Hi guys, as my rego is coming up very soon and I will have money after that to do some mods... I need some mods to do, I wanna go for mods that I can get the best bang out of my buck. For example I would rather do 2 mods for $1000 than 1 mod for $1000. What can I do, opinions???? Any mods will be considered, not just exterior. Cheers, Zane.

Everybody I have spoken to about the ef/el's has said induction and exhaust are the best places to start. Get a pair of quality second hand extractors, high flow air filter, au injectors, cat back exhaust. Thats a good start. k&n air filter should be for under $100 new, extractors you can get for under $200 but have to be fitted, au injectors reco'ed you can get on ebay for around $110, you can get a Lukey cat back on ebay for $165 + postage ( recommend). If you have money left over, depending on your skills you can change the diff or cam or go manual box or a j3. One thing to remember though is what goes fast has to have decent brakes, so dont forget that if you go to wild make sure your brakes are ok.

What type of car do you have? and what type of mods are you looking at doing? do you want it to go harder, want it to handle better or just look the part? Do you have any existing modifications?

How long have you had the car? Has it been serviced regularly?

If the above is, not long and unsure respectively, then I say, spend the money to get it serviced...from coolant to diff gear oils. Whatever money you have left you can upgrade the exhaust to a 2.5" system. I'd say two mufflers just to keep the cops away from you while still giving the engine good breathing room and a good note to go. Also upgrading brakes wouldn't be so bad...braided lines, new slotted brake discs with matching pads should see you stop better.

Depending how deep your pockets are, you can do a camshaft upgrade to something mild (Wade 1636 as an example) or diff gears for better launch.

If you're not into performance mod and more bling, get some rims, suspension upgrade (not just lowering the thing...shocks, new bushes maybe), sounds system, tinted windows etc.

i highly recomend fitting up the ebay 2.5 inch exhaust, and a set of extractors, you can pick up extractors second hand quite cheap if you just wait, and search all the ford forums and ebay.

i have just today put on an ebay ba xr6t snorkel cold air induction from a ford parts seller for less than $50 and just that alone made my car noticably better across the whole rpm, especially up top where my car usually runs out of puff. people will tel you this is a direct fit but they are wrong! i found that i needed to trim the thermo fans a little so that it would all sit correctly, but that only takes 10 minutes, ba xr6t cai

dont bother with a k&n filter for more power, its recently been proven that they are the same as a standard paper filter, the only gain is being reusable.

if your after handling/ looks you can buy king springs quite cheap and fit them yourself, but suggest fitting new shocks aswell. or sway bars can also be had on ebay for not alot of coin.

Thanks guys oh yea forget to mention, my car is an EL GLi sedan. My only mods is a kenwood head unit.

Atm I am only looking for more handling and looks and sound, performance later

I have about $1500 I want to spend... I don't know how to do much stuff to cars but every post I read on here I learn

Awesome, another youngin' with an EL GLi! I've got the wagon, but I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. I've come up with a rough idea of what I am looking to do in the short term, so hopefully it might give you some ideas:

Oil & oil filter change
Air filter change (I don't buy into those K&N ones as previously mentioned. A $20 Ryco one does the job)
All the other fluids
Brake pads
Serpentine belt
Spark plugs & leads
Decent wash, cut & polish, probably a wax too to make it look schmick
Go over the interior with a Rug Doctor/Britex steam cleaner

That is all basic maintenance stuff, as the previous owner of mine was a bit of a grot (hence the steam cleaner), and I have no idea how often the fluids and filters were kept up (hint: checked the oil, was black as the ace of spades and covered about 5mm of the dipstick at the tip :S).
It is probably a good idea to do the same or similar to your car if you're not sure how well it was looked after, or when it's been done before. First priority should be getting the car clean, and running well

As for actual mods:
as mine is in the sexy Galaxy Blue, an LED Dash cluster, using blue SMDs (sold by THIS DUDE, who is also a member on here, but I forgot his user name.)
Bright white interior LEDs from the same guy
Trip computer install
New sound system incl. head unit, amp, sub and some decent speakers, as it's stock as a rock at the moment
Paint dash & interior plastics (probably black, maybe with the odd bit of dark blue to match the exterior)
Braided brake lines, maybe slotted rotors
New wheels to change over for the 15" stockies
Probably a set of Fairmont bumpers, with the driving lights
Window tinting
Re-carpet and re-do the roof lining (probably black, helps that I know a guy who knows a guy )
New seats (eventually), eyeing off some of the BA XRs to retrofit them, but will need quite a bit more funds

As for performance, I haven't really thought of that too much, but would probably be looking at doing a T5 manual conversion in the future, and probably some decent extractors and an exhaust. Also the AU injectors as previously mentioned.

Hope any of this helps, it's great having someone in the same situation with the same model to bounce some ideas off.

Lukey cat back exhaust as mentioned before on ebay. Nice deep sound off one muffler, 2.5" mandrel for $165 + Postage. Easy fit yourself in an hour. Then grab a nice set of wheels with good tyres off ebay second hand for around $500 to $600. Tint the window darkest legal. Extractors.
Unless your cars suspension and steering is f**k just leave it. It should handle still ok on a stock setup with just exhaust mods. Might not look as nice as if it was lowered but lowering costs good money unless your doing it yourself. Id put the lowering and engine mods to next time and start saving.
Also grab some cleaning goodies and give the girl a good going over, you'd be amazed what a good body/interior clean up will do

ef / els drive like a boat on wheels with stadard suspension, best off fitting low springs and new shocks at a minimum(dont buy the cheap shocks on ebay that are yellow, i think they are ultima? have herd bad things from them tho so many people would pprobably buy them

Thanks mate you're it is good!!! Keep me up to date As for myself, I don't know too much how to do any of that so I'm relying on fordmods

Yea I think an exhaust may be the first MOD. However that is after rego which is soon, and I have waxed it but I think I'll give it a better scrub...
How much is it to paint a front bumper? And how would you go about putting BA XR seats into my EL? Thanks

The maintenance stuff is fairly simple to do. I've done the odd bit on cars with my dad back in the day, but I'm living with mum atm so sorta gotta work it out myself.
First step would be to grab a workshop manual. If you do a search you'll be able to find the thread on it, its about 250mb in a PDF, but it is very good for finding out stuff from scratch.
I reckon the maintenance stuff is better if you do it yourself, a) you save money, b) you learn stuff by doing it, and c) naturally you feel better when you've accomplished something yourself. I'm fairly new to fordmods as well, but I've found that there's always someone who's able to help.

As for the bumper, it depends if you get it done, or like I said before, do it yourself. And there's two ways to do that as well: with a gun (if you've got access to an air compressor), or with the rattle cans. Clearly the gun is going to do a better job, but I've seen people do pretty well with the cans as well. Mind you, they have a lot of practice anyway. I've been watching this guy's videos regarding painting.

And the seats, I haven't looked into it too much admittedly, but I believe there is a fair bit of work to do on the rails etc, and that it isn't a simple changeover. I could be wrong though. I read a thread about it, but can't find where it was.

I already have a manual I have read bits of it. Very handy! Did you just follow the maintenance steps on the manual?

I can get access to an air compressor, I will consider this!!

Hmm alright I will have a decent look into it, some welding on my drivers seat has came off and the cushion you sit on lifts up from the back, it's strange so I either want new seats or I will get it welded back on by a mate. Cheers

Yeah pretty much. A mixture of the workshop manual, and searching for threads here of fordmods, was able to figure it all out.

Yeah if youve got the money and want to do the seats anyway it'd be good, but you'd wanna make sure you've got all the info first, and know what needs to be done.

If you need a RWC for the rego, the drivers seat is more than likely gonna come up as well

Yea I just don't know how to specify the search for just el? It says it ignores the term el?? Haha

It most likely will which is why I want new seats or it to be fixed this month :/

Well most of the stuff is pretty similar across the e-series. Of course there's gonna be a few differences, but the methods are essentially similar. Especially between the ef/el, there's s**t all difference under the bonnet