By It’s a nice economy hatchback, dear. We can put the kids in it and go to the movies, and it’s got all-wheel-drive so we’ll be safe driving up to Tahoe this fall.
What’s “boost” and “vacuum”? Oh, don’t worry about it, that’s just one of the extra gauges they add, like oil temperature. The speedometer? Oh, that only goes up to 180 miles an hour because they had the numbers already printed from the Mustang.
That spoiler? It’s just for fuel efficiency, it helps you get better mpg.
Ooh, and look at this beautiful nitrous blue color it comes in!
Have you thrown them off the scent yet? Awesome. You know you’ve got a badass, turbocharged hot hatch hiding in the garage, and we know how to make the most of that 2.3L Ecoboost and the car built around it. Here are some must-have mods for your newly-acquired Ford Focus RS!
Exhaust
This mod is a dead giveaway that you’re not driving just any econobox hatchback. You’re driving a high performance machine, built to stack up against World Rally Championships and autocross alike. If you want to hear all that turbo whistle amp up the power produced by your Ecoboost engine, the obvious first step is a free-flowing exhaust.
The Focus RS came from the factory sounding pretty tame. Fortunately, there are a ton of aftermarket exhaust options. At the dealer, you’ll almost certainly be offered the option of the Ford Racing cat-back. This cat-back is a thinly-disguised version of the Borla Sport exhaust for the Focus RS, but can be installed by the dealership and keeps your warranty and oil change incentives 100% intact. If you want to go louder, you can do that with just a cat back like Injen’s system that’s basically a set of straight pipes with a resonator and burnt titanium exhaust tips. Injen claims it’ll make you an extra 14 horsepower and 16 lb-ft of torque.
If you want to eke a bit more power out of your exhaust system and are planning a tune, a downpipe should be on your list. A downpipe like this catless one from MBRP will help your turbo spool faster and further increase exhaust flow, moving your torque curve up significantly. You’ll also get a ton more turbo whistle from the exhaust, just so everyone knows you’re not driving a Cmax with a body kit.
Intake
The Focus RS’s stock intake flows pretty well as-is for its normal boost load. However, if you’re going to be tuning the car or making other supporting mods, an upgrade at the front is worth your while. If you’re on a budget, a cold air intake is a good start: these can help your turbo breathe a little better, and get you an extra 10-15 horsepower under full boost. Some good ones to check out are aFe’s Takeda Stage 2 PRO and Mishimoto’s aluminum intake, both of which will net you over 10 wheel horsepower.
If you want to go further with your intake system, an upgraded intercooler can help cool the air sucked through your turbo, keeping things safe from early detonation and increasing the amount of boost you can push through the stock system. Mishimoto makes an intercooler that offers a 36% increase in internal volume, and over 45% less pressure drop on both sides of the intercooler. In layman’s terms, this means your car can suck way more air in at any RPM, and make more power. The biggest benefit from an intercooler is consistency: instead of dealing with heatsoak and higher intake air temperatures the harder you push on the engine, the larger intercooler can keep air cool longer, meaning you’ll get the same power in 4th gear at 120 miles per hour as you do in 1st gear at 20.
Tuning
Once your Focus RS is breathing a little easier, it may not be optimized by the stock ECU map. A tuner module like aFe’s Scorcher GT can net you a bunch more horsepower, especially when combined with supporting mods. The Scorcher and an aFe Takeda intake can get you over 30 more horsepower, and more than 40 more lb-ft of torque. COBB’s wildly popular AccessPort tuner is also available for the Focus RS, allowing you to get even more precise with your tunes. You can flash an off-the-shelf stage-one or stage-two tune from a remote tuner, or get a custom tune for your particular supporting mods.
Suspension and Sway Bars
The stock Focus RS suspension setup is plenty capable and comfortable enough, but not as predictable as some would like. If you’re planning on taking your FoRS to track days, autocross, or even amateur rally events, upgrades to the suspension setup are practically a necessity.
On the affordable end of things, a basic spring-and-sway bar kit from aFe or Whiteline will get your Focus RS handling tighter and stiffer. Springs can lower your center of gravity, while sway bars keep you flatter around corners. The bolt-in overhaul option is a set of coilovers, which replace your stock shocks and springs with a pre-assembled coil and damper setup. Coilovers can be adjusted for endless possibilities, with options like BC Racing’s BR series offering 30 different levels of damper adjustment. For a more track-focused approach, KW’s Variant 3 and Clubsport options have racing pedigree and incredible attention to detail and craftsmanship. With a good set of sway bars and proper coilover adjustment, your Focus RS will feel like it’s on rails.
Brakes
Brake pads and rotors are a compulsory upgrade for anyone taking their driving seriously. Brake fade and pad wear aren’t just inconvenient, they’re killers on the track. Losing your braking power at the end of a series of corners can leave you spinning off track at best, and off a mountain road at the worst.
As upgrades go, there are plenty of options. The easiest things to do are pads and rotors: while the stock ones on your car are designed for minimal wear, low noise, and low dust, they absorb heat and become inefficient rather than dispersing it. Vented rotors like the stock ones are good enough, but if you want a styling change, you can go for slotted rotors like these ones from StopTech, which will keep your pads from slipping and look super cool. As far as pad upgrades, basic ceramic pads like EBC Red Stuff are good enough for most people during spirited road driving and autocross, and higher end compounds from Mountune and Carbotech are being brought to market as well.
If you’re planning on rallying your Focus RS (or just being a general hoon), Ford Racing has the upgrade for you: the Drift Stick. The Focus RS has an electronic parking brake from the factory, but this big ol’ handle bolts in next to your driver’s seat and connects via computer magic to your car. Yanking on the Drift Stick locks the rear wheels with hydraulic pressure from the driveline and ABS system, allowing you to perform clutchless handbrake drifts just like a WRC car!
Most importantly, never forget that braking performance (as well as every other handling characteristic of your vehicle) is heavily improved by stickier tires and weight reduction. Do you really need that full spare tire and tool kit during your laps? And that subwoofer bumps your eurobeat, but does it make you faster?
Rear Engine Mounts
This one is pretty specific to the Focus, but important nonetheless. The rear engine mounts in the Ford Focus are very soft in all models, as having a transverse-mounted engine means it slams back and forth under heavy acceleration and deceleration. Replacing the rear engine mounts with something a bit stiffer helps to get all 345+ of your horses into the drivetrain with the least amount of rotational power loss and wheel hop.
Companies like Mountune have developed motor mounts that slot into place of the OEM one and hold things way steadier, without rattling your teeth out like a traditional solid or firm mount. This way you can still drive your race car to the grocery store every once in a while without vibrating yourself to pieces.
Recirculation Valve
Another one that’s very Focus specific: the Ford Focus RS’s air recirculation valve (in place of a blowoff valve) is effective, but built pretty cheap. The OEM design uses hard plastic with a rubber diaphragm, and can leak under higher-than-stock boost pressures. Upgrading to a metal recirculation valve with a big, single-piston style diaphragm will help hold boost through every gear, improve acceleration by containing boost earlier at low RPM, and hold higher boost for when you really want to go fast.
Turbocharger
Oh, wait, you thought you were gonna get out of this without a recommendation for a complete turbocharger replacement? HA! How silly.
23psi is cool, but why stop here? A replacement turbocharger to go with your fancy new intake and exhaust is a great idea. Bolt-ons and a tune alone will probably get you in the direction of 70 wheel horsepower over stock, for a total of around 430whp. That’s all fine and good, but what about 450? 500? 600 wheel horsepower?
With enough time and energy, anything is possible. The unfortunate truth of turbocharger upgrades on the Focus RS is that you either have to drop the front subframe or pull the engine out, since the turbo is mounted in such an inconvenient place. The good news is that once the engine is out, it’s that much easier to convince yourself to do internals. Forged pistons and connecting rods can take your 2.3L a long way, giving your family hatchback reliable wheel horsepower comparable to some Italian supercars. At sub-$3000 pricing, how can you turn that down?
Getting your head around all that?
The Ford Focus RS is an awesome platform. They’re kinda like Voltron: the more stuff you hook up, the better it gets. For intake, exhaust, suspension, turbos and more, take a look at the Motoroso Marketplace, where we’ve got hundreds of thousands of parts for your Focus RS and whatever other vehicles you’re itching to mod!
