A deep introspection and an Aston Martin
Discussion
Hello.
Long time visitor to the Pistonhead forums but dont really post much and do not think I have ever started a thread so here we go...
I am 43, soon to be 44.
I enjoy researching things, I enjoy going down rabbit holes, I enjoy tinkering and trying to make things better.
From a young age I would be more excited about the thought of something than actually having it:
Planning the next bike, Next skateboard, Next computer.
When i got it I would then start planning things to do to it, sometimes even having parts arrive before the actual new thing they were for.
This continued when I passed my driving test and every car I have owned I have done some stuff too. Now 43 years into my life I am questioning this approach and it is this car which makes me question it. I am not here to have people say yes or no to what I have done, more just to get it all off my chest so maybe I can reach a self enforced conclusion one way or another.
So anyway, may I present my 2010 4.7 litre V8 manual vantage which started life as a pre facelift sportspack equipped car.
This means it came with:
sports pack suspension - not that hard day to day but couldnt keep up with undulating roads
lightweight seats - one of the main reasons i bought the car
sports pack exhaust - sounded lovely to start with
The car itself is Tungsten silver with a black interior (but for some reason not spec'd with a darkheadlining which i am sad about)
Over the years this car has changed quite a bit and I will try in the next few days to bring people up to speed on these changes and why I am now wondering what I should do next...but more on that later
Some pics from when I bought it with 17k miles on it 7 years ago next month
Long time visitor to the Pistonhead forums but dont really post much and do not think I have ever started a thread so here we go...
I am 43, soon to be 44.
I enjoy researching things, I enjoy going down rabbit holes, I enjoy tinkering and trying to make things better.
From a young age I would be more excited about the thought of something than actually having it:
Planning the next bike, Next skateboard, Next computer.
When i got it I would then start planning things to do to it, sometimes even having parts arrive before the actual new thing they were for.
This continued when I passed my driving test and every car I have owned I have done some stuff too. Now 43 years into my life I am questioning this approach and it is this car which makes me question it. I am not here to have people say yes or no to what I have done, more just to get it all off my chest so maybe I can reach a self enforced conclusion one way or another.
So anyway, may I present my 2010 4.7 litre V8 manual vantage which started life as a pre facelift sportspack equipped car.
This means it came with:
sports pack suspension - not that hard day to day but couldnt keep up with undulating roads
lightweight seats - one of the main reasons i bought the car
sports pack exhaust - sounded lovely to start with
The car itself is Tungsten silver with a black interior (but for some reason not spec'd with a darkheadlining which i am sad about)
Over the years this car has changed quite a bit and I will try in the next few days to bring people up to speed on these changes and why I am now wondering what I should do next...but more on that later
Some pics from when I bought it with 17k miles on it 7 years ago next month
So July 2019 the car arrived, it was actually the next year before i started my usual messing although looking back through the photo album I can see I had already started screenshotting ideas and saving images of things i "needed"
The first things that went in were harmless enough.
New custom made foot mats:
These matched the stripe in the seat and were part alcantara
The standard mats in a vantage are actually the carpet, pinned down by the seat mounts so a bit of work to swap over
Then came carbon door sills from ECPS
These are in satin carbon, and I replaced the screws with stainless.
All in all I was buying things and it was going well
Next up, I wanted a bit more of a racey theme and to have an extinguisher for track days so in went a handheld one
And then I noticed some corrosion around the door and front indicator. A call to AM Nottingham and with about 2 weeks left on the 10 year paint warranty the car was booked in to have one side of the car resprayed free of charge - drivers side - remember this as it is important later in the story
The first things that went in were harmless enough.
New custom made foot mats:
These matched the stripe in the seat and were part alcantara
The standard mats in a vantage are actually the carpet, pinned down by the seat mounts so a bit of work to swap over
Then came carbon door sills from ECPS
These are in satin carbon, and I replaced the screws with stainless.
All in all I was buying things and it was going well
Next up, I wanted a bit more of a racey theme and to have an extinguisher for track days so in went a handheld one
And then I noticed some corrosion around the door and front indicator. A call to AM Nottingham and with about 2 weeks left on the 10 year paint warranty the car was booked in to have one side of the car resprayed free of charge - drivers side - remember this as it is important later in the story
So we get through the first year of ownership and I have more and more pictures stolen from here and instagram and facebook of things I would like to do with my car building up in my phone and then AP Velocity do a Black Friday deal and David Appleby over here match the deal so the car goes to DAE for the AP Velocity power pack.
This is:
Gt4 exhaust manifolds (my car was one of the last with no cats in the primaries)
200 Cell cats
Performance air filters
Remap of the standard ecu to raise the rev limit slightly and deal with the bolt on bits.
This is back in 2020 when DAE were based in Brackley.
Now, having not driven the car much I was hard pushed to notice much difference in performance. The car definately sounded louder but this is where my mussing about starts to snow ball (one of several examples).
Becuase I had the sports back box (valved but loud) the 200 cell cats and new manifold made the car really loud when the valves opened, and the valves opened at 4k or whatever so when accelerating the car went from ok to super loud all of a sudden at quite a weird point. I addressed this later on with more money being spent.
The power pack in Black Friday was £4,300 so quite a lay out
With this also being back in 2020 Aston Martin actually were interested in low level customers to some extent and I did two track days at Stowe with AM instructors and a nice lunch in my own car. Now you are unable to do this unless you spend £8k a day and bring your valkyrie (although I do frequently see other AM owners who spend a lot more than I do getting invites to Stowe to drive Valhalla's etc)
On the day I was there they were testing the Valkyrie mules as well as a Black vantage with some odd attachments which I later found out was the new shape V12 vantage mule.
These were great days with very limited numbers, lots of supervision and some tech support to check the car over
I also bought a carbon fibre slam panel, again in satin carbon and managed to fit this without issue - see my confidence building here.
I took the car to Simply Aston and it looked great on a sunny day!
While snooping around other cars and now I was a track day aficionado after two days on a small track I convinced myself I needed bigger brakes.
YOU DO NOT NEED BIGGER BRAKES
the gt4 cars used to run 4 pots, I do not need 6 pots. I especially did not need 6 pots when you need to buy the following to fit them:
new suspension uprights with hubs
new calipers
new pads
new bolts
new disks
new braided hoses
even more bolts
But i started buying parts anyway, and having them media blasted so they looked nice under a car
Now, buying all these bits (second hand uprights and calipers and the rest new) cost a lot.
£2k for uprights and calipers
£900 for discs
£400 for pads
£200 for fittings
then fitting was nearly £2k after some wishbone bushes needed replacing, car needed realigning etc afterwards and the front and rear calipers needed painting as I chose to go yellow instead of OE red which my old calipers were
Also, the disks the first time were the wrong PCD and the next time had no brake retaining screw holes so at this point it was getting a bit frustrating.
Plus the first MOT failure as a result of me messing.
When the calipers etc were fitted the brake hoses were a bit twisted. Apparently quite common but enough to fail an MOT
All that said they did look lovely in Yellow
This is:
Gt4 exhaust manifolds (my car was one of the last with no cats in the primaries)
200 Cell cats
Performance air filters
Remap of the standard ecu to raise the rev limit slightly and deal with the bolt on bits.
This is back in 2020 when DAE were based in Brackley.
Now, having not driven the car much I was hard pushed to notice much difference in performance. The car definately sounded louder but this is where my mussing about starts to snow ball (one of several examples).
Becuase I had the sports back box (valved but loud) the 200 cell cats and new manifold made the car really loud when the valves opened, and the valves opened at 4k or whatever so when accelerating the car went from ok to super loud all of a sudden at quite a weird point. I addressed this later on with more money being spent.
The power pack in Black Friday was £4,300 so quite a lay out
With this also being back in 2020 Aston Martin actually were interested in low level customers to some extent and I did two track days at Stowe with AM instructors and a nice lunch in my own car. Now you are unable to do this unless you spend £8k a day and bring your valkyrie (although I do frequently see other AM owners who spend a lot more than I do getting invites to Stowe to drive Valhalla's etc)
On the day I was there they were testing the Valkyrie mules as well as a Black vantage with some odd attachments which I later found out was the new shape V12 vantage mule.
These were great days with very limited numbers, lots of supervision and some tech support to check the car over
I also bought a carbon fibre slam panel, again in satin carbon and managed to fit this without issue - see my confidence building here.
I took the car to Simply Aston and it looked great on a sunny day!
While snooping around other cars and now I was a track day aficionado after two days on a small track I convinced myself I needed bigger brakes.
YOU DO NOT NEED BIGGER BRAKES
the gt4 cars used to run 4 pots, I do not need 6 pots. I especially did not need 6 pots when you need to buy the following to fit them:
new suspension uprights with hubs
new calipers
new pads
new bolts
new disks
new braided hoses
even more bolts
But i started buying parts anyway, and having them media blasted so they looked nice under a car
Now, buying all these bits (second hand uprights and calipers and the rest new) cost a lot.
£2k for uprights and calipers
£900 for discs
£400 for pads
£200 for fittings
then fitting was nearly £2k after some wishbone bushes needed replacing, car needed realigning etc afterwards and the front and rear calipers needed painting as I chose to go yellow instead of OE red which my old calipers were
Also, the disks the first time were the wrong PCD and the next time had no brake retaining screw holes so at this point it was getting a bit frustrating.
Plus the first MOT failure as a result of me messing.
When the calipers etc were fitted the brake hoses were a bit twisted. Apparently quite common but enough to fail an MOT
All that said they did look lovely in Yellow
And one more look back into the past for today.
Not firmly bitten by the "i need to spend more money instead of learning to actually drive well" bug I bought a lightweight battery:
Weighed about 4kg instead of 20kg
Took the car for a drive, electrics went crazy.
Had to send it back.
Got another one, problem fixed
I have had it 4 years and yesterday the Ctek Lithium XS threw an error saying it wont hold a charge anymore so £500 battery with a 4 year life feels a bit disappointing. Need to see whether to buy another or go back to standard. Feel like i should give it another go and maybe not leave it permanently on a charger (Deadweight do say dont do this but I thought i lithium charger would be fine).
My worry is I have no actual key for the car, so if the battery dies I am stuck as the car lives on the drive. I do now have a magnetic charging port fitted though so maybe would be ok but again - I spent money and have maybe made things worse / harder than not spending.
I also sent my steering wheel off to be retrimmed in alcantara which was successful in my view
Not firmly bitten by the "i need to spend more money instead of learning to actually drive well" bug I bought a lightweight battery:
Weighed about 4kg instead of 20kg
Took the car for a drive, electrics went crazy.
Had to send it back.
Got another one, problem fixed
I have had it 4 years and yesterday the Ctek Lithium XS threw an error saying it wont hold a charge anymore so £500 battery with a 4 year life feels a bit disappointing. Need to see whether to buy another or go back to standard. Feel like i should give it another go and maybe not leave it permanently on a charger (Deadweight do say dont do this but I thought i lithium charger would be fine).
My worry is I have no actual key for the car, so if the battery dies I am stuck as the car lives on the drive. I do now have a magnetic charging port fitted though so maybe would be ok but again - I spent money and have maybe made things worse / harder than not spending.
I also sent my steering wheel off to be retrimmed in alcantara which was successful in my view
trails said:
Need is an interesting word in the context of car mods 
Keep them coming please OP...
Yep! Last track day I really realised how slow I was and how I did not need anything but seat time and tuition but those things take time and its much easier to look at new shiny parts instead. Keep them coming please OP...
Both would be ideal maybe!
m.barnes said:
Yep! Last track day I really realised how slow I was and how I did not need anything but seat time and tuition but those things take time and its much easier to look at new shiny parts instead.
Both would be ideal maybe!
Tuition is brilliant, and does reap rewards, but you can't polish it and look at it Both would be ideal maybe!
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