I have done a custom OS for my college 2 years back as a hobby project named
SSN LINUX OS ;) and distributed it among friends and juniors. ;) LOL
When i had been to FOSSCONF'09 as a Speaker to Thiyagaraja College of Engg,
Madurai came across exactly what you are planning to do, that distro was
called TOSS.
I had a list but couldnt recollect it right now.
http://www.icivilengineer.com/Open_Source/
http://registration.fossconf.in/smedia/slides/Open_Source_Engineering_Simulation_Tools.pdf
Happy remastering !!!
Good Luck :)
Saravanan Sundaramoorthy
Red Hat Certified Engineer
+91 99404 32545