some AX questions.

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Originally Posted by Adam

Before you go spend a bunch of money on suspension and what not I would go get a good alignment and change the tires. Just those changes will make a significant difference. I would resist the urge to mod too much at first and try to extract the extremely high performance your car is already capable of and just have fun with it. I see a lot of modded cars get smoked by less capable stock cars because driver skill is such a huge factor.

+1
The only mods that resulted in "instant lap time gratification" for me were good tires and alignment. All the rest could be measured in 1/10s of a second.

On a 90 second course it looks something like this:
Attend Performance driving school $300- shave 6 seconds
Add Comp tires and performance alignment $900- shave 3 seconds
Add PSS9 coilovers $3000- shave 2/10s
Add swaybars $1200- shave 1/10 maybe
Add shock tower struts $300- shave 0/10
Add 3.6L GT3 motor $18,000- shave 2 seconds
Remove 400 lbs of weight (free)- shave 1.5 seconds

You just have to figure out where you will get the most bang for your buck. We have a little old guy (former F-14 pilot) who regularly gets in the top 10 out of 100 cars in a bone stock 2001 Boxster. Modding cars is fun but the car doesn't really need any help.