Lowering the Pony

[cgrant26]

It sounds to me like your taking a good approach to this, the first thing anyone should do when planning an upgrade is decide "How Much" you have to spend. Your budget is definatly a workable one. Before you start looking for parts, you need to ask yourself a couple of questions. Are you going more for appearance or for performance? Is this going to be a daily driver or a weekend warrior? Is ride quality an issue? (I.E how are the roads where you live) What are your long-term goals?
Without knowing the answers to these questions, I can tell you a few things your going to want reguardless. First off, with ANY drop your going to want a set of castor/camber plates. I have MAC aluminum plates on my 96' and they work pretty well for me. The MAC plates use urathane bushings which give a little bit more absortion of vibration but can bind up in extreme cornering. If you want to go a step better than MAC, I would reccomend Maximum Motorsports or Steeda CC Plates.
Something else you will need to take into consideration; if you go for a set of high rate springs, you will probably need to upgrade your struts. Your OEM struts may work fine for a while, but under high spring rates, they WILL go bad.
As far as springs, I have a set of Jamex springs and rear struts which drop the car 2" on all 4 corners. The car handles 300% better than stock with this combo but my ride quality has really gone to ****. In retrospect, I would have gotten progressive rate springs. I think for the CC plates and springs I paid about $250 by getting them on ebay. One thing I really would like to stress, buy reputable brands. I know too many people who ended up with shitty no-name stuff in the name of saving a buck. I hope this info helped you out. Let me know more specifically what you are going for and I can give you a little bit better direction.