I contacted Formula Motorsports who are listed as a Porsche Specialist, who agreed to go look at the car for me. They'd give me a detailed PPI specific to air-cooled Porsches so I could rest easy in the knowledge someone who knew these cars had looked at it.
If anything, they were almost as bad at photos as the seller. And honestly kind of questionable in terms of their motivations. There was nothing specific, just "seems okay, needs a new engine and trans" but I got the distinct impression that the guy doing the inspection wanted me to pass on the car so he could pick it up and flip it himself. He kept talking about how it's got "good bones" but it "needs everything".
It was worn but original - still had the air pump, but it was more oil than engine.
So dirty. But it was all there.
Turns out the car had a salvage title out of Missouri and had been sitting since 2013 in a yard until it got traded to these folks just outside NYC, and as everyone knows a salvage title can be problematic. My research indicated I should be able to title it fine back here in Ontario but I wasn't sure. That would explain the price.
So, after wasting $600 on what I could have gotten anyone to tell me, I decided to roll the dice and get it. They refused to budge on price no matter how much I argued so I paid sticker and had the poor thing towed down the road to Rennwerke Porsche in Elmsford.
I decided to get all the work done in the US before having it transported to Canada because I figured it would be cheaper and easier to get it done in the US than pay Canadian prices for parts, plus tax, plus plus.
Cheech at Rennwerke came highly recommended and he seemed to think he could get it done before summer (cue narrator: it wasn't)
After a bit of inspection I got the expected news that the engine would have to come out and get a full teardown rebuild. When they were taking it apart, only 4 of the 24 head studs weren't cracked or completely broken. The thing was a mess and the case would need to be split. Cha-ching.
Since it was apart anyway, I decided to upgrade it slightly by having the 9.3:1 Euro-spec pistons installed to up the compression from 8.5:1 that the US-spec cars got due to emission restrictions. I should have maybe done cams too but honestly, getting Cheech to stop talking long enough to explain what I wanted was pretty difficult. Also getting him to return phone calls was nearly impossible.
I flew down to visit it once in April. This was the first time I'd seen the car as I'd bought it remotely from over 750km away.
