Does anyone have access to the 2018 service media that dealerships use so that we could see how Ford attaches the crossmember to the Ecosport 2.0?
No, but I came across this interesting video with slightly annoying narrator that basically goes over everything underneath the EcoSport AWD in detail.
View: https://youtu.be/1s2hiKMoX60
the good news: The FWD EcoSport uses identical front and rear subframe/rear torsion beam suspension as the Fiesta. The AWD rear suspension appears to use a pair of independent trailing arms that use the same bushing pickup points as the torsion axle, and the same spring and shock placement. The driveshaft appears to run essentially where the exhaust tunnel is, and the exhaust is hung lower and off to the side
The bad news: The diff carrier is essentially mounted under the car where the FWD gas tank and evap canister are, and the gas tank is shifter forward to where the torsion beam would be, and the main sump hangs down on the driver’s side. The trailing arms are stabilized by a pair of links from the diff carrier frame.
It does like like it might be a straightforward swap if you were also able to fit the AWD gas tank, and mount the diff frame to the underbody (which might well use some
of the gas tank mounting points)
The other bad news is that the Ecosport appears to use a nominally FWD system that’s fairly common these days, meaning there’s a transfer case up front, but no center diff - the rear axle is engaged on demand by a small electronic clutch pack at the rear diff.
The upside of these systems is that they are less expensive and more compact to package. The downside is that with no diff the power/torque to the rear axle is limited to a finite value, to produce up to a 50/50 torque split.
Basically this means that the it can shunt roughly half of the torque from its 166hp/150ft-lb 2.0L engine through the clutch pack to the rear axle - this essentially means the rear axle is only sized to put down ~83hp/75 ft-lbs to the ground (in first gear), or roughly 70whp
What does that mean? If you somehow managed to mate the (8-spd aut) transmission to the Fiesta engine, extra power/torque from any tuning you do will only really help the front axle from a dig. For the stock Fiesta ST engine at 180 whp, that means a maximum of a 60/40 F/R torque split. Tuned to 300whp, you’re still only getting 70 to the rear wheels (75/25 F/R) Even if you could manually force the clutch pack to force it to engage the rear diff, it would likely start slipping.
An extra 70hp to the ground is not nothing, but it is quite limited compared to a “real” center diff AWD system like that in the Focus RS, and according to the spec sheet, you’re looking at an extra 280 lb weight penalty (+10%), plus higher drivetrain loss to spin the extra shafts/transfer case, at which point you’re almost back to break even. The only good news is that with the clutch pack after the transmission, the torque split improves slightly at higher gears, but past 3rd or 4th it’s not going to make that much difference.
it would be a cool project, and maybe avoid a lot of custom fab work, but the practical benefits my not be worth it. I would guess