My neighbor let me have some fun with his GT2!!
Motor plate is all hand cut out of 1/8" (3mm) aluminum. Certainly not as clean as CNC, but I think it's pretty good for hand cut. The support brackets have some cleaning up to do. Ideally I would just remake them out of thicker metal so I could tap threads right into the aluminum and lose the locknuts.
Batteries will be saddle packs that slide in from the side under a top deck where the esc and Rx will be located on. The standard size steering servo will stay.
For now the motor is a crappy Chinese thing... I got bored and 'opened her up' a bit.
Jon