Lotus is taking their flex-fuel Exige 265E sports car outside of Britain for the first time when they show it at JSAE Show in Yokohama Japan. The 265 hp, E85-capable Exige will be prominently displayed at Lotus' booth. The Toyota-sourced supercharged 1.8L four cylinder has been modified with a new engine management system developed by Lotus to manage the fuel mixture, spark timing and variable valve timing. As a supercharged engine the control can be adapted to take advantage of the higher octane rating ethanol compared to gasoline so that power output is not affected the way it is with a normally aspirated engine.

Along with the Exige, Lotus is also showcasing their Optical Access Active Valvetrain engine which is ideally suited for doing engine research. The engine is equipped with Lotus' camless electro-hydraulic valvetrain that allows for totally variable valve control. Although it's nowhere near suitable yet for a production application due to the power requirements, it allows engine designers to experiment with finding the best valve control profile without having to go through grinding endless camshaft samples. The other major aspect of the engine on display is the Optical Access that allows engineers to look inside the combustion chamber with high speed imaging equipment or Doppler anemometry to observe and measure the combustion process. The Lotus press release is after the jump.

[Source: Lotus]