[ragtop5point8]

hey, welcome aboard. Congrats on your first stang. For starters you did the right thing with the air filter, thats a nice cost efficient mod. I know you said your budget is about 1k-2k, which sounds like alot, but in this sport, unfortunately its not. You were in the right direction when you started talking about exhaust. that in my opinion is a great place to start. If you can do the majority of work yourself, youll find yourself alot happier, (and your wallet too). Definately start by ditching the cats. Throw on a off road H-pipe. That'll free up a few horses and for the most part is pretty cost efficient. Look around on the net and you could probably get one for $100. After doing that think about ditching the stock mufflers. Flowmasters are pretty decently priced and are usually pretty good sounding. Assuming your doing the work yourself you should have about $1500 to play with. The next thing you could do would be the headers..that is a personal opinion. Long or short etc. ceramics are worth it, but pretty pricey. An underdrive pully set also isnt a bad idea. It's a pretty easy 15-20 horses for under $100.(depending on the kind you get).An electric fan might do you nice, maybe even an electric water pump. The possibilities are endless..of course you could just spend the 2k on a supercharger..Good luck!!