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1.0 Ecoboost Europe Road Trip Report, Inc Nurburgring Nordschleiffe


GlynnZS
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So I've just come back from a 2500 mile 8 day road trip through France, Belgium, Germany, Holland, Switzerland and Luxembourg (and England but I guess that doesn't count!) in the fiesta and just thought I would share a couple of pictures and a probably unimpressive video of part of a nurburgring lap.

The car has been remapped using bluefin, and although I have a Pumaspeed induction kit, this wasnt on and hasnt been since i had the car serviced a couple of weeks ago. (This may be up for sale soon, PM's welcome, a decent offer may make me sell it). Otherwise it's standard.

Overall the car was excellent and never missed a beat; due to what feels like a silly amount of torque from a 1.0l with the remap i half expected it to go bang before the end of the trip, but after doing two laps of the 13mile nordschleiffe, and the Furkapass(see pic below) Grimselpass and Sustenpass in switzerland, all of which rise to well over 2000m through the alps, it took it all in it's stride. The torque was very welcome coming out of super tight hairpins into a massive gradient up a mountain, and where traffic allowed i made great progress! Oh and reached 120mph pretty quick on the autobahn before traffic, and it was still accelerating, reckon it would do 130mph with clearer roads, but they are very busy.

The only niggle with the car were the brakes, the car accelerates much better than it brakes, and this totally takes away your confidence to build up too much speed on the nurburgring, or too much speed going down the other side of an alpine mountain for fear of not being able to slow down enough for the inevitable hairpin. The nurburgring has some big gradients on it, which you can't tell in any of the videos on youtube, and after slowing down for two tight downhill bends the brake feel had totally gone and i pretty much had to cruise for a while to cool them down, and i wasnt going that fast to begin with! On a track you should either be on full throttle or braking on the straights, and i just couldn't do that as i would have built up far too much speed for my lack of confidence in whether i could slow back down in time.

In short, i want to go back to the 'ring and the alpine passes in an ST. I could always get better brakes and suspension for mine, but it isn't worth it and that wouldn't get rid of the constant feeling that the engine and clutch aren't going to last very long in its remapped state. Oh and i also want cruise control if i do a similar trip again!

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Small part of one of the laps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji_JPjgmG_o&feature=youtu.be

This video was practically all in third gear except for i think one bit in second. Top of third gear is around 100mph, and on the fast section just before the video ends because someone crashed, we are at part throttle at the top end of third gear being very cautious. Although i kind of know the track from watching loads of videos and gran turismo, I still didnt want to go over 100mph with such garbage brakes in case i forgot about a sudden tight bend and ended up like the guy at the end of this video. They dont call it 'The Green Hell' for nothing, it had been open one hour and one car and three bikes had bit the dust, though everyone was ok. I would recommend it though, it was awesome and great fun, saw so many fast cars come past us.

Hopefully it will give anyone who's interested in either a 1.0 ecoboost or a bluefin and idea of what it sounds like and how it goes in 2nd and third.

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Amazing! All very impressive mate! All that and on wrong side of road! Haha

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Looks epic, you missed an all important part though. What MPG did you get? :rolleyes:

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Haha thanks. 43mpg, which is very reasonable considering the speeds I was doing. On the two lane autobahn you pretty much do 60mph with the trucks or 100mph+ with everyone else. I got 48mpg from Manchester to Dover on the way to France, but that was the only part of the trip that I tried to stick to a reasonable 70-75mph and be economical. Even on the way back to Manchester last night at 2am it's safe to say I wasn't doing the speed limit.

That's all from the onboard computer too, i haven't measured it, all i know is I filled up 6 times and used it all

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The engine clutch/ gearbox should be fine in its remapped state, Ford makes a more powerful version and sells it to the public (so it has to last/ run in different climates/ with diferent fuel) the brakes are supposed to be tested on simulated alpine passes but its interesting what you gave said about the brakes - you may have "roasted" them once when braking hard from high speed (if the brakes overheat the survace of the pads can get "glazed" and need to be removed and sanded to bring them back) and they never properly recovered, and when they faded you lost confidence in them but they may have been ok (making you overcautios) -

better safe than sorry though - the neverbeen is ba dangerous place , a lot of people have come a cropper on it

You are worried about the engine/ clutch / g-box too, but this is un-nessesary (see above) as as long as it is used (even hard) but not abused, they should last for may miles/ a long time (even with the remap )

The brakes fading from 100+ mph into hairpin bends is unlikely to be a problem with most owners living in the UK, most would probably never encounter the fade - a skilled race driver might brake less and enter corners at higher speeds or brake a little earlier (driving on the limitations of the brakes/ not "leaning" on the brakes/ using the brakes to "bail them out")

Someone once said that all cars understeer and have rubbish brakes -

An ex champion who sold Scoobies told me that a lot of drivers upgraded their brakes on their STis etc, he said they did not need that and it was because they were not being driven right

Was there a lot of extra weight in the car?

Im not saying how good or bad the brakes are put to consider the possibility that its the workman and not the tools - but also not rule out the brakes on the ecoboost are unsuitable for high-speed/ racing use but only good enough for 70mph british roads

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I totally agree with you on the workman and tools analogy, I'm not a skilled racing driver. I'm not saying the brakes are unfit for general purpose, but that they are not good enough for fast driving, and the car is pretty quick. The nurburgring, alpine passes and autobahn are different from a closed race track in that you may need to stop from a high speed as quick as possible, and with the standard brakes, that ain't fast enough!

In contrast I have just test-driven an ST, and that could stop a hell of a lot quicker. The salesman was egging me on a fair bit so we were going quite quick. Back to back the brakes are uncomparable.

The ST really is a great car, and in the morning I should hopefully find out if the finance has been approved and the one ive put a deposit on will be mine!! Cant wait!

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I've always wanted to have a go round the ring ,may even go next year now i have the st.

As i owned a zetec s before i agree the brakes are no where near the stopping power of the st.As you say ok for road but

not good enough for high speed driving like the ring or any track work tbh.

Good luck with the finance on the st if all goes well you will love it.

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This looks like a ace trip. I want to do it !!! Anyone fancy doing this maybe get a FOC trip like this organised haha

Sent from my Nokia 3310 using Ford OC

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I would really recommend it, it's probably the best thing ive ever done. For me it was the perfect amount of driving, and we made sure there was at least one major point of interest each day, some of which was the driving ('ring, black forest roads, alpine passes) and others which were castles, biggest waterfall in europe, mountains or grand city architecture.

If you go enough places in a short period of time you end up with loads of random good things happening that you hadnt planned, like seeing some awesome cars in germany and switzerland. Then on the day of my 30th birthday we were on our last day in Switzerland, just happened to get off the motorway to pick up some drinks from Basel, the day England were playing Switzerland....parked the car in a random square, get out and no BS there's Roy Hodgson! Got a picture of my mate with him, shook his hand, he wished me happy 30th and i wished him good luck for the nights match. Very random!

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Did you plan trip your self or was it one of these rally things like the cannonball rally that you can book online ??

Sent from my Nokia 3310 using Ford OC

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I planned it all myself, just got an idea of where i wanted to go, used google maps directions to see if it was do-able in the time i had off work, and then booked hotels using trip advisor

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Lol no, wasn't pushing anywhere near that fast.

Just in case there is any doubt you, you can see my reg in the picture in this thread, and you can see his in the vid ;-)

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Oh and I pick up my ST in two weeks! No messing about, only came back home yesterday haha

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Looks like an epic trip. How much do you reckon it all cost?

Say 150 each for petrol, 35 each for ferry, 300 each hotels for 7 nights, if you did hostels be cheaper. And then beer and food money which will differ massively depending on how much you like to eat and drink and how expensive your tastes

Edit: for two people in one car....

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Lol no, wasn't pushing anywhere near that fast.

Just in case there is any doubt you, you can see my reg in the picture in this thread, and you can see his in the vid ;-)

Yer I know it's dated ages ago anyway haha

Sent from my Nokia 3310 using Ford OC

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Oh and I pick up my ST in two weeks! No messing about, only came back home yesterday haha

Nice one B)

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I have the standard 100ps version and i'm not sure if they are the same brakes as the ZS, but they do fade pretty quick, they come back if you give some beans on a straight run and cool them

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Looks like a really fun trip! Always wanted to go round the nurburgring but not sure If i trust myself not to crash into the most expensive car on track. My ZS arrives tomorrow! Was wondering if the bluefin is actually worth it and noticeable in day to day driving? Also I know you can remove it and reapply it but have ford ever noticed it when you've gone for services? Cos I suppose it would invalidate the warranty if they saw it.

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Yeah the bluefin is definitely worth it, even after test driving an ST and putting a deposit down on one, I still love putting my foot down in my ZS it's awesome. When I took the bluefin map off for its service the car felt very underwhelming compared to with the bluefin.

When I was talking to the salesman about the ST he said he's currently got a ZS and would love to remap it, but it isn't his car. I asked him about warranty and he just said it's a grey area and that he couldn't say that it would definitely invalidate it. He was that unbothered by it I told him mine is remapped, he asked me if I would take him for a spin so he could see the difference, and to just put it back to original map before part exing it for the ST.

Obviously when things go wrong dealerships will always look for an excuse not to pay to fix it on warranty, so I'd still be wary, take it off whenever you go to the dealership. He also reckoned if you disconnect the battery for a while, you can't tell it's been remapped. Don't know how true that is

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