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This is absolutely needed, as the car spends so much time at wide open throttle that a lot of radiant heat is being dumped into the engine compartment. The shielding helps keep everything in the immediate area from cooking off.
The engine compartment gets so hot that Earls fire sleeves are used on top of nearly all of the Earls braided lines and AN fittings. We have found that the heat from turbo systems can cook off lines and wiring even two feet away from hot turbo systems on our own race cars, so the addition of the fire sleeve is very prudent in this more extreme application. The fire sleeve can protect from 500 continuous degrees and can withstand 2000 degrees for short periods of time.
One wastegate is used on each side of the twin scroll exhaust manifold. The discrete wastegate flows keeps turbo spool improving pulse conversion true- even when the engine is being run under wastegate control by keeping pulse contamination of adjacent cylinders to a minimum.
The dry sump system is plumbed with Earls forged AN fittings and Perform-O-Flex braided steel hose for maximum reliability.
You might note that the car seems rusty and dirty for a race car, but it has been racing for 10 years in a very dirty and corrosive environment of wet salt flats and alkali silt beds. Considering the environment, the car is very clean compared to many LSR cars! It is very, very difficult to keep corrosion and dust at bay out on the salt flats and lake beds.
