We have some big, big things planned for 2014, and what better way to kick off the New Year than with a big product launch we've been working away at for some time!

THE V12 MANIFOLDS ARE FINISHED!!! Fully integrated and installed now on 2 vehicles with substantial testing miles. Software dialled in and we are ready to go. Weight reduction for the manifolds is 25lb--)15lb each in Stainless Steel. For the Full Power Pack in Stainless, the weight savings are:

• Manifolds -20lbs
• Catalysts -10lbs
• Exhaust - 28lbs

This Power Pack was independently performance tested on a Dyno Dynamics rolling road. Known the world over for being the most accurate and consistent dynos, Dyno Dynamics are also known as 'The Heartbreaker' because they are notorious for their low-readings. Our customer's car produced baseline peak performance figures of 409.328 HP, and 398.207 ft/lbs of torque. Following the installation of our manifolds, sports catalysts, exhaust system & ECU Tune, the peak figures were raise to 452.363BHP and 428.990ft.lbs. A gain of 10.51% in BHP and 7.73% in Torque.

Given that Dyno Dynamics are notorious for giving low readings, it is important to recognize that these dyno results actually represent greater gains than they would initially suggest. The manufacturer's stated output for the 2005 DB9 test subject Vantage is 450BHP & 440ft/lbs. A 10.51% & 7.73% increase over these figure would represent gains of 47.3BHP and 34ft/lbs.



Manifolds in Stainless:
http://www.velocityap.com/ProductDet...AMV12HeadersSS

We have already produced a very special set in Inconel 625:
http://www.velocityap.com/ProductDet...HeadersInconel

Power Pack with OEM Exhaust:
http://www.velocityap.com/ProductDet...M12PPNoExhaust

Power Pack with Velocity Exhaust:
http://www.velocityap.com/ProductDet...=AM12PPExhaust















As of the moment, there are a few pre-existing orders already in production, so there is a little bit of a queue forming. Please email me for ordering information or feel free to ask away in the forum with any questions.

Videos to follow!

 

Real dyno results! Bravo!! Ya mustangs read notoriously low. Those gains are without software correct?

 

Run 1 is Stock, 2 is Headers, Cats, Filters & Exhaust, 3 is Software. And yes, REAL dyno results. Although if you would prefer I could make something up on MS Paint with nice straight line!

 

Nice job! Can't wait to see the vids!

 

Thanks groutguy, and good to see you posting again!

 

Hi.

I am an expat Brit living in Germany looking for an upgrade kit in a box, other places I have tried will only fit on their site and will not dispatch a kit. I am looking at your kit with great interest therefore.

My desire is for much greater low speed torque because this is where I drive the car (2010 DBS), I don't care too much for absolute power, although it’s good to know it’s there!

I have seen that you take fuel out to give more power, we all know that Aston sandbag power being safe, so well done by realising more power electronically, we all know that by taking fuel out the engine delivers more power because it is closer to the optimum fuel figure for best power, something i know from modifying my Porsche

My question is that whilst it is clear from the graph that you run less fuel at high engine speeds, you still run lambda 1 / closed loop or 14.5:1 afr below 3500 rpm. So why don't you re-program the ECU to run max power afr, generally regarded as 13.0:1 afr / 0.89 lambda? Surely you are not realising the low speed gains which must be significant torque increase by sticking with the standard closed loop fuel control.

My comparison of your data to the other kit I was considering but can't purchase does report a significant low speed torque gain by fitting what appears to be similar hardware to yours. Are they doing something you are not?

Also can you explain your gains % more as I’m confused, or just confusing myself so a bit more info would be helpful

What is the installation time, as I need to factor this in to the overall price

Roger

 

Hi Roger, and welcome to 6speed! I hope you come and post here more often in the future and add to the international flavour.

First of all, and I mean this with no cheek and all the best intentions - you might be happier with the power delivery of a DB9. The DB9 & DBS share a common power plant as you know, with the main difference being the intake system. The shorter intake runners on the DBS are optimized for top end power (510BHP) at the expense of low end torque (420ft/lbs.) The DB9 has longer intake runners which yield less power (470BHP) but greater torque (440ft/lbs.) So the characteristic of the DB9 engine may be more to your liking.

Hoping that I haven't now shot myself in the foot and you've gone out to buy a DB9 and discarded our power upgrade!!!

You are correct in looking at the AFR/Lambda readings and how they transition from closed to open loop. Since you already know the difference between those conditions we can skip that part. Most if not all vehicles are set up to run at 14.7 AFR. At this ratio, discarding some variations for humidity, the combustion is theoretically 'perfect' for complete combustion of all the fuel and for catalyst operation, resulting in... you guessed it - lower emissions. It is set up in this way so that at idle, lower RPM (where you do most of your driving) the emissions are as low as possible. If you go leaner than that, fuel economy can be increased, but the combustion chamber temperatures rise which results in higher Nitrous Oxides. If you go richer, more power and lower combustion temperatures but more Carbon Monoxides.

So the simple answer to the question from an ECU Tuning point of view is that it is much, much simpler to change the AFR under open loop conditions. You basically command a particular Lambda value and using reference values it is delivered. When the car is running in closed loop, there are two types of fuel trims - Short Term & Long Term. If you adjust the Short Term fuel trim, in this case to richen the mixture from 14.7 down, it will make adjustments but what will happen over time is that the Long Term fuel trim will start to compensate and pull fuel out in order to bring the mixture back to stoichiometric 14.7:1 or thereabouts.

With Aston Martin ECUs, there are virtually no available map drivers to work from, so for the most part we create our own by R&D and identifying map locations for the parameters we wish to adjust. If it were a Bosch ECU, then we (and pretty much any other tuner in the world) could access all sorts of stuff. At the moment we are still testing our adjustments to the closed loop portion of the map, but since it is a portion which is particularly critical to idling, low and part throttle conditions and therefore very sensitive to driveability, we are not offering those changes just yet.

With all that out of the way, on to what we do offer. If you look at our Dyno graph, you can see that from the initial measurement point of 2055RPM, there is a gain of 20ft/lbs which is maintained at around 15-20ftlbs, all the way until 4000RPM where it begins to grow even greater, peaking at 31ft/lbs gain from the 5000-6000RPM range.

So approximately 2/3 of the torque gains are available throughout the RPM range, from 2000RPM onwards.

As far as comparisons to other manufacturers, I can't really comment a great deal since I'm not certain who you are referring to. Certainly I have seen a number of charts which show power and torque gains for similar products, but these are not raw dyno data. Raw dyno data looks like what we have posted above. The lines are a little squiggly and imperfect and are actually lines, rather than a series of half a dozen or so measurement points plotted on a chart and connected together.

I also don't know enough to comment about what things other companies are doing differently or not. I have seen public statements many times against ECU tuning, but I have also seen products which require O2 sensors to be switched off to prevent CELs for emissions and so that would seem to be contradictory. On that basis, I'm not really sure one way or another whether any of our competitors are or are not doing anything differently with software.

However, the principles as far as the exhaust systems are concerned are not actually all that complicated, and although there's probably some room for a small amount of variance from one part to another, two very similar packages should produce two very similar sets of results, wouldn't you agree?

% gains - I inserted these simply because the dyno we chose to use is of a variety known very well for giving low output readings. If you wish to view our results conservatively and in arithmetic terms, we saw 409.328 HP before, and 452.363BHP after. A gain of 43HP. We saw 398.207 ft/lbs before, and 428.990ft.lbs after. A gain of 31ft/lbs.

However, a 2005 DB9 should for example have made 450BHP. It is possible there is something wrong with this car and these are accurate output figures, but since we know this dyno type is know for reading low, and since we know from our previous testing of V8 Vantage upgrades on the same dyno that it reads low, it is most likely that this car was actually making the manufacturer's stated output before modification (450BHP.) Therefore, if we wish to calculate what the actual gains were, and what the actual final output is we can use our measured results to calculate a % gain in HP and a % gain in torque, and then apply that % gain to the manufacturer's stated output figures to determine what we believe the gains to be (47BHP and 34ft/lbs.)

If you don't agree with that methodology, then you can revert to the actual, arithmetical measured gains of 43HP and 31ft/lbs, peak figures.

Since our manufacturing and distribution is based out of our two facilities the UK, and in Romania, it would be very easy for us to ship you the parts to Germany. I would also be willing to pay for you to do before & after dyno runs if you are up for it?

 

Sorry I just realized I missed that one. I would say the installation time is around 8-10 hours on a DBS. Since our manifolds are 1-piece rather than 2, the installation does require loosening the sub-frame to remove & replace the manifolds. We did consider 2-piece manifolds as you can then R&R by cutting the OEM manifolds in half and not dropping the sub-frame, but I didn't feel that was an acceptable install procedure for an Aston, and it also means that the process can't be reversed should you ever wish to sell the car and perhaps fit the package to your new Aston or sell it on independently.

 

Stuart,

That's very supportive of you and shows massive commitment to your product seldom seen, for an offer to fund the dyno runs - thanks! and if we progress I will take you up on the offer for sure.

I'm not sure I will turn into the most frequent poster, a reader yes, but with Brit roots and living in the fatherland means I'm an easy target for the locals on here

Thanks for your very detailed reply.

I don't really understand what you say about short and long inlet runners, I just know that DBS doesn't have slower 0-60 or in-gear times than DB9 published in AML data books? And coming from DB9 to DBS myself, the DBS feels more urgent than my DB9 ever did, but it just hits the redline too quickly and at lower engine speeds doesn't really pack the brutal torque increase I was expecting in a car from 2010, the DB9 can be forgiven as it is a GT cruiser for the older gent from way back in 2005.

I'm seriously not technical, so most of what you write is over my head concerning the fuelling chemistry. All I know is what I have been told and basics from my Porsche days. The basic being, and in agreement with what you say. 14.7:1 or stoich is good for chemically correct lowest emissions, but for full torque 13.0:1 is the magic number for peak output - who cares about emissions when at maximum engine load. But you have answered my question, in that it seems you can't remap the closed loop OEM fuel control and deliver 13.0:1 to realise a free to have torque gain. I thought this would have been easy for you because you make the higher speeds leaner for more power and I have read elsewhere on this forum that you can pretty much do anything with the ECU. Out of interest, why does coming out of closed loop for full throttle cause a problem to closed loop for idle? I don't understand.

Excuse me for asking, but perhaps this is something Eurocharged could do? I buy the hardware from you and software from them? If I modify I'm after perfection and not realising the full lower speed torque benefit would not be ideal for me. I just pick the best of the best, best hardware from you, best software from another.

The data from other aftermarket maker is on the web in different locations. I want to buy something that fulfils all my expectations from informed discussions. So I won't comment on here about the other options on the market.

I agree with you when you say that any de-cat header with good primary pipes will produce power regardless who it is made by. The application might be different though, as per the example of your kit not delivering 13.0:1 AFR at engine speeds below 3500 where another kit might control the ECU differently.

The main thing I just cannot compute is concerning power gains quoted as a % value.
I was always lead to believe the help an exhaust system gives to breathing and reduction in backpressure resulted in a certain BHP gain. Take that same exhaust system improvement and put it on the same engine with an higher output (450 DB9 to 510 DBS) and by-and-largely you will get the same BHP increase, not the previous % increase.

For example, by saying your exhaust gives a 70BHP increase on a 450BHP DB9 (520 total), means a 15.5% power increase over std.
For DBS, by forgetting the actual BHP exhaust kit gain (which was 70 on DB9) the total power figure using a % multiplier at 15.5% is 589BHP, where perhaps it will just be the BHP gain which means 580BHP - ok, 10BHP is splitting hairs but when a theory isn't totally correct it doesn't look good.

Dyno errors or engine errors as you state aside, they don't come into the equation for my money, and using a % gain increase which carries in the equation the power increase between models (450 / 510 / 565BHP) is just plain and simply wrong in my opinion.
Will your kit on Vanquish II be 565+70=635BHP or 565+11%=652.5 BHP - a big difference I'm sure you will agree to potentially be in error the larger the BHP between models rises. So if you don't mind and as you suggest, I will use the BHP gain to categorise your kit.

10 hours to fit at dealer rates and an expensive laser wheel alignment which I have just spent out on seeing as the subframe is touched, how long was the install on your DB9?

This all starts to mount up a bit, but I guess quality is worth it. I'm going to have to think about the all up price.

Roger

 

Thank-you. I hope it comes across how committed we are to delivering great products and a positive experience. We also have 100% confidence in the products and their ability to deliver. I'd like to see some data off a DBS as well, so it is no problem to pay for your dyno time.

Don't worry about being a target. This is a very friendly forum, you're not going to be ridiculed or shouted down by anyone on here for anything. Very civilized.

The 0-60 or in-gear times are not slower. I'm not suggesting that the DBS is slower, just that the DB9 has more torque. Basically, with inlet runners that are fixed (more modern setups including those from Aston do now have variable/switchable lengths) you can choose to optimize for torque or HP by selecting the length of the runners. Longer = more torque, less top end HP. Shorter = less torque, more top end HP. It is my understanding, which could be incorrect , that the difference in HP & torque outputs from DB9 to DBS is due to intake setups being different in this way. If your DBS feels more urgent, that is great! It also suggests to me that perhaps you don't drive quite as far down in the power band as you think you do, if you are feeling that increased urgency and power that is going to be higher up in the RPM range.

Either way, our kit is already producing a sizeable increase in low end torque, and a big increase in top end so I think you would find it feels more urgent throughout the entire RPM range.

Don't worry, I'm seriously not technical either, just decent at blagging it . Well, maybe not entirely, but I am not the engineer, fabricator etc. behind all this stuff I am just the clown who sells it! Regarding tuning the closed loop fuelling. We can do this and will be updating the tuning in the near future. It just wasn't signed off at the time of launch (we don't just write a file with a host of new changes, take the car around the block and say it is done.) Coming out of closed loop for full throttle doesn't cause a problem for idle.

I don't know what Eurocharged can or can't do or what their capabilities are. How do you know that they can tune this portion of the map for you, or how have you come to the conclusion that their software is the 'best'?

I'm not suggesting that the kit produces a % gain that can be applied to higher HP cars. For example, if we agree that the kit makes 43HP on the DB9, I would agree that it should then make 43HP on the DBS (maybe if I can answer the questions well enough we'll all find out for sure .) I'm all for transparency and clarity and lots of information. The reality is, it is tough at the best of times to compare dyno info from one to another so I just like to throw everything out there and let people see it, warts & all. That's why I listed the actual dyno results and graphs, actual figures as well as the percentage gains.

The reason for listing the percentage gains is not to suggest that the % applies to higher HP cars like the DBS in the same percentages, but to highlight the fact that this particular dyno yields very low results, and to use that percentage to extrapolate what the actual arithmetic, gross gain was on that DB9. In short, what I am saying is - based on prior information from that dyno and the fact that the car was in perfect nick and running great before any mods, that I do not believe the car was only putting down 409HP, I believe it was putting down 450BHP. So using the % gain to calculate what I believe it is actually making at the flywheel is just a tool to figure out what the actual gross gain is, and this gross gain as you state, should be the same or highly similar on a DBS as on a DB9.

And as I've also stated - we have provided the actual data from the dyno, the % gains, and what the % gains work out to if you accept that the dyno reads low and that the car is likely making factory output. You are free to choose to work from the actual figures we saw and reject the calculated figures. That's why I give all the data and let people interpret it as they see fit. Even if you work from those figures, we are still up 20ft/lbs of torque from 2000RPM, max gains of 31ft/lbs and 43BHP. To me those are very respectable figures for a normally aspirated exhaust system & tune. I'm sure there are places out there which will tell you that you can get 51HP from ECU Tuning on a Virage, not supply a dyno chart, and remove the top speed limiter (there is none!) But to me, since I know that what we have shown here are REAL results that are actually repeatable, I think even 43BHP is a solid gain.[/QUOTE]I actually have done the install myself with my own two hands on a DB9, alongside a friend who works on a lot of Astons. He let me do most of the work, and made sure I didn't screw anything up. I'm going to be a lot slower than an experienced tech, and we were going slowly and documenting, taking photos and so on. That took just under 12 hours. So 8-10 for an experienced technician, especially an experienced Aston technician rather than an amateur like me is do-able, in my opinion.

It is advisable to at least check alignment after dropping the sub-frame. When the install is done, if the technician uses a marker prior to removal to create an alignment mark on the elliptical bolt and on the subframe, then upon reassembly, you can usually achieve very good alignment. In our case, the car felt great after doing this, and a few hundred miles later, the alignment was checked and is within factory tolerances. That may not be repeatable by everyone and it should at the very least be checked after the install and after things have been given a chance to settle.

PM Sent!

 

Hi Roger,

Just checking that you received my PM and the response above?

Cheers,

Stuart

 

Hi Stuart

I may also be interested in a self install kit, I have emailed you.

 

Received and replied. Thank-you for your interest.

Roger, still not heard from you, hoping my message found you!

 

Got enough miles on the improved tuning to sign-off, and Dean got the car back to the Dyno today. End result? He pulled another 2.5HP and 9.5ft/lbs of torque out of the tune, with the majority of the torque gains in the low-mid range RPM.

Total maximum gains are now 45BHP, and 40.5ft/lbs, as measured on the heartbreaker.

 

Paging Roger.... you showed up and posted 2 quite involved posts, I've sent you a PM as well. Strange that you haven't replied?