FCP (Exporting and Importing)

I’m editing a short film in a few days. The film was shot on a Panasonic AVCCAM 154ER. My iMac has a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, with 2 GB of ram. I’m using FCP 7. I’m also storing all footage on a shared server which slows editing down considerably, and the iMac itself doesn’t have a lot of free space. I also have a limited amount of time within which to work – roughly 5 hours to cut the final edit. So I wanted to know if there are any methods of which I can use to import my footage in FCP that will allow me to render and work on my footage quicker but still obtain maximum quality after exporting the footage.