Moving along with the hood.
Fixtured up the hood with some angle where it mounts to the chassis to prevent excessive sloppiness once we cut out the area of interest.
Ended up going with a butt weld joint instead of using a flange tool and making a lap. It seems that butt weld joints are the preferred method for sheet metal fab guys even though it's a bit more work to get it just right.
Got the skin graft fully tacked in. Surprising how well the RAM cowl curvature matches the S14's:
Next up is fully welding, grinding welds down flush, and working the sheet metal where it'll shrink from the welding to get it as smooth as possible before going body filler crazy.