F1 Fanatic

It’s not an F1 team but I’m building a car for the Indian National Saloon Class category. This is India’s topmost championship and it’s awesome really :D

We’re called Tiger Racing (dedicated to the declining population of tigers in India) and this is our first year of participation. It is pretty surreal to be able to buy and use parts and machinery that you wouldn’t even dream of using in your own life. Perhaps one day, but definitely not at 23 years of age :)

We are building a Honda engine. Naturally aspirated 1.5l. Questions or anything else welcomed :)

Congratulations Cynaide! You must be delighted. How did this come about? Best of luck for the season and please let us know how you’re getting on from time to time :)

wow this is really cool best of luck after all you have the best job in the world being a Racing driver it would be so cool love the oppotunity one day maby one day :)

Thanks guys :)

The season starts in mid-June. However, the parts to build the engine should be ready by mid-March and then we start building the car and the engine, then tuning it on the dyno before putting it on the track and doing a lot of testing.

The target is to make around 220 bhp from an inline 1.5L (1493cc to be exact) motor. Doesn’t sound like a lot but trust me, it’s going to be bloody difficult extracting that much out of a production engine. The rules say that the engine block, head and tranny casing has to be of Indian make, so we cannot just import an engine and plonk it in. We are working with what’s available here.

@Revlimiter1: Not a driver lol, I’m the assistant technical head.

The chief is my mentor and I’ve been working with him for the past 1 year to bring some awesome stuff to Indian shores. He has engine building experience but not with Hondas while I have a huge amount of knowledge regarding Honda engines; so it kind of works out nicely.

@Steph: Kind of funny really. I was just browsing around on an international Honda forum and bumped into some guy from India. I’ve never really seen Indian guys there so I sort of helped him out with some basic stuff about engine identification, etc. Turned out to be one of India’s most famous bike tuners who was just getting into cars and had bought a Honda lol. We exchanged a lot of knowledge before he invited me to fly down to his place and help with his engine build. We built a kickass motor that was then demoed to the current team owner who contracted him.

@cyanide oh right haha thats still a cool job but id rather be in the hot seat giving engineers feedback on how the car feels and stuff would be ausome lol :)

Yea man, it makes me happy and justifies my giving away information for free. I’m in a very small minority in my country since most people who tune cars for money would rather keep everything a secret.

The plan is to do a couple of seasons in India and thrash the competition, then see what options I have available outside. We are one of 2 teams running a Honda chassis and Honda engine. If our calculations are right, we should be able to walk over the competition. But there is far too much politics here to encourage any growth and I’d rather move to a more welcoming place/country when I get the chance. Maybe Keith can get me in contact with Stefano Domenicali or Martin Whitmarsh one day hahaha.

@Revlimiter1: Lol, wouldn’t we all? :) I hope to make some money and run my own team in the next 2-4 years and drive the car. But it’s way too expensive. We even have to import race fuel from the US which costs a huge amount.

To share more info, me and my boss were talking on the phone yesterday. We are setting up the car in such a way that we will be able to remap the ECU while sitting in the pitlane during the race. So if we are running short on fuel, we can change the mapping from the pitlane and make the engine use less fuel. A few fast laps? Up the revlimit and change the mapping again. This is something that isn’t done in India by anyone yet, and we should be the first to do this. We’re probably going to run traction control too, but that system is just in the discussion stage and one of our electrical engineer friends might be consulted once we’re in advanced stages. All this using a 60 dollar ECU that we picked up from a used Honda Civic :) When the season ends, we will be marketing the same parts for the general public.

@cyanide Yeah having your own team that would be epic, hey remember to give me a call if you need a driver ;), and I know what you mean me and my dad looked into the ginetta g50 cup that follows the BTCC (British Touring Car Championship) and it was going to be like £150’000 with just a season not forgetting buying a team lorry, travel costs, if I crash that will cost, engineers Etc, it is expensive but I’ll do it one day might need you to help me out on the Engineering side :)maby even a promotion and u might get in the hot seat for driver 2 lol, its all a dream at the minute though but that doesnt mean its not possible.

Shame but looks like you’ll be in there or thereabouts :)