Don't by cheap parts because you will be buying them twice.

 

Exactly.

 

no no, not that. exhaust and test pipe, search on the private for sale thread. find something you like the look of, if you will be taking your exhaust/test pipe/downpipe off a lot go with a vband. I would go intercooler next, piping as well. find a good tuner and talk to him. bigger injectors will get you on the road to E85, and a bigger fuel pump is a definite on this list. i would put exhaust up as #1 though because no matter what mods you do after, you wont get the benefit fully if your engine cant breathe.

an exhaust is an exhaust, if you want to go for all around lightness go for a full titanium but plan on spending a pretty penny, now if you buy a $200 one or even less but it is a full 3", it wont look pretty (probably) but you will still get the same gains, you just have to choose what matters the most to you. good luck and have fun

 

I can't speak too much to the mods since I don't have a lot of experience with the Xs but here are my reccomendations regardless of what mods you add later:

Tactrix Cable 2.0- $169
Widband Gauge- ~$200
Boost Gauge- $50-$200
Learn how to tune- Free and Priceless

The last one is obviously the most important. I'm not gonna lie, learning how to tune takes a lot of time but there are a ton of resources and information available on EvoM and other websites for you to learn how. If you can learn how to tune the car yourself, you'll save yourself a ton of money in the long run by not having to drop $400 for another tune everytime you add a new part to your car, especially if you don't do all your mods at once.

Even if all you do is learn how to read your car's ROM and log your car's data you could still save a lot of money on tuning by using an email tuning service rather taking it to a shop every time. Plus, it could potentially save you thousands of $$$ from having some jackwagon tuner put a garbage tune on your car that causes it to run like trash or even blow it up (trust me I know, it almost happened to me).

 

If you are looking to make your car faster you can always strip it down. Remove power steering and AC. You'll be so much faster! That's only if you're real cheap.

 

One answer: A $500 tune.

 

Yea...thats for sure going to be the first thing seeing that everyone has been telling me thats the biggest thing for 400-500 bucs...

 

true....true...

 

i appreciate the posts everyone, they have answered multiple questions ive had over the past couple of weeks. I think im going to look at the most common things here and add up the dollars and cents and see what i end up with...

 

It doesn't make any sense to just tune you X in its stock form when you'll be buying bolt-ons in the near future. That = waste of money x 2. Get your bolt-ons, and then tune it. Much more of a bang for your buck.

 

Very important

 

for instant grad get and TP, CB and tune. this will make you happy until you get more funds.

 

if you want the best bang for your buck, make sure the catback you're getting is FULL 3IN ALL THE WAY THROUGH. The greddy Tic is an very nice exhaust, but it comes stock with a bottleneck of around 2.8in at the flange where it connects to the cat. i know this cuz i have it on my car currently -___- will soon be upgrading to the Lite-Spec full Ti catback though!!

as others have said, Upper intercooler pipe can yield some gains and is normally very cheap.

Test pipe will yield the most gains by far though.

if you wanna stretch out 1k to the max, buy the parts used locally if possible. Here in socal we have such a large market of used parts that the only new items i've bought new are my wheels(i get industry hook up) and my soon to be lite spec exhaust. I currently have full bolt-ons (minus lower intercooler pipe), and both a test pipe and HFC for when i get sick of the smell =)

 

whatever u do.... dont buy from ebay please

 

"Test pipe will yield the most gain" ?? I thought people here are saying the opposite?