Introduction
Dave Higgs discusses his Westfield Honda S2000 Project -
One of life's more unpleasant sensations is that aching, gnawing feeling in the pit of your stomach as you realise that your engine is self destructing. There wasn't a big dramatic Hollywood bang, more the tinkling sound of metal against metal and rods leaving the crankcase via the shortest route. The heavy stomach was soon replaced by a terrible pain in the wallet as Caterham quoted me fourteen thousand pounds to replace the R500 engine, that's right fourteen thousand pounds.
To cut a long story short - a still unbelievable customer relations exercise saw Caterham footing the bill, as soon as I put the engine back in the car I sold it. I simply couldn't drive a car with such an expensive time bomb ticking. Surely for fourteen thousand pounds (plus VAT by the way) you could build a car as fast. That's when the idea started. Simple - a trackcar, as quick as my R500, but far cheaper to run and far, far more reliable.
A few months later I was on holiday with the family in Barcelona, when Bookatrack just so happened to be doing a trackday at the Circuit Catalunya. It also saw me in the passenger seat of the very impressive Blink motorsport Honda S2000 engined Westfield exceeding 150mph down the long start finish straight. A plan was forming; big horsepower could be achieved from small alloy 'scrapyard' motors - in standard form.
Fast forward 2 years, two babies and my Westfield starter pack was collected. I managed to source a whole S2000 from a Norfolk carrot farmer for a princely sum of 2000 quid - champion! How happy was my wife now? Two immobile car shaped lumps in the workshop - well not that happy actually. Looking back now it seemed so simple, 'just' move the engine and gearbox into the Westfield, bolt on some wheels and brakes and you are almost there - well I was a little naïve back then…
I wanted the car to be light and not to look like a shed despite the restrictive budget, so huge amounts of beautiful pre-preg carbon sheet were purchased from Graeme at Fluke Motorsport, along with lightened discs, oils and a wealth of free advice. I must have got through ten jigsaw blades cutting it all to shape but the final result was fantastic.
First big problem was making the engine fit, with that solved I could get the gearbox in too but I couldn't get the engine and gearbox to fit at the same time - ahh. I got a bit stuck at this point but luckily Graeme knew an incredibly helpful chap called Mick Cooper who was in the process of doing the same thing. He'd got the engine and box in with some chassis modifications and invited me up to take a look. Mick's work was very impressive and I took lots of photos and ideas back to the workshop with me - but also a bit despondent, there was no way I was going to get this working by Spring - so I set myself a target of having it all done for the yearly pilgrimage to Spa in the Summer - easy I thought…
Chassis chopped about, engine mounts fabricated and the engine and box were in, panelling was finished as was the carbon-fibre dash, and the bodywork just slipped on. It was starting to look like a 7! I really, really wanted to avoid using a V8 bonnet and wanted the engine as low as possible, as well as wanting to use slicks - so a dry sump was needed. Ordered back in January it was still 'being finished' 5 months later. Which was a problem as the sump would touch the ground before the wheels without it such is the height of the S2000 engine.
A group of fellow WSCC boardroom members organised for Caged to put roll cages on our cars - a sort of group buy that we arranged at the Autosport show, the result was excellent, Westfield must agree as they now use Caged for their rollcages using the same design. Getting the car to Caged meant borrowing some massive Carlos Fandago wheels as otherwise I didn't have the ride height to even get out of the workshop - let alone onto a trailer. This was starting to become a nagging concern.
After the cage, the car went to Hayward and Scott for an exhaust manifold and I got an absolutely massive silencer from Raceco - this car was for trackdays and the noise police are really clamping down, I wanted it to be as quiet as possible.
The Honda ECU needs to be connected to the dash and the steering rack for it to talk to the engine so was effectively useless. Emerald have produced a map for a Swedish endurance racer using all the standard senders and it had already completed over 10 races each lasting 6 hours with no maintenance other than oil changes - which sounded really promising.
I now had a pretty well finished car, except for one thing - the dry sump. 3 weeks until Spa and I still had no dry sump. The car was booked in for a rolling road session and a quick trackday at Anglesey - a shake down for Spa. I couldn't get any further without the dry sump. I couldn't even flat floor it or set the geo as I couldn't get it off the stands without fitting bling wheels. It was getting really tight.
Then 2 days before I was due at Emerald a big brown box was waiting for me - the dry sump was here. I set to straight away and immediately found a problem - the pump fits on the side of the dry sump pan and wouldn't clear the chassis rail on the left. I ran out of swear words at that stage. I had to make new engine mounts to raise the engine 5mm, still able to retain the standard bonnet and finally had the thing running the night before the rolling road session. Spa looked like it was on again.
The rolling road session went really well, but we couldn't get a proper power run past 7500rpm because, despite 3 people on the back and the whole thing strapped down, it just climbed out of the rollers. All the readings looked fine, and the engine ran really sweetly - not bad as it hadn't even been turned over for 4 years.
Spa was now one week away, the geo and corner weighting were all done and the car weighed 525kgs without fuel. I was a little disappointed as the R500 with some fuel was 500kg. However the Westfield's a bigger car and I had a cage rather than just the R500's FIA bar. So all in all not a bad job, the real killer is the S2000 gearbox its about 20kgs heavier than a type 9 but to make a type 9 fit was silly money and I was desperate to keep in budget.
So quick trackday to make sure everything works and then off to Spa, what can go wrong? Well Chickenpox happened - to both the kids. So whilst I was slopping out Calamine Lotion the affectionately known 'nail' sat idle in the garage. So Spa was to be its baptism then…
The following week with the kids less spotty I was in the pit lane at Spa. Lots of comments about it not making the first lap were said in jest and I gingerly strapped myself in. I was really nervous, this was the first time it had moved under its own power. What would fall off? What would break? Would it brake even? Onto the circuit behind the course marshal, through Eau Rouge up to the Kemmel straight and the engine just died. Bollocks.
I rolled to a stop on the grass and waved at everyone as they passed, then again as they passed by a few minutes later, and then again as they came around again…
By the time I'd worked out that the fuel pump wasn't working the marshals had arrived in their 4x4 pick up. I then got towed back to the circuit, at some speed, infact as we went through Stavelot it occurred to me that this was the fastest I'd ever driven the car - and the engine wasn't running!
The bad news back in the pits was that the fuse and relay were working perfectly, the supply to the pump was fine - but the pump was dead. Double Bollocks.
A bit of Franglais got me to Spa Town and the local Bosch dealer, he found me a pump in Brussels and arranged for it to be delivered early the following morning. Pump collected at 8am, I had the new pump in and the engine running for the 9am start.
Even more nervous I went out onto the track, temps were fine, pressure was fine and the car just flew. The handling was going to need some work but in a straight line it went like the clappers. A few laps later and on the main straight I was regularly exceeding 155mph.
Mission Accomplished.
***
I've now got the car to handle as I like it; it's been utterly reliable and great fun. It's exceeded my expectations and come in on budget. Would I do it again, hmmm, I'd do it differently I think. With the amount of people using Duratec engines now you'd have to look at that as an option. There is little support for the Honda engine in kitcar/motorsport circles making it difficult to get off-the-peg systems, and the engines themselves are hard to come by. It would be pretty useless on road as the ground clearance with the engine and bell housing (in particular) would be prohibitive. However for bang per buck it's pretty unbeatable.
Many thanks to Graeme at Fluke, MHC, Richard at Blink and Jonny at Bookatrack without whom the project would not have happened.
Technical Specification Summary
| Chassis: | Highly modified and triangulated Westfield SeiW chassis, fully rosejointed. Bespoke Caged roll cage T45 - MSA approved |
| Suspension: | Modified Westfield front and rear adjustable anti rollbars. Widetrack (+100mm) wishbones full rosejointed. Nitron dampers tuned to corner weight, Quick rack. |
| Wheels: | Compomotive CXR 7J front 8J rear, running Avon Cr500s and Avon Race wets, previously using cross ply FF slicks. |
| Engine: | Honda S2000 engine running Emerald ECU and RED dry sump with Pace pump and tank, Polished stainless Hayward & Scott manifold, Raceco silencer. |
| Transmission: | Honda six speed gearbox (F20C) using Quaife 4.1 ATB in Freelander case with Bailey Morris sliding prop shaft. |
| Bodywork: | Fluke Motorsport interior - carbon-fibre seats, panelling, sidescreens, dashboard, aeroscreen, wings, floor. Luke six point harnesses. |
| Braking: | AP racing 4 pot front brakes and Golf modified rears using Pagid RS14s through AP micro master cylinders and bias. |
| Performance: | Total budget, £14,000.
Total weight, 525kg.
Total power, 240bhp, 9,500rpm. |
| Future plans: | Nothing, this was done as a cost effective exercise and has cost £14500 - to improve on this spec would require a new gearbox and bellhousing as the Honda ratios aren't perfect for track work. |
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