Cadillac Owners Forum banner

So not a single new release of parts all summer for the ATSV?

2K views 23 replies 12 participants last post by  netring 
#1 ·
I'm presuming that the early adopters moved onto the CTSV?
The aftermarket is partially what pushes me to a decision about vehicle purchases. Not that I want a saturated aftermarket (as I always end up doing things my own way anyways) but certain things are important components, it would be good to see some aftermarket improvement.

No results from the fuel lobe improvements.
No one wanted to dig into the intake manifold and A/W system.

If I could afford this car right now, the first thing I'd do is ditch the stock twins and A/W and lighten the load with a nice single and A/A setup. I'd love to see that!
 
#2 ·
I think the problem is that the aftermarket doesn't see a big market for ATS-Vs so...it doesn't respond with new products.

Sales of the ATS-V, unfortunately, have not been stellar.

I own two 2016s. The first we ordered in Spring of 2015 and we paid the dealer's asking price. The second one we ordered back in June and it had $2500 bucks on the hood. While I was glad to have the discount, I was surprised that a car which, at the time, had not even been on sale for a full model year, would already be incentivized. My dealer, also, has an ATS-V 4-door/8-spd on the lot. It's been there for months...in spite of the cash back.

Problem with Cadillac is that while its trucks sell like hotcakes, it's passenger cars are overpriced and, thus, don't sell well, in-spite of being pretty darn good cars.
 
#5 ·
Well, they don't really have any released data or anything like that to demonstrate effectiveness.
I can have a billet cam made with a revised profile that theoretically would improve fuel too and put it up on a site, but without any real world data, I wouldnt consider it ready for prime-time.
 
#7 ·
I tuned an ATSV with our parts on it maxing out the fuel system, he installed the weapon x cam and I was able to push it a bit more without any fuel pressure drop at all so it definitely works. However, it does not allow for too much power to be added unless you want to run race gas or add methanol injection because it is simply too much for straight pump gas. I have one of the weapon x cams just sitting on my shelf because of the data I have experiencing this, I didn't bother installing it and just went straight to methanol injection with a heavy dose of it to eliminate the pressure drop and increase the octane in my car and it has proven to be reliable, zero issue driven daily and I go full throttle to at least 100 mph 1-2 times every single day.

There are still things going on with this platform, I am still tuning 1-2 of these remotely every week, but I never see anyone posting here about it, they are either posting on facebook or just saw our youtube videos. The majority of information I have seen in this forum has been complaints instead of appraisal which does not make aftermarket vendors active on this website really want to invest in product development.... Just my opinion.
 
#11 ·
I think anyone who is 'in the know' and gets them tuned, stays absolutely silent online because of the way cadillac puts the smack-down on any ecu modifications.

I also don't understand the relatively low sales of this car. This car kills an M3, is very quiet and comfortable on the road and absolutely dominates on a track. However, I think part of the M3 success is the aftermarket --- you really can make those everything you want them to be for relatively cheap. Add to that piggyback tuning that is fairly sophisticated and easy to remove before dealer visits and you've got a winning combo there that seems to overshadow how good the ATS-V is.

It really is too bad, but I think in 2-3 years time when these cars are dipping into the 30k cost-range the aftermarket will start to see a lot more demand.
 
#12 ·
Please also keep in mind that this forum is shit. It's run by a for-profit company, has ridiculous rules, is only admin'd when it's convenient for them, and it often has a lot of downtime, crashes, the ads crash chrome, etc.

Anyone is welcome to join our FB group or start a new forum, WPX tried to start a better one awhile back but there's always that conflict of interest and no one made the swap over really. I'm also seeing a lot of people who are tuned, are not on any of these groups/forums. Don't forget that the median buyer is still 38-48 years old or so, white collar high-end jobs with salaries close to 100k. GENERALLY those are not the folks to muddle around here. Try the Honda or BRZ/Gt86 forums, kids, everywhere, millions of them, and they're extremely active.

I personally do not think running meth 24x7 is a good idea, nor is a cam swap to solve a fueling issue. I'm also seeing a lot of tunes being written for drag racing and/or high way pull type scenarios. One guy here had a base tune from one of the few companies out there, stock car, and popped a CEL his first time at the quarter mile strip. If a car won't make it 1/4 mile, how is it supposed to run 20-25mins all out at a road course in the summer 98 degree heat and humidity. Well it's simple - it won't. You'll be like the Z06's popping CEL's due to overheating and you'll have to pit after 15mins every round.

I've asked a few of the tuners about this situation and they have all responded with - 'Well... we'll maybe just give you a more conservative tune'. They honestly don't know. There's not enough history for them to say, the car can't push 20psi for 25mins in the summer, but it CAN push 18psi and be fine.. hot.. but fine. They can't tell you that, at least I have not been able to extract that kind of response from them.

There are really 3 "big" tuners for the V right now, right? Well why are none of them running road courses in the summer and figuring out what temps and lack of knock they can produce, while maximizing performance. I'm not going to pay $500-900 for a tune and then have them detune it to some random figure just because they THINK it will make less heat and be fine. No.. I want them to do the testing and figure it out. If we find out the cars can only run 16 or 17psi, fine - but figure it out and then sell me a complete product.

Last major complaint. Mike detailed on FB some of the minor performance gains with parts, intake, downpipe, etc. I say minor because they were, I think I recall him citing 10-15whp for a part. I'd have to go back and check to be sure. Meanwhile other companies have stated that parts do not make any extra power. So between 0 and maybe 15whp is probably the real answer. And to pay $400 for an intake that might add 5-10whp - no thanks lol. I want a clear and precise answer as to power levels that have been confirmed on multiple dynos. No mystery. No "should make". Just test it guys, give me the facts straight. Tune the car, then add the intake and retune without cheating (raising boost 1psi, spraying some nitrous in front of the car, running the 'base' dyno during heatsoak and then letting the car cool before repulling, etc).

In the end - let me end this with a quick closure. I am not blaming anyone. This post was not aimed at anyone specifically. I am mostly just explaining my personal point of view as to why there is not great sales of aftermarket parts/tunes, why I am likely not purchasing from the companies out there without further research, and why I think other companies are not interested.
 
#13 ·
Fuel pump for this isn't there yet.
And that brings me back to my original point.

Shawn, I'm not going to quote your whole post, thanks for writing that out I read through it and agree with much of what you're saying.
The problem here is fuel and water to air intercooling. I don't know why GM always does this. Every single car they've made end up having heat soak issues.

Think about it this way. Water to air intercooling is thermodynamically more efficient, BUT is it more effective? (Of course it is, 2J, it's more efficient)... Not really...

Air to water ----- to ----- water to air.
You're REALLY still only air to air intercooling... That's what even engineers overlook. Now DRAG racers that run a Reservoir with ice and run a water to air core ARE water to air intercooling, because they aren't relying on air passing over another heat exchanger to remove the heat.

It's so hard to make up a good analogy for water to air intercooling. You guys can probably consider the dynamics on their own, but some things to consider.

Pump, adds heat, reduced piping reduces heat loss through the pipe. Then you have to let the incoming air during cruising speeds pull the heat back out of the intake plenum heat exchanger, which means the air isn't available to cool off the inlet, combustion chamber, valves as radily... So back to the Water. The water is like a credit card, yeah it'll absorb a big hit and won't kill you, but you can't use it for big purchases back to back consecutively if you cannot afford to pay it off. The heat exchanger is like your wage, and the water (The specific heat is something like 4.1-4.2 joules per gram which is extremely good - Super high credit limit) is the credit. If you can spend faster than you can earn, all you're doing is back-loading the work.
Eventually when you go through your runs and heat all of the water up, you've taken 5-10% (total) more heat (single pass) out of the intake charge with 25% less surface area (much smaller exchangers in the plenum) which is great, all you're doing is forcing the heat exchanger to work beyond it's capability.

Air/Air intercooling does the same thing, it just doesn't spend more than it can earn. It only has a $5,000 credit limit. So you're going to tune and mod with supporting mods that will intrinsically accommodate what you're requesting the octane of the fuel/limits of the engine to do.

The heat exchanger in the front has it's own mass so it too can absorb a blast but it won't absorb beyond what it can shed just moments later, and you're not going to store the waste heat somewhere else (in water) so that moments later when you call on the water to air intercooling to work, it's now LESS efficient than the Air/Air was in the beginning....

Water to Air is just about packaging, and when you detune enough, you can make a tune a little more mathematically consistent.

What ATS-V owners REALLY need, is a NEW upper plenum, I'll deal with the .5 second throttle lag from the air spring effect with the A/A cooling, and run a nice efficient A/A core up front.

THEN we need a single turbo, not these twins.

I think everyone would be much happier. ATS has enough gears or enough control to put you where you need to be. You don't need to blow the tires off at 1500 rpm.

 
#16 ·
I'd like to know if any high speed runs have been done with modded V's. It's one thing to make several short bursts to 100mph or even 140mph. But what about 5th & 6th gear pulls where your running 160+ mph? I'd like to see if the fuel issues have been resolved at those loads and 18-20lbs of boost. Bet it drops and we're back to square one. We need better intank and mechanical pumps to keep the fuel rail pressure up. Until that happens I think we're just putting bandaids on the real issues.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top