As many of you know I ordered the Power Pack for my 2007 Vantage. It took about three months for the parts to come in. The car is at the dealer now and should be done tomorrow (fingers crossed). I have attaché a photo of what comes in the kit. The stock manifold from my car, will be sent back to Aston Martin as a core. The ECU and air boxes that are the stock parts I will keep. I am off to Arizona this Saturday, I will post how the car performs when I get back.
Ron

 

I'm interested to know if the power pack is really +20 BHP in the US as they claim. I know in the UK you get 10bhp from the intake valves and new manifold, but the other 10bhp comes from running the equivalent of 97+ octane in the UK if I remember the threads on PH correctly. Can anyone confirm whether the US ECU "tune" for the extra 10bhp is indeed 10bhp even though the highest we can get here is usually 91 or 93 octane? I considered the power pack for my 07, but not knowing whether I could unlock all 20bhp on 93 pump gas in the US made me hesitate a bit.

 

Worth remembering that the EU and North America use different measurement systems for Octane. EU figures are RON (Research Octane Number) which typically give a measurement around 10 points higher than MON (Motor Octane Number.) To further complicate things, in North America we use a combination/average of both number to give PON (Pump Octane Number.)

A simple, roughly accurate guide is to add 5 to any North American Octane number to get EU RON, or subtract 5 going the other way.

So roughly speaking, 93 Octane on our side of the pond is the same as 98 RON in the UK. Roughly speaking. The biggest difference might be the Ethanol content.

 

What Stuart said.

And ethanol can go to hell. Such horrible stuff and it needs to go away

 

All very true, Kanga - but if I remember correctly, Ron wants to keep everything factory.

I actually have some swiss-cheese air boxes (the non-Power Pack ones) sitting in my garage. Car ran fine with them. I swapped the Power Pack ones back on to see if there was a difference (not that I could tell).

 

Great to know - so it looks like the ecu remap for the power pack should work just fine in the US

 

Yes, it should do. Although (from a highly biased perspective ) there's much more bang for your buck elsewhere. A set of 200 cell cats and a remap that actually adjusts AFR as well will go at least as far, if not a touch further for less $$$

 

With both adjustments can we expect 40 bhp?

 

I think that is a little optimistic. 30BHP is more what I would expect to see for cats + remap.

 

Absolutely
I had this explained by and ex AM R&D guy
It is also the reason the N430/V8VS only jumps 10 BHP over the std car.

 

Thanks for all the replies guys. And yes I do want to keep everything stock for my warranty smog and reliability reasons. I was incorrect about one thing the square black box in the photo is not an EC it's a new fuse box with relays to open the flaps in the air intake boxes. They simply reflash the ECU that's in my car. The only old parts I keep are the air boxes and the fuse box with the relays the intake manifold goes back to Aston as a core exchange.
There was a slight delay in getting the car back to me yesterday so it looks like today is the day and then I'm off to Arizona Saturday.
Ron

 

Ok I just got the car back this afternoon, I took a few quick photos of the install before I leave town. So far the car drives great! It winds up much quicker, after around 6000 RPM's it just takes off all the way up until redline.
Ron

 

Ok I am back from my driving school in Arizona. On a side note the new C 7 Vett is a great car! A lot of power and road holding. Now back to my Vantage, the 6 hour drive each way was uneventfu ( we did have one quick blast up to 120MPH) we listened to a nice audiobook and had the cruise control set at about 80 mph. I did notice that my MPG was better than when I drove up to Monterey in August. On that trip at the same speed and distance, I got around 19 MPG. On this trip I got 21.5 MPG. That is the reading on the trip computer and figuring the mileage out when I refilled the car.
As fare as the performance goes, the car Revs much quicker from 6000 to 7300 RPM. It also has more induction sound(that I like). Is it night and day? Well no, it just breathes way better and performs with a little harder edged. So was it worth the money? I say if you have the $ to spend and can't go for a 4.7 then yes.
Ron

 

Thanks for sharing, Ron.

I've been following your thread since I'm also interested in more power for the vantage.

I'm considering the RSC live tune remap vs OEM power pack.

 

I have am power pack and high flow cats and other than stock 4.7 having a little more grunt down low they feel about the same at about 5k rpm to redline, and brisk mornings are always a pleasure.