918 V8 engine info

[ashm]

On the offchance, does anybody know where I could find some information about the Lotus 918 V8 engine, as fitted to the V8 Esprits? I've seen various references to it being an in-house development, but haven't come across any discussion of the design and features. Was it used in any other vehicles, or the design licensed to any other manufacturers? Seems a shame for Lotus to have gone to the trouble of developing a potential 500+bhp all-alloy V8 only for it to have such limited use...
Adam

[theelanman]

mmmmmm..........LEF???

[DeanG]

I normally don't look at this thread so ...

When the V8 was first shown to the public in the USA (one of the Atlanta LOGs but I forgot which one) I asked the engineers about a few things. One was the reasoning behind the small displacement turbo engine vs. the big displacement engine they did for the Corvette. They admitted to having extensive discussions. I think it came down to packaging. The second was the decision between chain and belt drive cams. They admitted that they ran out of time and went with belts as they had more experience.