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Old 12th October 2007, 18:38   #1
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Carroll Shelby of India

This morning, Ajinkya and I were driving within Sanewadi, Aundh, when we chanced upon a short wheel base two-door Cielo.

We parked and walked over to take a closer look.

It was indeed a 2-door Coupe mod on a Cielo purpose-customized for all-terrain use.

The car wore metal badges announcing it as an AR "Anika".



It had 14-inch alloys and GT-Radial Classiro 195/70R14 Tubeless Mud and Snow "comfort" tires.

BTW, GT stands for Gajah Tunggal Tbk PT. They are Indonesia's largest tire manufacturer and produce tires for Michelin and BFGoodrich.





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Old 12th October 2007, 18:39   #2
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Then we met the owner. His name is Rajeev Ranadive.

The two-seat Cielo coupe built by him is stiffer than a Cielo sedan and designed to handle. The objective was to use high-tech to take the car to places like Leh, where large SUVs have trouble. This car was fully equipped for people with a camping lifestyle: refrigerator, compressor for pressure shower, chemical toilet, attachments for powering a tent, even a pump for refilling its 50-litre water tank from a well or lake.

Using heavier-rate springs, he had raised the suspension 3-inches and had shortened the Cielo wheelbase by 11-inches.
All of this had taken a high level of skill and precision and custom jigs and fixtures that guarantee alignment and road performance.

Rajeev owns a company in Pune that does vehicle engineering, prototyping and testing.

We could call him the potential Caroll Shelby of India.
He is India's first OEM-certified converter, building limited-edition niche vehicles around popular volume-prod cars.
Automotive OEMs are his customers. His company is NRI venture-capital funded and has a plant near Mulshi, Pune. The company is creating non-turbo superchargers (blowers) for OEMs.
He had modified the engines of a Chevrolet Optra SRV and a Suzuki Swift with superchargers of his own manufacture.
The Chevrolet SRV has electric motors on the dead wheels, giving computer-controlled all-wheel drive.
The Swift has a blower-type supercharger, intercooler and auxiliary injectors. The aux-injectors can be electronically switched on from inside the cabin.



His company also produces computer-controlled active suspension

I invited him to Team-BHP and he said he would join.

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Old 12th October 2007, 18:46   #3
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Interesting news,love to s this guy in forum.,This car was presented in l'meredian's show 2weeks ago if i am not wrong.
BTW the car looks a bit weird to me apart from wnoderful work done on it.

Last edited by payam : 12th October 2007 at 18:48.
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Old 12th October 2007, 19:10   #4
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Mr. Ranadive said, looks were least important to his target customers.

What mattered were pure engineering considerations, such as:
  • handling,
  • functionality,
  • ability to handle rough-road abuse without developing squeaks and rattles,
  • maximizing torque within prespecified shear stresses and thermal stresses,
  • maintainability within a defined budget
Some of these constraints were stipulated by his client OEMs.
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Old 12th October 2007, 20:18   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ram View Post
Automotive OEMs are his customers.


If you dont mind, Can you give some more examples of his OEM engagements? (Is "Ford" in that list?)
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Old 12th October 2007, 20:18   #6
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Good find Ram. Supercharged Swift ?! That's awesome. Can you ask Mr Ranadive to put up some videos of its in-car acceleration ?
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Old 12th October 2007, 21:09   #7
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Good find Ram. Supercharged Swift ?! That's awesome. Can you ask Mr Ranadive to put up some videos of its in-car acceleration ?
A turbo charged Swift was featured in Car India (July 2006). The Turbo fitment was carried out by N. Leelakrishnan (seven times National Rally Championship winner).


"Turn the key and the Swift starts with a nice, purposeful burble. Blip the throttle and it snarls loudly, ready to pounce. Put your foot in and then the gloves really come off. All the nice-guy pretensions disappear completely, and the engine howls furiously, demanding to be let off the leash. And the numbers back up the noise. The Swift Turbo launches very hard, albeit with a huge amount rubber-smoking wheel spin, which actually hurts its acceleration times. Still, it goes from zero to 60km/h in 4.42 seconds, to 100km/h in 9.55 seconds, and by the time the needle runs out of numbers on the Swift's 200km/h speedometer, it's doing a measured 192km/h. It just annihilates everything else on the road, flying past long lines of cars and buses in furious bursts of speed and acceleration. It's Conan the Destroyer come alive. It's God's (and N Leelakrishnan's) gift to mankind."

Link: Maruti Swift Turbo | Car Articles - CarWale.com India
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Old 12th October 2007, 21:14   #8
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GS - I believe that Swift blew it's engine a few days later.
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Old 12th October 2007, 21:20   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by iraghava
I believe that Swift blew it's engine a few days later.
Welcome to after-market turbo-charged cars!
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Old 12th October 2007, 21:30   #10
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Quote:
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GS - I believe that Swift blew it's engine a few days later.
Sorry I have no clue about it.

I think there was one more turbo charged swift (silver color). It was featured in Autocar India, will try to find that article.
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Old 12th October 2007, 21:34   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by -GS- View Post

I think there was one more turbo charged swift (silver color). It was featured in Autocar India, will try to find that article.

If my memory serves me right, that car also blew its engine/gearbox.
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Old 12th October 2007, 23:40   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by -GS- View Post
A turbo charged Swift was featured in Car India (July 2006). The Turbo fitment was carried out by N. Leelakrishnan (seven times National Rally Championship winner).
Mr. Ranadive's Maruti Swift design is not "turbo" supercharged.
It is supercharged by a belt driven blower, with intercooler and auxiliary injectors to increase fuel delivery for the supercharged engine's additional hunger.



Don't know too much about N. Leelakrishnan,
but Mr. Ranadive is an experienced automotive engineering professional with 20 years in the automobile industry. His career has spanned Mahindra, GM and ZeroShift -- makers of clutchless instant gearshift technology. He was CEO-India of Magna Steyr GmbH -- the world's largest automobile contract manufacturer. For the active suspension work, he's working with the University of Sydney.

And now he's an entrepreneur who has set up his computer-based design lab and factory for building special cars near Pune. That is why I likened him to a Carroll Shelby.

He is creating for GM, a next-gen hybrid electric/gasoline Chevrolet Optra SRV.
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Old 13th October 2007, 00:05   #13
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Quote:
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It is supercharged by a belt driven blower, with intercooler and auxiliary injectors to increase fuel delivery for the supercharged engine's additional hunger.
Ram - You mean to say he's got separate injectors for when you're running on the blower & stock when you're not? Then does he also have a mechanism to switch the blower on & off?

Also, Ram both of us know that Supercharging is a more lossy process than Turbocharging if both are done properly of course. IIRC the Supercharger in the SL55 consumes about 100bhp (the engine produces 500bhp) just to drive itself & those losses really hurt Supercharged engines.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ram View Post
Don't know too much about N. Leelakrishnan,
but Mr. Ranadive is an experienced automotive engineering professional with 20 years in the automobile industry. His career has spanned Mahindra, GM and ZeroShift -- makers of clutchless instant gearshift technology. He was CEO-India of Magna Steyr GmbH -- the world's largest automobile contract manufacturer. For the active suspension work, he's working with the University of Sydney.

And now he's an entrepreneur who has set up his computer-based design lab and factory for building special cars near Pune. That is why I likened him to a Carroll Shelby.

He is creating for GM, a next-gen hybrid electric/gasoline Chevrolet Optra SRV.
Leela is a also a very good & experienced mechanic on the Rally circuit Ram so let us not under estimate him. Point is Turbo'ing/Supercharging engines is not an easy job & problems do occur on every stage.

I would really like to see Mr. Ranadive do more stuff for the general public & prove his mettle so we can also boast of having a tuner of international caliber.
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Old 13th October 2007, 00:30   #14
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If I am not wrong this is the supercharged SRV that we are talking about.





Mr. Ranadive is the sole distributor of Rotrex superchargers in India. Rotrex is a Denmark based manufacturer of superchargers.
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Old 13th October 2007, 00:49   #15
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@-GS- : you are right. This black SRV was worked upon by Mr. Ranadive himself. I had met him at Pashankar auto in pune, but did not know that he is tuner/ manufacturer of this kinds.

I guess the 'performance upgrades' offered by GM on their cars ( it is somewhere else on the forum, i couldn't find the linky ) were to be done by Mr.Ranadive

Last edited by hkanitkar : 13th October 2007 at 00:53.
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