If you do decide to go E85, your going to be amazed at just how much more power the car will make. Cold starts and fuel economy are the only drawback that I have. Seeing as how your in SoCal, cold starts may not be much of a worry for you. If you decide to head back to New England, then this will be an issue. Make sure the tuner works on the cold starts to help alleviate this, though it may never be totally remedied. Also, a block heater will be of a great benefit to you should you move back to the ice box. It's 30 or 40 bucks and will help greatly with cold starts when running ethanol.
Another thing you may want to strongly consider is a catch can/AOS setup. The watery oily mess that engine likes to make needs to be caught and dumped before it can wreak havoc on the motor.
A new clutch may be in the more near future as the stock unit will not hold the power E85 can put down. (depending on how you drive)
TGV deletes are also recommended. You may want to do this before/during your stage 2 protune. I didn't and I regret it.
If you plan to go with big power in the future, you may as well start building the motor. At the very least you will need to add forged pistons. At the most (and arguably the best way) is to rework the entire engine and heads/cams/turbo and make them work as a single and efficient unit. This will be big dollars.
Swaybars and endlinks are recommended as a first suspension mod.
ALK (anti lift kit), Steering rack bushings and rear bushings and inserts (diff mounts, etc) should probably be next. Add a performance alignment to get some negative camber from the front (1-1.5* neg) and try to max the positive caster. This along with the above will greatly improve the handling of the car.
If your bent on getting springs then make sure you look at a revalve on the struts. I believe it is a must to get the valving to match the springs. (Feal Suspension does revalving) Swift, Epic, and RCE (RaceComp Engineering) I have heard make a very nice spring for the stick strut.
Coilovers are very nice but not really necessary for a street driven car. If you want them and your on a budget then look at BC, Feal, H&R, Fortune Auto and Eibach.
If you want to plunk down the change then look at AST, KW and Ohlins.
If lowering your car , whether on Coilovers or springs, remember that there will be corrective measures you need to take in order for things to perform well. At the very least an RCA or "tie rod/steering arm" relocation will be need to combat bumpsteer, etc. Rear toe arms or even Lateral links/arms (rear LCA) may be needed to correct camber and toe issues.
In the end it just depends on your goals. If you plan to track the car on road courses or all out high speed then your build needs to go that way. If AutoX and cone killing are your style then it will go in a very different direction. Rally-X and off-road events will need to be of course, you guessed it, planned very differently from the above.
If your just wanting to be a stoplight killer/DD badass then, well, plan for it. LOL
These are just suggestions and loose guidelines but may be of help to someone that just became overwhelmed by the lights of Las Vegas
Basically, now is the research time and this is the time to hopefully avoid as much unnecessary expense as possible. Ask a lot of questions and remember their is no such thing as dumb questions. There are a lot of very experienced individuals here and one thing I can say is that most everyone here has a very healthy dose of common sense.
