early 80's 911 rebuild

[fizzzzz]

First of all Id like to introduce myself as I have been buzzing around this forum for quite some time and have not posted until now. Ever since I was old enough to know anything about cars I have wanted a porsche 911 and I feel now I may have enough expierience in restoring cars as well as the extra cash to get my dream car. I currently have two mitsubishi 3000gts, one being a heavily modded vr4 and one a stock sl. The vr4 was my first restore as I bought it in shabby condition and it is now like new. I have been looking into buying an early 80's 911 but would like some input from some of the guys here to help me with my purchase. I have expierience with painting, mig welding, polishing, and have rebuilt the engine in my vr4 with good results. I know that porsche engines are much more complicated than the one in my vr4 but with the resources available im ready to learn about them. For those of you that have restored these cars (from the shell and out, not just fixing and replacing old/worn parts) Id like to know the kinds of funds it will take to have a like new, well running car. I currently have 16k and I am not sure If I should buy a decent condition running 911 and strip it down, recondition the body, replace worn or broken parts, or start by buying a shell, and hunting down parts that I want from parts cars or buy aftermarket parts, and finding a non running engine and rebuild. I would like my car to have a bit of power so I was looking at using a 3.2. Thanks in advance for your input.