Aston martin V8 Vantage club sport type thing
Discussion
I embarked on my own attempt to copy your electric seat base yesterday. Didn’t get the passenger seat out but unbolted it and wanted to check out the wiring loom.
Quick question about the seat wiring that you chopped. Is the airbag, lumbar, backrest and heating all in that same loom? With some patience could you trace them and remove the pins from connectors? I’m sure it’ll be clearer with the seat out just trying to understand how it may be possible to separate seat and base without chopping.
olv said:
OLV! sorry for missing your question, Just been flat out with work and actually prepping the car etc etc add in a few kids and there is little time to play with!So in answer yo your question (i assume you have sorted this) yep, its possible but will be a real faff as there is so much sticky glue ridden tape. SO hats off to you if you did bother to unpin it!
If you did did you ascertain which pins related to the seat airbags? i need to sort mine out but have been too lazy so far!
Finally, yours looks fantastic and as you are not using such silly seats your receptacle is better placed!
IainWhy said:
So in answer yo your question (i assume you have sorted this) yep, its possible but will be a real faff as there is so much sticky glue ridden tape. SO hats off to you if you did bother to unpin it!
If you did did you ascertain which pins related to the seat airbags?
Don't worry, all the info you provided was really helpful. I had the added excitement of having a memory control module under there, which I ended up just carrying over with the wiring. And no, I didn't have the patience to unpick it all, after 5 minutes of getting covered in gluey tape I gave up on that idea.If you did did you ascertain which pins related to the seat airbags?
Before I started messing with the seats I had David Appleby Engineering fit their airbag delete resistor kit (it's a little heatshrinked plug on the airbag connector) whilst my car was there having their Nitron dampers fitted. I had read that once you trigger the airbag light you need the proper Aston diag software to clear the fault so wanted to avoid triggering it in the first place.
olv said:
IainWhy said:
So in answer yo your question (i assume you have sorted this) yep, its possible but will be a real faff as there is so much sticky glue ridden tape. SO hats off to you if you did bother to unpin it!
If you did did you ascertain which pins related to the seat airbags?
Don't worry, all the info you provided was really helpful. I had the added excitement of having a memory control module under there, which I ended up just carrying over with the wiring. And no, I didn't have the patience to unpick it all, after 5 minutes of getting covered in gluey tape I gave up on that idea.If you did did you ascertain which pins related to the seat airbags?
Before I started messing with the seats I had David Appleby Engineering fit their airbag delete resistor kit (it's a little heatshrinked plug on the airbag connector) whilst my car was there having their Nitron dampers fitted. I had read that once you trigger the airbag light you need the proper Aston diag software to clear the fault so wanted to avoid triggering it in the first place.
I am sure i can replicate it, not too worried on the turning off as i am intending to have all the EGR coded out so i can cover that at the same time if i have the balast resistor in but have not yet spend enough time trying to diagnose astons terrible wiring diagrams
olv said:
You can just about make out the airbag resistor in the white airbag plug here.
I noted your car doesn’t have memory functions for the seats, I assume that’s what the oblong control box is part of, seemed simpler just to bring it all across.
Many thanks, that takes a loat of dicking about out of my day.
As the the electrics, yea, don't know precisely what would happen without that control box. I dare say it could be omitted as there is clearly no central function for the seat control like a comfort module, si i would think that sits between the switch and the motor. My wiring tidy is on the todo list, but the to do list is so very very long.
Will see if i can get this updated tonight.......
On holiday in the Czech republic, so finally found some time to write this up, though the beer and pickle intake may make this somewhat stream of consciousness.
So in my last post I had just finished extending my knob (still working wonderfully btw, much lighter throw and closer to the wheel, I will weld on a new socket ball to it next week which will reduce the throw).
Anyway, i was madly prepping for the trackday i had at Jurby airfield.
The big part of this was running about like a moron trying to get the new suspension onto the car. the short version of this is that i had bought this suspension before i had actually bought the car. its likely to be the peak of my suspension game so when i saw it come up i didnt really think all that carefully about it and just went in headfirst with the assumption i would be able to resolve the issues as they presented themselves (arrogant I appreciate, but nothing new).
Essentially i had bought sachs motorsport formula matric 4 way dampers, these are a good way more significant (cost wise) that the gt4 stuff, so not sure where its off but the graphs that Sachs kindly sent to me indicated that aston martin was the client.
Suffice it to say that attaching them to a road car proved to be a bit more work than I had originally envisaged.
The first hurdle was the obvious one of top mounts, gt4 ones were cost prohibitive, and unfortunately franky so were some of the other manufactured options available. Fortunately other suppliers of suspension kits in the uk also produce kits for this car using a clevis mount and an m10 bolt. A breif conversation yielded a bill of about 300 quid and 4 topmounts in my sweaty palm
Hurdle 1 (the largest) cleared. this lest me with bolt size issues as the stock rear size is an m14. Fortunately a mate of mine murned out some nice little tophat reducers so i was able to use the smaller bolts on the front wich are a simple clevis using a variety of misalignment spacers, reducing collars and top hats.
As these are fully rose jointed road going longevity was a bit of a concern, i have used open joints on road cars in the past and frankly found the issue to be overblown as long as you use a good lithium soap on them regularly, but given that this car has spent far to much time in bits already i was keen to cut down on avoidable faff so packed the joints and modified some rod end covers to fit
This sorted the fronts from a fitment perspective but left me with a bolt problem on the rear and a spring rate choice.
I drew diagrams on bits of paper, built a little model to look at spring ratios, look at what every other kit came with, worked out the existing spring rates using the wire diameter and ultimately pushed myself into the trap of not making a choice through data overload. so thew all my hard work to the wind and made an (not very) educated best guess. I needed to run a long main spring as the dampers were short so my droop needed to be small otherwise i would run out of ride height, so went with a 300lb eibach tender to give some limited compliance and a 600ld main front and rear which totally flys in the face of the usual approach of running a stiffer rear and much lower rates.
I couldn't get 2"ID springs in the length i needed so after speaking to BG motorsport who told me that the correct Sachs rings would be so expensive that tit would make my cry, kindly turned out some nice seat adaptors for sensible costs.
This left me with this massive pile of stuff
These were turned into complete units but not without some considerable faffing as the complete spring stack was too long for the damper body, i did know this, but had not accounted for the fact that my spring compressors would foul on the spring hats, fortunately zipties are surprisingly robust.
Having not been killed by foolishness i then had another issue, I needed to get some threaded inserts to reduce the rear fittings from m14 to M10 as these had a captive thread in the rear arm.
I had a week to go before the trackday, so plenty of time, i decided i would fit the fronts now then crack on with the rears as soon as the bits arrived, no probs, all fine.
So I calculated the compressed spring height and slapped them on.
|https://thumbsnap.com/Y4eoRdab[/url]
I fitted them inverted to maintain good access to the adjusters and keep the valves further away from road grime, the entire unit was them covered by a coilver cover from the appropriately named coilovercovers.co.uk (no affiliation other than their product seems excellent and the service was great)
As can be seen this immediately brought to light that my "calculations" were absolute toss, i did take the car for a short spin but it was far far too low, and other than proving that i could grade my driveway with the front splitter i learned nothing other than it was stupidly low.
I broke out the c spanners and gave it another 10mm of compression onto the tender (essentially just removing front droop) which resulted in a much more sensible ride height, whih even if it didn't look quite so "tucked fam, innit" did mean i could get to the main road without having to re shell the car.
While waiting for the rear thread reducers, i had also bought some new light wheels in better sizes, namely 18x10j all round, same offset so i can spin the tyres round front to back, so i popped these on with some cheap fun time Zestino ultra soft track tyres.
Worth noting, these wheels only come in two colors, black and gunmetal. i didn't want either, bt i did want that style and more importantly the PCD and fitment. At some point They will get painted, but as to when is anyone's guess.
Also the car looks weird here as its on Sachs on the front and bone stock on the rear.
[url]
Getting late now so will aim to write some ore up tomorrow.
So in my last post I had just finished extending my knob (still working wonderfully btw, much lighter throw and closer to the wheel, I will weld on a new socket ball to it next week which will reduce the throw).
Anyway, i was madly prepping for the trackday i had at Jurby airfield.
The big part of this was running about like a moron trying to get the new suspension onto the car. the short version of this is that i had bought this suspension before i had actually bought the car. its likely to be the peak of my suspension game so when i saw it come up i didnt really think all that carefully about it and just went in headfirst with the assumption i would be able to resolve the issues as they presented themselves (arrogant I appreciate, but nothing new).
Essentially i had bought sachs motorsport formula matric 4 way dampers, these are a good way more significant (cost wise) that the gt4 stuff, so not sure where its off but the graphs that Sachs kindly sent to me indicated that aston martin was the client.
Suffice it to say that attaching them to a road car proved to be a bit more work than I had originally envisaged.
The first hurdle was the obvious one of top mounts, gt4 ones were cost prohibitive, and unfortunately franky so were some of the other manufactured options available. Fortunately other suppliers of suspension kits in the uk also produce kits for this car using a clevis mount and an m10 bolt. A breif conversation yielded a bill of about 300 quid and 4 topmounts in my sweaty palm
Hurdle 1 (the largest) cleared. this lest me with bolt size issues as the stock rear size is an m14. Fortunately a mate of mine murned out some nice little tophat reducers so i was able to use the smaller bolts on the front wich are a simple clevis using a variety of misalignment spacers, reducing collars and top hats.
As these are fully rose jointed road going longevity was a bit of a concern, i have used open joints on road cars in the past and frankly found the issue to be overblown as long as you use a good lithium soap on them regularly, but given that this car has spent far to much time in bits already i was keen to cut down on avoidable faff so packed the joints and modified some rod end covers to fit
This sorted the fronts from a fitment perspective but left me with a bolt problem on the rear and a spring rate choice.
I drew diagrams on bits of paper, built a little model to look at spring ratios, look at what every other kit came with, worked out the existing spring rates using the wire diameter and ultimately pushed myself into the trap of not making a choice through data overload. so thew all my hard work to the wind and made an (not very) educated best guess. I needed to run a long main spring as the dampers were short so my droop needed to be small otherwise i would run out of ride height, so went with a 300lb eibach tender to give some limited compliance and a 600ld main front and rear which totally flys in the face of the usual approach of running a stiffer rear and much lower rates.
I couldn't get 2"ID springs in the length i needed so after speaking to BG motorsport who told me that the correct Sachs rings would be so expensive that tit would make my cry, kindly turned out some nice seat adaptors for sensible costs.
This left me with this massive pile of stuff
These were turned into complete units but not without some considerable faffing as the complete spring stack was too long for the damper body, i did know this, but had not accounted for the fact that my spring compressors would foul on the spring hats, fortunately zipties are surprisingly robust.
Having not been killed by foolishness i then had another issue, I needed to get some threaded inserts to reduce the rear fittings from m14 to M10 as these had a captive thread in the rear arm.
I had a week to go before the trackday, so plenty of time, i decided i would fit the fronts now then crack on with the rears as soon as the bits arrived, no probs, all fine.
So I calculated the compressed spring height and slapped them on.
|https://thumbsnap.com/Y4eoRdab[/url]I fitted them inverted to maintain good access to the adjusters and keep the valves further away from road grime, the entire unit was them covered by a coilver cover from the appropriately named coilovercovers.co.uk (no affiliation other than their product seems excellent and the service was great)
As can be seen this immediately brought to light that my "calculations" were absolute toss, i did take the car for a short spin but it was far far too low, and other than proving that i could grade my driveway with the front splitter i learned nothing other than it was stupidly low.
I broke out the c spanners and gave it another 10mm of compression onto the tender (essentially just removing front droop) which resulted in a much more sensible ride height, whih even if it didn't look quite so "tucked fam, innit" did mean i could get to the main road without having to re shell the car.
While waiting for the rear thread reducers, i had also bought some new light wheels in better sizes, namely 18x10j all round, same offset so i can spin the tyres round front to back, so i popped these on with some cheap fun time Zestino ultra soft track tyres.
Worth noting, these wheels only come in two colors, black and gunmetal. i didn't want either, bt i did want that style and more importantly the PCD and fitment. At some point They will get painted, but as to when is anyone's guess.
Also the car looks weird here as its on Sachs on the front and bone stock on the rear.
[url]Getting late now so will aim to write some ore up tomorrow.
continuing this carry on after too much hottub time really so will probably be a little briefer.
So, at this point I had the fronts on, some wheels and tyres and had ordered some correct reducers in marine stainless from a specialist fastener company. they initially advised that the through hole versions were out of stock so the only option was blind fittings, i could handle this so asked them to get them out ASP. Now i am not a fastener enthusiast, and certainly not a specialist but it was apparent to me when i shook them out into my hand that they were not m14x1.5, not even close. Having spoken to them they confirmed that self tappers had been sent in error and credit where it is due immediately sent out the correct items by special delivery, which the Isle of Man post office assumed was intrinsically valuable and immediately stole/lost. Given that i had seen the way the wind was blowing on this job i had ordered at higher cost the correct reducing through hole versions from another supplier.
and short of it, nothing turned up on time, so i had the option to bail on the day or just run as was with stock rear suspension and the sachs on the front, or put all the stock stuff back on.
I went with opton B and accepted it would understeer like a pig, which it did.
How did the day go? Eh ok, i was keen to give te car a shake down and find the next set of issues but childcare meant it was going to have to be cut short, it was sessioned (which i hate) and the organiser was slow to get going them made the choice of sending a load of classic mini's out first, inevitably this resulted in a number of them doing what old mini's do and exploding and leaking everwhere, ultimately this meant from a 9am start, i didnt turn a wheel until gone 12, i was not very happy by that point to be honest.
Session one was good, mostly dominated by figuring out what worked and what didn't given the very compromised setup of the car, it was very understeery which was certainly not helped by me over driving the ca somewhat and the tyres were a bit odd but it felt pretty good though the traction is too intrusive so either needs to go, or be improved. (i would like to keep it as this is not a dedicated track car so driving it home is very much the name of the game) .
Having completed the session and kept the e92 m3 DCT's honest revealed a few things. The pads were close to on fire (bear in mind these are world endurance pads), the PAS had puked out a lot of oil, the engine oil can sticker thing had melted off, but otherwise all good.
Session two was going well until about 2 minutes from the end when coming braking into a hairpin left me once again with no gears, this time with no drive so coasting into the hairpin at over a ton, not ideal.
Managed to negotiate the turn and had plenty of momentum to coast to the marshals hut for a short chat about the amount of cement dust it takes to clear up after a classic mini before getting towed back to parc ferme in ignominy
I knew what the issue was (cable off gearbox end) and being that the car is a hatch i had packed the big jack all the travel tools and even a comfort mat for just such an issue so cracked on repairing it, which it seemed the other attendees dd not expect
the repair job was minutes (rear under tray off and just reach up and put the cable back on, but it was of course f
king hot so i did need to let it cool off a bit which robbed me of more time. When i did eventually brave getting my face meted off by a graziano transaxle i was disgusted by the compete lack of actual force required to re seat it. the plastic inner sleeve becomes more pliant as the gearbox gets hotter, and as a result, comes off with almost no effort.
By the time i had repaired the car my child care window was expiring, and with the feeling that it would almost certainly come off again, i had to bit the bullet pack up and head off.
I at least had been able to identify a few issues before i head off to europe with the car even if the testing had been very truncated and not with the vehicle in the correct format.
On the plus side, it was the only one there, a number of people suggested it was the best sounding thing they had heard, and it was fairly fast, so, every cloud.
So, at this point I had the fronts on, some wheels and tyres and had ordered some correct reducers in marine stainless from a specialist fastener company. they initially advised that the through hole versions were out of stock so the only option was blind fittings, i could handle this so asked them to get them out ASP. Now i am not a fastener enthusiast, and certainly not a specialist but it was apparent to me when i shook them out into my hand that they were not m14x1.5, not even close. Having spoken to them they confirmed that self tappers had been sent in error and credit where it is due immediately sent out the correct items by special delivery, which the Isle of Man post office assumed was intrinsically valuable and immediately stole/lost. Given that i had seen the way the wind was blowing on this job i had ordered at higher cost the correct reducing through hole versions from another supplier.
and short of it, nothing turned up on time, so i had the option to bail on the day or just run as was with stock rear suspension and the sachs on the front, or put all the stock stuff back on.
I went with opton B and accepted it would understeer like a pig, which it did.
How did the day go? Eh ok, i was keen to give te car a shake down and find the next set of issues but childcare meant it was going to have to be cut short, it was sessioned (which i hate) and the organiser was slow to get going them made the choice of sending a load of classic mini's out first, inevitably this resulted in a number of them doing what old mini's do and exploding and leaking everwhere, ultimately this meant from a 9am start, i didnt turn a wheel until gone 12, i was not very happy by that point to be honest.
Session one was good, mostly dominated by figuring out what worked and what didn't given the very compromised setup of the car, it was very understeery which was certainly not helped by me over driving the ca somewhat and the tyres were a bit odd but it felt pretty good though the traction is too intrusive so either needs to go, or be improved. (i would like to keep it as this is not a dedicated track car so driving it home is very much the name of the game) .
Having completed the session and kept the e92 m3 DCT's honest revealed a few things. The pads were close to on fire (bear in mind these are world endurance pads), the PAS had puked out a lot of oil, the engine oil can sticker thing had melted off, but otherwise all good.
Session two was going well until about 2 minutes from the end when coming braking into a hairpin left me once again with no gears, this time with no drive so coasting into the hairpin at over a ton, not ideal.
Managed to negotiate the turn and had plenty of momentum to coast to the marshals hut for a short chat about the amount of cement dust it takes to clear up after a classic mini before getting towed back to parc ferme in ignominy
I knew what the issue was (cable off gearbox end) and being that the car is a hatch i had packed the big jack all the travel tools and even a comfort mat for just such an issue so cracked on repairing it, which it seemed the other attendees dd not expect
the repair job was minutes (rear under tray off and just reach up and put the cable back on, but it was of course f
king hot so i did need to let it cool off a bit which robbed me of more time. When i did eventually brave getting my face meted off by a graziano transaxle i was disgusted by the compete lack of actual force required to re seat it. the plastic inner sleeve becomes more pliant as the gearbox gets hotter, and as a result, comes off with almost no effort.By the time i had repaired the car my child care window was expiring, and with the feeling that it would almost certainly come off again, i had to bit the bullet pack up and head off.
I at least had been able to identify a few issues before i head off to europe with the car even if the testing had been very truncated and not with the vehicle in the correct format.
On the plus side, it was the only one there, a number of people suggested it was the best sounding thing they had heard, and it was fairly fast, so, every cloud.
English expat said:
Great to hear the next round of updates (even if you couldn’t fit the rear suspension). Will you be able to engineer a small cage to hold the cable in position at the rear?
Very much on the case with that, though likely the next issue will be snapping the plastic collet on the gearbox fork 
So post trackday i had quite the to do list added to the existing growing one.
It looks like this (this is partially for my benefit) in no particular order.
1: fit rear suspension
2. fix airbag light
2a. stop airbag flapping about
3. better rear pads
4. better brake cooling
5. better geometry
6. stop PAS puking its guts
7. stop doors trying to kill you while exiting the car
8. stop fking gear lever cables coming off, breaking, failing and just being generally st
9. get a temperature probe in the oil and coolant, i don't trust the oem gauges and i wasn't to see where the oil is getting to under load (i a assured they are fine, but for my ignorance is not bliss)
10. bushings
11.Rebuild rear beam
12. procure spares for good measure and testing.
13, proper harness solution
14. some sort of steering wheel game
15. many other things, primarily weight reducton
16. throttle map
17. remove EGR
18. who knows!
So on with the first bit:
To get the rear shock on with an m10 bolt you end up with something like this collection of bits
Which is an m14 to m10 stainless reducer some metric to imperial misalignment spacers, a bespoke top hat and and a 10.9 graded bolt, what a faff.
Anyway, all fitted up and on the car without any drama other than the usual Aston thing of having to take quite a lot of car off to complete the job.
The result was frankly terrible, and i mean dreadful, the car wallowed at the rear, felt unstable crashed and banged over every bump and felt wildly unstable. cranking up the high and low speed compression did make it a bit better but it was still dire by any sensible measure.
By this time i was starting to wonder if i had a problem. it was a bit confusing as the fronts were essentially perfect, set up with low settings on high speed and medium on low they rode better than the stock shocks on the road and had a firm grip of the spring and wheel on the track. I didn't confess to anyone that i was a bit concerned at the time, but the reality of it was that I was starting to get rather worried.
Having given it a bit more thought it occurred to me that be setting a 10mm rake front to rear i was basically riding on the main 600lb main spring at the back which in effect dramatically reduced the droop on the damper and was i suspected leading to it topping out. the obvious solution would be to drop the rear ride height, but with these being race shocks they are short, and dropping the height while preserving the rake would leave the car grading the road flat again. I needed to essentially extend the rear damper to get the correct droop without losing height.
with this in mind i drew this up (not the final version as i ended up including two PCD's as i coldn't remember which i needed)
Bought some 15mm Nylon 66 engineering plate
Cut it out on my small CNC
took all the rear topmounts off and fitted te spacers with longer bolts
The result was i am relieved to say, dramatic, I was genuinely astonished at the difference shifting the piston down 15mm made, i can only surmise that the topping out issue was impacting terribly on the weight transfer as well as making awful noises as the car now rode well, with all crashign gone and felt properly connected to the road.
Winner.
Next up.
Puking PAS
Aston delt with this on the gt4 simply, but just spalling a load of tube off the cap.
Initially i considered this as a load of toss, however having considered it, it occurred to me that this was quite smart, it allowed the fluid to expand into the tube when the volume increased, but rather than trapping it in a tank (as i has planned) it allowed to to return back to the main reservoir as it cooled.
So i essentially just copied it using 10mm pneumatic nylon and fittings, this allows you to take the cap off by simply disconnecting the tube and the hole thing hangs of a fitting that rides of the turret rather than relying on some sticky pads that will come off in the engine bay heat
I am calling that solved, until experience proves me incorrect.
2a was up next.
The steering wheel airbag has always rattled about like a poorly attached claymore since i bought the car, its unnerving not only as its a poorly restrained explosive but it also feels like the column is coming loose.
Being that its Aston, they make a fix for this, that they will sell you (rather than fixing it as a recall like all other manufacturers) tis is a small plastic sleeve that fits over the airbag bolts. they are very cheap (and so they should be) and can be fitted in minutes by simply removing the airbag bolts, sliding on the packers and putting the bolt back in. Hand wringers will tell you to remove the battery and have the bomb disposal team on speed dial, alternately you can just do them one at a time and not stand in front of it, doing the latter gets you all done in 2 mins flat.
.
Next up: door struts, brake cooling, and gt4 filters..........
It looks like this (this is partially for my benefit) in no particular order.
1: fit rear suspension
2. fix airbag light
2a. stop airbag flapping about
3. better rear pads
4. better brake cooling
5. better geometry
6. stop PAS puking its guts
7. stop doors trying to kill you while exiting the car
8. stop f
king gear lever cables coming off, breaking, failing and just being generally st9. get a temperature probe in the oil and coolant, i don't trust the oem gauges and i wasn't to see where the oil is getting to under load (i a assured they are fine, but for my ignorance is not bliss)
10. bushings
11.Rebuild rear beam
12. procure spares for good measure and testing.
13, proper harness solution
14. some sort of steering wheel game
15. many other things, primarily weight reducton
16. throttle map
17. remove EGR
18. who knows!
So on with the first bit:
To get the rear shock on with an m10 bolt you end up with something like this collection of bits
Which is an m14 to m10 stainless reducer some metric to imperial misalignment spacers, a bespoke top hat and and a 10.9 graded bolt, what a faff.
Anyway, all fitted up and on the car without any drama other than the usual Aston thing of having to take quite a lot of car off to complete the job.
The result was frankly terrible, and i mean dreadful, the car wallowed at the rear, felt unstable crashed and banged over every bump and felt wildly unstable. cranking up the high and low speed compression did make it a bit better but it was still dire by any sensible measure.
By this time i was starting to wonder if i had a problem. it was a bit confusing as the fronts were essentially perfect, set up with low settings on high speed and medium on low they rode better than the stock shocks on the road and had a firm grip of the spring and wheel on the track. I didn't confess to anyone that i was a bit concerned at the time, but the reality of it was that I was starting to get rather worried.
Having given it a bit more thought it occurred to me that be setting a 10mm rake front to rear i was basically riding on the main 600lb main spring at the back which in effect dramatically reduced the droop on the damper and was i suspected leading to it topping out. the obvious solution would be to drop the rear ride height, but with these being race shocks they are short, and dropping the height while preserving the rake would leave the car grading the road flat again. I needed to essentially extend the rear damper to get the correct droop without losing height.
with this in mind i drew this up (not the final version as i ended up including two PCD's as i coldn't remember which i needed)
Bought some 15mm Nylon 66 engineering plate
Cut it out on my small CNC
took all the rear topmounts off and fitted te spacers with longer bolts
The result was i am relieved to say, dramatic, I was genuinely astonished at the difference shifting the piston down 15mm made, i can only surmise that the topping out issue was impacting terribly on the weight transfer as well as making awful noises as the car now rode well, with all crashign gone and felt properly connected to the road.
Winner.
Next up.
Puking PAS
Aston delt with this on the gt4 simply, but just spalling a load of tube off the cap.
Initially i considered this as a load of toss, however having considered it, it occurred to me that this was quite smart, it allowed the fluid to expand into the tube when the volume increased, but rather than trapping it in a tank (as i has planned) it allowed to to return back to the main reservoir as it cooled.
So i essentially just copied it using 10mm pneumatic nylon and fittings, this allows you to take the cap off by simply disconnecting the tube and the hole thing hangs of a fitting that rides of the turret rather than relying on some sticky pads that will come off in the engine bay heat
I am calling that solved, until experience proves me incorrect.
2a was up next.
The steering wheel airbag has always rattled about like a poorly attached claymore since i bought the car, its unnerving not only as its a poorly restrained explosive but it also feels like the column is coming loose.
Being that its Aston, they make a fix for this, that they will sell you (rather than fixing it as a recall like all other manufacturers) tis is a small plastic sleeve that fits over the airbag bolts. they are very cheap (and so they should be) and can be fitted in minutes by simply removing the airbag bolts, sliding on the packers and putting the bolt back in. Hand wringers will tell you to remove the battery and have the bomb disposal team on speed dial, alternately you can just do them one at a time and not stand in front of it, doing the latter gets you all done in 2 mins flat.
.Next up: door struts, brake cooling, and gt4 filters..........
Edited by IainWhy on Friday 26th August 01:45
Meeten-5dulx said:
And wheels…..
Thought i mentioned those dude? 18x10 all round, nice and light, from 2forge, they only come in two colors so at some point will get a coat of painttherealsamdailly said:
This is such an entertaining journey. Got any 'stance' shots of the car with front and rear suspension on?
For reasons i cant explain, not currently, i think its because i want to adjust the rear setting to get it level before I do, but that may just be me justifying not having any. Fairly well battered after a trip to the highest peak in Czech (and some more beer and sauna) but still committed to trying to bring this up to date!
1600 odd meters
anyway,
Next items on the list (as usual in no real order)
Using some of the infor shared by Olv, i was able to identify the airbag plug with no actual effort on my part, which is the type of effort I like best
So a quick trip to ebay to buy thecheapest best airbag simulators on the market and a few minutes with a soldering iron yielded these, will find out if they work when it gets plugged into AMDS in September.
[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/rFqB3eXu[/url
Until proved wrong, i will as per usual call that complete.
Next up was the biggie, brake cooling, now i am not going to lie, this is essentially a story of abject failure.
Quite a few months ago, i came across the front airboxes off a vantage v12 lemans car, and i purchased them for a small price as they needed a bit of repair. these are fully nuts and hang out of the front bumper and are an adjustment to the point where they completely scrap the MAF and run a MAP sensor in one side. I then also bought thecheapest best aston martin front bumper on ebay with a pan to chop one or possibly all of it up so i could un huge air snorkels out of the front, glorious.
These are them and how they would/should have sat in the donor bumper
Sort version of this is that the time came to try and mock all this up, so i called in my Mate Dave who kindly loaned me his workshop and agreed to paint a few bits for me including the new donor bumper. I spent an age stripling the entire front off and fighting rusted fittings and started the mocking up, well , i just couldn't make it work as a whole, the absence of the MAF tube in the race cars gives them more space and even with that discounted i think they run a thinner headlamp, they fouled on the front crash structure (not used on the race cars) and would have required a large reducer at a horrible angle.
All of these issues were solvable, the crash bar could be profiled, the maf's moved up in the intake path the intake tubes cut out and replaced with stock dimension ones. But given the biggest restriction is supposedly the plenum / throttle the benefit would be marginal (other than being awesome) and i just didn't have the time for this work right now. So with reluctance, i have put these to one side for now, i will come back to this at some point, probably.
Anyway having accepted reality (for once) i replaced the door struts, first one was a complete bd, second one was a doddle one you have the knack, its a stupid design and i would urge anyone doing it to remove the full arch liner and not believe any tripe about just moving the back out of the way. you need all the access and visibility you can get.
This left me with a bumper (a PDC bumper no less on a non front pdc car) so it was time to look to sort the brake cooling (probably) Again, the factory cars do it like this:
BUt no one is selling gt4 bumpers on ebay for £150 so i got Dave to freehand something close into the donor bumper and asked him to paint it and a replacement side skirt (that i will fit at some time in the future).
I kept the bits cut out for dimensions, and spent some time teaching myself the basics of Autodesk Fusion 360 (i am very much at the formation stages of this process but my advice would be to watch you youtube video of the guy modelling a coffee pot and the one that covers lofting and offset planes on the same axis, if you can remember 20% of what's in them, you can design stuff
Using my very basic skills and ability i designed these
And did a quick and dirty print in black PLA resulting in this
These are designed to take a 75mm reenforced ducting hose (that i have a load of in the garage...
More tomorrow..
1600 odd meters
anyway,
Next items on the list (as usual in no real order)
Using some of the infor shared by Olv, i was able to identify the airbag plug with no actual effort on my part, which is the type of effort I like best
So a quick trip to ebay to buy the
[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/rFqB3eXu[/urlUntil proved wrong, i will as per usual call that complete.
Next up was the biggie, brake cooling, now i am not going to lie, this is essentially a story of abject failure.
Quite a few months ago, i came across the front airboxes off a vantage v12 lemans car, and i purchased them for a small price as they needed a bit of repair. these are fully nuts and hang out of the front bumper and are an adjustment to the point where they completely scrap the MAF and run a MAP sensor in one side. I then also bought the
These are them and how they would/should have sat in the donor bumper
Sort version of this is that the time came to try and mock all this up, so i called in my Mate Dave who kindly loaned me his workshop and agreed to paint a few bits for me including the new donor bumper. I spent an age stripling the entire front off and fighting rusted fittings and started the mocking up, well , i just couldn't make it work as a whole, the absence of the MAF tube in the race cars gives them more space and even with that discounted i think they run a thinner headlamp, they fouled on the front crash structure (not used on the race cars) and would have required a large reducer at a horrible angle.
All of these issues were solvable, the crash bar could be profiled, the maf's moved up in the intake path the intake tubes cut out and replaced with stock dimension ones. But given the biggest restriction is supposedly the plenum / throttle the benefit would be marginal (other than being awesome) and i just didn't have the time for this work right now. So with reluctance, i have put these to one side for now, i will come back to this at some point, probably.
Anyway having accepted reality (for once) i replaced the door struts, first one was a complete b
d, second one was a doddle one you have the knack, its a stupid design and i would urge anyone doing it to remove the full arch liner and not believe any tripe about just moving the back out of the way. you need all the access and visibility you can get.This left me with a bumper (a PDC bumper no less on a non front pdc car) so it was time to look to sort the brake cooling (probably) Again, the factory cars do it like this:
BUt no one is selling gt4 bumpers on ebay for £150 so i got Dave to freehand something close into the donor bumper and asked him to paint it and a replacement side skirt (that i will fit at some time in the future).
I kept the bits cut out for dimensions, and spent some time teaching myself the basics of Autodesk Fusion 360 (i am very much at the formation stages of this process but my advice would be to watch you youtube video of the guy modelling a coffee pot and the one that covers lofting and offset planes on the same axis, if you can remember 20% of what's in them, you can design stuff
Using my very basic skills and ability i designed these
And did a quick and dirty print in black PLA resulting in this
These are designed to take a 75mm reenforced ducting hose (that i have a load of in the garage...
More tomorrow..
Edited by IainWhy on Friday 26th August 01:35
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