Danger to Manifold!

I threw my chinese bluetooth OBD2 reader on the Fiesta SFE yesterday and was watching intake pressures. Holy smokes, I saw 32 and change PSI. I understand that PSI doesn't measure volume and the turbo on this thing is the size of pack of smokes BUT that is crazy high. Also, I shamelessly stole this from another website.

2014 Fiesta 1.0L Ecoboost Dyno: Uncorrected Corrected

I might have to plug a scanner into my Fusion Ecoboost and see how much boost the 2.0T runs.

And, yes, using 93 octane makes a HUGE difference.

From reading around, it doesn't seem to make a difference on the 1.0l. I wonder why?

Yeah, that's the dyno that suggests the cars are way faster then they actually are.

I still haven't figured out the discrepancy but a car that weight with 130+whp would be in the mid 15s from the factory, yet in the other thread you linked to a performance site showing their modded car struggling to do 15.7 and there is a dearth of examples of any car reviewers commenting on the car being in any way quick, other than Richard Hammond comparing it to a VW Up! and a Dacia Sandero.

So, I don't know exactly why, but that dyno sheet seems to be pretty irrelevant to real-world performance.

Maybe when the cars get more popular a bunch of people will go out and actually show that the car really does come with 130 whp by taking it down a dragstrip.

I'd bet the pressure you saw was absolute, not gauge.

I hear that the economy gearing is what lets the car down. The engine is as good as a FiST motor, but the gearing is too economy-minded to optimize performance.

What is really odd, is that the new Ford ST's (Focus and Fiesta) don't seem to be that quick.

For example, with the Fiesta ST in HS this year, all the old HS guys like me thought we would get smoked. But locally, the FiST guys are no where near to top at events. And the guys running them are pretty experienced.

They still look really fun, but the numbers show they are not that fast.

Meh. Rolls-Royce Merlins and Pratt & Whitney R-2800s regularly pulled 60 back in the 40s. More with war emergency.

Impressive for a car, though.

You are probably right swank.

The gearing is definitely the culprit. It is pretty diesel like out of the hole but once moving you have all the torques (relatively, of course) all the time and a top gear roll on really gets the little guy moving. I would like to see if the FiST transmission would bolt into my car at some point as that would likely shave a sec off the 1.4 mile by itself.

Regardless, it is a great LITTLE motor and I already have thoughts about dropping one into an exocet or a Locost. Not much heavier than a sportbike engine with a regular car transmission and oodles of torque. Wonder when the DI standalone will happen.

Yep, looks like peak boost is around 20 psi. Oh well. Stupid atmospheric pressure...

32 psi?

at 20psi from the factory, that does not leave much on the table in regard to "safe" power adding.

I've been looking at the ecoboost fiestas and focus' for the past few weeks with SWMBO truck being down on us. The tuning stuff out there seems to be mostly euro sourced, and claim they can get 170ps without reliability issues on the stock motor at 2 bar. But over that things start breaking rapidly.

I'm waiting to see if FR does a 1.0 tune, while hoping in earnest that I can avoid car payments till the FocusRS is released. SWMBO sent me a message At work the other day (before the truck broke) saying she liked it, especially in blue. I replied with a screenshot of the ford press release on it that I happened to be reading when she sent the message.

NordicSaab wrote: at 20psi from the factory, that does not leave much on the table in regard to "safe" power adding.

Eh. Psi is just a number. I bet you could pick up a bunch of torque using all available CFM from that tiny turbo ALL THE TIME.

Swank Force One wrote: I'd bet the pressure you saw was absolute, not gauge.

This. When I messing around with a Skyline ECU with my laptop I got similar ridiculous numbers meanwhile my boost gauge was only reading 14 psi.

Swank Force One wrote: I'd bet the pressure you saw was absolute, not gauge.

Yep. Gauge pressure is trivia, absolute pressure is what counts.

NordicSaab wrote: at 20psi from the factory, that does not leave much on the table in regard to "safe" power adding.

Like those Evos that ran close to 20psi... nobody ever gets more than stock power.

Appleseed wrote: Meh. Rolls-Royce Merlins and Pratt & Whitney R-2800s regularly pulled 60 back in the 40s. More with war emergency. Impressive for a car, though.

60 inches of manifold pressure = 29-30psia.

Airplanes have even less concern for "boost" pressure... every vintage gauge I'd seen was labeled in absolute.

The main reason aircraft piston engines are turbocharged or supercharged is to keep the engine closer to it's sea-level operating parameters, anything over and above that is a bonus.

Knurled wrote:

Swank Force One wrote: I'd bet the pressure you saw was absolute, not gauge.

Yep. Gauge pressure is trivia, absolute pressure is what counts.

As stated earlier, these engines start to have issues at 28psi. So 8 Psi will yield another 35-50hp out of a 1L and put you on the edge of danger... no thanks.

Not in the early 40s it wasn't Need more power and more power and even more power. Power was mostly limited by detonation, thus the push for better and better fuels.

Todays turbos are not like yesteryears.. great example is the evo9 turbo, highly efficient and capable of ridiculous psi but still making great power. Swap out that baby baby turbo @20psi for something a bit more manly at 10psi and enjoy..well enjoy everything but low end torque cause thats gone now haha

Edit: just wanted to say how pleased I am with that dyno, I love where direct injection is taking us, 20psi and 87 octane is only 2hp down form 91? Awesome for a stock tune. And noting how tiny the turbo is yet torque doesnt taper much at all like I would expect

Where are people seeing that these engines are having problems at higher boost levels? I saw Puma speed say that they weren't "comfortable" making over 170 hp on stock intervals, not that they blew one up. I won't be poking mine with a stick for a long while so I will let that position be determined by others and then not go quite that aggressive.

Swank Force One wrote: I'd bet the pressure you saw was absolute, not gauge.

Hence MAP:

manifold absolute pressure sensor (MAP sensor)

Go to the weather channel and check the barometer. Subtract that value to obtain the real "Boost" over a NA engine.

Vigo wrote: Yeah, that's the dyno that suggests the cars are way faster then they actually are. I still haven't figured out the discrepancy but a car that weight with 130+whp would be in the mid 15s from the factory, yet in the other thread you linked to a performance site showing their modded car struggling to do 15.7 and there is a dearth of examples of any car reviewers commenting on the car being in any way quick, other than Richard Hammond comparing it to a VW Up! and a Dacia Sandero. So, I don't know exactly why, but that dyno sheet seems to be pretty irrelevant to real-world performance. Maybe when the cars get more popular a bunch of people will go out and actually show that the car really does come with 130 whp by taking it down a dragstrip.

In my personal experience, Mustang dynos readout high. My wrx was 20-25whp/wtq higher (e.g. about 8-10%) on a Mustang dyno a year after I did my initial baseline stage 1 runs on a Dynojet at a reputable shop. YMMV, but that goes along with what I've always heard from other people