So I had a picture of the starter somewhere... Not sure where it went but the first time I tried starting her up the power steering pump kicked on right away with the key on, also could not read anything with my OBD2 reader, so the ECU was fried from the saltwater. Attempted to engage the starter, you could hear the battery draw and the solenoid inside of the starter click, however no rotation. I had a spare starter from a parts car laying around, I removed the old starter and found that it was completely seized, the arm would not extend and I could not spin the gear by hand or with a pliers. Put in the other starter, starter engaged with the key, plugs out, no moisture found inside of the engine.
Changed the oil on both the transmission and engine, both oils were very very fresh, no water content. No evidence of water making it past the air filter, so I didn't bother removing the intake to check for water.
Had two ECUs flashed by Paul Hibbs via the spyder chat Facebook group, reprogrammed the keys to the ECU, engine fired after the first second of cranking... Friggin nuts...
Had lots of running noise though, one of the running noises being the throwout bearing. I changed that in one night except I kind of buggered up the passenger side CV shaft seal which I am going to try and replace tonight or tomorrow. The other noise once I fixed the TOB noise was the tensioner pulley. After replacing that the engine runs as quiet as it can be.
Put on a header that I gutted the pre-cats out of, planned on selling the 21k mile header from the car to someone who may need it to pass inspection. While I had the header off to remove the transmission and everything I found water sitting in the midpipe, did the right thing and just shoved a vacuum down the mid-pipe for a few minutes and sucked out a decent amount of water.
The exhaust does have some rust spots pretty much everywhere, and while the car was running at the beginning was putting out some rusty water, but that seems to have subsided.
Hardest part about this car is my wife is very opinionated... She did not like the peanut butter interior and soft top right away, wanted me to change over the top and interior from Spyder #5.
Thankfully now she's kind of come around on it and is willing to keep the peanut butter around. Hopefully part of the reasoning is because I told her it's pretty much sacrilege to take the car apart as she sits and change her from OEM with so few miles on her.