Looking for ALOT of advice on upgrading my 09 Lancer ES

You're in the right place, my friend! Welcome to LT!

Lowering it. You got two options, springs or coilovers. Springs are like $300ish, coilovers are like $800 I think lol
Tint: Mine was free so I'm not sure how much it is, but I'm sure its not too bad, BEWARE IT WILL SCRATCH TO SHITTTT
HIDs I've seen for like $160
Exhaust varies on whether you want catback or axleback
new system will definitely be big money if you want a GOOD one.
Spoiler I have no idea, you can probably buy an OEM one off eBay or something.

 

haha...questions are good.

as for lowering, i would drop it before swapping out wheels...just so you can gauge how much clearance you have before you buy the wrong wheel/tire combo.
Tint- i have no idea...i've heard that the 9gens apparently have scratching issues, like luvmylancer said.
Exhaust- you can upgrade with out doing anything else, but think of it this way...think of stock intake and exhaust as breathing through a straw. you can only pull in so much air at a time, no matter how hard you try...just the same with exhaust. if you only put on an intake and no exhaust, its like breathing in with no straw...and breathing out through the straw. basically its "more in...more out". when you pair an intake and exhaust, thats when you will see the most gains.

 

Congrats on the new ride!

There is a scratch issue with tint, but you can help alleviate it by installing Moleskin felt. I know a great shop in Canoga Park that'll tint ur windows for around $60. Tint Master City. Hope this helps.

 

I got a spoiler for sale. Hella cheap. Located in the Bay Area. Let me know if you want it. I'll sell it for 100+shipping!

 

if you just want to upgrade the exhaust then the greddy ti-c is very good...its only the rear section of the exhaust so your not paying for a whole system, however its currently on a huge back order

when thinking about intake you have to decide on a short ram intake (SRI) or a cold air intake (CAI) pretty much the only difference between the 2 is the SRI has low end (RPM's from 1,2, maybe 3k) gains and the CAI has high end (3k+) gains...the SRI will be in the engine bay so there will still be ambient heat from the engine heating up the air that is being pulled in...the CAI drops the filter down (normally in front of the front, drivers side tire, or just generally out of the engine bay behind the front grill somewhere, and just like lancer2quick said it will help alot to do both at the same time...theres plenty of threads on here talking the differences, just look around a bit

 

Depending on what you are looking for mod wise.... match the lowering with some suspension upgrades for better handling, exhaust there are many choices out there for you from 250 - 550, intake from 200 - 330, for some good products go to some of the supporting vendors here. LOTS of quality choices.

 

Before you spend your hard earned money, do your research first. As for going fast, it wont happen with the cash your have. I would suggest do one thing at a time. usually start off with the cheapest first, tint. but you can also start off with appearance or sound or performance. Just do your own research first, then go from there.

 

me i do it in order one performance then one visual

 

My car is all visual right now. And most people think its realllllly ugly

 

the major difference between the es and the gts is the body skirts and the spoiler, hp/tq is the same on all cars...even for the 5speed and the slow-vt.

 

unless its a 09 gts, that .4 does make a difference

 

Im with bras_33 really not much of a difference until they got the 2.4, Actually there cars weight slightly more so we (I have an 08 ES) would probably have the upper hand in straight line acceleration against a 2.0 GTS. They do also have slightly better shocks, bigger anti-sway bar, front upper strut bar, and slightly bigger brakes but that can all be changed out, many GTS owners that mod actually change most of that out for aftermarket anyways.

 

Nobody likes cars that are "all show, no go." I usually will alternate between showmanship mods and power mods. But tint is a good place to start when it comes to appearance. Whereas intake is a good place to start with performance (but like mentioned above, try to follow the intake with an exhaust, but it's not gonna kill you to have an aftermarket intake without an aftermarket exhaust. But you will see significantly better results when they are both aftermarket).

 

actually the base de is a bit quicker, no ac pulley, no abs, not that much weight, yadda, yadda...I took one on in the desert and it pulled on me :evil:. I have an es.

 

^ Lol, but I was comparing against a stock GTS, not a stock DE lol. Yeah that is expected as well.

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