maroli

Hi, my brother is looking at purchasing a renegade conversion LS1 944. It has a rebuilt AOR transaxle and seems to be going for a very reasonable price. Is there anything in particular my brother should get inspected or be on the look out for? He doesn't have much experience with conversions, so I thought I might run it by you enlightened bunch Thanks!

Giantviper

You may want to cross post this on the 924/44/68 forum as there is more traffic there.

maroli

thank you, did you mean the 944 turbo forum? I posted it there now too.

FrenchToast

Honestly, everything.

An engine conversion is a large modification. On the plus side, this conversion is by now fairly straightforward thanks to the the wonderful products from Renegade.

What I'm trying to say is, there are many cars out there that are put together with the skills of a couple of drowsy monkeys. The larger and more involved the modifications, the more chances the builder had to 'cut corners'. Mechanical fasteners that are no where near up to the task, general poor engineering, poor fitment, etc.

As an example, used race cars is where it gets scary (high levels of modification done by a previous owner). I've seen cars that have loosely fitting suspension components put together with bolts not even close to the correct size or type, suspension pick-up points that look more fragile than balsa wood, wiring more likely to ccatch fire than a pile of hay next to a grill, amongst other things, that were all advertised as "turn-key."

That said, if the right guy builds it, it can really be exceptionally done.

If on first sight it looks a bit cobbled together, stay away. It'll likely be worse than it looks.

Not trying to scare you, just trying to emphasize that you take a good look at it, go for a thorough test drive and ask the owner as many questions as possible.

Take care!