Official Aston Martin power upgrade for 4.3 Vantage
Discussion
Was chatting to my dealer today and apparently an official upgrade is coming out from Aston Martin for the 4.3 Vantage. He says it includes an ECU upgrade/remap and an intake which takes it to 400hp, so this basically sounds exactly like a retrofit of the N400's engine upgrades. In combination with a Larini exhaust, could be interesting... I shudder to guess at the price though!
bogie said:
and 20bhp is just about 'noticeable' on a lightweight like an Elise, so on a 400bhp 1.5ton car a 5% increase...will be......mmm.....the reason it made a difference on like the N24 was because they took 250kg of interior/aircon etc out of if too 
And, I believe, on the N400 things like throttle reponse? Depends on cost I guess, but if the iPod retrofit is anything to by...sadlerj said:
Mine show's 400BHP on the rollers with no mods...
im sure it does quite easily - no rolling road is truly accurate, only a calibrated engine dyno is(like the OEMs use in their test cells) ...but of course, taking your engine out and putting it into a cell is not practical, so thats where the rolling road was born from You need a RR run as a base run, before mods, so always use the same dyno and just measure the difference then it all is very useful - if you fit a new exhaust and get 418bhp you know that youve gone +18 bhp
now you can see how some tuning firms get their figures, with there optimistic RR - you go in, get their latest gizmo fitted ...woopee - 425bhp and one happy customer....of course the fact your car was showing 415bhp on their RR as std makes no difference
Ive spent about 6 years tuning Elises, and been to countless rolling roads, I settled on a couple of favourites where they were just about near as dammit to OEM, and more importantly, the operators new what they were doing and could offer repeatable results...also somewhere with no interest in selling you more gizmos is preferable
oh, just to add, I spoke to a mate who has exhausts fabricated, as I was surprised at the prices of basic compononents like sports cats for the Vantage. It seems to be expensive car means that you can pay more profit - a pair of sports cats for your Vantage only £1600 ..wow, what a bargain ..not ...thats a £99 cat cell with a bit of tubular stainless on each end...probably £300 each with labour and some profit margin ...so wheres the other £1000 quid come from on top of that...£1600 for a pair IF they are for a Vantage, any other car...only £600 a pair ....mmm....
I think I will stick to having my exhausts and cats custom made and save myself £3K in the process sadlerj said:
There were about 50 other Astons done on the same day mine was, and similar models had quite different readings. There was a Vantage with 375bhp after mine. Totally agree about the fact that the only true measure is an engine out job, but it is a good guide
ahhh right - Ive seen this before myself - we did 50 odd Elises on the same day once, when std base Elises were 120bhp ...most were around that figure, then we would get the odd reading one with 125bhp or 128bhp, I think the best was 132bhp ! ...it just goes to show, not all factory engines are equal, and that the 380hp figure quoted by Aston, should be just a minimum, and once run in well one would hope to see a little more. So if some factory standard 4.3L Vantages were only showing 375bhp or 380bhp and yours is 400bhp, then I would say that you have a good one there Of course there are other explanations with a rolling road - 5psi more in the tyres, worn tyres slipping more than the last car, one car has done 6K miles the other 30K miles etc...all these factors can make it read + or - 20bhp easily ...so if you have the RR to yourself then its good to do 3 runs and take an average.
Ive still yet to see a Vantage with these (ahem) miracle exhausts and sports cats that offer a 50bhp increase or suchlike but time will tell
heres a good website for filing away dyno runs (you always seem to lose them years later!) - join up then you can scan in your plots and compare against others - very useful if you start tuning your car
www.dyno-plot.co.uk
jus said:
Was chatting to my dealer today and apparently an official upgrade is coming out from Aston Martin for the 4.3 Vantage. He says it includes an ECU upgrade/remap and an intake which takes it to 400hp, so this basically sounds exactly like a retrofit of the N400's engine upgrades. In combination with a Larini exhaust, could be interesting... I shudder to guess at the price though!
Not worth it... 20bhp would not be noticed... bogie said:
Of course there are other explanations with a rolling road - 5psi more in the tyres, worn tyres slipping more than the last car, one car has done 6K miles the other 30K miles etc...all these factors can make it read + or - 20bhp easily ...so if you have the RR to yourself then its good to do 3 runs and take an average.
Yer that is where much of the conversations went on the day, mine had new rubber on the rears, just scrubbed in. Also I only use V-power, and it is never used for city driving and gets a thrashing regularly (I have a nice a-b road home from most directions so the end or every trip she gets a work out). Either way I am happy with the power of my Aston, and always have been.Just chatted to the head mechanic who attended this briefing at Aston. Further to the power upgrade (which will include a black intake cover as opposed to the standard silver intake to differentiate it) there will also be a sportspack with the new Bilstein dampers and the wheels, as well as an iPod retrofit and some other bits and pieces.
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