Alan C

I've seen many Bike Engined Cars available on Piston heads and I'm (still) looking to get a weekend toy and possibly something I can use to get to work those few days a week when the weather is good enough... I've had some great repsonse for Fuel economy on a Westie with a Pinto and /or Carb engine.

Anyone here used a Bike engined car such as a MK Indy, Westie or Caterham with a R1, Fazer, Megablade etc???

Good enough to use daily or simply too fragile with a dodgy reverse gear and a pain to move through busy traffic??

noobyscooby

Don't waste time on anything with a reverse gear - too unreliable and they are light enough to nip out and push if you get it wrong, but you'll soon get used to a bit of anticipation and forward thinking when parking, positioning, etc.. Bit like driving an old Mini - you used to plan any overtaking about a mile ahead to make sure you got a good run at the car or lorry in front!!

The Chief

Alan have you thought about V8 power?

Alan C

Spotted a few.... happy to test one, but not sure if I'd cry like a baby...

Nooby - Good point on the pushing and pre-planning any parking... but aprt from that a Bike engine wopuld be a reliable and easy to drive as a Pinto or newish FI engine?

The Chief

Hmmm just know some one who might part with his 4.0 V8 Dax if offered the right amount.

slim_boy_fat

Not sure the bike engine makes these cars any more or less fragile for daily use. The engine and transmition should be pretty robust.

Not sure any 'seven' type car could be seen as a daily driver, especially in the winter. Its more like a 4 wheel bike than a car.

Eddie1980

I have a 4.8L Rover V8 (TVR internals, X bolted etc) T5 gear box, Cosworth Rear diff, on a Luego Viento (I'm long legged). Have to say V8 all the way, if its an "in the mood car" and if its a seven it will be, fuel consumption will not be a worry, if you manage 5k a year I'll be surprised, mind you I only have an aero screen on mine and no heater so that does discourage!

You really just cannot better at big lusty V8 for bucket loads of instant mind bending torque, non of this waiting around for stuff to spool, or hunting down through the box for a few million revs. Its point and slide action. And you get the option of going backwards on demand, and if so minded you can do it without engaging reverse!

dunx

iTrader: (3)

Buy a Diesel fiesta you know it makes sense....

Evil Dunx.

Alan C

You been on the Meths again....

dunx

iTrader: (3)

Oi ! You said you wanted to save fuel !

I'd love to see you door-handling on roundabouts like a 2cv !

Evil Dunx

dave289

Seconded !!

I have a Formula 27 V8 wide-body (Lotus 7 replica) with a mildly tuned Rover 3.5 V8 (with SD1 5-speed gearbox, Ford Capri 2.8i live rear axle, inboard adjustable front springs, inboard adjustable AVO shocks all round, BMW 320i front brakes) .... fuel consumption is a reasonable 22 mpg (considering the neck-breaking acceleration from any revs. in any gear that encourages my heavy right foot to enjoy ca. 185 hp and just 660 kg !!), and the superb V8 soundtrack (which cannot be compared with a screaming 4 cylinder bike engine at 13,000 rpm) is the icing on the cake.

Looking at the miserable cold rain pouring down outside today, I could also be persuaded to part with this toy, since I have only driven it 4000 miles in 7 years (I have too many other toys in my garage competing for my limited time !!)

Gaz7612

I looked at getting a bike powered 7 replica, then found a very nice 2.0 zetec powered Formula 27 on bike carbs.
What a great sounding car. Drove a couple of bike engined ones but they were just that little bit to raw for me.
Took it out for its last run Yesterday before the winter kicks in was bloody freezing but so much fun

mg driver

im interested in this kind of extreme fun car ,can anyone tell me why westfields are a lot cheaper than caterhams ,is the cat better somehow or are they better made or more reliable ?

TopBanana

I don't think it'd be fragile as such, but you may get annoyed with the lack of torque

Jonto

I always wondered what a Westy would be like with a remapped VAG TDI unit up front

TopBanana

Not much fun I imagine. Front-heavy, laggy throttle, and the sound - yuck

Alan C

I did have a test drive in an Escort TDI Westy and though the car was immaculate and really looked the business, it was a very slow beast with absolutely no real performance gain over my current car and nothing that made me really laugh out loud...

Was hard getting off the line and had limited overtaking capability...

Nido

As long as the bike engine is serviced & looked after it will be as reliable as anything else. Plenty of sportsbikes with 60-70k on them - remember the engines are designed to be spinning at 10k plus day in day out! It will also depend on what bike engine it is, they all have different characteristics. The Hayabusa unit is superb, the Blackbird a little more refined. A GSX-R 1000 unit would be very interesting

As said the relative lack of torque will be the main consideration. Personally I love the screaming 4 way of motoring, others like the big beefy way. Get a good long drive in both if you can!

Brendan Hughes

Don't big tourers like GoldWings now come with reverse gears? True it's not a state of the art race engine like the others, but surely it would still be a lot of fun in a skateboard like a Cater/field? And perhaps slightly more torquey too?

(I know, it means looking for a donor GoldWing, just hiding behind the pile of rocking horse poo, but still...)

The Chief

As you know Alan i got rid of my Scoob back in the summer, i've been toying with an idea of getting a kit car.

Thing is i could buy a newage STI for around 12-13k or get something thats pretty fast day to day such as an Astra Coupe Turbo for around 5k and then spend another 5 or 6k on a westy type car for summer days and blatting around a track.

if you dont want to spend loads what about a Tiger or an MK - saw a belter for 4.5k the other day.

anyway check this video out, I love it as (to me) it captures the spirit of westy motoring!!!

YouTube - Darren's Cosworth Westfield 16:9

ademid

Well i recently sold my R1 engined RWD mini.

Loads of fun, once all the build niggles were sorted reliable as anything else I've owned.

I did have a basic electric reverse but as other have said I very rarely used it. To be honest the only use it got was reversing it into the garage when i was being too lazy to push it

Low down torque won't be a problem as generally you'll be running much lower gearing than you would on a bike so top speed will only be around 130ish but acceleration will be brisk to mind numbing depending on rpm. And also they're loads lighter than your v8s etc. My 2003 r1 was around 70kgs for engine and gearbox total mini was 581kgs even with luxuries like carpet and roof lining

And the best bit? Sequential box!! Small addition of a quickshifter and you have full throttle clutchless upshifts and clutchless downshifts!! Amazing fun whatever anyone says

Usuable to and from work on a nice day and if it suddenly rains you have a roof and everything

Ade

Alan C

Mmmmm..... juices flowing and I'm feeling a little re-invigorated after some great replies.... Thanks boys.. much appreciated..

Andy S.

Go for it Al , as you know i make bike engined racecars

definatly recomend the bike engine route, the noise is superb plus very reliable engines especially the Hayabusa engine. the gearboxes are sequential and very strong. If you do have problems with the box there are plenty of mods to beef them up, (We have only had to do this on our super charged car 380 bhp at wheels!!)

a hayabusa on proper ecu (DTA or Motec) will give you an easy 190bhp, and being light will give you plenty of BHP/tonne.

if you need any more specific advice give me a bell

As said before i would not bother with the reverse gear its easier to get out and push

If you are going for a westlocaterfield derivitive, you will need a full face helmet. bugs in eyes etc (ask Daz)

CrisPDuk

Donor 'Wings aren't as rare as you might think Brendan, I had a look at them last year because I fancied (still do actually) the idea of sticking one of them 1.8 flat sixes in the back of a road legal sand rail

Seems a fair few get hurled at the scenery by weak-assed, born-again bikers who are completely unprepared for the weight of the things

TopBanana

Andy who do you work for? I was considering taking part in the RGB championship this, but haven't had enough spare time

Dracoro

Have a look on the Westfield site.

Bike engined cars tend to be more unreliable than equivalent car engined ones. The engine, gearbox and associated components are designed to cart around 200kg. Put them in a car weighing 2/3 times(don't forget to add driver/passenger to weight) as much and this can cause things to break. It's not the revs that break it, it's the load.

However! many BEC builders know this and uprate some key components so check to see what has been done when building the car.

They can be faster than car engined ones though as they weigh less. I was at brands in mine a couple of years ago and there were two of us there, me in my 190bhp VX engined westie and another guy in his 190bhp bike engined one. He was definitely faster but as he said to me, the car is off the road being fixed more often than on the road! driveshaft, clutches, gearbox all went, even the replacement ones (i think he initially replaced like with like tho).

The Chief

he works for DJ racecars mate.

DJ RaceCars Ltd - British Built Giant Killers!

The Chief

Dracoro - you might have posted this before so appologies if you have.

have you any pictures of your beastie?

How id you extract 190bhp from a NA VX engine?

Cheers

Brendan Hughes

Hmm. A quick google shows:

Hayabusa 180bhp, 98ft/lb torque, 210kg (ish)
GoldWing 118bhp, 125 ft/lb torque, somewhere around 350-400kg weight.

So you'd get more torquey and more reliable, but a hell of a lot less power. Sounds a bit too mature for the average BEC owner!

Dracoro

I sold it a couple of months ago after owning it nearly 4 years. Sad, but I wasn't using it much (weather this summer was crap too) so now back in an S2000.

There's some pics on the wscc site (check for sale section about 3 months ago).

190bhp - how the car came to me, the VX redtop chucks out 150bhp std, put twin weber 45s and tune them and you're about 180 easily, more if well tuned. Had re-inforced cossie bolts too so it could rev to 8000 all day.

This is classed as a low/moderate state of tune for this engine. MANY westie owners with 210/220 with uprated cams, some owners are one 250-300bhp N/A.

This is the reason the VX engine was so popular, wasn't the lightest but it was the strongest and was very tunable. Quite an engine and underrated at the time as it sat in cavaliers and astras Think of what engine the touring cars of the day used!