Custom Lifted 2006 Ford E-350 Passenger Van With Tons Of Seating on 2040-cars

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Ford offering factory-spec EcoBoost reflashes that don't void warranty*

Buy a supercharger or cold-air kit from Ford Racing and a Performance Calibration handset comes with it to reset the ECU for the upgrade. Now Ford Racing is offering the ProCal handset a la carte for $595, allowing you to reflash the ECU on your EcoBoost-equipped ride to extract more of its inherent capabilities without any additional upgrades. It gives you control of variables such as throttle response, idle speed and turbo wastegate control, among others. As for that warranty asterisk, the press release says enthusiasts can up the power "while maintaining the Ford-backed limited warranty." However Ford Motor Co. and Ford Racing are separate entities, and, best we can tell, when you reflash the ECU, your Ford warranty gets supplanted by the Ford Racing warranty. Say you bought a 2014 Ford, that means your five-year, 60,000-mile warranty becomes Ford Racing's three-year, 36,000-mile warranty, if we're reading the fine print correctly. If you have an older car and have driven more than 36,000 miles, then your warranty options are kaput, at least as far as a Ford in-house option. If have warranty concerns, you might also want to consider having a dealer perform the reflash, or at least ask about it. Once you've got past the small print, what about the numbers? At the moment Ford Racing offers tunes for the 2.0-liter EcoBoost in the Focus ST and the 1.6-liter EcoBoost in the Fiesta ST, and we're told there's a 90-pound-foot boost in torque at the crank after you've pressed the right buttons. Anecdotal evidence from a commenter at Road & Track says he went from 252 horsepower at the flywheel to 254 hp at the wheels, and 272 lb-ft at the flywheel to 354 lb-ft at the wheels, but we can't be sure that his adjustments were within Ford Racing specs. Your mileage, naturally, may vary. What about custom numbers for the 2.3-liter EcoBoost in the 2015 Ford Mustang? They aren't ready yet, but we're told we'll get something by the end of next year. Featured Gallery 2015 Ford Focus ST News Source: Ford, Ford Racing via Car and Driver Aftermarket Ford Technology ecoboost ford focus st ford fiesta st ford racing

China takes lead as GM's No. 1 market

It's happened. General Motors' biggest vehicle market - at least in terms of new model sales - is China. According to TheDetroitBureau.com, GM and its various Chinese joint venture operations enjoyed a 10.6-percent sales increase in the first half of 2013, selling almost 1.6 million units in the market. That puts GM China about 200,000 units ahead of its US sales totals over the same period - this, despite indicators that the communist nation's economy is losing momentum.
TDB notes that like GM, rival Ford has also enjoyed a robust 2013 in China thus far, with its sales up a whopping 47 percent to 407,721 units sold - 75,254 of them in June alone. Between the two US automakers, passenger car sales for the first half of 2013 are up around 14 percent, well ahead of the rest of the industry's 10-percent growth estimates for the market. Some of the sales growth may come as a result of an overall anti-Japan sentiment in China, though the American brands have long outsold their Japanese counterparts in the country.
By The General's own predictions, China will only continue to grow in sales importance. The company has designs on selling over five million cars a year in the market before the end of the decade, a total that figures to dramatically widen the gap versus its US totals - even if America's auto market makes a full recovery to the the salad days of over 17-million units a year.

Ford will build Hackmobile out of Transit Connect Wagon

What you see in the above image is a rendering of the Hackmobile Transit Connect Wagon. What is that? It's a "mobile fabrication and hacking unit" that includes tools for metal- and woodworking, 3D and electronics fabrication, a three-axis CNC machine called "The Fabber," a video projector and screen, an air compressor, an 84x48-inch work surface that folds out like a Murphy bed and oh so much more. When not in use, all of the implements fold neatly into the back of Ford's award-winning van.
But perhaps the more important question is why is that? Because Make Magazine held an Ultimate Maker Vehicle Challenge in conjunction with Ford in which ten teams created were charged with creating "the ultimate Ford Transit Connect Wagon for the do-it-yourself enthusiast." Team Twin Cities Maker won the competition with the Hackmobile, and in addition to winning $10,000, Ford has declared it's actually going to build the thing - which is great, because if they can actually engineer a road-legal Hackmobile Transit Connect Wagon as envisioned, the inevitable A-Team movie reboot might need to think about including it.
Check out the video below for a cheeky walk-through of the Hackmobile, and get all the particulars in the press release below that.