Duplicating Groups for Buddypress

If I wanted to make bp-groups an external plugin and change the name to, say: Projects, but at the same time, still be able to use the build in bp-groups.

It will act in a very similar manner as groups and have the same privacy restrictions but will have a few different tabs added to the pages. I was wondering how to most easily go about doing this and how I can make sure it will not be erased when buddypress or any other plug-ins are updated. (maybe make it into an external plugin somehow?)