I was wondering like what order would you select parts for a car for everything to match and work well together? Like the cam, stall, rear end, engine parts matching, etc. Sorry if this sounds dumb but im just wondering.

 

decide what you want and then go hunting. buy the big ticket items first. hunt until you get it cheap - hunting is half the fun.
do a lot of research and make sure you know what you are going to buy.
decide what you want to do.
i like changed my mind hundreds of time and im still doing it. but i started out with getting a tpi complete and worked the engine around that. i also went out and bought and installed new seats and interior - since i sit in it i wanted to see it look good from the inside.
then i started looking for great deals. not good deals, great deals.
dont be afraid not to spend money.
good luck and plan to spend 4 or 5 years working on it.
when i have all the engine parts, i have the cam, headers, heads, tpi, then i will take 5 days off, pull the engine and rebuild that.
already did the suspension - nothing fancy, its already a sports car.
but that is just me.
we have some people on this board who have build outrageous rides - real beautiful works of art with 500 hp.
im not like that - but i want it nice, so i will keep doing little things until its done.
if you dont like working on cars - dont even start.

 

Realistically, you should do it in a somewhat rational order. I have always decided upon the displacement of the engine. Then I consider the goals of the engine. I would then pick heads that have the potential to meet the HP requirements. Then one must pick a cam that will work with the heads to meet that potential. Finally when you have decided on cam and heads it should be relatively easy to decide on the proper stall converter.

 

Very good idea building your engine on paper first!

- I picked a HP or $ goal
- picked a displacement
- picked an induction setup (carb, FI, forced, natural, Nitrous, etc)
- picked rotating assembly
- picked heads and head gasket to get CR desired
- cam based on RPM
- stall and gears

personally? I do pistons before heads, just because pistons are harder to replace then heads. You can get different CC chamber heads to get your desired CR using heads, once you pick your pistons... Rather than the other way around