Carl Meek's Build & Race Diary for the Westfield Duratec

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Showing 602kg, which includes a 75kg driver. Fully fuelled the car weighs 527.







It was all going well on the rolling road, we'd been mapping for over 3 and a half hours, got up to throttle site 11, when the pulley wheel for the dry sump system decided to fall on the floor. Paniccing we tried to kill the engine, but an earlier electrical 'botch' made to connect the alternator in had rendered the kill switch useless. Unfortunately the engine ran for an extra few seconds with no oil. We reconnected it, and started the engine back up again, and there appeared to be no problems. However, we can't be exactly sure when it stopped turning, so it may have run pretty fast with no oil. The guys said that often it would be 100% fine, but i would be best inspecting the big end and main bearings to make sure. We aborted all mapping for the evening - it had gone very well and the lion's share of the work had been done with the exception of the final throttle sites to check the ignition and fuel maps. The fuel map was very different to the base map, mine looking much flatter. Turns out the bolt was an 8.8 and needed to be a 12.9, and likely hadn't been torqued high enough. I couldn't use the original ford bolt because it had a massive washer fitted that could not be removed - i had gone and bought another bolt. I think i can do the inspecting of the bearings from the underside of the car without jacking it up. Pop off the sump pan, uncrack con rod #1 and #4 and the main cradle, and check everything looks good. If there are problems i will need to take the engine out, as the gearbox being connected to the crank means i can't get at the rear bearings.



Got the engine running again, it runs like a beauty.

Sorted the throttle linkage and cable.

Rolling Road Tonight!



Its been a busy few days... Sorted out lots of odds & sods, the exhaust, gearbox mounting.

Got the engine started, runs like a dream!

Rolling road in 2 days...



Here are a few pics of my car, and a few of SBD's westy



ried to get the duratec elite box into the chassis, and it was just problem after problem... 1. Prop too long! The westfield supplied prop was too long by around 15mm. My prop is exactly 85cm. I'll give them a call tomorrow to try and figure out what's going on! 2. Pace dry sump scavenge pipe doesn't fit. It clashes with the frontmost engine mount. 3. The steering arm clashes with the third exhaust header. 4. The gearbox mounting is way off, can't figure it out at all. To fit on the holes the engine would need to be 2" lower, which is impractical, and would mean the engine mounts would not fit. I now need to figure out a way of soft mounting the box somehow. 5. The clutch master cylinder clashes with exhaust header number four. Looks like i need a new cylinder.



Passenger footwell shortened, oil tank & battery installed.



Little by little... Andy did some fibreglassing to fill holes, i marked up the passenger seat/extingisher/tank/battery and finished the fuel system in the back.



Engine is hovering, and i have been working on the fuel swirl pot



Slow progress on wiring, but should be fitting final panels, body, rollcage and engine build starting too - all that for this weekend.



Got the ECU and loom roughly installed and tested out the new dash. Sweet!



Chassis coming along nicely.



Great progress today, got the chassis mostly panelled, although some of the westfield panels were missing. The old car is starting to look very sorry for itself!

You really could not do this job without the air riveter, it has become my favorite tool.