C9ae 9425 B Ford 390 Oem Intake Manifold on 2040-parts.com

Automotive Suppliers Demo the Future at CES

There is no shortage of cool stuff at CES. Just wandering around the 2 million square feet of the Las Vegas Convention Center was like being in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory for technophiles. For instance, just inside the Center Hall was the ginormous LG wall o' TVs, all synched together and blasting incredible 3D images that looked like a Beetles short from 1967.

2012 Ford Focus ST gets 297bhp

Those clever chaps at SuperChips have given the 2012 Ford Focus ST a bit of an ECU tweak to deliver 297bhp and an extra 85lb/ft of torque. When we reported last week that WTC outfit Arena had in roped Ford’s tuner of choice, Mountune, to give the new Ford Focus a makeover, we were a tad disappointed to discover that they were tweaking the rather journeyman Focus Zetec S. That meant the Zetec S got 200bhp – a handy jump – but we bemoaned the fact that they hadn’t fiddled with the Focus ST to give us a car to fill the void left by the absence of a Focus RS in the current iteration of the Focus.

VW to cover maintenance costs for sludge-damaged engines

Volkswagen AG has agreed to pay maintenance costs under a proposed settlement in a class-action lawsuit over sludge-damaged engines in 479,768 VW and Audi models. Judge Joseph Tauro of the U.S. District Court in Boston gave conditional approval of the settlement last week.