Bolt-On Turbo Upgrade from AMS

The engineering team at AMS Performance is hard at work on new AMS/ALPHA Performance bolt-in turbo upgrades for the Mk3 Focus RS.

Typically when AMS design a turbo upgrade it consists of a whole new exhaust manifold, downpipe and other parts with a complete turbo replacement often referred to as a “turbo kit”. These new AMS & ALPHA Performance bolt-in turbos however are being designed to bolt directly into the factory exhaust manifold making an affordable solution for big horsepower. By keeping everything in the factory location our customers will not have to buy parts more than once as their existing intakes and downpipes (both factory or aftermarket) will bolt directly to these new turbo upgrades.

With this new development of bolt-in turbos, AMS are getting into multiple technical areas they have never had to explore. To overcome this, their engineering team is putting time into research and testing as usual. One of these areas is internal wastegate design.

To research and test, they created a wastegate test cell. It is being used to test wastegate materials, designs, clearances and part compliance. To test these, thermal cycling in the test cell was performed. Thermal cycling is important to test thermal stress and strain over the lifetime of the parts. The thermal cycling is performed from temperatures from 250 to 1,100+ degree Celsius.

AMS are thermally testing the wastegate development parts for 200 hours under continual abuse. Not only are they testing the parts thermally, AMS actuated the wastegate door at 5hz. This actuation is being performed to test the design and part compliance. With this actuation rate, the wastegate opens and closes over 3 million times! This is much more abuse than it will ever see on the street or track. AMS Performance engineer parts to perform and survive in the harshest of environments that the wastegate will see.

These new bolt-in turbocharger upgrades for the new Ford Focus RS will follow the launch of their first round of parts which will include intakes, downpipes, exhaust systems and intercooler upgrades.