[MRM]

Bruce Anderson talks a little bit about pre-1986 ROW turbos in his book. I highly recommend it. It is edited a little strangely but still makes a great read and is a great resource. It's call the 911 Performance Handbook. Wayne sells it or you can get an autographed copy from Bruce Anderson's web site.

Anyway, he says that ROW turbos tend to have problems converting to US emissions specs. They either run well or they pass US emissions. They don't do both at the same time. But this isn't a problem because Euro turbo exhausts are readiy available and solve the problem. So as long as you retrofit back to the Euro exhaust, the ROW turbo should run great and last as long as any US car.

There are no real legal problems owning or licensing a ROW car. The real issue is getting them here and then retaining the EPA and DOT documents proving the car did pass all federal requirements. Your state might require these documents to title the car. If you lose them, you will have to go back to the feds and get copies or get the car inspected or re-done by a certified shop. Either way, it's a pain. Just make sure you have all the documents and can prove the documents are both original and accurate in stating that the US conversion was done correctly and you'll be ok.

As far as running with the Euro exhaust goes, that is no more of an issue than NA guys running SSIs. Just be sure to keep the US stuff in case you need to convert back.