Looking at adding a mild/medium Crane Comp Cam ( no more than .470 lift) to my car below so stay with stock heads and rockers, springs.... While I am at it, we will probably port the intake runners/plenum and do a little porting to the heads.

I am hoping for very low 13s.

Is there anything else I can do to get a big improvement and into the 12s, I drive it everyday to work, I do not want anything radical and I do not want to send alot of money like new heads, and no blower or nitrous.

I was thinking of of a torque converter down the road, instead of going to 3.70 gears, I seem to hear mixed reactions on that one.

Will my stock chip be fine?

Thanks.

 

Im not sure what i could do to help ya out but Find a post by Mike Crews about his Vortech 383 there is alot of Info there and he is runnin mid 12 i think....very informative post..really long too..i learned alot...Good luck

 

If you insist on going the "mild" rout, low 13s and high 12s might be harder to reach.
About the converter. I'd say go for it instead of gears. With a good converter, gearing becomes less important. High stall with high gearing can be a great combo. The converter will help you get off the line alot faster, and will put much more torque to the wheels. Meanwhile your in each gear longer, thus making better use of the TPI's inherent powerband. And still get decent highway milage.
Alot of the LS1 guys are running 3.23 gears or worse and high stall converters and pulling 1.6ish 60 ft times.
So in short, if you get a good conv. you may want to keep your gearing.

 

I just do not want to get to aggresive or radical because I would have to spend alot more money, like on heads, and I drive the car 40 miles round trip to work.

I would like to get the torque converter seems like it would be even better on the street, off the line.

I'm hoping low 13's would be acheivable, then I would be completely satisfied.

How much is a good torque converter?

Would I need to do any prom work after the cam and converter?

 

A "good" converter starts around $550 I'd say, and up from there.
I spent $750 on my Yank 3200, and feel it is worth every cent. As most people will say who own a high quality converter. After you get used to it, the car will be faster on the street or the track, just harder to launch.
As for chip tuning:
The converter should pose no problems, just put it in and go. You may want to have it lock up later than stock, but it will be OK.
The cam will benefit from chip tuning. I'm not saying it won't run without some, and since your car is a MAF car, it should run OK. But there will be alot of potential untapped if you leave in the stock chip.