By Ford’s line of small hatchbacks are rally icons. The Escort whale tails dominated on the dirt in the ‘90s and early ‘00s, and the Focus has long been Ken Block’s tire-slaying weapon of choice for gymkhana and rallycross alike. Ford brought their hot hatches back to US shores in 2012, starting with the Fiesta and Focus ST. These hopped-up econo-boxes ditched fuel economy for turbocharged Ecoboost engines sold like hotcakes, and convinced Ford that maybe– just maybe– it was worthwhile to bring US customers something they craved. For 2015, the Ford Focus RS was resurrected, and turned into an all-wheel-drive monster with a high-strung 2.3L Ecoboost four cylinder engine making an astounding 350 horsepower.
But what if it made more than that? Good news: now it can! Turbonetics has produced a precision turbo upgrade kit for the 2015-2018 Focus RS that can boost you to anywhere from 400-600 horsepower with supporting mods. Yes, you read that right: up to six hundred horsepower at the crank, then delivered through a 6-speed manual transmission to all four wheels of a car that you can fit a whole family and at least one dog into.
So what makes this new turbo so much better than the one that’s already in your Focus RS? Some really sciencey people have taken the stock setup and improved it far beyond the original spec. The new turbo uses a divided twin-scroll turbine housing to improve throttle response, a ported shroud compressor housing to keep low-rpm performance on par with the rest of the powerband, and high-efficiency turbine and compressor wheels combined with dual ceramic ball bearings. All of these things together give you higher reliability for the turbo itself, as well as much better efficiency for both air intake and exhaust flow.
This Precision Turbo kit includes a turbo (obviously), a high-flow inlet tube, and all of the hoses, clamps, gaskets, and so on that you’ll need to replace your older OEM stuff when plugging everything in. The good news is that actually connecting the turbo to the engine isn’t a difficult job; the bad news is that the turbo is pretty well tucked into the engine bay. This means that to get really good access to it for removal and replacement, the engine has to come out. For a professional, it’s about a half-day job, but for someone newer to DIY jobs it’ll probably take at least a full day. Thus, we recommend having this kit installed by a pro.
With a modest tune on stock intake and exhaust, you can pretty easily expect horsepower to sit in the low 400s. This will keep you a pretty high level of reliability as well. To get the very most out of your new turbo, we recommend new ignition coils and injectors, an upgraded intercooler, a full exhaust, and probably an e85 setup to boot. However, as long as you’ve got the engine out, you’re most of the way into the job of upgraded engine internals like pistons, rods, and crankshaft as well. Those upgrades to engine internals alongside your new turbo can get you easily into the 600s with relative reliability.
As you might have guessed at this point, this isn’t one of those kits that will retain your factory warranty. That being said, if you’re looking for this kind of power upgrade, you’re probably not too worried about that warranty to begin with. Even at a basic level, this kit doesn’t require any supporting mods other than a tune to get you north of 400 horsepower… but don’t let that stop you! A higher-flow intake and exhaust are only a few clicks away at the Motoroso Marketplace! Get out there and build yourself the rally monster of your dreams!
