Engine rebuild (maybe), i got a few questions

[super vw]

ok, first off a little about the car. Its a 74 super beetle with 141,000 miles on it and a stock 1600 (i think) that was rebuilt in 1991(not sure what that included). The car was sold with 15,000 miles on the rebuild and im guessing about 1000 miles was put on it durring a 6 or so year period after that. Then i picked up the car in 1999 (my first car when i was 13). I put maybe 30 miles on the car from 1999 till now. so its been siting for a long time. The engine does leak a little around the bell housing and around number-1 cyl, every thing else is dry.
So the reson i removed the engine was to clean up everthing becuase it was filthy dirty (mud, oil... ect) the owners before me lived on a farm with 2 teenage sons (can you say farm baja derby in the dirt, lol).
The engine seamed to run fine, but i never really drove it myself as i was to young so i cant say much of its performance.
What i do know is that the engine was totaly nastly and i needed to do somthing about it before i got the car up and going again. so as i stand i have it down to a long block, i cleaned it up real good (took me 5 hours over two days) and was looking around and it seams like lots of things are getting old and the oil is real dirty, there is a lot of nasty black scum in the rockers/heads, pistons are full of carbon(tops) , the barrels are all rusty on the outside, along with the push rod tubes and valve covers.

So i got to thinking why not take the heads off ,valves and such to, and put them in the hot washer (father works at the VW,Audi, Porsche, BMW dealership/service shop) and then thought, well why not go through the whole engine and clean up EVERYTHING inside the case and inspect its condition? I personaly feel i should becuase it would be a great learning experience for future engine builds (maybe) and i would know everything is clean.

So the question is should i crack her open and clean her up to perfection? and inspect for worn items? What should i look for? what should i replace anyways?
I want to make at least 85 HP, 90-100 would be perfered. I cant spend to much all at once, right now as i stand, i only can spend $500, as im a full time student with a part time job.
Im going to be using the car for a fun daily driver/ Auto-X racer so i need a reliable, clean, torqy motor with good fuel economy.
Any ideas on performance parts to use to obtain this? on a budget mind you... I would like to try and keep the cost of a total rebuild to under a grand. and reuse as many stock parts as possible to keep the cost down.
I would also like to have a full flow oil filter system so thats one other reson i would think to crack the case apart.

Would the Bug-me engine rebuild video be wortwhile?

Thank, and any questions i need to answer i would be happy to.

Jonthan

[kdanie]

I doubt if you could get 85hp for $1000 but you could go through the engine and upgrade it some.

I would take it all apart and clean everything, check the crank replace with stock if necessary, resize the rods/new small end bushings, have the case and heads bored for larger cylinders(90.5mm or shoot the works and go to 94mm, your call), pick an aftermarket cam (not too wild, maybe an Engle 110, especially if you keep it single carb), clean up the intake and exhaust ports slightly and a fresh valve job, find a good 1.5" merged exhaust and have some fun.

ken