Seriously Swift
The first thing you will notice about the stock looking Maruti Suzuki Swift on these pages is its rare ability of going unnoticed even when it's just two feet away from you. It is really unusual to find an anonymous looking, seriously modified car - one doesn't come across one every day in the country. More often than not, people head straight to accessory shops before anything else, picking up humongous rims with tyres to match, body extensions, spoilers, very loud ICEs and slapping them on with an assortment of decals. All that dead weight and a stock engine make it a perfect recipe for a modified car which is slower than what came out of factory. With an ability of getting lost in a city with so many Swifts, what is this stock looking car doing here on our pages? Well, this is a Red Rooster Performance (RRP) Swift. It's a machine that is outrageously quick while maintaining a low profile at the same time.
The Swift has been around for six years now and has evolved to a cult status with tuners in the country. The G13 Suzuki engine under the hood of the Swift has been shared across various Maruti Suzuki cars and has been used in racing on the track as well as earning laurels in rallying. The present Swift now has a newer and more environment friendly engine but it's the older G-series engine that is regarded as having a lot of potential to be modified.
RRP is headed by N Leelakrishnan, ace tuner from Coimbatore and seven-time INRC champion who has been tuning cars when some of us were learning to ride a bicycle. Leela is one of the best tuners in the country, not a surprise since he and his team prepared the Group N+ Cedias which went on to win the 2010 Speed INRC Championship. Turbocharging is the feather in Leela's cap. He has turbocharged Indian cars that have gone on to break several quarter mile records at drag meets across the nation.
This showroom spec looking Swift houses a stock engine that is capable of withstanding a turbo boost of 9psi. The car generates so much power that the wider 205-section tyres hunt for traction when launched. So what is the performance figure? Well, it does 0-100kmph in 7.9 seconds as recorded on the VBox. These numbers from a 1.3-litre engine with stock internals is phenomenal. To give a concrete power figure, we put the Swift on RRP's chassis dynamometer. The power produced at the wheels is a staggering 126PS. In comparison a stock Swift produces just 54PS at the wheels.
So what are the modifications that help the car shave off a full five seconds to the ton and increase power by more than double compared to a stock Swift? To start with, the engine's internals have been left untouched. Gobbling massive amounts of air via a BMC CDA performance air filter, the cold side of the GT20 Garrett turbo blows it into the stock intake manifold. There is slight turbo lag but once the turbo spools up past 2000rpm both driver and passenger need to hold on really tight. A Garrett intercooler does its job to keep the intake temperature down. A super sounding Turbosmart blow-off valve relieves boost pressure to the intake and during throttle lift-off. A custom mild steel manifold feeds the turbo, while the exhaust gases exit via a custom exhaust manifold all the way down to a custom muffler.
The fuel injectors are standard and to ensure that there is enough fuel pressure in the system, the regulator has been upgraded to a Turbosmart unit. Keeping the turbo boost in check is not easy and hence an electronic boost controller is used. After all this G13 motor is fed with air and fuel in quantities that Suzuki originally never intended it to. The car is driven daily with the boost set at 8psi. The standard ECU cannot be tuned to extract more power out of the car and hence the brain of the car is upgraded to a Haltech Sprint 500 stand-alone engine management system (EMS).
With so much power being made at the crank, a heavy duty stage 1 Exedy clutch is employed while the driveshafts are standard. Apart from NGK Iridium spark plugs, the ignition system is also surprisingly standard. Coming to handling, the suspension set-up features Tein superstreet dampers that can be adjusted by an electronic damping force controller for both front and rear. Keep it soft in the city and when its time for a high speed run or attacking corners, the dampers can be stiffened accordingly. Brakes are standard but the disc pads are upgraded to pads made by Mintex, the same as used in Red Rooster Group N+ cars. The wheels are upgraded to Lenso Samurai rims and Yokohama S-drive tyres.
The Swift has now been driven for more than 20,000km without complaint. The car also happens to be RRP's demo car. The RRP Turbo Drive package will set you back Rs 2.25lakh. So if you are interested in turbocharging your car and want to hit sub-eight second dashes to the ton, you know where to head to. This Swift clearly proves that one can have all the go without the show.
Price (Ex-Delhi)
Starts Rs 5.73 Lakhs
Starts Rs 5.73 Lakhs
Displacement
1197cc
1197cc
Transmission
Automatic
Automatic
Max Power(ps)
89.73
89.73
Max Torque(Nm)
113
113
Mileage
23.76 Kmpl
23.76 Kmpl
