So the Focus RS is pretty quick...

[cosmic charlie]

If this is true I wonder why they couldn't get the Ecoboost Mustang to sound better. It is awful.

It sounds awesome as long as you change the exhaust! I have Scorpion exhausts on both and they sound great!

 

[Schwerin]

On my way home, around 1 am, I figured I'd data log a third gear pull on the expressway. The on ramp I take is a long two lane that merges into one and transitions onto the expressway way without any sharp turns, so it's perfect to stretch the legs a bit. Not to mention there's barely a soul around, and the cops all sit around the 6 lane highway right by the bars. You can see three or four lined up in a right turn lane, it's kind of funny. Anyways, I digress.

I didn't think much of the car next to me. Light goes green and I roll into the throttle. The little car on my left is right along side so I punch it and pass him. Then second, third... and the bugger is still right with me. I damn near redlined fourth when I backed off. He was maybe 2 car lengths behind, at the most. I was curious what was keeping up so well and, to my humble surprise, a Focus RS comes up along side me. If it wasn't for how well these winter tires grip, this story may have gone a bit different. I'll always be a v8 guy, but boosted four bangers have come a long way.

AMERICAN SOLD ones have. The EU and Japan have had turbo i4 and i6's to keep up with our v8's for decades. The US has been screwed when it comes to small engine perforamnce for a long time. When we "finally" got the 160hp Civic Si in 1999, that engine was 10yrs old in Japan, the '89-94 SKyline GT-R made north of 320hp, seat 4 and came with AWD with a 2.8L i6, the '91-93 S13 made 205hp/tq from a turbo 2.4, while we were "impressed" with our 5.0 235 '93 Cobra and the 380hp 5.7 ZR1.

The 93-96 Escort RS Cosworth with AWD was also 224hp/tq from a 2.0T

Ford was testing a 2000 Escort ZX2 with a 230HPROUSH supercharger, and a 200hp NA 2.0 under the SVT badge when the Mustang was only making 260hp from a 4.6L v8 and 210hp from a 3.8 v6.

American i4 has been held back for decades. I'm amazed we finally got the Focus RS here at all.

 

[cosmic charlie]

AMERICAN SOLD ones have. The EU and Japan have had turbo i4 and i6's to keep up with our v8's for decades. The US has been screwed when it comes to small engine perforamnce for a long time. When we "finally" got the 160hp Civic Si in 1999, that engine was 10yrs old in Japan, the '89-94 SKyline GT-R made north of 320hp, seat 4 and came with AWD with a 2.8L i6, the '91-93 S13 made 205hp/tq from a turbo 2.4, while we were "impressed" with our 5.0 235 '93 Cobra and the 380hp 5.7 ZR1.

The 93-96 Escort RS Cosworth with AWD was also 224hp/tq from a 2.0T

Ford was testing a 2000 Escort ZX2 with a 230HPROUSH supercharger, and a 200hp NA 2.0 under the SVT badge when the Mustang was only making 260hp from a 4.6L v8 and 210hp from a 3.8 v6.

American i4 has been held back for decades. I'm amazed we finally got the Focus RS here at all.

I have wanted an RS since high school! And I’m 58 years old! When the new one came to America I had to get one!

 

[Schwerin]

I have wanted an RS since high school! And I’m 58 years old! When the new one came to America I had to get one!

I really wanted to, but ended up with a Mustang due to the head gasket issues at the time. I needed reliable car for how much driving I was doing.

 

[cosmic charlie]

I have wanted an RS since high school! And I’m 58 years old! When the new one came to America I had to get one!

First car I ever bought was a three year old one of these.

Only red 2600V6 in it’s day they were quite the car. I was hooked on small fast european (mine was built in Germany) They dominated european touring car racing in the early 70’s

 

[Biggus Dickus]

I really wanted to, but ended up with a Mustang due to the head gasket issues at the time. I needed reliable car for how much driving I was doing.

Thankfully I fluked into my 18 - there were some 17s on the lot and I didn't know about the HG issue when I purchased.

 

[Biggus Dickus]

First car I ever bought was a three year old one of these.

Only red 2600V6 in it’s day they were quite the car. I was hooked on small fast european (mine was built in Germany) They dominated european touring car racing in the early 70’s

Just like the RS - Made in Germany.

 

[bluebeastsrt]

If this is true I wonder why they couldn't get the Ecoboost Mustang to sound better. It is awful.

They didn’t try. My SRT-4 was the best sounding 4 banger I had ever heard. But dodge went to great lengths to tune the exhaust for sound. And they let it be known that they worked hard to give the exhaust the correct rumble.

 

[ice445]

AMERICAN SOLD ones have. The EU and Japan have had turbo i4 and i6's to keep up with our v8's for decades. The US has been screwed when it comes to small engine perforamnce for a long time. When we "finally" got the 160hp Civic Si in 1999, that engine was 10yrs old in Japan, the '89-94 SKyline GT-R made north of 320hp, seat 4 and came with AWD with a 2.8L i6, the '91-93 S13 made 205hp/tq from a turbo 2.4, while we were "impressed" with our 5.0 235 '93 Cobra and the 380hp 5.7 ZR1.

The 93-96 Escort RS Cosworth with AWD was also 224hp/tq from a 2.0T

Ford was testing a 2000 Escort ZX2 with a 230HPROUSH supercharger, and a 200hp NA 2.0 under the SVT badge when the Mustang was only making 260hp from a 4.6L v8 and 210hp from a 3.8 v6.

American i4 has been held back for decades. I'm amazed we finally got the Focus RS here at all.

I think you're forgetting Ford was one of the first to dip their toes into turbocharging, and GM is famous for a little thing known as the Grand National. It's not like American companies couldn't do small turbo engines, consumers just didn't want them back in the era of cheap gas, so it was shelved for many years. There were also plenty of heavy hitting domestic turbo 4's in the early 2000's, the SRT-4 and Cobalt SS come to mind.

Also seems weird to use the ZR1 as a negative example of horsepower, that was a lot in 1991, and the Viper that came out a year later was over 400. Displacement at the end of the day gets you to where the power is at, it doesn't matter if you get there by cubes or boost. You can argue things like efficiency and such but at the end of the day, the engineers set a power goal and it doesn't really matter how they get there. Europe and Japan had heavy displacement taxes for larger engines so they never had a reason to do the V8 route, other than for luxury and commercial stuff.

 

[Schwerin]

I think you're forgetting Ford was one of the first to dip their toes into turbocharging, and GM is famous for a little thing known as the Grand National. It's not like American companies couldn't do small turbo engines, consumers just didn't want them back in the era of cheap gas, so it was shelved for many years. There were also plenty of heavy hitting domestic turbo 4's in the early 2000's, the SRT-4 and Cobalt SS come to mind.

Also seems weird to use the ZR1 as a negative example of horsepower, that was a lot in 1991, and the Viper that came out a year later was over 400. Displacement at the end of the day gets you to where the power is at, it doesn't matter if you get there by cubes or boost. You can argue things like efficiency and such but at the end of the day, the engineers set a power goal and it doesn't really matter how they get there. Europe and Japan had heavy displacement taxes for larger engines so they never had a reason to do the V8 route, other than for luxury and commercial stuff.

I'm not forgetting them at all, but they were just blips on the map, and people discount them as they were in cars that were considered "muscle".

It wasnt till the early(almost mid) 00's that USDM caught on. Fords 230HP Escort demo was in 1999. They could have beaten SRT-4 to market by almost 3-4 years. The 200HP 2.0 wasn't seen till Honda did it in the mid 00's also. At the time Fords best production v6 was still a Yamaha designed 230hp, and their own was barely 200hp.

The ZL1 in today's MSRP would be about $100K, did 0-60 in 4.9 and 1/4 in 13.4s.
The R32 Skyline GTR is about $55k, thats nearly 1/2 the price for the same 0-60 and 13.1 1/4m, AWD and much better handling.
The VIper was thousands more, had a MASSIVELY bare interior and almost 0 features at all. Hardly the comfortable interior of the Skyline. Also still ran 1/10th slower in the 1/4, and was a nightmare if it got a little twitchy.

Japan had taxes on displacement, but the also had a Gentleman Agreement to not pass 276hp, which lead the them focusing on handling, quality, MPG, and durability. There is a reason that the 90's RB and SR engines are still used and swapped into in a LOT of modern platforms today for racing, they are just crazy durable and can make amazing power. When was the last time you saw someone using an 80's 302 or LT1?

It's not that US makers CAN'T do it, its that they hold back from entering that market, because they fear a 200HP escort would be to close to the 260in a much heaver Mustang, and that the 230 would mean it would be faster, hurting Mustang sales. Dodge had no sports car in that lineup at the time, and they just came off a deal with DSM, so they knew about the market for small, turbo cars very well. They had decent ones in the 80's but no one cares to remember them. GM finally caught on and used their turbo Ecotec in lots of platforms. Ford didnt seem to FINALLY get the clue till they started up their EcoBoost line.

The main reason that we finally for a Focus RS IMO is that someone finally convinced Ford that the person interested in the AWD Hot hatch likely wasnt cross shopping a Mustang GT, and if they were, it was only a small subset of shoppers. Also with the Mustang now being global, their sales were so far up that the tiny bit of people that got the RS instead of a mustang would likely not even be a dent in the numbers. If the Mustang never went global we likely would have never seen the Focus RS in the US.

 

[IrishStallion]

So is the head gasket issue on RS’s able to be fixed? Can you pay to have the head pulled (put in heavy duty gasket) while you bump up the turbo and just knock it out? Have not researched nor been on any ecoboobie forums.

 

[Hack]

So is the head gasket issue on RS’s able to be fixed? Can you pay to have the head pulled (put in heavy duty gasket) while you bump up the turbo and just knock it out? Have not researched nor been on any ecoboobie forums.

The issue was just that the engine assembly line was installing the wrong head gasket for some amount of time. The RS has a special 2.3 that requires a unique head gasket. So yes, it's easily fixed by replacing it with the correct head gasket.

My assumption is all of them have been fixed by now. Ford knows which cars got the wrong gasket and they did a recall and repaired those engines.

 

[IrishStallion]

The issue was just that the engine assembly line was installing the wrong head gasket for some amount of time. The RS has a special 2.3 that requires a unique head gasket. So yes, it's easily fixed by replacing it with the correct head gasket.

My assumption is all of them have been fixed by now. Ford knows which cars got the wrong gasket and they did a recall and repaired those engines.

Thanks for info. I just found a 17 RS w/ 8k miles on it near me for 33k ask. Not in the market for another car, but maybe later next year.

 

[Balr14]

GM had turbos in the early 60s. They never quite caught on because of too much lag. I had a 64 turbo Corvair Monza Spyder that I drag raced and won with competing in SS/J class. Hemis ran SS/B and SS/A and they had to spot me 35 car lengths. I could run consistent mid 14s, with a few minor tricks. Once my turbo started to spool, they weren't going to catch me.