Morning Doug,
Sorry your project went south.
I really likes Dan's idea of a full frame car. I would consider a chassis from the Roadster shop as they already have one ready to go and debugged !!.
I am not sure why you stuff the motor back so far. It is going to cause you another world of problems. Foot well space will be sparce at best. Unless this is a dedicated race car. Your going to have problems putting a radio, air or heat in the car.
I've been down the road your on with my last project. I had a lot of fun building the truck but thank God I am only 5' 6'' tall because if I was any taller I would have been really cramped in the cabin due to the fact that I moved my firewall back only 2". It's amazing what happens when you start moving things.
Buy the Roadster Shop Chassis. Have Dan make a new floor and plop the body on your new powdercoated chassis.
Heck you can send them your motor & trans and they can send you back a complete chassis with exahust and all plumbing complete and ready to hand off to Dan the Man. And trust me Dan can do some awesome metal work.
just my thoughts.
[email protected] ( just in case you want to bounce idea's off me as I've been in your shoe's before. )