Turbo'ing a 1.6L (J) Engine

[AbbyEC]

Hi, I have a 2014 Fiesta SE with the 1.6L (J) motor and the 5-speed manual. I'm wondering if the turbo from the fiesta ST will just bolt onto my motor, (I know ill need the exhaust, intake, tune, ect.) or are the two motor different in some way where that mod is not a relatively easy option? Thanks in advance for any info you can give me.

 

[scotman]

No. Turbocharged engines are a very different animal from the non turbocharged 1.6. The good news is that you can get a turbocharged fiesta by simply selling the one you have and buying an ST version. There are no kits or short cuts to a reliable conversion on the basic fiesta.

 

[AbbyEC]

No. Turbocharged engines are a very different animal from the non turbocharged 1.6. The good news is that you can get a turbocharged fiesta by simply selling the one you have and buying an ST version. There are no kits or short cuts to a reliable conversion on the basic fiesta.

Okay, telling me to sell my car and buy another one is not helpful. That is obviously not a reasonable option if I want more power.

 

[Devastate]

Usually I play devils advocate in these situations. But my brother in law had a non abarth fiat 500. And everyone on the forums said "You cant turbo those." Well he did. And it fucking ripped. I would love to challenge someone to make it work. But everything I've read it seems impossible or like you'd need to be a literal ford engineer to reprogram the entire ECU or something. I would love to see this happen though. There's got to be some way. I get the whole "Just buy a ST" side of things, it would probably be easier than literally re-engineering a entire powertrain system. But the whole idea is to have a sleeper, Just an unassuming fiesta ripping with a turbo would be pretty sick. And thus, I challenge someone with the means to try it.

 

[scotman]

You can actually BUY a sorted out Modified Fiesta ST for less money than you might be able to buy 2\3rds of the components that you would need to just build the engine and upgrade a stock fiesta ST transmission.
I'm not trying to argue with you. But, i would strongly recommend that you buy a dollar store calculator and go online to price JUST Parts. Never mind the software for that standalone ecu or any of the peripherals. The guy's over on the Fiestast.com forums can explain why a running, sorted out, modified fiesta ST makes more sense to get.
Instead of "challenging someone with the means to do it". You should do it.

 

[SyntheticAtmosphere]

Okay, telling me to sell my car and buy another one is not helpful. That is obviously not a reasonable option if I want more power.

Without going into specifics, Scotman gave you viable information. Many would agree it to be the easiest route.

Here are some specifics off the top of my head...
-The ST 1.6 turbo is Direct Injected and the regular 1.6 has Multi-port Injection. Cylinder heads will be different casting or machined based on application.
-without the DI, the ST computer will not be able to operate the engine under the same parameters...it will never run right. This is probably the magic bullet.
-The ST 1'6 turbo is factory turboed therefore would have a turbo oil return boss machined. The regular 1.6 wouldnt, because manufacturing costs.
-The necessary wiring for boost & wastegate control probably missing from the harness in the vanilla 1.6 variants.
-The rest of the Fiesta ST driveline has valuable components, such as Electronic Torque Vectoring/Limited Slip Diff.
-The ST has 4 disc brakes for when making big power. Because choose life!

Of course if it was even reasonably easy, you would see a lot of people doing it, however its a bit of a red herring.
I love tuning and modding cars as much as the next guy, but at the end of the day if I want Porsche performance it is cheaper in the long run to buy a Porsche.

 

[AbbyEC]

I guess my next question then would be, with intake and exhaust systems to boost flow and a tune. How much power could the SE reasonably motor hold?

 

[scotman]

This question is why using the forum search archive functions is so important. The forums have been active since the Fiesta was launched in late 2010. Every single possible thing that could be done to Fiesta is in the forums. EVERY,SINGLE ,THING. Trust me. It is still available to read.
There is discussion about when or if we were ever going to have a reflash become available. There are still threads in there that detail installs for short throw shifter kits and aftermarket intakes and trick cat back exhaust system upgrades. It’s all there for today’s owners to benefit from!
I believe that you can expect maybe ten ponies from doing exhaust and intake upgrades. You might lose some peak torque. But, if you have very lightweight wheels and don’t haul three hundred pounds of shit with you every day, it will be a noticeable improvement.

 

[scotman]

There are so many engineering /design changes between the two that it’s just beyond most casual enthusiasts level of patience and technical knowledge to spend time trying to explain the why’s and how’s that caused Ford to use a different, albeit slight change of iron when they cast the turbo engine block. It supposedly has a bit more nickel in it than the non turbo 1.6.
I will be bumping this thread every once in a while to keep it up on top for people to find easily.

 

[SyntheticAtmosphere]

Throughout history many people have wanted more power out of small cars. Usually small cars respond well to performance modifications because they are designed to be frugal with fuel. The amount of gain is commonly not a large number tho. A 10% gain in horsepower is a considerable bump in any engine but when you are starting with 120hp...=12hp. In a 300hp V8, you are looking at more than twice that gain.
If you are bent on humping the sigma...
The Sigma can be tuned to about 170BHP without turbos or really silly money, but you would still be looking at nearly £4k for just that. found @ https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=860792
If you are feeling spendy, there is this tread as well outlining some options <<here>>. Keep in mind these are "UK blokes" and there are some differences in the Euro cars you will have to source or overcome...such as the PCM needing a tuning solution (aka standalone). Cool reading non the less.
Technically for $4000 clams, find a roughed up accident ST and do an engine swap, haha!!!

 

[econoboxrocks]

There's a guy on the ST forum who put an ST engine into an '11 sedan. A lot of work, but it turned out cool.
https://www.fiestastforum.com/threa...the-new-member-post-i-am-not-the-first.28962/

 

[Phil_F_NM]

I'm willing to bet removing the back seat and the spare tire + jack would yield better, non-permanent, results, for more seat-of-the-pants oomph.