Time to unleash your car's true power, but where to start and how much to invest? Before you start ordering crate engines, forged pistons, Greddy turbos, and replacing the interior of your car with lightweight aftermarket parts, take a step back and decide how much you are willing to spend to increase the performance of your car. If money is not something you have to consider, then order the largest Greddy turbos that will fit under your hood... for that matter, grab the largest turbos and get yourself a new carbon fiber hood that fits, don't forget the inter-cooler, Engine Control Unit, new HI-PO engine block, and all the new internals that need replacement with adding turbos.

Now for the rest of us that have to work for a living and do not have access to several thousand dollars to invest into the car, here are some ideas that are not as costly. Look at the airflow of your vehicle, replace the factory air filter with a Cold Air box or at least a high flow filter. You can find a high flow filter designed for your car to run between $30 and $80. Once you have the air moving into your engine, you need to increase the flow of it leaving. Several companies make a decent exhaust system for just about every vehicle, although Borla leads the way, HKS and Greddy also have good products, Manga-Flow and Flow-Master are also decent. Be cautious that you get what you pay for with exhaust systems, the higher end systems will cost more. Another modification that from which you will gain an increase of power is replacing the factory ECU (Engine Control Unit) to a "tuned" or "mapped" aftermarket ECU. A similar method is to reprogram the ECU with a programmer from SuperChips, Hypertec, Diablo, or Venom.

These three idea are relatively cheap when considering modifying or increasing the car's performance. The forced induction air filters start at $30, but can run up to $500 if you select the K&N FIPK for larger engines. A superior exhaust system from Borla is going to run you around $1000, but it is well-worth the money. The other respectable exhaust systems will cost between $400 and $800, depending on your car and if it is dual exhaust. Start small with adding performance parts to your car. Without a set game plan of what you want to start with, you could invest a large sum of money into increasing your vehicles performance.

Learn more about this author, James Stayer.
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