Aston Martin Vanquish '04
610HP Race Prepared Version
The challenge with this car was a bit different from the normal ETZ approach of trying to maximise A-Spec points. The client wanted us to make the car competative without going overboard but wasn't concerned with A-Spec. Of course, this being ETZ we didn't want to simply bolt on all the Max Power bits with R5 tyres and declare victory, so we kept things within reason and decided to match the performance to what is actually available in the real world ... tho' we did commit artistic treason by fixing a Wing to one of the most beautiful cars ever crafted
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So in essence what we were after was a 200mph car that could do 0-60mph in about 4 seconds. Plus we needed to ameliorate the dramatic front tyre wear that PD had modelled for the Vanquish (previous testing a few years ago had revealed a two grades wear difference). The hardware we used was as follows:
Racing Exhaust & Racing Chip
Stage 2 NA Tune (with a change of oil to a short life but high performance formula)
Racing Tyres (R2 Grade)
Racing Brakes and Balance Controller
Racing Suspension with Rollcage addition (Stiffness upgrade) & Stage 3 Weight Reduction
Fully Custom Gearbox
Triple Plate Clutch, Racing Flywheel & Carbon Propellor Shaft
Aerodynamic Enhancements
Fully Custom Limited Slip Differential
Because of the relaxed A-Spec goals and the fact that our engineers had previously worked with Aston's extensively in their own driving careers, this was not as long a process as usual for an ETZ build and the main challenge proved to be dialing down the front tyre wear without inducing an unacceptable amount of understeer.
The primary track used for testing was the Nurburgring as usual but we also used the boringly oval Test Track for top speed trials (201mph)whilst setting up the gearbox and the neon-lit streets of Las Vegas for acceleration data gathering (0-400m in 11.4s). Confirmation testing also took place at Tokyo R246, Trial Mountain, Deep Forest and Grand Valley. Sometimes this was in solo runs, sometimes against lower-tier supercars and othertimes versus JGTC vehicles.
The set-up suite we spannered onto her was as follows:
Brakes: 1/5 (part of the front tyre preservation strategy)
Springs: 11.6/9.1
Ride: 103/98
Damper Bound: 4/4
Damper Rebound: 9/7
Camber: 2.1/1.4
Toe: 0/0
Stabaliser: 4/5
Gearbox: AutoSet 13 @ 3.770 Final (adjust individual gears)
1st: 3.110
2nd: 2.110
3rd: 1.540
4th: 1.195
5th: 0.960
6th: 0.800
ASM/TCS: 0/0/3 (only required for grid starts)
Downforce: 28/30
LSD: 8/40/16
Ballast: 1KG @ -10
There is a small tendency to understeer built in to the car to allow for those occasions when the driver turns off the TCS and lights up the rears for the sheer fun of it
This gives her excellent high speed stability, such that we could take Flugplatz flat out and dive into the Tiergarten Hohenrain Schikane at full power.
Passing the second element of Tiergarten at 190-ish mph ... time to dab the brakes then back on the throttle