I guess it means people who will try to screw you over but like series Volvo, lets say I do get the cat exhaust, what other things should I put in the keep the cars current performance, I was looking and I don’t want to add a performance chip cpu, I did see that I can do things with the air intake system, haven’t looked into suspension and the trans. stuff doesn’t matter since its an automatic, but I can use it as a stick(so I would like your thoughts on that), engine didn’t really have anything to boost its performance from what I saw, and I don’t want to add nitrous, I did see some brake stuff though. So I mean what are some things I can add/replace to keep and better the cars performance, without sacrificing mph.
I’m going to assume you mean mpg…
Nothing.
Enhancing its performance will involve making the engine more powerful, which will involve bigger fuel/air explosions, which will involve more fuel/air per explosion, which will drop your mileage. It is very, very rare for a legitimate performance mod to be mpg neutral, especially since now that your car is faster, you will be driving it harder and using more gas anyway. In most cases, ads for parts which claim to boost horsepower and mpg at the same time are lying.
I know you want to improve what you have, but honestly that car is not worth it. It’s a nice car, but it’s not now nor will it ever be a race car unless you dump a boat load of money into it. The best you can reasonably do is upgrade the brakes, which lets you brake harder, which lets you brake later and therefore carry speed longer, and upgrade suspension, which lets you slow down less for corners.
As for using your auto as a stick – well… It’s still an automatic. Using the auto-manual feature is fun but isn’t going to make it any faster off the line. If you learn how long the shift delay is you might be able to be faster on corner exits because you can downshift an appropriate amount of time before you actually need the transmission to downshift rather than letting the computer do it when you floor the throttle. That won’t give you much.
Honestly if I had your car and I wanted to race it, I would put good tires on it, and good brakes, and then go to a local autocross. They will put your car in a class that has it up against similar-performance cars, so you can be competitive without having to worry about beating the guy in the Miata. Especially for a car like that, but for all cars in general, the best performance upgrade you can make is to become a better driver.
Those of us who have done performance driving events all have stories about the guy in the (insert fast car, like, say, Ferrari here) who went out and made an ass of himself, losing to the guy in the Chevy Cavalier because he had no clue how to drive his car. It’s better to be a good driver in a slow car than a bad driver in a fast car.
Walmart has a tire and lube shop, they have no need for trained technicians. A shop like this would not have any interest in identifying your problem, you will need to visit a full service repair shop.
The muffler shop guys may be smart enough to avoid working on a vehicle that has an engine noise. You need a proper diagnoses even if it requires driving 28 miles to the city.
Summit Racing shows exhaust parts for this car, some are priced reasonably, some very high. I would never spend $700 dollars on an aftermarket cat-back system on a car that will result in no change in performance.