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What's Cooler Than Bein' Cool? - Mishimoto's Ford Focus RS Intercooler R&D

55K views 176 replies 45 participants last post by  4rd SVT 
#1 ·
Part 1: Stock Review

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.


Stock Focus RS Intercooler


Stock Focus RS Intercooler

Although we had been warned, like any horsepower-hungry enthusiast, our first thought was how to get rid of this plate. After having a closer look at the block-off, we found that it is not permanently affixed to the intercooler. It is a small piece of plastic attached to the front of the intercooler with a strong adhesive. It can be easily removed, although Ford advises that you leave it in place and insists that there are no power gains hiding behind the block-off. Not to worry, our minds have already been racing with ideas for our own intercooler project.


Our engineers taking a look at the stock Focus RS Intercooler

The stock intercooler is fairly large, at least as far as stock intercoolers go. Using tube-and-fin construction with plastic end tanks, it is your run-of-the-mill stock intercooler. Since we believe that there is always room for improvement, we removed the intercooler and began to take some measurements.


Measuring the stock Focus RS intercooler

With the help of our CMM (Coordinate Measuring Machine) and our Romer Arm, we uploaded the dimensions of the stock intercooler into Solidworks to begin to design our prototype.

Coming Up!

Next up we will take a look deeper into the development process and begin to create prototypes for test fitment. Let us know what you think of the stock Focus RS Intercooler in the comments below! Don’t forget to check out our other Focus RS projects, like the Focus RS catch can, on our engineering blog.

Thanks for reading
-Sara
 
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#6 ·
His name's Dan... But his friends call him Sara.
 
#8 ·
Not shown in these photos - his nice pair of Jimmy Choo safety pumps for casual shop wear.

Jim
 
#15 ·
Funny, I had the condensation build up while driving down to an autocross that a Mishimoto engineer was at, and my car still has the blanking plate. I should have mentioned it to him, but completely forgot.

It will be VERY tough to replicate the conditions as I was cruising on the highway on cruise control for an hour or so in 100% humidity with light rain at 5:30 in the morning, 65-70 degree temps, IIRC. I went WOT and the car fell on its face. Backed off then went WOT again and it was fine.
 
#16 ·
How did you know you had the build up? Did you dump water out of the cooler or did the car start to misfire or?
 
#23 ·
So if Ford felt that the intercooler that was already on the car was too efficient, and put a block off plate on it to prevent condensation, why wouldn't we simply remove the block off plate for additional cooling capabilities when adding additional power?
Ford states that there is no additional power to be had by removing the block-off and that it is possible to run into issues with condensation build-up if it is removed. We are taking them at their word, but still intend to test the stock intercooler against ours when we have a functional prototype complete. So far, we have yet to run into condensation issues with the stock intercooler, although we have a minimal amount of miles on our RS.

-Sara
 
#22 ·
So if Ford felt that the intercooler that was already on the car was too efficient, and put a block off plate on it to prevent condensation, why wouldn't we simply remove the block off plate for additional cooling capabilities when adding additional power?
 
#29 ·
Hi Guys!

Just a heads up, as of today I am moving to a new position at Mishimoto. I am excited to start something new, but I will certainly miss interacting with everyone and sharing our build progress.

Going forward you will be in the very capable hands of Diamaan, who has been posting about the Focus RS Intake. Diamaan has been working hard on another update for you which should be up today, so stay tuned!

Feel free to shoot us a message if anyone needs anything.

Thanks very much for being one of the more awesome forums to be on!

Sincerely,
Sara
 
#30 · (Edited)
Part 2: The Prototype

Some time has passed since the last update for this 2016 Ford Focus RS intercooler project, but that doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten about it! It’s all-hands-on-deck to get this project back in the swing of R&D. Let’s see what it looks like and quickly go through some of the design specs.



At the beginning of this project, we knew we’d want to get rid of the plate the stock intercooler has in place to combat the over-efficiency issue a lot of people were experiencing causing condensation inside of the core. Since performance was something we wanted to improve, enlarging the core and external fin capacity was going to be a must. A question that did pop into my head was “Well, won’t a higher performing intercooler with a thicker core be more efficient, causing more condensation problems?” It turns out to be a great question.

There isn’t any way to really tell exactly how much condensation will collect over a given time or distance interval. It comes down to a matter of driving the car until it becomes noticeable. But what then? Don’t worry, we have you covered. A neat feature we have included is a drain plug right underneath the end tank connecting the cold side intercooler pipe. When it warms up and we get some of that classic Delaware humidity, we’ll be able to see just how much of an issue it is. But for now, consider it a precautionary feature included on this intercooler core.



Speaking of the end tanks, those on our intercooler are cast opposed to cut-and-weld. So instead of cutting pieces of the end tank and welding them together, the entire end tank is cast in one mold, giving you a very sturdy product. We also went with a bar-and-plate core design. We did this for two reasons; 1) it’s a more durable design with greater cooling capacity and 2) we polled your thoughts on the subject and it was a no-brainer. We polled across two online RS-specific forums and you guys were 96% in favor of a bar-and-plate design. Can’t argue with cold, hard data!



Ok, that’s all great, but won’t the sizing dimensions have to change with a beefier intercooler core and more external fins? How much bigger is this intercooler over stock? All valid questions. We increased the internal core volume by 295.79 in³ to 403.26 in³, which is a percentage increase of a hair over 36%. To help with more efficient heat transfer, we also increased the external fin surface area from 2938.76 in² to 9239.19 in², which comes in at a whopping 214% increase. Our inlet and outlet diameters have also increased with a size of 66 millimeters which is six millimeters over the factory setup. As you can see, we have certainly thickened up this intercooler for our RS, so we are expecting to see some awesome improvements over the factory setup.








What’s Next?

Data, testing, data, testing, and more data and testing. We are going to abuse our dyno with this RS so we can see every single aspect of how this intercooler performs. Our engineer is working on getting as much data as possible together, so we can absolutely flood you guys with everything you want to know. Those updates will be coming soon. Stay tuned!



Thanks for reading, we'll miss you Sara!
-Diamaan
 
#31 ·
@Mishimoto Is there any update to this, Diamaan? I have a Focus ST owner who would very much like my stock intercooler...
 
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#33 ·
So I saw that there was a Focus ST intercooler update last week. Anything for the other Focus crowd @Mishimoto?
 
#38 ·
OOOOOOOOO

Thermal imaging p0rn :cool:
 
#39 · (Edited)
What’s Cooler Than Bein’ Cool? Intercooler R&D, Part 3: The Big Crunch

The movement on the 2016 Ford Focus RS intercooler project may seem slow, but it couldn’t be more alive. Our lead engineer for the project, at my request, has completed a plethora of testing configurations to get the most detailed amount of data possible. For the past three months, we have been rocking out on testing, testing, and more testing for the RS, the primary objectives being movement on the upcoming diff cooler and this front-mount intercooler. We know that the RS crowd loves their data, so we want to overload you with what’s finally available.

I won’t sugarcoat anything here. The update is going to be very data-intensive. I don’t have any entertaining anecdotes, interesting fun-facts, or puns about staying focused to fluff this piece with. Today’s discussion will be about our Nitrous Blue hatchback and the focus on data.



Temperatures

Let’s start with temperature reduction, because this is a big one. With any intercooler, the main purpose is to reduce the amount of hot air forced induction carries to your engine. Cooler means denser, which generally means more power. This RS has a decently sized intercooler, but you can bet we can do better. During testing, we noticed that the factory intercooler heat soaked quickly while making dyno runs. By the end of our dyno runs, our engineer saw outlet temperatures of around 110˚F. A new thermal imaging camera we’ve been experimenting with helped confirm the temperature recordings.

Below are frame shots of dyno runs taken with our thermal camera. Hot areas are highlighted in brighter, red colors. As you can see, the stock intercooler lights up rapidly and the heat quickly spreads throughout the entire core. there is a lot of warm air your intake manifold breathes in, and it sort of goes against the purpose of an intercooler.


Excuse the speed, it's just the rate at which the GIF frame rates were made at

Our prototype core gets warm right at the inlet, but the air is immediately cooled through the rest of the intercooler when it makes its way to the outlet. This is mainly due to a core that is two inches thicker and an external fin surface area that is 214% larger stock. The heat transfer is so efficient here, reducing the outlet temperatures by over 40˚F, and, yes, we have the data to prove it.



Our intercooler dropped the outlet temperatures to around 68˚F, which was nearly the ambient temperature in our garage. Now I know what you’re thinking. This test wasn’t done at speed, so how could this be an apples-to-apples comparison of what your prototype could do in the real world? I happen to have another project that crosses over, containing that exact information and backing our shop-simulated data.

Touching back on the sophisticated rear differential unit (RDU) cooler currently in the works, our shop RS took a trip to the track to test the prototype cooler unit. The car was equipped with pretty much everything we currently have on the market for it, which by design was important because our shop Stig really had to abuse the thing.



Our team took a day to go to Englishtown, New Jersey, running the RS at the local race track there. I won’t go into the specifics of what they were testing with respect to the RDU cooler, but the lead engineer for that project engineered this intercooler, so what better time to test the limits of his prototype design?



Disclaimer! The data includes runs done with our intake, intercooler, intercooler pipes, and a tune. While this isn’t a true comparison to our shop-produced dyno data, this will still give you an idea of how we are validating our claims. As you can see, even at speed, we kept our outlet temperatures near ambient, which was around 88˚F, while the inlet temperatures consistently hovered around 260˚F. I’m showing this confirmation that the thermal image test will hold true in not just shop conditions, but in the most abusing of real-world driving as well.

Pressure and Power

Pressure drop needed analysis as well. Our core stabilized the somewhat turbulent inlet air pressures that surged through the stock core. It was a slight reduction, but something to note. Our graphs show that the pressures through our core are smoother. While this may not seem like a huge deal, straight and consistent airflow is vital for upgrades involving tunes and bigger turbos. It will play a big part in seeing the gains you want when you upgrade for more power.



And see below for an overall comparison between both plots for outlet pressures.



Slight, yet important pressure improvements helped us make a nice bit of power over stock. With our intercooler prototype and stock piping, we saw gains of 7hp and 8 ft-lbs of torque. What this tells us is that efficiency has improved. It’s helping the engine make power, which isn’t always a guarantee on cars that base their air intake readings off manifold pressure, like this RS, compared to cars that get their readings via mass-airflow sensors.





While we are already seeing these gains on an RS with a base tune, we’d be curious to see how it will hold up to a tune. It isn’t something we have time to officially test though. The presale for this intercooler is slated to start within the next two weeks! Stay tuned for the pricing information and official release date.

What do you guys think? Let's discuss it!

-Diamaan
 
#40 ·
Hey everyone,

We are making our presale for the 2016 Ford Focus RS Performance Intercooler live! During this period, you can get our intercooler for the 2016 Ford Focus RS at a great discount before the final production kits hit the warehouse and the market. This presale will be going on for several weeks, so you have time, but don't wait too long!

Please check out the details below and please let us know if you have any questions!

PreSale Link

Expected Release: July 2017

Pricing Details:
Intercooler
MSRP: $900.00
Pre-sale: $659.95

Includes:
(1) Mishimoto Intercooler
(1) Left & Right Diversion Plate
Mounting Hardware
Mishimoto Lifetime Warranty







PreSale Link

Again, please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns!



-Diamaan
 
#42 · (Edited)
Black the only option for the pre-sale? Or will there be anodizing, raw finish, other colors, etc available at a later date?

[edit: just checked their site and see that it is also available in silver]


This pre-sale puts it about the same price as ETS, but I must admit I have no real understanding of which is better. Mishi clearly has done thorough R&D, and has incredible results and backing, but can someone explain how Mishi's FMIC stacks up to the other usual suspects (ETS, mountune, etc)? Construction differences (tube vs plate vs whatever), fitment, tanks, etc. I'm a newb to this, and would love to understand the pro's and con's of the IC's available to us.

Also, just a big thanks to Mishi in general for these awesome posts and content, and for supporting the platform!
 
#50 · (Edited)
Is it a direct fit? Any cutting or drilling necessary for the install?
According to the website it is a direct fit.

Yes it also comes in silver as well, I just don't have that photographed as of now. Our design is a bar-and-plate core design, which differs from tube-and-fin positively for this application. While bar-and-plate intercoolers are generally heavier than their tube-and-fin counterparts, they promote greater durability to road debris and allow for a more efficient heat exchange process. We have been able to prove that our design performs leagues above the stock intercooler, the difference in the heat dispersion across both cores is enough to show how well this design works (Check out that GIF!).

This is a direct-fit core to the RS, no modification will be required, and it fits nicely in the front grill. Our end tanks are cast, very strong and uses an internal air diverter to reduce turbulent airflow. I appreciate the kind words as well! I enjoy having the ability to bring everyone alongside behind-the-scenes content so you can get an in depth view of exactly what you're getting. If you have any other questions, I'd be glad to answer them!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Looks like it's a direct fit so there's no modification necessary.

The Mishimoto looks like it is the largest core on the market currently for the FoRS. Levels is a very very close second in terms of size.
That's right guys it's direct fit! Absolutely no modification to your RS is required to install this intercooler.

Does this basically mean biggest = best, right? Or does the core type (in this case, bar & plate) or the tank and inlet/outlet construction have any input on that?

Just trying to understand if this is a GREAT deal, or the BEST deal.
@RocketRS is right, bigger doesn't always mean better. But for our design, we were able to get amazing results with this core. It turns out that the size really helped flow, temperature and power here.

Perfect, this is the type of info I was hoping for! Mishimoto already debunked any worries about pressure drops (in fact, it seems the opposite with their FMIC!), but the weight question is a good one.
@Mishimoto - I see the dimensional specs on your website, but I don't see a weight measurement. Can you provide the product weight (and the OEM unit weight, if you have it)?
We have not weighed the prototype intercooler yet. I know the stock one weighs in at around 9.5 lbs. Our's is heavier, but the bar-and-plate core is designed that way for strength and increased efficiency. Our RS is still in the middle of other product testing right now, but as soon as the engineer has a chance to take the intercooler off for me to weigh it, I can update you guys with that information!

Love how thick it looks! Please add pics of a raw one installed. I bet it looks yuge!

Will charge pipes be ready by the time these are? Will it line up with the stock or someone else's tubes well?
Thanks! This will line up with the stock pipes as well as our upgraded intercooler pipes as well. We have released the cold side pipe and the hot side is still under active development. More updates on that soon!

See below for a raw installed shot with the front bumper. The tabs on the side of the intercooler are air diversion plates to help keep the airflow directly aimed at the core.



Hope this helps guys! I'll be glad to answer any more questions!

-Diamaan
 
#43 ·
Is it a direct fit? Any cutting or drilling necessary for the install?
 
#48 ·
Love how thick it looks! Please add pics of a raw one installed. I bet it looks yuge!

Will charge pipes be ready by the time these are? Will it line up with the stock or someone else's tubes well?
 
#51 ·
Is there a similar aftermarket intercooler out there so that we could guess on the weight? I wasn't thinking of going for an IC so soon but this looks nice.
 
#54 ·


I actually spoke with my engineer late yesterday to figure out the weight. Ours comes in at 21lbs. It's definitely a weight increase over stock, and it is something to pay attention to regarding the front end weight. However, by design, bar-and-plate intercoolers sacrifice a bit of weight, for increased durability and better efficiency. This intercooler also produces power and decreases outlet temperatures by a significant amount, so it's something we can live with. Plus, it's what everyone else wanted when we polled!



So tempted!

I made the mistake of filling my mishimoto cart with all the things I suddenly can't live without. Now I should probably narrow that shopping cart down some. Kids gotta eat still..
Time for a ramen diet? :happy:

I want this... How do I get it for free?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Haha, by reserving your spot on the presale of course!

-Diamaan
 
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