How much power does my 2005 Aston Martin DB9 really make? It certainly makes ‘enough’ – the car is not lacking for performance. Lately I’ve been curious about a few ‘bolt on’ performance upgrades that I want to try out. To know if they make any difference, I want to know the actual power my car make now that its 15 years old and has 44,000 miles on it. I need a Baseline performance test. Continue reading “Dyno Testing a Stock Aston Martin DB9”
If you are a member of any of the Aston Martin Owners FaceBook Group or online Forums (like PistonHeads or 6SpeedOnline) you will likely have seen some chatter talking about fitting a ‘Secondary Cat Delete Kit’ (SCDK) in your car to increase the power and improve the sound. It’s not like the stock DB9 has a deficiency in either department already, but its promise is a simple change will give you more of each. Intrigued by this I couldn’t resist researching how to tackle this.
There are several vendors that make SCDKs, and in this article I will be covering my personal experience with the kit from AML Performance. AML Performance is a small company in the UK, and I met its parts manager Mark Holden in the Aston Martin Owners Facebook Group. He is a DB9 owner himself. Mark suggested I might want to try out a set of their SCDKs and I took him up on the offer. Read on to learn about their kit and how to fit it. Continue reading “Installing an AML Performance Secondary CAT Delete Kit in an Aston Martin DB9”
Power is like chocolate. You could always use more even though you don’t need it. I’ve been evaluating several ‘bolt on’ performance changes for my DB9, ultimately hoping to achieve power levels similar to a DBS (they are essentially just the same engine). In this article I am testing the changes that come with fitting a Secondary CAT Delete Kit (SCDK or decat). This is a popular modification that promises less weight, better sound and more performance. Its that last claim we are testing here. Continue reading “Dyno Testing Results After Installing a Secondary CAT Delete Kits in an Aston Martin DB9”
I’ve been fiddling with my DB9 trying out several ‘Bolt On’ performance improvements. One of them is a ‘Secondary Catalytic Converter Delete Kit’ (SCDK) which promises to:
This article is all about the sound, and how it changes. Continue reading “Exhaust Sound Change after Installing a Secondary CAT Delete Kit in an Aston Martin DB9”
If you’ve been following this Blog recently you know I’ve been interested in testing several bolt on performance upgrades for my DB9. One of those upgrades was a Secondary Cat Delete Kit (SCDK). You can learn about how I installed it by checking out my other article here. I wanted to learn if my car would still pass a stringent California Emissions SMOG test with an SCDK fitted. Read on to find out if it did. Continue reading “Will an Aston Martin DB9 Pass California Emissions Testing After Installing a Secondary CAT Delete Kit?”
In a previous article I discussed how to remove the chassis stiffening ‘Shear Panel’ from my DB9 (read about it here). I was removing it to access the exhaust system hidden above it while I was tackling installation of a Secondary Cat Delete kit (read more about that here). Reinstalling the panel is the last step of the process, and it’s important to get it right so your DB9’s structural rigidity is restored. Here is how I did it. Continue reading “Installing the Shear Panel in an Aston Martin DB9”
If you are a member of any of the Aston Martin Owners FaceBook Group or online Forums (like PistonHeads or 6SpeedOnline) you will likely have seen some chatter talking about fitting a ‘Secondary Cat Delete Kit’ (SCDK) in your car to increase the power and improve the sound. It’s not like the stock DB9 has a deficiency in either department already, but its promise is a simple change will give you more of each. Intrigued by this I couldn’t resist researching how to tackle this.
There are several vendors that make SCDKs, and in this article I will be covering my experience with the kit from Velocity AP. Velocity AP is a great company steered by Stuart Dickinson. They started in the UK, and moved their facilities to British Columbia, Canada a few years back. They make all their products in house. Read on to learn about their kit and how to fit it. Continue reading “Installing a Velocity AP Secondary CAT Delete Kit in an Aston Martin DB9”
Removing the Secondary Catalytic Converter from a DB9 isn’t something you’d do every day unless you are working on the exhaust system. For me, I’m working on installing and testing a ‘Secondary CAT Delete Kit’ that supposedly improves the performance and sound of the car [read about that project in my other article here]. The first step in that process is to remove the original secondary CAT, and that’s what this article is about. Continue reading “Removing the Secondary Catalytic Converters from an Aston Martin DB9”
One of the terrific aspects of any Aston Martin is the handling. Part of the magic to that is creating a car that is ‘stiff’, meaning that it doesn’t twist and flex during cornering or over bumps. The DB9 is no exception, and part of that body stiffness is created by a thick aluminum plate underneath the bottom of the car in the center of the vehicle, the “Shear Panel”. There is nothing fancy to it, it’s just a metal plate bolted up rigidly to the left and right hand sides of the transmission/drive shaft/torque tube tunnel the runs from front to back. The tunnel itself is a weakness to the car, so the plate bolts across the bottom of the tunnel to make the vehicle stiffer.
Why would you care about this? You probably wouldn’t unless you need to do some work on the things that are up inside that tunnel, above the Shear Panel. In particular, the dual exhaust pipes run along there. For me, I am planning on installing a ‘Secondary Cat Delete Kit’ which is a fancy way of saying removing the two rearmost catalytic converters and replacing them with a straight pipe kit offered from several vendors (more about that in a future article). Any maintenance to the center portion of the exhaust system will require removal of the Shear Panel.
The good news is that it’s easy enough to remove, and only takes about 10 minutes once you have the car off the ground. Continue reading “Removing the Shear Panel from an Aston Martin DB9”
If you read my article on Power to Weight Ratio (check it out here) I was trying to work out where the best ‘bang for the buck’ was on performance upgrades for my DB9. One of the standout items was a simple change to a high flow performance air filter. These allow the engine to breath easier with less intake restriction. The claim was that they can add horsepower and have the added benefit of they are reusable so you can easily save more than they cost after a few service intervals. Win-Win. I figured it was time to try a set out. Continue reading “Installing a Velocity AP GT4 Airbox Delete Kit in an Aston Martin DB9”
Aston 1936 