article from Practical Performance Car (PPC) magazine

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Practical Performance Car a monthly publication aimed at real car enthusiasts, with real-world cars. At PPC we pride ourselves in providing the most entertaining, informative and inspiring features for petrolheads everywhere. Each month we feature an eclectic mix of affordable performance cars, great driving adventures and world-class technical features for the DIY tuner. http://ppcmag.co.uk/

The Lancia Stratos isn't everyone's cup of tea and the only ones I've driven have been replicas -or more properly look-alikes. The quick use various V6 engines and the Alfa Romeo engine is popular since it's at least Italian.
But the Stratos replica we had in lasth month took the look-alike idea a stage further. If you're going to have something that looks like a Stratos (but isn't) why not improve on the handling by turning the engine around and running north-south?
The car in the picture has exactly that set up and it's been around for a couple of years but never running properly. It has a V6 two valve Alfa engine but with a couple of turbos to make it more interesting. It had an engine management system which a few people had tried to map without any succes at all. That's where I came in.
After changing the ECU for our own one I set about mapping the engine. I like to set the turbo boost quite low initially, then use the pressure correction table to increase fuelling and retard ignition with more boost. This one was fairly drama free apart from the usual loading up of the driving wheels to reduce wheel-spin.
351bhp @ 6000rpm isn't bad at all but 350ft/lbs of torque @ 4500rpm is much more impressive.

On the track the car went pretty quickly but the clutch soon gave up the ghost. I hadn't had any trouble on the rollers, but engines and transmissions get an easier life on the rolling road than they do on the track. Once it's fully sorted this car is going to impress - especially if they follow the plan to fit the V6 with four-valves-per-cylinder and boost up the pressure !

words and pics-copyright by Dave J Walker - This article was brought to our attention by Lionel.