For the GP...get in th General Tech Section and read the Safely Modding Your 3800 Thread I wrote...should help you out pretty well since you aren't too familiar with this platform.
Yes...you can...very much so...a lot of Cobra guys run down from the stocker to a 2.85" or 2.76" as a FIRST mod. Like Mini said...they are I/C'ed from the factory so they are a little conservative. And with headers and a intake/ported TB/plenum you can go even lower. Tunes do wake them up a lot but you can drop a pulley without a tune and not have to worry about anything.