How Good Is The Focus 1.0l (125bhp) EcoBoost?

[Pebbleheed]

You’re making it harder for me to resist spending the money. 

Would you recommend the blue fin over the other options?

[Liam40]

So to put it into perspective, a Focus 1.0l EcoBoost 125 would be more powerful, quicker and more economical than my 54 plate normally aspirated Focus 1.6i 16v DOHC? 

Liam.

[JW1982]

Yes it is.

The old 100 HP 1.6 Sigma (Zetec S(E)/Duratec) is a nice engine but in my opinion the 1.0 ECOboost is a lot nicer.

The 1.0 ECOboost is more refined, has more power, a lot more torque and better MPG figures.

[Pebbleheed]

13 hours ago, Liam40 said:

So to put it into perspective, a Focus 1.0l EcoBoost 125 would be more powerful, quicker and more economical than my 54 plate normally aspirated Focus 1.6i 16v DOHC? 

Liam.

It’s certainly noticeably quicker than my Astra 1.6 SRI that I replaced with my ecoboost focus. And cheaper on fuel and tax.

[Liam40]

11 hours ago, JW1982 said:

Yes it is.

The old 100 HP 1.6 Sigma (Zetec S(E)/Duratec) is a nice engine but in my opinion the 1.0 ECOboost is a lot nicer.

The 1.0 ECOboost is more refined, has more power, a lot more torque and better MPG figures.

Well that’s interesting and surprising to know.

Liam.

[Liam40]

11 hours ago, Pebbleheed said:

It’s certainly noticeably quicker than my Astra 1.6 SRI that I replaced with my ecoboost focus. And cheaper on fuel and tax.

Hmmm that’s interesting. What year was your Astra 1.6 SRi

Liam.

[Pebbleheed]

18 hours ago, Liam40 said:

Hmmm that’s interesting. What year was your Astra 1.6 SRi

Liam.

2005. 

This is a smoother ride, quicker acceleration and a lot more enjoyable to drive. 

Obviously it’s a lot newer car but the engine is smaller and much better. 

[Liam40]

On 21/10/2017 at 6:44 PM, Pebbleheed said:

2005. 

This is a smoother ride, quicker acceleration and a lot more enjoyable to drive. 

Obviously it’s a lot newer car but the engine is smaller and much better. 

I’m puzzled! How can a Focus 1.0 ECOBoost 125 be quicker and better than your old 2005 plate Astra 1.6 SRi when I read these figures for your old Astra: 

Power	177 bhp
Top Speed	137 mph
0-60 mph	7.8 secs
Torque	230 Nm, 169 ft-lb

 

Liam.

[Karl2812]

I test drive the 1.0ltr but found it a little sluggish so I bought the 1.5ltr 150 and love it plenty of acceleration in all gears

[FatHead1979]

10 hours ago, Liam40 said:

I’m puzzled! How can a Focus 1.0 ECOBoost 125 be quicker and better than your old 2005 plate Astra 1.6 SRi when I read these figures for your old Astra: 

Power	177 bhp
Top Speed	137 mph
0-60 mph	7.8 secs
Torque	230 Nm, 169 ft-lb

Liam.

It depends which engine variant he had in his SRi.  Parkers.co.uk shows the car was available with the turbo 1.6 petrol that you've listed specs from in your post, but also a N/A 1.6 petrol as shown below.  (Which is predictably a LOT slower) 

Power	113 bhp
Top Speed	120 mph
0-60 mph	10.8 secs
Torque	155 Nm, 114 ft-lb

Not having a turbo makes the big difference we'd all expect and with Pebbleheed stating the EB Focus was much more lively than his old Astra I'd be leaning towards his old Astra being the N/A version.

If it wasn't then I think it's safe to say that there was something from with his old car!

[Pebbleheed]

Yeah, you’re looking at the turbo version. I had the non-turbo model. It gets beaten by both the fiesta and focus ecoboost that we have. Or at least it did before it got scrapped. 

[Liam40]

Lol, Oh that explains it! I knew there had to be some rational explanation that I wasn’t picking up, ‘Dime Bar!!!’ 😜

Thank you Damian and Pebble for clearing it up.

[Dee_82]

isn't the 1l ecoboost a 3 pot?

how is that effecting the balance? id imagine that would create a fair bit of movement and vibration which might punish the mounts etc?

Given that she can rock up to 150hp with about 220Nm of Torque, i think its a nifty little engine, My partner will be replacing her hair dryer 1.25 90hp festa with one when its time to change.

id consider it for my next focus but i like the idea of cranking the 1.5 up to 200, that should be a significant improvement over my 130 1.6 TDCI :) 

[Guzzilazz]

The 3 pot is what gives the Ecoboost increased torque (for the same capacity, fewer cylinders =more torque), as for vibration there's none, and it's due to 120degree crank throws as opposed to 180 on 4's.  The triple also gives a nice throaty exhaust note :-)

[TomsFocus]

How does fewer cylinders give more torque?  My sister has a 3 cylinder C1, I've felt more torque on a lawn mower...   But seriously, I thought torque was down to the length of the conrods.  Longer con rod produces more torque, in the same way we'd use a long torque wrench for a hub nut and a short one for a sump plug.  

The 1.0 doesn't have a balance shaft to save weight, instead they intentionally unbalance the flywheel to counteract the engines imbalance, seems to work fairly well, they're smoother than my 4 pot diesel anyway! 

[mjt]

24 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

I thought torque was down to the length of the conrods

Not exactly. For a given downward force on the piston it's proportional to the crank throw. It's just that a longer crank throw requires longer con-rods. In simple terms Torque = Force x Distance where, in this case, distance is the radius described by the crankpin. It follows that you can get more torque by increasing the force for a given radius. The extra force is provided by the turbocharging.

[Liam40]

Thanks everyone for all your comments, they’ve all been valuable! 

Its given me some interesting reading about how the EcoBoost engine works. A nifty little 1.0L engine even in a bigger car than the fiesta, by the sounds of it. It makes it very tempting to get one for my next car!

Liam

[TitXlover]

Thanks everyone for all your comments, they’ve all been valuable! 
Its given me some interesting reading about how the EcoBoost engine works. A nifty little 1.0L engine even in a bigger car than the fiesta, by the sounds of it. It makes it very tempting to get one for my next car!
Liam

Not into technical stuff myself, but some interesting videos on YouTube show how it works.


Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

[Pebbleheed]

I’d cerdainly give an ecoboost focus a test drive. See how you like it and go from there. 

[Guzzilazz]

I bought mine from Trust Wooodford, and the test drive was only a small loop down around to the A12, and back.  The performance was immediately evident even in heavy traffic

[Liam40]

23 hours ago, TitXlover said:

Not into technical stuff myself, but some interesting videos on YouTube show how it works.


Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
 

Thanks Pete! I’ve searched for some and found some good videos on the EcoBoost.

[Liam40]

18 hours ago, Pebbleheed said:

I’d cerdainly give an ecoboost focus a test drive. See how you like it and go from there. 

Thanks Pebble! I’ll certainly give it some serious consideration. 

[James]

On 10/24/2017 at 9:59 AM, Guzzilazz said:

The 3 pot is what gives the Ecoboost increased torque (for the same capacity, fewer cylinders =more torque), as for vibration there's none, and it's due to 120degree crank throws as opposed to 180 on 4's.  The triple also gives a nice throaty exhaust note :-)

How is that possible?  Surely a 4 cylinder produces more torque?  A 6 cylinder engine produces more torque over a 4 cylinder and a 8 cylinder engine produces more power and torque over a 6 and so on.  In America the v6 Mustang is made fun of as just a rental car as the 8 cylinder produces more power and torque.  Surely the advantages of 3 pot engines is fuel economy and engine noise over a 4 cylinder.

The reason the the ecoboost produces so much low end torque for its displacement is because its a 12v engine compared to most modern 4 cylinder engines been 16 v.  Same as a 8 v diesel engine produces better low end torque over a 16v ( both engines developed in the same generation).    

[vectra]

On 18/10/2017 at 11:57 AM, TomsFocus said:

They used to put a 1.8 NA petrol in the Mk3 Mondeo...less power than the 1.0 EcoBoost!  And yes, it was slow and thirsty with expensive tax...  

Yup,
Had one in Zetec spec. Man was that yoke thirsty :O

[Liam40]

So you could safely say this little 1.0l 3 cylinder EcoBoost 125 engine in the Focus has lots of pulling power (torque) in low revs, mid revs and high revs?

Thanks again for all you comments in this post.