Page 50 - Engineering

When I was asked to write an article on "how to take photos of your car with your phone," I cringed, a lot.  I've spent the better part of my life taking photographs with cameras that were just that, cameras.  They serve one purpose, to create images, and they are good at it.  Through college my fellow photography students scoffed at the idea that a camera within a phone could come anywhere close to the professional-grade cameras we used to create "art."  Those days weren't that long ago, but it's time to face the facts: cell phone cameras are creeping up on the quality of professional cameras more and more every day.

What cell phone cameras lack in image quality, they make up in their versatility, portability, and ease of use. While these traits are great for taking quick and easy photos, it takes a bit more than point and shoot to take a great photo with a cell phone, or any camera for that matter.  Where cell phone cameras present the biggest challenges

Everything about Ford's Super Duty Powerstroke brand screams, well, Super Duty. It has done so since they were first put in the Econoline Vans in the mid "90's. Our 2011 is equipped with the 6.7L turbodiesel V8 engine, and it's clear Ford has engineers who really took the Super Duty term to heart. There are two batteries, two radiators, two thermostats, two coolant expansion tanks, an engine oil cooler, a transmission oil cooler, an EGR cooler - this truck even has a fuel cooler. Just looking at the engine bay of this monster can be a bit daunting, especially to a guy used to dealing with smaller, beat up, four-cylinder engines. Fortunately, our engineers are well-versed in the nuances of this truck, as we already have many items out on the market for this application including a full charge pipe

It looks like mother nature is giving the tell-tale signs to us gearheads that it's time to get ready for track season. The weather is getting warmer and tracks all around the country have kicked off calendar seasons with maiden 2017 events already in full swing. A common mod many of us who are boosted, especially ST owners, want during this time of year is the intercooler. The 2013+ Ford Focus ST features quality design for its the factory intercooler, but improved efficiency is something we like to target. In the last update, we talked about the shortcomings of the factory core and how we plan to make an even more efficient intercooler. Now that we have received our production samples for the first time, we can get into the details of the design plan and what our goals are to improve performance.

The mood for the past few days here at the Mishimoto office has been a little giddy.  Scrawled on our calendar in one of our project manager's less than impeccable handwriting are the words "Focus RS track testing".  There's a lot of hard work being done, but underneath it all lies a childlike wonder for what's going to happen in the next week.

We've spent countless hours street testing over the past several weeks, trying to learn more about the relationship between the PTU, ECU, and RDU.  We've learned a lot from this testing, but we're finding that we can't push the car hard enough on the street to match what you all are seeing at the track, without getting arrested anyway.  So, we're gearing up for another track day to push the RS and its PTU and RDU to their limits.

When it comes to data testing, our engineering department avoids cutting corners. Each product we put on the market is vigorously tested so we can be confident our products can withstand the abuse you intend to throw at them. With the intercooler piping for the 2016 2.0T LTG engine, we have gone through the proper steps to get the data gearheads want to see.

Our engineer put our dyno and flow bench to work to see how our design stacks up. We plan to offer these intercooler pipes individually as well as a kit, so both the cold and hot-side pipes had to be tested individually. The good news is promising numbers followed.

Flow bench data for our prototype intercooler pipes

The first thing our engineer wanted to do was analyze

If you grew up working on cars, you're probably familiar with the clamor that a wrench makes when it hits metal. This sound was once the soundtrack of America, the marching drum of industry. But then came the modern age and that clamor was replaced with the dull thud of plastic. Now, everything is made from plastic. Your computer, your table, your car: plastic. Your Camaro radiator is partly made of plastic, but Mishimoto is changing that.

At Mishimoto, we see ourselves as modern alchemists, turning plastic into gold"well, aluminum really. It's no secret that aluminum is far more durable than most plastics. Eventually, that plastic radiator end tank is going to crack or break, leaving you and your Camaro steaming at the side of the road. It's hard to predict when this will happen, but it is easy to prevent.

Mishimoto prides itself on the ability to improve the cooling systems on just about any vehicle that rolls through the garage door. Intercoolers have become our bread and butter at this point. That being said, BMW's are notoriously over-engineered, so improving on the meticulous German design isn't going to be an easy task.

It seems that the engineers at BMW wanted to make sure they provided the best equipment on their "Ultimate Driving Machine," which means tight spacing. Peeling the front bumper cover from our loaner 2014 335i M Sport reveals a space no bigger than a toaster oven. A tricky intercooler project lies ahead, but that's OK, because we're up to the challenge.

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Sometimes there are products we can't wait to get on the market. The sense of urgency follows positive feedback after a release or hinting at a recently started project. There's pride in giving people what they want, what they need. When our 2003-2007 6.0L Powerstroke Transmission Cooler Kit was released, the question that kept coming was if it would fit the 7.3L. What followed was a "no, sorry." That didn't sit well with us. The efforts grew exponentially as more questions surfaced about fitment, and as the number of requests to make a direct fit kit increased.

In retrospect, it would have been best to provide all you 7.3L owners with upgraded cooling when the transmission cooler first launched. The reason why our 6.0L kit wasn't on option then was due to the hose routing. The lines are different. The 6.0L already has hoses that can adapt to our cooler without the necessity of lines from us. The inlets and outlets are in different spots here, so we needed to carefully design hoses that

Many would question the motives behind someone who purchases a four-cylinder turbo of what has come to be a staple of the American muscle culture. Personally, I get it. I'm one for combining performance without having to sacrifice fuel economy or aggressive styling. On top of that, turbo engines open a whole new world for modification, and one of the first steps for most is to increase the airflow to the turbo. The engineers at Chevy had to make a trade-off, however, when it came to designing the stock induction hose for the 2.0T Camaro. I'm sure they would prefer designing each aspect of the Camaro to milk every single drop of horsepower out of this newer, and smaller engine, but they also have the noise, harshness, and vibration tests to contend with, which induction sounds fall under. So, in short, they had to trade performance for cost, and comfort, when designing the stock induction hose.

Our engineers at Mishimoto are no strangers to the dangers of oil blow by. We have well-documented evidence that this is still a common threat to most modern direct injected vehicles. For those of you that don't know, blow-by is a byproduct of compression and combustion. Blow-by is created when oil and fuel vapors push past the piston rings and into the crankcase during compression. To keep the crankcase depressurized from this oil and fuel, there needs to be some sort of venting. This is accomplished by routing this blow-by through the intake tract and right back into the cylinder to be burned during combustion.

Even though this particular engine uses port injection, which sprays fuel directly onto the valves, the problem still lies within the venting process. By rerouting blow-by through the intake tract, there is a potential for accumulating carbon deposits on your valves in addition to a nice thin coating of oil along the inside walls of your intake (and turbo if applicable). The