Ya, SRTCarsRock, don't you understand that you bought your srt-4 brand new for like 13k and if you bought it not new, ou bought it used for like 10k or whatever you payed? I bought my civic with a gsr swap for 4k and put a few thousand into the turbo kit and giving the car only necessities to handle 8-10 lbs of boost and still spent less than you paid for your entire car. That's why I canbeat you. You can't sink the same amount into your car that I put into mine because even after I put money into it and my car became turbocharged, I was still under the amount you paid just for your car. So, if you sank money into your car to make it faster, the only thing you'd be pulling away from me in, is money spent to try to make your car faster :).

the srt is in a different class than the focus is. so of course, u put the same amount of money into the neon as the focus, its gonna beat it. no doubt. but put the money u saved buyin the focus instead of the srt and see what happens. just put a s/c or turbo on the svtf and it will outdo the srt all day.

Yeah yeah yeah... spend the same amount on the SRT-4 and it will be faster. There are some quick modded civics in my area but I have yet to be beaten on the street by any honda, including S-2000s. My SRT-4 is my daily driver so I don't need 700HP to the front wheels. I only have a intake, exhaust, and stage 1, not sure sure what it dynos.

And no, I don't "worry" about being spanked by ANY car that puts $10,000 or more into mods, even if it's a hyundai excel. WIth that money spent you should be able to beat a turbo 4 that is mostly stock.

Well... Maybe not because I don't live near you :). Around here, there are plenty of nice civics that are anything but slow. Me and a few of my friends have some very nice hondas. I have two, one of which is turbo on stock internals and one that is built and turboed. Not dynoed yet. Another one of my friends just dynoed at 673 horsepower to the wheels. I think it was 673, it might have been a bit more. So, if you were here you'd have to be worrying hehehe.

Well, it doesn't really matter what it makes without the turbo. With the turbo they have dyno'd over 230 HP at the WHEELS stock. I've heard it's anywhere between 270-300 HP at the crank. And no, I'm not worried about any Hondas, sorry. ;-]

SRTCarsRock, what I meant was that if the SVT was turbo or supercharged, it would have been number one on pretty much every list when in competition (handling, comfortability, power etc..) with other sport compact cars like the srt-4, cobalt, protege, civic etc... I wasn't referring to a heads up race between the srt-4 and a turbo/supercharged svt focus. I mean don't get me wrong... If they did race I would go with the svt focus all day because I'm not sure what the srt-4 engine makes without the turbo but I've been told that it's a very very low number for a 2.4 liter engine. Besides, the srt-4 weighs like... 2900-3000 lbs which isn't helping anything at all. The only thing that I believe the srt-4 would win in overall if the svt came supercharged or turbocharged would be price. The price on the svt would go up a bit, but then again... So would its power rating :). It's all good though... They didn't do any forced induction, svt's are losing to single cam non turbo neons and srt-4's were at the top of the list in 2003 for sport compacts so they have nothing to worry about. *except my turbo ls/vtec honda* -_-

ford isnt gonna have a car that will outdo their precious mustang. think about it...a less expensive car that will out-perform their top selling vehicle. focus enthusiats everwhere have been waiting for a high performance focus but ford america will not produce one. now look at ford europe and they have the focus rs, and focus st with the 5 liter turbo motor from volvo. if svt put a turbo on the focus, i think it would have outdone the srt in every category. not only handling(which it does now) but power as well. the mazdaspeed 2.3l is the motor that is in the focus st here, just not boosted. but for 08...ford decided not to offer the 2.3l anymore for the focus.

Thanks, elhefe. I agree with everything you said except the part about if they Super or Turbo charged the SVT it would have taken the SRT hands down (in handling, yes). I'm sure it would have been close competition, and maybe even a little faster, but a car that runs 13.8-13.9 stock is hard enough to keep up with, let alone take hands down. In fact, there hasn't been much real competition in it's class until recently, with the entry of the Mazdaspeed 3 (2.3L Turbo), which is a quick little car.

In any case, Ford should have done something better to make this car worthy of wearing the SVT nameplate. I bet Cobra owners get pi$$ed!

I agree with the comment that SRTCarsRock made about the SVT tag. I used to think the same thing until the Contour and the Focus. I have nothing against them, but I was expecting them to be at the top of the list when being compared to cars that other companies were producing in the same class, What I don't get about the SVT Focus is that it has absolutely nothing special about it but still has the SVT tag. I could see if maybe it came stock supercharged or just something... anything that made it stand out but there was nothing. If Ford could have produced the SVT Focus with a supercharger or a turbocharger for a decent price, it would have been at the top of the list hands down. It would have taken the srt-4 by a long shot but... I don't know. They didn't and it's not like it matters now. I don't like srt-4's either so it's all good, hahaha.

svtdriver - yes, it's true the svt focus came out first, but it still was Fords "competitor" to the SRT-4. By that I mean it was Ford's only "high perfomance" sport compact in the low $20,000 range from 2003-2006. And even though it came out first, Ford knew in 2002 that the SRT4 was coming out in 2003. Even if they didn't, they could have upped the ante in 2004 to be more competitive. Also, there were comparos in Car & Driver, Motor Trend, and Road & Track in 2003 between the SRT-4, Mazdaspeed Protege, Sentra SE-R, Civic Si, and SVT Focus, with the SRT-4 always coming out on top overall.

And I only say all this for one reason. The Focus SVT wears the SVT nameplate, so it should have a higher level of performance than it does. It does not really hold a candle to true SVT cars such as the SVT Cobra or SVT Lightning. When you think SVT you think "fast", which the Focus is not. As for the SVT Contour, I don't know what they were thinking.