Photo: PSP Images

Interview – Swindon Engines on new NGTC engines

By

Swindon Engines got the contract to develop the new Next Generation Touring Car engines (NGTC) for the British Touring Car Championship. TouringCarTimes.com interviewed Swindon Engines Managing Director Raphaël Caillé about the new project.

“So far the work with the engines has gone very well and we are ready for the first race,” said Caillé to TouringCarTimes.com.

The new engine is turbo charged, two liter, 16 valve, all aluminum, direct injected and runs on petrol.

“We certainly think the engine is the right way for BTCC to evolve for the future, that is why we wanted to design, develop and build it,” said Caillé.

The development work for Swindon has been pressed for time as they got the contract to build the engines at the beginning of november last year.

“It has been a busy winter! But we are more than pleased with the progress as we have gone from a blank piece of paper in november to delivering our first engine to a customer on the 15th of february,” said Caillé.

So far two teams are going to run with the new NGTC engine in the BTCC this year, Pirtek Racing and Pinkney Racing. But Caillé expects more teams to switch to this engine this year.

“The introduction of the engine came a bit late and most of the teams had already made their plans. But all teams in the BTCC have been in touch with us and there may be one or two more cars this season with the NGTC engine, time will tell,” said Caillé.

There has been much speculation on how the NGTC engine is going to perform compared to the S2000 engines, as the characteristics of a turbo engine is widely different compared to the naturally aspirated S2000 engine. But Caillé is not worried.

“The BTCC is used to deal with differences between different engines and cars. The series has run petrol and diesel together, S2000 and BTC regulations, and so on.

In addition to that, we have got simulation software at Swindon Engines. We have a good view of the differences between NGTC and S2000 and we do not expect any problems,” said Caillé.

Another point raised by some critics regarding the new NGTC engine is that the teams are going to be less involved in the development and making a difference compared to other teams.

“Teams can still develop their own NGTC engine if they don’t want to use this one, so there is no change in teams being involved in developing their own engines.

And each team can still make a difference, perhaps more than ever. They need to cool the engine with a intercooler, something up for each team to make a solution that can increase their performance. The difference between a good job and a very good job is quite a few horsepower,” said Caillé.

The characteristics between the two engine types gives different advantages and drawbacks. Turbo charged engines provide for good base torque while the naturally aspirated engines has got a smaller span of performance.

“We have restricted the maximum torque to 320 Nm mainly because of the transmission. The NGTC engine is going to be easier to use compared to the S2000 engines.

There is no turbo lag with our engines, although they can be a bit more difficult to handle for drivers in tricky conditions. The experience is going to be different for the drivers,” said Caillé.

But the main difference between the NGTC engines and the S2000 engines is the running costs according to Caillé.

“The cost for a NGTC engine, fully supported on all race weekends, for a full season is about 30 000 euro. That is around half the cost for a S2000 engine, plus there is no development cost to them for the NGTC engine. As the Brits say: ‘It’s a no brainer’,” said Caillé.

The BTCC season starts in less than two weeks and Caillé is looking forward to see the new engines in the thick of the action.

“We have done thorough work with the engines, we have done durability tests at over 2 000 kilometers per engine. We look forward to the premiere and we feel very ready,” said Caillé.