The Ford EcoSport is the first vehicle in India to feature the EcoBoost engine. The EcoBoost family of engines are turbocharged, direct injection petrol engines, which are designed to deliver more power and torque, comparable to a larger displacement naturally aspirated engine. The USP of EcoBoost engines are the 20% better fuel efficiency and 15% reduction in greenhouse emissions. This engine will feature on the EcoSport, Focus, B-Max, C-Max and the new Fiesta (without a turbocharger!) and might also makes its way into the Figo after a few years. Due to the compact nature of these engines, Ford sees viability in producing EcoBoost engines and plans to use it extensively in its future line-up of cars. Currently, many of its cars in the United States are powered by EcoBoost engines.
The Ford EcoBoost engine is very compact in nature and displaces just 1000 cc from its 3-cylinder heart. It was designed at Ford’s Dunto Technical Center in the UK and produces 118 BHP of power and 170 Nm of torque between 1300-4500 RPM. Some of the EcoBoost engines feature an OverBoost function, which has also made its way into the 1.0-litre EcoBoost engine. The OverBoost function increases the exhaust gases by keeping the boost control valve open for a longer period of time, resulting in higher spin levels and thus increased torque. However this also creates high amount of heat and has the risk of damaging the turbocharger. Thus the Overboost function will be active for a certain amount of time (around 20 seconds) and the ECU will disable it temporary for a certain amount of time thereafter (for cooling).
What this essentially gives the EcoSport is extra torques at high revvs (200 Nm post a certain RPM). This helps in overtaking and the OverBoost function is automatically activated by the ECU when you floor the pedal to the maximum. The EcoBoost engine being a 3-cylinder motor might face the natural vibrations inherited by such a engine layout but Ford engineers have deliberately unbalanced the flywheel to prevent that. There are no balancer shafts either and the engine block is made of cast iron and not aluminum, which enables the engine to warm-up taking 50% lesser time. An internal timing belt along with the exhaust manifold being cast into the cylinder head further help in increasing the fuel consumption of this engine.
This is not the first time Overboost technology has been used in a car. Since a few years Porsche has been offering this in their 911, wherein the driver can activate overboost with the press of a button. However this is the first time overboost is being incorporated in a mass market vehicle like the Ford EcoSport.
