I wonder if the trans mount might be too tall, tilting the front of the engine too far down? I looked at three subframes last night. Each has a top-hat section in the lateral cross-member joined with a flat (what looks like) rectangular tie-in. I wouldn't want to cut anything in this area without being able to reinforce the cut-out section. The forward lateral carries little load, but the rear one carries a lot of the cornering loads.