Long story short, 2 years ago I took apart my whole gen 3 5.7 hemi at 16 years old and have been trying to learn as much as I can. Fortunately, My love for engines is to much and I clearly am trying to become more of a gear head as more time passes on. With now being 18 and having the financial stability of putting this engine together, I want to turn this into my first project, nothing too crazy but want more performance as I am rebuilding it.

after long hours of constant research, I couldn’t quite find some answers to the questions I was looking for, while trying to use common sense through all of it.

my build? I’ve wanted to up the OEM camshaft, intake and its manifold and the exhaust system.

while this is the 2003 dodge ram 1500 that I have, coming stock with more torque than HP being a truck, I’m wanting to increase them both.

now I know a lower duration of a cam is the more low end of torque that I would get.

I’ve been looking at the https://www.compcams.com/stage-3-hrt-224-234-hydraulic-roller-cam-for-dodge-57-61l-hemi-2003-08-cpg.html

as well as…

intake manifold: https://www.modernmusclextreme.com/p-1001-gen3-hemi-sniper-performance-intake-manifold-mopar-throttle-body-compatible-by-holley.aspx#productTab1

CAI and good sized long tube headers.

As I’m aware of getting larger valves on those great hemi heads, what is the deal with the Cam bearings? This is a stage 3 cam and something tells me there should be some type of performance bearings for it, but that’s why I’m asking.

and one last question to top it off, is this going to be too much power for the flywheel, torque converter down to the diffs? She is 20 years old and this is a good 100-120 HP upgrade, what do y’all think of this ?

I would appreciate all the tips and suggestions, or if there’s something I’m missing, been waiting 2 years and I apologize for all the long talk, just want to make sure I make it as detailed as possible. Thank you.

 

What state do you live in? Being 03 you're very limited on ECM and TCM tuning. General consensus is you can run a 260 cam with a 91 octane tune from a superchips but you can't really go much farther on stock hardware.

If you're not in CA, you can swap the PCM/TCM to a 2005 PCM and unlock all the tuning you'd need to go bigger with the cam. CA that swap is possible but uh, I haven't figured out if it's CARB legal yet. Upgrade the valve springs to a 6.1 hemi exhaust springs before you break one. That's 16 6.1 exhaust springs for all intake and exhaust ports on your 03.

 

All of this^^^^
Except the springs are for all the intake & exhaust valves. Ports are just shaped holes.

 

You know I meant to say valves 🙃