I just read your thread and believe it or not the EXACT same thing happened to me when I got my TR. One thing that I've learned from that is the market for low priced exotics is huge and there are a lot of suckers like me who purchase unseen because these crooks can't sell them to someone who can inspect it up close, pictures always look good and they get a better price selling that way because of competition. I learned a hard lesson from that, what appeared to be a steal ended up costing me a lot more than what the car was worth. I sunk tens of thousands into the Tesarossa (doing most of the work myself) and in the end the resale market was so depressed for TRs I took a $35K loss after it was all said and done, but we don't do things like this to make money, it's about the fun i guess. I know this won't be any comfort to you but at least you car is running, when I pulled the dipstick on mine when it was delivered the crankcase was full of chocolate milk from oil and coolant mixing caused by a broken head stud. The best had to be the electricals, serviced by a guy whose toolkit comprised of nothing more than cutters, electrical tape and marettes, what a nightmare that was.
My advice to anyone contemplating something like this is that you must a assume that the car has not been taken care of and fixed by incompetent mechanics. The powertrain and suspension should be disassembled, rebuilt and put back. It's the only way to be sure without documentation, there's no point in spending thousands on a gasket or pump here and there only to have something big fail a few months later.
