Stratos takes on Targa Tasmania

[ByrneEngineering]

Hi guys, been a while since I posted here, but finally after 3 years Targa Tasmania tarmac rally is back up and running and we got accept to compete in the full race category in the Stratos.

It was a massive event, over 2000km and around 400km competitive over 6 days, and the Stratos got through with flying colours. We didn?t drop a single stage and even got a couple of top 10 stage times (mostly modern cars)

Issues - in the entire time we only had 2 issues. Constantly throwing alternator belts, we tracked this down to a weird resonance occurring in the belt on very heavy downshift rev ups. We installed a small bump stop inside the belt guard, that the belt would hit and knock out the resonance, total solved the issue. We also destroyed a front caster arm bush, luckily had a spare, my fault, poor design choice, on the list of things to fix.

Handling- Since I built the car I?ve done some roll centre correction, which helped, but also fixed up some rear suspension bump steer, wow what a difference, the car now turns in with some serious confidence, it really is a lot of fun to drive (and a lot faster than the alfa!)

Things to improve ? Front Brake cooling, ground clearance possibly better bump stops, some more rear aero would be nice (bit of high speed lift off over steer) and a few squeaks and rattles to attend to.
Anyway was nice to finally use the car for what it was built for, should have some video in the coming weeks too

[Guy Mayers]

And I spot the obligatory safety beers in the penultimate photo!

Looking forward to the videos!

[Bernard]

Well done Colin.. especially to finish !
Does the rear radiator between the exhausts gather much crap ??
Looking forward to the video's
Cheers
Phil

[ByrneEngineering]

Thanks guys,

Na, the oil cooler at the back dosn't collect too much crap, however we did smash the towing eye up into the duct on fairly aggressive dip in the road, so bit of a re design required there. It is super effective though, seeing around 18deg oil temp drop across the cooler and overall engine temps are much more stable

[hollytree]

Fantastic effort and well done.
Brilliant. You just need to start making/selling all the improvement bits and ideas you make, so we can do them to our cars
Keep the flag flying in the Sothern Hemisphere !!

[ByrneEngineering]

well let me know if there are any bits in particular, I've got the new workshop now so am able to do a bit more stuff
cheers

[westonTB]

Good effort! Very jealous, lets be honest, this is exactly what these cars were designed for.
Its easy to see the weapons grade quality of your build = small snagging list

Thanks Colin, I use your youtube channel as a Stratos manual, safety beer consumption incoming

[LPH_UK]

Excellent stuff Colin. And, as has already been said, good to see you are still an exponent of the safety beer.

[ByrneEngineering]

Cheers guys, Yes those safety beers went down a treat after 6 days, anyway here's some footage of the Stratos in action

https://youtu.be/PLkd3GLzcP8?si=ZCdzT-0xlDGDnDUF

[sdebez]

Love the drone shots.

Car looks and sounds great in that setting