My Westfield Kit car build (the story so far)

[robj20]

That's alright then. Soon be blasting around in it. I so want to do one but have no where indoors, only outside.

[Nanoman]

Originally Posted by Deanoecosse

Well as predicted, the Westy did fail the IVA test today, but I did get the "good" fail I was after. It didn't get off to a good start as it failed the speedo test as it under read at 30mph & 50mph by 2 mph. It flew through the external projections test which I was concerned about, nothing to worry about on the interior either: He was happy with the rubber trim I'd used on the carbon fibre dash bottom as it didn't meet radius requirements without it. The small D shaped steering wheel also passed after i'd made up a central crash pad & covered it in vinyl and fixed with velcro. Brake performance test went great and was probably about 10 times as long as a regular MOT brake test. The steering self centering test was ok after I had adjusted the toe angle this week, emissions fine aswell. Car weight came in at 564kg with the long range tank filled to the brim so it was a wee bit lighter than i expected. Noise level at 4900revs (3qtr of max power) was 96.4db so was well under the 99.9 db limit.

The tester was really complementary about the standard of the build and the attention to detail and said it was one of the best built cars he'd seen through the centre. At the end of the test he allowed me to jiggle the calibration figure on the speedo and after 4 attempts with different figures I got it bang on and it passed the speedo test.

The only fail issues are: 2 small brake fluid leaks when the pedal is pressed at a rear & front joints (will just need tightened up) and I failed on the rear fog light being able to operate with the sidelights on, rather than only with the main beam. I'm annoyed about it as I knew it worked like that and questioned myself at the time of the wiring and i actually checked it against my Audi and that too can operate the rear fog when the sidelights are on. I mentioned this to the tester but apparently its because my Audi has front fogs fitted and its ok for the rear fog to work on the sidelights on that car.
So, all in all It was a much better result than I expected, I'm very happy with the fail points, at least they are easy fixes albeit I'll need to take the dash off again which is a pain. I'll sort it out at some point over the next 2 weeks and get it retested. The annoying thing is, If I hadn't wired the damn fog light wrongly, I could have tightened the two brake fluid leaks there and then and passed the test, but in my defence the tester did say he's never passed a car 1st time through IVA. Anyway, not a bad day overall and better than I had hoped for.

Sounds like you deserve a pat on the back for your hard work - PITA about having to remove the dash but I suppose you can't really argue with the outcome. Good luck when you get it on the road in the next couple of weeks!

[lomate]

well done dean ours failed on 2 points but still cost us £90 for the retest, lets hope you wont get charged ? but you know all the hard work has paid off and it will be on the road soon .there is a new cirtificate now its called a IAC instead of the old MAC it has a box for the examiner to verify your engine number so you should not have to take the car to be examined at your local dvla office we were told this when we took ours as they did not know the form had changed worth a phone call it might save you a trip. Well done again

[Mr_Scisco]

What an amazing journey this thread has taken me on from reading it start to finish today. I'm knackered!!

You must be well impressed that it's all finished with only 2 faults and minor ones at that. Full credit to yourself for paying attention to those details and also doing things by the book aswell as being inventive..

I remember at the start of this thread you had questions about, will I have the right tools, have I got the confidence and capabilties to do this etc and fook me you have totally prooved that you more than have what it takes to build an awesome looking car to a high standard in a little more than 120 hours stated

Top work and thanks for posting this little gem of a read on the forum. I'm sure it has passified many boring hours in peoples working life awaiting your updates.

[Deanoecosse]

Originally Posted by lomate

well done dean ours failed on 2 points but still cost us £90 for the retest, lets hope you wont get charged ? but you know all the hard work has paid off and it will be on the road soon .there is a new cirtificate now its called a IAC instead of the old MAC it has a box for the examiner to verify your engine number so you should not have to take the car to be examined at your local dvla office we were told this when we took ours as they did not know the form had changed worth a phone call it might save you a trip. Well done again

Thanks for that info, I didn't know the form had changed although I did hear Vosa had started talking to dvla and there was now no need for dvla to inspect the car before issuing the number plate-common sense prevails

[Deanoecosse]

Originally Posted by Mr_Scisco

What an amazing journey this thread has taken me on from reading it start to finish today. I'm knackered!!

You must be well impressed that it's all finished with only 2 faults and minor ones at that. Full credit to yourself for paying attention to those details and also doing things by the book aswell as being inventive..

I remember at the start of this thread you had questions about, will I have the right tools, have I got the confidence and capabilties to do this etc and fook me you have totally prooved that you more than have what it takes to build an awesome looking car to a high standard in a little more than 120 hours stated

Top work and thanks for posting this little gem of a read on the forum. I'm sure it has passified many boring hours in peoples working life awaiting your updates.

Yeah I'm really chuffed with myself to be honest. I remember posting my initial doubts & concerns as you mentioned but its now all done bar these two simple issues. It's been a long journey, just over 2years off and on although if I had been more disciplined with my time and focused more on the car I could easily have cut 1year+ off that build time. I think if I could have spent 10hrs per week on it, it would have been done in 6 months.

There's been some tough parts of the project, stripping the donor in -6 degrees and the bloody wiring, that was really low + tedious point, but I got there in the end. There's been funny moments aswell, the day I got stuck upside down in the passenger footwell and had to phone the missus pull me out springs to mind Would I do it all again YES 100%, its been a great learning experience and when I stood there today watching the Westy going through the VOSA centre, Its hard to explain the sense of satisfaction and pride at being able to say "i built that myself"(it even surpasses having my 2kids-I hope the missus doesn't read that!).

I hope I've inspired some people who had been thinking about doing something like this to stop thinking about it and just DO IT and if not, at least its killed some time at your work reading my thread
Thanks for all the words of support over the last 2 years guys, i'll update the thread when its finally thru the retest.

Cheers

[Deanoecosse]

OK, we now know the IVA test has been and gone earlier this week, but I thought I’d jump back and finish the updates on the build process just to keep the post complete, so people can see the entire build & test process from start to finish.

So the first job of the final build update was to apply for the IVA test at long last. Along with the application form and a ridiculous £450 (remember this test only cost £150 til the SVA was changed to IVA last year and it only has a few extra checks in it) I was required to send a load of my build photos on CD, basically to show that I built the car myself, to gain the “amateur build” status. What difference it makes if its amateur built my me, or pro built by a company I don’t know, the test is the same.


First job on the car was to fit the tunnel top carpet. This is usually the first piece of carpet fitted, but as I was delayed by having the gearstick & handbrake gaitors stitched on and needing to make final adjustments to the handbrake adjuster I had left it off. However, I didn’t realise quite how tight a fit my seats were width ways and trying to jam the carpet down the tunnel sides while the seats were in place was a real pain (I didn’t want to remove the seats and harnesses again), but I eventually got there.

Had a phone call from the VOSA IVA test centre in Glasgow and the Westy is booked in for its IVA test on 10th November and I need to be in the test centre, car off the trailer and ready to test for 8am, so that’s gonna be a nice early start for the 35 mile trip. I now feel like a naughty schoolboy who has been summoned to the headmasters office!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I decided to take the Westfield to my trusty local garage to get the guys to do an MOT test dry run. The car doesn’t require an MOT until 3 years after the IVA test, but getting the MOT checks done, would allow me to correctly setup the headlamps on the beam tester and also test the braking efficiency & emissions which would be a few less issues to worry about on the day of the IVA. So, trailer hired and off to the garage for 8am on a Saturday morning.
The garage checks went pretty well, the headlamp aim just needed a slight adjustment, the offside handbrake wasn’t quite as efficient as the nearside which I later adjusted and that was it.

IVA prep: The IVA test is INCREDIBLY strict on sharp corners, and the IVA guide book states: “ All ‘hard’ parts contactable with a 100mm sphere, which form an external surface or protrude 5mm or more from the external surface must have a radius of curvature of at least 2.5mm” (the testers have little gauges to check everything) and if any edge on the car isn’t quite rounded enough, you fail the test. They use 2 different sized metal spheres on sticks to represent a human head & knee and anything these balls can contact needs to meet the radius requirements. This means all the bolt heads and nuts on the front suspension need to be covered with plastic caps, although what difference they are going to make to a pedestrian that you mow down I don’t know. This is most of the Westfield supplied “IVA kit” below which includes various sized nut caps, covers and some bizarre looking vinyl pouches that look like leather posing pouches from an Ann Summers shop These are used to cover the top harness buckles.

Here the nut caps have been fitted on the bottom shock bolts, rebound rate adjuster, wishbone ball joint nuts and the track rod ends covered with another rubber sheath supplied by Westfield.

The upper balljoint was covered using a cut up bicycle innertube and cable ties. It’s a bit crude but it will do the job for the IVA test.


The interior needed a couple of modifications aswell. I mentioned early in the thread that the bottom edge of my carbon fibre dash didn’t meet the radius requirements so I got round this by fitting a push on rubber trim (actually a car door seal that I’d bought from a supplier).



The steering wheel was also an area for concern as the centre isn’t padded. Westfield can supply a padded “IVA approved” steering wheel and everyone I’ve spoken to say a padded wheel is mandatory. However having read & re-read the IVA test manual it states the “centre should be padded OR below the level of the wheel rim”. My wheel centre is actually slightly below rim level so I could have tried arguing my case but I decided not to risk it and made a foam pad and trimmed it with vinyl that was velcro’d on top. You can also see the new gearstick & handbrake gaitors fitted.


The above interior IVA mods will mysteriously “fall off” after the test.

IVA TEST DAY So the big day that I've been working towards for 2 years has arrived and my neighbours were treated to an early morning wake up call of a Westfield with a single silencer emerging from the garage and driving up onto the trailer at 5:30am. Personally I’d rather be awoken by that sound than a radio alarm clock blaring out Sara Cox in the morning. Miraculously it was the one clear dry day we’d seen in about 10 days, so I didn’t need to fanny around covering the car and I headed off at 6:30am. I got to the test centre at 7:30am for the 8am test so there was time for a coffee to calm my nerves.


The car was offloaded and driven into the IVA test lane to start the test which lasted 3.5 hours and I met the tester for the day.
He wasn’t what I expected at all. I expected a bearded sergeant major, very official, stuffy type of guy in a white coat, who wouldn’t utter more than a couple of words to me all day. However, I was surprised to find him to be a really friendly, chatty guy who was genuinely interested in my car and the build process and was really complementary on my build. He took the time to explain what he was testing during the various stages and was happy to answer any questions I had.

After verifying the chassis & engine numbers it was onto the rollers to do the speedo accuracy test.


As I mentioned in my post on Wednesday, the speedo was under reading by 2mph on a couple of the increments so was an instant fail. It’s allowed to over-read by a certain % but not under read at all. Luckily I was able to recalibrate it later in the day and it then passed ok.
After checking emissions and engine bay wiring the car was taken further inside for the dreaded “external projections test”. This part has been the cause of failure for loads of kit cars in the past and is all about pedestrian and passenger safety.

The tester then produced what looked like part of the nose cone of a Scud missile!


With this placed against the front of the car, any point above where it touched the car was a “testable area” and had to meet the radius criteria. This is the smaller of the two spheres he used to check the suspension area and is made to simulate a human knee. Anything this sphere can contact must have a radius of over 2.5mm. Thankfully all was good in this test. You can just make out some rubber 'U' trim I'd tie wrapped around the edges of the headlamp mounting bracket.


Next he checked the coverage of the cycle wings with another guage as these have to cover a certain angle of the tyre. I’d checked these with a protractor when I fitted them so I knew there would be no problem in this area.


We did the lights test afterwards and this was when the rear foglight issue was uncovered. As I mentioned in my update on wednesday I had wired the rear fog to be operable with the sidelights on but the test states it should only be able to function when the main beam is on, so as I need to rewire the switch I knew I wasn’t going to be able to fix that at the test centre and was going home with a fail sheet

The car was then driven a bit further down the lane to go up on the ramp for the checks underneath and 2 small fluid leaks appeared at a couple of joints when the brake pedal was pressed, which just needed tightened.


A lengthy brake test on the rollers followed this which was another area of concern for me as a number of Westfield owners have had problems with this, but my car sailed through all the tests which were about 10 times longer than an MOT brake test.
Before the brakes could be tested, it was essential the car was accurately weighed, so the correct criteria could be applied. Bearing in mind my car has the bigger “long range” fuel tank fitted and the tank was full, the car weighed in at a pretty sprightly 564kg A quick Google check tells me a basic Mk1 Lotus Elise weighs 725kg so it puts into context just how light the car is and the bike engined Westfields are much lighter still.

The car was then driven outside for the noise test which required the car to be revved at 3quarters of the figure at which max power is achieved, which in my case meant holding them around 4900rpm. The maximum limit is 99.9db and mine was comfortably under at 96.4db, so another tick on the sheet.

Angles of visibility check for all the lights & indicators was next. This test has required the side indicator repeaters to be moved from their previous position on the bodywork side, up onto the outside edge of the front cycle wings. With the led repeaters I had fitted the car sailed through all these tests. The tester also placed various cones in set positions behind the car to ensure he could see them in the cars mirrors and again there were no problems here.


With these tests passed the final test was to check the steering made an attempt to self centre and the examiner drove the car to check for this while I was in the passenger seat and after I had adjusted the front toe angle a few days ago it passed no problem.

TEST OVER

So all in all although the car failed on the two minor issues of the slight brake fluid leak at 2 of the pipe unions and the rear fog light problem, I was really happy with the result and it was better than I had hoped to achieve. It was a really interesting day for me to see the IVA process and have a good talk to the VOSA tester and realise that they are actually interested in helping you get your car on the road.
I’m taking a couple of days break from the car and then fixing the 2 issues and organising a retest as soon as possible to avoid the snow which I expect is only a few weeks away. I intend driving the car to the retest aslong as I can get a set of doors for it which should keep most of the road spray out of the car. I won’t have a roof though, so if its raining on the day (which in Scotland in mid November is highly likely), I’ll remember the Westfield sales managers words of advice to me on the day of my factory test drive. When I asked what I do if it rains, he replied “drive faster!”

I’ll put a final update on the thread when the car is through its retest. Thanks for reading.

[GlynRS2]

Congratulations on the test result!
Like the tester said they never pass anything first time, so are looking for reasons to give a fail. The fact that you got only two minors is a testament to your hardwork and attention to detail. Also quite reassuring as you are going to be driving your own creation. It is a shame about the foglight wiring issue, when you used the Audi as a reference point and it comes down to the microdetail of the regulation

Thanks for posting the last update. It completes what has been an epic journey.

[Mike Hunt]

Interesting to read the use of a 100mm sphere on any contactable interior edges, as ECE R21 the homologation spec for EU head impact on production vehicle uses a 165 diameter sphere and head impact zones relating to H point (seating reference point) of 5%ile female and 95%ile male manikins, and iirc the minimum radius is something like 3.25.

Boring stuff aside, much respect for the attention to detail and effort you've put in, and Im guessing you'll enjoy next summer

[*Das*]

Great project Deanoeccose, I just sat and read through all 29 pages. Hopefully see you doing doughnuts around Asda's car park sometime And if you do see someone in Silver Vectra waving at you its only me