Page 6 - turbo

In our last post, we ended with a rendering of the Nissan Titan XD intercooler pipes and the jig that we plan to use to fabricate them. Since then, we began fabricating our prototypes and testing fitment.

Before we could begin welding our prototypes, we first had to fabricate our jig. With the help of the trusty waterjet, we sliced the pieces for the jig and began assembling them.

Titan XD Intercooler piping jig

High oil temperatures can shut down a track day faster than you can scream your favorite four-letter word. Unfortunately, high oil temps are already sidelining RS owners at the track. Not to worry, Team Mishi is on it!  In our last post, we took a look at the stock cooler and our plans to create a larger one. Now it's time to construct and test our prototype.

Prototype Focus RS oil cooler bracket

Prototype Focus RS oil cooler bracket

This is it. The leather seat grips your back as hard as your hands grip the wheel and the tires grip the road. The pavement is your playground and nothing can break the connection you have to its twists and turns.  Your mind is calm, but calculating, guiding the wheels through every turn with finesse as the headlights cut through the darkness.  Smooth is fast, and this car is certainly smooth.  When you finally coax yourself to go home, stepping out into the cool night air, you think to yourself, "This is it."

The Dark Horse of Combustion: Blow-by

But what aren't you thinking about? Sure, BMW's N55 TwinPower Turbo inline-six engine is smooth and powerful, but what happens inside that engine is much more violent. Internal combustion engines are essentially controlled bombs; air and fuel combust to drive pistons and crankshafts.  One byproduct of this violence is power, but there are darker horses

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 the Focus RS section of 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.

Team Mishi is hard at work developing an entire line of cooling upgrades for our RS. Up to bat is one of the more popular modifications for turbo cars: the intercooler.

Stock Focus RS intercooler

The stock Focus RS intercooler is an interesting part of this hot hatch. As soon as images of the striking front end of this car surfaced on the interwebs, many noticed that there was a black plate blocking off a portion of the intercooler, and immediately called it out. Ford explained that the intercooler was too efficient and that, in humid climates, the excess efficiency caused condensation within the intake tract.

Howdy folks, and welcome to the second installment of Mishimoto's Engineering Blog on the development of our upcoming 2015+ F-150 EcoBoost intercooler. In our first post, we examined the factory intercooler on this truck and took a look at some of its unique features, but since then, we have made a ton of headway on developing our improved version. To learn more about how the system functions, check out that first F-150 EcoBoost intercooler post.

When we first began on this project, we were choosing between a couple of possible design philosophies that Jason, the project engineer, had conceived.  Each had its benefits and drawbacks, but rather than trying to read minds, we decided to reach out to all of you to find out what you wanted for the ideal F-150 EcoBoost intercooler.

You may recall

Last time, we took a look at the unique design of the Ford 6.7 secondary Super Duty radiator and its accompanying thermostats. Our last post was only about two weeks ago, but I come bearing some good news - plus, great things come in twos.

Why does my primary rad need a companion?

As a recap, this heat exchanger, found in 2011+ Ford Super Duty trucks, works as an integral part of a mostly independent secondary cooling system that manages many of the truck's auxiliary cooling needs, including those of the liquid-to-liquid charge air cooler. Cooling these engine components more efficiently should not only prolong their useful lives, but also may make for some nice performance benefits if coupled with a tune - who doesn't love colder charge air?

The secondary system allows the primary radiator to more exclusively and efficiently cool the torquey Power Stroke motors found

The RS has gotten a lot of attention the past few weeks, especially with the ball in our court. Need I remind you of our awesome stock dyno clip?

But somethin's-a-brewin with one of our most recent projects, the performance intake we are developing for this hot hatch. We mentioned earlier that the development of this intake kit is not completely uncharted territory, considering that we made one for the 2013-2014 Focus ST. However, as we dived further into this project, we uncovered the true complexities of this design compared with our ST intake kit.

Intake Construction