Blueracer:
Welcome to the dark side!
I learned most of the basics on this site, and by reading through gnttype.org. Just do a search on this site and you'll find that you can blow by about two hours just reading old posts.
When I bought my car, I wanted to hop it up a bit but still retain reliability and the ability to go back to stock if need be.
Before you do any upgrades, you'll want to make sure your fuel system is in good working order. Start by:
- Go to the spring cleaning section of gnttype.org and do everything on the list. Get the car running good before you start adding parts, because you'll find that it's harder to find the gremlins once you start turning up the wick and making upgrades
- Upgrading your fuel pump and add a hotwire kit (I used a Walbro 307)
- You'll need an adjustable fuel pressure regulator (I have an Accufab, but you'll find that just about every tb vendor sells a good one
- Start with a mild chip for 93 oct. Jim Testa programs great chips and is a pleasure to work with
- Gut the cat or lose it altogether if you can. You can turn the boost up as much as you want, but I still feel that running through a cat is like farting with a cork in your a*s
- Scanmaster would be a great add-on at this point
- Cold air kit? Optional, but I think it's well worth it as your car will just breathe better. I have a big mouth cold air kit from Mark Hueffman. Can't be beat, and the car sounds like an animal.
Once I got to that point, I went ahead and did my exhaust just because I wanted to. Just about any aftermarket system out there will flow a little better than the stock crossflow muffler setup, and will sound better as well. I went with a stainless system from ATR. Spend the money on a good exhaust system now and you'll never have to buy one again.
Another fairly inexpensive modification, but one that I feel yields some seat of the pants results, is a modified neck on your intercooler. Contact Keith Mease at Mease Performance - he can redo a stock core for you and it will look like factory.
I also did a Terry Houston Downpipe. Yeah, it was overkill with the stock turbo, but I thought the stocker looked like dog crap, and I (personally) felt that it spooled faster (well, at least it was a lot louder).
Once you're at that point, focus on tuning and then you can decide how much faster you'd like to go. I basically went with injectors and a TA49 turbo at that point, and found that I was going PLENTY fast on the street
Hope this info helps!
Rich
