V8 Vantage tuning (SLINC) - Chassis/Geometry

[SLINC]

Hi all,

This is my most recent upgrade, but given the huge difference it's made to my enjoyment of the car it's deservedly the first of my posts on tuning the V8V.

Location
Torque Developments Internation Plc : www.tdi-plc.com
Tel : [phone]

Work
Full diagnostic on car using state of the art laser allignment.
Changes to all aspects of the geometry to a "fast road" specification.
Additional diagnostic , full road test and final fine tuning of geometry revisions.
Final diagnostic.

Results
Simply astonishing!!
"Standard" AM geometry settings err massively on the cautious side.
TDI have used my car to develop a "fast road" upgrade specifically for V8V owners ( there were 6 separate diagnostics and road tests before they were 100% happy with it!)
I've listed the noteable improvements below ;

1. Much sharper turn in.
2. Far more accuracy on cornering, especially the initial turn which is now a lot easier to judge.
3. Greater feel through the steering wheel.
4. Car feels like a single unit now - seemed rather "disjointed" before.
5. Ride is more compliant, with less shimmying over bumps.
6. Massively improved stability during hard braking.

Summary
TDI are a brilliant outfit. Their depth of knowledge, expertise and customer service are the best I've found and I've met a few fellow customers there that have travelled hundreds of miles to use them rather than somewhere more local.
The cost of the geometry upgrade is very low (c.£200) and I can't recommend it highly enough!!

[V8VKK]

Thanks for the write up I may well consider this as it seems like very good value for money

[bogie]

Ive used TDI before on another car, glad to hear they have a nice geo set-up available for the V8V ...I will have to pop in next time Im down that way

[whoami]

Good review. Looking forward to your other reports.

[355f]

Interesting project and Iam doing the same.

Your choice of exhaust is interesting, miltec-not that well known for AM

Im looking at prodrive who do the cats and ecu- at least that more proven than most aftermarket conversions. Or a quicksilver.

[bogie]

do prodrive (or any of the others on the market) actually have access to the factory ECU?

are any of them doing real time live mapping on a rolling road?

or

are they fudging it with some piggy back ECU/chip wired onto the ECU to "adjust" the readings picked up by the main ECU?

...thats what I want to know - theres seems to be a lot of talk about "ECU remapping" yet Im not sure *any* of the current non factory offerings actually *remap* the factory ECU

I wouldnt want to pay £2000 for what is essentially a cheap, generic bolt on "chip" type of upgrade - thats just taking the mick because its an expensive car ...not when you can have a real custom remap for £600-800 elsewhere ...if only they had the codes to access the ECU

[TDIPLC]

SLINC, I'm very glad to hear you're pleased so far with our development of the geometry revisions on your V8V.

I haven't had the opportunity to drive your car yet (hopefully this will be remedied soon ), but if it works half as well as it does on the vanquish I shall be happy. There's a little blog regarding the Vanquish development at http://tdi-plc.com/blog/category/euro/aston-martin... (entry on 27th March).

All the best,

Mark

[TDIPLC]

bogie said:

do prodrive (or any of the others on the market) actually have access to the factory ECU?

are any of them doing real time live mapping on a rolling road?

or

are they fudging it with some piggy back ECU/chip wired onto the ECU to "adjust" the readings picked up by the main ECU?

...thats what I want to know - theres seems to be a lot of talk about "ECU remapping" yet Im not sure *any* of the current non factory offerings actually *remap* the factory ECU

I wouldnt want to pay £2000 for what is essentially a cheap, generic bolt on "chip" type of upgrade - thats just taking the mick because its an expensive car ...not when you can have a real custom remap for £600-800 elsewhere ...if only they had the codes to access the ECU

Hi Bogie, long time no see!

Your points may be better raised in SLINCS topic on tuning http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/xforums/topic.asp?h=0...

Your insightful comments are the elephants in the room......

[Neil1300R]

OK, I'm going to ask the 'dumb' questions: -
What's the downside to this setup?
Why if it's so good don't they leave the factory with this sort of setup?

Genuinely interested, so not having a 'pop' at the company doing it, just trying to understand more

[bogie]

TDIPLC said:

bogie said:

do prodrive (or any of the others on the market) actually have access to the factory ECU?

are any of them doing real time live mapping on a rolling road?

or

are they fudging it with some piggy back ECU/chip wired onto the ECU to "adjust" the readings picked up by the main ECU?

...thats what I want to know - theres seems to be a lot of talk about "ECU remapping" yet Im not sure *any* of the current non factory offerings actually *remap* the factory ECU

I wouldnt want to pay £2000 for what is essentially a cheap, generic bolt on "chip" type of upgrade - thats just taking the mick because its an expensive car ...not when you can have a real custom remap for £600-800 elsewhere ...if only they had the codes to access the ECU

Hi Bogie, long time no see!

Your points may be better raised in SLINCS topic on tuning http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/xforums/topic.asp?h=0...

Your insightful comments are the elephants in the room......

..ah...thought I was on a different thread !

/may be coming to see you this year too, now im back driving again

[SamBorgman]

Neil1300R said:

OK, I'm going to ask the 'dumb' questions: -
What's the downside to this setup?
Why if it's so good don't they leave the factory with this sort of setup?

Genuinely interested, so not having a 'pop' at the company doing it, just trying to understand more

Well it's my opinion that the factory geometry is designed in part to deliberately get the car to it's grip limit a little faster than would happen naturally, and to do so in a way that is easier for the stability program to sort out regardless of the weather. I suppose you could consider it as kind of fool proofing the chassis dynamic behavior of the car.

When you consider the broad demographic of potential owners and users plus the litigious nature of the modern consumer you can see that there is pressure on the factory to "play it safe" with the standard chassis settings.

We haven't had to move too far away from the standard geometry to make the car feel a lot nicer, although this is partly because the car is certainly more sensitive to minor static geometry changes and the precision of the overall balance in the geometry than most road cars that we see.

[bogie]

also, lets not forget, on the production line, they often dont have time to get the settings perfect, even to their own spec. Its a case of get it near enough and leave the rest to dealer PDI ...which may or may not get done again if the car drives ok ...

In fact, I would guess that after 6-12 months of use on our pot holed roads, few cars are being driven around with their geo settings intact, so its usually something to get checked regular IMO

[Neil1300R]

SamBorgman said:

Neil1300R said:

OK, I'm going to ask the 'dumb' questions: -
What's the downside to this setup?
Why if it's so good don't they leave the factory with this sort of setup?

Genuinely interested, so not having a 'pop' at the company doing it, just trying to understand more

Well it's my opinion that the factory geometry is designed in part to deliberately get the car to it's grip limit a little faster than would happen naturally, and to do so in a way that is easier for the stability program to sort out regardless of the weather. I suppose you could consider it as kind of fool proofing the chassis dynamic behavior of the car.

When you consider the broad demographic of potential owners and users plus the litigious nature of the modern consumer you can see that there is pressure on the factory to "play it safe" with the standard chassis settings.

We haven't had to move too far away from the standard geometry to make the car feel a lot nicer, although this is partly because the car is certainly more sensitive to minor static geometry changes and the precision of the overall balance in the geometry than most road cars that we see.

Thanks for that, sounds like something worth doing will have to get it booked in with you.

[SLINC]

355f said:

Interesting project and Iam doing the same.

Your choice of exhaust is interesting, miltec-not that well known for AM

Im looking at prodrive who do the cats and ecu- at least that more proven than most aftermarket conversions. Or a quicksilver.

Yeah I looked at the Prodrive option but very expensive.
For less £ you can get the full Milltek exhaust system (cats AND cat-back exhaust)
The sound isn't overtly intrusive into the cabin but is gorgeously rich and deep - smoothly increasing in intensity as revs increase.
It also saves over 20kg!!
IMHO the sound fits the car better than both Larini and Quicksilver's systems.

I hated the exhaust sound suddenly changing from muted to wailing banshee at 4000rpm - as per the OEM unit.
With JUST sports cats (as per the Prodrive package) this step change is simply ridiculous and you literally can't hear yourself think in the upper half of the rev range.

Maybe someone's cup of tea, but I reckon you need 500bhp+ to justify that kind of racket...!

[355f]

Hi there

have you a sound clip of this system by miltec at all please

regards

[SLINC]

355f said:

Hi there

have you a sound clip of this system by miltec at all please

regards

The best place to hear it is on their website ;
www.millteksport.com

[GTDB7]

I replied to your thread on the AMOC forum, but as the post got moved etc I think it may be overlooked now.


Here was my original reply there:

====================================

I'm wondering if this could also be achieved on my DB7 GT?

For £200 (circa) extended tyre wear would pay for this setup in no time at all.

As the GT is a more modern setup than the DB7 Vantage, I imagine more could be gained from it.

=====================================

Any thoughts would be good!

[SamBorgman]

GTDB7 said:

I replied to your thread on the AMOC forum, but as the post got moved etc I think it may be overlooked now.


Here was my original reply there:

====================================

I'm wondering if this could also be achieved on my DB7 GT?

For £200 (circa) extended tyre wear would pay for this setup in no time at all.

As the GT is a more modern setup than the DB7 Vantage, I imagine more could be gained from it.

=====================================

Any thoughts would be good!

I think the only answer I can give you here is "possibly"

We will need to technically get to know your specific chassis first by gathering all the crucial data, then actually drive the thing and take a view from there.

[Neil1300R]

Bump!

Just had this done at TDI. A big thank you to SLINC for paying for the development work

Biggest improvement for me is at high(ish) speeds - car now feels fully connected. Before, if in fast bends (dual carrigeway etc) I didn't want to change line / lane until the bend opened out. Now its chuck it around / change lanes, one handed etc.

At slower speeds you can put the power on earlier, rear end stays where you expect it, and TC doesn't cut in so early.

TDI are thoroughly nice chaps, happy to chat about cars, happy for you to wonder around your car whilst they are working on it. They had to do mine twice as the steering wheel was offset first time around. However, they picked up on it on their test drive, had the car staright back in the workshop to get it perfect. Onlly charged me for 1.25 hours of work.

A serious bit of kit they've got for geometry alignment, the inner geek in me had trouble staying away from it!

Well worth doing it really makes a difference to the overal feel of the car - wish I had got it done last year. It helps that from me (Surrey) you have to tunnel run the Dartford Tunnel to get there!

[V8VKK]

Slinc, Neil are you running standard or sports suspension?