Hooker 2151's from Jegs or Summit are less than that uncoated. However, he doesn't need headers, he needs Nitrous.

You're first mod should be nitrous. You'll make more power than any other mod, and it will cost less. Beyond that, you'll only be putting the extra wear and tear of the extra power on the drive train and motor when you spray. The rest of the time it'll be a stock car, with stock levels of wear and tear.

Stock drive ability, reliability, and when the time is right open the bottle and lay the smack down.

Beyond that, when you tell people you have a Corvette with nitrous, none of them realize that you have a 250 RWHP car with a 100 HP shot that makes 350 RWHP on the bottle, they assume that it's like the movies. You're immediately considered to be as fast as any car in the universe. A vette with the bottle?! That's Viper fast, Lambo fast, Ferrari fast, etc... A lay person can't make the distinction between your car and a new ZR1 laying down 550 RWHP, or a new Viper that puts down 500+. In their mind, you're right there, if not faster... and that is just plain cool.

Spray that thing man. You can do headers, rockers, frisbee, etc... All kinds of small beginner mods and hope for what? 30 RWHP? 50 RWHP? Assuming you find a way to deal with the tuning headaches associated with those mods. You put in longtubes? Need to go to a heated O2 or the car won't ever enter closed loop. Move the cats? Good bye California Emissions. Do rockers and long tubes? Sure, it'll pick up some, but you'd better find a dyno tuner that can tune a TPI chip car to see the full benefit of the mods.

Nitrous does away with all those headaches, AND you'll make more power. 100% stock drive ability. No surging, no bucking, no funky smelling exhaust, nothing. Literally stock, and 100 HP (or more if you want to push it) greater stock. Those are your options. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. You decide at the flip of a switch.

A ton of people on here don't like nitrous, and nitrous has sort of a bad reputation in some circles. However, 90% of the people bashing it's use don't understand it or how it works. Do your own research, do more than listen to the story of "that one guy blew up his..."

Good luck.

 

I can't argue with Neat. Nitrous gets results.

However, I know myself and I would forget to fill the bottle or leave the valve closed or something stupid like that. And I'm one of those guys that likes the sound of a lopey idle through open pipes, when you can stand beside the car and feel the ground shake. Probably because of my stupid 6th grade science teacher. She made fun of me in front of the whole class for thinking cars can make vibrations. That &|+(#!!!

 

I also agree with neat, also find out what gears you have, if you have 2.59 or whatever the 89 had go up a little to something like 3.07 thats what my 94 has and I almost get 27 mpg on highway. Then if you want more edge tq converter advertise .5 in a quarter. The tq conv. will get you into the 13's. If you want a good sounding exhaust try for straight pipes first, see if you can handle the drone. These will be cheap to put on. I found out after many headaches and putting stock back on the only way to avoid it is corsa which is 1200 bucks. Then nitrous w/ tq conv and nitrous you should be running 12's

 

sorry low 13's and the coolness factor is there too lol

 

My recommendation is to drive the car 6-8 mos regularly, and you will see what needs replacing first.

In the meantime you can read and do your research on goals and form a plan for mods, along with a budget.

If you suddenly get the itch to change something, just do the catback exhaust first.

 

if your mod budget + price of the car starts getting big a lot times the line between c4 and c5 get really blurry... not just in price

However, the exhaust system is great bang for your buck. Get a true dual set of pipes or a new catless Y pipe if you can. I also reccomend changing the base timing from 6* to 10*. It will require premium fuel but its a decent jump. visit the the c4 sticky, vaders site and some of the others listed. Vaders site has a lot of links to other sites.

 

Bottom line is any mod that will increase the efficiency of the air pump (your motor) will increase the horsepower. As far as heads and cam go I would buy the heads to match the cam all in one big package. Anything else you do is up to you. If your a speed freak like me then your probably gonna do it all anyway so get whatever it is you want in whichever order you want. From my personal exp. and from what I have read intake and headers help the most. Dont buy that air-foil its garbage they stole my money on that.