Aston Martin advice from Bamford Rose independent specialist
Discussion
BamfordMike said:
yeti said:
Mike, sorry I didn't get to see you today but did hear from the guys that my new high lift camshafts have now been ground - so I have a bespoke block and cams for my 6.5 engine 
I also heard that you're going to offer the high lift cams as an upgrade for the V12 cars, are they going to be the same as mine or different profiles? How much work to get them in, obviously my engine is being built from the ground up, but how easy to get them into an existing V12?
Big question... what performance do you think they'll give?
Cams on their own?? 15-20BHP although this will be dyno tested on a standard engine in isolation from any other modification - more on that point in a future post I also heard that you're going to offer the high lift cams as an upgrade for the V12 cars, are they going to be the same as mine or different profiles? How much work to get them in, obviously my engine is being built from the ground up, but how easy to get them into an existing V12?
Big question... what performance do you think they'll give?
The piston we found is worthy of picturing. Where the teflon coating should be on the side skirt, somebody has, for want of a better term 'centre punched' the piston skirt. The only conclusion we can come to why somebody had done this is in the error thought process that the skirt would in effect enlarge in diameter and take up any excessive clearance caused by wear. Clearly this took more effort than actually buying a new piston. The new piston necessary because when the catalyst failed the engine ingested the ceramic brick debris causing failure. The skoolboy errors didn't stop there... instead of honing the cylinder bore with the correct tool in horizontal plane, the honing marks were in vertical plane.
Silver cloud and all that - BR get their hands on the rebuild and in true BR fashion a standard motor aint going back in - much to the owners delight, despite him clearly feeling sore about purchasing a car with a hidden surprise.
The rebuild process has taken the following course.
Liners machined out from block and new inserted.
New pistons and rings
New main and big end bearings
BR high lift inlet and exhaust cams
GT3 racing lightening and balancing of bottom end parts
and of course, the BR V12 exhaust manifold and catalyst package.
We will run the engine in on standard exhaust system and then power test. This will robustly report the performance increase just from cams. We will then fit the BR V12 exhaust manifold and catalyst package and repeat the same dyno testing and power reporting process.
And here is how the beast was created.....
The rouge piston and strangely marked cylinder liner;
and now for the good stuff
BamfordMike said:
Dangerous for me not to be there for even a day..... too many secrets manage to walk out the door
For our V8 improvement package 100BHP per ltr was the target as that exceeded OE effort. One reason why that was possible was because after the intake and exhaust ports had the BR GT4 porting treatment, standard valve diameter and lift can flow the demand for extra airflow. However, V12 even in standard guise is way short of the 100BHP per litre mark, one reason for that is the inability of the ports to flow the level needed to reach the 100BHP/Ltr ideal. We know this because std DB9 was 450BHP, with an inlet port mod DB9II was 470BHP and with aggressive porting mod Vanquish S was 520BHP.
Your project / engine is a no limits (ok, within reason )search for optimum and in that process high lift cams and larger diameter inlet and exhaust valves have been specified. However, when it comes to the wider V12 ownership we realised that non intrusive measures were realistically all that are possible to offer to prevent the upgrade becoming cost prohibitive. But, never satisfied with compromise, as we know from DB9/DB9II and Vanquish S, increasing airflow returns massive gains. For this reason, as an additive to the BR exhaust manifold and catalyst package for V12 we are also developing a set of high lift cams which we will fit with the engine in situ during the conversion to our improved exhaust system.
Cams on their own?? 15-20BHP although this will be dyno tested on a standard engine in isolation from any other modification - more on that point in a future post
Ease to get the cams in - we are developing our own tooling to perform the cam change with the engine in place, normally this would not be possible.
On this basis how easy is it to retro fit the changes Aston implemented (inlet port mod) on the 2009 MY DB9 to achieve 470bhp on a 2008 MY car? Does it require software updates in addition to hardware?For our V8 improvement package 100BHP per ltr was the target as that exceeded OE effort. One reason why that was possible was because after the intake and exhaust ports had the BR GT4 porting treatment, standard valve diameter and lift can flow the demand for extra airflow. However, V12 even in standard guise is way short of the 100BHP per litre mark, one reason for that is the inability of the ports to flow the level needed to reach the 100BHP/Ltr ideal. We know this because std DB9 was 450BHP, with an inlet port mod DB9II was 470BHP and with aggressive porting mod Vanquish S was 520BHP.
Your project / engine is a no limits (ok, within reason
)search for optimum and in that process high lift cams and larger diameter inlet and exhaust valves have been specified. However, when it comes to the wider V12 ownership we realised that non intrusive measures were realistically all that are possible to offer to prevent the upgrade becoming cost prohibitive. But, never satisfied with compromise, as we know from DB9/DB9II and Vanquish S, increasing airflow returns massive gains. For this reason, as an additive to the BR exhaust manifold and catalyst package for V12 we are also developing a set of high lift cams which we will fit with the engine in situ during the conversion to our improved exhaust system.Cams on their own?? 15-20BHP although this will be dyno tested on a standard engine in isolation from any other modification - more on that point in a future post
Ease to get the cams in - we are developing our own tooling to perform the cam change with the engine in place, normally this would not be possible.
BamfordMike said:
Any ideas what sort of power you will be getting from the uprated engine too?
BamfordMike said:
. . . as an additive to the BR exhaust manifold and catalyst package for V12 we are also developing a set of high lift cams which we will fit with the engine in situ during the conversion to our improved exhaust system.
This is exciting stuff Mike! Have you guys given any further thought to coming to North America? If not, have you thought of at least offering these parts for sale to NA clients? I assume installation of at least the manifolds and catalysts is relatively straightforward (albeit time consuming). BamfordMike said:
Bamford Rose racing engines have often been said to transform the race car they are fitted to into 'flying machines'.
This was proven by our engine fitted to Mathol Racing championship winning Nurburgring VLN race car.
The picture of the car was taken when the car left the tarmac at 140MPH, then proceeded to flip 5 times end-over-end. The engine was beaten up pretty badly - Broken engine mounts, throttle body, cam covers and exhausts. The rest of the car was damaged close to destruction, but has been repaired. The driver thankfully suffered no injury.
The motor now looks as good as new and ready to chew up the field - the rest of the cars on the grid that is and not the green stuff all over again in 2012 season.
Best of luck in 2012 Mathol Racing.
UPDATE.....This was proven by our engine fitted to Mathol Racing championship winning Nurburgring VLN race car.
The picture of the car was taken when the car left the tarmac at 140MPH, then proceeded to flip 5 times end-over-end. The engine was beaten up pretty badly - Broken engine mounts, throttle body, cam covers and exhausts. The rest of the car was damaged close to destruction, but has been repaired. The driver thankfully suffered no injury.
The motor now looks as good as new and ready to chew up the field - the rest of the cars on the grid that is and not the green stuff all over again in 2012 season.
Best of luck in 2012 Mathol Racing.
The Bamford Rose magic injected into Mathol Racing car 61 was put to the test last weekend - to great success around the grueling Nurburgring 24hrs race.
The hope that Bamford Rose could create a flying machine (on the tarmac this time..!) was indeed realised for yet another year.
Full race results can be found here;
http://www.24h-rennen.de/Einzelansicht.106.0.html?...
Mathol Racing Vantage with Bamford Rose full fat 4.7L GT4 racing engine, and other parts, finished an amazing 25th out of 169 entrants.
Some very interesting results that will no doubt re ignite the 'whats fastest', Bamford Rose V8 or V12V debate....
Fastest lap Mathol Racing Vantage with Bamford Rose V8 4.7L GT4 racing engine = 9 minutes 16 seconds
Fastest lap x2 factory V12 Zagato's (stated as being 500BHP+) = 9 minutes 20 seconds
Something else I cant quite fathom; ahead of the road car launch 2 factory race Zagato variants plodded around the track to rack up positions 26 and 33, OK.... Well done but just not that fast. But the race version of these 'road' cars, something that is normally the technology leader and halo product that normally spawns the road car variant through showcasing ground breaking technology, in effect, failed to finish @ positions 101 and 106 - Go figure????
Anyway - congratulations Mathol Racing. A privateer racing team who Vanquished the factory in more powerful cars around the Nurburgring.
[quote=George H]
Mike, completely off topic, but do you have any idea how much a block like that would cost from the 6 litre V12? I fancy doing one of those V12 coffee tables, and naturally it has to be an Aston V12 for it
Apologies for the off topic reply but..
http://www.astonmartinheritagedesigns.com/page54.h...
Rather appealing!
Mike, completely off topic, but do you have any idea how much a block like that would cost from the 6 litre V12? I fancy doing one of those V12 coffee tables, and naturally it has to be an Aston V12 for it
Apologies for the off topic reply but..
http://www.astonmartinheritagedesigns.com/page54.h...
Rather appealing!
Mr Aston Martin said:
Apologies for the off topic reply but..
http://www.astonmartinheritagedesigns.com/page54.h...
Rather appealing!
That's quite nice, but I'm after something like this Jaguar one, but with an Aston V12. They do a pretty cool V12 wine rack too!http://www.astonmartinheritagedesigns.com/page54.h...
Rather appealing!
http://www.v12designs.co.uk/products/
Rex Racer said:
This is exciting stuff Mike! Have you guys given any further thought to coming to North America? If not, have you thought of at least offering these parts for sale to NA clients? I assume installation of at least the manifolds and catalysts is relatively straightforward (albeit time consuming).
Thanks RRacer... Its very exciting to develop this kit and every time an improved car hurtles off down the road, the text message i receive from the owner shortly after is even more satisfying...!We plan to invade sometime soon with x5 V8 Vantage kits (Lightweight front pulley, lightweight flywheel, twinplate clutch, BR headers and cats, power upgrade induction system) and x5 V12 kits (same kit breakdown as V8 + highlift cams). For individual customers we can also bring brake upgrades and electronic suspension systems as required. We have a few more of these kits to find homes and then we are on a plane. After that first wave we hope to secure a deal with the agent we train across the first 10 kits to fit subsequent upgrades. It is a long road, but we will get there.....
For now, an update.....
.....or.......
silverspeed said:
On this basis how easy is it to retro fit the changes Aston implemented (inlet port mod) on the 2009 MY DB9 to achieve 470bhp on a 2008 MY car? Does it require software updates in addition to hardware?
Hi.In essence its a cylinder head change, but cylinder head removal is engine out; a 40 hour engine rebuild and 30 hour car rebuild process. So to undertake this effort the gain would need to be more than the factory hardware to go from 450 to just 470BHP. All the mods BR perform have been developed to work alongside the factory ECU.
AMDBSNick said:
Assume so matey. Just hoping Mike may know someone equal to his standards
A customer had a few panels re trimmed by these, http://www.cobraseats.com/Signature with good results apparently. As Lewis suggests, many trimmers out there, just a case of looking through portfolios and going for it when you have found the best. Keep us posted if you do anything, would love to see the results..!George H said:
That's quite nice, but I'm after something like this Jaguar one, but with an Aston V12. They do a pretty cool V12 wine rack too!
http://www.v12designs.co.uk/products/
Really cool table.....http://www.v12designs.co.uk/products/
The problem with finding an Aston V12 block is that they are normally attached to a car
If a car has been written off then bits do appear on the market, however, should a V12 let go in service the cost to buy re manufactured engine from dealer is approx. £12k engine and £6k surcharge (deep breath and hope to see that one back.... as its the full £18k +VAT at point of order..!). So, surplus engines have value meaning blocks are rare to be offered up as ornaments as folk like us can rebuild them into serviceable units at a fraction of the cost of remanufactured - and with a lot more grunt too
We do come across the odd block that is not recoverable, but the BR guys have a lot of wine to store
..!Sorry, but will keep you in mind when a volunteer arrives.
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