My current position is at the Engine Design Department, in charge of testing for heightening the power output of the J20A engine that is used on the SX4 WRC and other SUZUKI cars. The J-type engine has powered a variety of models such as the Grand Vitara, Liana and the production SX4, and I was involved in engine testing for each of those vehicles. I was strongly fascinated with engines from my junior high school days; I majored in engine technology at college, and stayed in the Engine Design Department ever since joining SUZUKI – I’ve been an engine guy all along.
I was assigned to the WRC engine development team because, according to the person who did the assigning, I was involved in the J20A’s designing and testing, has a good understanding of this powerplant, and therefore a natural choice for the assignment. These days my workweek is divided between two days building and assembling parts on the WRC engine, and three days at the Head Office testing to get more performance from the production engine. With production engines, the big challenge always is finding performance improvements while addressing environmental concerns and maintaining low fuel consumption.

When I first saw the engine being prepared for rally competition, I was honestly surprised at the thoroughness of the modification process; there were lots of work being done in parts that would surely have been left untouched on production engines. While working together on the rally engine, I sometimes talk with the development team on ways we could improve the production engine. Since rally regulations require retaining much of the production-engine parts, I often hear opinions and demands for further increasing the strength of the production parts. For example, we had complaints about the positioning of the bolt holes and calls for more strength at the cylinder head. We’re making improvements to the production engines in those areas. The WRC engine is made to put out nearly three times the power of the production version; without improvements to the base engine, the rally engine won’t survive any competition. The J20A engine is built very strong and reliable and could quite easily withstand a lot of power increases; however, tripling the horsepower is a whole different story.

The J20A, I would say, is an engine with a “neutral” design – that is, its design is not strongly biased in any particular direction. Its very forgiving, user friendly character should be an advantage in WRC events. SUZUKI cars are sold worldwide and used in every kind of driving conditions, so we need to maintain the highest standards of durability and reliability.  As for engines, the quality of gasoline available may vary in various countries and regions, and maintenance habits like oil change intervals also may vary a lot among users – SUZUKI engines must be built to accommodate such wide range of circumstances. Particularly the J20A engine is also used on the Grand Vitara and often driven over highlands in Central and South America and across deserts in the Middle East, so it’s designed with quite a lot of safety margin in terms of reliability. I can’t say that this directly translates into an advantage in the WRC; however, the added strength I’m sure will at least serve as a basis for obtaining the reliability we need for the competition.

Technology obtained through rally competition may never get directly fed back to production cars, but I do believe that my involvement in rally engine development can serve to upgrade the quality of our production cars.  Here, we often encounter situations like “we need to improve the precision of this component a bit more” or, “this way, it’ll be able to endure two events.” Having this opportunity to observe both the rally car and the production vehicle allows me to be able to come up with suggestions for improvements, such as “we can use a lighter component in this section” and thus hopefully contribute to better performance for SUZUKI production cars. We do a lot of tough tests on our production vehicles simulating extreme driving conditions like high altitudes and cold climate, but WRC events are staged in even more severe environments, so I’m certain working with the WRC team will greatly add to my experience. I feel it’s my duty to make sure to feedback the lessons I learned to our production cars.

As an engineer in charge of the SX4 engine, I’m excited, and anxious, that it’s going to be powering our rally car in the WRC. This year we’ll be test-entering in two rounds; it’s only the beginning for us and it will be very difficult to get on the podium right away, but still, I can’t wait to find out how well we do. I look forward to contributing in my own way to SUZUKI’s WRC challenge; it all starts coming October at the Rallye de France - Tour de Corse, and I would like you all to check out the SX4 WRC in action.