Nothing new to say, just thought you'd enjoy this photo of a mate's Group 4 Stratos, just completed restoration in Italy. Its in Marlboro colours and I think looks fantastic. Factory cars ran with Alitalia, Marlboro and Pirelli sponsorship. Many thanks to Ash for photoshopping the number plate out for me.
V nice! Any pics of the circuit racer in the Marlboro colours? Whats a set of the Coffin Nail wheels worth? Did you sell the 32 Valve engine with the other car? SO many questions!
Look on www.stratossupersite.com for group 5 pics. Original coffin wheels at least $10K per set, they don't come up often. The 12 inch rears are very hard to get. Repros are $1K each, but aluminium (vs. magnesium) and much heavier. Our car had a 2 valve engine, only last works cars had 4 valve, very very rare and reputedly difficult to drive due to narrow power band. A handful of heads were made and found their way onto private cars.
i've only seen blueprints to compare... i'd say half way between 308GT4 and X1/9. for visual idea see this page: http://aussieexotics.com/308vsX19.php
Gorgeous car. Surely the original magnesium wheels would now be way, way past their use by dates? Would you notice the heavier weight of the repro wheels anyway? I remember reading that there was a large stockpile of 512M/S parts socked away in the 1980's. When they eventually surfaced, all the magnesium bits had "turned to dust" and were useless.
i'm sort of wondering that for my X1/9.... been chasing magnesium chromodora 5-spokes (like dinos) but theyre so old i'm thinking a modern (if a little heavier) alternative might be better....????
It depends upon the magnesium content. The race stuff is very high content and very light. Lifespan is not the primary consideration. Road stuff is almost always lower and lasts longer. Having said that, I would go for the modern stuff if it looked right. Just refinishing the old wheels will be uneconomical.
yeah well, it's not just a battle of materials.... try getting 4x98 wheels nowadays... only ones i know of are (early) fiat/lancia, maserati (biturbo), and gemini
You would think X19 stuff would be asy enough to come by if you were prepared to shop overseas? Ebay?
hmm their website is hopeless!! perhaps they'll swap some decent wheels for a better website. $80 an hour and i'm theirs! (yeah i'm a cheap whooooore )
what did you do .Bathurst mid 80s Brock used them as his wet weather tyre.Walkinshaw ran them on the jags.Most gun lap dash guys in the 80/90s ran them on boxers(thats u),rs Porshes ,names Stockley,harris Mcdermett,Alexander,smart ect.
true, but point is it's all NOS. i've come to the point where i don't give a crap about heritage and blah blah.... i no longer read X articles and think they're cool... i think they're old and slow. mine isn't, and i want the best of everything for it. this side of a Stratos i can't think of a platform any better for a sportscar. so, here's the list of stuff done vs stuff to do.... done: 1608cc twin cam (80x80 bore/stroke - 110hp in stock form... original X is 67-75hp) dual 40 IDF's (grrooooowwl ) 'rally' cams compression bumped to 10.5 - 11:1 (from ~9.5) engine balanced race valve springs 5speed from fiat regata custom engine support mounts, solid mounted with adjustable rose-joints HPC coated extractors straight-through exhaust, stainless steel, twin tip outlet optical pick-up on distributor dizzy recurved for aggressive spark advance custom copper cooling setup button-style extreme clutch (ceramic pressure plate) hi pressure fuel pump/regulator flywheel lightened/balanced MSD6A-L capacative discharge ignition system to do: dyno-tune modern performance adjustable suspension modern performance brakes sticky rubber cromadora-style 5spoke lightweight wheels lighten where i can, perhaps a couple carbon-fibre or fibreglass panel replacements
So Pete you no better then Michelin and all the guns whom have used em.I ran them years ago,and if they were a higher profile i'd run em on o boxer,they would have been my prefered tyre if they had been legal in historic sports cars.As i said what did you do for em to fall apart.
