Eco Car + Turbo = ????

  • Thread starter Thread starter sicbeing
  • 31 comments
  • 1,327 views
sicbeing

sicbeing

Messages
1,103
Messages
Cribanox
So I'm lookin through a car magazine and I see an ad for Focus turbo kits. I check it out, out of couriosity, and see this

http://www.turbokits.com/focus_turbo_kits.html

Its a stage II turbo kit (not sure what the "stage" indiccated or means) and adds about 95 peak horse power or something. I think it costs about 4 grand US.

Now, if I did buy this and install it (which I prolly wont since it seems like a lot of money) what else would I have to buy? Im not sure what else would be needed to help the car from exploding.

Thx in advance
 
I think maybe you should consider the bigger picture of things and see if its worth it. $4 grand is a lot of money and you have to ask yourself how long are you thinking of keeping the car, how it will affect resale value and if for the money the power increase is big enough.

Maybe you would be better off selling your focus and using that money plus the 4 grand and buy a car thats got around 220hp.
 
Thanks young warrior, but i really wasnt looking for advice as to what i should do instead, i was more looking for answers. Im not gonna buy a turbocharger for my car, i dont know all I need to know about it yet, thats why Im asking questions.
 
sicbeing, you keep coming here with questions just like this, and we keep telling you this is NOT the right place for very technical and car-specific discussions.

Find a Focus forum and see what has already been posted there many times already. I'm sure this topic has been covered to death there already, and is probably in their FAQ.
 
Duke
sicbeing, you keep coming here with questions just like this, and we keep telling you this is NOT the right place for very technical and car-specific discussions.

Find a Focus forum and see what has already been posted there many times already. I'm sure this topic has been covered to death there already, and is probably in their FAQ.
Click to expand...

Alright. Sorry. I'm just bored at work and always thinking about stuff like this, I never really think about going to other forums, I just feel more at home here, but I suppose I'll look around the web a bit.

On a side note, I think my question is missleading, I dont mean for it to be a ford focus question, but more alone the line of "what if I doubled a car's horse power so where it cant handle it, what can i do to make it handle the power better"
 
Still, you're better off looking at a forum for the car you're talking about; since they are car people more than video game people, you'll get better answers.
 
For the record, its not worth boosting a focus but since you asked...Your going to want to remap the ecu, your going to need bigger injectors, your going to want a bigger exhaust, most likely a 2.5" pipe, boost controller, afc, if that car cant handle boost on stock internals, your going to need forged internals, your driveshafts my blow, same with your gearbox. You need to remember your adding xx horsepower over stock which the car was no designed to run. Theres a few other things aside from whats in the kit that you will need, oh and you WILL need to run 93 octane in your car if you turbo it.
 
Thanks, that's what I wanted to know Nismo4life. This further's my knowledge now to know better, and that it isn;t worth it.
 
if you have any more questions, hit me up on aim. i know alot about this kind of stuff and could recommend some good cars, newer cars that are cheap. like building an evo killer with 12,000 (including car with less than 30k on it)
 
Focuses/Zetec engines seem to respond better to supercharging anyways.

A mildly supercharged Zetec isn't a bad thing; it's no stocker in terms of reliablilty and you're not going to be killing musclecars, but supercharger kits have had much better development cycles than any turbo kit. I think Roush makes one.
 
jackson racing also makes a focus supercharger kit for around $2000-$3000. they make pretty realiable stuff i hear.

stuff you would need reguardless... a new clutch. new driveshafts would be a good idea but if your only running 5-7 psi dont worry. 10-12 psi you would probably start having trouble with them. a new flywheel as well. the kit would probably come with injectors and i know jackson racing has an option for the kit to come with a remaped ecu. you'd want to look into better cooling as well. a new thermostat with a lower temp gauge to turn the fan on sooner and a higher pressure radiator cap at least. i'd suggest adjustable cam gears and a set of mild cams but they are not needed in this case unless you really want to take it farther.

the good thing about a supercharger kit is the tunability. raising boost is as easy as changing the pully. going from 5 psi for the street to 9 for the track wouldnt be that hard. i know you could just have a boost controller with a turbo but those things cost a lot and can be confusing.

so i vote get a supercharger kit. if you dont like the jackson racing kit with its roots type blower vortech makes a centrifugal type supercharger kit. not as good imo although they give more hp. jackson racing actually uses the same set up major companys like jag use so you know its good quality and they offer power from idle unlike the votech kit and any turbo.

i know a bit about cars if you have more questions. i'm a honda guy but i'm not totaly biased to the point of knowing nothing else.
 
So, in a kit like the one I linked, that'd be all I needed? With a possible new clutch and flywheel? Why would I need the new clutch/wheel though? Is it hard to catch more power on a stock clutch?
 
Think about it that clutch is only designed for a what 150hp engine, putting more power in it will burn it up real fast. Just put a stage 2 clutch in and you'll be fine.
 
You would probably end up with slipping on a gear change which would just burn your clutch out. So try for an organic or higher spec clutch. and maybe invest in some better brake discs and pads, so that you know you can stop properly. Oh yeah and maybe some better TYREs. :) :)
 
Thanks for the help guys. I'll continue to see what I'll need and how much it'll all cost in the end, that'll let me decide if it's worth the money.
 
To be honest after looking at the 95 extra hp kit that you linked too I doubt there will be much more you need to add to it (for the 95hp jump). It comes with the flashed ECU and injectors and all the other bits, it says the stock internals are safe on 10 PSI, It comes with everything you need and has been tested. The clutch may need replacing for a higher clamping force unit but if your not going to be doing alot of trashing to it (flat gear changes, hard launches) then it should be fine.

You may need to adapt your exhaust to the downpipe and its a good idea to upgrade your standard exhaust while your at it. For that sort of power gain I highly doubt your going to see any major problems with driveshafts and the rest of the drivetrain unless you thrash it.
The dyno sheet they supplied looks pretty good, holds torque well and power delivery is pretty linear so it should be a fun car to drive.

Like Duke said its best to get the advice from people that work on Focus's they know the paticular cars features and limits.

Slicks
Gas mileage
l
l
l
l
l
V
Drain.
Click to expand...

Drive around off boost and fuel economy wont be effected all that much.
 
Yea i'd only think my gas mileage would drop if I matted it everywhere, I barely hit 2100 before I shift to next gear when cruising.

The turbo kit looked pretty good, but I think I'll look around to see what other focus or Zetec drivers think about a Supercharge vs Turbo. I dont think you can have supercharger lag..
 
no such thing as supercharger lag. thats why they are so good. not as good as a turbo at higher rpms but a very drivable unit.
 
sicbeing
The turbo kit looked pretty good, but I think I'll look around to see what other focus or Zetec drivers think about a Supercharge vs Turbo. I dont think you can have supercharger lag..
Click to expand...

Going by the dyno example they shown Turbo lag doesnt seem all that apparent, remember its a low boost kit and your standard engine with standard compression ratio already produces 150hp (going by an earlier post), so in worst case scenario the car will still perform like standard intill the turbo spools up but I think it will be pretty linear (although the turbo supplied is fairly large).

If you were to pull the engine apart and reduce the compression ratio and increase boost for high peak power then Turbo lag would come more into play. Overall the turbocharged engine at low revs will run normal (like it does now) intill boost is made then it will pull hard, with the supercharger kit the engine should pull harder than standard at low revs but probably wont have such a peak HP (I havent seen the Supercharger kit so I dont know for sure what power it makes). I have driven a Supercharged Hyundai excel and I wasnt impressed with the peak increase in power at all (not saying the S/C Focus's will be the same though).

The high price of the kit comes from you get alot of high price parts, the kit also has great upgrade potential (although 38lbs Injector probably wont quite cut it if your going for another power jump and the ECU will need another tune or replacement) that if you want even more power in the future you've already got most of the (external) parts (but this is where engine internal parts will need replacing for better suited and stronger parts).
 
honestly a DD fucus doesnt need 245 hp. with the S/C 200-220 would be easy. it is true however that while they pull harder in the lower revs they dont have the same high rpm power.
 
Yeah a 220hp S/C Focus would be a nice, drivability would be excellent.
 
our family owns a 2005 focus sedan with the 2.0l engine. even with an auto its pretty peppy so i dont see it needing much more the 200 to be quick. with the torque curve of an s/c i'm sure it'd be a great all around car. the turbo would give higher rpm power but who drives around at 7000rpm everywhere?
 
THE ED3
our family owns a 2005 focus sedan with the 2.0l engine. even with an auto its pretty peppy so i dont see it needing much more the 200 to be quick. with the torque curve of an s/c i'm sure it'd be a great all around car. the turbo would give higher rpm power but who drives around at 7000rpm everywhere?
Click to expand...

200hp would be ok but paying $3000 for a kit I would like more for the money, atleast 220.
 
i'm not sure how much boost this is at, (my guess is about 5-7) but as you can see its night and day between stock.

M-6066-ZX3BB_dyno.jpg
 
220 hp is just about right for a stock internals 2.0. Don't think you'd want to push it any higher.

As for the gas mileage, I have a few friends with turbocharged 1.6s, and in-town mileage is just about the same, since boost doesn't come online until you kick it.
 

Latest Posts

Back