Ford Focus SVT Road Test Review

The SVT Focus is almost here, and we're excited. You might expect the announcement of a hopped-up Focus would get lost in the flood of Japanese horsepower due to hit our shores in the next few months. Between the 180-hp Sentra SE-R, the persistent rumors of a new, 170-hp Civic Si, and Acura's new 200-hp RS-X, a faster Focus doesn't seem that exciting on the surface. Oh, but it's not the surface we're excited about, it's the three letters on the rear hatch. SVT can mean only one thing. Fun.

From its offices in Dearborn, Mich., Ford's Special Vehicle Engineering team may sit knee-deep in the soft and soggy traditions of

American carbuilding, but it has two things that make it different: passion and freedom. The SVE team is made up of car guys, and car guys, no matter where they live, make the best cars. Every car company has car guys, though what makes Ford's SVE team different is what it is allowed to do. Ford has given the team remarkable freedom, and the result has been that cars with the SVT badge (Special Vehicle Engineering becomes the Special Vehicle Team when the marketing boys get involved) are universally well executed and fun to drive.

But what do a bunch of good old boys in Dearborn know about sport compact cars? You might be surprised. Andy Slankard, project manager for the SVT Focus, has an old, black-and-white photo of a 510 on his wall. It's a reminder of his days spent instructing at the Jim Russell driving school at Riverside in the mid-'80s. The years he lived in Southern California were enough to show him where small cars were going. "I've known this market was here since 1985," he said, but generation after generation of Escort failed to have what it took, and it wasn't until the Focus came around that Ford had a platform that could really play in this field. Slankard isn't the only one with small-car credentials on the SVT Focus team. In fact, there is only one V8 guy in the whole group. Perhaps that's who is responsible for the SVT Focus making 85 percent of its peak torque way down at 2200 rpm.

Slankard's team looked at the Civic Si, the Golf 1.8T and the Seat Leon when laying out the plans for the SVT Focus, but none of them really offered the package they thought was right. Instead, they used their car-guy instincts to put together a unique performance car.

The changes start under the hood, where the Focus was begging for power. The standard ZX3's Zetec engine is tuned for one thing: gas mileage. High-mileage Focus sales raise Ford's corporate average fuel economy, allowing more dinosaur- sucking SUVs to be sold. That little piece of reality is why the seemingly capable Zetec makes only 132 hp in its base form. Freed from the constraints of subsidizing Excursion sales, SVT was able to squeeze a far more respectable 170 hp from the iron-block 2.0-liter, along with a healthy 145 lb-ft of torque. Maximum revs (the base Focus doesn't actually have a red line on the tach) have been bumped up from somewhere around 6750 to 7300 rpm.

In our first installment of Project Focus last month, we found a whopping 17 hp just from changing cam timing. No surprise, then, that SVE added variable intake cam timing to its head. SVE also enlarged and raised the intake ports, straightening the ports in the process. Intake valves have been enlarged from 32 mm to 33.5 mm, while the exhaust valves, at 28 mm, remain unchanged. Stronger valve springs are used on both, however, to accommodate the higher redline. The intake manifold, formerly a tortured, long-runner plastic piece with no plenum, has been replaced with a sophisticated two-stage intake manifold with enough volume for proper resonance tuning. Unlike Honda's two-stage intake manifolds, which have a long runner at low rpm and an additional, short runner at high rpm, the new SVT manifold has only one path for air.

At low rpm, air flows through an air horn and into the intake port. At a certain, undisclosed point, the air horns are lifted out of the way, and air flows directly into the ports. Freed of the extra length of the horns, the shorter runner makes more high-rpm power.

On the exhaust side, the hideously restrictive close-coupled catalyst has been replaced with a tubular, stainless-steel tri-Y header welded to an under-car cat. The catalytic converter now sits just behind the oil pan and in front of the front crossmember. The good news for current Focus owners is the exhaust ports have not been moved, so the new manifold and cat should fit the earlier cars. Farther back, exhaust pipe diameter has been increased to 58 mm (2.28 in.).

The bottom end gets a little work as well. New pistons are used to push compression from 9.6:1 up to 10.2:1, and stronger forged connecting rods replace the delicate cast iron rods of the base engine. At the back of the crank, a new dual-mass flywheel is used to damp vibrations and improve shift feel, but it's what's on the other side of that flywheel that has us excited. The Focus' biggest mechanical shortfall was its transmission. While robust and drastically overbuilt, the gear ratios in the Focus's box were way too tall--another sacrifice for fuel economy. We expected SVT to answer that criticism with a close ratio version of the same MTX75 gearbox, but instead they turned to Getrag for an all-new six-speed transaxle.

The new Getrag box is a curious piece. Look closely at the gear ratios listed in the spec box and you'll notice two different final drive ratios. Confused? The Getrag box is what is known as a dual layshaft design. Normally, you would have an input shaft with six gears on it meshing with an output shaft that also has six gears on it. This would make a very long transmission, however, and besides the packaging constraints, long shafts tend to be weaker than short ones. In the Getrag box, there are only four gears on the input shaft and there are two different output shafts. Second and third gear, for example, might share the same gear on the input shaft, but second would be a larger gear on one side of the input gear, and third would be a smaller one on the other side of the same input gear. Both output shafts drive the differential through different final drive gears, resulting in a 2.88:1 final drive for first, second, fifth and sixth gear, and a 4.25:1 final drive for third, fourth, and reverse.

Matching all this accelerating power with equal amounts of stopping power is far too big a job for the 10-inch front discs and 8-inch rear drums of the standard ZX3. The standard European four-wheel discs might do the job, but SVE is interested in far more than just doing the job. SVT cars need to be ready for real driving, so the SVT Focus has absolutely huge brakes. Front rotors are 11.8-inches in diameter and are clamped by a larger, single-piston caliper. Rear rotors are 11-inches and are vented as well. Seventeen-inch wheels are needed to cover those brakes, and 215/45ZR-17 tires do a good job of covering the wheels, offering what should be a lot of cornering grip. Ironically, the SVT Focus will probably come with the same Continental ContiSport Contact tires the Sentra SE-R will, but since we haven't been allowed to drive either car yet, we can't say if that's a good thing.

Naturally, SVE stiffened the springs, shocks and the Focus' notoriously soft bushings. Both front and rear anti-roll bars are bigger by 1 mm. If our experience with the SVT Contour is any indication, the suspension will probably still be soft by our bone-jarring standards, but should offer exceptional grip nonetheless.

Inside, new seats with significantly larger side bolsters offer improved lateral support. Leather is used on the bolsters, but cloth, which offers more support during hard cornering, is used in the seating areas. The tilt/telescoping steering column is standard, making it much easier to find a good driving position. The armrest that interfered with shifting and annoyed us so much on our project car? The SVT Focus doesn't have it. Sometimes, it's the little things that tell you a car guy was in charge.

Instrumentation is unique to the SVT Focus as well. The tach has been extended to 8000 rpm, the speedometer to 160 mph and the coin tray to the right of the gauge pod has been replaced with oil pressure and oil temperature gauges. All the gauges are electro-luminescent at night.

The only part of the SVT Focus' spec list that doesn't improve the car dramatically is the weight. At 2,770 lbs, it's still quite light, but that's 220 lbs more than the base ZX3. Every improvement, from the big brakes and 17-inch wheels to the six-speed transmission, adds a little bit more weight to the car. Despite the extra pounds, the power-to-weight ratio still looks quite impressive, but not nearly as impressive as the power-to-dollar ratio. Final pricing has not been set, but the target is around $18,000. Production should begin sometime in the fall. 2002 will indeed be a very good year.