First order of business is putting all the bodywork in place, and determining where the induction risers are beneath the body. A pilot hole is cut in approximately the right place, and then the exact limits of the opening taped and marked off, so that the proper size and shape holes can be cut. Note that the risers aren't going to stick up through these holes, but this is just a preliminary step in working out the final shape of the engine cover.

In the photo above the engine cover is in place, and the appropriate-sized openings have been cut into the bodywork. This is a real help in starting to visualize the layout of the various components that will have to go under our revised engine cover. The round holes are the beginnings of clearance "bubbles" that will be on the engine cover, giving room for the rear shock absorber rockers.

Looking down on the now see-thru engine cover, with the motor plainly visible beneath. Now the real cutting has started, taking into consideration that intake plenums will be mounted atop the intake risers, and that there will be intercoolers atop the motor as well. All these openings get revised in a later step. The "spine" of the engine cover remains in place, at least for the time-being, to give the whole unit some strength as we chop ever-larger sections of it away. It won't necessarily remain once we've worked out the final shape.

This is an unmodified set of intake plenums for a 962-type motor. Our two-liter motor won't require the same pressure/volume of air as the larger motor, so we'll be making a set of prototype plenums by modifying these.

The plenum first gets sawed in half. Then a section is removed from the middle to reduce the height of the plenum beneath the bodywork. Above you see the top of the plenum (upper left), the lower section that bolts to the intake risers (above right) and below that, the section of aluminum that has been removed from around the middle.

Looking sideways through the engine cover holes, you see the two intake plenum lower-halves attached to the risers, giving a better idea of how much clearance they'll need in the bodywork.

Another shot from the back, looking through the engine cover, shows the sectioned plenums temporarily in place, and the holes in the bodywork correspondingly modified to accommodate their shape. Also note that the shock absorber rocker clearance holes have been modified in shape from the simple round holes we started with. It may all look "chopped-up" at this stage, but major progress has been made.

With all the bodywork in place, including the various air ducts within the bodywork, we can begin to trim away the existing carbon sections that interfere with the new mechanical components.

Until now we've just been using dummy engine blocks for chassis fitting purposes, but now the serious motor-building has begun. Dave Jarvis (right, above) will be looking after the cylinders, heads and dyno work, and UCF engineer Dr. Todd Dvorak (center, above) is responsible for the high-performance optimization of the whole motor package.

Dr. Dvorak has been joined by Marcus Haselgrove (left, above), who is a Motec Systems Development Engineer. The two of them are working at measuring the car for the wiring harness it will require, specific to the Porsche application. The car currently has a 936/956-type 2-liter, 4-cam/4-valve motor fitted, which is what will be used at Le Mans, but will have a slightly smaller restrictor than the other motor we'll have for this car, a 2-liter, single-cam/2-valve unit which, being a 2-valve motor, will get a slight restrictor break. Horses for courses...

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