lance buddy... you have a lot of questions all of which are heading in different directions...

valve springs you could get away with a lot but ideally you need to decide if your putting a cam in and what the specs are on the cam. Thats a major factor in the springs you can get away with. also what type of rockers you going with... self aligning or non... if you go non you are going to need guideplates and if you go guideplates hardened pushrods...

i went with comp 918 beehives for my springs cause i wanted something that could handle the lift of my cam and not give me any valvefloat. with those i need the beehive locators, locks and retainers. also went with NSA comp pro magnum rockers, ARP 7/16" studs, guideplates, and comp chromemoly hardended pushrods. pretty much i like to consider it a bulletproof valvetrain.

as far as programming i went with madz...hes on the board and a sponsor.. great service and tune works perfect.

bottomline though is... if your contemplating doing this you need to sit down and see what your financial situation is and decide what you want to do.. then from there figure out what you need to get there. also have couple hundred extra just for problems you may run into during the install.. you could keep asking us questions all day but the answers will keep changing depending on the setup you go with

edit- and i agree on skipping the underdrive pulley for now... really aint worth it

ohh and this link should help answer pretty much all of your problems..