nah, nah, you brought up a good one, that I'm not sure I have the answer to yet...
I'm still a little up in the air on the cage flange position.. originally, and what I'm leaning toward is putting the flange at the beginning of the angle up.. think Rene had his there..
reason #1 being the door access/foot room thing.... I REALLY want it thru the dash, and am committed to that.. I just think it's a tricker way than down in front of dashpad...
the con to putting it on the angle is if I do, it'll just be a staked cage flange.. I wont be tieing that to the frame.. upper shackle hanger is right there... not that I'm concerned, I'm certain of 2 already that'll be tied in, and possibly the rear center of the B-pillar area..
I did think of this when I put that front support in.. if I'm going to mount it to the support, the easiest solution at this point would be to tap that support.. at 1/8 thick it's not an ideal situation.. it'd hold fine, but when really tested, they'd probably rip out.. hopefully that day never comes... in other words, when I was capping the support, I thought "should I be welding nuts behind holes in there right now?"
and honestly, it would be a pretty bulletproof mounting for the cage in conjunction with the frame tie-ins I am definitely doing.... not quite as good as a frame tie-in in front of the support, but damn good, certainly better than a backing plate and sheetmetal... but I didn't want to commit myself to running the tube to that spot.. actually, thinking about it now.. I could have done 4 holes with welded nuts, then made the final decision when I lay the floor.. don't want/need them, just cover em up.. ah, it woulda just been more work last weekend..
so, after all that, I'm back to putting em on the angle, staked cage flange, right in front of the support...
anyway, that leads to your second question, floor material.. the floor is 10 gauge smooth... same as the back...
but speaking of diamond plate, I have a customer who offered to bring me all kinds of scrap aluminum dp that he gets.... cool, I'll take random hunks of that.. future projects and all..

actually I don't foresee much, if any use for diamond plate.. maybe some sort of small thing or something, but the majority of stuff is/was/will be the black composite.. rear panels, lower doors, console, overhead, plus the stuff I've done already...
wow, sorry, you guys can wake up now!!


