As the official tuning company that has worked alongside Ford engineers upon the Focus RS 2016, we’re pretty intrigued to hear all about how this company has gone about giving the green light to class leading performance parts and aftermarket upgrade kits. Here we report back on exactly what such a tall order demands.
Behind the scenes at Mountune
Mountune work with what is known as development cars – they’re hardly the super shiny nitrous blue versions of the RS that we’ll soon see on our streets, but they do provide an ideal platform to drill down into the future RS’ calibrations. This is done through a development module, and as we’ll go on to see this piece of tech drives intelligent innovation.
All about the data
The RS boasts a seriously impressive 2.3 litre turbocharged engine, yet for Mountune this only poses a more complex challenge as they are the guys tasked with increasing the performance of this engine even further.
Key to being able to do this is the data that is fed back from the development cars, with the module we mentioned earlier being connected to a lead that sends the data back to a laptop. This allows for a unique view into the inner workings of the RS and into the cars’ ECUs; the Mountune team are then able to see all that the Ford development team can see, and are the only company with this privilege.
Set apart by strategy
Further to Mountune’s unique position is their so-called ‘strategy’. This ‘strategy’ informs the calibrator how the tables of data are interacting with one another, why the variables maybe changing and the effects that this then has on calibration elsewhere. The mapping systems of modern cars today include seriously complex calibrations and being able to work upon, optimise and modify these systems demands an experienced pro’s knowledge and know-how. This means that Mountune’s job goes beyond boost, ignition and fuel. In fact, so far does it go beyond this that there are 1400 differing tables for the controlling of everything from pedal maps to altitude-based correction offsets – complex stuff, right? For the Mountune team however these tables, and the expert manipulation of base calibration, can drive better performance whilst still managing the driving experience, fuel economy and (essentially) your warranty.
Solid sign-off criteria
Over the course of their work the Mountune team have stringent sign-off criteria in place, they must know what turbo speeds, in-cylinder pressures, engine revs and plenty of other parameters being produced are, all of which goes to meeting Ford’s boundary conditions that were established by Ford founder Henry.
Thinking ahead for the RS owner
Mountune know the typical RS driver, and they know that many will be looking to fit a larger turbocharger, for which Mountune’s complete intake is more than capable of accommodating.
The Mountune Induction Kit Upgrade… and plenty of products to come
The Mountune induction kit will soon be available (launching when the RS does, in March 2016); as well as this they’ll also soon be releasing further information about the other kits and products very soon, so be sure to check in with these guys if you want to be the first in the know.