City boys zoom closer to F1

Engineering students design F1-style car that will race at 180 kmph at a design competition

Engineering students design u00a0F1-style car that will race at 180 kmph at a design competition

It's sleek, sexy and promises speeds of 180 km per hour on a Formula One track.

Around 65 students of the K G Somaiya College of Engineering at Vidyavihar have developed Titan a single-seater, Formula One-style car that will adorn the racing tracks of Germany in August.

The model, built at a cost of Rs 10 lakh, is fitted with a 600 CC Honda engine of a CBR F4i motorbike, weighs 300kg and is 3.5 metre in length, 1.5-metre wide with a height of 2 metre.

Titan is an upgraded version of the car they developed last year. That model weighed 320 kg and could race at 150 km per hour.

It was 2.5 metre in length, 1.2-metre tall and 1.5-metre wide and was appreciated even by Narain Karthikeyan the fastest Indian on wheels.

Only Indians

Seventeen students from the college will be the only Indians to participate at Formula Students, Germany a design competition on F1 cars organised by the Society of Automobile Engineers.

The students who will participate as the Orion 2009 racing team are excited about the competition, but feel they could have produced an even better model.

"We did not get enough sponsors and could not develop our dream model. If we get support in the future, we won't compromise on the quality.

The morale of the other 75 teams from 19 countries is high since they have good sponsors.

But we are still hoping to top the Asian contingent at the competition," said Vishvesh Jhaveri, an engineering student.

While the electronic engineering students developed the steering, gears, controller area network and the data logging system, the speed and alignment systems were developed by the mechanical team.

"We are working on a wireless telemetry system and are hopeful it will be developed by next year," said a student.

600 cc
The engine of Titan a car developed by engineering students

2500 cc
The engine of a u00a0Formula One car

Third Time Lucky?

This is the third time the students of K G Somaiya College of Engineering are participating at Formula Students, Germany. Last year, they ranked 66 out of 78 teams and in 2007, they came 50th out of 58 teams.