Driven: Superchips tuned Ford Focus Ecoboost
With a little help from Superchips the already fascinating Focus Ecoboost now has more power than an Escort RS Turbo
Goodness, there's even now a cooking Ford Focus that can almost match it - with one cylinder and almost half the capacity less. The miraculous Ecoboost 1.0-litre turbo triple is, we know, a joy. And now, thanks to the company that was made famous by cars such as the Escort RS Turbo, it's even more of a peach.
Chipping master Superchips has created an RS Turbo-beating 145hp Focus Ecoboost, courtesy of some good old fashioned engine remapping. This apparently tempers some of Ford's "obvious" measures to improve official cycle fuel economy, to the benefit of real-world usability. The aim, we're told, is not to chase headline power boosts (they used to get 40hp out of a chipped RS Turbo...) but to make it more driveable. These days, torque is priority, not power.
Plug and play
It's an easy mod to make. Because it's a Ford, it can be reprogrammed via Superchips' Bluefin device, which plugs into the dealer diagnostic port. You can, literally, order it by 3pm online and, for £455, get your extra 20hp delivered the next day.
It's a hard mod to feel at first, mind. Save for some fluttery, uneven response around 4,000rpm (better than standard but still there), it performs little different to the stock motor. Despite the Superchips power enhancements being particularly obvious over 4,500rpm, it still prefers mid-range to high revs, deploys the characteristic three-cylinder bark only above 3,000rpm, is as beautifully smooth and amazingly distant - oh, and punishes you severely if you forget to wind on a few revs when pulling away.
Not even a remap can alter this - it really is wholly reliant on the turbo. Expect the engine to pull you lazily along and you'll go nowhere. Or, stall it. You need throttle movement, to get the gasses flowing, to get the Focus moving. Do not forget this.
Keep your foot in
Still, despite this, and the 'huge' boost it reportedly runs at (22-23psi!) and the 'chipped monster' preconceptions, it's free from significant turbo lag. You're invariably in a lower gear than you realise anyway, due to the audible illusion of a three-pot, while the small gasflow paths and lack of inertia also adds to its vibrancy.
So, what's the benefit? True to Superchips' word, it's torque. Back to that RS Turbo. It produced 133lb ft at 2,750rpm. This produces a mighty 167lb ft - at 2,650rpm. That's 500rpm lower than the standard engine, as Superchips has swelled the lower-end torque curve. It's this that makes it feel like someone's installed a soft-tune 2.5-litre V6 in there. A much more subtle gain than you may expect, but one that's likely to be more satisfying in the long run.
The bantam weight engine enhances handling, too. Losing mass from the front end helps it turn in with more eager precision and delicacy than a heavy turbodiesel. There's more reward for using fingertips and Ford utilises the normal-section tyres to deliver decent purity of feel. It's no Elise, but it's very good by modern hatch standards.
The next step
Thanks to that extra dose of power and pull, it makes it an unexpectedly satisfying car to master on twisting country roads. A surfeit of grip over power, yes, but just enough power to have fun and just enough chassis feel to fully maximise it. Cooking versions of the latest Ford Focus aren't as interesting to drive as they should be, Ecoboost excepted. This one enhances that and makes the engine feel even more implausible.
Today is also not about how much power you have, but how little produces it and how little CO2 you thus leave in your wake. This is why the Superchips Ecoboost tune is so alluring. Drive it like your gran and it should return similar 56mpg to the standard car. None of us will see that, but we also won't see much less than the regular one, either. When Autocar tested the RS Turbo in 1986, its overall average was 30.1mpg - of highly toxic pre-Euro emissions too, remember...
Just one more thing. The Escort RS Turbo weighed 1,080kg .The latest Ford Fiesta weighs from 1,040kg - and will be facelifted later this year, when it gains this engine too. Fiesta Zetec S 1.0 Ecoboost 145, anyone? The Focus is impressive, yes, but it isn't the headline car we may have on our hands...
FORD FOCUS 1.0 ECOBOOST SUPERCHIPS
Engine: 999cc 3-cyl turbocharged
Power: 145hp
Torque: 167lb ft
0-62mph: 10.0sec (est)
Top speed: 125mph (est)
Weight: 1,200kg
MPG: 56.5mpg (est)
CO2: N/A
Price: N/A
Worried about how much all this boost and power in a tiny engine will affect longevity, dont want to see millions of focus' scrapped in 10 years because the engine has packed up.
Amazing how they can get the same amount of power as massive american v8s used to.
Compare that to all the perfectly good 1.6 mk1 Focii (Focuses?) that are about now, are cheap used car bargains going to become a thing of the past?
NA for me please.
25 year old Escort -- 0-62 8.3 secs
new super boosted Eco Ford -- 0-62 10 secs (est)
I'll be impressed when we start seeing all the new Eco tech producing performance figures that we want our cars to produce.
Compare that to all the perfectly good 1.6 mk1 Focii (Focuses?) that are about now, are cheap used car bargains going to become a thing of the past?
NA for me please.
1.6 base engines are absolutely dreadful, totally dead under 4500rpm and starts to move just after that. Did a back to back test with a vww 1.6 and 1.2tsi engines at a dealer, the 1.2 won that fight by a huuuuuuge margin, 1.6 just felt totally useless afterwards, atlhough about the same top end number.
25 year old Escort -- 0-62 8.3 secs
new super boosted Eco Ford -- 0-62 10 secs (est)
I'll be impressed when we start seeing all the new Eco tech producing performance figures that we want our cars to produce.
Mountune Performance offer an upgrade on the 1.6 180 and 150 ecoboosts to 200
http://www.mountuneperformance.com/images/download...
http://images.pistonheads.com/nimg/23965/tn_8389-L...
ANY COLOUR AS LONG AS ITS WHITE, MATE.
One of its best features is that its switchable. Less than a minute will see it back to factory mapping and no one would ever be the wiser.
Buy the car, use this system and you can still take it back to the main stealer for a service without them ever knowing!! So you cant invalidate your warranty.
Only downside is that if you sell the vehicle or trade it in, you have to buy another Bluefin and start all over again.
Mountune Performance offer an upgrade on the 1.6 180 and 150 ecoboosts to 200
http://www.mountuneperformance.com/images/download...
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