You seem to have a plan and pretty much know what you want so I'm not going to bore you with the "go aluminum" rant. Should be a fun street car when your all done. 3.55's with a manual transmission should be very user friendly while still waking up the car. I just went from 3.08's to 3.73's (again) and I'm very happy but I also do very little freeway driving (more like never).