Planning
One thing I could never be accused of is rushing into this and not considering the options. I first started thinking about building a Kit Car around October 2000 and was soon focused on building a Bike Engined Car (BEC from now on) because of the performance available for a relatively low cost. A BEC also suits my intended usage of the car, which is track days, weekend blasts, driving the few miles to work in the summer and scaring passengers and small children. There was a brief period of fantasizing over an Ultima, but it was just far more money than I could ever get away with spending.
My initial focus was Westfield. At the time they had the Megablade and Megabusa kits, for which I registered my interest and received the brochures, price lists and I even bought a build manual to see how complicated it all was. The full kit seemed to be the way to go and worked out around £12K for a completed basic spec Megablade. At this point I started looking at a few options like detachable arches, alloy uprights, alloy calipers, split rims etc and began to see that I could easily end up spending a great deal more for something a bit more individual with a few extras.
Around this time there was a Kit-Car build article about a Stuart-Taylor Locoblade, which they build for for £6K. This really caught my attention and I made some enquiries with ST and MK Engineering. I did some sums with the ST and MK kits and came to conclusion that whilst their chassis components were not significantly cheaper than Westfield were offering taking account of what else was in their starter kits, there was obviously a huge variety of components that could be picked from to build something more individual and possibly save a few quid. I decided that through careful part sourcing and not going mad with the options you could put a decent Westfield together for less than the full kit price. I am not sure now how valid this is as there are lots of things you simply don't think of costing until you need them and in general Westfield parts prices aren't too bad. One thing I did conclude for certain was that the chassis is such a small part of the overall cost of the project and that I would rather bolt all the expensive bits I was going to be buying to something with a better 'name', simply because this would probably make the build easier and yield better resale value.
I cast the net a bit wider and found my way onto the Fisher Sportscars website. The Fury Fireblade looked interesting and they had a comprehensive set of parts that were well priced and looked good. I sent off for a brochure and did some sums and now had a viable alternative to a home-brew Westfield. At first it seemed that there were three other manufacturers offering Fury like cars, but some reading got me to Sylva and the history behind the Fury, the Stylus and the Pheonix. Out of the three, the Fury Spyder and the Pheonix seemed the most performance oriented, so I ordered a Pheonix brochure too. I did some more sums and worked out that the IRS Pheonix chassis/body kit was quite a bit cheaper than the Fury and I also preferred the look of it. By complete chance it turned out that there was a Pheonix owner where I work, emails were exchanged and a visit arranged. I went to have a look and quite frankly was stunned. The car was beautiful and the quality of the chassis and fibreglass was excellent. I was also very assured by the reputation that the Sylva marque has in motorsport. The results speak for themselves. So that was it, I was going to build a bike-engined Pheonix.
At this point I started to think about an engine, which has a page all of its own. During this time I started to think seriously about the weight and complexity of installing different engines and the impact upon performance of the engine weight. With the focus on keeping weight down as a means of acheiving high power to weight ratio, this got me thinking again that it might be more sensible to build a se7en rather than a Pheonix as I was erring towards building something as light as possible at the expense of some aerodynamic efficiency. Conveniently Sylva also did the Striker, which had just been reborn with IRS and compared very favorably on price with a Westfield starter kit with a fantastic reputation for being a fine handling chassis with excellent quality and a great 'name' for resale (heaven forbid). So that was it (again), I was definately going to build a bike-engined Striker.
The launch of the Megabird early in 2001 made me think again as the blackbird engine was my preferred power unit at the time and the ease of getting all the bits I would need from Westfield was attractive, until I worked out how much the engine was going to cost.
I had a few phone conversations with Jeremy Phillips of Sylva Autokits, who was always a pleasure to speak to, even though he always seems to be blowing a bit hot and cold over bike engines. Sylva had engine mounts for the CBR1000 and Mark Fisher had mounts, exhausts, gearlinkage for the Fireblade and Blackbird, all of which opened up some possibilities for engine choice. Even more so as Jeremy had the attitude that he would mount whatever engine I brought him. I visited some shows and poked around in some other manufacturers cars, but always came back to the functional simplicity, light weight and reputation of the Striker. Now that I have seen Andy Borris' Pheonix with my chosen engine in it, mounted by Jeremy, I am now 100% happy with this approach as the standard of the installation is excellent and typifies the simple, functional simplicity of the Striker.
Other build options that were decided along the way were to definitely go for IRS as the Sierra diff offers a better choice of ratios which are essential for a BEC and through careful choice of donor parts the IRS is no heavier than a live axle, despite what you might hear. IRS should also give a better road car with less unsprung mass to sprung mass ratio and true independent rear suspension. I also decided not to use a reverse gearbox as a lot of people on the BEC list were having no end of problems with them. I would rather save the money and go for electric reverse if I decide I can't live without it.