I helped a friend on his 1.0 metro racer at Bonneville last fall... much like the Samurai, talk about an undergog

I have another friend, who has set a bunch of records at Bonneville with 1.0 and 1.3 production Geo metros, but you said you don't care much about power, so
I have a few thoughts:
1) What a cool project!
2) Guys swap 1.0 and 1.3 fwd Metro transaxles between each other all of the time, same mating.
3) Unless you are a machinist and like to tinker, I would avoid relocating the distributor at all costs
a) The 1.0 is pretty short, even with the distributor hanging out the end. Are you sure it won't fit into the engine bay as-is?
b) If you must, you might be able to relocate it so it drives off the front of the cam, rather than the rear
c) you might be better off converting to coil-on-plug ignition x3, rather than trying to adapt/make a 90deg dist drive.
A link to Muph's 1.0 metro build for Bonneville
http://geometroforum.com/topic/2403574/1/