Couple questions regarding a 914 project... Options

[dawendy01]

Hey yall, Ive lurked a lot on this forum, but havent been a very active member in the past. College work among other responsibilities dont allow much time to spend on forums but hopefully with the semester ending this week I will be able to sit back, learn and become more active here.

The point of my post is to ask to see what your recommendations are for a project. I have been looking and thinking about a '76 yellow 914. The car is currently a roller but the body needs very little work done to make it perfect. There is not rust in the hell hole, battery tray, or in any normal places. There are pictures of the car attached. The engine was rebuilt a coupe years back (or so I am told) and has dual webars with a good amount of other modifications that to me looked more like parts to make the engine stronger and not bore it out to a point that it is unreliable. I know that some maintenance would have to be done to the engine since its been sitting for a few years but it looked good from simply an enthusiast eye (I have very little mechanical knowledge). 95% of the parts seem to be present with the car with a LOT of extras including another engine and transmission that turns over and has compression, another 2 sets of wheels, set of seat, extra trim, etc.

The only spots with rust that really needs repairing is an arm to the suspension (which there is a brand new replacement arm that just needs to be welded in) and then a mount for the deck lick that the weld came off.

My question is what is a car that is perfectly sorted, no rust and good paint worth at the end? Reason I ask is I dont particularly like the color of the car and if I am going to hang on to it for a couple years I would want to do a complete respray which would include putting a lot of protection against future rust. I think this would add another couple K to the restoration/build, but since it is almost ready to be resprayed right now it wouldn't be all that difficult.

This is a good amount of work that would be necessary to get the car finished and lot of the busy work I can do, but I know I will need some help from some local PCA and mechanic buddies in my area.

I expect after the car is put together it will be worth $7-15k... but that is a VERY large margin.

Any advice from yall would be appreciated. Also any good literature yall recommend will keep me from asking questions to you guys that making you respect my mechanical knowledge less (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sawzall-smiley.gif)

Link to pictures: http://s150.photobucket.com/user/dwendell0...L/914%20project

What do y'all think?

Thanks,
Dan