Sidewinder's Hybrid Build

[Sidewinder]

I'm going to create this thread in order to ask questions and have a record of my progress. In a few short weeks I will hopefully have the time and funds to start working on this project. I still need many parts, though I have a list that hopefully will cover everything I need.

To start off with, I bought a 3400 shortblock as the basis for the hybrid. I'm still working on taking it apart to clean it up as my time hasn't been in great supply atm.

Here is where it stands right now:









Anyway, I have a question to start off with. I want to get a cam, specifically I'm thinking a 1393 grind or a 1429. I haven't decided yet for sure but here are my questions:

1) I want to have a good powerband, but I do a lot of city driving and I don't want to sacrifice too much of bottom end power. Given that I am getting the 65mm TB, ported manifolds, and potentially ported heads with headers, what would you suggest be a good grind?

2) What else do I need to support the cam? I know that I will probably need valve springs and possibly custom push rods but is there anything else?

On and unrelated note, can I tune everything I need to with megasquirt (I was just looking at it today)?

[3400-95-Modified]

96 lumina, I would suggest doing a HP tuner setup over megasquirt, much easier since you already have a tunable setup... Let me know what number ECM you have and I can possibly get you a cross number of a 97 ecm and bin file you could work with.

Also you will NEED pushrods with any cam you do, playing the guessing game of preload with stock after a grind is never a good idea, also I will strongly suggest Comp springs if you go with a high lift cam, the will support the lift much better.

Cam suggestion.... Wait for someone else to chime in... I asked Ben for my suggestion.

[Sidewinder]

96 lumina, I would suggest doing a HP tuner setup over megasquirt, much easier since you already have a tunable setup... Let me know what number ECM you have and I can possibly get you a cross number of a 97 ecm and bin file you could work with.

Also you will NEED pushrods with any cam you do, playing the guessing game of preload with stock after a grind is never a good idea, also I will strongly suggest Comp springs if you go with a high lift cam, the will support the lift much better.

Cam suggestion.... Wait for someone else to chime in... I asked Ben for my suggestion.

That would be fantastic, I was still trying to figure out how I was going to tune it, that was the major hurtle I needed to jump over for this project. Once I get the tuner I'll let you know what the ECM number is (or when it gets warmer and I can work on the car).

Alright that's what I figured, I don't want to skimp on anything for this so I just wanted to know for sure what I needed.

I'll have a chat with Ben about it, I want to get everything figured out beforehand so I can just buy it when I start working on this.

Edit: By the way, your 'retta in your sig looks absolutely incredible. Very nice. I had a chance to get a V6 manual 'retta for $500 awhile back and I should have NEVER passed it up, still regret letting it go.