RSengineering
bossTyrone
Johnson:‘This was
almostlikemoving
worlds’January 2016|TOPCAR.CO.ZA 61‘It took a lotof late-night
meetingstoconvincethe
seniorsall-wheel drive
was the future’
be announced, team RS was experiencing a
technical hi ccup that threw the planned figure
into doubt, and they had to settle fo r a promise of
‘more than’ 236kW instead.
Hiccup subsequently overcome, the full 257kW
peak at 6000rpm, encouraged along by 440Nm at
2000-4500rpm that overbo osts to 470Nm for up
to 18 seconds if you really nail it, and a valve in the
exhaust combined with ‘an injection stra tegy’ that
means it pops and ba ngs like a rally car in its
racier settings. The next problem was how to
control it, beyond the obvious recourse to 350mm
Brembobrakes. Having already fed this level of
power through the front wheels of the special
edition Mk2 Focus RS500, Johnson recalls it took
‘a lot of late-night meetings to convince the seniors
that all-wheel drive was the future.’ Being
responsible for the Mk2’s RevoKnuckle front
suspension design probably help ed his case. He
knew that innovation’ s limitations, and he knew
that to make the Mk3 ‘handle the way we want it
to handle ’ it had to have all-wheel drive, regardless
of packaging, production and cost issues.
Complexities include repl acing the boot floor
beca use the standard car’s spare wheel well was in
the way, fitting an entirely new ‘saddle’ type fuel
tank, and swapping the rear subframe for an item
that one of Johnson’s engineers original ly designed
for Volvo 10years ago (the Focus still being based on
the ‘C1’ platform developed while Ford, Volvo and