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|DURATEC Performance (2008-2011) The place to chat about any Duratec 20 engine performance, tuning and exhaust related upgrades.
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Focus Fanatic
The Ultimate 03-09 Focus Thread, SUPER LARGE AMOUNTS OF INFO.
This is a compilation of all my previous threads ive finally decided to throw back up, minus the pictures. i dont feal we need pictures to discuss things that much.
First lets start with the duratec focus information:
ok... this is to help everyone!
years the duratecs are in focus'
2.3 was released largely in 03... it was put into the 03 and 04 zx3's for the green states. yes the 03 and 04 are old bodystyles.
in 05 the Focus ZX4 ST was released and it gained the 2.3L with a few more ponies
in 05 the zx3, ZXw, ZX5, and the lower end ZX4's got the 2.0 duratec no matter manual or automatic tranny.
Ok onto modifications:
the difference between the 2.0 and the 2.3 are small in the fact alot of the parts that can be bought and installed on the 2.0
can in fact be bought and installed on the 2.3 and vise-versa.
HEADER (notice how i DID not put a S at the end. its a 4cylinder people, it has only 1, uno. singular, mono):
F2 V3.0 Step Header. has a stepped design, it has 1-5/8" primaries and 1-3/4" secondaries and a 2.5" collector. to contain some of the back pressure.
Cosworth Header
Focussport header (stock or aftermarket flex can be used, Focussport is in the process of making their flexpipe)
you have a few more options here.
SRI i.e. short ram intake, comes with an alluminum heat shield that sits right behind the d/s headlight.
Focussport.com CAI:
Alluminum Cold air intake, uses stock MAF tube, but comes with a very nice ITG air filter.
Cosworth CAI:
3 piece design replaces all 3 pieces in the intake, BUT! it bottle necks at the MAF, because the maf is programmed from ford to work
inside a certain diameter tube.
F2focus shortram/cai:
This is kinda like the stealth intake, not a true short ram, but not a true CAI either.
Stealth mod:
This is a cheap mod, it'll only cost you the price of a cone filter, the filter gets clamped onto the end of the MAF, and the air filter hangs
in front of the transmissions
MarcyMotorsports CAI:
This is the same designed unit as the focussport CAI, but usually you can find these cheaper and they come in different colors.
You have 2 options from K&N, the typhoon is a metal unit and all 1 piece and they have a FIPK which is like a composite plastic all one piece... they claim the plastic
doesnt absorb heat as the metal ones and is supposed to produce 1hp or 2 more.. dont know if thats true, but it depends on the engine and conditions also.
Zomk Speed:
T-304 aluminum intake pipe
Come 3" exchangeable stainless steel filter
Cold Air Intake System allows maximum airflow through the stock manifold system
Maximum airflow through the throttle body is reached, and maximum airflow results in better throttle response and more horsepower
Increase 5-10% horsepower
Produce better intense sound under your hood and better gas mileage
HPS has in house Dynapack to ensure every HPS intake increase the horsepower, torque and improve the gas Mileage
The HPS cold air intake can help your engine to suck in more cooler air resulting in better throttle response and higher explosive horsepower output
Featuring the 3-Ply reinforced SILICONE couplers/reducers, the HPS cold air intake kit provides stability even the vehicle is in an extreme driving condition
steeda - sells magnaflow
magnaflow - stainless steele 2.25inch
borla - 2.5inch stainless steele.
trubendz.com - different variations too many to list... check their website... trubendz.com
MBRP - 2.25inch stainless steel.
if you want to hear clips go here:
or here:
as well they all make springs and retainers for their stages, as well as supertech makes springs, and possibly with Eibach making springs now.
Cylinder Head:
FRPP - www.fordracingparts.com
Port your own
Focus-Power (Tom informed me he makes rods for the duratec capable of 750whp)
We do not have adjustable camgears on the market yet.... marcymotorsports has a cam adjustment tool available on his website, but it seems his focus stuff has taken a back
seat... you can try to contact him if you want to get it.
There is a set on massivespeedsystem though if you want to try it.
SCT Excal 2/3
SCT Pro Racer.
Phantom Grip (heres a How-To by Sporadic - http://www.focusfanatics.com/forum/showthread.php?t=163836 )
Throttle Body:
Focus Central (if you can find it)
port your own
Under Drive Pulley(s):
Intake Manifold:
Forced Induction:
Focussport, stage 1 and 2.
Hiboost/F2 Focus Turbo kit... not in production anymore, but you may find a used one, it'll be rare, very rare if you do.
F2 Focus has a stage 1 and 2 turbo kit.
Future Forced induction - F2focus apparently is in R&D with a supercharger setup for the duratec.....
Focussport oil cooler(manual and auto transmissions)
Cosworth Oil to water cooler
Engine Fasteners:
Engine Mounts:
Rear - VF engineering, CFM/steeda poly inserts, also steeda has their own billet rear mount
Driver Side - VF, Steeda.
Passenger Side - VF Engineering
you can find poly inserts on various websites, probably easiest to find is on CFM's site.
Specific tools:
CFM has a camshaft alingment bar and bolt to aid in camgear installation and camshaft installation as well as their UDP install.
Rotunda, Rotunda is the tool brand that makes the special "ford" technitian tools
here is some various information about the duratec focus:
the 05 duratec focus shares the same suspension as the 00-04 focus, so those kits will all work as the same,
but in 06 ford desided to make the front shocks larger in diameter and alittle taller, so 06+ you HAVE to find springs and shocks
that are said to be for 06+ but the rear is the same all the way across, just the front changed in 06.
shifter - any april 2002+ short throw shifter will work... if your car does NOT have the reverse lockout, you can get a lockout delete from CFM.
Pillar Pod - the A-pillar did NOT change from 00 - 07 so if you see a pillar pod for 00 - 04 it will work in your 07. i have one in mine.
strut tower bars - the front engine bay bar is specific to the duratec. newedge and focussport sell them, the rear because remember the suspension has NOT changed,
can be used across the board.
Originally posted by, PowerByDuratec:
How do I know if I have a duratec?
- All foci in the 2005 model year are duratecs. Only the ST is a 2.3L duratec in this year. All others are 2.0 duratecs.
- 2004 foci the engine is an optional feature in all states and remains standard in the Green States (California, New York, Mass)
- 2003 Foci that have duratecs were standard for the most part of that model year.
- No older models have the engine.
The easiest way to tell if you have a duratec is looking at your exhaust manifold. If it is in the rear of the engine bay (against the engine firewall) then it is a duratec.
How can I tell if my car is PZEV-certified?
In the green states (NY, CA, MA) all duratec engines are PZEV certified and carry the equipment. If you are on the borderline of these states it is possible to have a PZEV car. The only duratec in the green states to not have PZEV status is the 05 + ST. Still not sure? The window sticker that came on the car will say PZEV next to the name of the car.
Are there any Short-Ram Air Intakes?
Yes there is the Steeda Ram Air. It adds approximately 5 hp. It's for those who want a decreased risk of hydrolocking. However this setup is still not fool proof. See Egzs link.
now here are some helpful links i have found by just SEARCHING the duratec section:
ok... so you have all these parts on your car... now... how much power are you making...?
here are 2 threads to help... one is a big discussion on what it would take to get to 200WHP and the other is on someone who DID.
want to see what the most popular intake is?
think your MTX75 is slow and you want to put the SVT 6speed in it? read here:
Nitrous anyone?
do you have one of the many focus' with NO TACH?
do you want a well rounded car that'll be a good car in the straights as well in the corners?
do you want an LC-1 wideband?
whats the best cam for you?
do you want the cosworth intake manifold on your 2006+ focus?
want to see what the big name duratec users are putting out?
heres a COMPLETE guide to HOW TO's from S2:
So... this thread is just to help the duratec section alittle... ive seen a few threads lately that are askin the same questions... so i thought i would help and make a more
direct source of INFO, for the new people...
again this is just to help! its like a guideline, not set in stone.
if i have missed anything or if you have any questions please feal free to post or if you have a question dont forget to post a thread about it, IF it hasnt been asked before (searching doesnt turn up anything)
thanks for looking!
Focus Parts websites:
and you can also get ford produced parts cheaper sometimes here:
and Last but not Least, here is a Wikispace made by member Egz:
2008 Focus:
As of right now there are few options for the 2008 focus, Ford has once again changed things around. Focussport was succesful with a few modifications to their turbo kit to make it work.
The 2008 focus has a drop in panel filter like the zetec focus, and K&N hasnt released a new panel filter yet.
But on their website they say their short ram will fit it. which i believe. and its good for about 5hp.
---- Originally Quoted by: P0WeRbyDuratec I un-stuck his thread and added his information he typed below, sinse he hasnt been online in over a year and to help reduce a slight amount of stickie clutter.
Originally quoted by Jarrod
Review from Sport Compact Car on the Saleen focus:
The Future of the Focus, The 2009 Focus:
heres something i found from mike a.k.a b161991sir
Next on the list is the Intake thread:
[B]With the recent bloom of many threads about cold air intakes for the duratec i thought i would make a thread for them:
Cold Air Intakes for the Duratec Focus:
FocusSport 2.0L & 2.3L Duratec Cool-Flo Race Air Intake System
This is a true "cold air" intake system that situates the filter in the lower front region of the car, away from ALL engine heat. The Cool-Flo Race system utilizes 3" mandrel bent steel tubing along with laser cut bracketry. Other features include all tig-welded construction and coated with silver powdercoat.
K&N typhoon Short Ram:
Built for performance and show, the Typhoon Air Intake System is a free-flowing mandrel-bent aluminum tube induction system designed to fit many sport compact performance vehicles. Typhoon intakes come in one of three designs; cold air intakes (CA), short ram intakes (SR), or complete cold air (CCA) intakes which can be configured as either a cold air intake or a short ram intake. Some Typhoon's have high quality finish options including polished aluminum (part ends with TP), powder coated blue (part ends in TB), powder coated red (part ends in TR), and powder coated silver (ends in TS) among others. K&N intake systems replace your vehicle's restrictive factory air filter and air intake housing. K&N intakes are designed to dramatically reduce intake restriction allowing more air flow to your engine. More air means more usable power and acceleration throughout the engine's RPM range.
Steeda: (this is technically a short ram intake)
Focus Owners - Be Advised: this is not just any cold air intake kit, this is a Steeda Autosports cold air intake kit. What does that mean for you?
It enhances performance
It looks great
It installs easily
It's your best value
Our Dyno, below, showed six more ponies at the wheels of our Executive Cruiser, and nearly four more pound feet of torque with our Cold Air Kit for the Focus Duratec engine - without re calibration or tuning the engine further. Should easily make even more power on modified engines as well.
The kit includes a precisely machined billet aluminum MAF sensor and handsome stainless steel guard with the stylish Steeda logo laser cut into it, along with a Steeda life-time, reusable filter and all the hardware needed to replace the original factory intake.
Installation is a snap - simple hand tools are all you need to do the job in about an hour, following along with the illustrated instructions provided. When you're done, you'll find that the 'wow' factor under your hood has gone way up as a result of your efforts.
And when you compare this kit to others available, the value becomes clear. Why settle for a glorified hunk of pvc pipe and a new filter element, when you can have a brand new, billet aluminum CNC machined MAF sensor, a reusable filer with lifetime warranty, and a stylish, stainless steel guard instead? Get show and go for the same buck - that's the Steeda Autosports formula for high performance value.
K&N typhoon:
K&N now offers it's popular Typhoon intake for the Focus with the 2.0/2.3L Duratec engines. Polished or powder-coated tube adds a little "bling-bling" under the hood as it helps to increase horsepower. Also helps to increase gas mileage...if you can "keep your foot out of it!" You'll love the increased performance and that "high-performance sound", you may not be able to resist putting a smile on your face every time you put your foot down.
Kit comes with either a polished or powder-coated tube, world famous K&N cone filter, K&N Drycharger to help repel water, connector, hardware and allen wrench to help with the installation.
The Generation II FIPK® is K&N's ultimate performance product, designed to increase power by as much as 10%. Most FIPK's are street legal in all 50 US states and come with a Million Mile Limited Warranty. K&N intake systems replace your vehicle's restrictive factory air filter and air intake housing. K&N intakes are designed to dramatically reduce intake restriction as they smooth and straighten air flow. This allows your vehicle's engine to inhale a larger volume of air than the OEM air filter assembly. More air means more usable power and acceleration throughout the engine's RPM range. The filters on these kits are washable and reusable. Most of our intake kits are relatively easy to install using tools commonly available
AEM pioneered the Cold Air induction system for sport compact cars in 1994.
A Cold Air intake system relocates the filter outside of the engine compartment to deliver the coolest air inlet temperatures possible. Cooler air carries more oxygen, which translates into a more intense explosion in the combustion chamber to create more horesepower and torque. But that's only part of the power equation. Tuning the inlet pipe in length and diameter to match the engine's resonance helps move more air to the cylinders (think of your engine as a big air pump), and no company on the market can tune an inlet as well as we can. We also monitor fuel trim correction factors and all OBDII sensors during R&D to eliminate leaning the engine out and/or throwing a check engine light.
Our Cold Air systems are dyno-proven and tested against the competition to create more useable power than any other system of their kind. Every AEM Cold Air induction system features the highest standards of construction and we are so confident in their fit and performance that we guarantee them for the life of your vehicle. All AEM Cold Air systems are either 50-state legal or pending (excluding "Off Road" and "Hybrid" systems), include a lifetime DRYFLOW Synthetic air filter and come with a limited lifetime warranty.
A sister product to our 57 Series FIPK, our 63 Series Intake Kits or AirCharger® Intakes are built for many different vehicles and represent a dramatic improvement over a K&N O/E replacement filter alone. They enjoy a faster speed to market than our 57 Series kits due to their pending CARB status. These intakes use only non-metallic rotationally molded tubes that can reduce intake air temperature and decrease intake sound over a metal tube. Restriction can exist BETWEEN an air filter and the engine reducing the benefit of a K&N Air Filter. The weakest link in the airflow "chain" robs a vehicle of its natural horsepower. Often that weak point is the factory air path leading to the Engine. K&N Air Intake Kits virtually eliminate air path restriction by replacing the air filter and the entire air path to the engine. The aerodynamically engineered tube drives a massive amount of air into an engine, which translates into POWER. 63 Series Intake Kits are not legal for street use in some U.S. states.
Cosworth Roller Throttle Assembly (YD8070)
For maximum power and performance, Cosworth has developed barrel throttles with an integrated manifold for the Duratec engine. This F1 style throttle provides complete control with un-restricted flow at full throttle. Cast from heat treated aluminium with CNC machined barrels supported by sealed bearings. Shown with optional carbon fiber air box and filter kit KK3599
Cosworth also had a Cold air intake for the duratec focus. but they are no longer being sold, you may be able to find a used one, they come with a K&N style air filter, replace the factory MAF tube, it is all anodized blue, and you can expect to see a 10 - 11hp increase.
Focus Fanatic
This unit is a 2 piece unit, and resembles the focussport CAI very closely... it comes in variety of colors... but it seems walter has updated and changed his website again, and is not listing it... but you can maybe get it from him still at www.marcymotorsport.com or a used one.
$180.00 - 10 - 11hp
F2 Focus:
F2 Cold Air Intake Duratec is back and will be available by December 15, 2007! You can preorder it if you like to make sure you are on the list before they are sold out. We bring back our original design which yielded 10whp on the dyno! With the addition of K&N air filter or outerwares as an filter option this is by far the best priced intake in the market for the Duratec Focus. The intake will only be available in powdercoat black finish.
$135.00 - 10hp
HPS has in house Dynapack to ensure every HPS intake increase the horsepower, torque and improve the gas Mileage
The HPS cold air intake can help your engine to suck in more cooler air resulting in better throttle response and higher explosive horsepower output
Featuring the 3-Ply reinforced SILICONE couplers/reducers, the HPS cold air intake kit provides stability even the vehicle is in an extreme driving condition
T-306 Aluminum Polished Intake pipe
Includes one HPS High Performance 3" Air Filter (Black Open-Top)
Includes all necessary mounting hardware, vacuum hoses and 3-ply silicone couplers/reducers
Includes One HPS License Frame
Includes TWO HPS Stickers
Includes Step-By-Step Installation instruction
Price - $229.99
Kit comes with Manifold as seen, fuel rail and mounting hardware, Linkage system, TPS, and Loose TPS Harness. Does not come with Injectors! Rail is un drilled as well, $35 to drill the rail for you. Your choice of 45mm Straight ITB's or 45mm Tapered to 50mm ITB's. Includes our Standard Foam Filters as well. PRICE: $1,199.00
These prices are not exact, i searched and when i came across a price i copied it, C-F-M.com has pretty much almost all of these intakes for good prices, but you can purchase from where ever you want, if you find a good price.
*Cold Air Intake Pros:
-Cooler air brought in means denser air which = more power
-Bling Factor, having an intake tube snake down into the bay is liked by some
-Limited Heat soak
*Cold Air Intake Cons:
-Chance of Hydrolock (low, but its still there)
-Price, typically more expensive
*Short Ram Intake Pros:
-No chance of Hydrolock
-Bling Factor, having a big air filter in eyes view is liked by some
-Typically cheaper
*Short Ram Intake Cons:
-Very absorbent to heat soak(this is where the air filter sucks in warm air from the engine bay, thus loosing power)
-Less horsepower/torque
*Pros for ITB's (cosworth)
-Most N/A hp/tq available
-Huge Bling factory (everyone usually loves ITB's)
-Quality, Cosworth is 2nd to none
*Cons for ITB's(cosworth)
-Makes N20 abit harder
-Makes S/C and Turbo near impossible
-Makes tuning alot longer/harder
Air Filters for Your CAI/SRI:
With our CAI/SRI's there are basically 2 options, the ITG with the focussport, or the K&N, all of the other intakes use a K&N or rebadged K&N filter, you can purchase the ITG or a Cone style K&N seperately, you can easily find the K&N cones, but focussport does sell the ITG "cone" by itself.
From Focussport.com
From K&N.com:
those are just 2 quotes and alittle information on the 2 types of filters.
i hope this helps with any new people in their decision for the intake purchase for their car.
*2008* Ford Focus Intake's
[B] Well, with the growing number of Duratec performance members, owning and bringing in the 08 for Performance Mods, usually everyone typically starts with an Intake.
As of Right now, there are very limited options, and I will go through them below:
---K&N Replacement Filter---
Often these Go also by Drop-In filters, as they require NO modification to be installed.
2008 has an advantage over the earlier Model duratecs, as the earlier models have a 100k non-serviceable filter from the factory.
Wheres in 2008, they have a serviceable filter, which allows it to be replaced by a "drop-in" filter
K&N's replacement air filters are designed to increase horsepower and acceleration while providing excellent filtration. We make over 1,200 different replacement air filters for virtually every vehicle on the road. These filters are washable and reusable and are custom designed to fit into your existing factory air box. Their drop-in design means adding performance is simple. With most vehicles you simply remove the disposable air filter and replace it with a K&N. See applicable instruction sheet for details. Our stock replacement air filters for street vehicles are covered by our famous K&N Million-Mile Limited Warranty™ and will be THE LAST AIR FILTER YOUR VEHICLE WILL EVER NEED.
33-2401 Product Specifications
Product Style: Unique Air Filters
Filter Re-Oiling Amount: 0.76 oz (23 ml)
Height: 1 in (25 mm)
Outside Length: 8.5 in (216 mm)
Outside Width: 7.813 in (198 mm)
Weight: 1 lb (0.4 kg)
Product Box Length: 11.69 in (297 mm)
Product Box Width: 10.38 in (264 mm)
Product Box Height: 1.88 in (48 mm)
33-2401 Price: $42.19, and usually typically net around 3 to 4hp.
---K&N 69 Series Typhoon Kit---
Built for performance and show, the Typhoon™ Air Intake System is a free-flowing mandrel-bent aluminum tube induction system designed to fit many sport compact performance vehicles. Typhoon intakes come in one of three designs; cold air intakes (CA), short ram intakes (SR), or complete cold air (CCA) intakes which can be configured as either a cold air intake or a short ram intake. Some Typhoon's have high quality finish options including polished aluminum (part ends with TP), powder coated blue (part ends in TB), powder coated red (part ends in TR), and powder coated silver (ends in TS) among others. K&N intake systems replace your vehicle's restrictive factory air filter and air intake housing. K&N intakes are designed to dramatically reduce intake restriction allowing more air flow to your engine. More air means more usable power and acceleration throughout the engine's RPM range.
69-3513TTK Product Specifications
Product Style: 69 Series Typhoon Kits
Estimated Horsepower Gain: 5.24 HP @ 5400 RPM
Color: Textured Black
Replacement Filter: RU-4950
CARB Exempt: No
System Type: Short-ram intake system
Weight: 7.2 lb (3.3 kg)
Product Box Length: 19.3 in (490 mm)
Product Box Width: 14.5 in (368 mm)
Product Box Height: 8.4 in (213 mm
69-3513TTK Price: $321.04 - 5.24hp
---Steeda Short Ram Intake---
Steeda calls it a Cold Air Intake on their website, but infact, it really is a short ram intake.
Steeda's new high flow air intake for the 2008 2.0L Ford Focus is 2 intakes in one all inclusive kit!
Our high flow cold air intake includes an insert allowing you to use it as a direct bolt on intake kit with no tuning required, or remove the insert to for even more airflow and combine it with a custom tune for the most powerful kit on the market for your Focus.
Steeda's cold air intake kit is also designed to use your stock air induction system, helping to take in cooler outside air!
Steeda's high flow intake also features a stainless steel heat shield and high flow cone style air filter for great airflow. Low intake air inlet temperatures can be accomplished with the heat shield and a provision to re-use your factory Ram air. Improved gas mileage will also be noticed!
We got an easy 7hp and 12ft/lbs of torque in mid range RPM's with peaks around 6hp and 5ft/lbs with the insert in place. More to be had with no insert and custom tuning.
To read Specifics and information directly related to the filters these 2 use, please check out
or for the Steeda
Next is the Fuel Economy thread:
All information was taken from:
Fuel Economy.Gov
Well with a certain and obvious (with gas prices) reason to talk about economy, I have decided to help out, and make a more singular source for the economy enthusiasts.
or MPG-Mongolars. lol
So here it goes!
All the information Sourced on this Post is from www.fueleconomy.gov, but feel free to add information, remember this is a discussion thread on Fuel economy, so please add all that you can!
Next I will List some helpful tips, on how to obtain and increase fuel mileage!
Drive Sensibly
Aggressive driving (speeding, rapid acceleration and braking) wastes gas. It can lower your gas mileage by 33 percent at highway speeds and by 5 percent around town. Sensible driving is also safer for you and others, so you may save more than gas money.
Fuel Economy Benefit: 5-33%
Equivalent Gasoline Savings: $0.20-$1.31/gallon
Observe the Speed Limit
While each vehicle reaches its optimal fuel economy at a different speed (or range of speeds), gas mileage usually decreases rapidly at speeds above 60 mph.
You can assume that each 5 mph you drive over 60 mph is like paying an additional $0.30 per gallon for gas.
Observing the speed limit is also safer.
Fuel Economy Benefit: 7-23%
Equivalent Gasoline Savings: $0.28-$0.91/gallon
Remove Excess Weight
Avoid keeping unnecessary items in your vehicle, especially heavy ones. An extra 100 pounds in your vehicle could reduce your MPG by up to 2%. The reduction is based on the percentage of extra weight relative to the vehicle's weight and affects smaller vehicles more than larger ones.
Fuel Economy Benefit: 1-2%/100 lbs
Equivalent Gasoline Savings: $0.04-$0.08/gallon
Avoid Excessive Idling
Idling gets 0 miles per gallon. Cars with larger engines typically waste more gas at idle than do cars with smaller engines.
Use Cruise Control
Using cruise control on the highway helps you maintain a constant speed and, in most cases, will save gas.
Use Overdrive Gears
When you use overdrive gearing, your car's engine speed goes down. This saves gas and reduces engine wear.
Cost savings are based on an assumed fuel price of $3.96/gallon.
Next is a quick excerpt that can easily help in day to day life!
Combining errands into one trip saves you time and money. Several short trips taken from a cold start can use twice as much fuel as a longer multipurpose trip covering the same distance when the engine is warm. Trip planning ensures that traveling is done when the engine is warmed-up and efficient.
With a little planning, you can avoid retracing your route and reduce the distance you travel as well. You'll not only save fuel, but also reduce wear and tear on your car.
If you can stagger your work hours to avoid peak rush hours, you'll spend less time sitting in traffic and consume less fuel.
If you own more than one vehicle, drive the one that gets the best gas mileage whenever possible.
Consider telecommuting (working from home) if your employer permits it.
If possible, take advantage of carpools and ride-share programs. You can cut your weekly fuel costs in half and save wear on your car if you take turns driving with other commuters. Many urban areas allow vehicles with multiple passengers to use special High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes.
Consider using public transit if it is available and convenient for you. The American Public Transit Transportation Association has links to information about public transportation in your state.
A roof rack or carrier provides additional cargo space and may allow you to meet your needs with a smaller car. However, a loaded roof rack can decrease your fuel economy by 5 percent. Reduce aerodynamic drag and improve your fuel economy by placing items inside the trunk whenever possible.
Avoid carrying unneeded items, especially heavy ones. An extra 100 lbs in the trunk reduces a typical car's fuel economy by 1-2 percent.
And heres the section that we all love! Maintaining your vehicle properly!
Keep Your Engine Properly Tuned
Fixing a car that is noticeably out of tune or has failed an emissions test can improve its gas mileage by an average of 4 percent, though results vary based on the kind of repair and how well it is done.
Fixing a serious maintenance problem, such as a faulty oxygen sensor, can improve your mileage by as much as 40 percent.
Fuel Economy Benefit: 4%
Equivalent Gasoline Savings: $0.16/gallon
Check & Replace Air Filters Regularly
Exempt except for 08+
Replacing a clogged air filter can improve your car's gas mileage by as much as 10 percent. Your car's air filter keeps impurities from damaging the inside of your engine. Not only will replacing a dirty air filter save gas, it will protect your engine.
Fuel Economy Benefit: up to 10%
Equivalent Gasoline Savings: up to $0.40/gallon
Keep Tires Properly Inflated
You can improve your gas mileage by around 3.3 percent by keeping your tires inflated to the proper pressure. Under-inflated tires can lower gas mileage by 0.4 percent for every 1 psi drop in pressure of all four tires. Properly inflated tires are safer and last longer.
Fuel Economy Benefit: up to 3%
Equivalent Gasoline Savings: up to $0.12/gallon
Use the Recommended Grade of Motor Oil
You can improve your gas mileage by 1-2 percent by using the manufacturer's recommended grade of motor oil. For example, using 10W-30 motor oil in an engine designed to use 5W-30 can lower your gas mileage by 1-2 percent. Using 5W-30 in an engine designed for 5W-20 can lower your gas mileage by 1-1.5 percent. Also, look for motor oil that says "Energy Conserving" on the API performance symbol to be sure it contains friction-reducing additives.
Fuel Economy Benefit: 1-2%
Equivalent Gasoline Savings: $0.04-$0.08/gallon
Note: Cost savings are based on an assumed fuel price of $3.96/gallon.
Also! just because People advertise MPG this and MPG that! here are a couple quick facts about that marketing:
EPA tests are designed reflect "typical" driving conditions and driver behavior, but several factors can affect MPG significantly:
• How & Where You Drive
• Vehicle Condition & Maintenance
• Fuel Variations
• Vehicle Variations
• Engine Break-In
Therefore, the EPA ratings are a useful tool for comparing the fuel economies of different vehicles but may not accurately predict the average MPG you will get.
To find out what you can do to improve the fuel economy of your car, see Driving More Efficiently and Keeping Your Car in Shape.
and a quick question that I'm sure is on a few people's minds.
Question: What's up, and down, with gasoline prices lately?
EIA analysis of the petroleum market points to the cost of crude oil as the main contributor to the large run up in the first half of 2008 and the recent decline in retail gasoline prices.
The cost of crude oil accounts for about 74% of the gasoline pump price (see graphic on gasoline price components). The cost of crude oil for U.S. refiners reached a record high in early summer 2008 (as did retail gasoline prices) due mainly to high worldwide oil demand relative to supply. Other contributing factors included political events and conflicts in some major oil producing regions, and other factors.
EIA believes that the high prices for petroleum products and relatively weak economic conditions in the U.S. and other countries has helped to reduce demand and prices for crude oil. This has contributed to the recent decline in crude oil and retail gasoline prices.
I hope this clears up some questions, But I mainly did this to help center all of the Mileage and fuel threads to one local area, so that way we don't all have to go through a lot of different threads!
Good Luck on saving fuel, and keep posting!
Focus Fanatic
Ok, with the question of hydrolock on alot of people's minds ALOT, i thought i would make a Quick Thread on Informational Facts:
HydroLock Definition:
In automotive terminology, a hydrolock (short for hydraulic lock) is the immobilization of an engine's pistons by a liquid (usually water, hence the prefix "hydro-"). Hydrolocking occurs when liquid fills a cylinder on the intake stroke and, due to the incompressibility of a liquid, makes the compression stroke impossible. This, in turn, prevents the entire engine from turning, and can cause significant engine damage if one attempts to forcibly turn over or start the engine. Typically, connecting rods will be bent, making the engine uneconomical to repair.
It is relatively common when driving through floods, either where the water is above the level of the air intake or the vehicle's speed is excessive, creating a tall bow wave.
Hydrolocking is often a concern when consumers modify their engines with aftermarket intake systems (e.g. Cold air intake). A cold air intake typically locates the filter near the bottom of the engine compartment to gain access to colder air, which can also increase its chances of ingesting water should it be submerged.
Another reason for it to occur is in the event of the head gasket cracking or "blowing", which causes the radiator coolant to mix inside the combustion chamber.
Regardless of the cause, treatment is the same. Removal of the spark plugs will allow access to the combustion chamber. By inserting an irrigation syringe fitted with a flexible plastic tube on the end, you can suck out the liquid that infiltrated the combustion chamber. Once all the fluid is removed, the chamber should be sprayed with a liberal coating of a water displacing lubricant such as WD40[citation needed], and allowed to sit until the remaining water has evaporated. Once the water or coolant has been removed, inspect the combustion chamber for rust. The best option would be to remove the head, but a borescope or small flashlight and mirror will also work. Light surface rust will be normal, but if you see any heavy corrosion, it should be gently removed, and vacuumed out of the chamber. After inspection, pour a tablespoon of assembly lube (such as Marvel Mystery Oil) or clean engine oil into each combustion chamber. Attach a socket to the crankshaft, and slowly rotate the engine through a few revolutions. (Make sure that you turn the engine in the proper direction, see a service manual for proper rotation direction.) If you hear any clanking, or harsh scraping, you should bring the engine to a competent mechanic. After verifying that the remaining systems are free of water (electrical, fuel delivery, air intake, distributor, etc.), re-install the spark plugs and wires, and attempt to start the engine.
Courtesy of Wikipedia
Hydrostatic lock, hydraulic lock or hydrolock occurs when liquids, typically water, enter an engine cylinder. This can occur from a coolant, oil or fuel leak, but the chief cause is drawing water into the engine through the air induction system (airbox & filter, ducting, throttle body or carburetor, intake manifold). Internal combustion engines (spark or compression ignition) operating on a two-stroke or four-stroke cycle must employ a compression stroke to compress the charge (usually an air/fuel mixture). Liquids are incompressible; the presence of a liquid in the engine cylinder during the compression stroke generates destructively high cylinder pressures.
Abnormally high cylinder pressures can bend and break pistons, piston pins, connecting rods, crankshafts and ruin bearings and can crack or break cylinder heads and engine blocks. Small amounts of liquids may pass through an engine cycle without damage, but volumes exceeding 40cc (1.4 fluid ounces, <3 tablespoons) will cause many engines to develop cylinder pressures well in excess of 1000psi. A larger volume of water, up to the combustion chamber volume (usually 60cc to 100cc), will generate increasingly high cylinder pressure during the completion of the compression stroke. Volumes of water which exceed the combustion chamber volume will "stop" a running engine through true hydrostatic lock. Something expensive always bends or breaks when this happens.
Hydrolock may occur while the engine is running, the work of the compression stroke being supplied by engine's rotational inertia. Or a liquid may leak into the cylinder while the engine is being stored; the work of the compression stroke will be supplied by the starter motor.
Hydrolock is not a new problem, but it only affected certain applications. Older American made cars, particularly with V-configuration engines, often employed an air intake location which was high in the engine compartment. Because of the reduced tendency of these older American cars to hydrolock, it has not been in the forefront of design consideration and is not a household term.
Most newer, fuel injected cars have the air intake located low in the engine compartment. The objective of this low air intake is to draw cool air into the engine. Unfortunately, when driving through sufficiently deep standing or splashing water, engine vacuum from the intake stroke will suck water into the engine, particularly if the intake is submerged.
The cost to repair hydrolock damage begins at about $1000.00, and only goes sky high from there. Repair bills in excess of $35,000 have been reported in high-end passenger cars. Racing engines can cost twice that amount. Many new cars have been recognized as having poor designs to prevent hydrolock. Even some Four-Wheel-Drive pickup trucks and SUV's have been identified as having particularly high incidence rates of hydrolock. Manufacturers' warranties do not cover hydrolock engine damage, stating that the cause of operator error. One SUV manufacturer states the maximum vehicle speed through standing water to be 5 mph; hydrolock occurring at speeds in excess of 5 mph is judged to be operator error. The repair may be covered by a vehicle's Collision/Comprehensive insurance.
Don't take our word for the causes and consequences of hydrolock. To the left are links to authoritative websites and individual tales of woe.
Courtesy of Prepsparkplugs.com
AEM has a Bypass Valve in production, here is excerpt from their site about the AEM Bypass Valve:
AEM is in the process of including diagrams in its Cold Air Induction System (CAS) instructions for Air Bypass Valve placement. In the mean time, if you receive a system without this information and are unsure as to where the Air Bypass Valve installs on your CAS, please contact AEM customer service at (310) 484-2322, extension 300 and we will provide information on proper placement of the valve.
Generally, the Air Bypass Valve installs along the upper section of the induction pipe, close to the throttle body. Do NOT install it too close to the Inlet Air Temp sensor, and NEVER install an air bypass valve in between a throttle body and Mass Air Flow sensor (MAF). Be sure to check for clearance for the width of the Air Bypass Valve during installation, and to use the provided template that comes with your Air Bypass Valve to remove the proper amount of material from the induction pipe.
NEVER use an Air Bypass Valve on a forced induction vehicle as it will damage the valve and could lead to engine damage.
SO, with that said, there isnt a Logical place to install the Bypass valve in the duratec intake system...
Best tip for avoding hydrolock is to drive smart, and drive safe.
If it seems too deep, then dont drive threw it, also throttle control, If you have to go threw a deep puddle or one that'll create alot of water under the front of the car, drive into it with enough momentum to allow you to lift the throttle and allow the engine as little vaccumm as possible to avoid sucking up water.
I hope this helps people in the informative facts and information on Hydrolock.
Hilbish Ford is also an authorized Steeda dealer. Mike can get you good prices on Steeda parts.
"The only thing worse than a knee-jerk liberal is a knee-pad conservative." - Edward Abbey (1927-1989)
Hatch Nation#61 B.T.T.C.#3 ATX Faction#37 Rocky Mtn. Crew#3
Proudly Daily Driven
holy crap thats a lot...pretty much if someone asks anything aftermarket wise about the dura...this is the thread...
btw Saleen's came with momo seats?...hmmmmm
05 Focus ST-Sold but missed
-ST Crew #73 N/A FTW!
Feb. 09' ROTM
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SSR - Silver Sedan Revolution Member #1
Cams Installed, great made my car into a VTAK
Focus Enthusiast
also, the hps intake for reference can be found approx $130 on ebay... its pretty much always listed by multiple people and the f2 is available now.
+5 trading another forum, +32=100% pos. on ebay
Focus Fanatic
its in the stickie thread, i already updated it.
Wow this is amazing now I have something to read when I get more of a chance! Thanks!
2003 Ford Focus ZX3("FUBARCUS" was "Brokus") - old and still busted
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2016 Kona Blue Focus ST - current DD and cone killing machine
Gal. 2:20
Wow Good job yet again honhon. If any one asks a question about any thing I will refurr them to this page.... I just had my GF read it because she asked me what I want for dinner...lol
Then I asked her a question...
ME:" What did the five fingers say to the face....?"
HER: " IDK.. what?"
Team Duratec #36
RIFF crew /
L.O.T.H #69 baby
Proudly Daily Driven
so you dont have a gf anymore? lol
05 Focus ST-Sold but missed
-ST Crew #73 N/A FTW!
Feb. 09' ROTM
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
The number of people filing new claims for jobless benefits jumped last week after three straight declines, another sign that hiring remains weak, while consumer prices fell.
The Labor Department says initial claims for jobless benefits rose by 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 472,000, the highest level in a month. Economists had expected claims would fall to a seasonally adjusted 450,000, according to Thomson Reuters.
First-time claims have hovered near 450,000 since the beginning of the year after falling steadily in the second half of 2009. That has raised concerns that hiring is lackluster and could slow the recovery.
The number of people continuing to claim benefits rose by 88,000 to 4.57 million.
At the same time, consumer prices fell for the second straight month, extending a break for Americans' pocketbooks. Less expensive energy was the main factor pulling down prices.
The Labor Department says the Consumer Price Index, the government's most closely watched inflation barometer, dropped 0.2 percent in May, following a 0.1 percent dip in April.
So-called "core" prices, which strip out energy and food, edged up 0.1 percent in May, after a flat reading the month before.
Also, the deficit in the broadest measure of U.S. trade rose in the first quarter to the highest point in more than a year as rising global oil prices and a rebounding economy pushed up imports sharply.
The Commerce Department says that the deficit in the current account increased to $109 billion in the January-March period, compared to a revised $100.9 billion in the fourth quarter of last year.
The current account deficit narrowed to $378.4 billion in 2009, down a sharp 43.4 percent from the 2008 deficit of $668.9 billion. The big drop reflected a deep recession in the United States which cut demand for imported goods. But with the U.S. economy recovering, analysts believe the trade deficit will increase this year.


text:
$500,000 for graduate fellowships in Linguistics & Second Language StudiesUniversity of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Communications Director, UH Foundation
"UH Mānoa's Department of Linguistics and Department of Second Language Studies are each recognized as leaders in their fields. We are extremely pleased with this recognition by the Bilinski Educational Foundation and their support in developing graduate students who in turn will become leaders in their fields," said Gary K. Ostrander, Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education.
The Department of Linguistics at UH Mānoa has strengths in two particular areas: the documentation and conservation of endangered languages (particularly those of the Pacific) and in the experimental study of language. The Department of Second Language Studies at UH Mānoa brings a diversity of expertise to bear on the field of second language studies, with a broad focus on the areas of second language acquisition, second language learning, second language use, and second language teaching.
The Bilinskis were strong believers in the power of education as a tool to help others become self-sufficient. Together, they sought ways to make a quality higher education accessible for promising students. The Bilinski Educational Foundation, established with their estate gift, perpetuates their legacy and provides fellowship funds for post-secondary education for students who lack the financial resources to pay for the highest caliber post-secondary education. Russell was a researcher, academic and an entrepreneur. Dorothy was an accomplished artist and patron of the arts. Both were intellectuals, adventurous, independent and driven.
Announcing the first Bilinski Fellows for the Department of Linguistics:
· Jason Lobel's research is on the endangered languages of the Pacific, with a special emphasis on the Philippines. His dissertation meticulously documents dozens of under- or un-documented languages of various Pacific islands, and will undoubtedly be one of the most important dissertations in the area of language documentation and conservation in decades.
· Carl Polley's research is on the relationship between language and other aspects of human cognition, with a special emphasis on Chinese. His dissertation is on the cross-linguistic differences in metaphoric language of emotion, and how this impacts Chinese vs. American views of the world. This is particularly important given the growing stature of China and its relationships with the U.S.
Announcing the first Bilinski Fellows for the Department of Second Language Studies:
· John Davis' dissertation is examining the effect of accountability testing and assessment on U.S. foreign language education. This study focuses on tertiary level accreditation-mandated outcomes assessment. The research project will try to discover whether accreditation dictates are facilitating, enabling, or requiring foreign language educators to address educational quality through outcomes-based assessment practices. This research will provide valuable insight into how such mandates affect public higher education.
· Larry Davis' dissertation research looks at how evaluators of language test production make their rating decisions. He looks at the cognition and behavior of raters within the context of speaking performance tests. This study will illuminate how decision-making changes with training and experience. Such understanding is necessary to fully capture what test scores mean. In clarifying this rating process, interpretations of the test score results on students and prospective students can be improved.
Please contact Lori Admiral at (808) 956-5747 or email@example.com to learn how you can support the Colleges of Arts and Sciences. To make a gift www.uhfoundation.org/GiveToLLL.


text:
Fox Tales
Season 36 Episode 2 | 53m 29s
Discover the red fox, an intelligent and adaptable canid that is thriving in cities and pushing northward into the territory of its arctic cousins.
Aired: 10/11/17
Expires: 11/10/21Video has closed captioning.
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Major support for NATURE is provided by the Arnhold Family in memory of Henry and Clarisse Arnhold, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, the Kate W. Cassidy Foundation, the Lillian Goldman Charitable Trust, Kathy Chiao and Ken Hao, the Anderson Family Fund, the Filomen M. D'Agostino Foundation, Rosalind P. Walter, the Halmi Family in memory of Robert Halmi, Sr., Sandra Atlas Bass, Doris R. and Robert J. Thomas, the Hite Foundation, Charles Rosenblum, the Arlene and Milton D. Berkman Philanthropic Fund, the Sun Hill Family Foundation, the M. & H. Sommer Foundation, Ron Hull, the Bradley L. Goldberg Family Foundation, by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, by PBS, and by Viewers Like You.


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At the same time, this facilitates diagnostics and maintenance. This makes for an ideal combination of power and precision that is able to get through anywhere – even under the toughest of conditions.
MTU high performance diesel engines for blast hold drilling machines in opencast or underground mining work exceptionally hard. And yet despite their robustness, their electronic engine management has been finally aligned for optimal drilling precision. This guarantees fast drilling progress and precise drilling results. The intelligent control system protects the engine as well as the drilling machine and optimizes the performance during continuous use.
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When drilling blast holds in the hardest rock formations or when performing exploratory drilling, our diesel engines must work without fault, above and below ground, around the clock under the most extreme environmental conditions. Our well-proven and constantly improved drive systems guarantee the reliability of our engines and the profitable operation of vehicles. We value economy in all other respects as well. The maintenance-friendly construction of MTU engines offers even more benefits with its low-maintenance operation and long service intervals. They reduce downtime to a minimum and ensure that your vehicles are ready to go again in the shortest period of time. Additionally, the second generation common rail injection system and intelligent engine management provide for optimal combustion and an efficient use of fuel. We also offer suitable solutions for special emissions demands, if necessary.


text:
Best Bargains in November
If you need a new roasting pan for your Thanksgiving feast, you're in luck. November is a great time to find sales on cookware and kitchen supplies. According to DealNews, you'll find 35 percent more bargains this month than you'll see all year.
If you're well-stocked in the kitchen, now is also the time to cash in on deals for your closet. On Black Friday, you'll find the best discounts of the year on shoes and apparel. In recent years, brands like Levi's, Nautica and Banana Republic have offered coupons that took up to 50 percent off already on-sale items, while PUMA and Nike took 30-50 percent off everything on their websites.
That's some major savings, but you may have to pay for shipping or spend a minimum to get free shipping on your purchases. But, if you're looking to refresh your wardrobe or gift clothing items this holiday season, you won't have a problem meeting purchase requirements.
While you can save big on kitchenware and apparel this month, you should avoid shopping for toys in November, even on Black Friday. Even though you can save up to 50 percent off on the major shopping day, you'll find even better discounts during the two weeks before Christmas.
Some deals are better than others, and while November kicks off the holiday shopping season, it's best to wait on some items. Keep these tips in mind before you buy and you'll be ahead of the shopping game.
See Gallery


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Mozilla, maker of Firefox, roiled the online ad world when it announced its new default setting on upcoming versions of its web browser would block third-party cookies (tracking devices used to target you with ads).
It's less obvious, however, that the move may play into the hands of huge publishers like Facebook, Twitter (and even Business Insider), as well as device makers like Apple.
And that's why advertisers are so angry about Firefox. The IAB called it a "nuclear first strike." Some of them are even thinking of ignoring or subverting Firefox's new policy.
The cookie crumbles
Essentially, the Firefox move weakens the cookie as the sole basis for an ad campaign. In so doing, it strengthens the hand of publishers who will still be able to track users on Firefox browsers. More importantly, it makes so called "native advertising" solutions — custom ad formats used only by companies trying to sell them at a premium to general web display inventory — more appealing as the quality of cookie-based advertising declines.
Firefox would line up behind Apple's Safari browser, which also blocks cookies from web sites you haven't visited ("third parties"), and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 10, which has a default "do not track" cookie command built in.
Only Google's Chrome allows third-party cookies by default — that's not surprising, because the Google advertising environment is heavily dependent on the cookie data its users generate as they surf the web and respond to ads and search results. Users are tracked by cookies from web sites they have visited ("first-party" cookies) and from advertisers who have been invited to target those users after they arrive on a site ("third party cookies"). Putting the two types of cookies together allows advertisers to slice and dice audiences in clever ways, based on their interests as extrapolated from their browsing history.
But in recent years, more and more money has poured into "native advertising." Facebook, for instance, has built a $5 billion ad business using a series of display formats that look nothing like traditional web banners. It is not a cookie-based system.
Facebook and Apple are not dependent on cookies
Facebook does have a cookie advertising business — its FBX ad exchange allows advertisers to target users inside Facebook with cookies from third-parties. But FBX is still only a portion of Facebook's ad revenue. Its most lucrative business is probably its mobile advertising and news feed sales.
Twitter recently launched its Ads API interface, allowing advertisers to plug their own ads into the tweet system. That's not dependent on display-driven cookies, either.
And large publishers (like BI) prefer to sell premium packages of custom inventory to advertisers, rather than expose their web pages to the vicissitudes of a real-time bidding auction from cookies servers.
Apple devices are famously a cookie-free environment — its users are tracked instead by IFA, Apple's own user tracking device for advertisers.
Supply vs. demand
Because publishers — not ad networks, exchanges, "demand-side platforms" or any of the other myriad cookie trackers out there — control their own first-party cookies, the Firefox blocker moves power into their hands.
They will become the primary, best, and sometimes only cookies available for advertisers to target in a world in which third-party cookies have been blocked or banned.
Advertisers are furious because cookies have traditionally allowed them to target a huge number of users at the lowest possible price. They create an endless supply in front of limited demand — and prices have fallen as a result.
Native advertising and publishers' own cookies are a smaller universe. With that supply of high quality inventory shrinking, because more users aren't carrying cookies, publishers can jack up prices for the remaining quality inventory.
And that's why native advertising is the dominant conversation in online advertising right now.


text:
On a cold night in November, Zou Shiming, the captain of China's national boxing team, arrived early for a banquet in his honor at a Chinese restaurant in a mall in Chicago, where the amateur world championships were being held. Zou is twenty-six, stands just under five feet five inches tall, and looks boyish enough to be a teen-ager, but wrinkles form beside his eyes when he smiles. The speck of a scar by his left eye is not from boxing but from a girl who once bullied him in school. He has sharp cheekbones, a thick brush of black hair, and a long, aquiline nose. Like most boxers, he alternates between two sizes: regular weight—in his case, a hundred and ten pounds—and fighting weight (a hundred and six pounds). Before each competition, he spends most of a month famished. He gets grumpy and irritable, and then apologizes. For distraction, he gnaws on watermelon slices and spits out the pulp. Or he pulls up pictures of lamb noodles and posts them on his blog.
His teammates were still outside the restaurant, window-shopping, but Zou took a seat at an empty table. He laid out a Chinese newspaper and scanned the headlines, with little interest. The bridge of his nose was puffy and blue from his last bout, a few hours earlier. He was still in his red-and-white team warmup suit with "China" embroidered in gold thread across the back. On his left breast he wore a small brass pin of Mao Zedong's head—a gift from his coach, Zhang Chuanliang, whom he calls Teacher Zhang. After eight days of competition, Zou's cheeks had hollowed, and his smile was tired. "I'm hungry," he said in Chinese.
Zou could feast now. He had won that day, gaining his second world championship and confirming his place as the first boxer in Chinese history to be considered a contender for an Olympic gold medal. A few years ago, it was hard to imagine that a Chinese boxer could win anything. The sport was banned for decades, because Mao's government considered it too violent and too Western. It wasn't allowed until 1986, after sports authorities made a calculation: boxing has eleven weight classes, thereby providing dozens of medal opportunities. That means a lot to a government that has elevated the hunt for Olympic medals to a state religion, a faith never more fervent than today, as China prepares to host the 2008 Summer Olympics, in Beijing. Chinese boxing officials have a name for their objective: the "zero-gold-medal breakthrough."
"Our target for the 2008 Olympics is explicit: one gold medal," Chang Jianping, the president of the Chinese Boxing Association, told me. When the Beijing News asked Teacher Zhang, who is the team's head boxing coach, what he thought of that prospect, he replied, "The entire national team has only one person really capable of capturing the gold: Zou Shiming."
Zou's first fight in Chicago fell during lunchtime, and the crowd was sparse. Only muffled thuds and the polyglot shouts of opposing cornermen broke the stillness of the arena, at the University of Illinois at Chicago, on the city's Near West Side. Two rings had been erected side by side, so that simultaneous fights could speed the opening rounds.
The world outside had intruded already. The Cuban team, from which two fighters have defected in recent years, was boycotting the competition, saying that it suspected a conspiracy by the "most vile interests of the United States and some of its allies: the theft of athletes." Separately, two Ugandan fighters, including the team captain, had vanished from their hotel with their suitcases. One later called the coach to say, with apologies, that he was in Canada, but made no mention of returning home.
From the warmup area, Zou walked silently to the ring. The announcer stumbled over his name ("Sheeming Joe!"), to a polite flutter of applause. Zou slipped through the ropes. In his corner, in a hooded sweatshirt, stood Teacher Zhang, who looked so unprepossessing that he might have been a spectator who had stepped up for a closer look. Zhang coached martial arts until 1986, when he switched to boxing, and rose to the sport's upper ranks. At fifty-four, he is trim and good-looking, with a brush cut that, like many Chinese men his age, he dyes an inky black. He has little appetite for conversation, but if he's asked about fighting his eyes sparkle and he embarks on long, precise paragraphs. He has done more than anybody else to define China's boxing style, yet he is so averse to attention that he can sometimes be found napping in the locker room during medal ceremonies while his fighters are on the podium. Zhang's indifference to formality is unusual, to say the least, in China's sports bureaucracy. "The leaders don't like him," a coach who has known him for many years says. "He has never kissed the leaders' asses."
A trio of Chinese sports officials had filed in and taken ringside seats. Zou turned toward Zhang and embraced him for a long moment over the top rope, his glove curled around the older man's head. After more than a decade with Teacher Zhang, Zou mentions him more often than he does his parents. "We're like father and son," Zou says. The hug is a pre-fight ritual. "It calms me down."
Zou turned back to his opponent, a Romanian named Constantin Paraschiv. At the sound of the bell, Paraschiv came out in a hurry, his fists clamped beside his face in the upright style of the Europeans. He was energetic and aggressive, firing jabs and prompting Zou to backpedal around the ring or list from the waist. Zou looked uninspired. He threw few punches. He drifted clockwise around the ring, pursued by the Romanian. By the end of Round 1, Paraschiv led, three points to two, and Zou went back to his corner.
Teacher Zhang stood close to Zou's face, spoke softly, and tipped a trickle of bottled water into his mouth. When the bell signalled the start of Round 2, Zou sprang forward and buried a left-right combination to even the score. He set his stance farther apart than before and bounced lightly on the balls of his feet. He scissored his legs, an homage to his idol, Muhammad Ali. His first round, it seemed, had been a warmup. He glided around Paraschiv, pausing only to flick a combination into the Romanian's padded brow. Every time Paraschiv slung his fist, Zou eased out of the way and counterpunched. Paraschiv, pivoting and swinging in vain, did not score another point in the round. Or, for that matter, in either of the two rounds that followed.
Zou rarely knocks his opponents out. He batters them and darts out of reach, like an angry sparrow. Sometimes he holds his fists so low that they drop below his waist, a caricature of Ali. Zou is a light flyweight, the lightest weight class in the Olympics. But, even among boxers his size, Zou is known for exceptional speed. After he beat the Irish fighter Paddy Barnes, I asked Barnes what had happened. Zou's left hand, he replied. "It's that fast. I could hardly see it coming." When the American Rau'shee Warren was on his way to losing to Zou in the 2004 Olympics, in Athens, Warren told his corner that he couldn't keep up: "I'm telling the coach, 'Dang, he can move, and I can't catch him!' "
By the final bell, Zou had scored thirteen punches on Paraschiv in a row, to win, 15–3. The Romanian was flushed and slumped. He had spent three rounds slugging air. After the referee held Zou's arm aloft, Zou bowed to the judges and ducked through the ropes. He climbed down from the ring and headed for the front row, where the Chinese officials were seated. China's boxing boss, Chang, a jolly, broad-faced man in a maroon blazer, sat with provincial sports officials. Zou greeted each with a two-handed shake, nodded at their comments, and thanked them. I came to recognize the ritual after every one of his fights in Chicago: the beeline to the officials at ringside, the two-handed shakes. Sweat pouring down his face, Zou listened closely to the men in suit jackets. Sports officials in China are among those who have a hand in shaping a top athlete's future: where he lives, the terms by which he goes pro. On the evening news, they march in hard hats around new stadiums or huddle over blueprints. I wondered what they could possibly tell Zou about his fight that he didn't know already.
Zou's emergence startled American boxing purists who have been slow to warm up to his style. After Zou's fight, I asked the United States' head coach, Dan Campbell, what he thought. "I didn't think anything of him," Campbell said. "He did the thing that he did in the Olympics, hitting with this part of his hand, and this part," Campbell went on, gesturing dismissively to the sides of his fist.
That criticism doesn't bother Teacher Zhang. Zou's medals are the evidence he needs. "If he can win points," Zhang said, "even if he can fight with you he won't waste his energy."
After the team arrived in Chicago, I met Zou one morning in his hotel. He was groggy. "I woke up at three-thirty this morning," he said.
Until dawn, he had watched television shows that he couldn't understand. It was his first trip to the United States, and so far he'd seen it only through the window of a bus. He has experienced much of the world that way: the best shuttle buses, hotel cafeterias, and gyms of Iran, the Czech Republic, Russia, Cuba, Qatar. He and the other Chinese boxers had skipped the opening ceremony, a couple of days earlier, because it would have meant standing around in the cold—only to learn later that they could have met Muhammad Ali, a surprise guest.
Zou sat forward in an oversized yellow leather armchair. Nearby, a large man in a golf shirt and a blazer laughed into his cell phone. Zou was carrying two cell phones, one of which was an iPhone; he and a coach had hacked into it, with instructions they found online, to make it display Chinese characters. After he won a bronze medal at the Olympics in 2004, Unicom, a telecommunications company, gave him a free phone and allowed him to choose a number, and he chose one that ended with the digits 2008. Around the same time, Shanghai G.M., a joint venture with General Motors, gave him a silver Buick Excelle sedan. He made sure that the license plate also ended in 2008.
Zou is unfailingly soft-spoken and polite, which, in a sport of swaggerers, can be mistaken for lack of confidence. It shouldn't be. After routing a European amateur champion recently, Zou conceded, "He is good. Outstanding. But I am better." I asked him how he pictures himself when he fights. "I think I've combined martial arts and boxing," he said. "Martial arts have a soft and flexible side, and boxing is more direct. Putting them together is a specialty of Chinese boxing." He prides himself on distinguishing China in a way that it has never enjoyed. "Opponents looked down upon Chinese players before," he has said. "They were happy to take on a Chinese boxer, because we were too weak.
"Now they come and shake hands with you. The stronger you become, the more respect you get."
If he weren't a boxing champion, Zou figures, he might have been a fashion designer or a d.j. or a chef making French food—"romantic dishes," he says. His musical tastes lean toward Hong Kong pop ballads, songs like "I Truly Cried" and "Rainbow Heaven." Zou wishes that he had paid more attention in school and learned English, because it would make things easier when he turns pro—after the Olympics, most likely. Lots of young Chinese adopt English names, but Zou hasn't found one. A primary-school teacher once persuaded him to call himself Car, but Zou suspected that it didn't make much sense, and he abandoned it. Although he excelled in sports and music, he never did well in school, and he is self-conscious about the gaps in his education. He has no time for a girlfriend, he says, but he has decided that someday he will marry "a modern, knowledgeable woman." As he puts it, "I hope to find another half who can make up for what I don't have."
Zou's closest friend is Zang Guangyue, one of the team's trainers, who rarely leaves his side. Zang is eight years older, wiser and more circumspect, with a round face and large eyes. He started his career with the national canoe-kayak team, before being transferred to boxing, in 2002. He knew little of the sport until Zou, working the heavy bag one day after practice, began showing him the fine points. Zang has spent the years since then managing Zou's daily schedule, warming him up for workouts, and deflecting overzealous fans. Initially, Zang worked with the whole team, but he has gradually come to spend most of his time with Zou. When Zou can't sleep before a big fight, Zang massages his scalp or reads aloud from a novel. "I never thought it would turn out that I picked the best horse," Zang said.
Around his teammates, Zou enjoys no special privileges, and although he has attracted more attention and glory than all of them combined, they betray no hint of jealousy. When I asked Gao Lingzi, another light fighter on the national team, about his first impression of Zou, Gao looked back at me, puzzled. "I worship him," he said.
Zou was born in the mountain city of Zunyi, in Guizhou, one of China's poorest provinces. His parents lived and worked in a factory district that produced defense equipment under the ministry of aerospace. His father, Zou Jianguo (his given name means "build the nation"), was an engineer. He was gentle and remote, and worked relentlessly. When Zou's mother, Song Yonghui, asked her husband to teach their son to swim at the factory pool, the young father couldn't find a moment away from work. By the time he could, Zou had taught himself to dive. Song Yonghui said of her husband, "If Zou Shiming and I wanted to see him, it was difficult. He was up early, early, and away. He didn't return until late, late."
Now in his fifties, Zou Jianguo is slender, with a ripple of tidy black hair. At one point, he considered joining the Communist Party. "I tried, but I did not meet the Party's standard," he said. "I always tried. I always tried."
Zou's mother was as outgoing as her husband was reserved. She was a kindergarten teacher in the factory school. She excelled at Ping-Pong; he preferred basketball. Their son, an only child, was small for his age, and they kept him close to home. Song is energetic and has an impish smile. The first time I met her, in Zunyi, she was wearing a black-and-white checked shirt, a tailored black jacket, and bell-bottom black jeans with rhinestones on the pockets. When I asked about Zou's upbringing, she laughed. "When he was little, he looked like a little girl, with his head of curly hair," she said.
Then she told a story to prove the point. "Once, on a Sunday, we went out with a friend and the friend's daughter," she said. "The girl wore a skirt. Zou Shiming was in a sailor shirt, riding a bicycle. The weather was good. So I said let's go to a photo studio to take a picture. The girl looked rather like a boy and Zou Shiming looked like a little girl. So we swapped the clothes and Zou Shiming had a picture in a skirt." She smiled.
"My mother raised me too much like a girl," Zou told me. "I couldn't talk too loud. I couldn't run or play around like other boys. Characteristics that should come out didn't come out. I didn't like to talk to people, maybe because my spirit was suppressed."
As he grew up, Zou discovered television martial-arts dramas about fabled swordsmen. One of his favorite heroes was Zhang Sanfeng, a Taoist mystic of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, who is considered the father of Tai Chi. Legend describes him as seven feet tall, with immense eyes and ears, and a fondness for clothes made of leaves.
Outdoors, Zou began to practice darting around trees and electrical poles, or threading through shoppers on busy streets. "I was crazy," he said. "If you'd seen me on the street, you would have thought I had a problem." He seemed interested only in sports, and when he was twelve his parents enrolled him in a private school to study wushu, a modern hybrid sport based on traditional martial arts. They expected him to end up as a physical-education teacher with a stable job and a pension. But Zou was bored by wushu, which he thought emphasized form over fighting. He was attracted to boxing, which seemed explosive and free. When Zou asked his mother if he could switch to boxing, she thought the idea was preposterous. "You are too delicate," she recalls saying. "How can you train as a boxer?" And she added, "If you don't want your mom to sleep at night, then go box."
Zou told his parents that he would stick to martial arts, but he began training with the school boxing team. "I fell madly in love with boxing," he said. "In the ring, I could truly let myself go. I wasn't subject to my mother's or anyone else's control."
In 1995, Zou transferred to the Zunyi Sport School, one of China's Soviet-style sports institutes. One July day, he showed up with nineteen hundred other children to try out for the school's athletic teams. The boxing team had only four spots.
First, the young athletes faced the measuring tape. Chinese coaches put extraordinary faith in assessing a child's dimensions, sometimes with the help of X-rays, to deduce athletic potential. It was the system that identified the basketball star Yao Ming when he was a child. Boxing coaches were interested only in athletes with a long reach—that is, children whose wingspan exceeded their height by three centimetres. Zou's outstretched arms measured a full centimetre less than his height, and the coaches cut him in the first round.
Two weeks later, Zou showed up for a second round of tryouts, and stood with the other applicants. "I thought, This kid's clever and he's willing to suffer," Liang Feng, the coach who was running the tryouts, told me. Coach Liang, who boxed in college, is now in his mid-forties, and has a deep voice rasped by smoking. He favors a black leather jacket that makes him look like a night-club owner. Once when we went out to eat, he insisted that, as a guest, I down two glasses of beer before he touched his own.
Coach Liang put gloves on the boy and sent him in for a round. It was an unremarkable début. "He was frightened, timid," Liang said. But Zou's martial-arts training had given him good footwork, and he seemed to have a natural sense of distance, knowing how to lunge and withdraw to stay just out of his opponent's reach. He was nimble and willing to train harder than the other rookies. "He was like a machine, just running without stopping," Liang said. The coach took a chance and put Zou on the team; a year later, in his first big tournament, he made it to the finals against a strong competitor. And then he buckled. "The whole fight, he ran around," Liang said. "He didn't dare to fight."
Still, Coach Liang wasn't ready to give up, believing that fear could be a form of protection. He had seen a number of more gifted athletes who seemed content to plod into heavy head shots, only to wind up getting hurt and leaving the sport. Zou was quick to avoid punches, and when an opponent's fist withdrew he counterattacked. He was at the gym all day, every day, except for a few hours on Sunday. When nobody else showed up on the eve of Chinese New Year, he trained alone. When the arena was locked for the holiday, he and a friend hopped a fence to run on the track until a security guard chased them away. Coach Liang recommended him for the provincial team, and failed to mention his arm measurements. "If I didn't hide that, it would be over," Liang said.
Zou's parents continued to disapprove of his boxing, and demanded that he stop. A coach paid them a visit at home. He emphasized the safety of headgear that is designed to protect amateur boxers against head injuries. He argued that Olympic boxing is not like the heavyweight prizefights on television. Whereas professionals pound each other in search of a knockout punch, Olympic boxers win most often on points, relying on speed and accuracy to land the most punches during four two-minute rounds. The coach also mentioned that his own son was boxing, which Zou's mother found reassuring. "He told us that, in strong boxing countries like the United States and Cuba, children from the age of two or three can go to the boxing gym to train," she said. "It's like Ping-Pong in China."
Zou's parents had no reason to be familiar with boxing. Western boxing, as it was known, had first appeared in the nineteen-twenties, in the port cities of Shanghai and Guangzhou, where foreign sailors were pitted against local fighters. The sport grew, unsupervised. In 1953, at a big competition in the northern city of Tianjin, a boxer died after a bout. Sports authorities were unnerved, and in 1959, as China organized its first national games, it dropped boxing from the lineup. Mao was driving his nation deeper into isolation: the Great Leap Forward, his disastrous push for an industrial breakthrough, was already heading toward a famine that killed more than thirty million people. The political atmosphere was increasingly hostile to Western imports. As Fan Hong, a scholar who specializes in China's athletic history, puts it, "People believed that boxing was very brutal, very ruthless, and those were said to be the characteristics of capitalism. So it was banned."
When the Cultural Revolution engulfed China, in 1966, the Communist Party banned competitive sports, and athletes who had won medals in the past found themselves accused of jinbiao zhuyi, or "trophy mania," a charge of pursuing victory more zealously than Mao's vision of mass fitness. The Ping-Pong champion Rong Guotuan, who had been greeted with parades a few years earlier, was detained on a trumped-up charge of spying and later hanged himself. Before his death, he wrote, "I love my reputation more than my life."
After the Cultural Revolution subsided, in 1969, China used Ping-Pong matches to reconnect with the world, sometimes throwing matches to promote a friendlier mood. It was not until the late nineteen-seventies that Deng Xiaoping decided that competition might be as good for athletics as it was for the economy. In December of 1979, Deng invited Muhammad Ali to the heavily guarded compound housing China's top leaders. The champ hugged him. They sat. And the word went out. "Now the message was 'If we want to win friends, if we want to win respect, we have to win medals,' " Fan said.
In the following decade, Chinese boxers began training again, after a fashion. "We had no bag or gloves," Liu Gang, one of the earliest recruits and now a promoter, said. "In three months, I wore out two pairs of white cotton shoes. We punched sandbags." Liu went on to the 1992 Olympics, in Barcelona, where competitors were delighted to face off against Chinese opponents. The best that their coaches hoped for was that each fighter might stay on his feet a bit longer than the one before him.
Today, as China transforms itself for the Olympics, Beijing is determined to broadcast a picture of prosperity. It is overhauling parts of the city that hadn't changed much since the thirteenth century, razing miles of one-story brick alleys that Mongol conquerors designed to uniform widths of twelve or twenty-four paces. It is building a new world of vertical apartment complexes, with foreign names like the Greenwich and the Upper East Side. Underground, a web of subway lines has more than doubled in length in barely six years. Olympic guests will step through an airport terminal that will be the largest in the world. The torch relay will include 21,888 runners, more than any previous Olympics, and a stop at the peak of Mt. Everest. In this atmosphere, any feat of preparation seems plausible. One Chinese pork supplier vowed to produce specially pampered pigs, to insure that hormone-fed meat would not cause athletes to fail doping tests. Only after Chinese citizens began wondering about their own pork did a Beijing Olympic Committee spokesperson issue a "Clarification on Olympic Pig-Related Reports," denouncing the pork story as an "exaggerated falsehood."
In the Games proper, China hopes to win more gold than ever before. At the founding of the People's Republic, in 1949, no Chinese athlete had ever stood on an Olympic podium; by the close of the 2004 Summer Games, in Athens, China trailed only the United States, thirty-two to thirty-six, in that year's gold medals. Chinese sports officials scrutinize, dissect, and forecast the medal race with an intensity that lends it the air of science—convinced that sufficient analysis will eventually engineer away the frailty of a diver in midair or a fighter in the ring. In 2000, Chinese officials launched the 119 Project, a campaign to win more gold medals in the Summer Games' most competitive events—a list that by China's calculation totalled a hundred and nineteen medals.
In Athens, China's gold reflected its focus on producing an élite cadre of championship-level performers. Most Olympic delegations return home with more bronzes and silvers than golds. China achieved the opposite: for the most part, its athletes went to the top or they went nowhere. China now cultivates sports that it never cared about before, events that (like boxing) increase a medal count because they include various weight classes or categories. Sports officials groom champions in canoe-kayak and doubles tennis. Chinese athletes and coaches have also begun to defy their long-held belief that they can never best larger, taller Western competitors. And doing so is particularly glorious, as the sprinter Liu Xiang indicated after he won a gold medal in the hundred-and-ten-metre hurdles in Athens. "I believe I achieved a modest miracle for the yellow-skinned Chinese people and the Asian people," he said afterward.
The élite athletes who bear the responsibility for realizing the country's ambitions live in privileged isolation. Their talents are treated as public goods, but while they are practicing they live in secluded sports complexes, where they eat, sleep, and train under coaches' instructions. If national-team members have endorsements, they are required to share the money with their team staff and the state. When the Olympic diving champion Guo Jingjing was criticized, two years ago, for having too many "commercial activities," she appeared on state television to apologize. "I belong to the country," she said. As a boxer, Zou is even more cloistered, because his sport sanctifies monastic training. At times, coaches confiscate his cell phones to eliminate distractions.
Soon after Zou made the Guizhou team, in 1996, Teacher Zhang began to notice his extraordinary work ethic. Zhang had set out to develop a distinct Chinese style of boxing. He was studying fighters from Cuba, Russia, and the U.S. "Asian people have different abilities and body types than Americans or Europeans," Zhang told me last fall. "We have to fight with flexibility and fight with speed. Because, after all, you don't often win by knocking people out. Fight with your mind. Fight with strategy."
After three years, Zhang was promoted to an assistant-coaching job on the national team, and Zou moved up as well, as a sparring partner. The training was taking a physical toll, but when he talked to his parents on the phone he reassured them: "I always said everything is fine, even when I was in great pain or my nose was bleeding." In 2003, Zou won his first national championship and drew political recognition; he was named one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons in Guizhou Province and, later, a National Advanced Worker. Like other national champions, he joined the Communist Party.
Chinese reporters nicknamed him the Dark Horse at first. Later, they tried the Knight of Lightning or the Fox or, sometimes, the Pirate, all celebrating his knack for snatching points and peeling away from his opponents' reach. That strategy was helping him win international matches. In Athens, Zou made it to the semifinals, eventually winning a bronze, China's first in boxing. He captured headlines, but when he returned home his achievement paled against the frenzy over Liu Xiang's gold in the hurdles. Zou's loss in the semifinals began to feel like a failure. "Making a mistake in an event as grand as the Olympics, and to come so close to a gold medal, is a feeling that is inscribed into your bones and printed on your heart," he told me. It was another year before Zou won his first gold medal, at the 2005 world championships, held in the western Chinese city of Mianyang. He was the nation's first amateur boxing champion, and China celebrated. For him, the lesson was unmistakable: "You must win the championship in order to get acknowledgment."
The following year, Zou started a blog where he posted his diary entries and photographs. Entering the site triggers a twinkling piano tune, the first in a long loop of his favorite songs. A few hours after he posted his first message, a fan wrote, "You are the pride of the Chinese people!" Some days, Zou writes about fighting ("I'm fully confident that in tomorrow's combat I cannot fail!"). On others, he posts a picture of himself strolling on a beach or flying a kite. He writes of his struggles: "Often, when I sleep, my legs don't know where to go. No matter how I lie, I can't sleep comfortably. Worst of all, in a flash, the whistle blows and it's time to get out of bed again to train." After twelve one night in the winter of 2006, he wrote, "This week's training has been really tough, and the added intensity is bringing out accumulated years' worth of pain, to the point that my back hurts so much it is keeping me awake." It was a week before the Chinese New Year, the most important family holiday, and he was spending it, once again, at a training center far from home. "The thought of the pain and homesickness troubles my mind. It's late at night, I'm still unable to sleep, and I really want to find a good friend to chat with, but I feel bad to bother them. So I'll just pour out my heart to everyone, and hope people encourage me to shake off this spell of being down!" He received five comments immediately. Someone using the name A Secret Supporter wrote, "I, too, am far from home, and I know what you are experiencing."
In Chicago, Zou finally had a chance to get out of the hotel. He devoured his first lobster. He wandered down to the edge of Lake Michigan, where the autumn wind lashed at his gym clothes. In the arena, the local Chinese consulate organized a cheering section, which worked in shifts, handing out homemade placards bearing the Chinese characters for "Add oil!"—Chinese for "Let's go!" None of the diplomats and visiting students involved knew much about boxing, but they saw themselves as participants in China's effort to express itself. "I think there are a lot of misunderstandings about China in Western culture," Bai He, a Ph.D. student in medical chemistry, told me. "They think China is very underdeveloped and they don't have any idea of what China is like."
Zou won the Chicago championship with ease. In his final match, he routed a Filipino, 17–3. Even Dan Campbell, the American coach, said that he was impressed. After the national anthems, Zou wandered through the halls of the arena but drew little notice from the American fans streaming past. China's state news service once ranked him No. 4 on the list of the nation's top athletes, three places behind Yao Ming, but outside of China Zou remains virtually unknown. When Chinese-Americans stopped him for autographs and snapshots, he seemed startled. He spent most of the time frozen in a half-smile and let them do the talking. "This is going on my wall," Ray Liu, a fifteen-year-old from the Chicago suburbs, said, autograph in hand. "I wrestle," Liu explained. "He's a model." Then he turned to Zou and said, in loud English, "You're a model!"
That night, I asked Zou what he planned to do now that the competition was over. "After I report back, I'll have dinner with my family, visit my grandparents," he said. "When that's taken care of, I'd like to take my bags and go someplace with a beautiful view, someplace quiet, like a tall mountain or a big ocean, to relax from the pressure of a long competition." He was outlining a trip that he knew he had no time to take. "Then I'll throw myself back into training."
In addition to Zou's gold medal, China had won four bronzes, its best finish ever. When the team landed in Beijing, on November 5th, after an all-night flight, Chinese reporters were waiting for Zou in the terminal. They gave him bouquets of flowers and launched an impromptu press conference around his luggage cart. The next morning's Beijing News carried a story about his return, headlined with a quote: "We Told the World with Our Fists That China Is Strong."
If Zou's home town were in the United States, its seven million people would make it America's second-largest city, but Zunyi doesn't have an airport, so when teams from China, Kazakhstan, and the United States arrived in late November for a friendly competition they landed in Chongqing, a three-hour flight from Beijing. From there, they took a three-hour bus ride through mountain tunnels and gullies, around terraced fields, and into the clanging center of Zunyi.
Inland Chinese cities live in a parallel world of brands and icons. Stores are named to carry a whiff of foreignness: Toskany for belts and purses, Ochirly for clothes, Dico's for fast food. The area around Zunyi has one famous export: Moutai, also called Maotai, the national firewater that is served to summiting Presidents and Prime Ministers. (After visiting China, Richard Nixon tried to show his daughter how strong the stuff was by putting a match to a bowlful; he set the table on fire, according to Henry Kissinger.)
Here, in the nineteen-thirties, Mao won a struggle for control of the Long March. Today, the city does a fine business in celebrating the Communist revolution. Banners welcome "Red Tourists" by the busload, who buy memorabilia and file past the spartan bedroom and thin mattress where Mao, whose image is omnipresent, slept.
Zou's picture was almost as prevalent: on the front page of the Zunyi Evening News, on cardboard cutouts beside restaurants that serve bumblebee larvae, a local delicacy. The façade of the Fuyuan Hotel was plastered with two huge posters of Zou in the ring. In English and Chinese, they said, "Welcome to the Return of the King from Victory."
It was Zou's first competition here in years, and the event was to last three days. His face was printed on the tickets. His first opponent was a Kazakh. The match was lopsided and brief; midway through the second round, Zou was pummelling the hapless man, 20–0, when the referee stopped the fight. Zou waved to the audience and jogged back to the sanctuary of his locker room. Fights were still under way, but a frenzied crowd of kids began to mass outside the locker-room door, which was guarded by police, except for the police who wandered inside to ask Zou for his autograph.
"Get changed!" Teacher Zhang murmured. "If you wait until the end, it will be hard to leave. This is a small town." The door opened a crack, revealing a wall of young, reddened faces pressed against a policeman's outstretched arm. The door slammed shut. Zou stepped out of his trunks and pulled on jeans and a Brazilian soccer jersey. The room smelled of sweat and garlic. From the sound of it, the crowd outside was growing. He looked at his coach. They were, for the moment, trapped. Well-wishers had left giant bouquets of flowers on the table in the locker room, so Zou grabbed two of them and held them in front of his face as a shield. And then he and his coach pressed into the maw of the crowd. Teen-agers swarmed, jostling and shouting. Zou smiled and thanked them but pushed forward. By the time he had squeezed into the stairwell and down to a waiting bus, the bouquets were shredded.
The next day, Zou and his parents visited relatives in town. They climbed the steps to a modest two-bedroom apartment where the entry was filled with a large empty fish tank and a folded treadmill. The apartment was decorated, more or less, with Zou: a wall poster of his face beneath the phrase "Everything for 2008"; a poem written in calligraphy by another relative, which ended, "Surprise the whole world in year 2008." Looking at it, I wondered how they would redecorate once the Olympics were over. As we walked to lunch that day, I asked Zou if his body was holding up. His back and his foot have been bothering him for months. (He had told a Chinese reporter, "After endurance runs, I lie on the ground, and I can't tell the tears from the sweat.") "It's painful," he said. "But there's no time for surgery before the Olympics. That will have to wait."
I once asked him how it felt to live his life suspended between future success and failure. "I absolutely can't allow such a heavy burden to feel like it's suffocating me, or I will bring those worries into the ring," he said.
The following night, in the final, Zou faced Luis Yanez, a confident, experienced nineteen-year-old from Duncanville, Texas, who had won a succession of amateur titles on his way to the American Olympic team. His father had taken him to the gym as an eight-year-old, and he had thrived. In high school, he had divided his time between boxing and waiting tables at the Blue Moon Café, in nearby Lewisville. After years of hearing about Zou, he had a strategy: "He drops his hands a lot and holds his hands down, and I got a quick jab, so if I just keep my jab out there in his face he won't have them down there no more," Yanez told me. "But he's a good little fighter. He's slick."
The arena holds about five thousand people, and that night it was packed. The walls did not meet the roof, and it was cold inside; the ring-card girls huddled in down parkas during the rounds. The city had made special preparations for its foreign guests: officials were identified with signs intended to be bilingual. A Chinese sign indicated the "Arbitrator's Seat." The English letters below read "Arditrator eat." Not that the American team was unaccustomed to communication trouble; team members had spent part of the day at a pharmacy trying to mime the symptoms of a stomach ailment.
Zou jogged out of the locker room draped in a golden robe, his face hidden beneath the hood. Only his gloves were visible, firing jabs into the cool night air. High over his head, a banner along the rafters ran the length of the stadium wall, with an enormous picture of him in mid-fight. When the announcer said his name, the crowd went berserk. On the upper deck, a man unfurled a red Chinese flag as big as a bedsheet, and Zou's cardboard-blow-up face danced in the crowd. Teacher Zhang had warned him before the fight not to let the attention affect him. "Don't try to prove anything or show off," Zhang said. "Be yourself, and you'll be fine."
Yanez came out with no robe, jogging and sidestepping toward the ring, flicking his gloves over his shoulders as if trying to shoo away an insect. He climbed through the ropes, jogged in place, and settled into a half-crouch to wait for the bell. The two surged into each other. They wrestled and bear-hugged, tying each other up in headlocks. The referee pulled them apart, and Zou buried a combination into Yanez's head. The crowd loved it. Yanez responded with a broad hook that missed by a foot.
Zou settled into a rhythm, and his fists dropped to his waist, his gloves rolling loosely up and down, as if he were a timpani drummer, rising only to peck at Yanez's temples. Yanez grew frustrated. He lunged, angrily, but landed few punches. When the first round ended, Zou led, 8–1. He turned back to his corner. He waved away his stool and stood facing into the ring, his arms splayed comfortably on the top rope. He looked at home there. It occurred to me that he has been boxing almost half his life.
The second round drifted farther out of Yanez's grasp. Zou racked up points, setting his feet to hit hard now, intent on landing a big punch. He held his hands so low that they dropped behind his back, pleading with Yanez to open himself up. As Round 3 ticked down, Yanez was frantic, swinging broad hooks through the air. He looked, suddenly, like a child. Zou stretched his lead to nineteen points. The bell sounded. With his chest heaving, Yanez plodded back to his corner, but the American coach was already nodding to the referee.
Zou thrust his fists into the air. The audience erupted and began pouring toward the ring. The fighters shook hands and Yanez slipped away, unnoticed. Zou put on his golden robe, brilliant in the ring lights, and stood alone, arms raised in the center of the canvas. He turned and faced the crowd of his countrymen, hundreds of them pressed against the edge of the ring, cell phones aloft, snapping pictures. Zou seemed at peace with the knowledge that his country's self-regard hinges on a single fight in his future, on a single medal. He has come of age in China's system, and, if it chafes him, he doesn't readily admit to it. Like the pressure born of his talent, his role as a political symbol seemed to be something he accepted long ago, something larger than he is. ♦


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