The pursuit of increasing the efficiency of internal combustion engines is an ongoing engineering task that requires numerous research efforts. New concepts of injection or combustion systems require preliminary investigation work using research engines. These engines, usually single-cylinder, make it possible to isolate a single variable in a complex combustion mixture preparation process, thus enabling analysis of the changes being made. However, these engines are relatively expensive and their designs are offered by a limited number of manufacturers. The authors of this paper have successfully undertaken the engineering task of modifying an existing research engine cylinder head in such a way as to implement an electronically controlled variable valve timing system of the intake system. The process of reverse engineering, together with design assumptions that finally contributed to the construction of the assumed solution has been described in this paper.