Some light marks on the bores, but you couldn't feel them with a finger nail.



First thing i checked were the piston rings, now i hold my hands up here the rings were very cheap from rockauto from a brand that i hadn't used before, but seemed to have a decent reputation in the states. But on first inspection they looked fine and all had been fitted correctly. After that i wanted the machine shop to re-check the bores, which they did and all measured up true, and they gave the bores a very light clean up which removed the marks. In the end we found that the 2nd oil scraper ring had the dimples stamped incorrectly, so they were all dimpled, but 3 had the dimples effectively on the wrong face. This wasnt really obvious to the naked eye as they are a different design to oem which are very obviously stepped.

So in effect instead of scraping oil down the cylinder 3 were scraping oil upwards into the combustion end.

On the hunt for new rings, this was very tricky, the main reason being the aftermarket oversize pistons had 3mm oil control rings where the oem and most aftermarket used 2.5mm. At the time no other manufacturers had stock of either pistons with 2.5mm lower rings or other rings in 3mm. A trawl through the Mahle catalogue found some in the end for a mazda variant of this engine used in the states. Rock auto were nil stock though. So ended up ordering through a different supplier who claimed to have stock. They didnt. So ended up going on back order with Mahle and along with new head bolts took the best part of 4 months to get here. Thank goodness for the spare engine.



and new oem headgaskets



Bores nicely cleaned



And on with the re-rebuild





All a bit easier 2nd time round.

In the mean time, summer 22 didnt see as much use as i'd like, I work in the travel industry as an engineer and after 2 pretty desolate years with covid, work went mental and felt as though i needed to make the most of it. But did get a few decent runs in. Including a run up to Mallaig for a chippy lunch.

[sdh2903]

Good question.

1. I'd kind of lost faith in them and 2. The machine shop had said to put mahle rings in if available.

The new head bolts were coming from the states anyway as they are 10 quid each in the UK Vs 50 quid delivered for 16 from the states. So at the time I believed the rings were in stock it wasn't going to hold me up. If id known the delays on the rings I'd have probably done what you suggested.

[sdh2903]

wrayvon said:

Out of interest, what is the fitting process for these? Presumably you have to cut out your previous side panels and then rivet these in their place? And if so, did you cut it in situ or remove the whole panel first?

Car looks great by the way!

Thank you, i didnt take any pics of the fitting weirdly, prob too covered in dust . As the tub is one piece I removed the rivets from the front section and then slid in a piece of sheet steel behind the fibreglass to protect the chassis and cut it with a thin slitting disc in the angle grinder. Can see the cut point in the pic below at the end of the footwells.



The carbon panels are then trimmed to length and fitted. I used rivnuts for these so can be removed in 5 mins for access.

scottos said:

This is awesome, i've enjoyed reading this! Glad you're finally sorted too, well i assume so!

You'll have to get some videos up when you can.

Not quite there yet

Another issue that cropped up during the running in miles, the bloody rad started leaking again, this was the second rad and neither had made 2000 miles, this time it was the same failure, leaking at the joint between the core and the end tank. This time the company who supplied it were completely uninterested in providing a resolution, appreciate it was well over 2 years since buying the original but its clearly not durable enough to be fit for purpose. The company owner ended up telling me it was down to the fact I was using an electric water pump and all the failures they have are cars with EWP's and if i wanted anything from him I'd have to take him to court the crazy thing was i never requested or asked for a free of charge replacement, id only asked could it be repaired or if not would a partial refund or discount be available. During this period it also came to light I was not alone with this issue, at least half a dozen other owners had reported failures, some multiples. All different engine and water pump types. So clearly just a crap product.

After a brief phone call with Colin at Creative Aluminium Fabrications had another rad comissioned, this time using a decent quality core and also to a custom size, keeping the same mounting points but an additional 50mm height added onto the lower end. Quality and service was second to none and no issues with it to date.



The car had always kept coolant temps under control very well, however had struggled a bit with oil temps. So the new rad was probably a bit overkill as the increased frontal are probably meant it was now over-cooling during normal use. However the engine does struggle a wee bit with oil temp, continued 'enthusiastic' use would see oil temps creeping up to 120 degrees, so the plan was over this current winter to fit a laminova heat exchanger, which is why I wanted to build in a bit more headroom to the cooling system.

Also over summer 2022, the urge to do something on the induction side returned. Researching this shows that there are a few AJ30s on throttle bodies, but no before/after write ups. The only off the shelf kit from jenvey is also very expensive and even they haven't got any info on any potential gains/losses. Its also way too tall to have a hope of fitting under the bonnet.

During covid I'd started to play around with cad and managed to get OK at some stuff. So Id taken inspiration from the Jenvey lower manifold for their SF throttle bodies, but with a reduced overall height, i ended up with the following design and then started to see about getting them made.

[sdh2903]

Next couple of updates should hopefully bring me up to date.

At the end of summer 2022 the plan was to get the rebuilt engine in (again), bed in the rings and make sure everything is ok before going any further with the throttle bodies. So the spare was whipped out again. During the last 500 miles or so i'd experienced a bit of clutch judder, mainly on downshifts but was spreading into low speed driving too. The competition clutch i used now has a lower torque rating than when I purchased and was possibly starting to overwhelm it a little? Although I never had any slip. On removing the clutch the flywheel did look like its been getting a little warm.



So while it was out dropped it into a local engineering shop to have it checked and resurfaced, it had some really weird wear with some high and low spots, any ways it was resurfaced and looking a lot better



Clutchwise, after reading some decent feedback i went for a bofi racing clutch, https://bofiracing.co.uk/servicing/transmission/cl...

So the engine went back in, made good oil pressure, fired straight up, set straight to a fast idle to carry out leak checks, all good and no bloody smoke!!.

Letting it all cool down however, my joy was very short lived. A whiff of coolant led me to a leak in the central valley again, right from the head gaskets. Just on one cylinder, but then as it cooled more became apparent, oh ffs



A quick rough and ready pressure test rigged up with a schrader valve and a bike pump showed all cylinders on both banks had weepage, some worse than others. I was annoyed at myself with this as i dismissed there being any problem here when i had it the last time, dismissing it as dodgy head gaskets rather than getting the heads checked, but when you've had a machine shop skim them......

Anyway after a couple of days sulking i whipped the heads off, and yes youve probably guessed they weren't flat. I took them into the engineering shop that did the flywheel. He confirmed theyd fked the heads, longitudinally flat, but not laterally. So the faces at the inner edges were rounded off, meaning the gaskets would seal the waterways. You can see below with the engineers blue



He reckoned that they would need a good chunk taking off to get them flat and without knowing exactly how much was taken off first time round they were effectively scrap. I went straight to the place that did the work on the way home and was expecting them to deny any wrong doing, however the owner didnt, they held their hands up, admitted theyd fked up, he suspected someone who wouldnt normally do that task had done them, gave me the money back i paid for the work and some on top. I didnt expect them to be so open and I could have probably pushed for more in hindsight but whats done is done, no point dwelling on it.

Now what to do. The cheapest option would have been to use the heads off the spare engine (after a refurb) or write off this troublesome engine all together and totally rebuild the spare, using a different machine shop obviously. I did price up all the parts again on rockauto and with the dollar exchange rate being st things were a lot more expensive than first time round. I had also stumbled across some brand new crate engines for sale at a very reasonable price, for just just over 2k. After a bit of deliberation I ended up going with the brand new engine.

Engine #3



Engine came fully dressed, so lots of brand new oem bits to sell, stripped down.



Nice to open one up and everything is pristine.



So far between the new stuff and salvageable old stuff ive recouped well over half the cost of the new engine, without having to resort to man maths its actually working out to be the sensible choice.

Edited by sdh2903 on Thursday 26th January 20:21

[sdh2903]

Waitey said:

Kind of the road based twin of mine that I built in 2017



I went for a 300bhp Duratec as it was a cheap-ish option for the power in a used engine from a crashed race car.

I was told the Jag 6 was too wide, but evidentially not!

I'd suggest going to someone like CSK Race Exhausts for your manifolds and cans though as the chinesium ones are a bit well errr yeah!

Your car was the colour inspiration for mine. I think i got paul to go 1 ral code lighter just so it wasn't the same

I hear you on the manifolds, they are cheapo but do work, and other v6s who've done the tubular custom manifolds havent really seen much in the way of gains, especially vs the cost with making effectively 2 systems. The chinesium ones are still a bit better than the oem ones which are effectively just a log manifold. Its something that remains on the to-do list.

[sdh2903]

Having had a look over the new one, there are a few subtle changes. The cam position sensors have moved from the rear of the engine to the front, the cam tooth pattern is the same, so just need to extend the loom. The vvt solenoids have a different connector, managed to find them so again shouldnt be a problem. The breather system has changed, the PCV has moved from a tank in the central valley to the top of the cam cover, i run with out the valve to a catch can anyway. And the cam covers have changed for the better from plastic to aluminium. Other than that they seem the same.

Back to the throttle bodies, after drawing up the lower manifold i started to make enquiries with several fabricators and machining companies about getting them made. The concensus was to get them machined froma single billet would be serious money needing a 5 axis machine so was swaying towards getting the flanges water jetted then getting tube welded between, the complication being the transition from round throttle body to oval inlet, a 45mm id tube was very close when crushed into the oval. However I struggled to get any real enthusiasm or commitment for someone to take it on, even a couple of places that are specialists in this stuff. I guess because theres not such a big market to replicate them. In the end I was directed to a guy called Nige at camefi (sadly heard they've just ceased trading) who said to email the files to his mate in Australia who does all his machining, I was very sceptical at this point, but having dealt with him the guy knows his onions and is something to do with bmw racing in oz, when he says my job is next in the queue after hes finished a billet v10 block you feel as though your in decent hands

He said the machining wouldnt be a problem and he'd supply a set of KMS throttle bodies and custom fuel rails too. All for a very reasonable price, significantly less than the comparable jenvey kit.

Manifolds





Along with all the other goodies.



And mocked up on the engine.





And that brings me up to date really, am just waiting for some waterjet plates to arrive to refine the engine mounts a little before dropping the engine in and start bolting it all back together.

[sdh2903]

Waitey said:

I hope you didn’t take it as negative on what you’ve done. I think it’s fantastic!

I think seeing the three primaries coming out of the side then meeting in a collector before the silencer would look cool as hell!

Why didn’t you stick with 3d printing for the ITB’s out of interest? After seeing some carbon nylon mixes, I want to try a manifold made from it. They seem to last really well!

No not at all! I totally agree. Everyone I look at the current manifolds I think the same. It will happen at some point.

Ref the 3d printing. If I was keeping the original injector locations in the OEM lower manifold and just needing the adapters I would have 3d printed. But because these are now 'wet' I went alloy. The other consideration was cost. I couldnt home print them in a single piece and getting them done externally in a material that would cope was pretty expensive, comparable to the cost of the aluminium ones.

[sdh2903]

Krikkit said:

That crate engine seems like a right bargain! Great update as ever, really enjoying it.

Yes it definitely was. The only other place selling them I found was listing them at 4.5k. Retail book price from Jag was just over 10k.

Some other mind boggling figures, when cross referencing all the part numbers of all the ancillaries and parts I didn't need the total was well over 4k. The AC pump alone from Jag is 1100