Since the cabinet is already gutted, why not restore the cabinet itself to a DK while throwing a PC in there to MAME it? No one is going to care especially if you make it easy for it to become a full DK with the addition of a game board, CP, and monitor.
Or, were you going to carve off the front to put a huge 4 player cp on it or something?
In my book, as long as you are moving the cabinet back toward its original condition, you can't do anything wrong with it.