Daily drivers with performance

[antarctica24]

So a bit new to the fiesta st....well maybe not I wanted to share my recent experiences with my upgrades to my daily driver as I find them very interesting and thought those of like mind would find them interesting as well.

Car has 158,000 as of today.
I opted for the MAPerformance gear aka fmic, charge pipes, catted down pipe, and their 3" exhaust. I did buy the Cobb programmer but have not used it as of yet.

I installed the recirculating bov and connected a 1" elbow radiator hose about 6 inches long. For those who don't get off on the who wooosh sound, I have none. but now have the benefit of a better than stock bov without all the noise.

I did not install the down pipe as of yet, but did install everything else. And again no programming still running on stock computer.

Mpg for two days is a steady 29.4.

I cannot get over how much ford restricted this car from the factory. It is not even the same car any more. Your riding in 6th gear cruising at 80 at just a hair under 3k. You decide to downshift to 4th and put your foot to the floor. OMG. In a split second your over 115. From a stand still with all of the torque management engaged the car launches so hard it is almost hard to keep it straight. I have not dynoed anything yet so I am not sure what kind of power it's making and there is no need for speculation that was not my point. Having some experience with high horsepower v8 cars I feel pretty good the car as it sits could come close to a trap speed in the 1/4 at 100. I could be dreaming or imagining selmthing but I don't the so. I will have to put that to the test. Here's the other weird thing. Before the car pulled to about 3500 now it pulls hard to over 6k.

This is also not trying to say I discovered anything. I am sharing my thoughts for those who have not made the leap and want some feed back from someone who is picky and really daily drives his car.

This post is really for those who really daily drive their cars....not 11 miles one way to work and wanted to keep the daily drivability of the vehicle. This is something you should try before messing with the computer. I feel very confident there is more than 30hp/and 30ft tq there with just bolting everything up. A trip to a dyno will soon reveal. I will post whether I'm off or not on my numbers.

As a quick note I did not change the air intake system. All of that is still stock.

I did purchase th big mouth from Velossa but have not received it. There is a bigger turbo down the road for me to finish a fantasy of mine I just have not decided on who's yet.

Please share your daily driver upgrades here and stories.

 

[Hijinx]

I'll be short here:

In my opinion a daily driver is your only means of transportation whether you drive it 5 miles or 100 miles a day. Anyway, you and I have spoken about my car a little bit. But for the sake of others, here goes.

I daily a DHM GTX450r w/ aux fuel on E30 at approximately 350whp (vDyno). WTQ is unknown because I lose grip at about 380wtq. I could maybe try a 4th gear log and not slip.

Anyway, the driving experience is not what a lot of people think when they hear big turbo on a small engine. I've compared datalogs and vDynos between my stock turbo (199whp on 93 real dyno, 202whp vDyno), my Cyborg (235whp 93 vDyno) and my logs on the GTX2867r including 93 with and without Aux Fuel and on E30 w/aux. The fact is that on DHMs kit and tuning, I'm only tenths behind in acceleration to a given low speed (read: city driving).

There is only slightly more maintenance. I check my plugs about once a month and change them every other oil change or so.

Also, boost is NOT an on/off situation. I can hold the peddle at 19psi, 22psi, 27psi... ~14-17psi is a little harder since that's where the Wastegate begins to open (16psi Spring). But it's pretty controllable.

I'll be honest... 1st and 2nd are pretty much useless at WOT. But I don't need to go WOT to put down damn good power in those gears.

I have A/C, transitions are smooth, no jerkiness at parking lot speeds, AND I get 31mpg hwy/28 mpg mixed on E30!!

I have my cake, icing AND I'm eating it too! And that's all thanks to Russ aka [MENTION=1098]DHM[/MENTION].


Scent from Glade Air Freshener

 

[jeff]

So a bit new to the fiesta st....well maybe not I wanted to share my recent experiences with my upgrades to my daily driver as I find them very interesting and thought those of like mind would find them interesting as well.

Please share your daily driver upgrades here and stories.

Great thread and thoughts. I like your approach here and in other threads and it is exciting to see that the car made it to such mileage without major issues. It kinda stinks that you didn't experience any of these mods until now. But there's no time like the present.

It is interesting that you're exercising such restraint by not loading any of the Cobb tunes. But it is neat to see that you are experiencing gains without a tune and plan to dyno the car.

Where do you dyno in Charlotte? I come there for work some, I might have to stop in and do a pull, there aren't many options where I live that I trust.

Here is my daily driver experience. History: last truly fast car was a Subaru with big turbo upgrade, I wrenched that thing for years in my garage and created a beast....all the bolt ons, and a custom tune. The car was insane, with AWD all the power was useable, I could take a new 5.0 or R/T by 7 or 8 car lengths on an on-ramp. Yeah, I'm bragging. Sold the car after four years because I got bored of it and decided to build a house.

A few years went by and it was time for another fun car. I'd wanted a FiST for a few years and after driving a few other things I bought mine, slightly used. Decided to stop at what we call "stage 2" mods for a few reasons.

Daily driveability is very important to me. I don't need to be super fast, got that out of my system. With my power mods + suspension mods + custom tune I've got a great setup right now. There is plenty of power, I'd estimate this car is about 5.5 seconds to 60. It feels faster than that but I'm realistic. The great thing is that 95% of the power is useable. That's what is important to me. After first getting the Cobb unit I was shredding tires. Parked the car and got out and smelled it, and grew tired of that. I found myself not flooring it or enjoying the car as much for this reason. But things got better. The FMIC and other mods opened it up more, but thanks to bracing I have traction. Custom tune brought heaps of more torque and as I said almost all of it is useable. All of this happened in my first four months of ownership....I'm heading into month five now.

So as a daily driver I love this car....I can come out of a turn, floor it, and be at 60 mph in a few seconds. That's the thing to me - 90% of the driving I do is under or around 60 mph. It takes one gear shift to be about there. 1st and 2nd get me to 60, the other gears have great power and I shift earlier if I want better mpgs. From 60 to 100 it's quick enough, but I rarely drive at those speeds.

So, I'm getting great fuel economy, having great fun, loving this car where it is at. It took some experimentation to get there but I love it, and it truly is more fun that the Scooby was. I'd recommend some bracing and a custom tune for you eventually, it seems daily driveability is high on your priority list and I think those mods will help you get all your power to the ground and maintain that sense of connectedness to the road which is imho what is so great about the FiST.

Another thought, I'm averaging 31 mpg now with mixed driving on my normal weekly route. I was around 30 but believe it or not the Big Mouth seems to have increased mpg. I track mpg pretty meticulously and was pleasantly surprised. Dan (Velossatech) said this happens on Focus STs with the Big Mouth so maybe I should not be surprised. I've only run a few tanks of gas since install so I don't have a whole lot of data but so far this seems to be the case.

Keep us updated on your progress, if you start a build thread I'll be excited to follow. Maybe we can grab lunch sometime, as I said I'm in your area some, would love to see the car.

 

[antarctica24]

Hey hijinx,

Make no mistake I completly respect what you have done. Your also 6k-8k deep without your stage 3 bolt on stuff. Am I wrong?

Not everyone here who wants to have fun with their little car can play there or wants to. Your a smart guy let me put it to you a different way. Listen to what you said you can't run it on a dyno because the tire keep breaking lose right?

I am no bmw fan by any means but the the term driving machine is a unique concept. BMW's philosophy is give the car just enough horsepower to push the car right to the limit of being out of control without going there. Gm ford and dodge do just the opposite. They over power everything. So then it becomes a question of useable power. If I want to meander the car becuase I have 400hp on a front wheel drive car and can't get any traction what fun is it? You could make 500ho on this engine. Gm made 2000 on their quad four.

When you buy this car and drive it every gear is useable. No matter what speed within that gears range. As I said in my post, doing 80 dropping to fourth and pedal to the floor. I don't blow the tires off and the car pulls extremely hard all the way to redline. That is something you can't do at this point and in my humble opinion you have taken away the fun the car was to drive. Please do not mistake my comments here, I am with you on "more power" because I come from "there is no replacement for displacement" world. Whether you made 400 on a 2800lb car or my 800 on my 3300 lbs car still stupid hp. Though my 800 was much more manageable than your 400, and not sure why that was yet.

Useable means your in first gear, your out your foot down and take off and can power through the gears with traction provided the wheel slip is not from bald tires .

I wasn't trying to diminish your accomplishments nor anyone's who has opted for balls to the wall power. Again I'm right there with you I get it. I was appealing to those who don't want to spend upwards of 7-9k on bolt ons and turbos to have fun in their car and want to push the car to the edge and it be able to still be fun in all 6 gears. You are part of a very small list in the grand scheme of things. Most people who bought this car bought it because of the fun factor vs the price.

I am absolutely going to replace my turbo with something a little bigger but really feel like and you and I have had this conversation that somewhere between 250 and 300 is the real upper limit of drivability for real daily use on this car considering chassis, suspension, braking capabilities. Probably like yourself I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars playing starting with my northstar in my Fiero which was way too much power for that body to the 1000 hp 2006 Gto. I am an expert in what will work with what. Now that I have stepped down to the 4 cylinder world I have a car that I have become intimate with regarding what the chassis will and will not do considering the miles I have driven on it. This chassis does flex. You can build a go kart and put a Camry motor on the back. It doesn't mean you should. No one doing these big hp numbers has any real time on them. Ford has over a million miles on their test mules. You have what 10k, 15k and you go to the drag strip or get on it a couple of short legs through your 5 miles to work? Clearly not the same thing I'm talking about. Don't be pissed off that is what you wanted to do. There are a lot of others that don't and that is why I started the thread. Sooner or later what's going to happen is your going to get traction when you clearly don't want it and your going to snap an axel or worse. Be happy with what you have accomplished I am happy for what you and others have done. I'm just going a little different route this time. If I wanted to make 500hp in this car I could do it without batting an eye just to prove a point. An no it's not just all talk.

 

[antarctica24]

Hijinx one more thing:

Just because you get in your car start it up and are able to drive 5 miles to work everyday does not qualify as a daily driver if you can't drive the car as it was meant from the factory. You have so much power I'm betting you can't put the pedal to the floor in at least the first 3 gears without blowing the tires off and at speed if you down shift, same problem. Sure you can feather the pedal and do soft launches and quarter and half pedal moves but that really defeats the purpose of everything you did. What were you thinking originally? A street racer, road course car, drag car, daily commuter all in one?

Daily driver, useable power, all important aspects of having a very fun car. You my friend have surpassed that already and are in another world of high hp fwd cars. I would not want to race you. But......I would be very curious based on what my cat is doing today On a road course which car would be faster? Being able to maintain traction, control recovery out of the short hairpins.

 

[antarctica24]

Useable power

Great thread and thoughts. I like your approach here and in other threads and it is exciting to see that the car made it to such mileage without major issues. It kinda stinks that you didn't experience any of these mods until now. But there's no time like the present.


Keep us updated on your progress, if you start a build thread I'll be excited to follow. Maybe we can grab lunch sometime, as I said I'm in your area some, would love to see the car.

Jeff

Im actually in Raleigh at this point. My number is 919-348-7576 and its Bryan

I have modded some other stuff.
I have the 6 point brace and shock tower brace from piercemotorsports.
I did the Wilwood 6 piston brakes from 2j
And I did the bc coilovers.

I wanted to stiffen up the car and set myself up so I could stop the car before I did anything else. After driving on that for a while I decided to go ahead with the next level upgrade. I just cannot believe how had this thing pulls after the stage 4 stuff on the stock tune. If I upgraded the same on my v8 you wouldn't be able to even feel it.

I drove the scooby prior to buying the fist and it is such a great car I just didn't want to drop 40k on a car that I knew I was going to drive it to death due to my job. When my focus was destroyed by the truck driver I actually opted for the fost. It was the day before thanksgiving and they were getting it from another dealer. When I came in 4 days later to get it they told me it was sold out from under me and they couldn't find me another one in the Coker I wanted. They called me back to tell me they had a red one. I said that is not a fost its a fiesta. I told him to pull it off the floor and I would come drive it and here we are. It is just such a great car.

I'll also share the dual clutch auto in the focus I had was replaced 4 times in the 115,000 I put on that car, so I was definitely not getting another ford automatic.

Call me if you come to Raleigh and we'll have lunch and share war stories.

 

[VAFiST]

Hijinx one more thing:

Just because you get in your car start it up and are able to drive 5 miles to work everyday does not qualify as a daily driver if you can't drive the car as it was meant from the factory. You have so much power I'm betting you can't put the pedal to the floor in at least the first 3 gears without blowing the tires off and at speed if you down shift, same problem. Sure you can feather the pedal and do soft launches and quarter and half pedal moves but that really defeats the purpose of everything you did. What were you thinking originally? A street racer, road course car, drag car, daily commuter all in one?

Daily driver, useable power, all important aspects of having a very fun car. You my friend have surpassed that already and are in another world of high hp fwd cars. I would not want to race you. But......I would be very curious based on what my cat is doing today On a road course which car would be faster? Being able to maintain traction, control recovery out of the short hairpins.

"Daily Driver - A car used as your main means of transportation" The continued assertion otherwise seems really pedantic. You can modify any car and then it's "not capable of being driven as it was meant from the factory", who cares what the bean counters decided to limit it to?
I don't really see the argument of how any tire spin means it's not worth it since that's even easier to accomplish in any v8 car with a worse power to weight ratio. Although, with a proper differential this wouldn't matter. I can spin the tires in my wife's hybrid "using the gears as designed", that doesn't mean it's not her daily driver now does it?

 

[Hijinx]

Hijinx one more thing:

Just because you get in your car start it up and are able to drive 5 miles to work everyday does not qualify as a daily driver if you can't drive the car as it was meant from the factory. You have so much power I'm betting you can't put the pedal to the floor in at least the first 3 gears without blowing the tires off and at speed if you down shift, same problem. Sure you can feather the pedal and do soft launches and quarter and half pedal moves but that really defeats the purpose of everything you did. What were you thinking originally? A street racer, road course car, drag car, daily commuter all in one?

Daily driver, useable power, all important aspects of having a very fun car. You my friend have surpassed that already and are in another world of high hp fwd cars. I would not want to race you. But......I would be very curious based on what my cat is doing today On a road course which car would be faster? Being able to maintain traction, control recovery out of the short hairpins.

We've talked about this as well. And like I've said, yes 1st and 2nd are useless at WOT. Russ can do some BBG (boost by gear) to limit the spinning like its limited from the factory (in 1st), but there are other plans in the works.

Yes, there's about 6-7k of power mods on the car. If we include all the mods I've gone through, and the engine build coming, I'm at roughly 20k in, maybe more. I love it though.

Down shifting on the highway, 3rd is fine. I lose grip for a hair of a second. It's part power, part tire that's the true problem. I even drive this car when it's snowing. Driving smart presented no problems when there was 6" of un-plowed snow on the highway.

But I'm picking up on what you're putting as far as your opinion on a daily, and we'll have to agree to disagree again. It's always a pleasure to converse with you

 

[dyn085]

You're load-limited on the stock tune and not seeing hardly any gains, it's simply placebo. I've loaded the stock tune on my stage 3 and evaluated the datalogs and it is just a whole bunch of throttle closure. Any power you think you're getting is just preservation of OEM timing due to better charge temps. You can probably qualify that as a gain, but in reality it's just preventing loss.

You should pull your IM and take pics of your valves, I would be curious to see what they look like at that mileage.

 

[antarctica24]

We've talked about this as well. And like I've said, yes 1st and 2nd are useless at WOT. Russ can do some BBG (boost by gear) to limit the spinning like its limited from the factory (in 1st), but there are other plans in the works.

Yes, there's about 6-7k of power mods on the car. If we include all the mods I've gone through, and the engine build coming, I'm at roughly 20k in, maybe more. I love it though.

Down shifting on the highway, 3rd is fine. I lose grip for a hair of a second. It's part power, part tire that's the true problem. I even drive this car when it's snowing. Driving smart presented no problems when there was 6" of un-plowed snow on the highway.

But I'm picking up on what you're putting as far as your opinion on a daily, and we'll have to agree to disagree again. It's always a pleasure to converse with you

I am so giving you a hard time, I love you man.

 

[antarctica24]

You're load-limited on the stock tune and not seeing hardly any gains, it's simply placebo. I've loaded the stock tune on my stage 3 and evaluated the datalogs and it is just a whole bunch of throttle closure. Any power you think you're getting is just preservation of OEM timing due to better charge temps. You can probably qualify that as a gain, but in reality it's just preventing loss.

You should pull your IM and take pics of your valves, I would be curious to see what they look like at that mileage.

Thank you, that is what I was suspecting. It is very deceiving. The valve question, that is another really good suggestion. I am pretty sure, I am going to do some head work, either from puma speed, or MAP. They are getting ready to do a set of heads. I may just purchase one and send it to them to get them started. What was your virtual dyno numbers with the stage 3 stock tune? Also what made you do that?

 

[dyn085]

Thank you, that is what I was suspecting. It is very deceiving. The valve question, that is another really good suggestion. I am pretty sure, I am going to do some head work, either from puma speed, or MAP. They are getting ready to do a set of heads. I may just purchase one and send it to them to get them started. What was your virtual dyno numbers with the stage 3 stock tune? Also what made you do that?

You don't have to take your whole head off to see the backside of the valves, just disconnect your intake manifold and pull it back. If re you were planning on removing the head anyways though, you could get much better pictures of them with better access to lighting.

I do my own tuning and sometimes get bored and just start fresh from the stock tune to try different approaches. V-Dyno isn't working on my laptop for some reason but I'll post a datalog tonight when I get home for you to look at and see. It's pretty funny to look at but should give some people a much better understanding of why tuning is the most important aspect for anyone wanting power-more important than any parts that are available.

 

[Hijinx]

Five wheels and tires, a full size floor jack, OEM suspension tucked away and other miscellaneous stuff.

This car is a daily driver


Scent from Glade Air Freshener

 

[dyn085]

Lol, here's a Datazap of Stage 0 with upgraded parts. I didn't get a ton of 'learning' miles on it, but it should be good enough for government work. Bare-bones pid's logged, but you can compare Accel Pedal % to ETC actual to see how much of the run that the throttle blade was fully open (hint-only about 100 rpm of the 2,510 rpm covered), load desired to load actual to see how the tune limited power, LTFT and STFT to see how far out of whack my VE is, etc. It was a short pull due to the road I did it on, but it should make the point clear enough.

http://datazap.me/u/dyn085/stock-tune-stage-3-minus-intake-parts?log=0&data=1-8-9&trim=1&tmin=33.23&tmax=100.00

Pertinent info-
92 Octane
Cobb FMIC
Cobb Charge Pipes
Cobb DP
Cobb CBE

 

[antarctica24]

Carbon build up

You don't have to take your whole head off to see the backside of the valves, just disconnect your intake manifold and pull it back. If re you were planning on removing the head anyways though, you could get much better pictures of them with better access to lighting.

I do my own tuning and sometimes get bored and just start fresh from the stock tune to try different approaches. V-Dyno isn't working on my laptop for some reason but I'll post a datalog tonight when I get home for you to look at and see. It's pretty funny to look at but should give some people a much better understanding of why tuning is the most important aspect for anyone wanting power-more important than any parts that are available.

I will check it out and post some pictures but I also saw this and thought was interesting

http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/...a-problem-with-direct-injection-engines-.html

 

[antarctica24]

Five wheels and tires, a full size floor jack, OEM suspension tucked away and other miscellaneous stuff.

This car is a daily driver


Scent from Glade Air Freshener

What you packing in there? Or the better question what do you need to jimmy open with those pry bars and I spy a subwoofer

 

[Hijinx]

What you packing in there? Or the better question what do you need to jimmy open with those pry bars and I spy a subwoofer

I do the vast majority of my work, so I have various tools. And yeah, I have an Infinity Basslink. It's not the most powerful, but it fills in where it's needed with a nice punch.

 

[dyn085]

I will check it out and post some pictures but I also saw this and thought was interesting

http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/...a-problem-with-direct-injection-engines-.html

That's why I'm curious to see what your valves look like. A lot of the community is concerned with DI causing buildup and are scared of it, but we haven't even fully assessed the level of concern that should/shouldn't apply due to the young age of the platform. The picture of the Audi/VW valves in the article is an example of 'bad', and I've yet to see anything even remotely close to that on any of the ST's.

Buildup is going to happen, we can't get past that, and the only true 'fix' would be some form of cleaner/fuel being introduced upstream of the valves (aux fuel, wmi, etc). Beyond that, I'm simply curious as to how long we can reasonably expect to go between manual cleanings. Most of the higher-mileage cars aren't subjected to the same sort of abuse that the lower mileage cars are and tend to run significantly better. Either way, we're definitely not in the worst category of platforms that need a cleaning every 30k...

 

[rexdriver85]

I would also love to see his valves and what his buildup looks like.

He's done a ridiculous amount of miles in such a short time, so I wonder if that makes a big difference or not? Mostly highway driving vs. city I would assume as well.

It would be nice to have some concrete data for the community. Maybe this will eventually be a PM type ordeal at say, every 60k(or any other mileage), so we can all plan for it.

 

[antarctica24]

That's why I'm curious to see what your valves look like. A lot of the community is concerned with DI causing buildup and are scared of it, but we haven't even fully assessed the level of concern that should/shouldn't apply due to the young age of the platform. The picture of the Audi/VW valves in the article is an example of 'bad', and I've yet to see anything even remotely close to that on any of the ST's.

Buildup is going to happen, we can't get past that, and the only true 'fix' would be some form of cleaner/fuel being introduced upstream of the valves (aux fuel, wmi, etc). Beyond that, I'm simply curious as to how long we can reasonably expect to go between manual cleanings. Most of the higher-mileage cars aren't subjected to the same sort of abuse that the lower mileage cars are and tend to run significantly better. Either way, we're definitely not in the worst category of platforms that need a cleaning every 30k...

While I understand this conversation is hypothetical right now, I would have to guess the valves would not show really any signs of carbon build up even at my high mileage.

I say that because of the design. We're using 25% less fuel than efi and mpfi. We are shooting atomized gas droplets directly into the combustion chamber. We are forcing air all the time into the head. Any contact the top of the valve has with the Fuel is minimal. We are running stupid high compression and stupid high dynamic compression for a blown motor. I'm not even sure how much carbon I would expect to see on the bottom of the valve. With the cylinder pressure were creating I have believe it also would be minimal. We are burning over 85% of the fuel the motor gets the first time in the chamber then we have the recirculating system which turns around and burns some more. Most efi and mpfi are only 65-75 percent efficient.
I'm also changing my oil every 2000 miles or every two weeks or so. I was running 87 octane from the day I bought the car up until I upgraded my stuff 1 week ago then I opted for the 93.

The problem you get shooting gas into the manifold is the fuel pressure is much lower 60lbs, bigger droplets and all of the fuel has to pass over the relatively cold intake valve (in the grand scheme of things). Once the carbon starts to build up on the top of the valve it absorbs gas and over long periods and large build ups you start to see gas mileage drop off. We are Not having that problem. I get 29.5 and 30.2 no matter how I drive the car and I refuse to believe the computer is correcting for dirty valves over time.

Remember I have 158,000 still same gas mileage. I also don't think that is a product of the engine design. I think that is a product of a 1.6 liter motor using direct injection which is a more efficient design.

Just my two cents until I check it out.