Below is a picture of the manifold that is being used on the Contraption. It is a late TI intake, that has been cut apart.

As you can see, most obviously, the top of the manifold has been cut off. This provided access to he runners, making it possible to smooth and polish them. When we opened it up, we discovered that the tops of the runners were very close to the roof of the manifold. We thaught it would improve flow to the runners if weground dips into the back front walls of the runners, to allow easier airflow from the larger area of the plenum. Later we decided it may be even more beneficial to raise the roof of the manifold, to allow even better flow. Here is a better view.

In the top picture, you can see the aluminum inserts that Joe Marra Sr. fabricated to fit the shape of the new lip on top of the manifold. These inserts were then welded to the manifold by Joe Marra Jr. Once final porting and polishing of the manifold was completed, and a port for the charge air temperature sensor is drilled and tapped, the roof was then welded on top of the inserts. This raises the manifold roof a total of about an inch.

Above:
Here you can see another benefit of rasing the manifold roof. The intake passage necks down to a prett narrow opening the air reaches the plenum and runners. Buy raising the roof, flow through this section should be greatly improved. In addition, the elbow from the throttle body flange to the plenum has been sawed off. Garry McKissick and Dean Stille have both done this with good results on 2-piece intake manifolds. It seemes like this elbow would also be a restriction on the one piece. The flange will be machined out and welded back to the manifold.

Below:
Plans were to use a 52mm Neon throttle body (right) over the stock 46mm "blow thru" turbo throttle body (left).  Here you can see one of the modifications nessesary to use the Neon TB. A passage for the idle air to flow has to be cut in the Neon TB (blue arrow). On Neons, this passage is part of the intake manifold. Otherwise, the TB physically bolts on to the stock late 2.2 Turbo manifolds, and the AIS motor, seems to be compatable.

Unfortunately, we will have no baseline perormance figures to compare all these modifications with a stock intake system. But, we are hoping that these changes would noticably benefiet performance.
 

Please write to me if you have any questions or suggestions.