RE: Ford Focus RS (Mk3) | Spotted
Discussion
blade7 said:
RacerMike said:
The Focus is on Munroe/Tennaco dampers. Sticking a generic set of KW’s on will do absolutely nothing. If anything it will mean it has totally unmatched ride frequencies.
Yeah, what do Mountune know?Mountune are primarily an engine tuning company. They’ve built race engines for years and really know what they’re doing when it comes to mapping engines and developing updated engine components.
They have expanded their business very effectively into other areas of car tuning recently, but that doesn’t mean they have an entire department of vehicle dynamics engineers. People expect them to offer the full kit of parts though, so they offer an off the shelf damper kit from KW that fits the right price point. Needless to say, they won’t be the ones doing the damper tuning.
And whilst the aftermarket do have plenty of dynamics engineers working for them, they have a different set of attributes. Most people that buy aftermarket dampers want something that feels more sporty. Whether that actually improves the car subjectively or not is entirely open to debate. Just because it’s a particular brand though doesn’t mean their approach is any better or worse than oem.
A good current example of this would be the new Alpine A110. It has dampers made by Mando. Mando are a relatively young Chinese tier 1 supplier and have little to no reputation in European cars. And yet it hasn’t stopped the Alpine dynamics team delivering a class leading chassis that beats Porsche. The brand of damper has nothing to do with dynamic quality.
SidewaysSi said:
Everything is built to a price and OEM stuff needs to meet the needs of the majority of buyers. All about profit at the end of the day.
How a damper is valved doesn’t cost money though. The Tennaco damper on the Focus is a decent high spec Monotube damper and the amount of money they spent developing the dynamics of the RS will absolutely dwarf the budget of any aftermarket suspension supplier. The Focus spant thousands of hours being developed at their proving ground at Lommel in Belgium, Dearbourne in Michigan, tens of thousands of miles of road driving and Nürburgring laps and hundreds of different damper builds. For an aftermarket damper company to even do one test at an industry proving ground would end up wiping out most of their profit. A week at Idiada in Spain is circa £30-40,000.macky17 said:
It’s cheap compared to, for example, a set of KWs which I am 100% sure would improve matters considerably. I don’t understand why Ford charged so little for the RS. If they’d charged £2 or £3k more and spent that on road manners they would have sold just as many including an extra one to me. I love everything about it except the ride which isn’t that of a daily IMO. My Golf R is inferior as a toy but massively better as a daily driver.
Ford sold more Focus RS' than they planned to I believe. Orders were beyond expectations, so I don't think they did a bad job.RacerMike said:
They’d be stupid not to offer a kit. It’s free money!
Mountune are primarily an engine tuning company. They’ve built race engines for years and really know what they’re doing when it comes to mapping engines and developing updated engine components.
They have expanded their business very effectively into other areas of car tuning recently, but that doesn’t mean they have an entire department of vehicle dynamics engineers. People expect them to offer the full kit of parts though, so they offer an off the shelf damper kit from KW that fits the right price point. Needless to say, they won’t be the ones doing the damper tuning.
And whilst the aftermarket do have plenty of dynamics engineers working for them, they have a different set of attributes. Most people that buy aftermarket dampers want something that feels more sporty. Whether that actually improves the car subjectively or not is entirely open to debate. Just because it’s a particular brand though doesn’t mean their approach is any better or worse than oem.
A good current example of this would be the new Alpine A110. It has dampers made by Mando. Mando are a relatively young Chinese tier 1 supplier and have little to no reputation in European cars. And yet it hasn’t stopped the Alpine dynamics team delivering a class leading chassis that beats Porsche. The brand of damper has nothing to do with dynamic quality.
I don't think a lot of people realise just how much time/energy OEMs put into ride/handling development and, equally, how poor some aftermarket stuff is. Mountune are primarily an engine tuning company. They’ve built race engines for years and really know what they’re doing when it comes to mapping engines and developing updated engine components.
They have expanded their business very effectively into other areas of car tuning recently, but that doesn’t mean they have an entire department of vehicle dynamics engineers. People expect them to offer the full kit of parts though, so they offer an off the shelf damper kit from KW that fits the right price point. Needless to say, they won’t be the ones doing the damper tuning.
And whilst the aftermarket do have plenty of dynamics engineers working for them, they have a different set of attributes. Most people that buy aftermarket dampers want something that feels more sporty. Whether that actually improves the car subjectively or not is entirely open to debate. Just because it’s a particular brand though doesn’t mean their approach is any better or worse than oem.
A good current example of this would be the new Alpine A110. It has dampers made by Mando. Mando are a relatively young Chinese tier 1 supplier and have little to no reputation in European cars. And yet it hasn’t stopped the Alpine dynamics team delivering a class leading chassis that beats Porsche. The brand of damper has nothing to do with dynamic quality.
RacerMike said:
SidewaysSi said:
Everything is built to a price and OEM stuff needs to meet the needs of the majority of buyers. All about profit at the end of the day.
How a damper is valved doesn’t cost money though. The Tennaco damper on the Focus is a decent high spec Monotube damper and the amount of money they spent developing the dynamics of the RS will absolutely dwarf the budget of any aftermarket suspension supplier. The Focus spant thousands of hours being developed at their proving ground at Lommel in Belgium, Dearbourne in Michigan, tens of thousands of miles of road driving and Nürburgring laps and hundreds of different damper builds. For an aftermarket damper company to even do one test at an industry proving ground would end up wiping out most of their profit. A week at Idiada in Spain is circa £30-40,000.And for all this talk about OEM, let's not forget how shoddily engineered some cars are.
Edited by SidewaysSi on Tuesday 13th August 10:50
Alpinestars said:
RacerMike said:
Twinster and the new Magna diff in the A45 are the only two that can apportion torque side to side across the rear axle. All Haldex applications have a centre clutch (which is actually on the nose of the rear diff) but the side to side split is mechanical (and usually open). They therefore cannot torque vector.
In the Focus, the application of the Twinster is more aggressive than the Magna diff in the A45 as Ford run a 1.7% taller ratio on the ring gear for the PTU which means the prop shaft to the rear is always 1.7% faster than the front wheels. This means that it can be truly rear biased when the clutch packs in the Twinster are locked.
For Drift mode, the only differences in the Focus over normal mode are:
- More aggressive Throttle Map
- More aggressive ramp rate on the rear diff locking map
- More bias to the outer wheel when locking
- A switch to 'Sport DSC' which reduces torque interventions from the TCS and Stability Control and some interpolation of side slip enabling a degree of yaw control beyond basic DSC
The A45 does something similar but lacks the offset diff ratio.
Very informative. In the Focus, the application of the Twinster is more aggressive than the Magna diff in the A45 as Ford run a 1.7% taller ratio on the ring gear for the PTU which means the prop shaft to the rear is always 1.7% faster than the front wheels. This means that it can be truly rear biased when the clutch packs in the Twinster are locked.
For Drift mode, the only differences in the Focus over normal mode are:
- More aggressive Throttle Map
- More aggressive ramp rate on the rear diff locking map
- More bias to the outer wheel when locking
- A switch to 'Sport DSC' which reduces torque interventions from the TCS and Stability Control and some interpolation of side slip enabling a degree of yaw control beyond basic DSC
The A45 does something similar but lacks the offset diff ratio.
jl4069 said:
Alpinestars said:
RacerMike said:
Twinster and the new Magna diff in the A45 are the only two that can apportion torque side to side across the rear axle. All Haldex applications have a centre clutch (which is actually on the nose of the rear diff) but the side to side split is mechanical (and usually open). They therefore cannot torque vector.
In the Focus, the application of the Twinster is more aggressive than the Magna diff in the A45 as Ford run a 1.7% taller ratio on the ring gear for the PTU which means the prop shaft to the rear is always 1.7% faster than the front wheels. This means that it can be truly rear biased when the clutch packs in the Twinster are locked.
For Drift mode, the only differences in the Focus over normal mode are:
- More aggressive Throttle Map
- More aggressive ramp rate on the rear diff locking map
- More bias to the outer wheel when locking
- A switch to 'Sport DSC' which reduces torque interventions from the TCS and Stability Control and some interpolation of side slip enabling a degree of yaw control beyond basic DSC
The A45 does something similar but lacks the offset diff ratio.
Very informative. In the Focus, the application of the Twinster is more aggressive than the Magna diff in the A45 as Ford run a 1.7% taller ratio on the ring gear for the PTU which means the prop shaft to the rear is always 1.7% faster than the front wheels. This means that it can be truly rear biased when the clutch packs in the Twinster are locked.
For Drift mode, the only differences in the Focus over normal mode are:
- More aggressive Throttle Map
- More aggressive ramp rate on the rear diff locking map
- More bias to the outer wheel when locking
- A switch to 'Sport DSC' which reduces torque interventions from the TCS and Stability Control and some interpolation of side slip enabling a degree of yaw control beyond basic DSC
The A45 does something similar but lacks the offset diff ratio.
RacerMike said:
Focus, like all of them, has an electronic map based on all sorts of inputs from steering, accelerator, lateral acceleration, wheel slip, steering rate....the list is usually fairly extensive. But amongst these there’s always feed forward. There are basically no occasions in the Focus where it felt front wheel drive as it’s putting torque to the rear long before you’ve done anything dynamic.
Notwithstanding that it doesn’t “feel” fwd, I assume based on what’s been posted, it “is” fwd on occasions?Alpinestars said:
RacerMike said:
Focus, like all of them, has an electronic map based on all sorts of inputs from steering, accelerator, lateral acceleration, wheel slip, steering rate....the list is usually fairly extensive. But amongst these there’s always feed forward. There are basically no occasions in the Focus where it felt front wheel drive as it’s putting torque to the rear long before you’ve done anything dynamic.
Notwithstanding that it doesn’t “feel” fwd, I assume based on what’s been posted, it “is” fwd on occasions?blade7 said:
RacerMike said:
These days theres very little thats genuinely permanent 4WD.
RS4/6?I think Subaru’s still have a transfer case and the Range Rover/Range Rover Sport are both permanent.
Also I suspect there’s a load of Japanese stuff (including the Jimny), but Abu of the Merc’s, BMWs, VWs, Volvo’s, Lambo’s etc will all be torque on demand.
RacerMike said:
SidewaysSi said:
And for all this talk about OEM, let's not forget how shoddily engineered some cars are.
Shoddy in what sense?In most cases, though not all, they will do what they can given the many constraints they are under.
Edited by SidewaysSi on Thursday 15th August 09:43
RacerMike said:
It will be in a totally steady state straight line driving situation. I’d be super surprised if the A45 was permanent 4WD as it’s a huge waste of energy and as such massively effects fuel consumption and emissions. It’s the same with everything from a Golf R to a Veyron. Anything with any sort of active driveline will be driven entirely by its primary axle in steady state situations. These days theres very little thats genuinely permanent 4WD.
I’ve been told by some knowledgable folks that the A45 does have a mode where it is 50/50. Not 100 percent sure but this still needs to be confirmed. If it is that could be a plus for those situations when random conditions come up and if all 4 wheels are already being driven traction will be there. Jblade7 said:
I may be completely wrong, but I think the likes of the Veyron and R8 are very much RWD biased in non slip conditions?
IIRC most/all of the "true" longitudinal Quattro Audis (and implementation of Quattro in other VW Group sub-brands) are still all permanent AWD, even without the Torsen T3 central differential (or the subsequent crown gear centre diff that's replaced it). Most of the non-sporting models use/used a T1 or T2 centre differential with a default 50/50 split and capability to apportion up to 75% of torque to either front or rear up until fairly recently. The newest crown gear system is used on the A6/7/8 as well as the S and RS models, is a 40/60 front/rear split by default but can apportion up to 70% forward and 80something rearward.I don't know if the A4 has dropped this in favour of a more Haldex-like system now.
The R8 is something like 30/70 front/rear by default I think?
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff