Oh man. You guys are tough. The good Bean is here for less than a day and we're already throwing him into the deep end with talk of the 5 speed. 
Alan has built more speedsters than any single person on the board. I think he's built more than SAS. (too soon?) He'd be a good brain to pick. Theron has done his fair share of partial builds/flips. Troy has cornered the market on Vintage refurbs.
Mango set the bar for individual builds. Brian comes in second with his blue speedster and his coupe. My thread is really only good if you want to see someone do the same thing two or three times. It's good if you want to watch someone slowly slip into insanity across 34 pages of ramblings. I think I upgraded motors 4 times in 2 years? I'm on my third trans-axle. Third set of front brakes.
Maybe we should rename my thread "Buy Once. Cry Once." ?