Greg's given a road map of the "high road". My low road budget map:
Koni red insert's - not that hard to build your own struts, go here:
http://www.sr20forum.com/chassis-sus...iscussion.html
I run OEM style Road Magnet springs:
http://www.sr20forum.com/group-buys/...2-b13-b14.html
Hyperco "2" springs are also out there. These are your low buck entries. I stuck with those due to cost as well as the fact I already had Cusco camber plates to work with them.
There are lots of suspensions constantly being sold in the classifieds on the SR20 forum. You can usually find a deal.
As I said earlier, I run a stock motor, it's a 50k mile junkyard motor (I blew up my original 138k mile motor last year with a missed shift).
I run only the OEM LSD. As Greg said, you can't put the power down as early.
Build up your own intake with a big "pop charger" style filter.
And as they all said, make sure you work on the cage first. It was easily my biggest expense on my low budget build.
I run mid-pack at the big events in GLDiv, but can also run at the pointy end of weaker fields in both GL and MidDiv. There's almost always someone to race with, that's what I want and am happy with.