Weight will be the thing you feel the most compared to the other cars you mentioned. Body roll and the other handling dynamics can be dialed to your liking with the usual stuff like dampers, springs, roll-bar, etc. There is some understeer and you can put some bigger tires up front to combat that. A couple people have gone with a square tire setup, but that's uncommon. Cars from 2012.5 and on have the quicker steering rack which I think helps the steering feel and they also get the bigger brakes standard. The 4.7 motor helps too.

I've only had my car on track once and it was just for some track "drive arounds" and it was at Road Atlanta (with concrete walls everywhere). So I was by no means pushing the car and never got it above 100. I did hit T1 and T12 between 70-80 though and the car felt very planted; there was a lot more in it. T3 and the esses didn't feel confident, but I think that was because I wasn't used to the weight of the car and it felt a lot different than my race car. T6 was fun and T7 had lots of understeer as expected. My car does have the sports suspension for reference.

As for the WRX. I have a 2008 STi as my DD. All wheel drive cars are inherently understeery. The WRX and STi have done very well in SCCA autocross when prepared right. I do not autocross mine, but know other people that have done well in theirs.

 

I know some people do track their Vantages and I'm sure it's a fun car on the track, it has to be. But to me I love light weight cars on track. A lot of sound deadening and luxury oriented materials (including seats) would need to be removed before it became a fun track car. I'd be trying to get 500 pounds out of the car.

I'd just buy a BRZ, old Cayman or old Corvette (or 2nd gen MR2 as I did) for that purpose.

 

Yeah, primary purpose of a Vantage would not be for track use (though it's the perfect place to learn the behavior of a new car). The question of how it behaved on track was more to see what it's personality is like at the limit.

 

Benign, easy to drive hard. Like most road cars, tends towards understeer, although very nice balance overall thanks to the weight distribution. The V8's in stock form, even the 4.7, don't really have enough torque to make power oversteer an issue IME, unlike the V12's.

When I tracked my 4.7 I found that the OEM Bridgestones and OEM brakes were the biggest limiting factor. I ran RE-11's for awhile on my 4.7 and found them a great compromise for fast road and track duty. Unfortunately, even with better pad compound and floating front discs I still found the brakes easy to overheat after about 10 minutes of committed lapping.

 

I'm surprised by this. On the street, if I turn traction control off, I can easily break the tail loose, in fact, full throttle in third can get interesting without traction control on.

I've never tracked mine, but I can see how the track can support more power than the street as the track was the only place where my Boxster S felt like it could use more power. But I'd think 400hp/320 lbft would be plenty for the track.

Then again, I'm presently daily driving a Miata so my power threshold is pretty low

 

I'm running BC Racing Coilovers w/ Swift Springs, Apex Race Parts SM10 wheels with Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires, GMG alignment and some upgraded brake pads/fluid and the car has been more than capable and holds it own!

 

Does BC provide a shock dyno plot?

 

Woah, BC racing. That's interesting. Never would have guessed they made parts for an Aston. Very popular with the Scoobie crowd for reasonably priced lowering. No experience with them personally. Damper choice seems a bit less important with double wishbone/multilink than Mcpherson strut setups. How do those handle on the road?

Kinda surprised by the gap between $1200 coilovers and $4k+ race coilovers for this car. It sounds like the perfect market for excellent quality single adjustable dampers. Perhaps not necessary with the sports pack if you don't need ride height adjustment.

 

For this car I'd be more inclined to buy some of the more highly regarded shock solutions like Nitron or KW, personally. These larger piston shocks can improve handling AND ride while also lowering unsprung mass and just plain looking great. I've got Nitrons on my Lotus and can attest to the improvement in handling and ride with 20% stiffer springs over sport pack Bilsteins. But I have no experience with BC and I trust the vendor (redpants.lol) that worked with BC to develop them.

https://www.redpants.lol/blog/2018/7...-biased-review

 

I was stuck in the same predicament with the huge gap in costs. I took a chance on the BC setup and Tim @ BC was able to dial in my needs. The car drives extremely well and tame on the street but is still plenty firm and planted on track. I can only go off of my personal experiences running them and so far I have been very happy with them.

 

I think it's great there are more suspension upgrade options for the Vantage now!

When I was shopping there were only springs, Nitron, and KW coilovers.

I totally would've tried the BC racing coilovers if they were available at the time.

That all being said, I'm pretty happy with my KW coilovers!

Just for reference: the GT4 used adjustable Bilstein coilovers that were super expensive!

 

The use Vantages as the "customer can rent a race car" at Yas Marina Circuit. Which spec car is that?

 

Vantage GT4 race car is $15k to rent and $135k to own

 

I think the Vantage V8 performs well on track - I have modified my V8S suspension with Nitron coilovers, alignment and some sport cup 2s. I have passed some very popular makes on track with this set up that is still compliant for the street -