It will be a monumental task putting this together therefore you should consider sending PMs to those you would like to see as part of the endeavour otherwise you will not know whether it is feasible to move forward. If there is consensus between the key personnel you would like to participate then it makes life easier when going forward. If there is little (or zero) consensus, I guess that would be the end of the project.
As always, things have to come down to the finances as well. As far as total (estimated) first year costs are concerned, what sort of numbers did you calculate?
I'm not really interested in running this project, for reasons I have stated. I don't want to spend any more of my personal funds improving the forum when the funds meant to do so provide shelter and support to future felons. The most important part of this project will be the source of the posts. Will the search engine be based off the historical posts that LoyceV and Ninja have, or will it be the heavily modified/deleted version that Theymos will provide? Since he is backed by literally millions of dollars with no oversight, it's foolish to design anything against him, right?
The interest is there - all this project really needs is someone to bring together the talent and provide them a place to work. Also, determine right away if anyone is planning their own advanced search engine (like Ninja/JJ) as it wouldn't be worth it to compete.
I have a friend who is capable of doing this, i can reach out to him for this. If that is fine by you.
Is your friend here on the forum? If not, why would he be interested in doing this? This project is not paid so he would need to have an interest in the subject before he spent much time on it.