Classic Vanquish Engine Upgrades

Here at Bamford Rose our secondary catalysts are manufactured to motorsport standards. The catalysts are more efficient, gas flow-optimised and constructed with high quality 200 cell bricks optimised for better performance. The catalysts are offered for delivery in either baffled or unbaffled style so you can tune your V12 exhaust note to taste.

One of the largest compromises made to get the Aston Martin Vanquish into production, one very familiar to Bamford Rose team members working on the factory car programme at the time, was to use a “made to a price” manifold that fulfilled all global emissions standards.

This factory exhaust manifolds are fitted to all Vanquish models and whilst cost-effective for the factory are horrifically gas-flow restrictive, significantly compromising performance.

Our handmade sports exhaust package recovers the performance loss introduced by the compromised OEM part, delivering improvements to both power and torque and an engine which pulls considerably stronger over the entire rev range until the redline. The improvement in gas flow also allows better flywheel performance – the car revs much more freely and quickly to the redline. An additional benefit is that these bespoke manifolds are a significant 18 kg lighter than the factory versions.

Bamford Rose has achieved substantial performance gains by paying meticulous attention to design and manufacture detail of the manifold. The standard 6-3-2-1 factory manifold has been significantly improved by introducing:

• Tuned equal length primary pipes of 6-1 construction.
• A Bespoke Bamford Rose designed sequential collector cone enabling uncompromised exhaust gas scavenging.
• Higher quality, 2mm gauge 316-grade stainless steel pipework with laser cut flanges.
• Ensuring that all joints and bends in the manifold are fully purge-welded
• (a gas is used to protect the weld seam until it has cooled to the point that oxidation does not occur, thus prevents cracking, corrosion and deformation).

Bamford Rose has an uncompromising approach to development. The complete exhaust system has been arduously tested around the world-famous Millbrook proving ground circuit. This durability testing created a thermal cycle which would accelerate the onset of any potential error state modes such as cracking. The durability has been further proven under road mileage accumulation tests where city driving, motorway cruising or spirited country lane driving have all been tested to make certain no error states occur as a result of the new manifold.

The Bamford Rose high lift camshaft upgrade replaces the existing OEM inlet camshafts with to a set of very high-quality bespoke cams.

These bespoke cams have a 1.7mm (c+17%) increased inlet cam profile (11.5mm vs 9.8mm OEM). The higher lift on the cam lobe increases the inlet valve stroke enabling more air to enter the combustion chamber for better performance across the rev range to the benefit of c+15 BHP, c+10 Nm.

This upgrade is suitable for all Classic Vanquish models for £1500 (excluding VAT).

The original OEM manifold design incorporated a big primary catalyst to pollutants created at low speeds/revs. This catalyst is very gas restrictive and at high revs, it would overheat of it wasn’t for the ECU being configured to run the engine very rich.

As part of Bamford Roses comprehensive engineering of this upgrade, the ECU is also recalibrated to remove the previous need to run the engine rich and protect the primary catalyst. The ECU calibration can be returned to the optimum for best power. Which result not only in better performance but better efficiency. This results in improvements in fuel efficiency. In the real world 17-22 mpg would be typical for the car; obviously dependant on driving style; with the upgrade 26-29 mpg is a more typical real-world figure. So with Bamford Rose not only do you get extra power but better efficiency too.