TDCI Focus

[Binny]

Originally Posted by Big Damo

1st/2nd/3rd are all torque limited, which is why the car feels faster in 4th gear than the first 3

I've seen elsewhere that the ECU is programmed to limit torque to 180nm in 1st and 240nm in 2nd/3rd.

Have you guys noticed if you're giving it some, you won't get torque steer in those first 3 gears, but you might get some in 4th if you're going for it?

I'll see if they can tune it out, so I can get everything from the first 3 gears.

I had a 2008 so maybe it was different but I found roll on in 3rd was awesome. It was just 1st and 2nd that felt neutered.

[kevino]

agree my 2008 LT goes hard in 3rd and will torque steer.

[Franco Cozzo]

Mines an LV, can't get it to torque steer in 3rd but it'll do it in 4th if you're still giving it some.

Its going to be interesting none the less if we can remove the torque limiter, its a pain in the *** at the best of times.

[marg99]

taking out the torque limiter will get the traction control really working hard.

[Franco Cozzo]

Turbo just came in from the UK, gonna order up some water/methanol premix and then book her in for fitting of turbo, meth kit and dyno tune.

[DZFord]

Awesome stuff Damo, let us know how you go

[Franco Cozzo]

Meth premix came in yesterday, car is booked in Tuesday to have turbo fitted, meth kit installed and tuned on the dyno, getting them to remove the torque limiter too.

I'll post up some dyno sheets when its all done.

Have any other AFF members here tuned their diesel Focus/Mondeo? I think one had a chip tune a while back.

[Franco Cozzo]

It went into the shop yesterday to have everything done, they said they can remove the torque limiter on 1-2nd but they would rather just raise it or I'll start breaking stuff apparently.

They will have it for a week.

[DZFord]

Good idea. Otherwise next stage is a new gearbox haha

[Franco Cozzo]

They've installed the water/methanol injection kit yesterday, today they're doing a base line run on the dyno, monday/tuesday turbo fitment and tune.

[kevino]

More news damo?

0-00km in 6 seconds?

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by kevino

More news damo?

0-00km in 6 seconds?

Still in the shop, waiting on the tune I believe

[Ratmick]

Originally Posted by Big Damo

Still in the shop, waiting on the tune I believe

So 0-00km pretty accurate then?

Mick

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Ratmick

So 0-00km/h pretty accurate then?

Mick

Haha yeah, 0-00km/h in ∞ seconds

[Franco Cozzo]

They've done a base line run with just my mods:

- Airtec Gen 3 FMIC
- 3" turbo back exhaust
- Stainless IC piping

It made just under 100KW at the front wheels with factory tune + mods, they've done one tune but they're not too happy with it, as its billowing out black smoke so they're cleaning it up at the moment, they say they haven't had to start injecting water/methanol mix yet as there has been no drop in rail pressure but the kit is in there and fully functional.

From what they were telling me 130KW on fuel only shouldn't be an issue, its just cleaning up the smoke its doing before it comes on boost which is our issue.

[Franco Cozzo]

Heard from the tuning joint with my Focus today, they appologised for having the car for so long as it was taking much longer than they expected, they're trying to get it 100% right as this is a bit more custom than their usual tuning jobs.

Its been on the dyno all day with multiple tunes, they got it smoking less, they said mainly if you give it heaps in 2nd it'll blow out some black smoke for a few seconds, then onto 3rd gear it'll do it for a split second then clean up.

Also the injector supplied with the water/methanol kit is too big and its blowing out combustion so I need to source a smaller nozzle so they can start injecting some water/methanol mix in there.

They're going to try dial down injection pressure on the alcohol pump to 150psi from the 250psi it was preset to from factory so maybe I might not have to go through the hassle of finding another nozzle.

It picked up another 23KW at the wheels with the tune on fuel only, so its doing 123KW at the front tyres at the moment.

[kevino]

All common rail diesels blow black smoke when the right foot pedal is mashed.
Did you catch up on the July release next year of a refreshed focus.
Will have 6 speed manual as option matched up road 1.5 literally ecoboost engine 240 nm of torque at low revs and 134 kw.

Will do the same job performance wise as a LT/lv focus diesel with less pollution out of the exhaust pipe sounds like the car to replace my lt focus tdci

[kevino]

The wonders of predictive text.

road should read to.

Your project sounds very interesting Damo, what will you do to reduce stress on driveline and clutch/transmission?

[Binny]

FWIW my stock 2008 did that. I Used to cover my brother in a black cloud on purpose when he was following me by mashing the throttle.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by kevino

The wonders of predictive text.

road should read to.

Your project sounds very interesting Damo, what will you do to reduce stress on driveline and clutch/transmission?

Depending on how much extra torque we can get out of it with water/methanol mix when its running correctly I might need to go one step worse and go single mass flywheel conversion if the clutch starts slipping but maybe match it to a sprung clutch as to take up some driveline vibration.

At the moment my plan is to not abuse the crap out of the car from a standing start

I'm still a big diesel fan, as they're still king when it comes to torque, I probably wouldn't step up to an LW though as they've got the same diesel engine and it only comes in auto :(

Though I like the idea of the Focus RS to be honest, but maybe in the future when I'm back in full time work

Originally Posted by Binny

FWIW my stock 2008 did that. I Used to cover my brother in a black cloud on purpose when he was following me by mashing the throttle.

With my LV it pretty much wouldn't blow out black smoke, it might soot a little bit, but you wouldn't be able to see it in the rear view mirror, unless it was night and someone was behind you, you could see a slight haze in the rear view in their lights.

I'm a bit left of field with my project so its taking a bit of time to sort it all out correctly.

[Franco Cozzo]

They've done me a safer tune while I have the car back, we're down to 117KW at the front wheels (you can see a 109KW run from another tune) from the 123KW they had the other day, I've got slightly less boost on this one.

The car has spent a total of around 3 days (as in full work days) on the dyno being run and tuned, this is the 23rd remap file.

The car will be going back in Jan sometime when my smaller water/methanol nozzles are here, as the one supplied with the kit is too big and its injecting too much water/methanol causing issues, so its been disconnected.

Pre-tune the car made just under 100KW at the front wheels, so we're up about 20KW at the wheels even with the current tune.

Its pretty damn torquey but there is a little bit of lag there with the bigger turbo, but it pulls past 3000 RPM much faster now and holy crap, lots of torque, so far I've only driven it about 110km on the highway, I want to take it on the Calder Freeway soon with some of those big hills.

It smokes up a little bit if you punch it in 6th gear while just cruising on the highway until it the turbo spools up.

We're a bit short of the 130KW at the wheels on fuel only, but they need more time with the car, the ECU is locked up like Fort Knox and its been very difficult to be able to change anything.

[DZFord]

Great work Damo. Have you got a torque figure yet?

[kevino]

All quiet on news on the beast?

[Franco Cozzo]

No torque figure yet as the dyno wasn't set up for it, hopefully on the final tune I'll get one.

I've got the car back temporarily to use over the Christmas holidays on an interim tune.

But if you work it right it pushes you into the seat, but you've gotta keep it on the ball, it was averaging 5.1L/100km average speed 70km/h over about 200km highway driving, so we're down from 5.5L/100km.

Though if you start giving it heaps, the fuel usage figure rises pretty damn quick lol.

The smaller water/methanol nozzles have been shipped from the UK so I'm just waiting on them to arrive before the car goes back to have the tune touched up for the water/methanol and hopefully then we can see some power/torque gains and an actual torque figure from the dyno.

The interim tune is on the safer side for now, they can get more out of it but then it starts billowing out black smoke just before the turbo spools up if you give it to it, and they wanted to have it a bit cleaner until they can work it out a bit more.

When I picked up the car one of the tuners said he was really interested in getting the car back when the new nozzles come in, as its been quite difficult to tune and has fought them every step of the way, he says he is confident he can get more out of it, it just needs more time on the dyno and more ECU hacking, as its locked down tight and has multiple maps they can't access yet.

Ford really doesn't want people playing with their diesel cars it seems

Many of these have been tuned in Europe/UK so I'm putting some feelers out there to see if anyone over there is willing to share some information with us to make our life a bit easier, if they know the secret to the ECU and are willing to share information with us then the battle has been won.

At least with the water/methanol injection, if we can get the right size nozzle happening the methanol helps diesel burn more efficiently, so we might be able to use it to clean it up a little and have more fuel.

[Franco Cozzo]

My water methanol nozzles have arrived today, excellent.

Latest info about how the car goes, no more torque steer in 4th gear which is interesting but the car really hauls *** when you get into it compared to what it was like before, and it noticably squats on its back wheels when she's spooled up in 3rd/4th gear and thats a good effort given its got 30mm lower progressive springs and Bilstein B8 shocks all around, before it wouldn't really lean back at all under throttle with my handling mods.

It still holds speed quite well using cruise control in 6th gear at 100km/h, so it doesn't slow down on hills but if you want to overtake quickly you gotta drop it back to 4th to get it on the ball right away, or hang back a bit while spooling the turbo in 6th and then it still hauls ***.

Its still fairly average in 1st/2nd gear because the torque limiter is still there, but raised by about 20%, so you don't get much of what it can give compared to 3rd/4th and onwards.

I might take it up Mt Macedon tomorrow and give it a crack up some steep hills.

I'm organising a time for my car to get back to the tuners to have the new water/methanol nozzles tuned in and kit reactivated, so will post back results on when its done.

[Binny]

Nice one. I loved my TDCi Focus. Its nice to see someone doing one up.
Considering the fact that it takes a while to spool up in 6th, you are going to struggle to get it to spool in 1st and 2nd anyway, regardless of the torque limiter.
That was my biggest complaint with mine. It was hard to get off the line quick because there just wasn't enough load on the turbo in 1st to spool it up. I always short shifted to 2nd and 3rd and then it hauled @r$e.

[Franco Cozzo]

The main reason I'm interested is modern diesel cars have a lot of performance potential, remember there is more energy in diesel than there is in petrol, with modern injection systems assuming there is room to play you can get good gains for not much work, and they're damn nice to drive as a daily, you get lots of torque right where you want it in a daily driver, right in the bottom/mid range.

Its not so common here in Australia but in the USA its getting big (check out Diesel Power Magazine on the shelf of the news agent) and in Europe its a big field for the smaller cars like ours.

VW and BMW Diesels seem to be the leaders in aftermarket diesel performance for European stuff though.

I'm hoping some people here with Diesel Territory's go for some mods and see what they can get out of their cars, they've got a nice and big engine to play with.

[Ratmick]

...wrong thread, oops

I wouldn't mind a TDCI Territory, I'm thinking it would be a bit big for me now unless we get a boat, or a caravan.

[Franco Cozzo]

Final tune has been finished, originally we had 89KW at the front wheels (I thought it was 98KW but there you go), then to 117KW with the tune and finally we now have 123KW at the fronts:



117KW to 123KW is gain from water/methanol injection kit.

Unfortunately the ECU is now the limiting factor, if they try get more fuel, they can't do it at a specific point it gives them more fuel across the whole range, so from idle to limiter, they tried increasing rail pressure but then it pulls back injectors. They did get one tune with 130KW/wheels but it was very smokey and for some reason had nothing under 4000 RPM.

I can't go more on the water/methanol sizing as it goes to stall the engine with the next size up nozzle.

So yes as I concluded a few years ago the ECU is unfortunately the limiting factor with our cars, if we could control fuel better there is more in it.

[Russ]

Good work Damo, I tried to have my LV Zetec tuned via the ECU and even the tuner nearly had a fit when it took several minutes to get the car to start again just from trying to take a read from the damn thing :( Apparently the only way to really get into them is to pull them out and get them on a work bench, I wasn't prepared to mess with it and neither was the tuner I've just had my H6 Outback tuned and it has really got some sting now, the auto gear changes are like a DSG style now and it holds the gears much longer as well. It's amazing how much a simple bit of ECU tuning can transform a car Anyway back on topic, gotta love the diesel torque, the Golf GTD I had prior to the Focus was an absolute beast, but unfortunately it was just putting out too much to the front wheels and traction was an issue in wet or dry conditions if you really hammered it :( Shocked quite a few V8's and 6's from the lights though