Was thinking about doing one of these, and I'm curious as to if I should stay away from the iron head motors and look for an 86 and up. I need opinions, advice. I don't know much about the iron heads. What I do want is a bike that I can strip down and run barebones, not a lot of electronic BS to deal with. Opinions welcome.

 

I was thinking about buying a rolling chassis for about $4k -$5k and trying to pick up a salvage sportster for $2k - $3k.

The dealer could do any needed engine work.

 

You can get a bare hardtail frame for under $1K. The other parts to make it a rolling chassis can come from the $2-3K sportster and you've already saved $3-4K.

 

A fair amount of unfinished/lost interest projects out there. Shop craigs list to start.
As for iron sportsters - mine has been a super solid for 30+ yrs.

 

Check out chopcult.com They have a lot of people doing similar projects. Seems like everyone over there is into shovelheads. I would use an evo motor for this project for the intersection of simplicity, reliability, and cost.