Hi everyone. I bought a 2010 DB9 in Obsidian Black about a week ago and I am enjoying the car very much so far. I am getting a Fabspeed X-pipe shipped over in a few weeks (they are in the processing of fabricating it right now) and plan to get a pair of high flow intake filters along with the X-pipe installed.

I came from the GTR community which had a lot of resources for mods and tunes. I am noticing that the community for Astons is a little smaller.

Any recommendations for high flow intake filters?

Is the ECU tune necessary or will the car run fine on the factory mapping after those parts are installed? I live in California so a 91 fuel mapping is preferable. What are my options if I want a remap coming from the San Francisco Bay Area?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

Car will run fine with those mods and not throw codes. They are all after the Cats by the engine.

1. I would most definitely do the DECAT pipes. the X pipe wont do hardly anything, and may quieten the exhaust down a bit by smoothing it.

2. The Decat pipes take the place of the Secondary Cats which have no o2 sensors in them. You could have straight pipes fabbed to take their place locally if you desired. This will pick you up a few small horsepower.

3. The Velocity AP tune is awesome. I could absolutely feel the difference. Throttle was way touchier, seemed more responsive all the way through the power band.

4. REDPANTS has got or will have soon high flow air filters that he had designed just for our cars. Check with him. (I don't run them, didnt feel the need at this time, not going to make any power diff)

Check Speedracer800 's youtube videos for DB9 Decat pipes. That is my car with just the decals on it. again doesn't throw codes. I drove mine 9 months before the tune was added

 

Thanks for the response SheriffDep. I checked your videos on YouTube and it appears you are running straight pipes in place of the secondary cats along with some muffler delete pipes? The X-pipe that FabSpeed makes is a cat bypass replacement for the secondary cats... so I am already getting decat pipes like you suggested. These ones just come in the form of an X-pipe and not two separate straight pipes. I think the two setups have similar back pressure since they are both cat deletes, so we'd probably see a similar performance gain with either setup.

I went this route because I wanted a higher pitched exhaust note as opposed to the louder growl that comes from the two separate pipes. Your setup results in what I would describe as two inline V6 engines side by side, where as the X-pipe setup would result in an exotic V12 sound, which is what I'd prefer. Sound is secondary though as I plan on keeping the factory muffler for the option of silencing the exhaust with the fuse-22 mod if I ever get pulled over for a fix-it ticket

We have a 95db noise limit policy in California, so I can't go crazy loud with the exhaust setup without attracting unwanted attention from the constabulary

I am interested in high flow intake filters before I get the car tuned because I think increasing the air flow into the engine will definitely see some power gains at the high end with some trade-offs at the low end. That's why I wanted some opinions on different air intake filters. I've researched the j1, RSC, VelocityAP, and V collection air filters and they all look similar but different. And now I am hearing that the user Redpants is also producing one, so I was looking for more of an analytical comparison of these options in terms of reduction in air restriction, air filtration performance, dry or wet filtering, fitment, and maintenance procedure. Does anyone with these filters listed above have any comparison data or should I just pick one and go with it?

I think I will hold off on the ECU tuning until after the air filters and secondary cat deletes are installed. My pipes won't be ready until early September according to schedule, so I have some time to decide. I'd really be looking for a custom mapping because I am sort of mix and matching these parts and we only get 91 fuel here in California from most gas stations, so I'd probably want to run a richer fuel mixture? I'm wondering how the tuning would work logistically. I think it would require a dyno unless there is a way to upload data to the tuner and let them do a remote tuning. I don't want to just throw any off-the-shelf tune in and risk engine knock or something like that which might compromise the smoothness of the torque curve. I had my GTR tuned at a local dyno using a Cobb Accessport which allows for custom mappings. Are there any similar modules out there that allow for custom maps to be inputted? And how easy is that process? I've seen a few modules on V collection, VelocityAP, and Fabspeed but which ones are more custom map friendly?

After all that is said and done, assuming I do get the car tuned up and perfect, would the transmission then need to do some kind of clutch relearn? Is there any way to access the transmission control unit to modify shift points while in automatic drive mode? I don't want to give it all of these power upgrades and beat the heck out of the tranny as a result. I am not familiar with how this transmission works. Any help with these questions would be super helpful.

 

There is a thread on here about air filters, I am running dry filters with the bottom half of the air box remove. Car sounds the same and have no issues driving through pouring rain, I also added catch cans, because when I changed the air filters one third of my passenger side filter was covered in oil.
Only place on a DB9 to install them is below the throttle bodies, I am not a big fan of ECU tunes, especially on the DB9 which does not run very rich, you lean it out too much and you could spell trouble. If you want to up the power, do it the tried and true way, put a set of headers on the car or do your X pipe and have a muffler shop cut out the secondary cats and replace w/straight pipes, will cost about $100. Other than that, if you want to go crazy, pull the heads and have then ported.

I agree w/SheriffDep, a ECU tune will greatly improve the throttle response, which SUCKS from the factory, but all said and done, the DB9 does not lend itself to a whole lot of ways to bump up the HP, which other cars give you.

 

Eric---SPEEDRACER800 on you tube and here, did upload I think ONE video showing just the secondary decat pipes on my car.

I am using the OEM muffler and only straight piped (VAP) replacing the secondary cats. Then added the VAP tune

VAP tune---- its a custom tune to your car mated with your mods. They send you a OBDII port wire that hooks up to a V-Tech box. You upload your current OEM tune to the box, download through a program on a PC (not mac) and then email them your OEM tune file. VAP will then adjust it for a better tune and return the file which includes the OEM one, the New one, and they can even have different ones pending octane used. Mine is standard tune, so I can use 91 or 93 octane with no issues.

Then you transfer the tune file back onto the V-Tech box, then transfer that to your car. Takes about 15min max. Then the car is ready to go. At anytime you can return the car (which is highly suggested if you take to a dealer at any time) to the OEM tune. Reason why, is if the dealer hooks the car to their machine, there is a chance they reprogram factory information and it could mess with the tune and then just become confused. Best to take a few moments, put OEM tune back on, then VAP one back after the dealer visit. They also sometimes mark in their system a custom tune was done, which prevents down the road any type of Recalls or warranty forgiveness by the manufacturer. MB is now doing this regularly on the AMG models. But this way is quick, painless, and it works great.

Velocity VAP tune is highly recommended. They are mildly tuning the car making it more responsive. I don't think there is any danger for anything to happen. With our mods, there is not much that can be done more to the engine making a huge difference without hurting it possibly. So this is safe iMHO.


Hope this helps, the DB9 is pretty simple and straightforward. PS..... from my reading the decat pipes with no follow on x-pipe keeps the exhaust more raw where the x-pipe smooth it out and makes it a bit quite. Doesn't change tone or make it more exotic sounding (Ferrari). Only changing the rear muffler to a VAP, Tubi, or other brand will change the tone, then your getting pretty loud at the same time. I love the tone it has, just now more raw.

 

Thanks for the tip! I'll probably be keeping the air boxes intact, that way if I wanted to revert back to OEM spec, it wouldn't be too hard to just remove the new filters and put the old ones back in.

Again, because of noise and emission regulations in California, I probably won't be doing headers as that would attract cops. That's a huge fine and removing headers and putting the old ones back in would be an expensive fix for me if a cop decides to pull me over, so better to err on the side of safety there. I want a car that I can drive with some peace of mind from the police.

That's why an ECU tune sounds nice to me in terms of bang for buck. I don't think I could invest that heavily in headers with the added risk that I won't be able to keep them on if a cop decides to ruin my day for some reason. ECU would be a safer and quieter way to squeeze some performance from the engine.

Other than that, the transmission would be my final question as with any power upgrade you want to make sure you aren't over-working your transmission and that it can handle the added output from the crank. As this upgrade package will probably net me somewhere in the 20-30whp range, I don't suppose that'll be an issue? Because the newer DB9s are able to handle that same amount of output on the power increase from MY13, I think this should work nicely without compromising the balance of the vehicle.

 

Thank you so much for your account of the Velocity AP custom tuning. That is exactly what I wanted to hear from someone who has done the ECU upgrade before and is living with the results.

All in, I think it sounds like it was a big success. I agree that this is probably where the modding ends, and it's probably not worth it to push the engine any further. What you've specced out sounds relatively safe. I am hopeful they will transform the car into what is comparable to the more powerful MY13+ output with the added benefit of having a unique exhaust note that is distinctly custom.

Overall, it sounds like I can get most of the way towards a 20-30whp upgrade with just under $5k worth of parts and labor cost, which to me sounds like the most efficient use of my money.

 

Hi Peter,

Welcome to the forum. Sounds like you're well on the way to waking your car up a little. If you have any questions, you can call or email any time. Have helped literally hundreds of Aston owners figure out what combos are right for them on their budget and would love to do the same for you.

 

Thank you Stuart, you sound very knowledgeable. I have so many questions

I can try giving you a call tomorrow afternoon. Better to have a high bandwidth conversation over the phone than over the keyboard.