General LSX Automobile Discussion - Which to do first exhaust/cam or 12 bolt

So I'm trying to decide what to do first my. Car is a 98 t/a with a ls2 a4 mods in sig. I thought it had kooks headers lol but it has Obx with a crappy y and flow master so I was thinking about swapping the cam and arh headers plus whatever cat back and a tune. Or I could put in a 12 bolt cause right now the car has 2.73 gears which suck and a stock rear behind a ls2 so I think that choice would be smarter just wanted some opionions.

I would do the heads/cam/tune plus a big stall first. A4 cars get much better life out of their rear ends than M6's. The stall will help with the gears too

What's wrong with the headers? Yeah, change the Y and catback, but are OBX really that bad that it's worth dropping almost a grand on ARH's to replace them??

And I know it goes against popular opinion, but I'd do the rear last. See how long it will last stock. Other than the gearing, a new rearend isn't going to make the car any faster or more fun to drive, so to me it'd be really hard dropping over 2k on something that I didn't really notice, unless I blew the stock rear and needed to upgrade.

if your exhaust is lacking then start there. ARHs are nice. its up to you if theyre worth it.


with an auto your rear can last awhile. you can help it but improving your rear suspension so itll plant better and not hop. what stall do you have now?

based on your last car i think you have a good idea on how to go about modding.

I want to change headers to 1 7/8 that's the main reason but tsp looks pretty nice. But the gears are what's killing me in the rear I'm not to worried bout it going up but I don't want to waste money puting gears into a 10 bolt. But I'm really considering a ky turbo kit too so I'm thinking doing the rear would be a good idea before a turbo. I guess I have to figure out what I want to do with the car first lol thanks for the advice

Going to a new rear is not cheap but long term is something to consider. A change to 3.73 or 4.11 will not get you more power but will cut your 1/8 and 1/4 times significantly. If money is tight, you could look for a 3.42 gear 10 bolt from a M6 car - probably lots cheaper but in time will also break with decent power.

Take a look at 9 inch and S60 as alternatives to 12 bolt. Both are significantly stronger and don't really cost much more.