Your premise is probably wrong if you don't accept that a cam for a stock 96" motor will be a significant compromise on your later 103" build. Unless your idea of a 103 is only a cylinder/piston change, any other 103" build will include head work and signficantly higher compression than you are now running. Consequently, the cam you choose now for a stock 96" will not be a particularly good choice for, say, a 10:1 CR 103" build with good head work.

Since a 103" build with head work will cost north of $1K (even doing the work yourself), you will essentially be letting a $275 cam choice now compromise the choices in, and the performance of your 103" build--not a very good decision IMO.

Either save your $$$ now instead of buying cams and the expense of their installation so you can build the 103 later, or buy cams that will work well with the stock 96. You could buy cams now for the future 103 build, but they won't work very well in your stock 96.

HQ-500 cams are a popular choice and I have them in my '04 88" EG and haven't thought about a 95" build since. You can go to HQ's website and see a side-by-side comparison to the SE 255 in a stock 103" application.

Good luck with your project.

 

I rarely see anyone mention S&S cams. Anyone have an opinion?

 

Nothing wrong with S&S....

 

I put the HQ500 cams in, I'm very impressed any happy