So some good news - after we did some research into a number of other build threads (thanks, Paul!), we saw that often times people need to move the flange bearing from outside the drivers footbox to inside the box. Once we did that, this slight angle change led to the steering shaft no longer touching the bracket for the gas pedal - great news! We still have the issue of the upper steering shaft touching the frame but i think we can solve that with some spacers under the pillow block.

We also installed the steering rack and the tie rods and attached them. I think this all went pretty well. We then attached the steering shaft to the steering rack - it was fun to see the suspension turn when you turn the steering shaft! Here are some pictures and a couple questions at the end.

Steering rack installed, before putting on tie rods:


Connecting a tie rod on the left:


Steering rack fully installed:


Steering shaft installed:


Pillow block:


We have a couple questions:
- When looking at other build threads, we don't often see a frame extension sticking towards where the driver sits where you mount the pillow block that far back (as you see in the above picture). It looks like FF drilled holes for the pillow block at the far end of the bracket. Should we move the placement of the pillow block further towards the front of the car and drill some new holes or just keep it where it is? It just seems like most of the time people mount this pillow block further forward. Either way, we'll need to add a decent sized spacer to raise the pillow block enough to keep the steering shaft off of the frame - I think this is ok, right?
- In the manual, it mentions to use threadlocker on the steering shaft but we weren't quite sure where - where do you guys use threadlocker on the steering shaft?

Thanks a lot, guys! Happy new year to you all!