Installing grub directly to a file

[csj <csj@mindgate.net>]

I want to burn grub, along with a kernel, onto a cdrom. My present 
system has been to install grub to a floppy, make changes to that 
floppy, and finally "dd" the floppy to a file, which I then set as the 
boot image in cdrecord. Is there a way to install grub direct to a 
floppy image file produced, say, by the following commands?

dd if=/dev/hda of=grub_boot.fdd bs=1024 count=2880
mke2fs grub_boot.fdd

Is there a way for me to install grub directly to "grub_boot.fdd" and 
have a file system on that file at the same time? Following the grub 
doc, I have only been able to produce a 100K file which I can't loop 
mount to make the changes I want:

dd if=/boot/grub/stage1 of=grub_boot.test bs=512 count=1
dd if=/boot/grub/stage2 of=grub_boot.test bs=512 seek=1

alpha:/foo/tmp$ ls -sh
total 3.0M
2.9M grub_boot.fdd  100k grub_boot.test

-- 
Sir Isaac Newton:
"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."