I know it has been answered a lot already probably, but I got $500 sitting here, what can I buy for my Camaro that will make the biggest difference?
A Programmer, Headers, CatBack system, cutouts...what should I get?

 

I'd suggest a sticky set of tires or gears.

 

well.. a nice set of coated longtubes will run ya more than 500 so that is out of the question.
Catback
cam
1.6 rockers
gears
tires
some suspension stuff-STB, SFC, Panhard bar, springs

any of those would work.. that is not including install, if you have someone install it, you will be way over 500 on some of those items

 

i just bought a set of jet hot LTs for 500 shipped to my door.

 

get some jet hots... you will need them some day anyway

 

NX wet kit.

 

I would agree.

 

I like the gears and tires. They will help you on those stop light starts. If you look at dynos for headers the 6-10 hp wont do it for you. The bang for buck chart dynoed headers, free flow cat and cat back at a whopping 14hp for $1400!

 

Five hundred buck will buy gears and tires?

I thought they could buy the gears or tires.........

I would buy gears.

 

Nitrous is the best bang for the buck hands down! But, if your stock tires cant handle the extra power they will go up in smoke. The nitrous won't help you on the street if your into stoplight wars, especially with stock tires. I think that you should invest in a good set of tires first, nitrous second, and then gears. This is the easiest way to go from the high 13's to the high 11's. Yes Virginia, I said high 11's for just over $1000!

 

I don't think that your really making enough power to where tires are all that important right now. Is your car an auto or m6? If its an auto i would get some gears for now then a stall as soon as u can. But if its a m6 don't worry about the gears right now. Get either a nice cheap catback like Hooker or Magnaflow, or a Cutout(if you want an electric cutout go with the DMH, its the best hands down). If you go with just a regular cutout that won't set you back much money at all. So with all the money you save i would just continue to save a bit more and get urself some LT's. They will net you anywhere from 20-30rwhp. Another thing you can do would to get some 1.6rr's(7-12rwhp) or some 1.7rr(12-20rwhp). Both can be done for cheap but you would have to upgrade ur springs to handle the extra lift. But you won't see the real benifit from these unless you have some headers. Nitrous would be the best bang for the buck and can be done for $500. But i wouldn't recommend doing that untill u have all the bolt on's first and untill you can get all the saftey equipment to make it safe to run on your car. With all of that you would be looking at around $1000 for the complete nitrous kit.

 

If your on a budget like me, id pick up a set of pacesetter long tubes, and fab up a custom dual setup. Basically anything you do will need headers, so might as well get it out of the way first. I got mine for $320 shipped to ontario and ill be making more own dual setup for about $200.

 

But you forgot about the cost of the Y-pipe to hook it up to the current cat-back. That's another $200+

To start with I would say, CAI and Cat-back.

Then, when you get money:

For HP:
headers
cam kit
Tune

For Handling:
Sub frame connectors
Shocks
Big Front Sway bar
Tires/rims

Dan

 

no is olnly a 120 bucks for 3" ypipe and 3" out the back and duals is even cheaper than that

 

Ok thanks guys...

Iam thinking of maybe getting an airfoil,cutout and muffler for now.
I do not want to go crazy and make it an all out race machine, I dont want nitrous or a cam for right now. I just want a nice sounding quick little car, for mostly street and a little strip.
I got a oval Sprint car with an all aluminum 410ci chev smallblock in it that puts out 900+hp, that gives me enough racing excitement!