Considerable progress has been made on the Lola engine installation since our last update. Because the Porsche motor will sit further away from the firewall than a Nissan would, we've fabricated a "birdcage"-type frame to connect the motor with the existing Nissan motor mounts on the firewall. Having extra space at the front of the motor will give us easy access to perform several different maintenance tasks.

Many of the rear suspension parts have been fitted. You may be interested to know that these A-arms were actually fabricated for our G-99 project, which also employs the Porsche GT1 gearbox. Our suspension arms, unlike the stock Porsche parts, are fully adjustable and can have their joint-ends changed. These are a fixed part of the GT1 suspension arms, so that when they fail the whole arm has to be replaced.

Above is a top view, looking down between the front of the motor (which has had the entire induction assembly removed). This is a good view of the frame connecting the motor and firewall.

In both of the above photos you see we're using a vertical cooling fan for this application, as opposed to a horizontal fan. The vertical fan is lighter than the horizontal version and is driven by a belt. It also takes less engine power to turn than a horizontal fan. See below.

By utilizing a vertical fan, we can eliminate the horizontal fan drive (above). What it does is to take vertical belt motion and transfer it through a 90-degree gearbox to turn a horizontally-mounted fan. Not only does this assembly add weight, but turning a set of gears saps some engine power.

Here you see that very same horizontal fan drive assembly actually installed on two Porsche 935 motors. You can see the belt-driven fan drive both in the motor in the foreground (vertical belt drives horizontal shaft which turns horizontal fan on vertical shaft through the internal gear assembly, which actually sits beneath the fan itself), as well as on the similar motor installed in the K4 in the background. The slight extra strain of the horizontal fan isn't a factor with these 750+ horsepower twin-turbo monsters, but we want to give our 2-liter single-turbo motor all the advantages it can get.

The new trunnion bars Rene has fabricated are shown here in nearly complete form. We've determined that the exhaust system will be routed over the top of the gearbox and out the back of the car, very similar to the arrangement in the early 962's. The turbo intercooler will be mounted on top of the motor, so the intercooler and engine fan will take their air supply from the same intake, behind the driver. The engine bonnet will be substantially modified vs. the stock piece. The turbo will get its air from a periscope air inlet further back on the engine cover.

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