I think I would move the engine back up to a somewhat factory position. This will allow you to use a lot of factory or manufactured parts. This will save you a ton of coin in custom parts and labor to fabricate to make all that work. Let alone the ability to work on the car easily. All for just some better weight distribution. You could full a full tank of fuel to help compensate for the added front weight. Lord knows the car is built pretty heavy from the get go.
I agree with Dan making a removable frame would be slick, but trying to make the floor strong enough to make that work well will take quite a bit of work. I think I would just powder coat the chassis you have and build a floor to go over it and move forward learning your lessons for you next build.
I think this build gives a classic example of why using a guy that does this work for living with a nice resume of completed cars is a solid reason why those guys cost more. Guys who work at home can do great work for cheaper. But things are more likely to come up in the life of the part time hot rod builder (kids, job transfer, divorce, etc ) and these things become the problem of the customer who went out on a lib trusting the builder who no fault or fault will not be able to complete the project.
I see this issue almost daily now in the current state of our economy. A guy goes to a lesser known or novice builder trying to save some dough, but has the best of hope and trust in a guy who for what ever reason cannot deliver. Guys wind up spending 2-3 times more money in the end when they should have just gone to the guy they thought they could not afford, but wanted to save some dough. These projects end up sold for pennies on the dollar or just project that will never ever be what the customer really dreamed they would be.
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