I tried to find an image of the powerband/torque curve, but couldn't find anything. I did find this article though, and it looks like I hit the nail on the head at where the torque kicks in: https://www.motortrend.com/cars/ford/fusion/2017/2017-ford-fusion-ecoboost-first-test-review/ It also says the car weighs about 3,450 lbs which is very close to the weight of my car when carrying my tools or a passenger.
So apparently this lump of soulless steel has lane keep assist. Yeah, that feature can go to hell along with auto start-stop.
Spool on the Ecoboost 1.0 and 1.5 (3 cylinder, not the 4 cylinder 1.5) is pretty rapid for such small engines, the engine was engineered from day 1 for turbocharged application and in the case of the 1.0 was a complete clean room design, not a modification of an existing ford engine. Literally, the design brief was "make a turbocharged engine". As such, it has got one thing that is both simultaneously pretty awesome, and a nightmare.The entire exhaust manifold is integrated into the cylinder head, the turbo literally just bolts straight to the head. Upside: runner length is pretty short to the turbocharger which is ideal for efficient operation of a turbo, youre taking the exhaust gases before theyve had time to cool and recycling as much of that heat energy as possible rather than losing it in a long manifold resulting in much better response on that turbo. Downside, cant easily modify that manifold and harder to fit a bigger turbo to it Though for the stock turbo, the manifold is pretty damn good and even copes in tuned examples with the factory head+turbo reaching 165+ horsepower at the wheels which for a 1.0 is not bad at all. I have heard of 1 example of an engine with a modified head having an adapter to a larger turbo and reaching 250hp on stock internals still too. The 1.5 is much the same, just, scaled up. The 1.0 is going to be offered as a crate engine as its being used in a formula ford style race series, so that might result in some more drastic aftermarket tuning being available for it, though it is always going to have a bottleneck at the head once you're hitting that 160-250hp bracket
I will admit, that's way better that I expected, considering Honda's various and sundry are the only street legal 1600-class engines I've ever heard of being able to get much over 200 horsepower, turbo or NA, without blowing themselves to bits.
Why (other) car designers don't put such long grilles on vehicles with a tall front (compared to height of windshield and length of hood). The Toyota Alphard was weird enough.
Okay, that grille is way too darn big, and the front end suffers from the same "aggressive styling" problem I've noted for some other non-performance vehicles. Seriously, why are these car designers making daily drivers look more and more like something you'd either find at a racetrack or a tuner show? I do think it looks alright from the side and back though. And I have to say, I like the interior.
Much like the LM, I think the side and rear profile is alright, but the front is again not all that great. But the Alphard concept though, oof. I think that grille belongs on some armored truck, not a Toyota minivan.
There's been quite a few from the ford camp, mostly their European designed motors (by which I do not mean to imply any superiority, it just happens to be that's where they tended to be working harder on making sub 2 litre motors). The 1.6 Zetec Sigma, 1.6 duratec, the old Kent's could do it too. The limit on the sigma was very sad. Crankshaft gives up around 250hp. Nobody sells a stronger one. Same on duratec. Heard of both boosted Sigma's hitting that limit and all motor builds not far behind. In stock form its really not a bad engine for a bog standard 1.6L i4 but it's nothing exciting. The 1.5 ecoboost is being offered direct from ford in a 197bhp variant from stock, but then as covered, it is a turbocharged motor and was always meant to be, I'm not aware of. You can also get the mountune Remap installed by ford dealerships and included in your vehicle's original warranty, that takes it to ~225hp. Other tuners claim to have had more out of it but I'm yet to find out where the limit truly is on the 1.5
Well there you go... if it doesn't void your warranty... it's not tuning. Which is kind of my point, even if you can get quite a bit of power out of them, it's not something Joe Average can do himself with junkyard parts swapping. Yes, that engine can still technically be tuned, however it's not what I'd call user serviceable. (Though I would be interested to know what a CVH can pull off. No one bothers to tune these things, they just get one of the Mazda engines and tune that instead. However I'm a total car hipster so I want to tune a 1.9 or 2.0 CVH in a US Escort.)
Look up the ZVH --- Post updated --- CVH motors are frequently modified here, but they're not super tough bottom ends, hence the ZVH
Eh, the side and rear kinda suffer too, with a bit of dis-proportionality in the windowline and the taillights are quite a mess.
So the real reason as to why I'm having to drive the hateful Fusion I'd due to the fact my car is in the shop having some what I thought was going to be warranty work done. Seems though that software updates to the PCM and the Bluetooth systems are considered maintenance items. What the actual fuck!? Are we seriously at the point in technology where we have to update firmware every time we get an oil change? Where's the meteor?
i mean i'd rather have it that way, than have my internet connected car be vulnerable to hackers... why they can't update OTA i don't know...
