What happens when a carmaker, say Ford, releases a phenomenally good hot hatch, such as the third-gen Focus RS? The aftermarket side of the industry wants to demonstrate it can improve the car, of course.
And the latest example of this comes from Germany, where an example of the fast Ford was gifted with an exhaust whose name is longer than that of the car itself.
Meet the HG Motorsport Bull-X Ego-X cat-back exhaust, which seems to make the manic compact sound like a freaking racecar.
Apparently, the aim of the German tuner's development is to remove the high-pitched voice of the factory exhaust, replacing this with a deeper growl that also happens to be uber-loud.
As anybody who's been in a racecar knows, though, those machines are all fun and games until you actually try to get from point A to point B covering a longer distance, in which case they'll get your tired like a long Friday at the office.
Fortunately, this isn't the case here, as we're dealing an exhaust setup that packs sound-controlling valves. As it happens with factory setups packing such goodies, these are connected to the driving modes of the car, so your Focus RS won't drive around screaming all the time.
However, we can't say the same about the livery of this particular car, with the orange (and white) decals covering the Nitrous Blue launch hue of the Ford standing out from quite a distance.
Nothing is mentioned about the power and yet we can tell you that, in situations that see such a Ford mixing a custom free-flow exhaust with an ECU remap, the crank output usually climbs from 350 to around 375 hp.
However, those seeking even more grunt can turn to developers such as Roush Performance, with the US tuner having introduced a 500 hp Focus RS at SEMA. Power to the people!
Meet the HG Motorsport Bull-X Ego-X cat-back exhaust, which seems to make the manic compact sound like a freaking racecar.
Apparently, the aim of the German tuner's development is to remove the high-pitched voice of the factory exhaust, replacing this with a deeper growl that also happens to be uber-loud.
As anybody who's been in a racecar knows, though, those machines are all fun and games until you actually try to get from point A to point B covering a longer distance, in which case they'll get your tired like a long Friday at the office.
Fortunately, this isn't the case here, as we're dealing an exhaust setup that packs sound-controlling valves. As it happens with factory setups packing such goodies, these are connected to the driving modes of the car, so your Focus RS won't drive around screaming all the time.
However, we can't say the same about the livery of this particular car, with the orange (and white) decals covering the Nitrous Blue launch hue of the Ford standing out from quite a distance.
Nothing is mentioned about the power and yet we can tell you that, in situations that see such a Ford mixing a custom free-flow exhaust with an ECU remap, the crank output usually climbs from 350 to around 375 hp.
However, those seeking even more grunt can turn to developers such as Roush Performance, with the US tuner having introduced a 500 hp Focus RS at SEMA. Power to the people!