My 17' Ford Focus RS

Editors Note: This is an old post from early 2018. The car has since had many upgrades. There will be a section at the end with what the car looks like today.

Why a Focus RS?

A Little History Lesson...

I graduated College with a Bachelors in Computer Science in May of 2015 and started working at SoFi here in Helena, MT as a software engineer. At the time I was still driving a white 2000 Grand Am and while the car did through college it felt like I needed an upgrade. So around September of that year I bought a ‘09 Subaru Outback Sport and it was amazing, it handled well and driving in the winter was a breeze. Now my two main goals ever since I started College were..

1. Graduate college.
2. Get a good paying job.
3. Buy my dream car.

So because I grew up with a mechanic for a dad, his own thoughts and feelings on what cars are good and what cars are bad were hammered into me constantly. In short my dad has always had a very high respect for Subarus.

They last forever!

They are easy to repair!

No car handles better in the winter!

Reliable!

Etc etc. Now I have always wanted a fast, cool, sports car and when you think of a fast and cool Subaru; what car comes to mind? A WRX. My dream car to own out of college was a WRX. They look cool, they sound cool, and they have my mechanic dads stamp of approval.

Now you might be wondering Then why didn’t you buy a WRX? Well let me explain…

How I learned of the Focus RS

Somewhere around July and August of last year (2017) I was feeling pretty comfortable at my job having been there for 2 years but still wasn’t really feeling like I accomplished much. I go to work, pay my bills and student loans, etc. I decided to start looking around at dealerships and used car listings to see what there were for WRX’s and STI’s in the area, mostly just playing with the thought of buying one. At around the same time one of my friends and co-workers bought a Ford Focus ST which is a 250HP front wheel drive hot hatch. I didn’t even know Ford had such a performance car, I thought the Mustangs were their performance series and I just don’t really like them. Well after taking a closer look at my friends car I started doing some research on them and thats when I came across the Ford Focus RS.

The Focus ST is great and all but it has one little problem that I just cant get past. It’s front wheel drive. After having driven an AWD car I’ve decided I will never own a FWD car as my primary vehicle. Doing research on the Focus ST I found its big brother the Focus RS (Rally Sport). The RS is a turbo-charged 350HP AWD hot hatch. Not only that but the AWD system is one of the most advanced out around called “Torque Vectoring”. Basically it allows the computer to shift up to 70% of the power to the rear wheels where it can then shift up to 100% of that 70% to either tire.

Locating an RS

At this point I’m sold, I no longer want a WRX or STI. Partially because they have been using the same engine and AWD system for the last 10+ years. I now want this technological master piece. The problem though, where in Montana can I even find one? Looking around out the major dealers I came up with nothing. Reading the forums I discovered since they are in such high demand any dealerships that do get them will mark the price up by 10-15k dollars. It wasn’t long before I started to give up on finding one near me let alone at a non-marked up price. Just out of curiosity I wanted to see where at the closest RS to me was located so I got on my computer and found an online tool to search all dealerships within a radius. I entered in the information, and chose to sort by nearest.

Boom. Just 4.5 hours away in Whitefish, MT was a ‘17 Focus RS in Nitrous Blue and only 25 miles on it, and the best part? It was listed at MSRP. I jumped at the opportunity. On September 9th, 2017 I had my friend take me to Whitefish where I test drove the car and signed the papers. On the way back we pit stopped at his gran-parents and I took some photos.

Initial Impressions

My initial impressions with the car were pure shock and awe. Shock in that I still couldn’t believe I was driving a Focus RS 4.5 hours home. It was definitely one of the most fun cross state trips I have ever done. The amount of power the car put out was insane, it pulled you to your seat when you stepped on it. Having never owned a car with that much power it took me a good 2 hours into the trip before I wasn’t nervous every time I stepped on the throttle.

The next couple months up into winter I really got to know the car, every single morning I got into the car and drove to work were probably the best parts of the day. The car never stopped being a thrill to drive and still hasn’t too this day albeit its only been 6 months but I don’t imagine that will change anytime soon.

Power Upgrades

Since owning the car I have been doing a lot of research into what modifications people are doing to the car. What are the most common mods. etc. What I found was most people upgrade the intake and get a tune put on the car to help smooth out the power band and give it a some extra torque in the lower RPM range.

I found that Ford Performance has a sort of warranty deal with Mountune. Meaning certain aftermarket parts from Mountune will not void your warranty. They also have nothing but fantastic reviews from their customers, and thus I purchased an upgrade intake system and a professional tune from them. The tune is done over email, they send you a tune, you drive on it and data log it, send them back data logs, they make adjustments and send you an updated tune, rinse & repeat.

I don’t particularly want to go mod crazy on the car and end up destroying it so after doing my research I figure the intake + tune should be more than enough to really bring the car alive. I purchased these in January while they had a holiday sale going on with the intent to install them after I get the headgasket replaced on the car because of the recall.

Head Gasket Recall

Long story short, a small percentage of Focus RS’s built between mid 2016 to mid 2017 potentially need the head gasket replaced. My car just happened to be one of them. I took the car in and they did some testing on it and found that I needed both the head gasket and heads themselves replaced. Fast-forward 2 weeks and I got my car back.

After driving on it for a couple weeks and keeping a close eye on the coolant I was confident the issue had been resolved and the stronger head gasket was doing its job. So with that being said, I proceeded to install the new intake and the first iteration of the pro-tune.

Expected Power Increase

With the intake + tune, this is what Mountune expects the at wheel horsepower and torque to be. My own data logs are very spot on with what is on this graph.

It may not look like much but its all about the area under the curve. The amount of area gained is huge and very much noticeable when driving. The car feels even better than it did before, way more responsive and quicker with less turbo lag over stock.

Current Upgrades (as of early 2018)

Here is a short list of upgrades that are currently installed on the car.

• Mountune High Flow Air Filter
• Mountune Cold Air Intake
• Mountune ProTune
• Boomba Blow Off Valve
• WC Latheworks Metal Lathed Shifter

Future Upgrades

I really only have one future performance upgrade for the car which is the exhaust. The stock exhaust in my opinion has lots of room for improvement in the sound department, its not bad but can definitely be better. An exhaust upgrade wont really add much for power, but will improve the cars personality. Hopefully I’ll be able do it this summer.

Cosmetic Enhancements

I did purchase a couple cosmetic upgrades to make the car pop even more, nothing too expensive yet. Just some basic vinyl additions and some RS insignia gel inserts for the wing.

Future Cosmetic Upgrades

There are a few cosmetic upgrades I would like to do in the future, but since cosmetic upgrades tend to be somewhat expensive they probably will happen over a long time span. Mostly some carbon fiber upgrades to help shave some weight off the car and because I really like the look of carbon fiber.

Autocross / AutoX

Having a performance car is great but I don’t really feel like I’m getting the most out of it on public roads. I have never done Autocross before but it seems like just the type of thing to really see what this car is made up on a paved course and a great way to improve driving skills. I would be lying if I said I was not nervous for the first Autocross meetup of this year which is only a month from now. Theres not much I can really write on that subject until I have actually done my first Autocross.

I will have a more in depth post with all the changes that I have made to the car since this blog post was originally created back in 2018. For now, enjoy a couple pictures of what the car looks like today and a video of it on the Autocross course here in Helena.