Manipal University engineering students design race car

Manipal, Sep 4 (UNI) Formula Manipal, a 15-member-team of engineering students of Manipal University, has designed and built a 600 cc race car for participation in the international race car design competition FSAE (Formula Society of Automotive Engineers), Italy 2008.

Chancellor of the university Dr Ramdas M Pai unveiled the car today.

Talking to the mediapersons here, the team leader of Formula Manipal Mr Kaushik Mani said the Formula Manipal is the only Indian as well as the only Asian team which is participating in the FASE competition to be held from September 20 to 22 at Ferrari Fiorano Race Track, Maranello, Italy.

He said the competition will be attended by over 150 universities besides global leaders of automobile industry and race car design experts across the world with the main objective to design and fabricate a 600 cc race car.

Giving the details of the race car model, Mr Mani said the team, consisting students of Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) under Manipal University has worked on the design for about two years and built the car with Honda CBR 600 F4i 2002 engine model.

Intake of the engine has been redesigned by the engine and aerodynamic team, he said adding the manufacturing cost of the car was 15,000 dollars.

He said required tests for competition like endurance test, caster-camber setting, acceleration, hard cornering were done at Coimbatore. The car went through extensive testing on Kari Speed way, Coimbatore for 20 days, he added.

He said as the team had only limited resources in manufacturing the car, several reputed automobile industries such as Delphi TVS ltd, Ricardo Wave Software, Rane TRW Steering System, Altair engineering, Adsync-Marketing Support, TEMBA Shipyard and TT Travels have supported the team as additional sponsors.

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