What should I do to make my car faster, or handle better?

This is probably the #1 question that people love to hate.  Performance upgrades to the DSM cars have been extensively discussed since 1989, resulting in a easy-to-follow and initially inexpensive upgrade schedules for our machines.  These schedules, when followed, willeventually make your car the Godzilla you've always dreamed of owning.

Before posting questions, please do the following:

• DSMTuners Thread: Basic Horsepower Upgrades - 1G 4G63T
• Check out the Go Faster Recipe for Turbos (1G cars)
• Check out the Go Faster/Turn Faster/Look Faster Pages for Turbos (2G cars)
• Road Race Engineering's suggested 2G DSM upgrade path
• Even more tech guides at DSMtuners.
• Check out Luis Haddock's Newbies Page.
• For handling, read Benjamin Sabini's Shocks & Springs FAQ.
• More handling in the Race Car Dynamics series, written by Dennis Grant.
• A quick reference guide to handling can be found at this FAQ page of the Calgary Area DSM site (mirrored on this site here).
• Auto owners: check out Club DSM Automatic.  (Recommended for MT owners, too.)
• Look at the staged upgrade series from Buschur Racing, Extreme Motorsports, Doug's Dynopower, Archer Racing, and Diamond Star Specialties.
• Look around at the other vendors.
• Read the VFAQs at Tom's site for information on common upgrades.
• Finally, a brief guide to how to drive your new beast can be found at rallycars.com.

The Last Word: Given the current age of these cars, you'd better be prepared to invest in a lot of replacement stock parts to keep everything together during the upgrades.