I've got a k&n panel filter now and am looking at a catback and a cai instead of my kn
Any personal opinions on what to get without breaking the bank?

Id piss of the K&N. Had one on my car. Made stuff all difference in power and all I ended up doing was cleaning a dirty throttle body from the oily dirt it sucked into it causing the car to run s**t.
If you want a CAI then use a Typhoon one. Just as good as anything else and without a tune you may have a small gain.

Yeah I sold the k&n yesterday haha, did piss all. Looking at a cai from ebay
What catback would you reckon? I've got a high flow cat from my dads xr6t I'm gonna throw on after I get my catty but I'm not too sure which brand is better? X force or redback.

Don't bother with a cat back. You will get noise and no/bugger all power gain. Do the full exhaust with Pacemaker 4495 high flow cat and 2.5" exhaust X-Force is very good. Also do an Underdrive kit. Those 2 mods will give you a very noticeable gain. Then when you have the coin get it dyno tuned. Probably go over 170kw with the Auto

as mentioned do the full exhaust cat and extractors, buy a typhoon headlight cold air induction pipe from ebay, should be $100 or less. research either on here or on fordforums how to fit it as their are a few tech doco's getting around.
fit an underdrive balancer, but beware! dont buy the tool off ebay like i did, it doesnt quite fit and the seller appears to be one of those clowns with bad feedback due to non reply of messages. i now have a $170 stainless paperweight because they havent replied to me either.

hey guys just reading along with this i have the same layout but already have the full exahust i dnt have a underdrive is it really worth it and i also have the big mouth intake from ss inductions as well.