Aston martin V8 Vantage club sport type thing
Discussion
I was a bit divided on writing this one out for a few reasons, primarily being lazy but also because i have never built a project by committee and im not about to start now and there tend to be a lot of opinions on what should or shouldn't be done with an Aston Martin. This will likely be incredibly nerdy as well, so you have been warned
Never the less here we are.
I bought this car about 9 months ago sight unseen having asked my best mate to have a look at it while he was racing Knockhill. frankly i may as well have sent Mr Magoo to look at it as other than tenuring the car existed and was actually a Vantage and not say, a turnip in "inspection revealed little.
I had bought it as i just wanted something different, a number of deals on 996 gt3's had fallen through (i dont know why i was trying to buy one being that i dont actually like how they drive, and dont really want to wear a porsche hat, jacket, tracksuit) and i was getting impatient. I started looking at other options on copart to do something interesting and spotted a tired looking Vantage, i bid on it but did not win as frankly the sale price didnt stack once you took into account the purchase, repair and buyers premium. Never the less the seed was sown. and i set about finding the cheapest not smashed one on the internet.
This was corona covid time and prices were a bit inflated, so i probably could ave paid a little less today, or maybe just got a better car for the same money.
This was the original advert picture
The man who owned it, lets call him Allan (may or may not be his real name) liked to make things up about parts being serviced and changed and no paint etc so should he ever read this, f
k you Allan.
Anyway having struck a deal with Allan the teller of stories that have only a passing resemblance to fact i sent some money to my blind mate to buy the car and then get a senior individual (Nigel Mosley of Mosely motorsport) to trundle it down to Telford.
Here it is on on of its many toilet stops back from Mordor (Scotland)
From here Mr Magoo kindly stored if for me until i was eventually able to get off the island and pick it up.
Amazingly during this time, despite being quite close to Birmingham, it was not stolen
Never the less here we are.
I bought this car about 9 months ago sight unseen having asked my best mate to have a look at it while he was racing Knockhill. frankly i may as well have sent Mr Magoo to look at it as other than tenuring the car existed and was actually a Vantage and not say, a turnip in "inspection revealed little.
I had bought it as i just wanted something different, a number of deals on 996 gt3's had fallen through (i dont know why i was trying to buy one being that i dont actually like how they drive, and dont really want to wear a porsche hat, jacket, tracksuit) and i was getting impatient. I started looking at other options on copart to do something interesting and spotted a tired looking Vantage, i bid on it but did not win as frankly the sale price didnt stack once you took into account the purchase, repair and buyers premium. Never the less the seed was sown. and i set about finding the cheapest not smashed one on the internet.
This was corona covid time and prices were a bit inflated, so i probably could ave paid a little less today, or maybe just got a better car for the same money.
This was the original advert picture
The man who owned it, lets call him Allan (may or may not be his real name) liked to make things up about parts being serviced and changed and no paint etc so should he ever read this, f
k you Allan.Anyway having struck a deal with Allan the teller of stories that have only a passing resemblance to fact i sent some money to my blind mate to buy the car and then get a senior individual (Nigel Mosley of Mosely motorsport) to trundle it down to Telford.
Here it is on on of its many toilet stops back from Mordor (Scotland)
From here Mr Magoo kindly stored if for me until i was eventually able to get off the island and pick it up.
Amazingly during this time, despite being quite close to Birmingham, it was not stolen
Incidentally Ollie (mr magoo) won all of his races at knockhill, which in no way compensated me for the blind mans buff vehicle inspection service 
Upon arriving to collect it from my long suffering best mate a few things became apparent:
All the tyres were rooted,
The passenger side window control module was deeply dubious
the door handle lights had been painted over
the grill looked tired
the brake pads were as old as my mum
the bonnet had been blown over more often than Jordan
the side skirt had a bit snapped off from it because axle stand
the indicators were green
The thermostat was buggered
the clutch was unpleasant
the wheels were meh condition wise
some of the under bonnet bits were tired
the air bag rattled when you went over a bump
In an effort to knock some of the "golf club" (i really really hate golf) off the car i yanked the grille off the car (two of the fittings needed to be drilled out this is about 2 hours into collecting it) took the wheels and a few bits off the engine and dropped the whole lot down to birmingham city wheels to powdercoat.
I was pretty sure from the description that the car didn't seem to run very warm and the fact that these cars have an endemic thermostat failure problem that i would be needing to replace this as such i had prepared by ordering a jaguar one from the fabulously named "Rimmer Bros" and had it delivered to my mate house in advance along with a set of rear tyres given one of mine had an egg in the sidewall the size of a brick.
So two hours or so after collecting the car, it had no wheels, no grille, i had drilled holes in it and flooded my mates garage is sticky pink organic coolant.
i then collected all the bits, threw them back on the car and drove it to the Jurassic coast to undertake best man duties at Mr Magoo's wedding before driving it back to the isle of man looking like this (to be fair, nothing fell off and it did drive pretty well
Upon arriving to collect it from my long suffering best mate a few things became apparent:
All the tyres were rooted,
The passenger side window control module was deeply dubious
the door handle lights had been painted over
the grill looked tired
the brake pads were as old as my mum
the bonnet had been blown over more often than Jordan
the side skirt had a bit snapped off from it because axle stand
the indicators were green
The thermostat was buggered
the clutch was unpleasant
the wheels were meh condition wise
some of the under bonnet bits were tired
the air bag rattled when you went over a bump
In an effort to knock some of the "golf club" (i really really hate golf) off the car i yanked the grille off the car (two of the fittings needed to be drilled out this is about 2 hours into collecting it) took the wheels and a few bits off the engine and dropped the whole lot down to birmingham city wheels to powdercoat.
I was pretty sure from the description that the car didn't seem to run very warm and the fact that these cars have an endemic thermostat failure problem that i would be needing to replace this as such i had prepared by ordering a jaguar one from the fabulously named "Rimmer Bros" and had it delivered to my mate house in advance along with a set of rear tyres given one of mine had an egg in the sidewall the size of a brick.
So two hours or so after collecting the car, it had no wheels, no grille, i had drilled holes in it and flooded my mates garage is sticky pink organic coolant.
i then collected all the bits, threw them back on the car and drove it to the Jurassic coast to undertake best man duties at Mr Magoo's wedding before driving it back to the isle of man looking like this (to be fair, nothing fell off and it did drive pretty well
There followed quite a lengthy period of not really doing anything on the car, this was for a few reasons.
1.I'm quite lazy
2. I needed to figure out what i was doing
3.You need to register the car in the IOM and to get it booked in takes ages, i didn't want to make changes to it that potentially could make that assessment more complicated
4. The car failed its assessment the first time on a front tyre so had to go in for a re test (i had chucked a set of used hankooks on it because I am tight.
During this time I did some planning and preparation and bought some stuff.
I knew what i wanted to do, i wanted to make the car a bit like a club sport, so i could drive it to a track, use it and hopefully drive home, this sounds easy but its not.
Its not easy for a few reasons. firstly its never easy to strike the correct balance, its always a huge compromise, i have two cars with plastic windows, no carpet a full cage etc, this is not what i want to replicate, it need adequate comfort for road use over a long distance but still needs to work on the track in terms of braking, grip weight and safety.
The other problems are that the car is heavy, at 1600Kgs its too heavy and that means stripping weight, not an easy thing on this car as the cabin is not that expansive
Finally and most importantly. this is not an e92 M3, most owners do not spanner their own car, those that do tend to do it for maintenance, of the very very few who do modify them for performance, they either don't really talk about it or they do it as a business and as such resist giving away information for free.
The standard car is fine, genuinely its not bad, but its not sharp enough for me even if i didnt intend to track it. the brakes will give up the ghost after a few minutes of spirited use, the clutch is from a tractor and makes your knee ache with slow gear response and the suspension is inconsistent in terms of cornering control and has unpleasant high speed low speed response where it wallows in a corner (low speed) and crashes over bumps (high speed). This may just be that my dampers have 60k on them, but they are in good condition with no leaks so i think its mostly the valving.
Now, as there is little going on in the aftermarket in this respect there was only one really viable route, which was to raid Aston Martins GT4 racing parts bin (also willing to raid the gt3 bin and any other bins containing old race parts that fit or can be made to fit.
Many words, not enough pictures.
So with the car having passed its inspection and getting its all important manx reg, it was time to ruin it properly and take it to bits.
First up, the clutch.
I had managed to get my hands on a used AMR (aston martin racing) clutch this is lighter than the usual v12 clutch conversion and the appropriate flywheel and spacer for the concentric thrust. Nerd note here is that i am using the v8 concentric, not the v12 and it works fine, there may be some element of modulation benefit to the v12 concentric but at 5/600 quid, it would need to tug me off every time i pressed it.
Now the clutch kit cost me 450 quid but had ceramic pucks on it and these were doing the usual number on the friction faces, it would also be horrid to use on the road.
I knew there would be a solution to this so having spoken to a few places i send the clutch off the the sensibly named "clutch fix" who did a fabulous job reconditioning and fitting their own HD1 compound organic lining (lots and lots of copper but still nice to slip). This was an extensive job involving lazer cutting new backing plates and bonding it all in and machining all the friction places (very nicely i may add).
All that needed to happen now was to put it on the car.....
1.I'm quite lazy
2. I needed to figure out what i was doing
3.You need to register the car in the IOM and to get it booked in takes ages, i didn't want to make changes to it that potentially could make that assessment more complicated
4. The car failed its assessment the first time on a front tyre so had to go in for a re test (i had chucked a set of used hankooks on it because I am tight.
During this time I did some planning and preparation and bought some stuff.
I knew what i wanted to do, i wanted to make the car a bit like a club sport, so i could drive it to a track, use it and hopefully drive home, this sounds easy but its not.
Its not easy for a few reasons. firstly its never easy to strike the correct balance, its always a huge compromise, i have two cars with plastic windows, no carpet a full cage etc, this is not what i want to replicate, it need adequate comfort for road use over a long distance but still needs to work on the track in terms of braking, grip weight and safety.
The other problems are that the car is heavy, at 1600Kgs its too heavy and that means stripping weight, not an easy thing on this car as the cabin is not that expansive
Finally and most importantly. this is not an e92 M3, most owners do not spanner their own car, those that do tend to do it for maintenance, of the very very few who do modify them for performance, they either don't really talk about it or they do it as a business and as such resist giving away information for free.
The standard car is fine, genuinely its not bad, but its not sharp enough for me even if i didnt intend to track it. the brakes will give up the ghost after a few minutes of spirited use, the clutch is from a tractor and makes your knee ache with slow gear response and the suspension is inconsistent in terms of cornering control and has unpleasant high speed low speed response where it wallows in a corner (low speed) and crashes over bumps (high speed). This may just be that my dampers have 60k on them, but they are in good condition with no leaks so i think its mostly the valving.
Now, as there is little going on in the aftermarket in this respect there was only one really viable route, which was to raid Aston Martins GT4 racing parts bin (also willing to raid the gt3 bin and any other bins containing old race parts that fit or can be made to fit.
Many words, not enough pictures.
So with the car having passed its inspection and getting its all important manx reg, it was time to ruin it properly and take it to bits.
First up, the clutch.
I had managed to get my hands on a used AMR (aston martin racing) clutch this is lighter than the usual v12 clutch conversion and the appropriate flywheel and spacer for the concentric thrust. Nerd note here is that i am using the v8 concentric, not the v12 and it works fine, there may be some element of modulation benefit to the v12 concentric but at 5/600 quid, it would need to tug me off every time i pressed it.
Now the clutch kit cost me 450 quid but had ceramic pucks on it and these were doing the usual number on the friction faces, it would also be horrid to use on the road.
I knew there would be a solution to this so having spoken to a few places i send the clutch off the the sensibly named "clutch fix" who did a fabulous job reconditioning and fitting their own HD1 compound organic lining (lots and lots of copper but still nice to slip). This was an extensive job involving lazer cutting new backing plates and bonding it all in and machining all the friction places (very nicely i may add).
All that needed to happen now was to put it on the car.....
Agreed, it is unusual for Aston owners to modify their cars, apart from replacing the factory clutch with a twin plate jobby with a lighter flywheel. Things like the interior, bodywork and wheels tend to be regarded as sacred, with a prevailing view of 'it's perfect from the factory so don't change a thing'.
Mine is a 2015 4.7 V8 Vantage and it's had Bamford Rose manifolds and secondary cats fitted (along with the twin plate clutch + flywheel), which are a major improvement in both noise and performance. And yet, a couple of fellow Aston owners have said "oh, it's modified. Hmm, not sure I'd do that".
Anyway OP, good luck with your plan and keep us updated.
Mine is a 2015 4.7 V8 Vantage and it's had Bamford Rose manifolds and secondary cats fitted (along with the twin plate clutch + flywheel), which are a major improvement in both noise and performance. And yet, a couple of fellow Aston owners have said "oh, it's modified. Hmm, not sure I'd do that".
Anyway OP, good luck with your plan and keep us updated.
Nice to see that there is some interest in this! keeps the motivation up for writing it all out.
Brave Fart said:
Agreed, it is unusual for Aston owners to modify their cars, apart from replacing the factory clutch with a twin plate jobby with a lighter flywheel. Things like the interior, bodywork and wheels tend to be regarded as sacred, with a prevailing view of 'it's perfect from the factory so don't change a thing'.
Mine is a 2015 4.7 V8 Vantage and it's had Bamford Rose manifolds and secondary cats fitted (along with the twin plate clutch + flywheel), which are a major improvement in both noise and performance. And yet, a couple of fellow Aston owners have said "oh, it's modified. Hmm, not sure I'd do that".
Anyway OP, good luck with your plan and keep us updated.
Yea, I little interest in other peoples hand wringing over what i do with my bought and paid for possessions, its being adjusted to do the job I require of it so will be going a fair way out from its standard form. Mine is a 2015 4.7 V8 Vantage and it's had Bamford Rose manifolds and secondary cats fitted (along with the twin plate clutch + flywheel), which are a major improvement in both noise and performance. And yet, a couple of fellow Aston owners have said "oh, it's modified. Hmm, not sure I'd do that".
Anyway OP, good luck with your plan and keep us updated.
Always been tempted by a bottom of market one of these for the same thing - fast road / track use instead of an M3. Early unadorned V8Vs are one of the best looking cars ever made IMO. Theres that bloke in america who has some DIY guides for track mods on his website - his name is redpants or something? He runs a business out of it but theres a fair few free resources on there. Best of luck to you and looking forward to more updates!
Because my shed is full off immobile race car (as it has been for about 11 months so far)....
I had to beg some time from a good mate so that i could clog up his busy workshop with my junk for likely 3 to 4 times as long as as i had estimated.
Fitting the clutch to an aston martin vantage is a bit different
Its a right old faff, which is why its usually so expensive. i think for a twin plate conversion your looking at the thick end of 4/5k if you want someone to supply and fit one to your car.
To do the job its,
Exhaust mid section off, underbody shielding off, half shafts off, linkage off, gearbox out (its very heavy being a transaxle) Nerd notes, its the same gearbox in both sport shift and maunal and the same as the one in the v12, so either its very over speced for the v8 or v12 owners are going to get an unpleasant surprise at some point.
you know its me doing it as there is $hit everywhere
and a pry bar
At this point, pictures started to dry up as i was fighting to remove the Cats and getting pissed off, anyway from here, you need to remove the cats, pull the carbon prop out of the torque tube, then remove the front arch liner so that you can access the manifold studs so you can remove the manifold to get the torque tube out.
Once you have done all that crap, you can throw your new clutch at it and see if it sticks on.
I had to beg some time from a good mate so that i could clog up his busy workshop with my junk for likely 3 to 4 times as long as as i had estimated.
Fitting the clutch to an aston martin vantage is a bit different
Its a right old faff, which is why its usually so expensive. i think for a twin plate conversion your looking at the thick end of 4/5k if you want someone to supply and fit one to your car.
To do the job its,
Exhaust mid section off, underbody shielding off, half shafts off, linkage off, gearbox out (its very heavy being a transaxle) Nerd notes, its the same gearbox in both sport shift and maunal and the same as the one in the v12, so either its very over speced for the v8 or v12 owners are going to get an unpleasant surprise at some point.
you know its me doing it as there is $hit everywhere
and a pry bar
At this point, pictures started to dry up as i was fighting to remove the Cats and getting pissed off, anyway from here, you need to remove the cats, pull the carbon prop out of the torque tube, then remove the front arch liner so that you can access the manifold studs so you can remove the manifold to get the torque tube out.
Once you have done all that crap, you can throw your new clutch at it and see if it sticks on.
Shazam
point of note is that the concentric seems to be the same one from a merc sprinter, so if i ever have a problem with mine i think i will be getting one for about £80 thanks mr Aston (aston on the left, sprinter on the right)
At this point the car started to all go back together, however during removal many things were found to be screwed. (some pictured some not) All the exhaust heat shield spire clips were shot and all the heat shielding was jut flapping about and banging under the car most of the clamps were rotten and leaking as well. the bonded on fixings for the wheel arch liners mostly snapped off so had to be bonded back onto the plastic wings with epoxy (simple to do), the spire clips were all cut off and replaced with nice new ones and stainless fittings and all the shagged claps were cut away and replaced with quality stainless mikalor items
[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/zppkFCPm[/url][url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/64yShrb6[/url]
Naturally as the car was in bits and in the air, it seemed like a good time to make some other changes before Matts good will was completely exhausted.....
point of note is that the concentric seems to be the same one from a merc sprinter, so if i ever have a problem with mine i think i will be getting one for about £80 thanks mr Aston (aston on the left, sprinter on the right)
At this point the car started to all go back together, however during removal many things were found to be screwed. (some pictured some not) All the exhaust heat shield spire clips were shot and all the heat shielding was jut flapping about and banging under the car most of the clamps were rotten and leaking as well. the bonded on fixings for the wheel arch liners mostly snapped off so had to be bonded back onto the plastic wings with epoxy (simple to do), the spire clips were all cut off and replaced with nice new ones and stainless fittings and all the shagged claps were cut away and replaced with quality stainless mikalor items
[url]|https://thumbsnap.com/zppkFCPm[/url][url]|https://thumbsnap.com/64yShrb6[/url]Naturally as the car was in bits and in the air, it seemed like a good time to make some other changes before Matts good will was completely exhausted.....
o, while it was in bits it made sense to see what else could be fitted in, or in this case on. since buying the car i had also been accumulating parts and components. one of which was a v12 backbox. my reasoning was as simple as it was perfect, as it was also slightly wrong and went like this: they put a v12 in this thing right, so most of the bits probably fit right? so with this in mind, we put the backbox on the car.
It did sort of fit, clanged the gearbox oil cooler a bit but i figured i could just hand that out the back bosozuku style and call it done but the problem became larger as the mid pipe was now hitting the half shafts, this was not something that could be resolved the Japanese way.
As this point i was thinking of calling it and looking for another solution, but matt being the man his is uttered the words of power "fk that noise Ted, get the grinder"
the below shows the two boxes together (this is not my image), the smaller of the two is the v12 box
Choppy
And fitted like a glove.
Why have i done this? well two reasons.
1 it sounds better (with the cabin doors to manual (open flaps) entirely unhinged and absolutely certain to get me kicked off a track day)
2 (more important) the original backbox weighs in at 30kg alone this one now weighs 16.8kg that i a lot of weight saving for £225
It did sort of fit, clanged the gearbox oil cooler a bit but i figured i could just hand that out the back bosozuku style and call it done but the problem became larger as the mid pipe was now hitting the half shafts, this was not something that could be resolved the Japanese way.
As this point i was thinking of calling it and looking for another solution, but matt being the man his is uttered the words of power "f
k that noise Ted, get the grinder"the below shows the two boxes together (this is not my image), the smaller of the two is the v12 box
Choppy
And fitted like a glove.
Why have i done this? well two reasons.
1 it sounds better (with the cabin doors to manual (open flaps) entirely unhinged and absolutely certain to get me kicked off a track day)
2 (more important) the original backbox weighs in at 30kg alone this one now weighs 16.8kg that i a lot of weight saving for £225
I’ve really enjoyed this thread so far (perhaps more so than you’ve enjoyed the work and the hidden horrors….)
Nice to see a down at heel Vantage being fettled in a way that suits you, sod the PuRiTy! A chap I knew had one that he used to track (Knockhill was one of his local tracks). It ate tyres, brakes and suspension components (aided by his almost total lack of mechanical sympathy), but had the good grace to sound awesome while doing it.
Good luck!
Nice to see a down at heel Vantage being fettled in a way that suits you, sod the PuRiTy! A chap I knew had one that he used to track (Knockhill was one of his local tracks). It ate tyres, brakes and suspension components (aided by his almost total lack of mechanical sympathy), but had the good grace to sound awesome while doing it.
Good luck!
Good luck with the Vantage Project. As an owner of a vantage myself I’ve contemplated doing the same…however after careful consideration I’m buying a Caterham Instead. I know the standard leather seats and leather covered interior trim & carpet all add up to a fair weight. I believe the GT4 is in the 1300kg region so plenty of potential.
Looking forward to seeing how you progress.
Here’s a photo of mine at Goodwood…
Looking forward to seeing how you progress.
Here’s a photo of mine at Goodwood…
A man after my own heart! A number of years ago I wondered exactly the same and after asking around it did indeed appear that it just wasn’t something that owners did.
The success of the cars at the N24 means it’s all ready there underneath, it just needs exposing a little!
Meteorite Grey with Kestral Tan was to my favoured colour combo with some Recaro SPGs re trimmed to match.
The success of the cars at the N24 means it’s all ready there underneath, it just needs exposing a little!
Meteorite Grey with Kestral Tan was to my favoured colour combo with some Recaro SPGs re trimmed to match.
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