When making your first modifications you have to think about where you want the car to be years down the road to save yourself money. You can go ahead a drop 200 bucks on a cold air intake, but if someday you plan on supercharging it you just wasted 200 bucks. You can go with a simple head, cam, and intake, but what happens if someday you want to go with nitrious then you need to get some different heads to do it right. You need to make upgrades that your not going to throw away someday because you go bigger. Gears are a great idea. Unless your going to a straight drag car if you go with 4.10s you will never need to change them. Also someone said a Short throw shifter this also is a great idea. Its a great idea and should never need to be changed. Tires are a great way to hook up, but make sure you dont spend a fortune on tires just to next year want different rims, and then have to buy tires all over again. A good rear suspension is a great idea to help you launch the car, if your looking to race the car alot. I have seen a car with 100 less horsepower win in the quarter mile because someone had slicks and some suspension work. Just make sure to plan ahead, there is no reason to buy shorty headers, just because you only have 300 bucks right now and its a simple bolt on if someday you want a full 3 inch exaust with longtube headers. Just plan ahead and you can save yourself alot of cash.