Quadcammer

Youre kidding right? these motors are made of glass. look at the hartech websitr and read the engine portion of thr buying guide. bulletproof...lololol

Doug H

Not in a million years unless you are building a race car an budget does not matter. One could quickly drop more into a car like than then it could ever be worth.

Gabe.

Hahaha, wrong choice of words I suppose. Thanks for recommending that guide. Reading through it now!

I didn't accept their counter so that means it goes back up for bid and this time around I can have it inspected before I make a decision. Unfortunately, most of my reservations are around the engine and I think it would be good to have a Porsche specific mechanic take a look.

Gabe.

I was able to organize an inspection for the car. I should be able to get some general knowledge on the car in the next two days. They will be calling me whenever they get there to walk through the car with me and check anything I'd like checked.

Edit: they'll be there tomorrow between 7am and 10am. I'll update this thread afterward!

ocgarza

Now that you can inspect the engine your answer will become obvious. If the engine is burned toast, and you can steal it, it might be worth pricing it out with a great engine rebuild and modding the hell out of it.

AWDGuy

I've rebuild a M96 engine in my home garage. Parts alone was close to 18k CDN (probably in the 12-15k USD range), that included 4.0 nickies and pistons, new bearings, billet IMSB shaft, new timing chains and guides, ARP hardware, pinned IMS shaft, new IMSB, and clutch.

I wouldn't pay more than 8k for a 997 roller and a no-good engine.

Gabe.

If that's ultimately the case, I agree with you! I'd rather have a hot rodded engine in a car that I built while saving some money on a complete shell.

Good to know! Sounds like a bad *** build once you got it done.

I spoke with the inspector this morning and got a ton of pics and a video of the engine running.
First off, this is definitely a car that needs some love. You can tell the previous owner didn't take great care of it and was ready to offload it. Interior looks to be in great shape and once I get my hands on it, I'll resurrect the exterior.
Secondly, the engine sounds like a regular Porsche engine but it's billowing white smoke. My guess is that the air-oil separator is bad. I'm sure it's still possible that it has some other issues, but it's worth the gamble to me right now.

Here are some pics:

Gabe.

And the Video:

AWDGuy

My build has been done for a couple of years now.

if it starts and runs, that's a good start. My 1st guess would be bad AOS also. I'd watch out out for cracked (D chunck) cylinders also, but that engine doesn't sound like it has bad cylinders. This could be a steal if all it requires is an AOS

TV911

Hmmm... much more promising. It sounds like a motor that hasn't had a catastrophic failure... and my guess would be the air/oil separator (AOS) also. But you're going to want to put a boroscope into all of the cylinders and run compression tests.

It's a shame it's so dirty, as that makes it really hard to see what it really looks like cosmetically. The front end looks warped (higher on one side) from that one photo low to the ground, so there may be a bunch of work required there. At $18K you're taking a pretty big gamble. I picked up a 2006 C2 cabriolet with similar mileage in very good condition for just $10K more, and if you're patient you could too.

Good luck, and keep us updated!

ocgarza

It looks like it was definitely driven like a Porsche is suppose to be driven, but by a driver that should have been driving a Dodge pickup. Keep us in the loop on what decision you make. This could be interesting

captainbaker

Might need a motor mount as the left tailpipe is hanging low....Oh and you saw the left tail light is chipped?. Im rooting for ya man!

Gabe.

Ugh, at the moment I have nothing but bad news. After the inspection was done yesterday morning I decided to make another offer through the broker (I've been using AutoBidMaster) for $15k. I got an email confirming the offer and it showed up on their website, I also gave them a call to confirm and spoke to someone I hadn't spoken with before. He said that the seller countered at $15,400 and I said great, let's accept it! I was told to expect an email within half an hour.

At that point, I had some errands to run and a meeting to go to so I was away from my phone/email for 2+ hours.

When I left my meeting, I received a call from the broker and they told me that the previous person I spoke with either messed something up or didn't understand what was happening and was told to expect a call again before the end of the day so they can figure things out. There was miscommunication between the broker and the seller in some regard.

Once I got home, I saw that the car was listed as SOLD online...

WTF?! I hope that's from me! When I called in to AutoBidMaster, the individual that was supposed to call me back had left for the weekend (awesome) and the guy that I spoke with wasn't helpful at all. Apparently, I've been blocked from bidding on the car and/or they decided to sell it elsewhere. This all happened minutes before they close at 4:00 so there won't be any answers until Monday morning.

In the meantime, I may have missed out. Initially, I was pretty pissed off, someone made a mistake and I still don't have an answer as to what/why. Now, half a day later, I'm disappointed that I may have missed out on this one but recognize that things like this happen so the search continues.

It's frustrating that I can't speak directly with the seller but this has been a good learning experience!

We'll see where things go as this unfolds.

It would be!

If getting this car is still in the realm of possibility I'll do a compression test, leakdown, and run a boroscope into the cylinders to look for scoring. Always good to know the engine health of a new car! The passenger side of the bumper isn't connected from that dent so that might be why the front end looks crooked. I had the inspector go over that area in detail with me on the phone.

I hear ya, a C2 Cabriolet is a very different car from a C2S Coupe though. There are some C2 Coupes around me that are reasonably priced, that may be an option but to me, half the fun is working and building a car, not just owning it.

Hahaha, they moved from California to Colorado according to the Carfax. Maybe they didn't find a pickup quick enough and this took the brunt of it.

Good to know on the motor mount. Yep, I saw that the tail light was chipped. We will see what happens come Monday!

Gabe.

Well... I received some closure today. Someone hit the buy-it-now button in between when my offer was made and when it was up for review.

Bummed but it's time to go back to the drawing board. I'll keep my eyes open for another one.

Quadcammer

My opinion? They did you a favor. Unless you want to build a track car or some wild custom, cars like this never make sense. By the time you get it sorted you will have paid as much as a nice car