Following on from our article about the 500 BHP Honda Drag Car last week, we stick to another build coming out of the Race Concepts stable. With the rise of the ever-popular Turbo Stratified Injection or (TSI for short) platform provided by Volkswagen, the Indian market in particular seems focused on attaining as much power as possible from these engines using various aftermarket tweaks and tricks. Having just been left with a Skoda Octavia RS, we caught up with Joel to understand the challenges involved in tuning India’s latest performance sedan as well as getting an insight into the future of tuning industry in India.

Now its important to keep in mind that for Indian standards this car is no slouch. It comes straight out of the factory producing 230 BHP as well as 350 NM of torque. The challenge while building these engines lies with the fact that VW’s in general are quite difficult to pull apart to begin with, one has to be extremely careful when tinkering with any of these cars, in Joel’s own words, “ The greatest challenge in building the VW engines, is the fact that parts are not easily available and the costs to procure them are high. It is a calculated risk in that case, we have to ensure we don’t brick the ECU, damage any controllers, wiring, sensors or any other critical engine parts during any upgrade.”

So why undertake a build that is so highly demanding? Well simply because when gotten right, these engines can be highly satisfying in terms of output, in fact when asked about potential of the TSI platform the reply was immediate, “The VW TSI and TDI engines are extremely capable. The TDI (Turbocharged Direct Injection, VW’s diesel counterpart) especially is a real joy to work with. The New Skoda Octavia RS from my evaluation can comfortably handle over 400hp with the stock DSG box. And yet remain street capable with decent fuel economy and massive power on demand.”

When pressed further on the process of attaining the aforementioned figures, Joel touches on direct modifications one makes on the ECU, “The VW TSI platform is the latest and the best in the industry with class leading power and efficiency. VW is the only maker to offer performance cars to the Indian car enthusiast, while not putting a serious hole in one’s wallet. Having said that, the aftermarket tuning with VW cars is quite straightforward with bolt-ons and plenty of aftermarket plug-in options for the ECU available from across the world. We would also like to offer more packages that are value for money while at the same time maintaining OEM factory reliability. We now offer the APR Tuning parts that are world renowned and we would like to use our expertise to refine the kits further and help them produce more efficiency in terms of fuel consumptions as well. In fact for this build the Stage-2 tune helps the car make nearly 320hp and around 400nm torque (at wheels) which is plenty of power for street use.”

Another challenge faced by Joel and his team was the fact that the current build moves them away from their traditional bread and butter of Honda engines so how did they cope with moving away from something they were so familiar with? “Hondas have been our first love and we are still developing bespoke parts for them as we speak. The D15, R18 and K24 are some of our favourite engines. The German stable on the other hand has a totally different approach since the electronics and various other modules are extremely complex. They are good but for an aftermarket tuner they can also be troublesome to work with. The DSG gearbox on the VW cars are fun to drive, but can’t handle a lot of abuse in terms of excess torque and driving.
That way the Japanese cars are more rugged!”

But given the shift in consumption in the Indian automotive sector, it is no surprise that more and more aftermarket tuners are starting to familiarize themselves with the potential and limits of the engines and gearboxes coming from Germany. One fact that might hinder an enthusiast from tuning their VW is the cost, compared to their Japanese counterparts, German cars do have a premium cost attached to them both while buying them from the showroom as well as when kitting them with aftermarket parts. Joel himself acknowledges this fact when he says, “The cost of tuning VW cars is quite high. A stage 2 APR (320hp) would cost approximately INR4 to 6 Lakhs ($6000-$9000 approximately) for the Octavia RS, depending on the parts catalogue. However we are also looking at the option of developing our own custom tune and parts, which in turn can bring costs down considerably, while offering better performance. Most bolt-on parts and tunes are conservatively set, which gives us scope to improve them.”