Instrumented Test
From the August 2013 Issue of Car and Driver
TESTED
Fans of the original ’roided-out Honda Civics that launched the tuner craze and made Vin Diesel’s career may have aged, but Ford’s new turbocharged Focus ST proves there’s still some energy left in the traditional sport-compact scene and the aftermarket that feeds off it.
Cobb Tuning of Austin, Texas, is no stranger to small, turbocharged hot rods, with ample experience tweaking fast Mitsubishis, Nissans, and Subarus. Ford’s little head case was a natural for Cobb’s brand of brain surgery, and the black example you see here shows what’s possible when about 10 grand—more than half of which buys some expensive wheels and tires—is heaped on top of the ST’s $27,775 base price.
Not that the 10Best-winning Focus ST needs much help. It only recently surrendered its short-lived comparison-test crown to the seventh-gen Volkswagen GTI, and it remains a torque-steering, tail-wagging hoon of an everyday hatch. But if the stock ST is immature by design, the folks at Cobb have made it a candidate for juvie.
Aided in development by rallyist, X Games gold medalist, and TV personality Tanner Foust, the Cobb ST sports a smattering of bolt-on engine and chassis bits that accentuate the base car’s best features without totally ruining its drivability. Cobb will offer a limited run of turnkey, Foust-edition STs mechanically similar to this one later this year; given Foust’s considerable drifting accomplishments, we’re a little surprised a rear-drive conversion isn’t included.
While the ST’s 2.0-liter EcoBoost engine is rated at 252 horsepower and 270 pound-feet of torque from the factory, Cobb has managed to coax those figures up to 300 and 380, respectively, by improving the engine’s breathing and fiddling with its electronic controls. Included on our tester were a Cobb intake ($299) and a larger front-mount intercooler ($1095), as well as a larger downpipe ($599) and a Cobb/MagnaFlow exhaust ($799). The company’s Accessport electronic tuner ($449), which dangled off our car’s air vent like a Pep Boys air freshener, oversees everything and remaps the engine computer to work with the new components. Maximum boost increases slightly to 22 psi from the stock 21, but the new software largely does away with the normal ST’s gradual pressure buildup and overboost feature, allowing the full whack to come on all at once.
