The pictures

[tryphon]

Hello to all,

You may find some pictures of my Stratos here:

http://www.rallycars.com/Cars/Lancia/Stratos2.html

Cheers,

[chris.richard]

Useful photos, pity about the pop-ups!:)

[tryphon]

I unfortunately have no (or very little) control over pop-ups, you need to use a filter such a the one from meaya...

[chris.richard]

What do you use the car for, Tryphon? Is it everyday transport?

[tryphon]

My main intent is entering historic events, once I put it in the spec I want. Probably some hillclimbing as well if I'm able to find shorter gears. Absolutely not everyday transport...although I would use it that way if I did not put into consideration its age or background.

[chris.richard]

Originally posted by tryphon
Probably some hillclimbing as well if I'm able to find shorter gears.

Hillclimbing in Switzerland?! I bet that's a different league from the UK

[tryphon]

We do have some relatively interesting mountain roads over here. Some of them are less than 30Km away from where I live

[colin artus]

Ican see three solutions to this problem. 1) Michellotto used to do race drop gear sets. Expensive as they require a new casing.
2) find an engineering shop to cut a new set of drop gears. They only need to be straight cut but will need good heat treatment and not all tooth profiles can take the power so this will limit the number of teeth combinations. A specialist gear cutting firm will know all this. Could be quite economical as long as you dont mention the F word!
3) fit a 208 diff unit - it has lower gearing

Colin

[tryphon]

Thanks for the reply.

Option #1 is out of the question

Option #2 should be very expensive as a complete set of straight-cut gears and the appropriate dog rings should be around 7000 pounds, too much

Option #3 might be interesting but the problem with diff ratios is that some gears become unusable while others are spot on. Usually you have to lower 1st gear too much in order to get appropriate 3rd-5th

I will ask my local specialist in early August. He has some obscure sources for rare parts, I've heard he was even able to find 4 valve per cylinder heads for the Stratos...

[colin artus]

I was only suggesting that you have drop gears made, not the gear sets in the box itself. Jack Knight made some straight cut/dog ring boxes and I think that QV racing still have a couple, they probably have the Michellotto drop gear sets as well.
If you change the overall gearing via drop gears or final drive, gear spacing will remain the same its just that the speed maxima will change . How are you to know if the particular gear change points are suitable for any particular circuit/hillclimb as they are now anyway? At least if you drop the gearing you might find a use for all five gears and the drop gears are easy to change unlike those in the box itself.

Colin

[tryphon]

You are refering to final drive ratios, right?
I've had other cars to which I modified the final drive ratio and in order to get gearing suitable for rallying (max speed 190-210km/h) the first gear becomes to short (something like 40-45Km/h) which is only adequate to get the car started.
Hillclimbing requires even shorter boxes (max speeds of approx. 180Km/h) to be competitive. Using a final drive ratio that would allow this maximum speed while keepin all other gears in the Stratos would give:
1st 48Km/h
2nd 70Km/h
3rd 97Km/h
4th 131Km/h
5th 175Km/h
all at 7000rpm and using a 4.9:1 final drive rather than the 3.82:1 originally fitted.
As you see in 3rd you are just about able to reach 60 miles per hour. Is that usable, no.
So the best solution is to combine a change of the final drive ratio with appropriate gears otherwise you end up with gearing that is adequate in 4th and 5th and completly unusable in the other gears.

Cheers,

[colin artus]

Yes what you say is true - ideally you would fit a set of close ratio gears and lower the final drive. But the cost consideration means that all new gears are not on and it isnt really possible to swap standard gears between boxes as the manufacture is not standardised enough to do this i.e. they are matched sets.
So its either leave it as it is or change the overall gearing. neither of which is likely to suit exactly. But if you had an alternative set of drop gears (or sets) at least you would have the choice and, depending on the course, one set is likely to be less of a compromise than another.
Since 1st gear is on a dogleg its not much use anyway as this makes the changedown from 2nd very slow. Also, you should rev the 246 engine to at least 7700 rpm or you will miss its peak power. However you should check that the valves are no longer the original sodium filled items which are notorious for dropping their heads. Check that solid SS ones have been fitted and then you can rev the tits off the engine which is what it needs to make power.

Colin

[x19er]

This guy used to have different Stratos gearsets ( and also has a NOS Stratos drivetrain )

www.allferrariparts.com