Evolution of my DB9S, a pictorial list of changes from the original stock DB9 to the current DB9S.
My car is a 2006 Aston Martin DB9 Volante and before I purchased it, a previous owner had spent a lot of money on upgrades to make it look more like a DBS. It is still the same colour, Ferrari Grigio Titanio.
Evolution of my DB9S – Bodywork
The front and rear bumpers were removed along with the side sills and bonnet. the wings were then modified to match the bumpers and sills along with the side repeaters removed to fit DBS side repeaters in the strakes.
Bonnet, bumper and front wings removed, on this picture you can see lots of parts that have since been upgraded, modified or changed. Side strakes, Brakes, Mirrors, Wipers, Inlet manifold, Air Intake
Whilst undergoing its initial transformation, it had DRLs fitted into the lower bumper and DBS mirrors fitted.
Since I bought the car it has had a large number of further modifications, for performance, driving experience and cosmetics.
I modified the boot to give the same whale tail as a DBS, it came with a tacked on rear spoiler that I didn’t like so I took measurements from a DBS blended in the rear spoiler and painted it to blend in.
On early DB9s the rear side windows go down with the roof and back up with the roof, later ones can be raised whilst the roof is down. I added wiring and a switch do the rear side windows can be controlled independently of the roof.
My car was vandalised, which including breaking one of the mirrors, so I replaced both external mirrors with full carbon fibre mirrors. These match many other carbon parts on the car.
I fitted the later type of wipers. These allow the use of more modern wiper blades such as Bosch Aerotwins which don’t work properly with the older wipers. They have also been hydrodipped to match the mirrors, strakes etc.
The bonnet stops are fitted to fragile tabs on the grille support that can break easily so I designed theses alloy struts to support the tabs.
Evolution of my DB9S -Chassis and Performance
The DBS has a more rigid structure than the DB9, particularly the Volantes due to extra and stronger shear plates under the car, I replaced the front composite plate with the much stronger alloy one from a DBS Volante and fitted the rear one, which is completely absent on the DB9, the rear one increase the strength of the rear subframe as well as mounting it more rigidly to the body.
Next up was to improve the handling, Volantes don’t have a rear anti-roll bar, although they do have the brackets, instead of fitting a DB9 rear bar I fitted DBS bars front and rear, the DBS bars are thicker and more rigid than the DB9 bars
To go with the improved handling i believed that the brakes needed upgrading, the brakes are marginal on the DB9, being exactly the same as the Vantage despite more weight. I fitted DBS callipers and 410mm two part discs to the front, using stock DBS hardware and 380mm two part discs to the rear using custom made brackets.
Engine and exhaust, I changed the inlet manifold from a DB9 manifold to a DBS inlet manifold, this gives more top end power and easier beathing at the expense of some low down torque.
The DBS has valves in the airboxes to allow easier breathing at high revs whilst keeping the drive by sound levels low, as I like a bit of induction noise I removed the airboxes and fitted high flow air filters to give better breathing.
Now that I had additional air flowing into the engine I modified the exhaust to allow better flow out of the engine, I removed the secondary cats and then fitted a Vanquish S rear box which flows better and is much lighter,
After sorting the going, stopping and turning i wanted to see where I was going. The stock Aston Martin headlights are horrendous so I upgraded my lights to state of art Bi-LED projectors, the difference in lighting is phenomenal.
more stuff here
Evolution of my DB9S -Interior
