[Purrybonker]

Plus - insure that car before you drive/drag it up - get the provincial and/or federal inspection done, it goes on and on.

The other wild card here - one of the biggest consistent weaknesses of the otherwise relatively bullet-proof Porsche engines is valve guides. The aircooled cars are particularily susceptable to valve guide wear (actually, I don't even know if this is an issue at all with the 996's) and particularily vulnerable are cars that have been operated in heavy traffic in a hot climate.

A top end job will run $5 to $6 grand plus, plus. Ask Marc at Alpine or Hima how many top ends they've done on US origin cars vs. local cars.

I'll take a western Canadian car over a "california" car that spent years idling on clogged freeways in high ambient temps with the A/C cranked to the max any day.