Westfield SEight Build

1 March 2007

Session 146 - Sump & Timing cover, etc.

Take a look of the picture below, notice anything? Okay two items: 1) Sump removed and 2) Timing cover and bits attached!

First the sump. Had an interesting conversation with the original fabricator, which I worked out by process of elimination and the style of the fabrication. He tells me that this sump was an older design and was okay for the older Rover V8 strokes, .i.e 3.5,3.9 and 4.0. The 4.6 litre has a longer stroke and this means the crank to windage tray clearance is reduced. You may recall that I did notice this but was not that concerned. Well he tells me that the reduced clearance leads to problems with oil returning down to the sump, the crank simply throws the oil back up into the engine which is not good. So I am returning the sump back to Ebay albeit much cleaner and powder coated toboot. I made enquiries to how much for the newer design and it is not cheap so I need to look around to see if it is competitive, the quality is very good though and he tells me that these are powder coated already. His has designed the sump specifically for the Westfield application also.

Second, you will see that I now have my timing cover fitted. I drew a blank on getting socket cap head bolts and went for the standard OEM bolts, £68! for 9 bolts, someone call the police, I have been robbed! I only paid £95 for 20 ARP studs for my heads which are bigger and better! You will notice that I have used socket caps on the water pump housing, these are standard M8 lengths. At last my westfield alternator bracketry and adjustor fit, phew, what an episode.

Here's a photo of the front showing all the shiny bits, timing cover is cica 1994, I am pleased with the look.

4 March 2007

Session 147 - engine mounts

Only spent 30minutes in the garage torquing up my engine mounts. No torque specification given so using the standard torque for the two 7/16" UNC bolts which is 55 ft/llbs. The upper part of the mount has a 5/16" UNC bolt, not quite sure what the point of this is! but anyway torqued it upto the standard 18 ft/lbs.

This operation was not without its problems actually as one of the bolts is so close to the angle of the bracket that it is impossible to get a socket in there let along a wrench attached to it. I have a set of crowsfeet spanners but they are metric. I do however have a 5/8" spanner required, how long is it, err, 6" entre to centre! I tried turning the bolt that I had torqued utp 55fl/lbs with this spanner, using the close end and I could not, well I probably could if I really tried but the spanner bending was making me a little nervous! At least I know I could not over torqued the bolt with this spanner, with this in mind I torqued up the remaining bolts with this spanner until it started bending. I am sure that they did nothing more than this 30-40 years ago anyway. The bolts have spring washers and I used a thread lubricant. I have marked the bolts so I can see if they move.

Here's a picture of the engine mount showing the hard to reach bolt!

5 March 2007

Session 148 - Water pump pulley

My water pum pulley arrived this morning and was waiting for me when I returned from work today. Same item as used on Morgans apparently. It is painted black and as a knurled surface. The other pulleys are grooved to take a serpentine belt but the water pulley is driven by the smooth side of the belt, i.e. the back end. The effect of the knurling is to provide more friction to reduce belt slippage, improve efficiency and less likely to squeek, we shall see. Anyway the good news is that this seems to align with the alternator pulley, which is very good news of course.

Last night I decided to order some imperial crowsfeet spanners, yes, the guessed torqued engine mount bolt is playing on my mind already and the engine is not even in the car yet so I decided for peace of mind when I am driving it that I should do this. Be kind of interesting to see how close I was as well.

A few photos of engine with water pump pulley attached. You will also see the starter motor which is only hand tight, I got fed up falling over the box was it was in!

8 March 2007

Session 149 - Alternator pulley

Sometimes I think my life would be so much easier if I just accepted things the way they were! But less ot that, that alternator pulley keeps annoying me because it does not match the water pump pullley! So tonight I decided to spray it gloss black to match! It was little bit of challenge to spray even without drips in the vertical position. Tip remove from the engine first. I think also mask up the pulley face and spay the spindle and grooves first then remove masking tape and spray again. I ended up doing several coats and rubbing down between coats. With drying time between coats this took about 4 hours!

Yes I know the dip stick handle is yellow! but that will match the bodywork of the car so that is okay.

11 March 2007

Session 150 - re-locating rear nearside loom tail

Today was like the first day of spring so I decided to get the westfield out of the garage and give it a little dust down and tidy the garage. I did a little loom relocating at the rear of the car. The near side part of the loom I had attached to the chassis would fowl with the fuel tank inbuilt swirl pot. I had thought about the fuel tank position months ago when I installed the loom but did not know about the swirl pot at the time. As I now have my crowsfeet spanners I decided to check that engine mounting bolt to see how close I was in guessing the torque, I was close, it was supposed to be 55 ft/lbs it was at 53 ft/lbs!

Here's a photo showing why I had to relocate the loom at the rear nearside.

14 March 2007

Session 151 - fuel cut-off inertia switch/Tank

Now that I have tweaked the loom at the rear I can start fitting the fuel tank and bits. First was to install the fuel cut-off switch to the chassis. There's actuall a little plate welded acorss two members on the rear of the diff cage for this. Drilled and fitted.

Next was to fit neoprene seal on the chassis where the fuel tank would sit and trial fit tank. By the way, you can get neoprene adhesive tape from Chandlery suppliers (yachts/boats) as they use it for hatch sealing.

15 March 2007

Session 152 - Fuel tank installation

Spent about 1.5 hours working on fuel tank installation tonight. Basically required to drill the chassis in four places install rivnuts and install neoprene seal on tank straps. I know a long time but perfection takes time, everyhing has to be measured and doubled checked.

Here's a photo of the fuel cut off switch installed yesterday behind my installed fuel tank.

This picture shows the fuel tank installed from the rear. The straps were pre-formed for me. I wished they hadn't been because they were not perfect and I really had to pull those corners onto the tank, well at least it is a tight fit.

23 March 2007

Carbon Fibre

I know, I know, not even sure I like the carbon fibre look but I am a sucker for a bargin. Not so this was the bargin of the century but for £100 I have managed to secure off Ebay, of course, 1000mm x 300mm, typcal dimensions for Westfield wide body CF dash. It is bot the cheap stuff, it is 2x2 twill impregnated carbon fibre, which apparently is the best stuff. Its has a highly reflective gel coat, which could be annoying but here's a picture.

24 March 2007

Plenum chamber

I have actually been looking into producing my own plenum chamber over the last week and doing reasearch over the last couple of evenings. The main reason for doing so is that the standard RV8 plenum chamber does not fit under the westfield bonnet. Apparently to fit it needs to be reduced in height and also the air intake/throttle body needs to but removed from the side of the plenum chamber,then sealed and welded to the back of the chamber. Apparently to do this work costs £500 and thats before purchasing a plenum chamber! There are a number of suppliers that can produce nice carbon fibre plenum chambers and one company in particular; ACT performance, actually produce a solution for the Westfield but at a cost.

I have been wanting to have a dabble with GRP fabrication, I could give this a go for my own made DIY plenum chamber, how hard can it be?

My trumpet lengths are not standard and the effect of trumpet lengths on power and torque is a complex subject, for now I am going to assume that my trumpet lengths are okay even though they have been reduced in size. There are two heights of trumet length, the middle four are 25mm and the outer four are 10mm. The trumpets are flared but the bore is 38i.d. mm. This bore seems standard.

Reading some articles on the web suggests that plenum hieght above the trumpets ideally should be 1.5 times the bore, so 38mm bore requires a 57mm gap. Looking at some plenum designs for the Rover V8 and you will see that some deviate quite a bit from this principle, both the Rover OEM and Westfield version deviate. The ACT performance carbon fibre is spot on.

To cut 4 hours of calculations and messing about with bits of paper and scissors I have determined that the plenum chamber shouild have two main heights, the front and rear section being the same height and the middle with the higher trumpets should be some 15mm higher, so kind of like traditional loaf of Bread! I have had to scale up the height to allow passage of a 71mm throttle as the minimum height would restrict the throttle size and impede air flow. The air flow into the chamber should not be abstructed by the trumpets themselves.

I am going to make a pattern with four main sections of wood to form the shape and size I need. Below is a picture demonstrating this. The first template shows the required thorttle intake size required. The two heights I have calculated are 70mm and 85mm, this is up to the start of the curve, i.e. the perpendicular straight lines. The curved ceiling is an attempt to provide even distribution of air from the throttle without causing too much air turbulance down at the trumpet mouths. Also the intake is heigh enough as not to have trumpets restricted the passage of air. In the foreground you can see the trumpets and base itself.

25 March 2007

Session 153 - Plenum chamber design

Cut out my templates today and equalised all the radii across. Also started work on the plenum base flange template. Actually took me around 3 hours to do all this, well precision comes at a cost of time! Photograph below shows for the first time the impression of the chamber. I think I will need to make another template for the middle section, however the positions of these on the pciture are approximate only.

30 March 2007

Plenum chamber thoughts continue..

Done very little in the garage over the last coupe of weeks. Have time of the V8 forum debating plenum chamber design though. I am now starting to appreciate the amount of time required to design and test plenum designs! The most concerning issue I have is with the trumpets furthest away from the thottle receiving less air than the trumpets nearest to the throttle, obviouly because the trumpets are sucking in air. With the orginal side thottle the effect is still the same but lessened by the fact that is over two banks of thttles rather than over 4 banks. Also the OEM being sount mounted means more room to taper the throttle and this creating favourable air flow. The Westfield modified chamber implements a splitter acoss the roof the the chamber which goes halfway but this design means the gap berween the rear four trumpets is very much different to the front, ideally the gap should be the same.

31 March 2007

Rover R380 2WD transmission/gearbox

After many telephone calls and emails to suppliers of Rover Parts and transmissions over the last four weeks I have drew a blank on getting a new R380 gearbox. There are 4WD drive versions around but I of course need 2WD! They used to be used in Morgan's but since Morgan changed to BMW mechanicals there is not the demand and the supply has withered! It is actually seeming difficult to obtain second hand units even ones in need of a rebuild!

This week I made contact iwth a fellow V8 forum guy who just happens to have a new 2WD R380 gearbox which was initially installed in car but then replaced with a different unit thus surplus to his requirments. We negiated a good deal for the transmission, remote gear linkage, bolts and Bell housing. The bell housing has done around 1000 miles and is in excellant condition. Alothgh he painted it black which I am going to get shot blasted off. He was only 60 miles away and this morning I made the trip to pick up the goods. The guy has a Ram Cobra with a 4.6 V8 and NOS! He has another project underway which involves a scimiter and a, wait for it, Wildcat engine! Wildcar build out and out race engines, one of their documented engines put out 740BHP and 520 ft/lbs of torque!

Anyway picutures of my acquistion feature below.

Transmission itself.