Upgrades / tuners for V8V

[Bumcang]

Hi all,

For the past couple of months I’ve been looking at potential performance upgrades for my 2016 N430 V8 Vantage. My wishlist is currently made up out of this:

• Gearbox - installing a lighter flywheel for better shifting. The Sportshift II is just… meh.
• Springs to slightly lower the car (don’t want to be too excessive here)
• Spacers for the wheels (again, nothing excessive)
• Engine upgrades - I’m a bit nervous around this one, don’t want to do any non-reversible upgrades although the manifolds and catalysts seem to really profit from an upgrade.

Two questions for all you fellow enthusiasts: what would you recommend and most importantly: who to trust with this ? David Appleby, Bamford Rose and Velocity AP all offer all or some of these upgrades and everyone has their own opinion on whose the best. Without providing any actual facts or arguments to go along with their opinion. Any insights would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks a lot,

Marc

[Dewi 2]

The upgrades to my V8V manual, are twin plate clutch with lightened flywheel and also a part decat (for more sound during acceleration). There is a 3-way exhaust valve switch, but it tends to always be in the open position. Cabin noise at steady throttle is only very slightly louder than standard, but I sometimes close the valves on a motorway trip.

In view of the poor state of British road surfaces and ground clearance reasons, I have not had any suspension changes such as lowering, stiffening, or wheel spacers. In fact my car has 'comfort' suspension, which is quite hard enough for me.

Very pleased with the improvements and the work was done by Bamford Rose a few years ago.

[Mr.Tremlini]

Bumcang said:

• Gearbox - installing a lighter flywheel for better shifting. The Sportshift II is just… meh.
• Springs to slightly lower the car (don’t want to be too excessive here)
• Spacers for the wheels (again, nothing excessive)
• Engine upgrades - I’m a bit nervous around this one, don’t want to do any non-reversible upgrades although the manifolds and catalysts seem to really profit from an upgrade.

I don`t think any of the specialists you have mentioned are going to steer you wrong, based on the numerous comments over the years from forum members that have used the services of all of the above. It probably comes down to proximity, quote and general feeling.

Bamford Rose was my first port of call for mods back in 2018 and they provided their manifolds, high-flow cats, ECU remap, 3-way switch, lightweight flywheel and twin-plate clutch, all in one visit. Made a noticeable difference to responsiveness, torque and power of my 4.3. I suspect it would be quite phenomenal with a 4.7. I believe the ability to remap the car is very specific, although this could be all smoke and mirrors. I have read a few moans and groans about BR, mostly regarding communications, however my dealings with Mike, Adrian and the team were excellent and the mods they did are still keeping me happy today. I did three trips to them in total.

More recently I have had a couple of sessions of work done by Valiant Ecosse at the Nurburgring - VE Bilstein sport suspension, upgraded antiroll bars, new geo and GT4 airboxes. Again, superb work. Alister knows his stuff, has an AM and motorsport background, and I`m super stoked with the outcome. The car was lowered by 8mm, doesn`t sound much but makes a difference.
I will be going back in the spring for a brake upgrade.

I have 11mm spacers front and rear. The wheels do often look too inset, particularly at the back, on the Vanatge, but that 11 mm fixes the problem but does not push the tyres out to the body. A wider spacer at the rear would also look good.

The other big improvement that you don`t mention, but maybe already have, is Michelin Pilot Sport tyres. It`s no secret that these things work exceptionally well on the V8 Vantage.

I took the decision to slowly improve my car to my liking, as I could. It is a completely different driving experience now compared to when I picked it up in 2015. Good luck with your decisions!

[IainWhy]

AHM are a nice lot. helpful. the remap to increase response, raise the rpm limit, lean out the mixture and turn off the EGR was definitely an improvement.

Yours being the 4.7 makes the cat job a bit more involved, but anyone (specialist or not) should be able to sort that out if you have the manifolds, IMO the VAP is meh but that a different topic. if your going to do the flywheel your better off doing it with the manifolds as you have to remove one and of course the exhaust to get the torque tube out so its partly the same labor. Anyone who knows what they are doing can change the clutch and fly, its just time consuming, programming the sports shift will be where the tricky part comes in so ask plenty of questions on that if i were you.

Faulkner's can do a set of springs wound to whatever height and rate you want for a fraction of the stupid price aftermarket suppliers want for these cars.

HTH

[Bumcang]

Mr.Tremlini said:

I don`t think any of the specialists you have mentioned are going to steer you wrong, based on the numerous comments over the years from forum members that have used the services of all of the above. It probably comes down to proximity, quote and general feeling.

Bamford Rose was my first port of call for mods back in 2018 and they provided their manifolds, high-flow cats, ECU remap, 3-way switch, lightweight flywheel and twin-plate clutch, all in one visit. Made a noticeable difference to responsiveness, torque and power of my 4.3. I suspect it would be quite phenomenal with a 4.7. I believe the ability to remap the car is very specific, although this could be all smoke and mirrors. I have read a few moans and groans about BR, mostly regarding communications, however my dealings with Mike, Adrian and the team were excellent and the mods they did are still keeping me happy today. I did three trips to them in total.

More recently I have had a couple of sessions of work done by Valiant Ecosse at the Nurburgring - VE Bilstein sport suspension, upgraded antiroll bars, new geo and GT4 airboxes. Again, superb work. Alister knows his stuff, has an AM and motorsport background, and I`m super stoked with the outcome. The car was lowered by 8mm, doesn`t sound much but makes a difference.
I will be going back in the spring for a brake upgrade.

I have 11mm spacers front and rear. The wheels do often look too inset, particularly at the back, on the Vanatge, but that 11 mm fixes the problem but does not push the tyres out to the body. A wider spacer at the rear would also look good.

The other big improvement that you don`t mention, but maybe already have, is Michelin Pilot Sport tyres. It`s no secret that these things work exceptionally well on the V8 Vantage.

I took the decision to slowly improve my car to my liking, as I could. It is a completely different driving experience now compared to when I picked it up in 2015. Good luck with your decisions!

Thanks for the detailed response. Do you have a manual or sportshift ? Where did you get the spacers ? I take it that's a relatively easy job that can be done by any professional. I'm getting my Michelin tires next week, looking forward to that for sure.

[BiggaJ]

Upgrades are a very personal thing, I had some of mine done with AHM, very good. Fitted twin plate clutch and lightened flywheel, GT4 filters, High flow cats and a remap ... well worth the increase in performance.

Vantage Engineering fitted their upgraded shocks, I went with stock springs as I didn't want to change the ride height but the overall improvement over the Dynamix shocks is well worth it.

Pilot Sport 4S tyres make a huge improvement over the OEM fit Bridgestones.

I personally dont want to fit spacers for the extra wear they can have on bearings and having already had a failed rear offside wheel bearing I dont want to potentially make things worse. There were a few posts I read recently that went into great detail from a guy who seemed to know his stuff ... link below.

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Edited by BiggaJ on Tuesday 26th September 11:32

[Calinours]

All the upgrades you mention were done to my V8VS by Bamford Rose. Stainless equal length headers without the pre-cats, motorsport main catalysts, light flywheel, twin plate clutch, Bilstein switchable suspension and light TCM and Engine remaps. As mentioned, another worthwhile and much more simple upgrade is to fit different tyres to the OEM Bridgestones and BR fast road geometry, I find the most confidence inspiring tyres are PS4S. It dyno’s at a corrected (crank) 455hp on 99 Ron, so a healthy little lift in peak power and torque, but most noticeable is the sweetness and speed of the ASM shifts and the suspension.

All is good, the only thing to consider is noise, the changes produce a much harsher and louder noise when the valves are open which won’t be to everyone’s taste. IMHO, not much beats the standard S exhaust set up in terms of the noise it makes with the valves open.

[BiggaJ]

Calinours said:

All the upgrades you mention were done to my V8VS by Bamford Rose. Stainless equal length headers without the pre-cats, motorsport main catalysts, light flywheel, twin plate clutch, Bilstein switchable suspension and light TCM and Engine remaps. As mentioned, another worthwhile and much more simple upgrade is to fit different tyres to the OEM Bridgestones and BR fast road geometry, I find the most confidence inspiring tyres are PS4S. It dyno’s at a corrected (crank) 455hp on 99 Ron, so a healthy little lift in peak power and torque, but most noticeable is the sweetness and speed of the ASM shifts and the suspension.

All is good, the only thing to consider is noise, the changes produce a much harsher and louder noise when the valves are open which won’t be to everyone’s taste. IMHO, not much beats the standard S exhaust set up in terms of the noise it makes with the valves open.

I was thinking about headers for my 4.3 ... how much extra grunt did you get from having yours done?

[Mr.Tremlini]

Bumcang said:

Thanks for the detailed response. Do you have a manual or sportshift ? Where did you get the spacers ? I take it that's a relatively easy job that can be done by any professional. I'm getting my Michelin tires next week, looking forward to that for sure.

I`m in Switzerland, where things are not so simple and the job has to be accompanied by a certificate of compliance from the Dynamic Test Centre (DTC). I have H&R spacers that were provided by a company called Carex. Seems straight forward enough.
Mine is a manual.

[Calinours]

BiggaJ said:

Calinours said:

All the upgrades you mention were done to my V8VS by Bamford Rose. Stainless equal length headers without the pre-cats, motorsport main catalysts, light flywheel, twin plate clutch, Bilstein switchable suspension and light TCM and Engine remaps. As mentioned, another worthwhile and much more simple upgrade is to fit different tyres to the OEM Bridgestones and BR fast road geometry, I find the most confidence inspiring tyres are PS4S. It dyno’s at a corrected (crank) 455hp on 99 Ron, so a healthy little lift in peak power and torque, but most noticeable is the sweetness and speed of the ASM shifts and the suspension.

All is good, the only thing to consider is noise, the changes produce a much harsher and louder noise when the valves are open which won’t be to everyone’s taste. IMHO, not much beats the standard S exhaust set up in terms of the noise it makes with the valves open.

I was thinking about headers for my 4.3 ... how much extra grunt did you get from having yours done?

If by ‘grunt’ you mean torque then it isn’t much. The tuned equal length headers increase peak performance by improving scavenging at the top end of the engines rpm envelope thus permitting the engine to hang onto whatever torque it is making a little longer and thus increasing peak power.

Torque is a function of cylinder pressure, the only real way to change it is to change the engine capacity or by forced induction (pressure charging). A better fuel can allow ignition advance lifting peak BMEP and marginally lift torqu at a given rpm, that’s what the S spark strategy does.

Allowing the engine to breathe as freely as it is able to across the whole rpm range will (subject to valve timing) allow the engine to hang onto its torque, this is the reason for fitting the least restrictive exhaust possible - but it will change the noise the engine makes.

All the tuners mentioned have good experience of what to do to extract the maximum from whatever version of the car you have, just ask their advise. They all now seem to offer the original or expensive option (the full stainless headers and motorsport cats and light remap) and more ‘cost effective’ options which are yes cheaper but involve irreversible changes to your existing hardware.

Bamford Rose are probably top of the pile, their tweaks to the engine map and full headers and cats can get a 4.3 to similar top end performance to a standard 4.7, though for the above reasons it cannot achieve the same torque.

Edited by Calinours on Tuesday 26th September 14:34

[AstonZagato]

I did notice this video about the CTR upgrades a few days ago:


He was quite honest about the failings and the upsdies.

[BiggaJ]

AstonZagato said:

I did notice this video about the CTR upgrades a few days ago:


He was quite honest about the failings and the upsdies.

Hmmm ... he states this was CTR's first car, it wasn't this is his third car, the other two are still showing on the CTR website with the green one having been sold. So far the registration numbers have been P1 CTR (blue in colour) , V80 CTR (green in colour) and now this one V23 CTR

Edited by BiggaJ on Tuesday 26th September 13:55

Edited by BiggaJ on Tuesday 26th September 15:18

[ds666]

Ask Bamford Rose if they will supercharge it

[cypriot]

I have written about the flywheel and manifold upgrades from Bamford Rose in this thread: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

I can't comment on spacers or lowering as I haven't done of that. The only thing I would say is that if you live in the UK, I would be very wary of lowering the car.

Other than that, enjoy the journey!

[Jon39]

ds666 said:

Ask Bamford Rose if they will supercharge it

[NickXX]

I have a 2007 4.3 manual which has had various upgrades from Bamford Rose:

- BR exhaust manifolds
- Lightweight flywheel / twinplate clutch
- 200 cell cats
- Remap
- 3 way exhaust switch (this is just to keep it quiet when you need it to be)
- Vantage S Bilsteins and ARB.
- PS4S tyres.

All very incremental individually, but I'm very happy with the car now. Throttle response and making the car feel more lively were my biggest areas to address. It also feels like a quick car now - especially as you go higher up the rev range.

Best bang for your buck will be a remap and 200 cell cats (I did this first) - you'll be looking at about £2k for this, and it will go a long way to addressing the laggy throttle response. After that it depends on how committed (financially irresponsible) you are to getting the best out of the car .

[rovcallum]

Before spending lots of cash, make sure you get the geo sorted. Best value for money ever, along with PS4S tyres.
I went the route of sourcing exhaust manifolds & 200 cell cats at a good price then getting my local indie to fit them. The sting was the remap at £1600, which I wasn’t prepared for at the time. All good though. 441 real hp on the dyno (2009 4.7l with sports pack) and a huge amount of extra mid-range torque over standard.

[Bumcang]

cypriot said:

I have written about the flywheel and manifold upgrades from Bamford Rose in this thread: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

I can't comment on spacers or lowering as I haven't done of that. The only thing I would say is that if you live in the UK, I would be very wary of lowering the car.

Other than that, enjoy the journey!

Thanks! Having only these upgrades, is the power increase and shifting smoothness/response noticeably better?

NickXX said:

I have a 2007 4.3 manual which has had various upgrades from Bamford Rose:

- BR exhaust manifolds
- Lightweight flywheel / twinplate clutch
- 200 cell cats
- Remap
- 3 way exhaust switch (this is just to keep it quiet when you need it to be)
- Vantage S Bilsteins and ARB.
- PS4S tyres.

All very incremental individually, but I'm very happy with the car now. Throttle response and making the car feel more lively were my biggest areas to address. It also feels like a quick car now - especially as you go higher up the rev range.

Best bang for your buck will be a remap and 200 cell cats (I did this first) - you'll be looking at about £2k for this, and it will go a long way to addressing the laggy throttle response. After that it depends on how committed (financially irresponsible) you are to getting the best out of the car .

If you don't mind me asking, what spending range are we talking about here? Mine being a N430 4.7 I probably can leave the "S" upgrades out but otherwise this sounds like a dream setup.

[ds666]

You could save yourself loads of time and worry about what will work etc by just buying a v12 - make sure you get the carbon seat thou otherwise they are rubbish .

[Bumcang]

ds666 said:

You could save yourself loads of time and worry about what will work etc by just buying a v12 - make sure you get the carbon seat thou otherwise they are rubbish .

I've driven it and it somehow feels underwhelming to me. The added weight and marginal power gain make it a nice straight-line car but it's nowhere near as capable when pushing the limit to its lack of agility.