Ford Focus RS MKIII

Intercooler: top of the range! They've really pulled out all the stops here. I'd already seen that on the Mustang the intercooler was very good, with very low intake temperatures, and here it's great again. I got a maximum intake temperature of 19°C (after chiptuning), which is quite simply the best standard intercooler I've ever had. The intercooler is therefore not a limiting factor in chiptuning, so don't change it, as that would be throwing money down the drain. (Note that it's quite the opposite for the RS MKII, you don't want to prepare it if it's not fitted with an aftermarket intercooler).

exhaust: The noise is really nice for an original 4-cylinder and the detonation in the exhaust in sport mode is very nice too. I'm looking forward to receiving Milltek's Focus RS MKIII with their new exhaust system to see what it sounds like.

From an EGT (exhaust temperature) point of view, once again it's well sized. We're staying at a maximum of 700°c, which is excellent.

Turbo: In my opinion, this is the limiting factor. We had the same problem with the Focus ST, lots of torque and little power. What's surprising is that nothing heats up. Here's why I want to be cautious about this information. Unfortunately, I don't have an up-to-date VCM to log the wastegate duty and find out if there's any margin left or not. But at the moment, in my opinion, it will be difficult to get more than 1.5 bar at high revs.

Ignition: We're dealing with an engine with a lower displacement and a higher compression ratio, and the ignition is obviously nothing compared to what we found on the old Focus RS. A good 8° of ignition is a maximum, and it doesn't want more than that. Above all, make sure you use 98 octane minimum fuel.

Richness: Like all direct injections, the vehicle runs very lean from the outset and then very rich as soon as a certain temperature threshold is passed. If we leave the original parameters, we can see that we reach 0.71 lambda at high revs. Given the temperature of the exhaust gases, there's no point in making a direct injection car run so rich. In my opinion, a good 0.82 is enough. In any case, it allows you to gain 5bhp, which is very useful when you consider the total gain in power.

Software version: As you know, the MKIIs have undergone quite a few engine updates, the main ones being the CJ and the latest the CL. The latter corrected a power problem, as well as inlet breakage. For this MKIII, at least the one concerned by the preparation, the soft version was already the CG. This is Ford's last and 5th soft version for this RS. In my opinion, there was a bit of development and patching before delivery...

Conclusion: When you're driving it, it's really the torque that makes you happy. I've had the opportunity to drive it and, despite the figures, it's very (too?) linear from the outset. When you look at the speedometer, you think you're getting somewhere, but you don't have what you had with the MKII (more beastly). It clearly reminds me of the behaviour of the A45 AMG. If there's one thing that changes with chiptuning, it's that. It's a pleasure to re-accelerate, you really feel the thrust and, while the 600Nm (well, almost) were difficult to digest on the MKII, here it's like a flower. Honestly, I've driven quite a few cars (it's a bit of a job for me too) but I really think that with the chiptuning, it's just what you need. You're going to say that I'm praying for my chapel, but you really have to try it to understand. 375hp isn't crazy, it's true, but it's more than enough and I'm not sure that an extra 10 or 15hp can really be felt.

A little extra, which took me a few hours, was to find the sport button so that I could drive the car in its original state in normal mode and tunde in the other three modes (sport / race / drift).

It's a small detail that is always appreciated by our customers, in case they don't remember how the car behaved before chiptuning.