New turbo engine for Proton’s Exora starting 2011

SUBANG JAYA, Sept 23 — Proton Holdings Bhd will soon begin upgrading high-selling vehicle models with a new turbocharged engine developed in collaboration with wholly owned subsidiary Lotus Group International Ltd.
he national carmaker will begin mass production of the 1.6-litre Higher Performance Engine (HPE) — which boasts performance equivalent to that of a naturally aspirated 2.0-litre engine — by year-end for use in its Exora and future Persona models.
“As you know, a lot of our customers today... want more power,” Proton managing director Datuk Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir said, adding that the HPE will open up new opportunities in the export market where Proton is looking to compete in a higher chassis class segment.
Proton saw increased domestic demand push its net profit for the quarter ended June 30 to RM84.7 million, up 55.2 per cent from the same period last year.

Stronger than expected local demand for Saga, Persona and Exora core models saw domestic passenger car sales volume rise by 17.4 per cent to 40,908 units, bumping revenue from RM1.9 billion to RM2.3 billion.
Malaysia’s second most popular car marque is also currently developing hybrid and electric engines with British company Frazer-Nash Research Ltd, South Korea’s LG and its very own Lotus.
“We’re not dependent on one. We’re going through a journey of acquiring and understanding and hopefully, one day soon, we will be able to master the technology,” Syed Zainal Abidin said. “We’re not going to reinvent the wheel. I think it’s bad for a small company like us.”
He declined to give a timeline for the project but revealed that Proton will soon build a test fleet of at least 30 vehicles for use by the government as it embarked on stage two of development.
“Once it is done, it will give us the ability to get better results and reliability,” he said.
Proton chairman Datuk Seri Nadzmi Mohd Salleh explained that such extensive testing was needed to ensure everything was in order before Proton’s hybrid and electric engines could be rolled out commercially.
“When you’re talking of new products, the technology is new and we have to make sure when we do commercialisation of new technologies, we have to test everything,” he said.
“Anything which is in the R&D stage will have a lot of flexibility in terms of the timing in terms of its launch.”

Something About Exora

At first glance this looks like just any other Proton Exora, except for the fact that even after it has been launched for quite some time now Proton found it necessary to put generous amounts of black tape on it. The lower fog lamp area peeks out from the taped up sections and what we can see is the old pre-MC update fog lamps without the chrome.
But the headlamp is very much covered up – there could be some kind of facelift headlamp hiding in there. Or it could simply be an old mule with the headlamps taped up from before and not removed.

This is where it gets interesting. The rear muffler is different. I don’t think there would be any reason to have a new rear muffler installed on a mule, other than to test a completely new powertrain and/or driveline
Big thanks to the photographer Asan Taring for these! They were snapped en route to Malacca. According Asan and his friend, the rear end of this vehicle looked pretty different from a regular Exora. This is all so very mysterious!

Safety

The Exora was awarded a 4-star EuroNCAP rating after 32 Exoras were crashed at the Applus+ IDIADA crash testing facility in Spain. As well as this, the Exora was awarded another 4-star rating by Malaysia's own MyVAP evaluation program. One of the key features that made these ratings possible was the use of high tensile steel for the body cage, providing better stability and increased impact absorption during a collision. Side impact bars are also installed to reinforce the door frames and to absorb impacts from the side.
Other safety features include an Antilock Brake System (ABS) to avoid skidding during an emergency brake and an Electronic Brake Force Distribution System (EBD) to ensure the correct amount of braking power is sent to the correct wheels according to the current weight distribution of the car. Two front airbags and pre-tensioner seat belts are installed for the front passengers.Even the basic one OTR price RM59k have driver only airbag but minus those ABS and EBD features.

Performance

The Proton Exora chassis uses a MacPherson strut design at the front and a torsion beam at the rear. It measures 4,592 mm (180.8 in) long, 1,809 mm (71.2 in) wide and 1,691 mm (66.6 in) tall with a wheelbase of 2,730 mm (107.5 in). It is powered by the Campro CPS engine producing 125 hp (93 kW) and 150 N·m (110 lb·ft) of torque, resulting the top speed of165 km/h (103 mph).
The average fuel consumption of 7.2 L/100 km (39 mpg_-imp; 33 mpg_-US). The CPS engine same as the one found in Satria Neo CPS which feature cam profile switching. The gearbox is similar to the Proton Waja and Proton Gen-2 Mitsubishi sourced but has a higher final drive ratio to help with power delivery.
The Exora features a Body Control Module which allows automatic activation and configuration of various vehicle functions such as door locking/unlocking, interior lamps, headlamps, brake lamps, hazard lights and wipers. Other make offering BCM are mostly continental cars with RM100k and above price tag like BMW, Mercedes Benz, and Japanese Nissan Silphy.
What BCM offer in all Exoras:-

1. A battery saver for room lamps, luggage and key ring illumination. These turn off after 30 seconds to ensure they do not make your battery flat if for some reason they are left in a situation where they are on all the time.
2. Follow-me-home headlamps stay on for a certain period of time to help light up your walkway when you park and want to enter your house.
3. The battery level for the remote key is indicated on the car’s instrument panel briefly when you turn the ignition on. The remote key has a range of 20 meters.
4. The remote control will not work if your front door is not closed. The vehicle will also remind you if you activate a remote command if the rear door is not closed.
5. There is a door open indicator on the instrument panel that indicates exactly which door, engine bay hood or rear hatch is not closed.
6. There is a door opening warning when you reach a speed of 7km/h if any doors are open.
7. Tap feature for the signal indicator stalk. This is similar to a lot of modern cars – you just have to tap the indicator stalk (not press fully) for the signal to flash 3 times to indicate a lane change and stop automatically, no need to press fully to turn on and reach for it again to deactivate it.
8. Dim-in and dim-out feature for the interior room lamps – Proton says this is better for the eyes at night and it also adds a certain touch of class. The interior room lamps turn off automatically after you lock the car, or they also stay on for 30 seconds and then fade out in 2.8 seconds. When you unlock the car, the room light fade-in in 3.4 seconds.
9. Front and rear wiper washer drip wiping – automatically wipe to remove excess water. What happens is when you operate the front washer, it will wipe 4 times and then pause for 5 seconds and then wipe one more time, to remove all the excess water effectively. This is because some of the washer liquid from the top of the windscreen will slowly drip down after the initial wiping, so the last wipe completely removes the washer water.
10. Programmable front wiper interval. This can be anything from 1 seconds to 25 seconds. The default is 4 seconds. This is how you program it – you put it into INT and then back to off. Then you wait for the duration you want and turn switch it to INT again. The time duration you waited will become the new interval, up to a max of 25 seconds.
11. The rear wiper turns on automatically when you engage reverse gear if your front wipers are on.
12. If in SLOW mode, the front wiper changes mode to INT mode when you bring the MPV to a complete stop, let’s say in a traffic jam in the rain.
13. The remote unlocks the drivers door only if pushed once – probably push twice to unlock all doors. Apparently you are able to configure this to unlock all doors at once by default.
14. There is an alarm activation history kept but I am not sure how to access it, perhaps only at the service center.
15. The doors will lock automatically once you reach a speed of 20km/h.
16. The doors will unlock automatically once you remove the key from the key barrel.
17. All doors unlock automatically upon a crash via a signal coming from the airbag control unit.
18. If you perform any sudden braking at speeds of at least 96km/h, the hazard lights will flash automatically.

Proton Exora

The Proton Exora is a compact MPV vehicle produced by Malaysia car manufacturer Proton and launched on 15 April 2009. It is a new model from Proton based on a new chassis. The development of this MPV started from scratch and it is the first Malaysian-designed MPV. Fully undisguised photos of Proton Exora were leaked onto the internet on the 23rd of January 2009, ahead of the MPV's April 2009 launch date.
One year after the launching, on 15 July 2010 Proton came out with an improved version of Exora. It is known as Exora MC which stands for Minor Change. The interior get a dark grey treatment, a new set of twin 5 spoke 15 inches rims, and not forgetting a new set of body kit with just a minor RM1000 increase in OTR price. By this time the gaia blue and pyrite brown colour option discarded but a new plum red colour make its appearance.
Proton announced a contest called the Proton MPV Naming Contest to find a name for the MPV. The contest closed on 30 September 2008. This is the second time Proton held a naming contest for their new car after Proton Saga.
The result has been announced on 17 February 2009. The name Proton Exora was picked from the Name The Proton MPV competition grand prize winner Norsholihan bt Abdul Eanich among 251,763 entries. The winner was awarded with the first Proton Exora off the production line.
A controversial rule in this naming competition stated that an entry must not be taken from flora or fauna, but the winning entry Exora is inspired from the Ixora flower. Proton later clarified that the word Exora was only similar to Ixora but not a direct name of a flora or fauna so it was allowed.
Maybe due to its Lotus influence just like lotus Evora, Exora has been choosed as the MPV's name.