Dan, lemme give you some advice. The offer of beer for help is great, but you're talking about asking a bunch of yay-hoos that are really good at drinking beer while telling you how to build your car. See if you can get them to offer to bring beer for you and them when they come to help. Make 'em treasure the fact that yo'll let them in on such an awesome project.
Yeah. Really. Give it a try, at least.
Welcome to the world of having a build diary on the Forum.