AM Power Upgrade

[brumma]

I want to get a bit more power out of my V8V but want to keep it AM approved. My only other choice would be Bamford Rose, but I am in the States. Anyway, I was looking at the AM Power Upgrade Kit as an option, but have had two AM techs advise me not to go that route. Any thoughts? I am not looking for a tremendous difference, but perhaps a bit to help with merging into traffic, etc...

[bogie]

its 20bhp extra on 380bhp, so 5%

it alters the feel a little of power delivery, but it wont be knocking 1 sec off your 0-60 or 0-100 times

its more something to do as a "nice to have" and doing other things at same time like cats/exhaust etc

other BR is the way to go for more real world power

[yeti]

As you're in the US, they may be giving that advice due to the fuel that's commonly available, you generally run a lower Octane number than Europe and 10bhp of that 20bhp power is from mapping to run on 99/100RON which is 94/95 AKI US octane.

Apparently you guys mostly have 91 Octane which is our 95RON?

[v8woollie]

The additional 10Nm of torque is probably the more important number, but taking the car from 410Nm to 420Nm is not a massive leap. I haven't seen the revised torque curve but I suspect the difference would be mainly noticeable higher up the rev range and so still require stirring of the gear stick to see the better performamce.

If you look at the BR torque curve for example, the additional 45Nm of torque shows itself from around 2000 RPM peaking at 5000 RPM, so pretty much all within the rev range that you would be in for most of the time. Much more useable IMHO.

[yeti]

Am I the only one who read from his post that he's in the US?

BR therefore is not an option right now (unless they'll send a kit by freight..?), but I know they're planning to go into the US market as soon as possible...

[v8woollie]

yeti said:

Am I the only one who read from his post that he's in the US?

BR therefore is not an option right now (unless they'll send a kit by freight..?), but I know they're planning to go into the US market as soon as possible...

Nope, I saw he is US-based - he even stated it in the first post

I thought it may make some sense to put the AM Power Upgrade into context with what BR offer since the factory upgrade BHP and torque increases are not that great for the money, and releasing some of the potential requires higher octane fuel as you stated.

There are companies in the US offering exhaust, clutch and suspension upgrades for Astons (such as RSC) and, as with BR, they are probably better bang for the buck.

[Stuart Dickinson]

yeti said:

As you're in the US, they may be giving that advice due to the fuel that's commonly available, you generally run a lower Octane number than Europe and 10bhp of that 20bhp power is from mapping to run on 99/100RON which is 94/95 AKI US octane.

Apparently you guys mostly have 91 Octane which is our 95RON?

93 Octane (PON - about the same as 98 RON) is pretty widely available in the US, at least until you get into rural areas where maybe there is less demand.

California strangely enough is an exception, where 91 Octane (about 96 RON) is the highest quality available at most pumps. Having said that, I was on the phone yesterday with a Vantage driver in Northern California who said he has a station downt he street that sells 99, 101, 103 and 109 Octane (104, 106, 109 and 114 RON!)

[yeti]

Fair enough Stuart - in which case can you think of a reason why two AM techs would recommenced not going for the Aston Martin power pack? Fuel was all I could think of!

[brumma]

Thanks for the replies, gents. Their reasoning seemed to be that there isn't enough bang for buck--that is it's too expensive and there isn't enough increase in performance. I think you guys have pretty much confirmed that.

[Stuart Dickinson]

yeti said:

Fair enough Stuart - in which case can you think of a reason why two AM techs would recommenced not going for the Aston Martin power pack? Fuel was all I could think of!

I think like brumma suggested it is maybe down to bang for buck. If you can get 15BHP and 18ft/lbs of torque from high flow cats, throw in an intake kit and you have achieved equivalent gains for probably half the cost of the factory kit. Plus the ancillary benefit of improved sound (highly subjective of course, some people don't like the more 'raw' sound that comes with sport cats.

The fuel thing is funny. I lived in the UK for 6 years and there seemed to be a perception that fuel quality in the US/Canada was awful. I spent great lengths trying to convince my cousin's husband that there was a different measurement system and that 98 RON equivalent was widely available. Anything beyond that is pretty unual though, whereas in the UK (at least while I was there) it wasn't too difficult to find 100 or 101 RON at certain stations.

[KarlFranz]

Is there any difference as to where in the rev range the increases in hp and torque occur between the AM Power Upgrade and just putting high flow cats and filters, etc? I would love an increase in torque down low. Higher in the revs is not nearly as useful.

[v8woollie]

I guess the torque curves will be different. The BR website shows the revised curves for their replacement exhaust. It definitely seems that the manifold and cats are releasing more torque and bhp than the factory power upgrade so I would assume it is more useable power.

[EBruce]

KarlFranz said:

Is there any difference as to where in the rev range the increases in hp and torque occur between the AM Power Upgrade and just putting high flow cats and filters, etc? I would love an increase in torque down low. Higher in the revs is not nearly as useful.

Karl-I posted dynos after adding the cats and the gains for both HP and TQ were across the entire band! I did not do before and afters when I added the Power Upgrade though.

Here is the dyno pre and post high flow cats

http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/aston-martin/26...

[robwilk]

I saw on another forum there was a guy in Florida that had developed a supercharger kit for the V8.
I will see if i can find it, but i guess thats the warrenty out of the window

[bogie]

robwilk said:

I saw on another forum there was a guy in Florida that had developed a supercharger kit for the V8.
I will see if i can find it, but i guess thats the warrenty out of the window

there have been a couple of threads on here about it - nothing new really, for the last 5 years people have been trying to get it right ...if you fancy spending £20k or more

[alxce]

v8woollie said:

I guess the torque curves will be different. The BR website shows the revised curves for their replacement exhaust. It definitely seems that the manifold and cats are releasing more torque and bhp than the factory power upgrade so I would assume it is more useable power.

Any chance you could point me at the detailed data/curves for the factory power upgrade? Reason is that mine came with it and I have been unable to find any information other than the +20bhp figure.

[v8woollie]

Sorry I don't have the data for the factory power upgrade.

[yeti]

I have a pair of 200 cell cats for sale next week, will fit V8 or V12. Anyone? QS box is already promised.

I assume I am allowed to advertise as long as I mention knobs in the sentence?

[v8woollie]

alxce said:

Any chance you could point me at the detailed data/curves for the factory power upgrade? Reason is that mine came with it and I have been unable to find any information other than the +20bhp figure.

Here is a PDF showing the revised power and torque curves for the power upgrade:

http://www.lfsc.com/contentimages/media/8d9091f4bc...

Compare to the BR picture:

[Stuart Dickinson]

bogie said:

there have been a couple of threads on here about it - nothing new really, for the last 5 years people have been trying to get it right ...if you fancy spending £20k or more

Or a lot less?