DB11 Engine Power
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Discussion

Jon39

Original Poster:

14,951 posts

173 months

Friday 7th August 2015
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At present the 5935cc V12 engine has 540bhp in the DB9, and 568bhp in the Vanquish.

It was recently suggested, that the DB11 will continue with the same V12, although at 5.2 litres twin turbocharged.

With twin tubochargers, even with a 12% capacity reduction, presumably the bhp figures could be considerably higher. The Vanquish though is supposed to be the 'flagship' model.

Will be interesting to see what happens with power outputs.


krisdelta

4,673 posts

231 months

Friday 7th August 2015
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I guess they'll stage the power to provide progression as the model ages. Wonder if they'll start trying to chase the competition in terms of power output?

GT Two

3,070 posts

222 months

Friday 7th August 2015
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I had a c63 AMG with 6.3 litre NA engine. I wouldn't go anywhere near the new one, doesn't excite me one bit.

Does anyone think people will react like this with the new turbocharged Aston Martins?

Little Donkey

1,544 posts

171 months

Friday 7th August 2015
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My guess is that a Vanquish S with circa 600 bhp to maintain the gap is on the cards. Pure speculation, but seems feasible.

JohnG1

3,487 posts

235 months

Friday 7th August 2015
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Jon39 said:
At present the 5935cc V12 engine has 540bhp in the DB9, and 568bhp in the Vanquish.
A DBS/V12V has 510bhp whereas an original Vanquish S had 520bhp.

But there is a lot of wriggle room in how these numbers are calculated.

I expect that this supposed 5.2 V12 would have to start at around 580bhp in low tune and grow to 700bhp in a sportier model.

jonby

5,367 posts

187 months

Friday 7th August 2015
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GT Two said:
I had a c63 AMG with 6.3 litre NA engine. I wouldn't go anywhere near the new one, doesn't excite me one bit.

Does anyone think people will react like this with the new turbocharged Aston Martins?
Possibly, but of course Merc downsized considerably in both engine size and numbers of cylinders, whereas the engine you are talking about will still be a V12 and actually, not much smaller, so I guess the key will be to maintain throttle response/sensitivity and ensure no lag

re: vanquish, I can't imagine they will have any alternative but to put the same engine in vanquish, in a higher state of tune, for the very reasons stated by other posters

As for power, surely there is no point doing a 5 ltr+ sized V12 to replace an engine that they can get close to 600bhp in normally aspirated form from right now (GT12) unless the number starts with a 6

JohnG1

3,487 posts

235 months

Friday 7th August 2015
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jonby said:
GT Two said:
I had a c63 AMG with 6.3 litre NA engine. I wouldn't go anywhere near the new one, doesn't excite me one bit.

Does anyone think people will react like this with the new turbocharged Aston Martins?
Possibly, but of course Merc downsized considerably in both engine size and numbers of cylinders, whereas the engine you are talking about will still be a V12 and actually, not much smaller, so I guess the key will be to maintain throttle response/sensitivity and ensure no lag

re: vanquish, I can't imagine they will have any alternative but to put the same engine in vanquish, in a higher state of tune, for the very reasons stated by other posters

As for power, surely there is no point doing a 5 ltr+ sized V12 to replace an engine that they can get close to 600bhp in normally aspirated form from right now (GT12) unless the number starts with a 6
Can AML get 600bhp at a sensible cost? I don't know if they have actually stated on the record and formally that they will deliver that output for GT12. By which I mean, in legal paperwork rather than the flim flam of press releases...

I do recall the Vantage RS was supposed to deliver 600bhp and have a dry sump. So AML have form in not really telling the truth on these details of engineering...

roughrider

997 posts

216 months

Friday 7th August 2015
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IF, they turbocharged a reduced capacity V12, even running at a lowly 5 psi boost, it would be around 650bhp. [Just imagine if it remained at 6.0 capacity, at 7 psi boost, it would exceed 750bhp!]. The drivetrain guys would have a heck of a task tackling the immense torque figure the engine might produce. Power output could be easily manipulated by simply raising boost pressure, but that knocks on to stress on components further downstream.
So long as the cars remain as user friendly as they are now................................

Armen

252 posts

178 months

Friday 7th August 2015
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Little Donkey said:
My guess is that a Vanquish S with circa 600 bhp to maintain the gap is on the cards. Pure speculation, but seems feasible.
Let's just hope they don't call it Vanquish "S".

old phart

406 posts

140 months

Saturday 8th August 2015
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Armen said:
Let's just hope they don't call it Vanquish "S".
Ferrari added the T when the California got turbos.

jonby

5,367 posts

187 months

Saturday 8th August 2015
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JohnG1 said:
Can AML get 600bhp at a sensible cost? I don't know if they have actually stated on the record and formally that they will deliver that output for GT12. By which I mean, in legal paperwork rather than the flim flam of press releases...
Agree with the sentiment and am like you, sceptical about just how much of a power boost GT12 will have but Vanquish is currently stated as 568bhp so if GT12 adds just another 12bhp, that's 580 bhp - for me that's good enough to be described as 'close to 600' - in fact GT12 is officially 'predicted' to have 600PS, which is about 592bhp

In that context, I just don't see the point in taking on the costs of turbocharging a downsized V12 to achieve a figure that does't comfortably start the right side of 6 - surely the costs of taking the existing n/a V12 to 590/600 bhp would be significantly lower ?

The other issue is the AMG V8. Eventually, in higher states of tune, that will be pushing out at least mid 500s (it's already 503bhp in the merc GT) - there's no point in investing in this turbo V12 if it's not going to be around for a while which in turn means it has to pump out significantly more power than the AMG engine or else it just won't sell

The real question for me is when they bring out the AMG engine in the DB11 in due course, will that be to replace the V12 or to sit alongside it as a cheaper option ? The other question is which other models will it appear in - there are lots of possibilities but the only one I'd be reasonably sure about is vanquish which will have to take the new turbo V12 in due course, presumably at least 6 months after it goes in DB11 so as not to take the shine off that launch, at which stage it has to go in with a higher state of tune to maintain vanquish as the flagship

Unless the plan is to drop vanquish - let's face it, new DB9 will have more modern looks, more modern electronics, next phase of the interior, new engine. New DB9 will be the start of the next phase of AML models, rather like DB9 mk1 was when it launched. So perhaps they go with two different versions of DB11, rather like DB9 & DBS used to be, dropping vanquish entirely. Vanquish mk2 will become a real classic if it's the last and greatest n/a V12 Aston......

AdamV8V

1,389 posts

186 months

Saturday 8th August 2015
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I met two gentlemen at Le Mans from the Cologne engine plant who are engineers on the next-gen V12.

They were predictably and understandably tight-lipped about numbers when I asked, but I gleaned that the first iteration of the V12 will be normally aspirated, and they positively beamed with pride when I challenged them on whether that would deliver enough power to compete on paper with the supercar fraternity biggrin. It is also being configured to take forced induction down the line although they didn't say whether that would be super- or turbo-charging, but I'd guess the latter...

They were lovely blokes and seemed genuinely excited about what was being worked on. I'm hoping a One-77 "Lite" (620ish BHP) approach and then forced induction to take it beyond 700 horses.

I guess time will tell..!

JohnG1

3,487 posts

235 months

Sunday 9th August 2015
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jonby said:
JohnG1 said:
Can AML get 600bhp at a sensible cost? I don't know if they have actually stated on the record and formally that they will deliver that output for GT12. By which I mean, in legal paperwork rather than the flim flam of press releases...
Agree with the sentiment and am like you, sceptical about just how much of a power boost GT12 will have but Vanquish is currently stated as 568bhp so if GT12 adds just another 12bhp, that's 580 bhp - for me that's good enough to be described as 'close to 600' - in fact GT12 is officially 'predicted' to have 600PS, which is about 592bhp

In that context, I just don't see the point in taking on the costs of turbocharging a downsized V12 to achieve a figure that does't comfortably start the right side of 6 - surely the costs of taking the existing n/a V12 to 590/600 bhp would be significantly lower ?

The other issue is the AMG V8. Eventually, in higher states of tune, that will be pushing out at least mid 500s (it's already 503bhp in the merc GT) - there's no point in investing in this turbo V12 if it's not going to be around for a while which in turn means it has to pump out significantly more power than the AMG engine or else it just won't sell

The real question for me is when they bring out the AMG engine in the DB11 in due course, will that be to replace the V12 or to sit alongside it as a cheaper option ? The other question is which other models will it appear in - there are lots of possibilities but the only one I'd be reasonably sure about is vanquish which will have to take the new turbo V12 in due course, presumably at least 6 months after it goes in DB11 so as not to take the shine off that launch, at which stage it has to go in with a higher state of tune to maintain vanquish as the flagship

Unless the plan is to drop vanquish - let's face it, new DB9 will have more modern looks, more modern electronics, next phase of the interior, new engine. New DB9 will be the start of the next phase of AML models, rather like DB9 mk1 was when it launched. So perhaps they go with two different versions of DB11, rather like DB9 & DBS used to be, dropping vanquish entirely. Vanquish mk2 will become a real classic if it's the last and greatest n/a V12 Aston......
I wonder if they can get 592bhp from the Bosch/5935 engine - I suspect that they have used up all the easy to deliver enhancements and are hoping that the proposed titanium exhaust (I suspect from Akrapovic) can deliver some bhp, along with perhaps some higher quality ancillaries and what not...

A DB9 replacement would surely follow the design language of Vanquish but unless AML maintain a performance and price differential they will end up with the same mess as DB9/Virage/DBS - too many products that confuse the customers. A top of the range car has to have the top of the range power. Which suggests that the new DB9 launches with naturally aspirated and at a similar time a turbocharged Vanquish.2 arrives?

I disagree somewhat on the V8 vs V12 power difference. Look at Mercedes - they used to have strongly overlapping V8 and V12 engine outputs - the simple reason being that the V8 has higher volumes so gets more R&D expenditure...