Quote Originally Posted by Chip42 View Post
it's not that hard, just be big picture. place a reasonable restriction on the location and orientation of the engine....you are specifying an intent, egregious over-runs of that intent will be dealt with by competitors and will be obvious.
Bingo. Completely agree.

So that brings us back to the current reg. The current reg specifies an intent, and offers reasonable common-sense interpretation. It will NOT stop the guy that wants to play the "letter of the rules" game, but it will make the honest guys honest that understand and wish to comply with the spirit of the rules. If we start getting into body shop manuals, and plus-or-minus 1 inch, and coaxial location and all that, we're effectively codifying and inviting that "letter of the rules" game. And I just don't think that short of explcitly listing all allowed combinations with all possible engine permutations and detailing location of the same, along with a full team of educated technical inspectors to enforce it, that we can win that game.

We do have a request on the table to clarify this issue, but I don't think getting into minutiae is going to resolve it. - GA