New Eleven owner

[Westfield 129]

A bit of practical information from one who had built a few of these cars, regarding specifically, weight distribution.

The late kit weighs about 1200 lbs with full fuel, if you don't try to reduce the kit weight.

While the left to right weight distribution is hard to get equal (the driver is as much as 20% of the car's total weight), you can get the car to "zero wedge", that is, 50% of the weight between the left front and right rear, without too much trouble, with a full tank of fuel.

If you make the standard tank larger, you will likely add about 3 gallons, wich would be a whole 18 lbs.(slightly less than 9 kg). Any more fuel is silly, as the range will be beyone 200 miles, which is a long time to spend in the seat...

If you want to balance the 18 lbs, put the battery in the rear, as close to the rear axle as possible, at the opposite diagonal corner. You will still be able to balance the car on the diagonal wheels (which is the best way to do it), driver installled, with half a tank (about 4 gallons, say... 16 litres, slightly less than 8 kg).

In my experience with setting up a few of these chassis, including my own (with a front mounted battery at this time), the extra fuel in an extended tank (I did a setup on a car with an 8 gallon extended standerd tank) is not really a problem at all. Doing the standard tank extension reduces the number of parts (only one fuel pump, one set of lines, mounting brackets, tank, vents, filler and no crossover) makes this the best way to extend the range of the W11. It's really easy compared to mounting a fuel tank in the rear, protected only by a thin layer of fiberglass bodywork...

Anyway, with the battery in the correct location, and only about 18 lbs (9kg) of extra fuel, there is no problem doing a good chassis setup with beneficial corner weights.

[Chris59]

The battery is already located in the "boot", on the left side, near the rear axle. Thanks for the Gallons/litres conversion !