Moose Speed Race & Rally Ltd.

It is fair to say that having 366lb.fit of torque at 3000rpm and 20mph has made the 2WD Darrian a rather challenging car to drive. Whilst the MBE traction control worked very well indeed with the 2.5L Millington engine, it has struggled slightly with the EcoBoost’s torque in the slippery conditions. Whereas you can short-shift a naturally aspirated engine and end up lower on the rev range with significantly less torque, short-shifting the EcoBoost has resulted in more torque ...in the next gear! Some new software has therefore been written so that the delivery of torque can now be based upon road speed. This would not be required for 4WD cars, but for 2WD cars this software will allow each installation to be specifically tailored to that car’s capabilities, with the road speed at which the transition between boost levels takes place being easily and quickly adjusted via a laptop. This new software has undergone preliminary road testing, which was completed satisfactorily, making the power delivery feel closer to that of a naturally aspirated engine. We look forward to testing this new software in competition… hopefully in 2020.
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Before the World went into Covid-19 lockdown, we managed to get a couple of days back at the DTW dyno, in order to see what improvements the ported head and reprofiled cams gave us on the rally spec 1.6L EcoBoost engine, with 34mm restrictor. The graph shows our previous figures against our new figures. We were very pleased to see significant increases in both power and torque between 4000rpm and 6500rpm. Power is up from 300bhp to 315bhp, whilst peak torque is still 366lb.ft..., albeit this is now at 3800rpm, whereas previously it was at 3000rpm. However, we have an increase of 30lb.ft at 4500rpm, up from 331lb.ft to 361lb.ft. The reprofiled cams and ported head have moved the torque curve up the rev range, which should help driveability in 2WD cars (more about that tomorrow). We were previously around 30bhp behind the 2.5L engines, but have halved this gap to 15bhp in one step, which is very encouraging for the future, especially considering that we have over 120lb.ft of additional torque available.
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As part of our ongoing plan to further develop the 1.6L EcoBoost engine for stage rallying, we have now built our first engine with reprofiled cams and a ported cylinder head. Instead of just using the Ford followers between the valves and cams, the reprofiled cams will now be running top hat type shims between the tops of the valves and the cams, which has necessitated the purchase of this shim grinder, in order to achieve the precise gaps required between the followers and ...cams. Additionally, due to the fact that we are now running 1.9 bar of boost with the OEM Ford valve springs, a special valve spring platform has been developed, in order to effectively shorten the spring and increase the spring rate, to prevent the valves being held open by boost pressure. We have not seen this happen yet, but this platform has been developed as a belt & braces approach to ensure it does not happen in the future. We also now have available a fixed/manual tensioner, to replace the OEM Ford sprung tensioner, with the aim of ensuring that the cambelt does not jump teeth under extreme use.
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There have been some interesting EcoBoost developments being undertaken at Moose Speed over the past few weeks.... we will be bringing you some exciting performance improvement news over the coming days.

The Kaur Motorsport Fiesta Proto looking good and sounding great, running our 1.6L EcoBoost engine kit!

We are looking forward to next weekend's Brands Hatch Stages Rally, seeded at Car 7 with Simon May.

Our most recent customer, Mark Smith, is spending this winter preparing his recently purchased Darrian to receive one of our 1.6L EcoBoost engines.

Number 1 customer Egon Kaur (Kaur Motorsport) is seeded 3rd on this weekend's Saaremaa Rally in Estonia, behind Oliver Solberg. Egon was setting times close to Oliver last time out, when running our low boost 280bhp spec engine, but following today's rolling road session, he is looking forward to seeing what our high boost 320bhp* spec engine feels like on the Estonian stages. We wish Egon and co-driver Silver the very best of luck this weekend - go get 'em lads! (* figures achieved on Estonian rolling road on 8th Oct 2019)

An update from Kaur Motorsport, who are using our 1.6L EcoBoost rally (restricted) engine kit in their Fiesta Proto.

That's the cam timing set on the latest EcoBoost to be built with our upgraded block, steel rods and forged piston. All ready for the dyno!

After a day of suspension set-up work with Darrian Wizard Tim Duffee, we are all set for this weekend's VolksWagen Wexford Stages Rally....

We are very happy with how our first advert in Pacenotes magazine has turned out, together with an EcoBoost article by SBD Motorsport. We are competing in Wexford this weekend in the EcoBoost Darrian, so please come and say hello if you are attending the rally.

A great result for Egon, finishing 3rd Overall, behind only a Fiesta WRC and Oliver Solberg's VW Polo R5. It is worth noting that Egon's Fiesta was using a conservative 1.5 bar of boost this weekend, not the 1.9 bar which we are using with our upgraded blocks. We are excited to see what the future brings for this team.

Estonian EcoBoost customer Egon Kaur is competing on a round of the Estonian National Championship this weekend, in his Fiesta Proto. After the first three Friday evening stages, he is lying 3rd overall, just 7 seconds behind Oliver Solberg in his Polo R5, and 35 seconds ahead of Mikko Hirvonen in his Fiesta R5. The Saturday stages are more similar to Friday's Stage 2, where Egon set 2nd fastest time, only 2 seconds behind Solberg, so we look forward to seeing how he gets on today...

The countdown has officially started!

Not normally being ones to post in-car footage of our exploits, we have been asked by several people if we could please post some footage from last weekend's Harry Flatters Rally, over Epynt, where we finished 3rd overall. Enjoy...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6Kn9C8Jc bM&feature=youtu.be

Fitting a 1600cc Turbo in a Mk2 Escort (or similar)
Following several recent remarks made by fellow competitors, we would just like to clarify the situation regarding the use of 1600cc turbo engines within stage rally Mk2 Escorts, and within any other cars which may be considered eligible (by competitors) to only run Naturally Aspirated engines.
The common misconception is that any car which was originally sold without a turbo model in the range cannot subsequently have a tur...bo-charged engine fitted for MUK sanctioned stage rallying.
This is not correct. Whilst this may have been a previous ruling, we have had it confirmed by MUK that this would be a perfectly legal, and accepted, engine upgrade.
The factor to consider when planning a swap to a 1600cc turbo engine, is the largest capacity engine within that model’s range.
So, for example, the Mk2 Escort was sold with a 2000cc engine as it’s largest production capacity. With the current rules, an Escort cannot therefore run under a Category 1 Passport if the engine capacity is more than a 25% increase over the 2000cc engine, hence all the 2.5L Escorts, which just fall within this limit. The 1600cc turbo engine multiplied by the 1.7 turbo factor results in a calculated capacity of 2720cc. In this instance a MUK Category 2 Passport would be required, as the 2720cc results in a greater than 25% capacity increase.
However, Talbot Sunbeams were originally sold with a 2200cc Lotus engine as their largest capacity engine. A 25% increase on the 2200cc engine sees a maximum permitted capacity of 2750cc. A Talbot Sunbeam could therefore be run under a MUK Category 1 Passport, with a simple capacity change being recorded on the MUK Passport.
We feel that it is important for customers to be clear regarding what they are undertaking when trying to make a decision such as this, and recommend that MUK are approached by customers themselves before undertaking a conversion to 1600cc turbo, for their own peace of mind.
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