Okay so here's the deal.

First off, I am mostly a reader on here, but this time I felt I should chime in.
I have a 1997 GTI VR6 that runs ITS . It used to be in SSB last year so there are not a ton of mods to it aside from the Neuspeed "trunk kit" consisting of 285 springs in the front and 220 in the rear with Bilsteins. It also has a 25mm front sway bar and a 28mm rear bar. To make a long story short, as you can guess, the car pushes horribly and I am much slower than other IT cars through the corner and it's not much fun running lap times of ITD cars (no offense to anyone). The camber is set at .05, I am running the stock VW wheels, and I am running Hankook tires as I had tons of spares from the previous owner. I know my car will not win against the RX's, 944's and Bimmer's ITS is made up of mostly, but I would like to be a heck of a lot more competitive than I am now. I have tried the everyday newbie stuff like playing with air pressures, connecting and disconnecting sway bars, but still no luck in finding balance.

The fun part:
I have some money to spend, but still on a budget, so custom race suspensions are out of the question. I have to admit I am new to racing as this is just my second year. I know this is the tip of an iceberg when it comes to tuning suspensions , but what do you guys advise for a first step? Stiffer springs, light-weight wheels, different rubber, camber plates?

Please be gentle.

Thanks for reading.

Mike