Hello to a fellow member of the "my first car was a Porsche" club. Mine was a $400 924 that broke at least once a week. Good times.
When I got it there were issues. I have worked through many of them. The PO did not understand the regulator for instance. I gutted the wiring and redid it. It now charges and there is no battery drain.
Like OP the lights were not good. I replaced those with LEDs. The suspension was worn, it was completely replaced.
The engine has good compression and the leak down showed it was healthy. It did leak oil though, sealed the engine. It no longer leaks.
You can’t just buy one of these cars and drive it. You have to wrench on it. It takes care and feeding.
I find it rewarding
It was one of the potential follow up projects, once the first one is done. That will take at least another two years... And I won't get permission for another project car in our drive way!
(It was also my first experience with an interference engine, and the terror of having your timing belt break.)
1: Car blew clean as a whistle, even to clean air standards that never existed in 1986, but since the intake and exhaust had all sorts of parts not officially stamped with the CA bureaucracy seal of approval, it had to go :(
The combination of an interference engine and a super-long manually tensioned timing belt was rather unfortunate though. I never had an issue with my belt, but adjusting the tension was very stressful. Especially since I was too cheap to buy the proper expensive tool and was using one of the crappy "cricket" ones.
I still want to buy a later model 90s one, throw an LS7 in there, and overhaul the interior. Would be an amazing vehicle.