Posts: 705
Since: 16/3/2007
Region: Bristol
Status: offline
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Not really had time to put in a full reply until now (busy at work etc).
First things first, the car is where I want it now in terms of handling and performance. It's not a night-and-day change, but I'd say it's around 7-10% up on where it was before, which matches the money spent on the FD and exhaust mods and probably what you might see in terms of torque and HP improvement if you were to stick it on a rolling road.
The changes to the suspension - lowering and springs - makes the car a bit taughter in my view. This is without much cost to the ride, which isn't noticeably harder.
The car seems a bit freer revving, esp in the 2.5 - 3.5K rev range. I don't think you can expect a night-and-day change here when the stock version of the car is already 400bhp and 333 ft/lbs of torque. I'm happy enough.
The DBW seems to make the throttle more responsive but not massively so. I have learned from Loz and Matt (Conaero) that there are a variety of settings for the DBW: valet, bypass, aggressive and more aggressive. I knew about the valet setting from the website but I was not aware that you could have different levels of aggressiveness. I am not sure which mine has come with, I am guessing it is 'Aggressive' and 'Bypass'. I am fine with it, it is not too twitchy and is better than before.
I am not exactly sure how the DBW is meant to alter the gear changes. The thing I have noticed most is that it makes the car change down later when you do not change down yourself (probably a benefit in town driving, as pointed out by Loz). The upchange in Sport Mode is as I want it, the upchange in Normal mode is slightly improved but still a bit too slushy to make me want to drive in Normal mode frequently. I see this as a drawback of the original Maserati s/w.
The exhaust note is actually a bit too quiet still. I had asked ProSpeed to keep the noise down and they did too good a job! I don't want to wake my neighbours with my early starts so I'm not too concerned there. Loz and co were able to hear me coming from about half a mile away so it can't be too bad I guess.
Anyway, to sum up, I'm happy with what I have. I don't have a raw, overly aggressive sports car which is tiring to drive, what I do have is a GranSport which has been hardened a little and is where I want it now, both cosmetically and in terms of performance. The only enhancement I would have liked is swifter gear changes in Normal mode, but then I haven't bought anything which explicitly offers this so I can't be too disappointed.
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06 GranSport (FD ECM, DBW, springs, filter, ProSpeed pipes)
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