I am looking for someone to recommend a recommended mod list, in order from first to last. I have about 750 miles on my vehicle so any day now I should be starting up the modding fun... (nana)
looking for conservative recommendations, meaning no crazy powerful mods such as turbo upgrades....... but rather stuff that will keep the car nice looking and under the radar persay.
I see it a bit differently, but everyone has unique preferences.
This is the fourth turbo car for me. I've mildly modded them all. My take on this is that if you are modding for appearance, then it's just a matter of your own individual taste.
But if you are modding for performance, want to stay stock looking and more of a "sleeper" with substantially better performance, consider this:
1. A good CAI intake, rather than a SRI -- spend a bit more, but get true cold air from the left front fenderwell.
2. A 3 inch downpipe and race pipe to replace the highly restrictive stock downpipe and those two crappy cats. Connect to the stock CBE -- you will not see power gains with aftermarket CBE's unless you go to a bigger turbo. If you don't have state emission checks, go catless. You probably will get a check engine light. Get it read at Autozone to confirm that it is due to being catless and live with it. There are some ways to minimize or possibly eliminate it.
3. If you do both of the above, go one step colder on your spark plugs. No benefit from this unless you've done #1 and #2.
4. Stay with your stock BPV for starters. Most of the BOV crowd are interested in the sounds they make rather than performance. If you go BOV, for gosh sakes, do not run it VTA, as you are just screwing up the air to fuel ratio and costing you power. Our MAF controlled ECU needs the released boost air to be recirculated back into the intake.
5. Invest in some sort of tuning device so you can see where you are going with your mods. Many here like the Dash Hawk, and it will identify your CEL's and clear them, as well as give you accurate data logging for improved engine performance or whether you are running into any problems. I like that, but I now get more benefit from onboard data collected by an accelerometer during WOT runs -- GTech Pro RR. It tells me a lot about real world performance where the tires meet the road without having to spend a lot of time and money on dyno pull or waiting in line at the dragstrip.
