FUN PROJECT

You are starting out on the right track.

If you are driving the car, it is deffinately a good idea to start with saftey items such as the brakes and steering. Theres no use goin out and getting a nice paint job if you are gonna put it into the back of another car at a stoplight casue your brakes didnt work.

Once the car is in good condition safety wise you can do wahtever your wallet allows

Brakes are a good place to start. A disc brake conversion is a pretty popular project. There's a thread on it here on page 1. The search function will turn up a lot of ideas, too.

You can also get a lot of improvement by replacing worn suspension components. Usually they wear out gradually, and don't get replaced as soon as they should. Then people end up thinking that it's a crappy handling old car, when really the culprit is worn out parts. Most of the suspension parts are available at the local auto parts store.

I replaced my steering box a few years ago and it made a huge difference as well.