Scarlet-Tech
Since either am in the military, and we have a ton of HVAC guys right next door, I may see if I can hire one for a case of beer and cost of equipment to do the repair for me. If I can, no harm no foul (post repair....)..  I honestly am glad I pulled all of the insulation off, because it was barely held on.  There was condensation about 5" above the actual case.. If I can get it repaired, I am going to push the tube in there, and seal it extremely well all the way back to the case in hopes of avoiding this issue.
 

 
That would be Great if you could get it repaired and continue your endeavors in Phase Change Cooling and not let this setback get to you.
If I had stopped Years ago when I encountered my first Major Component Meltdown, I wouldn't be still posting on this Forum Today.
 

Scarlet-Tech   
 
but, until then, let me see if I can break something else:
 

LOL, I'll be right behind you (I Guess We'll Never Learn.........)

So, should I slap in the 780.. the 780ti.. or a 980K|ngp|n?

Looking at your struggles around the insulation + head....why not use 2" heatshrink tubing?  McMaster sells "Moisture-Seal Heat-Shrink Tubing" that has a sappy sort of material on the inside that melts when you heat it up.

I couldn't get the mount off, as you may have missed, so there would been no betting heat sink tubing on anything unfortunately. If I have to tear it down, I will look into that though.

Scarlet-Tech
So, should I slap in the 780.. the 780ti.. or a 980K|ngp|n?

I would Test with the 780 first (or any older graphics card you may have) until you are sure everything is working well with the CPU LN2 Pot and there is No visible condensation that appears.

That was my thought process as well :-D. I have the two 780 classifieds, and I know some say to use Petroleum only, but I went back to something I know works, and sealed around most of the exposed Electronics with clear fingernail polish, as I noticed many amateur overclock Era do until they get everything correct.

The one thing I didn't account for was the backplate on the cpu block. It sits just under the lip of the test bench motherboard opening for the backplate, making it so that I can not screw the motherboard down, so I am probably going to remove the test bench from the equation (until I can modify the opening for the backplate) and just have it lying on the original box for testing.

Scarlet-Tech

The one thing I didn't account for was the backplate on the cpu block. It sits just under the lip of the test bench motherboard opening for the backplate, making it so that I can not screw the motherboard down, so I am probably going to remove the test bench from the equation (until I can modify the opening for the backplate) and just have it lying on the original box for testing.

I used eight of these extended stand-offs (1") to raise the MB from the mounting frame for additional clearance. 
 
http://comingsoon.radioshack.com/metal-standoffs-with-screws-4-pack/2760195.html#.VW78BGdFAdU
 
 
You could also use another set of standard MB standoffs screwed together two at a time for additional space.

One of these days when money flows better I will be doing all of this. Even if the tech is ancient. 
I currently feel like a junky going through withdraw.
 

Wow! Just one bad break after another...
 
Well, since it's sort of broken. I would take it all off and redo it. That way you will know for sure it's fixed and you can repair it if need be.
As to your cpu backplate. See if you can find someone who has a rampage board. They give you two types of backplate mounts. (I took my big one off to put the small one on instead.) The smaller one fits with just about everything.

Ok, so strange kicker now... The scrap Heap is an ice box (wink)... I get completely booted into Windows and if there is a vga driver loaded, I get "no signal detected". I have narrowed it to the driver, I am all the way back to 337.xx and still getting no signal after the driver loads..

If I boot into safe mode, I can remove the driver and boot into Windows just fine... What am I doing wrong here?

I used the evbot to bump the voltage up, and the cpu is stable, but I can't figure out what is causing the vga driver glitch. Using the dvi to RGB adapter also.