You know I'd love to help out on the project.
156V system that can pull decent amperage is going to be quite heavy with lead and take up a lot of room. I'm guessing you want some decent capacity though, not just a couple kWh pack? If you only need ~1kWh there is someone on craigslist in milwaukee selling an
06 Prius battery pack for $350. It is around a 240V pack.
I also have that AC motor controller (same as Tom's neon) that I picked up for a good deal off ebay, and that spool of 1 or 2 ga wire. I'm not using them (and don't know how soon it would be until I got to use them), so they are for sale and were very reasonably priced (which is why I picked them up).