RE: Mountune Focus ST and Fiesta ST: Driven

[AdamC1983]

Give it a week or so as they arent starting the fitting till end of this month.

[framerateuk]

Shadows said:

Just got mine today and it's awesome, MPG isn't cracking though..!

Might be better when it's run in and I take it for a proper drive?

I can't imagine the MPG would ever be good in normal use.

Drive it like a granny and I'm sure it would be pretty impressive though. I'd be keen to know how well they do over a long motorway trip keeping steady at 70mph. My Megane gets around 35/36mpg in that situation so I imagine the Fiesta could see the 40s.

[Johnnytheboy]

article said:

It's a very classy piece of calibration work, to the point that initially you're a little underwhelmed.

Sounds more like the Mountune kit on the mk2 RS then.

It feels identical up to 3,000 RPM, then it all happens quite linearly after that, i.e. where the standard RS starts to level out at higher revs the Mountune one just keeps on building.

I was also a little underwhelmed at first, then the penny dropped when I went to overtake a line of lorries and used higher revs for the first time.

[Shadows]

framerateuk said:

I can't imagine the MPG would ever be good in normal use.

Drive it like a granny and I'm sure it would be pretty impressive though. I'd be keen to know how well they do over a long motorway trip keeping steady at 70mph. My Megane gets around 35/36mpg in that situation so I imagine the Fiesta could see the 40s.

Mines a focus ST, if the trip computers anything to believe, driving it like a granny especially round town causes rubbish MPG. Best thing I've found is get it up to speed as quickly as possible and let it cruise. I'm averaging 30 MPG, on the first couple of days I was getting 18 round town etc. now it's eased up a little, I'll see 40+ on the motorway. I'd say 20 urban / 30 combined / 40 extra urban sounds about right although it's still only done 350 miles. So I'll see how it goes in the future..

[s m]

Shadows said:

mattr26 said:

Mountune puts the Focus back in the running. As per the mega hot hatch test in AB Sports Cars mag:

The meg came out on top,due to it's handling,over 2 secs a lap quicker than any other car tested.
They also dynoed the cars as well for some interesting results.

Rated Lap time Engine power 0-100km/h 0-160km/h 0-200 km/h
1. Meg. 1:42,36 271 ps, 350 nm 6.2/13.8/23.1
2. Focus 1:44,48 250 ps 370 nm 6.3/15.0/24.3
3. VW 1:44,75 236 ps 367 nm 6.3/14.7/23.9
4. 3 MPS 1:45,47 262 ps 388 nm 6.5/14.8/24.2
5. A250 1:45,06 214 ps 356 nm 6.5/16.1/27.4
6. GT86 1: 49,86 187 ps 205 nm 7.4/18.2/33.2
7. 125i 1: 48,11 218 ps 317 nm 6.1/15.7/27.7
8. V40 T5 1. 48.43 245 ps 381 nm 6.5/15.1/25.

Puts the focus (mountune ed.) 2nd fastest in outright speed it seems - just want to see tracktimes now!

How can that be right? 250PS is the cars standard output? So with Mountune you gain 0 BHP? Looks like a mistype to me as the Focus should have 275PS or close around.

Edited by Shadows on Friday 19th July 12:55

Are these figures from Auto Bild?
The GT86 engine seems a bit 'tight' still at 186bhp?

[Shadows]

I also find it intriguing that Chris only managed a 6.4 0-60 in the Mountune, when the likes of AutoCar managed 6.3 in a standard ST:

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/ford/focus-st/...

I'd believe Fords claim of 5.9 seconds is entirely reasonable.

[s m]

Shadows said:

I also find it intriguing that Chris only managed a 6.4 0-60 in the Mountune, when the likes of AutoCar managed 6.3 in a standard ST:

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/ford/focus-st/...

I'd believe Fords claim of 5.9 seconds is entirely reasonable.

Didn't he mitigate that as below

"On a stinking hot day and a pretty poor launch I managed 0-60 in 6.4 seconds and 0-100mph in 14.0 seconds. Ford claims it'll go under six seconds to 60mph"

[ManaghGB]

framerateuk said:

I can't imagine the MPG would ever be good in normal use.

Drive it like a granny and I'm sure it would be pretty impressive though. I'd be keen to know how well they do over a long motorway trip keeping steady at 70mph. My Megane gets around 35/36mpg in that situation so I imagine the Fiesta could see the 40s.

I've had my Fiesta ST a month now, its got 500 miles on it and averages 42mpg. That's mainly around town with some dual carriageway. Can see 50mpg when cruising on the motorway at 65mph.

Mines booked in for the MP215 kit at the end of August, can't wait to see what difference it makes.

[Shadows]

s m said:

Didn't he mitigate that as below

"On a stinking hot day and a pretty poor launch I managed 0-60 in 6.4 seconds and 0-100mph in 14.0 seconds. Ford claims it'll go under six seconds to 60mph"

He then went on to say:

"Ford claims it'll go under six seconds to 60mph, which I find a little hard to believe, even if you had several goes at trimming the 0-30mph time. The standing quarter was 14.7 seconds."

If the standard car can do 6.3, then a 5.9 wouldn't be a far cry away.

[s m]

Shadows said:

s m said:

Didn't he mitigate that as below

"On a stinking hot day and a pretty poor launch I managed 0-60 in 6.4 seconds and 0-100mph in 14.0 seconds. Ford claims it'll go under six seconds to 60mph"

He then went on to say:

"Ford claims it'll go under six seconds to 60mph, which I find a little hard to believe, even if you had several goes at trimming the 0-30mph time. The standing quarter was 14.7 seconds."

If the standard car can do 6.3, then a 5.9 wouldn't be a far cry away.

Maybe it'll do better in cooler weather and on a grippier surface - at least the midrange acceleration will be less affected by traction

[MiseryStreak]

http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/f...

Authorised Mountune dealer...

Looks great in black, this is a bit of a bargain, under 18 grand for a new hot hatch with the power/weight of a R26.R and great handling.

[ManaghGB]

MiseryStreak said:

http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/f...

Authorised Mountune dealer...

Looks great in black, this is a bit of a bargain, under 18 grand for a new hot hatch with the power/weight of a R26.R and great handling.

I paid less than that for a brand new car with Sat nav and climate control. These can be had for good money if you haggle.

[Shadows]

s m said:

Maybe it'll do better in cooler weather and on a grippier surface - at least the midrange acceleration will be less affected by traction

Very true, the Focus ST doesn't need more power low down anyway.. It's fast to wheel spin from first into third until you find out how to control it. Some more mid range in a couple of the gears would be nice..

Get it to around 5K RPM it just goes nut's, it's alot of fun sometimes in a being shot at sort of way ha!.. Still, love it to pieces.

[MikeyBoy2000]

I had a mountune kit on my old Focus ST3 and the greatest difference was the drivability - stonking torque everywhere, much quicker through the gears and generally just a BIG improvement on the Ford (emissions biased) calibration. Just made the car a much nicer place to be. Throw in that the MPG figures improved by a couple of MPG (from 28 on a run to 31 at the same speed) and the upgrade paid for itself after a while. Once Mountune get the ABI codes up for insurers to sort themselves out, then everything is done.

It should be another great job by Mountune and I can't wait to get the Fiesta sorted when it arrives... (6 weeks and counting..!)

[BlueJazz]

So in layman's terms, are these Mountune kits for the Fiesta ST basically remaps that don't invalidate your Ford warranty?

[AdamC1983]

Yeah thats the general jist of it.

[carlosbutler]

author said:

0-100mph in 14 seconds? Quick Focus!

I'm all up for specing up cars, but that's only 1 second quicker than my very standard, very much cheaper RX8 - I suspect it's the same for other stock cars of the same type.

I would have thought with way more power and neigh on double the torque of my car it could do better than that.

[MiseryStreak]

carlosbutler said:

I'm all up for specing up cars, but that's only 1 second quicker than my very standard, very much cheaper RX8 - I suspect it's the same for other stock cars of the same type.

I would have thought with way more power and neigh on double the torque of my car it could do better than that.

But this is a fairly big FWD estate car, the RX-8 is a RWD sports car. The fact that it will accelerate to 100mph a second quicker than a rotary engined sports car while using less petrol (and oil!) is quite an achievement. You can't compare second hand cars with new or it very quickly becomes absurd. Your RX-8 was more expensive new, and rightly so as it's a great car. Spend £25K on one and a Focus RS500 would very quickly become a speck in the rear view mirror.

[AdamC1983]

carlosbutler said:

I'm all up for specing up cars, but that's only 1 second quicker than my very standard, very much cheaper RX8 - I suspect it's the same for other stock cars of the same type.

I would have thought with way more power and neigh on double the torque of my car it could do better than that.

I bet your rx8 also gets half the mpg of the focus, lets be honest rx8's arent known for being very economical!