[89lxinwky]

If emissions testing is not a concern, then go for the off road h-pipe. As far as the heads go, I ported and polished them myself, kept the stock valves, got a valve job, and TFS valve springs good to .542 lift. I thought about going to a bigger valve but I wanted to spend as little money on the stock heads as possible because I plan on upgraded in a year or two. With the last rounds of mods I did, there is a noticable difference. Along with the head work, I switched to a GT-40 intake and ported the lower a little to match up better with the heads. I also went from stock to 70mm tb, added the TFS stage 1 cam, and added an adjustable fpr. That got me from 8.78 @79 to 8.38@83 in the 1/8. This equates to around 40 hp increase.
First off though, you have to be able to get the hp to the ground and the biggest concern is tires. If you want to keep the 17" wheels, I'd get some 15" slicks or drag radials mounted on some old rims to run at the track. Before I did the last mods to my car, I raced an '01 Cobra and beat him narrowly. He probably had 50-60 more hp than me but rolling out a big cloud of smoke won't help the ET.