OK, it's time to upload some new photos....
When Gregg came to pay me a visit, he left a very cool pair of camber/caster adjustment plates. I tried not to waste much time putting them to use on my project. These are high-quality pieces made by a guy who specializes in front-wheel drive Chrysler vehicles. The plates are designed to be used with coil-overs, as opposed to the factory McPherson strut setup. This is not the final installation, but you can tell how they work from the pic.
With that in mind, there was only one thing to do - buy a "Drop Zone" coilover conversion kit, which utilizes the factory strut and conventional coil-over adjustment sleeves and springs. Here is the setup on a junkyard-fresh Neon strut. When it goes together for real, I'll have a new set of struts installed.
In this pic, you can see that the kit offers a pretty good drop, but there's still a little bit of room to get lower. Shorter tires will handle some of the drop, and some modifications to the coilover kit and mounting hardware will provide the rest.
This is how she looks with the fender in place. The tire tucks in a bit, and there's not much room for turning side to side.
The crossmember and oil pan are about 4-3/4" off the ground. With the smaller tires, this will be more like 3". I don't think I can go much lower.