2.3L TST Optimization Thread

[TheLion]

Can you elaborate further on the downpipe vs. tune issue? Haven't heard anything about that.
S.

Yes, Ford Racing released a temperature graph showing the catalyic converter temperature in the Focus ST 2.0 EB. The compared an aftermarket tune (which they did not name) to their tune. They also then showed the dyno graphs.

The aftermarket tune gave similar gains in the low and mid range but beat out Ford Racing's tune in the upper end. In fact the Ford Racing tune didn't do anything to the upper end. There was a lot of criticism for it, but those who were criticizing Ford Racing (prior to them releasing the catalyst temp graph) didn't understand the engineering.

I run into these sorts of things all the time myself as a professional engineer. Customers often criticize something as inferior to another product or make foolish statement's such as "why can't you just do this or that"....there's always a reason, more often than not it's a good one (but not always).

Getting back the point, the aftermarket tunes which lift the power band in the upper rpm range (say above 5500ish) cause the catalyst temp to exceed its maximum rating by a very substantial amount. This will not only short the life of the catalyst, causing emissions issues, but you could potentially physically damage it to the point of restricting exhaust flow.

Ford used a cheap ceramic catalyst instead of palladium. It serves two purposes, makes the car cheaper and serves as an additional restriction to provide more back pressure to the turbo as part of the de-tuning process. However given that it's a small turbo, it does serve a some what legitimate purpose of keeping boost from peaking even earlier than it does.

Does it mean the catalyst will fail right away? No. And it only exceeds that temp when your rev it out (which a lot of people likely do when the top end is strong). But it will shorten the life, it will not be covered under warranty and has some fairly significant potentials for failure.

This is why if you go with an aftermarket tune you would be wise to replace the down pipe with either a cat-less unit or a high flow catted down pipe (usually palladium catalyst, much more compact design as well).

The 2.0L and 2.3L EB are NOT the exact same engines. However they are very similar and they both have similar power / torque curves, both suffer from crap-tastic (that's an official engineering term btw) factory inter coolers, unbelievably leaky diverter valves and cheap ceramic catalysists.

The good news is the money went into the forged rods, crank and reasonably well built turbo. Yes many people say it's "small", however the factory turbo is capable of making 400HP with just bolt ons and a tune which is V8 territory (but your 150~200lbs lighter than a V8 as well). I wouldn't say that's exactly bad...it works well up to the power levels the factory rods, crank and piston heads can take with some safety margin.

But I digress, the main point was in regard to the catalyst temperature issue. So if you go with an aftermarket tune, no matter who makes it except for Ford Racing (which will probably release it by the time Gen 7 mustangs are out...), you really should upgrade the down pipe with it or else drive at your own risk.

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[TheLion]

Here's the link: http://www.focusst.org/forum/focus-st-performance/17404-catalyst-temperature.html

If anyone can explain how the 2.3L would be any different I'm all ears...cause I know some one's gonna say something silly like "it's magic and the laws of physics don't apply to my 2.3L" ;-)

 

[lisandra]

Who makes a palladium catalyst???

 

[sharp21]

Great info.

My concern with the down pipe is passing emissions, even if it has a cat but especially without. I'm planning to tune once my warranty expires but I still live in an emissions county.

Any tips on that?


And I've got to add - your Big 3 recommendations are golden. When I pulled out that factory intercooler I was amazed that such a tiny flimsy unit was chosen for these cars. Catch can has been on my list but I keep getting side tracked with fancy shifter parts. Its coming next though.

 

[Glenn G]

Who makes a palladium catalyst???

Technically everybody. All catalysts use palladium as a coating which does not react with exhaust gases but catalyses (promotes ) the reaction to break NO, HCOand CO ( poisons) into N2, CO2, and H2O (not poisonous ). It would be horrendously expensive and useless to make a catalyst out of pure palladium as only the outside layer does the work and the metal is brittle. Instead a substrate is used to form the honey comb structure and a thin film of palladium coats it. Giving the effect of the palladium and the strength of the substrate. The cat gets so hot normal metal can't take the heat so cheap cats use a high temp ceramic. More expensive metal cats use alloys of titanium making them super strong, heat resistant, thinner and MUCH more expensive. High performance turbo cars have High EGTs and richer fuel mixtures that can cause ceramic cats to fail and the thicker walls of the mesh needed for a ceramic cat impedes flow making the problem worse.

 

[TheLion]

Spot on. Which is exactly why ceramic cats are more prone to failure. Ceramic is also more prone to cracking upon impacts depending on the ceramic material used.

The flow issue is some what of a non-issue. While ceramic substrate structures are physically thicker to maintain strength and hence more restrictive if the same volume is used compared to it's metallic brethren, the catalyst substrate is made to a larger volume to compensate for the loss of flow.

Take a look at the catalysts in the high flow catted down pipes vs the ceramic OEM one. The OEM catalyst his HUGE comparatively, but it has to be to compensate for the loss of flow per given area unit.

The real question is, how much higher of an operating temperature do the aftermarket catalysts offer over the OEM one? That's the crux of the matter, the physical size isn't a big concern in the EB, it could be even bigger, remember the chassis was set up for a honkin V8, but we're puttin a 4 banger in there, so there's mucho empty space...

I would expect the 2.3L to produce temperatures anywhere from 250 to 350F above the OEM catalyst max temperature spec, so it would be helpful to know A. what are the actual temps being pushed to and B. what is the maximum safe temperature of the aftermarket "high flow" catalysts?

 

[TEXAS HEAT]

Yes, Ford Racing released a temperature graph showing the catalyic converter temperature in the Focus ST 2.0 EB. The compared an aftermarket tune (which they did not name) to their tune. They also then showed the dyno graphs.

The aftermarket tune gave similar gains in the low and mid range but beat out Ford Racing's tune in the upper end. In fact the Ford Racing tune didn't do anything to the upper end. There was a lot of criticism for it, but those who were criticizing Ford Racing (prior to them releasing the catalyst temp graph) didn't understand the engineering.

I run into these sorts of things all the time myself as a professional engineer. Customers often criticize something as inferior to another product or make foolish statement's such as "why can't you just do this or that"....there's always a reason, more often than not it's a good one (but not always).

Getting back the point, the aftermarket tunes which lift the power band in the upper rpm range (say above 5500ish) cause the catalyst temp to exceed its maximum rating by a very substantial amount. This will not only short the life of the catalyst, causing emissions issues, but you could potentially physically damage it to the point of restricting exhaust flow.

Ford used a cheap ceramic catalyst instead of palladium. It serves two purposes, makes the car cheaper and serves as an additional restriction to provide more back pressure to the turbo as part of the de-tuning process. However given that it's a small turbo, it does serve a some what legitimate purpose of keeping boost from peaking even earlier than it does.

Does it mean the catalyst will fail right away? No. And it only exceeds that temp when your rev it out (which a lot of people likely do when the top end is strong). But it will shorten the life, it will not be covered under warranty and has some fairly significant potentials for failure.

This is why if you go with an aftermarket tune you would be wise to replace the down pipe with either a cat-less unit or a high flow catted down pipe (usually palladium catalyst, much more compact design as well).

The 2.0L and 2.3L EB are NOT the exact same engines. However they are very similar and they both have similar power / torque curves, both suffer from crap-tastic (that's an official engineering term btw) factory inter coolers, unbelievably leaky diverter valves and cheap ceramic catalysists.

The good news is the money went into the forged rods, crank and reasonably well built turbo. Yes many people say it's "small", however the factory turbo is capable of making 400HP with just bolt ons and a tune which is V8 territory (but your 150~200lbs lighter than a V8 as well). I wouldn't say that's exactly bad...it works well up to the power levels the factory rods, crank and piston heads can take with some safety margin.

But I digress, the main point was in regard to the catalyst temperature issue. So if you go with an aftermarket tune, no matter who makes it except for Ford Racing (which will probably release it by the time Gen 7 mustangs are out...), you really should upgrade the down pipe with it or else drive at your own risk.

I'm familiar with the thread regarding elevated catalyst temperatures due to stretching the power band that increases and/or holds boost pressure via increased WGDC. The FR tuning device on the ST and potentially the EBM had and will have to consider 50-state emissions legality in their tuning strategy. Frying the catalytic converter for the sake of extending the power band just isn't an option considering the goals for the tune. The aftermarket tuning solutions do not have to work within those confines. While disappointing for the end user of the FR tuner on the ST, it was still a lot better than the factory tune. If coupled with efficiency modifications such as those mentioned in this thread, was still a pretty potent set-up. If FRPP will ever release this for the EBM, I think we can expect the same tuning strategy to be used which will have a significant increase in low to midrange torque with it tapering rapidly after 5000-5500rpm. I still believe it will be a decent tuning option for those inclined to go that route.

 

[TheLion]

I would agree with the statement regarding the FR tune. While it may not provide the power at the high end, how much does it really matter? The greatest drop in RPM from gear to gear is about 1500 rpm. The low to mid range power band is from about 2500 to 5500~5700. That's a fairly wide band, much wider than is needed for drag racing and plenty wide enough for track use and street.

Your literally just taking the torque curve of an NA engine and flipping it 180 degrees. Instead of revving. The only disadvantage is the the crank is subjected tot he torque load for longer stretches of time with low end torque vs. high end. However your tension forces on the pistons are much less at the lower RPMs due to the lower velocity, which is related to the square of the velocity. A small increase in velocity nets a significant increase in tension force. Regardless, it's a forged crank and also forged rods, they are built for turbo applications and the stock rods and block are taking well over 400 hp in EB's with upgraded turbos.

Now it is true that lifting the upper band while also increasing the lower and mid, which is what most aftermarket tunes do, provides you with more usable power than just lifing the low and mid range, however how useful is that as torque still falls off in the upper range? HP is a ratio of torque vs RPM. The torque is still falling even with tunes, but not as fast, as the RPM increases, so the top end is still weaker than the bottom and mid even with aftermarket tunes.

I think in real applications your still going to keep the rpms centered around mid with the lower being an "oops" buffer for misjudging a shift point (more applicable to track courses than drag).

 

[Glenn G]

The flow issue is some what of a non-issue. While ceramic substrate structures are physically thicker to maintain strength and hence more restrictive if the same volume is used compared to it's metallic brethren, the catalyst substrate is made to a larger volume to compensate for the loss of flow.

Take a look at the catalysts in the high flow catted down pipes vs the ceramic OEM one. The OEM catalyst his HUGE comparatively, but it has to be to compensate for the loss of flow per given area unit.

The bolded part is the only place I disagree with you, Let me explain.
You are absolutely correct in stating that you can make up for the loss of flow by using a larger catalyst but the only way it would not hurt flow is if the pipe after the catalyst was the same diameter as the catalyst body, it however does not. The Exhaust gas comes out of the first section of the downpipe which is 2.5 in diameter intp the massive cat which is like 5 inches, the advantage is according to boyle's law, allowing it to expand that much will significantly reduce it's temperature to help protect the crappy ceramic substrate and it also loses velocity, allowing more time for the catalytic reaction to occur which is good for emissions especially sice the reaction is faster at higher temps.

The problem is now you have to shove a larger volume, not mass of exhaust gas though another small opening creating significant backpressure that a smaller higher flowing cat would not.

 

[JamesinLittleSilver]

Will the FR tune get rid of the limiters or set them higher then stock EB non PP?

 

[lisandra]

Technically everybody. All catalysts use palladium as a coating which does not react with exhaust gases but catalyses (promotes ) the reaction to break NO, HCOand CO ( poisons) into N2, CO2, and H2O (not poisonous ). It would be horrendously expensive and useless to make a catalyst out of pure palladium as only the outside layer does the work and the metal is brittle. Instead a substrate is used to form the honey comb structure and a thin film of palladium coats it. Giving the effect of the palladium and the strength of the substrate. The cat gets so hot normal metal can't take the heat so cheap cats use a high temp ceramic. More expensive metal cats use alloys of titanium making them super strong, heat resistant, thinner and MUCH more expensive. High performance turbo cars have High EGTs and richer fuel mixtures that can cause ceramic cats to fail and the thicker walls of the mesh needed for a ceramic cat impedes flow making the problem worse.

ok. I asked cause I know first hand palladium is cost prohibitive, and not easy to acquire either. Its not like you can buy a 3 inch palladium pipe at home depot..So...some of the high flow cats i see around use ceramic cats anyway, are they equally as bad as stock? temp wise?

 

[lisandra]

also, in creepy voice:
"palladium in the chest, painful way to die"

 

[TheLion]

ok. I asked cause I know first hand palladium is cost prohibitive, and not easy to acquire either. Its not like you can buy a 3 inch palladium pipe at home depot..So...some of the high flow cats i see around use ceramic cats anyway, are they equally as bad as stock? temp wise?

As mentioned the catalyst structure is plated in palladium. What the structure is made of determines the cost of manufacture. Ceramics are typically cheaper to manufacture due to not only the cost of the materials but also the methods by which they are formed and the specifics of plating that particular material.

 

[TheLion]

The bolded part is the only place I disagree with you, Let me explain.
You are absolutely correct in stating that you can make up for the loss of flow by using a larger catalyst but the only way it would not hurt flow is if the pipe after the catalyst was the same diameter as the catalyst body, it however does not. The Exhaust gas comes out of the first section of the downpipe which is 2.5 in diameter intp the massive cat which is like 5 inches, the advantage is according to boyle's law, allowing it to expand that much will significantly reduce it's temperature to help protect the crappy ceramic substrate and it also loses velocity, allowing more time for the catalytic reaction to occur which is good for emissions especially sice the reaction is faster at higher temps.

The problem is now you have to shove a larger volume, not mass of exhaust gas though another small opening creating significant backpressure that a smaller higher flowing cat would not.

Good point Glenn, I would agree with your assessment on the restriction on the exhaust side. The shape of the exhaust side of the catalyst pipe also affects flow rate, but to my knowledge it's a 90 degree angle, which creates turbulence and loss of pressure past that point (aka back pressure further upstream).

 

[Cobra Jet]

What about the aftermarket metal substrate or "spun metallic" performance catalytic converters - how to those fare in plead of the ever so common ceramic cats?

Wouldn't the EB benefit from that type of metallic cat over ceramic (excluding the option to go totally catless).

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