For SCCA Solo2 racing I would agree that you should not worry about trying to do too much too soon in the way of modifications to your car. I've raced for about 7 years in Solo2 in a '90 VW Jetta GL and the last 3 years with a '95 Contour SE. I've done a lot of research and have gotten a lot of track time. The most important thing is just to start racing and get as much experience as possible. That will make you faster than any performance mod that you can put on your car. Well except maybe tires. A good set of performance rubber is the best thing you can do for your car. Some SCCA regions like Detriot have both street tire(ST) and race tire classes. If your racing in a region that has an ST class I would recomend racing in that class with your stock tires befor spending the money on expensive performance tires or on realy expensive DOT race tires. It normally takes a little time befor people start to get fast and real competative and you'll probably burn and scrub off a lot of tire rubber getting there. But that's half of the fun. The next best mod to do would be brakes. Next I would suggest a good set of shocks to handle the extreme weight transfer that occures. You can go with a stiffer front shock valving up front but for the rear I would suggest a stiffer compression stroke and a softer rebound stroke on the shocks. This valving in the rear helps keep the rear from squating and transfering to much weight away from the front tires under acceleration which is were you need the weight for traction and grip coming out of the corners. Keep in mind that some mods will put you into a more competative class but the one that I've listed will keep your car in a stock class. You can also use a K&N air filter and any cat.-back exhaust that meets noise ordinances in a stock class. Just have fun with it!
