Hey guys I'm building a budget 5.3 to swap in my 79 lifted k10. I'm putting a 5spd trans behind it. I want to get some decent power and some low end torque out of it. The cylinders are in great shape and I've had the crank checked and ground .010". What's a good place to start with this. I want to bump comression up do a mild can with long tube headers no cats keep the stock heads and intake and tune it. Probably keep the stock rods but new pistons and rings.

 

Why do you want to do pistons? If you do it would be silly to limit selection by I doing stock rods.

 

I want to bump compression up around 10:1. I'm thinking about finding some used 4.8 Pistons maybe or the 5.3 flat tops as this is an lm7 I'm starting with. I know a lot of you guys are putting these in cars and don't really care about anything under 3k rpm but I don't want this to live at 6500rpm. My usable hp range is going to be around 2000-4500 with some sprints to 6k or so. I'm setting my goal somewhere around 400hp to the crank maybe a little more and I'd hope to have a peak torque number around 4500 rpmish. So what would be some good cam choices for me. Also what have you guys been using for good lower end bearings as the crank was turned .010"...I don't want to skimp here.