as for the money up front, get a loan and buy one, even after you pay the interest, the cost of building one yourself costs alot more then the loan would.

I was looking at nearly $25,000 total spent before I finished mine, but I did buy alot of good parts that were not nessasary, like microtech, big turbo, manifolds, expensive diff etc.

Wish I'd just spent 15k on a finished one.