Yeah,
Can Am Porsche 917's were the only ones that were turbocharged. None of the Le Mans cars were.
Now that being said I have another alternative to the engine situation. We all want the sound right? That really rough idle, kinda whiny, high revving engine? Have you ever heard of a 4 rotor Wankel rotary engine?
Pineapple Racing builds them to order. They have about a 2.6L displacement and can be over 500HP in N/A form. Imagine a twin turbocharged version? Can you say 1,000HP+?
I mean it's not a Porsche engine, it's not a large engine. It is light, reliable, high revving, and POWERFUL though! But, then again it's all up to the builder. But IMHO that would solve quite a bit of the weight issues and all that. Now as far as cooling, that would be another issue altogether.
Maybe a heat exchanger located on the actual deck-lid with a fan on it sucking air through it so it resembles the original Porsche fan? Maybe located on the top of the engine itself doing the same thing? Hell, you could make the rotary look like a flat 12 if you really wanted to. Haha! It looks like a large crankcase with no cylinders protruding from it.
Oh well, that's just me tossing out weird ideas, but I think it'd be a feasible option. The engines run about $6k for N/A and about $8k for forced induction if I remember right. Check them out though...
Pineapple Racing
Laters,
Brian