TURBO FIESTA
What would you drive if your work involved race cars and bikes? A turbocharged Ford Fiesta certainly fits the bill
Pushing nearly 300bhp, this is the wildest Fiesta build in the country!
BACK WHEN I WAS A YOUNG impressionable intern, I was sent to cover the Volkswagen Ameo Cup and Honda Talent Cup rounds at the MMRT. Now the most recognised photographer around those grounds is Aditya Bedre, and he likes to drive fast machines almost as much as he likes to shoot them. This Ford Fiesta belongs to him. It’s pushing close to 300 horses, and it is one of the fastest Fiestas in the country.
“I love Fords. The transmission on even the stock Fiesta is so precise and the steering has so much feel,” says Aditya. He bought this Fiesta in 2010 and didn’t change anything for almost six years. He then struck upon the idea to either sell the Fiesta and upgrade to a new car, or tune it. He quickly got in touch with Joel Joseph of Race Concepts and decided to tune the car. Joel explained the scarce availability of high-performance parts for the 1.6-litre Duratec engine, but also charted out its potential and gave Aditya two roads to go down — nat-asp or forced induction. “Of course being the power hungry type that I am, I went the turbocharged route,” and this gave birth to the very first turbocharged Fiesta in the country. Now five years on from when the build started, this Fiesta is in its ultimate form.
The initial setup included an aftermarket exhaust, air intake and a turbocharger. It produced around 210 horses at the crank, (162.5whp) with a safe 6psi of boost, already a massive jump from the 100-odd horses of the original car. “But after a while, you get used to the power,” says Aditya nonchalantly and continues, “You want something that scares you.” So, in 2018 Aditya and Joel got working on the next part of the build — the
HE BOUGHT THIS FIESTA AND DIDN’T CHANGE ANYTHING FOR SIX YEARS
jump from 200 to 300 horses. The internals of the 1.6-litre Duratec engine were fully rebuilt with forged components and it is now running 9.5:1 compression with custom forged pistons, custom stage four cylinder heads and steel connecting rods, all three components fabricated by Race Concepts. A Garrett GT28 ball-bearing turbo running at a fairly mild 11.5psi provides thrust, with a Turbosmart external wastegate, an external blow-off valve and a manual boost controller. It gets a custom stainless steel header for the turbocharger and stainless steel induction pipes, fabricated by Race Concepts, uprated fuel injectors by Injector Dynamics, a higherperformance fuel pump from Ford’s OE list, a larger throttle body and mechanical throttle control. A Sard intercooler keeps things running cool, along with the custom intakes on the hood. The custom intake manifold helps the engine breathe right.
There’s an AEM wideband O2 sensor for
THE SUSPENSION IS MASTERFUL, IT MAKES THE FIESTA HANDLE LIKE A GO-KART
accurate air/fuel ratio measurements and an AEM boost gauge to keep Aditya well aware of when his car is going to go supersonic. There’s also an Autometer Ford Racing tachometer sitting proudly in the middle of the dashboard, where you would find a ten thousand-inch screen in a modern car, and it has a shift light which goes off at 7100rpm.
With such an increase in power, the standard clutch had to be replaced by a Black Diamond stage four clutch, although the gearbox is stock and hasn’t complained after the increase in power yet. And the flywheel is lightened to keep the engine revving freely. Everything is controlled by the Race Dynamics RD1401 standalone ECU, while the entire setup and tuning has been done by Race Concepts. Since this was a one-of-a-kind build, a lot of time was spent by Joel fine-tuning the setup.
“Joel told me that I only spend this much time with ITC cars,” says Aditya. “Every time
Joel would come to the MMRT for the races, he would take my car for a spin, find the issues and sort them out for me. Now I’m reaching a point where there are almost no niggles with the car, something that is very rare in such a crazy build.” It is producing 267whp, approximately 285 at the crank. It could easily be pushed beyond 300 horses, but that would affect the reliability and usability of the car.
The car is running on 16-inch Team Dynamic motorsport-spec rims which are very light and are shod on sticky Michelin Pilot Sport 4 rubber. This helps the KSport braking system stop the car in a dime. There are custom Ksport six-pot calipers finished in gold, with Ksport pads and massive 300mm Ksport rotors. The suspension system is Race Concepts’ in-house kit, “but Joel made this for me way before he was making off-theshelf suspension kits, it looks way different from those.” Aditya says the suspension is masterful, it makes the Fiesta handle like a gokart, without having a bone-jarring ride.
On the outside, not much has changed on the Fiesta. Yes, the Nitrous Blue-esque paintwork screams speed but it isn’t something a non-petrolhead would notice. The custom front bumper is also subtle, as is the boot lid spoiler. The gold calipers peeking out from the white motorsport rims do give a clue as to this Fiesta’s intentions, and so does the soundtrack, but parked on the side of the road, there aren’t many people who would realise how monstrous it is.
Now a build this extensive is usually reserved for track days or competition. But Aditya didn’t want that, he wanted the Fiesta to be tuned for the highways. “I wanted there to be a rush of torque in the mid-range so I could easily do my Bangalore-Chennai highway cruises.” So Joel tuned the Fiesta exactly according to that. “Now, it can hold a 160-170kmph cruise and it pulls hard till 210kmph where the speedo tops out, although the revs keep climbing”. Aditya says the car is extremely usable, not in traffic of course but that isn’t what it was meant for. In terms of reliability, Aditya has driven the Fiesta (in its current state) for about 2500km and has faced no issues so far. He needs to do regular checkups and maintenance every 4500km. “Joel knows what he’s doing with his cars, the work that he has put into making this Fiesta what it is, shines through.”
A build like this for the Fiesta hasn’t been done before. This meant that such highperformance parts for the 1.6-litre engine were hard to come by, as opposed to parts for something like a Civic’s 1.8 which are easily available off the shelf. Almost all of the components were made one-off, just for this build or sourced after a lot of searching, and that means that the wait times and costs were exorbitant. From stock, it has taken about three years of modifications to get the Fiesta up to this level and it has cost in excess of `17 lakh, including the cost to get it to the earlier 200bhp state, excluding the initial cost of the car. ⌧
This Ford Fiesta has been built at Race Concepts, they can be contacted at support@ raceconcepts.in or on +919945487653