goingnowherefast said:The market has spoken, and it says "water down the ST brand"
Proud owner of a ~300whp Fiesta ST that I love dearly.
I don't see this as watering down the ST brand at all. I don't understand that argument.
goingnowherefast said:The market has spoken, and it says "water down the ST brand"
Proud owner of a ~300whp Fiesta ST that I love dearly.
I don't see this as watering down the ST brand at all. I don't understand that argument.
Nick Comstock said:goingnowherefast said:The market has spoken, and it says "water down the ST brand"
Proud owner of a ~300whp Fiesta ST that I love dearly.
I don't see this as watering down the ST brand at all. I don't understand that argument.
Me neither. I see it as expanding it. You want to talk watering down a brand/badge, look at early 2000s GM, when they were slapping SS or GXP or Redline badges on all sorts of piles of junk that had no performance credentials and barely differentiated at all from regular models.
Fiesta ST, performance oriented version of a fiesta. Same for the focus and now the edge. This is not like the sticker and tape packages of the seventies and eighties. The performance is there. The numbers back it up.
In reply to alfadriver :
Yes, since the older, lower performing model had the 2.7, it makes the fact that the ST gets the 2.7 less special. I obviously don't expect them to make unique engines for every vehicle. I think it's fine that the 2.7 comes in tons of things and that it's used here in the Edge ST. But the existence of the Sport model in years prior provides an image problem for the ST. If the ST wants to separate itself from previous Sport models (which have been reviewed and generally perceived as let downs) then using the 2.7 with a minor power bump seems like a mistake to me. If the Sport had never existed, or the ST had been around before the Sport, then we wouldn't be having this discussion. The timing of it allows the ST to be seen as "Sport +", where if the ST had been the first Edge to get the 2.7, and a Sport model came later, then the Sport would be seen as "ST lite".
In reply to STM317 :
To me it's acknowledgment that Ford knew that the sport wasn't good enough to be an ST. They decided to step it up and make it worthy of the badge. That seems like a good thing.
In reply to STM317 :
Which 2018 Edge can you get with the 2.7 turbo? Other than the top of the line Edge Sport?
When I go to Ford.com to build an Edge, you can get a 2.0l I4 turbo OR and normally aspirated 3.5l V6, except for the top of the line Sport.
Why is it such a big deal that the "Sport" has been renamed "ST?" Seems like the change makes more sense across the whole vehicle line. It's not a SVT, since that name is largely gone. It's not a Raptor, since it's not for off road.
I hope the Fusion Sport is renamed Fusion ST. It just makes sense.
In reply to STM317 :
That's just such a weird semantic to get hung up on. Ford had the Sport. They did away with the Sport and replaced it with a variant with more power, chassis tuning, interior and exterior upgrades and call it an ST. In my mind, ST means a variant of a car with comprehensive upgrades throughout, power, chasis tuning, interior and exterior, while remaining fairly practical and affordable. That's exactly what this is.
alfadriver said:In reply to STM317 :
Which 2018 Edge can you get with the 2.7 turbo? Other than the top of the line Edge Sport?
When I go to Ford.com to build an Edge, you can get a 2.0l I4 turbo OR and normally aspirated 3.5l V6, except for the top of the line Sport.
Why is it such a big deal that the "Sport" has been renamed "ST?" Seems like the change makes more sense across the whole vehicle line. It's not a SVT, since that name is largely gone. It's not a Raptor, since it's not for off road.
I hope the Fusion Sport is renamed Fusion ST. It just makes sense.
The Sport has bot been renamed the ST, the old Sport was not differentiated far enough from the regular vehicles in handling, fun to drive, performance, braking etc. etc. to be an ST. ST is a lot more than Sport. Ditto the Fusion Sport is not an ST. If they did a Fusion ST it would be fast, better handling, better braking, higher grip and more visually differentiated from the regular Fusion to be worthy of the ST badge. Ford do not treat an ST badge lightly. In Europe you can get an ST line on many vehicles which visually looks similar to actual ST's but is closer to 'regular' vehicles in terms of ride, handling and performance. That doesn't fly over here, but is a common tool for most European market manufacturers within Europe.
Sport ≠ ST
Considering the Focus is available with the ecoboost engine in the non-ST and non-RS models (at least overseas, if not in the states), I'd say this is right in-line with Ford's goals.
The ST models are still more than just their engines, which is the point that you're missing and it is why the outgoing Edge Sport isn't going to be considered to be the same car as the Edge ST. The fact that some of us are skilled and crazy enough to make one as quick as one, is not the point as very few people who bought an Edge Sport would do that.
You have to look at it through the eyes of an average buyer who wants something a bit more fun to drive while hauling their kids and dogs, etc. These people generally aren't GRM'ers or if they are, they don't want to wrench on their daily to focus on their projects but still have some fun on the road. The fact that Ford has decided enough customers exist for a vehicle like this, is an interesting one and it shows the changes.
Now who wants a Transit ST? Anyone? Just me? You can order a short roof, short wheelbase van with the Ecoboost V6 already. Give that van a bot of visuals, brakes, a bit more bar and spring, Recaro seats and tune the engine a bit more like the Raptor. Unique wouldn't even begin to describe it. Adrian, I expect you to somehow push this idea forward at the corporate level. There are a handful of us that are waiting........
In reply to Adrian_Thompson :
Even if the cars were not a step up, is it *that* big of a deal? It's not as if the "Sport" versions were terrible cars.
The idea that it's a big deal escapes me.
mazdeuce - Seth said:Now who wants a Transit ST? Anyone? Just me? You can order a short roof, short wheelbase van with the Ecoboost V6 already. Give that van a bot of visuals, brakes, a bit more bar and spring, Recaro seats and tune the engine a bit more like the Raptor. Unique wouldn't even begin to describe it. Adrian, I expect you to somehow push this idea forward at the corporate level. There are a handful of us that are waiting........
It'd be interesting. Like a production Ford SuperVan.
Personally, I want Ford to give us a Flex ST
NickD said:In reply to STM317 :
That's just such a weird semantic to get hung up on. Ford had the Sport. They did away with the Sport and replaced it with a variant with more power, chassis tuning, interior and exterior upgrades and call it an ST. In my mind, ST means a variant of a car with comprehensive upgrades throughout, power, chasis tuning, interior and exterior, while remaining fairly practical and affordable. That's exactly what this is.
Good points. I agree with most of them. But the reason Ford is replacing the Sport is that they must not have seen it as the worthy top dog in their product line. Mazduece is right. It's great that they're trying to do better than the Sport. And Alfadriver is right when he says that the model lineup makes more sense now.
All I'm saying, is if you have a cool new product that you think is an improvement vs its predecessor, then having as much differentiation between the 2 as possible is a good thing. It's not much different than Lincoln getting their own engines, to set them apart from Ford, which is seen as a lower level brand. If this ST had been the first time that we could get a 2.7 in an Edge it would be a lot more exciting. If it had a larger v6, that would've worked too. Adrian says that it is enough of an improvement vs the Sport that it justifies the ST badge, and that's about as good as any of us can get right now.
mazdeuce - Seth said:Now who wants a Transit ST? Anyone? Just me? You can order a short roof, short wheelbase van with the Ecoboost V6 already. Give that van a bot of visuals, brakes, a bit more bar and spring, Recaro seats and tune the engine a bit more like the Raptor. Unique wouldn't even begin to describe it. Adrian, I expect you to somehow push this idea forward at the corporate level. There are a handful of us that are waiting........
You've got the Grosh. You've got a lift. You've got your cottage industry idea and you're your own first customer. "Mazduece Customs LLC"?
NickD said:mazdeuce - Seth said:Now who wants a Transit ST? Anyone? Just me? You can order a short roof, short wheelbase van with the Ecoboost V6 already. Give that van a bot of visuals, brakes, a bit more bar and spring, Recaro seats and tune the engine a bit more like the Raptor. Unique wouldn't even begin to describe it. Adrian, I expect you to somehow push this idea forward at the corporate level. There are a handful of us that are waiting........
It'd be interesting. Like a production Ford SuperVan.
Personally, I want Ford to give us a Flex ST
Ha. That said, the Flex already can be had with the 3.5 Ecoboost. We picked one up for my wife's family truckster, and that thing scoots! I'm not modding the mom-mobile, but downpipes and a tune, and they dip into the low 13's. ;-p
While it's no ST, the Ecoboost option does get about a 1/2" lower factory suspension on the Flex, and the factory 20's come shod with 255/45's.
I respect that they're treating the ST badge to mean something, and that the prior "Sport" model didn't have the right ingredients, so rather than just badge slapping it, they went back to the drawing board and finished out the package.
xflowgolf said:That said, the Flex already can be had with the 3.5 Ecoboost. We picked one up for my wife's family truckster, and that thing scoots! I'm not modding the mom-mobile, but downpipes and a tune, and they dip into the low 13's. ;-p
Semi-related, but I just put an Unleashed tune on my SHO with no other mods, and yowza! Huge improvement to the butt dyno, Instant wheelspin in an AWD car is rather fun. I can't wait to take it to the drag strip this summer.
In reply to Tom_Spangler :
Do you have any idea what they changed? Or are they keeping is secret?
There are good ways and bad ways to make more power out of the 3.5.
In reply to RossD :
Race tested van parts is about as niche an industry as anyone could want to lose money in.
alfadriver said:In reply to Tom_Spangler :
Do you have any idea what they changed? Or are they keeping is secret?
There are good ways and bad ways to make more power out of the 3.5.
Not specifically, other than the peak boost being higher. I would imagine they are tinkering with the spark advance and fuel, but I don't know the details. I could ask, but I doubt they'd tell me much, as it's essentially a trade secret to them. But these folks (and Livernois) are pretty well-regarded on the EB forums, so I trust them. That said, I know I'm taking a chance, but I think it's a pretty small one and it's worth it. There are people pushing these engines a whole lot harder than I ever will and living to tell about it.
I like the idea. Used to have a Forester XT daily driver, really enjoyed it. Couldn't find an analog for our recent family car purchase. Went with CX-5 which is really nice but slow in a straight line. Needs 2.5 turbo engine. Current Forester XT has a CVT and feels less special and fun than the old one.
Edge wasn't on my radar but would consider for next car. If we have another kid the CX-5/CR-V class will probably be too small. I like the idea of a bigger 2 row. The more compact 3 rows like the CX-9 seem kind of silly with how little space there is behind the third row and how small it is. If I really needed a third row a minivan just makes sense.
alfadriver said:In reply to Tom_Spangler :
Do you have any idea what they changed? Or are they keeping is secret?
There are good ways and bad ways to make more power out of the 3.5.
I have no first hand experience, but it sounds like a lot of the ecoboost tunes that I've read about increase boost by controlling the wastegates. That sounds feasible to me, but you obviously have more knowledge on the subject than anybody else here. Toms observation of higher boost levels might back that theory up.
700 pounds??? The difference is less than half that. FuSpo: 4128, Edge Sport: 4437. Granted, that's because the FuSpo is kind of a fat pig for what it is, but still.
Sorry, i saw numbers for the Fusion Sport at 3700 and took that as plausible.
It has an engine that is now specific to only that trim level in the lineup with modifications (tune and exhaust, I'm guessing) that give it a 20hp/40lb-ft bump.
In the modern era of engine control, you only have to make that power in one gear for one split second to be able to put it on the spec sheet. It gets more complicated when you look at how the acceleration actually shakes out in real life, like the examples i mentioned earlier. It will still be fast, but not much faster than it was before, and not much faster than the 'stock minivan' Flex was 7 years and 2 gears and a whole generation of engine technology ago.
when they were slapping SS or GXP or Redline badges on all sorts of piles of junk that had no performance credentials and barely differentiated at all from regular models.
Adjusting for performance inflation, i don't see those attempts being much different than what im seeing from the Edge ST on paper. I guess you could say what has separated our perception of a Focus ST from a Malibu SS (for example) is that the ST is dynamically in a different league than its base model because of the suspension/chassis tuning. Neither ST to date has actually been very fast in a straight line considering the times. A Fiesta ST is not faster in a straight line than a 3.5L (non-turbo!) Taurus. For the Edge ST to not be taken as on the level of a Vue Redline or Equinox Sport, it has to be in a dynamically different league than a regular Edge.
I'm done coming off as a debbie downer about it. Both STs to date have been better than i would have guessed. HOPEFULLY this one is too.
Tom_Spangler said:alfadriver said:In reply to Tom_Spangler :
Do you have any idea what they changed? Or are they keeping is secret?
There are good ways and bad ways to make more power out of the 3.5.
Not specifically, other than the peak boost being higher. I would imagine they are tinkering with the spark advance and fuel, but I don't know the details. I could ask, but I doubt they'd tell me much, as it's essentially a trade secret to them. But these folks (and Livernois) are pretty well-regarded on the EB forums, so I trust them. That said, I know I'm taking a chance, but I think it's a pretty small one and it's worth it. There are people pushing these engines a whole lot harder than I ever will and living to tell about it.
The thing I would be worried about is specifically how they got more power. There are some very easy, and pretty darned safe to get more power from that engine- some of the parameters I can tell you off the top of my head (but don't ask, I can't tell).
The problem is- if you do it wrong, you will run out of fuel, and poke holes in the pistons.
For sure, there's almost nothing left in the spark advance. That one can be scary dangerous to mess with, too- there's a chronic problem with DI engines where a hole can be poked very, very quickly. I've seen the result of that fault many times, and it's not pretty.
And I know I've pointed this out before- the fuel pump on that engine (on any DI engine for that matter) is flow limited. The 2010-2013 SHO's were limited to just over 400hp in terms of fuel flow. But to get it, you can do it safely, or you can risk grenading the motor.
Boost isn't a big deal- there's some of that left. It's all about the fuel.
Anyway, that's a tangent that I know quite a bit about. :)
Nick Comstock said:Fiesta ST, performance oriented version of a fiesta. Same for the focus and now the edge. This is not like the sticker and tape packages of the seventies and eighties. The performance is there. The numbers back it up.
It's a truck. It has about as much to do with a Fiesta or Focus as a wheelbarrow has to do with a skateboard.
Yes, you might make it fast, but it's still a wheelbarrow.
STM317 said:alfadriver said:In reply to Tom_Spangler :
Do you have any idea what they changed? Or are they keeping is secret?
There are good ways and bad ways to make more power out of the 3.5.
I have no first hand experience, but it sounds like a lot of the ecoboost tunes that I've read about increase boost by controlling the wastegates. That sounds feasible to me, but you obviously have more knowledge on the subject than anybody else here. Toms observation of higher boost levels might back that theory up.
To say a stock cal is *that* conservative is a little misleading. It's as much as you are going to get and have most of the entire fleet of the vehicle make 150k miles without breaking anything. So when you get much more power than what it's rated, something will break. Virtually most here would not really care about what is likely to go first, but it will light a MIL light.
But even then, most of the engines are fuel flow limited to just about 400hp. So 320 out of 400 isn't that bad.
The new DI engines that have PFI systems, too, can make a lot more. As seen in the Raptor and GT and vehicles like it. THOSE can be considered conservative relative to what the unrestricted system is capable of doing.
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