Jason,
Lot's of great advice above, especially getting together with your local Club Cobra members and exploring this web site. Late in 2007, I was were you are now ... wanting to build a Cobra, but not sure where or how to start.
One other suggestion is to get Curt Scott's Complete Cobra guide (
http://www.cobracountry.com/home2.html ... then click on the Cobra Buyer's Guide tab ).
Some of it is out of date, but it's a good place to start and a good reference. Makes for interesting reading and another good source of information.
Best of luck to you.
- Tim