If you don't plan to do the tuning, my suggestion is find a local shop with a good reputation and find out what they prefer. Then get that system.... unless it's like VEMS or something like that... lol Then find another shop. It's always best to have the tools your tuner is most familiar with.

And you obviously haven't been reading too much. Most people here run cheap china rods from ebay myself included. $250 will get you a set with ARP bolts. I'm making just shy of 300whp on them. Do yourself a favor and buy some supertech pistons, don't re use OEMs. ACL bearings, do a head "refresh" and bolt on a turbo kit. It really dosen't take much to make 250-275whp on these motors anymore. Just make sure the motor can handle the torque, and find a good tuner.

 

Read this, it's the bible. It's too bad they didn't write this two years sooner, I would have saved a bunch of time.

 

Do this. It is a well written book, written by forum sponsors who happen to be very supportive of the community. It will go into most of the basics of tuning and give you a big head start. Then after that you need to start reading the megamanual.

 

I thought Maximum Boost was our bible?

 

I don't own a copy, nor do I care to.

 

Really? Thats really surprising to me, I thought everybody helled MB in high regard.

 

It's very basic concepts and old, good for HXC n00bs.
I just ordered the Matt Cramer book for my bday coming up. Oh and I'm going to track a Ferrari 458 in Vegas