Daylight after 18 years

[lancialulu]

One of the best quotes from Richard Hammond about the Stratos - 'It changes direction like a frightened mouse'.

was Hammond speaking from personal exerience I wonder.....

Certainly general consensus is that my tyre pressures were too high at 24psi!! Some say as low as 17psi. This is going to be determined by trail and hopefully no error.

[the.cern]

A contemporary quote that I recall was that the Stratos was the only car that should have been provided with wipers on the side windows as well as the windscreen ............. sideways came as standard!!!!!!!!!

[Jai Sharma]

Congratulations on getting it on the road! Lovely looking.
On the plus side it cannot be much longer than it is wide so the sideways thing might not be too bad :-)

[RobD]

Tim,
The car looks fab, can't wait to see it in the flesh. It's very difficult to tell from pictures but from above it looks as if the rear wheel could have some toe-out which might contribute to a stability issue. Of course some cars require toe out on the rear , and for all I know the Stratos is one of them.
  I had a Volvo T5R many years ago which was lovely to drive but a bit flighty at speed. I put up with it believing it was part of the inherent 'character'. It was only when I gave a lift to a mate who worked as an engineer at Williams F1 who immediately sensed something was adrift and advised me to get the rear alignment checked.
Having all the corners properly lined-up made a tremendous difference.
Knowing your meticulous attention to detail I'm sure you'll get it sorted

[lancialulu]

Hi Rob

Sorted the front to a vague idea of what should be right with only minor adjustments to increase the castor to about 5 degrees on both wheels (only adjust n/s) and also 1 degree neg camber again it was 0 on n/s and correct on o/s.Toe in 2mm. So I was wondering what track days in the UK run anticlockwise circuits as this is what the car was set up for by the look of it (only joking...).

The rears have a smidge of neg camber (but cant take much as 295's) and I cant check the tracking yet as my pit is occupied with a Fulvia over it but Strato's set up +2mm toe out at the rear, but these were on Stradale tyres not Group 4 which seem to benefit from a bit of toe in by all accounts (1-2mm in the cars original Transformer construction manual).

Have also not checked the distortion of my other half's camera!!!!

Out tomorrow hopefully for further test run. Have dropped tyre pressures really low (18psif, 22 psi r) as this is the "fix" recommended by the Stratos community; so will be keeping an eye out for tread temperatures.....

[stanley sweet]

Doesn't sound overly soft on the front to me bearing in mind original Fulvia figures were about 22psi on the front and that was supporting the engine, gearbox and subframe. There's only the spare and radiator in the front of a Stratos.

[lancialulu]

Doesn't sound overly soft on the front to me bearing in mind original Fulvia figures were about 22psi on the front and that was supporting the engine, gearbox and subframe. There's only the spare and radiator in the front of a Stratos.

And the spare is a space saver as 15inch x12 with tyre will not fit.... but the rad is double width and 2 fans!

[SanRemo78]

Toe in or toe out causes a bit of confusion! When measuring it with an optical gauge that's set up at the rear of the car you need to read toe out off the scale which gives the wheels toe in. Setting the car up with toe out on the wheels will give an unstable ride. Especially on cornering.

Guy

[RobD]

Toe out, front or rear depending on engine layout,will usually help turn-in but at the expense of straight line stability. Mid-engined cars might behave differently but the same principles apply.
I suspect on a Stratos re-creation the rule book probably goes out of the window and cars need to be individually set-up. There are so many variables involved such as wishbone inclination, rim sizes ,weight distribution, tyre profile etc etc the original Stratos data will be fairly meaningless.
Sorting it out will be a fascinating exercise. I think I'd start out with a fairly safe toe-in configuration for the front and start playing with the rear toe in/toe out. Best practice in these circumstances is to make fairly big changes so the effect can be clearly felt. Once you detect whatever adjustment you are making is having a detrimental or a positive effect you can start working towards the optimal setting.
I've made cheap and cheerful laser alignment gauges using £3.99 laser spirit levels from B&Q. I'm sure you'll work out how to do this but if you need any pointers drop me a line.

[lancialulu]

So a bit of an update.

Using the parallel tub and straight edge of the rear wheel and some school boy trig I found OSR had 1 deg toe in and the NSR (in the photo!!) had zero!

So a bit of a fiddle on the nice adjustable trailing arms I got c0.4 degree toe in one both rear wheels.

Set the tyre pressure to 18 front 22 rear ground clearance front of tub (which is essentially a flat plate) 160mm,  rear of tub 169mm so not pointing up!

Went for my 20 mile check run and the rear felt really planted, but am still not getting a stable front end at speed in a straight line. Steering and cornering so far feel fine but not exploring that. It needs constant input on the steering at ehem speeds in a straight line (like it is tram-lining all the time), not as bad as previously, so more toe in or less, and more caster (I am near the limit of the geometry already at around 5 degrees). I did not notice and bump steer problems.

Any chassis experts out there??

[lancialulu]

After investing time with a digital protractor camber tool and some turntables I have dialed in 4.5 degree of castor and 1.1 deg neg camber with 2mm front toe in. Rears left untouched other then raising ride height by 5mm.Tyre pressure increased to 20psi front and 22psi rear

Went out for a drive on new years day and it is a different car, a joy to drive and steer. Not tried anything radical on the handling side of things as the roads are not dry enough but straight line acceleration, bump steer (none) and general high speed stability is all there.

I went out the next day too just to confirm or otherwise.

I may go back to minor tweaks but am grinning now. 2016 is looking good!

[frankxhv773t]

Happy New Year Tim. Glad to hear things are coming together and looking forward to copious reports of your adventures in 2016.

Frank T

[the.cern]

Excellent news Tim. You will be belting around Essex (and further afield) with a huge grin on your face all summer I guess!!!

                   Andy

[lancialulu]

For those not on Facebook I decided today was a nice cool day to give "Shades" a run. I needed to get a Sport seat hinge repaired (improved...) by Omicron so that was the detail for the Strato's. A round trip of 140 miles. Almost fault less apart from the rear n/s top mount starting to undo itself resulting in a lot of alarming clonking on anything other than billiard smooth tarmac. Loved the noise and the grunt (in any gear...), and the high speed handling and cornering but boy do you need to concentrate when poodling around as the bl**dy car just wants to dart right or left. Oh and it got quite warm in the cockpit albeit still a cool day outside....

[stanley sweet]

Certainly looks good. You should have inquired about an air scoop for the roof while you were at Omicron - might cool it down a bit. Think it will be the first run of the year for the Fulvia this weekend if it stays as nice as today. Just got to refit the oil filler - had it apart taking out what was left of the 'wire wool'. Scary sight, I'll be posting some photos.