Right now Andy Palmer has directed everybody downstream to fix my car, if it is the clutch it will make itself apparent within 3 months. If you'd like to elaborate on what your tech support can do in my situation I'm all ears.

 

Please email Tuning@VelocityAP.com and let them know about the issue. Any supporting information in terms of diagnostics would be great. Our Tuning/Tech support line is a factory trained Aston Martin Technician.

 

All diagnostics and scans, which I have none of, were sent to the engineers in Gaydon, an engineer personally flew over to do further diagnostics. As I said, if you'd like to elaborate on what you think your tech can do the engineering team in England can't, I am all ears. Otherwise if you would just like them notified of the situation he's probably in the shop, just yell it out to him

 

He's out of the office this week doing some development work on DB11 stuff. I can't 'yell' anything to him.

I can't elaborate at all because I don't have any further information, and I'm not smart or educated enough to diagnose the problem. Our Tech Support is. That's why I'm suggesting to email. It will also be better than playing broken telephone relaying information back & forth.

I'm not disparaging Gaydon, except to say that 99/100 times a manufacturer just says that a MOD is the problem. There are underlying stalling issues with the V8V. We have been able to solve them in instances that the factory has not. Please email.

 

Makes sense

Last you mentioned anything about stalls was to chime in on the stall thread to say you thought you saw some things in the tune and if somebody wanted to guinea pig you might be able to fix it. You definitely said nothing about having solved any stalling issues.

But right now I am already committed, the clutch just came in and just made the appointment to have it installed with the revised tune to control fuel mapping at idle. I should know within 6 weeks but I'd call 3 months the definitive mark.

I will miss the feel, I will miss the way it spools, but I will never miss the excessive chatter under 2000rpm that verges on embarrassing driving in a parking lot.

 

Now that DEFINITELY doesn't sound right. We have maybe 1/5 people mention some gear lash noise at idle, with the clutch disengaged but that's easily resolved with an idle RPM increase from 750-826RPM.

 

Your exact reply at the time when you had me drive it 220 miles back to the dealer to have it checked again

"I talked to the tech and he said that he really didn't detect any significant noise. If it has changed since he drove it then we could discuss it but based on our numerous installs and his assessment I don't think there's anything wrong with the install or the hardware "

Yet when John Ardry [post sale satisfaction manager] was in my car taking a scan while driving, his exact words "WFT is THAT?!" "Oh, yea, that's the twin plate clutch chattering, want to hear it really bad [put in third gear and roll on power slow]"

 

This is why I think you should email us. Firstly, I don't know who you are - cross referencing screen names to customer records is impossible.

I *think* I know who you are and if I'm correct then yes I did phone the dealership and talk to the technician who installed it to get his view on it as noted above.

The second impression mentioned there is brand new information to us, as of right this moment.

But again, if you're not willing to email our tech support it makes it 10x harder for us to assist.

 

Rich Harris. Summit Hills was the dealer, we exchanged many emails and texts about it, you were at SEMA at the end of it. I sent you phone recordings from inside the car, I could hear it on them, you claimed you nor your tech could. I've never had a go pro or anything I could stick under the car near it to get the full effect.

Steve here at FCKAM said "yea, some do that", which just confirmed that while some may not, some may a little, I'm the lucky sod that got the one that's embarrassing in a parking lot.

And what were my options? You said I could have it removed and sent back to you for testing, like that was logistically possible, much less having to spend another $2300 for labor. None of which were options, so I lived with it. And at this point, it's coming out of the car to be replaced with a standard factory clutch anyway while England continues to debug the stalling. I'd sell it in the classifieds but I'm sure the demand for a chattery clutch is not going to be high.

 

I’ve had some with chatter just above the 1k rpm mark and the clients wanted it reduced. Did the idle bump, put in a thicker trans fluid(summer driven cars) and put in a new set of plugs. Then wiped and relearned the misfire correction factors, truthfully was a done deal. The thicker fluid took up the wear in the trans and the plugs helped clean up the random harmless misfire. To minimize chatter, it’s done by smoothing out the rotation of the powertrain/drivetrain.

As for staling with the VAP twin clutch, I’ve yet to hear that unless the misfire factors were not learned with VAP unit, then it would make total sense.

But with “excessive” chatter and stalling..2 indications the rotation of the powertrain/drivetrain isn’t smooth as it should be...just my 2cents

Did I read correct though, Aston wants the OEM clutch put back in. Then if it goes well, Aston will allow the AMR unit into your car? If their certain on the VAP clutch issue being the cause, why wouldn’t they just allow the AMR unit? Sounds like doubt...

 

I believe you're talking about gearbox clatter, not clutch chatter. Idle bump and change of fluid would be to reduce Graziano clatter. That is not clutch chatter.

England wants to make sure it's stock to sort the stalling and quite honestly I'm not sure they're positive about the AMR unit as it was put together to compete with lost sales. If they can cure the stalling with the stock clutch then I will be the guinea pig on the AMR and if it will cause it to start again.

 

The terms clutch chatter and gearbox chatter are used differently but it's the same thing. If your talking about a stock car and it's noise, most likely it'll be referred to as gearbox chatter.


If you install a light-weight flywheel or it comes like this from with the lightweight from factory, then it's clutch chatter.


In the end, it's the exact same thing just the point of wear the noise is coming from is what's labelled as the issue. The only noise that is labelled by a twin clutch is "clutch squawk" and that's when applying the clutch in 1st..


The idle bump is not for when the clutch is engaging, it's when in neutral and the A/C is on(sounds familiar). The A/C sends a command to bump the idle on top of the base idle of 736rpm(all fords are like this), so with the A/C on you get into that 848rpm where the noise gets much louder. The base idle bump allows the "A/C rpm bump" to pass this threshold of the noise. Thiers always that limit at which an engine "hates" a particular rpm, just like how I can take a brand new V12 and have it misfire at 1,500-1,800, it hates that range and misfires, the only way around this is for the factory to tune around the misfire causing an issue to flag the MIL(nothing new for techs..it's not catalyst damaging so it won't annoy CARB but will flag a random misfire code which annoys the client, so factory tunes this out of importance). The Aston V8 engine hates idle with the A/C engaged, reasoning why it's not idling at 650rpm stock and it's set to 750 base (736rpm actually)..


As for reducing "gearbox" or "clutch" chatter..smoothen the powertrain/drivetrain. Factory does this by putting mass weights on the rotating assembly(crank pulley and flywheel). This keeps the revolutions spinning in-between combustion firing.


The spark plugs help smooth the idle and clean the revolutions, the gear fluid takes up the act of a "damper" in the box, reducing the excessive backlash affect that produces chatter all the way back to the musical tuning fork we call a light weight flywheel. This way when the clutch is pressed and your not in gear OR your in gear and coasting slowing, you have things covers with plugs for the clutch chatter and thicker fluid for the box chatter(reducing issue on both ends).


When your under the car and it's chattering, you will hear it towards the front because of the access holes that vent the noise clearly versus dampened. It will echo in the tube and it can be heard in the rear, just not as loud.


I've gone far as cleaning injectors and MAF sensors on other brands to better the air and fueling control to not lean out easy. When you lighten the rotating mass, all the little things relying on the heavy weights to keep the ball going will stand out versus being masked for years. (dirty injector spray pattern, spark plugs ages/fouled, oil quality, gearbox oil state/grade/viscosity.). If the PCM can control fueling and achieve what it needs in X timeframe on drive cycle, then no fault will be stored with this dirty injector. If a dirty injector provides good combustion and the vibration detected from the knock sensing can be controlled with timing, no fault code or issue will be flagged by the ecu "because of design". Slap in the lightweight flywheel(changing design) and hear the evident issue of the dirty injector, the knock sensing does it's job to pass within limits, The flywheel doesn't transmit back the noise to the engine block so no excessive knock limits are breached.

 

I thought this only addresses Graziano clatter. Neutral, clutch out, the gearbox clatters very irregularly. That I have of course.

My clutch chatter is not squawk, it engages without noise but as soon as it's engaged on throttle until 2000rpm it chatters like crazy. So slow rolling in a parking lot barely on gas or 15mph in the neighborhood, chatters like crazy.

Either way it's of no matter next week as it will have the stock clutch back in it, and if it's cured it will then get the AMR clutch, and I'm just hoping I get to that point, and that if it does, the AMR doesn't chatter like this twin plate does.

 

I’ve not been temporarily baffled by so much BS for some considerable time. You really need to either think before committing to ink or know when your mechanics derived knowledge spills over into an engineers territory and stop.

“Thiers always that limit at which an engine "hates" a particular rpm, just like how I can take a brand new V12 and have it misfire at 1,500-1,800, it hates that range and misfires, the only way around this is for the factory to tune around the misfire causing an issue to flag the MIL”


I hope you are no longer working within the franchised Aston world? Because your assessment of how a car company complying with the latest extremely stringent emissions legislation can release to market a motor which misfires in an area governed by legislation (the speed range you state), yet a misfire code isn’t ping’d to avoid the legislation? is a very grave statement to make in reality?
Without any emissions hardware active, the base engine (working to old Ford standards) will have to comply with something like a Standard Deviation of engine speed (stability) limit of internal combustion pressure measured against crank angle across 1000 cycles of something like no more than 3-5%. Then with emissions hardware active (aggressive variable cam control, spark angle control or Exhaust Gas Recirc and the like) allow a decrease in stability to SD10% limit, which is a bit lumpy but not a misfire.
There isn’t a range an engine “hates” in this modern age, but there are circumstances where stability is chosen to be compromised. To say an engine “misfires” means sporadic uncontrollable combustion, which means an excess of hydrocarbon content in the exhaust and a polluting car. To introduce controlled roughness because the emissions tech is limiting oxygen content in combustion air or delivers an emissions compromised spark angle actually improves emissions, so Misfire is wrong terminology but forgivable because a mechanic won’t really know why an engine is doing a certain something at a certain point in time.

“The Aston V8 engine hates idle with the A/C engaged, reasoning why it's not idling at 650rpm stock and it's set to 750 base (736rpm actually)..”

There are a few other contributors but essentially idle speed of any engine is determined by camshaft design. Typically normally performing road cars will be a low lift and short overlap cam, high performance cars will be high lift and long overlap cam. If the V8 was the former an idle as low as 500/600 rpm might be possible if the chain gear could cope without flapping itself to death, but the cam design on the V8 is the latter meaning the idle has to be set to a higher speed which a)complies with %SD idle stability rule but b)is not so high as to produce too much exhaust gas volume content and blow emissions pass. The V8 engine is actually very stable %SD at 750 rpm and increasing engine load away from shallow throttle blade opening to a greater blade angle to cope with parasitic loss of AC or generator load to maintain 750 rpm is only taking the engine in the direction of improved stability (from idle at maximum vacuum = most unstable to same speed with inlet manifold closer to atmospheric = more stable %SD) so your comment of the V8 engine hates idle is complete nonsense, if it hated idle the combustion would be sporadic and blow emissions and not be saleable in the market.
The car seat frames or door window cappings to the touch might give driver feedback (due to oscillation) that the engine is rough or lumpy, and on V8 it is, but that is because the weight balance of all the rotating and reciprocating parts is awfully controlled in quality, the roughness of an engine because of rotating and reciprocating imbalance is a completely different concept than combustion cycle-to-cycle stability. So it's possible to feel the engine is rough due to weight imbalance yet the combustion is even and smooth and visa-versa.

“As for reducing "gearbox" or "clutch" chatter..smoothen the powertrain/drivetrain. Factory does this by putting mass weights on the rotating assembly(crank pulley and flywheel). This keeps the revolutions spinning in-between combustion firing”

Wrong! The flywheel weight will not be compromised heavy to make slower the responsiveness to combat gear chatter. Flywheel weight is influenced by mechanical inertia constraints (if it were too heavy it would break the crankshaft) so before the engine comes off the dyno and ever gets built into the first prototype car a series of design methodology principles will inform a flywheel design. What the factory did because even on the single plate clutch there is gear chatter (yes, if this measure was not activated the standard single plate clutch will produce gear chatter, and I know this because I programmed it) was to massively retard spark in the speed / load range that gear chatter is present. With a massively retarded spark the combustion pressures cycle-by-cycle and cylinder-to-cylinder no longer has a peak but a repeatable plateau across a wide crank angle window. This feature smooths the previous uneven firing pulses and 'as if by magic' gear chatter (a gearbox problem made worse by large multi cylinder firing pulses) disappears.
So, if you input a lighter flywheel (the flywheel being a component which contributes to the inertia making the flattened off pressure peaks evened out) now has less of an influence, hence the chatter returns. Maintain the OEM single plate clutch and flywheel and delete gear rattle retard algorithm = just as much clutch chatter as a light flywheel and twinplate clutch.

The answer for the lightweight flywheel and twin plate clutch to stop gear chatter is therefore gob smackingly friggin obvious.
1-increase the gear chatter retard algorithm (if you know how!)
2- to help a little more nudge the idle speed up.
3-help anti stall algorithms catch a faster to decelerate flywheel

and hey presto a seamlessly integrated upgrade.
For every 1 in about 10 Bamford Rose upgrades with light flywheel and twinplate clutch completed inside our own workshop is a car which the gear chatter becomes objectionable or stalls out way more than any other. Individual car calibration and remap (3 steps above) sorts the 1 in ten problem car, the other 9 leave with std ECU. This reason is why we don’t like too much shipping parts in a box, if inside UK it’s easy to drive to 4 corners of this tiny country and stick a laptop on the car, I can’t do that easily if I’ve sold a kit in a box to another country.

“The spark plugs help smooth the idle and clean the revolutions”

No, the spark plugs ignite the mixture at the crank angle programmed to!! It’s total bull**** that any plug on the market will return decreased combustion %SD to the point the driver will appreciate.

“the gear fluid takes up the act of a "damper" in the box, reducing the excessive backlash affect that produces chatter all the way back to the musical tuning fork we call a light weight flywheel. This way when the clutch is pressed and your not in gear OR your in gear and coasting slowing, you have things covers with plugs for the clutch chatter and thicker fluid for the box chatter(reducing issue on both ends)”

WTF? What?? Complete BS, Fill the gear box with incredibly thick Vanquish diff oil or 0w40 motor oil and whilst stationary with clutch up the chatter will be the same.

“Did the idle bump, put in a thicker trans fluid(summer driven cars) and put in a new set of plugs. Then wiped and relearned the misfire correction factors, truthfully was a done deal.”

That car was lucky in that all the recalibration needed to cure chatter was idle speed, the other stuff you did had no direct influence. I’ve seen a few Bamford Rose upgrade cars that have chatter worsened by increased idle speed, those cars needed tailored ignition retard and anti stall measures.

“As for stalling....., I’ve yet to hear that unless the misfire factors were not learned”

If a misfire profile correction is not learned, it has no influence whatsoever on any return to idle ability or any other controlling idle algorithms- this is another complete BS remark.

“I've gone far as cleaning injectors and MAF sensors on other brands to better the air and fueling control to not lean out easy. When you lighten the rotating mass, all the little things relying on the heavy weights to keep the ball going will stand out versus being masked for years. (dirty injector spray pattern, spark plugs ages/fouled, oil quality, gearbox oil state/grade/viscosity.). If the PCM can control fueling and achieve what it needs in X timeframe on drive cycle, then no fault will be stored with this dirty injector. If a dirty injector provides good combustion and the vibration detected from the knock sensing can be controlled with timing, no fault code or issue will be flagged by the ecu "because of design". Slap in the lightweight flywheel(changing design) and hear the evident issue of the dirty injector, the knock sensing does it's job to pass within limits, The flywheel doesn't transmit back the noise to the engine block so no excessive knock limits are breached.”

There’s so much BS here it will take a while to sift through it, so I can’t be arsed to! All I can say is I’m glad all that unnecessary work wasn’t completed with me being the paying customer but I guess that run-down of work would baffle most folk into utter submission to happily pay the bill and run away to keep their sanity?
However i will comment on knock as its clear you don't understand the principles, knock sensed via non ionization method occurs at a very specific certain frequency, you could hammer the block with something as rock hard and dumb as my own head and the knock detection system would not register the acceleration / vibration because combustion related knock occurs at a completely different frequency than other noise - think about a valve head thumping on the seat, does knock detect that? no, so any comment about knock is completely irrelevant to this subject.

What you are doing though is listing out a possible series of factors which in theory could contribute, but actually don't in reality. You are clearly not missing the main point (as you correctly state "Change design") which is, the inertia that the engine was originally calibrated to has changed, however the answer is so simple yet you don't see it? the conclusion is to re calibrate all the ECU software which is now out of spec = fully integrated product?

 

I think the process you are taking is correct, it might have been lost in my last post, but the route to curing your problem with current fitted hardware is / was simple... remap ECU with:
1-increase the gear chatter retard algorithm
2- to help a little more nudge the idle speed up.
3-help anti stall algorithms with recalibration to catch a faster to decelerate flywheel


hey presto a seamlessly integrated upgrade. Those steps are desktop calibration and laptop connect to flash the ECU so real, real easy?

We fitted another AMR clutch today. The flywheel is same weight as OEM part, the clutch has same friction discs as V12V but thinner cooling vein. In reality I can’t see the thinner cooling vein having much of an impact and I’d say essentially the performance and durability of AMR clutch will be same as stock V12V kit.
Bamford Rose take a std V12V clutch and strips and re machines basket and internals to return a wider pedal modulation window making pull away more controllable and is essentially the reason why our kit will work on ASM and the factory kit is manual only.
I’m sure the factory wanted a light weight flywheel for the AMR kit to allow engine responsiveness as sharp as our kit, but that would mean the re calibration measures i discuss. Whilst the world of aftermarket can do that (if they have the know how of course) the factory could not because an amended ECU program would be against in market homologation, hence AMR kit is same weight flywheel with std mapping and im sure you will not, or should not, have the issues you report now.


You will enjoy the AMR kit, everyone we have fitted the kit for is happy with it. The Bamford Rose kit offers a bit more improvement but like any aftermarket kit in the box, it requires in territory support for the 1 in 10 problem car which is the reason I’m reluctant to simply dispatch the kit in a box, but then again, V12V clutches shipped in a box isn’t something to worry about anymore on account unregulated OEM parts supply in US is all but switched off?