Hi All,

 

The 1.5 ecoboost on my 2015 Mk3.5 has decided to blow up at 103K. It's an M8DB engine. I'm sourcing a replacment engine at the moment and found a decent M9DG engine which is from a Focus Estate.

My quesiton is are the M8 and M9 engines interchangable? As far as I know the only difference is that the cars with an M8 fitted have the 150bhp map and the M9 cars have the 182Bhp map. But otherwise the core engine itself is identical. Can anyone who's had to change an engine confirm if there are any differences to be concerned about?

Thanks in Advance

I can't help with differences unfortunately.  Am intrigued as to exactly what happened to your original engine though?  Had been considering one of these myself as a more reliable option than the 1.0...

So it suddenly started running rough and feeling like a misfire, when I looked into it I found a small amount of oil in cylinder 2. Garage gave it a compression/leak down test and found that the piston rings on 2 were shot. Bearing in mind this cars never missed a service and had oil changes every 6k and never wanted for anything...

The Ecoboom tales are true sadly 😞 and at this point it's cheaper to just swap the engine out than have a rebuild as the rebuilds are just a false economy.

48 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

Had been considering one of these myself as a more reliable option than the 1.0...

I've heard they are not

41 minutes ago, DaveT70 said:

I've heard they are not

Wilco highlighted some issues in my thread a couple of weeks ago as well.

Must admit I haven't seen many failures on here though (especially compared to 1.0 failures!) but there weren't all that many of these 4 pot 1.5s fitted before the Mk4 came out with the 3 pot.

16 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

Wilco highlighted some issues in my thread a couple of weeks ago as well.

Must admit I haven't seen many failures on here though (especially compared to 1.0 failures!) but there weren't all that many of these 4 pot 1.5s fitted before the Mk4 came out with the 3 pot.

Quite a few of the 1.5 4 pots in Kugas though.

and most of them without any problems.

Well just an update that will hopefully help others in future, seeing as no one actually answered my original question. I have now fitted the M9DG to the car. Completely identical to the M8DB internally and externally so should you need to replace your engine any of the M8/M9 1.5 packs are compatible. The only difference with any of these engines is the map on the car.

Car's now back on the road.

The original 2015 engine failed @ 104k with a piston ring failure on Cylinder 2 due to prolonged coolant intrusion into the cylinder... but of course it's not a design flaw is it ford!?...

The car had been stuttering at high rpm for a few months and then started to use coolant over a few weeks. It went bang on a normal 30mph drive without warning.

 

I'm glad you've got it sorted

5 hours ago, Speedle said:

The original 2015 engine failed @ 104k with a piston ring failure on Cylinder 2 due to prolonged coolant intrusion into the cylinder... but of course it's not a design flaw is it ford!?...

The car had been stuttering at high rpm for a few months and then started to use coolant over a few weeks. It went bang on a normal 30mph drive without warning.

No offence but as an engineer I cannot understand why someone would continue driving a car that developed such problems.

Symptoms like stuttering at high RPM's and especially loss of coolant should both on its own be  indications that there is something seriously wrong with the engine. Driving the car for months while knowing that there is something seriously wrong just does not make any sense. 

When the problem would have been detected early there is a huge chance that the engine could have been repaired relatively cheap by just replacing the head gasket. While replacing the head gasket on these engines it is highly recommended to install the (Pumaspeed) block mod to prevent future problems drastically.
 

The coolant ingress problem on the 1.5 ECOboost usually starts with a leaking head gasket caused by deck ovaling / movement of the cilinders. Once the head gasket is broken the hot exhaust gasses slowly deteriorate / burn the aluminium at the top of the cilinder liners and eventually coolant will enter the cilinder (usually cilinder no. 2 or 3). Once the aluminium is damaged the engine is beyond repair by Ford standards.

There are however still possibilities to repair the engine. For example by resleeving the engine using commercially available replacement liners. Westwood for example manufactures both open deck liners and closed deck conversion liners for the 1.5/1.6 ECOboost.

Since a brand new 4-cilinder 1.5 ECOboost engine currently costs €9100,- from Ford in most cases repair is usually a financially viable and also durable option.

I have a Focus mk4 1.5 Ecoboost 150hp, I always believed it was a 3 pot, is that correct?

32 minutes ago, Nimrodmk8 said:

I have a Focus mk4 1.5 Ecoboost 150hp, I always believed it was a 3 pot, is that correct?

A Mk4 will be a 3 pot 1.5 yes.

On 12/6/2022 at 6:43 PM, JW1982 said:

No offence but as an engineer I cannot understand why someone would continue driving a car that developed such problems.

Symptoms like stuttering at high RPM's and especially loss of coolant should both on its own be  indications that there is something seriously wrong with the engine. Driving the car for months while knowing that there is something seriously wrong just does not make any sense. 

When the problem would have been detected early there is a huge chance that the engine could have been repaired relatively cheap by just replacing the head gasket. While replacing the head gasket on these engines it is highly recommended to install the (Pumaspeed) block mod to prevent future problems drastically.

The coolant ingress problem on the 1.5 ECOboost usually starts with a leaking head gasket caused by deck ovaling / movement of the cilinders. Once the head gasket is broken the hot exhaust gasses slowly deteriorate / burn the aluminium at the top of the cilinder liners and eventually coolant will enter the cilinder (usually cilinder no. 2 or 3). Once the aluminium is damaged the engine is beyond repair by Ford standards.

There are however still possibilities to repair the engine. For example by resleeving the engine using commercially available replacement liners. Westwood for example manufactures both open deck liners and closed deck conversion liners for the 1.5/1.6 ECOboost.

Since a brand new 4-cilinder 1.5 ECOboost engine currently costs €9100,- from Ford in most cases repair is usually a financially viable and also durable option.

No offence taken. I didn't just continue to drive it as is, your assumptions are made on the limited information I posted. I was never going to write war and peace in a forum post when I was purely trying to get some assistance on engine codes, which of course I never did... I worked it out myself. I was simply posting my experience to help others. Crazy concept I know.

I did extensive investigation on it over the course of several months, including putting a camera down into every cylinder to looks for any oil or coolant in the cylinders, initially there was none at all. The plugs all presented as clean burning and dry, the stuttering and coolant loss were not at the same time. The stuttering began and presented as any ignition or possible coil failure or cracked/damaged plug would, and in fact one plug was cracked, however this is likely just a coincidence. The coil and all the plugs were changed and this solved the problem. For several 1000's of miles. Coolant loss was VERY minimal (100-200 ml) if that over several weeks, several months after the stuttering problem, to the point it could have just been normal expansion as you would expect from a modern cooling system. I was only aware of it as I was checking it every day for weeks. The car NEVER overheated at all, the coolant system was pressure tested and showed no signs of issue.

I only mentioned these symptoms as they "MAY" have been an early sign and to help those less in the know of what to watch out for. Since this entire debacle I've learned about the head design on the early ecoboost inline 4's where the waterway between the cylinders leaves the head gasket prone to failure due to insufficient sealing surfaces. On later revisions they've cross drilled the water ways, so Cleary Ford are well aware of this issue, otherwise why would they change it. Also explains why there is a class action lawsuit about the 1.5-2.0 ecoboost ongoing in the states. Plenty of evidence of this on YouTube from teardowns and from me seeing it for myself now.

After I tore my engine down it was indeed this that caused my engines demise and the head gasket failure. I rebuilt then sold it and made my money back on the replacement I sourced so I was actually slightly in profit after it, and touch wood the cars been fine for well over a year now.

 

Hi Mat, 

Thanks for the info, would you know what the engine code for the 1.5l with the new drilled cooling channels is? Woudl this be the M9DG?

I'd be keen to get the 1.5L 182BHP but only with the coolant channels removed from between the cylinders.

On 12/6/2022 at 11:30 AM, Speedle said:

Well just an update that will hopefully help others in future, seeing as no one actually answered my original question. I have now fitted the M9DG to the car. Completely identical to the M8DB internally and externally so should you need to replace your engine any of the M8/M9 1.5 packs are compatible. The only difference with any of these engines is the map on the car.

Car's now back on the road.

The original 2015 engine failed @ 104k with a piston ring failure on Cylinder 2 due to prolonged coolant intrusion into the cylinder... but of course it's not a design flaw is it ford!?...

The car had been stuttering at high rpm for a few months and then started to use coolant over a few weeks. It went bang on a normal 30mph drive without warning.

 

 

Hey all. This is a really interesting thread. I'm wondering if anyone knows of any places (we're near Oxford) I could get my engine checked out (and what needs checking) before I decide to either invest in it longer term or say goodbye? Thanks in advance. I've posted more details here: