JimP,
Have you considered purchasing a wrecked viper instead of waiting for the 2003 models to trickle out? If you plan carefully and are skilled at (or know people who are) custom fabrication, this should be a very exciting and unique project. Here's a nice EM with a viper engine owned by Rich:
http://home.earthlink.net/~bbentonsprint3/P1010009.JPG
If we could dig up his email he would be a great guy to speak with too. Good luck and keep us posted!
Mike