[Treeve]

Even as an engineer who spends most of his time certifying ICVs, if someone asks me this at the start, I tell them to buy a registered one and rebuild it to suit what they are after. You still need to maintain compliance (so you can't swap an efi engine for a carbie'd side oiler), but you do get out and drive the dream. This is absolutely your best choice.

Too many nfinished projects go cheap because the owner can't take the heartache. Unless you've built and fixed at least one, I wouldn't recommend an unfinished project at all. There's too many unknowns for you at that time.

Do a kit as a second project if you have time and cash to build exactly what you really want.

Treeve