After many years of sourcing diesel engines for its cars from rival manufacturers, Maruti Suzuki India will later this week introduce the Celerio DDiS125 with a diesel burner developed and manufactured entirely in-house.
And the company claims that it will be the most fuel-efficient car in India with a rated mileage of 27.62 kmpl.
The 793cc, all-aluminium diesel engine will also have a few surprises tucked under its cylinders.
Quite apart from being the first diesel engine developed by Suzuki Motor Corporation, it will be one of the first mass-manufactured ‘two-cylinder’ diesel engines. The engine has been under development for more than four years and though it is under consideration for multiple applications in many potential markets, the first car to get this new engine will be the Celerio in India.
Sub-one-litre diesel engines are extremely rare because, in the past, containing the explosive combustion processes in these engines had made it very difficult to work on smaller engine capacities.
Though the number of cylinders isn’t exactly a yardstick for the level of engine refinement, a two-cylinder will tend to be noisier and inherently suffer from higher vibrations compared to a four-cylinder, because when the car is on the road the demand on the engine will be similar in both cases.
Suzuki engineers have apparently had to think of innovative, off-beat solutions to overcome these issues and keep the cost low.
For example, because it is a two-cylinder mill, the traditional common-rail diesel injection will not be needed and will also be an expensive option.
So, Maruti and Suzuki engineers and vendor partner Bosch developed an engine management system having a fuel injection block with a high pressure fuel pump and fuel control unit to meter the fuel injection to the two cylinders.
The engine features four valves per cylinder and to improve its breathing efficiency Suzuki engineers have also endowed it with a high-revving, compact turbocharger.
With the development targets to keep the engine compact and light-weight, while ensuring low-end torque that matches larger engines, it is the turbocharging that helps the engine deliver 125Nm of peak torque. In fact, that is the reason for the name DDiS125 - Maruti has adopted a new naming convention for its engines based on torque. Peak power delivered by the new engine is however, quite low at 47.6PS.
The Celerio diesel will be about 70 kg heavier than the petrol variant, with 11 kg of additional weight coming from structural changes to the car, made to accommodate the diesel engine’s need for higher rigidity levels.
The Celerio diesel will be launched only with the 5-speed manual transmission, though the AMT available in the petrol will technically be possible even in the diesel.
The new engine is said to meet BS IV emission norms and can potentially meet future regulations. There will be four variants – LDi, VDi, ZDi and a ZDi(O) with optional safety features.