NIB GT.

Well lets talk budget first. What is your budget? A custom leather interior will likely be $2000+. "Knock off" rims will likely require new rims (or discs) and possibly custom offset wheels. A 914 engine (Type 4) will probably be 2-3 times the cost of a comparable type 1....maybe $4000? Going with something other than VW for a powertrain will be very expensive unless you are very mechanically trained. Are you farming things out or doing it all yourself?

So that brings me to your abilities. Can you weld? Can you fabricate? Creating a "gated shifter" will be challenging for sure. Custom engines will require a lot of fabrication and engineering. Are you ready for that?

As far as things you should pay close attention to I would suggest the following:
1. Rebuild all vital components like suspension, brakes, bearings & fuel system. Stock drum brakes will be fine, but upgrading to discs is not a bad option either. Replace all your suspension bushings. Use cheap oil shocks. Add front beam adjusters. Make sure your steering box is adjusted correctly or replaced. All brake lines, hoses and cylinders should be replaced.
2. Use a quality wiring harness
3. Consider a pan drop or a body lift.....or even both.
4. Spend the money getting the stock seats improved.
5. Relocating the shifter makes it easier to drive.
6. Build it stock-ish and well first and add upgrades later

And lastly....more of these cars get covered in dust because first time builders have grand visions that they cannot accomplish. Building a kit car, in the way it was designed, is an accomplishment in itself. Thinking you can turn a Bradley into a Ferrari is a recipe for disaster. It will never be a high performance car. And understand what your end product will be. You can dump a ton of money into it and it will likely never be worth more than say $6000 (for something VERY well done). Build it cleanly and smartly and you might make a little bit when you go to sell it. If you have some sort of exotic plan for it and I can assure you it will be a money pit and you will only get a very small fraction of your investment when you try to sell an unfinished, hacked up, project.

Good luck and enjoy the journey!

Well it certainly seems like you are ready to go. Have you ever built a custom car from scratch (not restored) before?

Just curious as to what "a lot to a VW engine for not too money" means?

Check the width on the SLK seats. If you do use them (and they fit width wise) you will need a pan drop AND a body lift. Gauges in the SLK are all run through the computer. What is your plans to connect them to say the VW fuel sender? What about the charging system? What kind of harness do you plan on using to integrate the SLK parts into the stock Bradley harness? What interior parts do you envision being able to use?

You can find a non-running SLK with good seats for under $1000? That's pretty impressive.

Best of luck...you are taking on a huge project.

I saw a few race kits for vw with heads and case for a 2.1 for 2600.00 but it didn't give me the estimated hp. I had read about using a 914 engine but was thinking with all the performance parts available today the VW engine would probably be as good or better for less.

Wow..$2600 for a 2.1 case and heads? That's a great price. Where did you see it? CBPerformance is about $4100 ( www.cbperformance.com/product-p/1183.htm ). Of course you will need to add carbs, exhaust, ignition, etc to the final price. That might get you real close to your $6k budget alone. And you still need to add the leather interior, the chassis refresh, the wheels & tires, the electrical, and other misc stuff.

Some nice retro style gauges with senders would look nice and be a bit easier to adapt. You are probably looking at $500 or so for those.

Yeah...I would definitely measure things up. I am not entirely hopeful that SLK seats would fit.

I still think you may have issues with the SLK seats especially with the power units. The stock seats sit about an inch off the floor and the car I built really needed a 3" body lift to make them usable for a 6 footer.

Those engine kits look complete. You will need some pretty decent sized carbs to feed that motor and they can get a bit price ($500-$600). Ignition shouldn't be too bad not should the exhaust. It will add up fast though.

These cars are so easy to upgrade. The best way is to build it...enjoy it...and upgrade it over time.

Hello kdash.
What part of Michigan are you located? I know there are a few of us in the state, I'm near Kalamazoo, there are acouple people on the east side of the state near Detroit, one by battle creek, and a couple north of Grand Rapids.

If you are able to attend, you can meet a lot of great contacts here for VW parts, and they have a swap meet area, also new parts vendors sometimes show up.