Mission In-pipe-sible: Mishimoto's Ford Focus RS Intercooler Piping R&D

[Mishimoto]

Part 1: Stock Piping and First Prototype

This hot hatch is heating up our headquarters! We have several projects in the works, so if you have not had a chance to check them out, you can do so on our engineering blog.

Stock Focus RS intercooler piping

Often, one of the first modifications to turbocharged vehicles is the intercooler. However, this time we wanted to give the spotlight to its lesser known siblings, the intercooler piping. If you have not yet had a chance to take a look under the hood of your Focus RS, we’ll save you the trouble; it’s tight in there. Not the best news for those of us who aim to squeeze every bit of power out of our RS. Increasing the flow to the turbo via the piping has power potential, after all.

Stock Focus RS intercooler piping

The stock piping is complex in shape and constructed of plastic and rubber couplers. Overall there are eight connection points in this set of piping. The cold-side piping is fairly short, but the hot-side piping is nearly triple the length, extending diagonally across the bottom of the RS. The photos below show the path that the piping takes under the Focus.

Underside of the Focus RS without intercooler piping

Turbo outlet for the hot-side pipe

Goals
Our goals for this project are to construct the piping out of a more durable material as well as increase the diameter of the piping. In addition, we will create the two pipes out of as few pieces as feasible to eliminate possible fail points. This is easier said than done, given that the path that the hot-side pipe takes is under the Focus, wedged between the oil pan and the transmission. This gives us little room to increase diameter without rubbing or clearance issues. Not to worry. Like the seemingly doomed hero dangling from a cliff in an action movie, we still have a plan. Since things tend to be a bit boring without a challenge (and the office is rarely boring here at Mishimoto), we set out to design some upgraded piping.

The Plan in Action
The first step was to get some general measurements of the stock cold-side and hot-side piping, allowing our engineers to increase the pipe diameter, thus creating our prototype. We began by designing all-aluminum, one-piece versions of the intercooler pipes as our first prototype.

Mocking up Focus intercooler piping on the RS

Mike slicing up some piping for our prototype

Thanks to the quick work of Dan, our engineer, and Mike, our fabricator, we soon had some intercooler piping tacked together and mocked up on the RS.

Prototype intercooler piping on the Focus RS

Now that we were certain of fitment, we could fully weld our piping for a more finalized prototype. Fire up the welder Mike!

Mike welding Focus RS intercooler piping

Focus RS hot-side intercooler piping

Focus RS cold-side intercooler piping

With our first prototype complete, we installed it on our RS to evaluate our piping more in depth.

Cold-side Focus RS intercooler piping

Hot-side Focus RS intercooler piping

Hot-side Focus RS intercooler piping

We expected a tight fit all around, but we still encountered some areas where the increased diameter just did not fit. We do not want to sacrifice piping size, so it was back to the drawing board, or rather the Solidworks. Although our first escape attempt may have been thwarted, we are not ready to succumb to the enemy just yet. We intend to elude the clutches of the cramped engine bay by creating excellent flowing intercooler pipes, just in the nick of time!

Coming Up!
We are in the process of updating our intercooler pipe design to accommodate the space constraints in the RS. In our next post, we will provide a closer look at our re-design and how we intend to improve upon our original prototype. Stay tuned! In the meantime, let us know what you think of the intercooler piping on the Focus RS in the comments below.

Thanks for reading!
-Sara

 

[Mishimoto]

Our intercooler pipes are on the tail end of our journey to extract some elevated performance out of our 2016 Ford Focus RS. Along with our intercooler project making great strides in development, we have some updates to share with you regarding our intercooler piping. In usual fashion, we plan to make each pipe individually available, as well as having the option to purchase the entire kit (piping and core) as one. We aren’t quite there yet, but easy does it. Let’s start with the cold side intercooler piping for this RS.

The cold side here is a standard design, connecting the turbo to the cold side of the intercooler. The unique part, though, is the material we plan on making this product out of. The entire prototype, which is more of a finished production sample at this point, will be constructed from durable, steel reinforced, five-ply silicone. Worried about boost pressure? You won’t have to with this one-piece tube. The steel reinforcement makes it highly resistant to misshaping under vacuum, so it will perform just as well as an aluminum counterpart.

Because our cold side piping is designed as one solid piece, it will eliminate need for couplers. No one likes a failing coupler at the track, unless you enjoy having boost leaks. This is especially important for the RS because we found that there is a good bit of engine movement with hard driving, and it would stress the traditional coupler-and-aluminum-pipe setup more than it should. Our design has flexibility while being very rigid, so it will do a great job handling the engine movement as it decreases the amount of connections necessary to have a cold side pipe. Now you have two connection points or clamps instead of four!

Less clamps means two things: a cleaner look and an easier install. This hose will not be difficult to install for anyone. In fact, our lead engineer for this project, Dan, wrangled this hose in there within five minutes just so I could take some pictures of it installed. It routes right in front of the alternator and snakes around and up to the motor from the cold side intercooler inlet.

I know this tube looks pretty on the RS, but it isn’t only an aesthetic modification. While there were no direct power gains by adding this piece to our RS, we significantly improved the airflow that surges through the tube. The smoother, one-piece design and enlarged diameter helps promote this efficiency over the stock piping, which opens the door to run more boost without restriction. In turn, this makes other modifications, such as an exhaust, more effective. This was confirmed by testing the pressure drop of this tube versus the factory induction tubing.

On average, we measured a pressure drop of about 46%, across this pipe. This improvement in airflow is largely in part due to an increase in the volume of air this tube can hold. Our tube increases the internal volume by a whopping 40%! Who says bigger isn’t better?

Along with the awesome looks and proven data from our cold side intercooler pipe, we have reached our goal for this half of the RS intercooler piping project. The one-piece design will absolutely be a great addition for anyone looking to squeeze a bit more potential out of their hot hatch. This product will be available on our website next week for purchase, so stay tuned for that. I will update this thread with a link when it becomes available. But what is cold side intercooler piping without the hot side?

Next: The Hot Side

Sample pieces have recently arrived at our facility and we wasted zero time getting testing done. Our hot side intercooler pipe for the RS is very unique, as the design kills two birds with one stone: providing performance and accommodating the ducting to the front differential. Stay tuned for more!

Thanks for reading!
-Diamaan

 

[LonestarRS]

How difficult is it to remove the front bumper? I also noticed you guys removed the small shielding in front of the inter-cooler as well. Have you guys had any issues with this?

 

[FocusMike]

Great progress, when do you guys plan on releasing your intercooler?

 

[Mishimoto]

How difficult is it to remove the front bumper? I also noticed you guys removed the small shielding in front of the inter-cooler as well. Have you guys had any issues with this?

Removing front bumper really isn't that bad, there are just a lot of screws and tabs that hold everything in place, so it's a matter of patience when taking it off. Are you referring to the small block-off plate on the stock intercooler?

If so, yes we had that removed in our design. So far, there hasn't been any issues with doing so, but we will do more road testing with that when it starts to get a little warmer.

Great progress, when do you guys plan on releasing your intercooler?

Thanks! Our intercooler is on the way to being released, but it won't be for another few months right now. I'll be sure to update that thread if our timetable moves up!

-Diamaan