SEiW Swindon Vauxhall 230bhp

History

SEiW Chassis purchased 1996 and first registered 1998, bought new from Westfield by myself. I originally served my time as a toolmaker fitter machinist and I am now a development engineer within the rail industry and have an MSc in Engineering. I am quite a perfectionist and the car has been built to an extremely high standard. I have all the receipts and they total in the region of £15K (they are just what I can account for and I would think the total would be nearer £18K) I have a full photo build history as well.

Car has covered approximately 6K miles and about 100 only in the last 4 years, this engine has only done 1.5k of road miles since it was built.

Chassis

Powder coated chassis, with each aluminium panel carefully fitted and each rivet hole marked, drilled and de-burred to a high standard, each panel was then buffed both sides and coated in clear lacquer. The reason for this was to achieve an aircraft like finish with exposed and riveted aluminium.

Each panel was also bonded with Scotch-Weld (3M structural adhesive) which from testing improved the shear strength of each joint by a factor of 4 (I have the plots for these tests).

The chassis is fitted with an RAC spec roll bar and foot well brace bar, and Westfield race bracing.

It has a Westfield wiring loom with a Stack 8100 dash which covers oil pressure, water temp, oil temp, speed, mileage, fuel level, volts and lap timers.

The steering wheel is D shaped quick release and the horn/indicator controls are incorporated in the centre.

Drive shafts and joints are reconditioned as are the front hubs and steering assembly and then powder coated.

It has basic Westfield seats with a Luke 6 point harness on drivers seat and 4 point on the passenger seat.

Brakes are Ford discs and callipers all round, which again were rebuilt and powder coated. The chassis is also fitted with twin master cylinders and bias brake kit.

AVO dampers and springs are fitted at the rear with Westfield rear dampers fitted to the front.

Wheels are machined to fit Peugeot wheels, powder coated satin black and Yokohama tyres.

Engine/ Gearbox

The engine is a 2L Vauxhall XE fitted with a Swindon Racing Engines 230bhp kit. Swindon Racing Engines at the time were supplying the touring car engines and were expensive but had a very good reputation, the engine has only covered 1.5k road miles since it was built as below.

The engine was rebored and fitted with high compression Accralite pistons, all rods were balanced end over end and the whole crank, flywheel clutch assemble balanced.

New ARP rod and big end bolts were fitted, the crank journals were measured and due to no wear left at standard dia.

All new Vauxhall gaskets/ seals were fitted along with core plugs and oil pump.

The cylinder head was gas flowed and inlet manifold matched and doweled to the head.

The head was converted to run on solid lifters which were needed to run on the Swindon cam-shafts. The head also had the oil ways converted to stop porous head problems as known on some castings. It also has vernier cam pulleys.

The breathing of the engine was also altered through the cam cover as recommended by Swindon, all engine hoses are silicon. It also has an oil cooler with stat.

The engine was mated to a modified SDB baffled sump, SBD paddle clutch with light flywheel and SBB exhaust manifold and stainless steel packable silencer.

Twin 45mm dellortos are fitted with an ITG filter and matched MBE/ Swindon ignition unit and rev limiter/ launch control.

All the above was set up on a rolling road with Swindon Engineer and gave nearly 200bhp at the rear wheels.

The engine is really nice to drive with loads of low down torque and very powerful.

The gearbox is a fully rebuilt Ford Type 9 mated to bell housing conversion. It has a Reco-props Prop shaft and a sierra 4 x 4 LSD. All gearbox casings and bell housing are powder coated.

General

The car is in really good condition as can be seen from the photos hopefully. Usual story that I don’t really want sell it and know I will regret it but its not been used much over the last 4 years and it’s about time I started my mid-life crisis and bought a bike.

It has MOT until June 09 and the tax has now expired.

I am asking £9.5k for it. If anyone wants any more info or to come and have a look they are most welcome. I am in the Derby area but please phone/ email in the first instance to 07949429117 zac.grief@networkrail.co.uk or zach.grief@virgin.net