Question 1: Michael & his ZTSFord Focus ZX4 ST Modifications - Q1: Michael & his ZTS - Phil Usher - May 2006 Quite unexpectedly I received some email which I post below:
Phil, Just sending you an email telling you how great your website on the Focus is and it is greatly appreciate that you are posting for the public to see. I look forward to following your upgrades, which will hopefully influence me to buy some! Unlike you I am young and inexperienced at this. I have been doing some heavy researching and saving up some money to do my own upgrades. Well, I wanted to ask you some questions about your car or maybe you can just post them up on your site. My car looks just like yours and is probably very similar to yours. Mine is a ZTS model and has a 2.3 Pzev engine and is a atx.
Well, I will greatly appreciate any responses! O, I loved your racing videos! If I found myself in a cloud of smoke I would not know what to do! Go focus!
Sincerely, Michael Michael, Thanks very much for your message. I am flattered and a little nervous to discover that someone would actually want to ask my advice about modifications. I can picture the reaction of my race mechanic and co-driver Matt. Matt would probably say something like "if you want to know how it works ask me, if you want to know how it drives ask him". Still, I put this site up for all who qualify as mechanically challenged so we might all jointly participate in this attack on the innocent Ford Focus. So with that said I shall attempt to pick my way carefully through your message. I think that if your engine is 2.3L then it's the same (Duratec) as mine. However, as I made an effort to confirm this I discover all sorts of confusing cross references and it is little wonder that you're confused. I would recommend making a post in this forum FordFanatics DURATEC Performance Chat to get some clarity. PZEV stands for Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle. ATX - I have no idea what this means - please enlighten me. Upgrades: I haven't decided if I want to go forced induction (turbo/supercharger) or stay normally aspirated yet. I shall definitely NOT be using nitrous oxide. I am not building a dragster or a race car. What I'm looking for is about 240hp (at the wheels) and it's a lot cheaper to achieve this with a turbo than normally aspirated. Here in Las Vegas cooling is a very big issue as ambient summer temperatures are very (VERY) high. As I make decisions I shall try to articulate them so everyone can follow along. Hydro Locking. This is the fear of getting water into the system via a cold air intake system. No, this doesn't really worry me. While it does rain here in Las Vegas and even floods I doubt I will find the need to drive through the 2' deep river which would be required to submerge the intake. It should be noted that water is a lot heavier than air and even if you do submerge the intake the water would have to be sucked up a long way to do damage. While I can't afford to prove it I suspect that if you created a trench (think sheep dip) you would find it very difficult to hydro lock an engine. I suspect the car would stall (no air) long before it ingests enough water to hydro lock. Engine - The 2006 ZX4 ST comes with the 2.3L DURATEC. Yes - That's a stock picture on front page http://www.philusher.com/Focus/Stock-FrontLeftWeb.JPG. I expect you could switch out the ZTS mirrors but it might be cheaper to mask part of the car and spray paint the ones you have. Let me know if you're able to just aquire the silver plastic bits. I'm pleased you enjoyed the videos, it looks like it will be some months before there are any new episodes see this thread on the SR20 forum http://www.sr20forum.com/showthread.php?t=157962 Thanks again for the email. Cheers ... Phil Usher Return to Focus Page |
