The Centerpiece under the hood of any DB9 is the 6.0 V12 Aston Martin emblazoned logo on the Intake Manifold Center Brace.  You may need to remove this brace for various service items like changing your coil packs and spark plugs or perhaps servicing your PCV valves or something in the fuel injection system.The Brace serves a purpose other than just looking good, it stiffens and links the two separate ginormous intake manifolds together.   Once you remove the brace, you’ll actually be able to feel some really minor flex in the intake manifolds.   It’s secondary purpose is that it hides the mess of wires and pipes that make up the fuel injection system, keeping the ‘look’ under the hood clean and stylish. The photo above shows a later model year version of the brace, but the process is the same.

Tools Required

The only tools you’ll need for this are a T30 Torx bit and a ratchet to use with it.

Procedure

Removing this will only take a couple of minutes.  Before you begin this step, you should have already (check out my blog post on each of these topics):

• Covered the fenders to protect them from accidental damage
• Removed the Engine Bay Cross braces

After those steps are complete, all you need to do is remove the eight (8) T30 Torx screws, then carefully lift the center brace away and put it someplace safe that won’t get scratched.

In will cover the steps to prepare and properly reinstall it, along with the torque settings and pattern, in a future post & video.

Here is a short video of removing it, and what you can see after its out.