[me and my metro]

Your 96 is OBD2 and has a crank sensor on the bottom behind the crank pulley. You need to keep that for your car to pass DEQ in Portlandia. You can get away with a cam change and a transmission change leave all the rest of the 96 stuff alone. Make sure you have good compression and you will love it. I would find a 3.8 tranny for your two door and a genuine xfi cam if possible. If not PM me and I will try to hook you up with the cam grinder in Canada. He also used to make advance gears in 2-10 degree advances in 2 degree increments. I used a 10 degree advance and the engine ran out of breath at 3500 rpm. The factory xfi cam has 4 degrees cut into it. The regrinds are on a stock cam so you have to get an advanced gear to simulate the genuine xfi cam. The one I bought about 8 years ago is still running strong with no problems.