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Richard Cox - 2.0 16v Westfield SE
 

This is my car; it was built from mostly new parts during 96/97.

I originally built it to be a fast road car after a few years racing Escorts and a Hillman Hunter in the post historic touring car championship.

Richard Cox All I wanted was an easy life and a nice clean new car to work on. Very early on I decided to use the non-ecotec 2.0 Vauxhall because I thought that in the long term it offered the best basis for a strong, easy to work on, tuneable engine. And up till now I have not been proved wrong.

After some homework I decided to go for SBD 208 kit, it offered me good horsepower and flexibility without me have to delve into the internals too much.

I purchased a second-hand engine from Motoring news fitted all the parts in SBD’s kit wired it all up and much to my surprise it started first time! Once the Westfield was finished I thought I would start contesting some of the rounds of the 1998 Car and Car Conversions speed Championship, a second place in my first sprint was a real bonus. I used the car all through 98 without a hitch, it was great fun and the engine was so flexible it made running it on the road a real pleasure. Then I was offered a chance to do the "At the clinic" feature in C.C.C (this is where cars are tested, reviewed and appraised).

This came out in the December 98 issue and was very worthwhile judging by the result. It turned out that due to a faulty throttle pot my engine was only producing 165 hp instead of 208 hp! MY FAULT by the way. When I phoned Steve Broughton he could not have been more helpful, we discussed all sorts of ways of getting some more power. Steve told me that he had a 225 kit in mind to produce and would I mind if he experimented on my engine. When we talked pound notes I couldn’t turn it down. A fully dyno’d engine ready to re-install with more power for the price of gasket’s and consumables is hard to turn down.

While the engine was apart I did add a few extra’s like a nylon oil relief valve (the metal one’s jam), and a lightened flywheel. With everything re-installed it ran again first time and has not missed a beat all season. The good thing about the 225 kit is that it doesn’t seem to have lost any of the flexibility of the 208 kit, I can’t recommend it enough. Well I’ve got to the end of the 99 season without any problems and I have won the class 8 category of the C.C.C sprint championship.

Now I’ve decided to do the Westfield sportscar champs this year (2000) so the car is coming apart again during the winter for a freshen up, the only thing the engine needs is some new oil and maybe a drysump system.

2.0L Taper Throttle 225bhp kit
SBD Motorsport Ltd, Unit 15, Red Lion Business Park, Red Lion Road, Surbiton, Surrey. KT6 7QD. Tel: 0208 391 0121.