Aston Martin

Another manufacturer which used Weber-Marelli IAW engine management on a V8 engine is Aston Martin.

 

Aston Martin Virage 1988-1996

 

Only about 400 Virages were manufactured so it is about three times rarer than a Ferrari F40.

The normally aspirated 32 valve 5340cc V8 produces 330bhp @ 5300rpm and 350lb ft @ 4000rpm.

It has two P8 ecus, each controlling 4 cylinders - The firing order is 1,5,4,2,6,3,7,8 so ecu 1 controls cylinders 1,4,6,7 which fire every 180' and ecu 2 controls cylinders 5,2,3,8 which also fire every 180' but 90' after ecu 1. It has a conventional crank, unlike the F40's flat plane crank, so the ecu is controlling 2 cylinders on the right bank and 2 on the left bank rather than a bank each, hence two ignitions leads from each distributor have to cross around the rear of the engine to the opposite side.

 

 

Early cars had the ecus under the bonnet but these were soon moved inside the car, under the seats, for protection from the elements. Each ecu has a fault code light attached to its mounting cradle.

Each ecu has it's own sensors, so there are two phase, crank and map sensors and two coils, idle speed control valves etc. Only the throttle position sensor is shared.

 

 

Each distributor contains a phase sensor at its base to provide each ecu with engine position reference pulses. The unusual thing about the Aston Martin application is that the sensor is different to all other manufacturers. The rotor lugs are small pegs and the sensor is mounted on the same plane rather than being at 90 degrees.

 

These sensors do fail through constant heating / cooling cycles and are becoming quite rare / expensive, so a fix is to use a standard Ford / Fiat one as shown below.