Rod Emory seems like a good guy, and I really, really like Gary's (Rod's dad) cars. Rod is a gifted fabricator, and a better businessman than I could ever hope to be, but I'm less wild about his cars.
Rod's grandpa started out in the Rod and Custom scene in SoCal when it was just rich, talented kids looking for cool cars. When Gary took over the business, he started building "Emory Outlaws", stripped down 356s meant to be extremely functional sports cars that stuck a thumb in the eye of the PCA "numbers-matching windshield wiper" crowd. He eventually moved the operation to Oregon to get even further away from all the hype and nonsense. For my money, this was the golden age of the Emory Outlaw.
When Rod took over, he ended up moving Emory back to SoCal from Oregon (where Gary had taken the business), and the entire operation became pretty Hollywood and hit the afterburners. Exposure exploded from a fringe movement into a cultural phenomenon.
The timing was perfect. Classic cars in general were really taking off and hitting the mainstream. Porsche lovers also experienced a revolution - the Gary Emory "outlaw" and R-Gruppe 911 guys moved from the fringes into the dead-center of the frame. Everybody wanted to be the Porsche bad-boy.
Sure, there are still the 99-point coucours restoration weenies out there still worried about the date stamp on the brake drum, but the R-Gruppe and Emory cars (along with Magnus Walker) moved the stripped-down Mulholland Dr. street-racer look into the mainstream. When Singer (et al) started "reimagining" 911s as 7-figure cars, the lid blew off valuations. No longer would anybody ever say, "yeah, it'd be cool to do that, but these things will only ever be worth $100K, so why?" As recently as 2000, you could still buy a Speedster for $20,000.
Rod was perfect for this new world. He is personable, has good teeth and all his hair, a pretty wife, and handsome children. He hung black and whites all over the shop and posted 114 times a day on Instagram, Twitter, and FB.
I was OK with this until the whole "Emory 911/4" thing. Unless I'm mistaken, I believe Chuck Beck was the first guy to cut two cylinder spigots out of a 911 case and weld it back together. What's for sure is that Dean Polopolus has had a business selling 911/4 cases, cranks, and cams for years and years (as far back as 2002 that I know of personally).
But recently, Rod Emory began doing this himself, which is fine - what sticks in my craw is that he seems to be passing this off as "his 911/4", which it is (in that he's doing it), but which was certainly not his idea and not the only way to get one.
I looked at doing a 911/4 back in 2008. I contacted Dean Polopolous and got the prices - it was going to be about $30K at the time, which seemed about twice what I wanted to spend, but which would have been a screaming value as compared to what Rod is getting now. George Brown was looking really, really hard at one (as the ultimate way to better Jake Raby) during the George/Jake Holy-Wars back in the early 00s.
As far as the raw (gold) fiberglass shrouds - to me, that's not an Emory thing, that's a Porsche 917 thing. The R-Gruppe guys have been doing it for a hundred years on their cars and unless I'm mistaken the original Singer car had one as well. I think it's the coolest thing ever.
My point is that none of the visual cues of your proposed engine, Phil scream "Emory" - they scream, "serious Porsche". Having Pat Downs build the engine gives it instant credibility with anybody who knows anything.
It doesn't look to me like you are "copying" anything Rod's built, any more than Rod is copying what his dad built. Build what you want. It's going to be fantastic, and we'll all be waiting for a chance to crawl all over/under it.