Would these be the only/obvious areas for tinkering? I haven't seen much else worth doing: Exhaust with decat to give a bit more noise/pos and bangs but it won't give much noise/the same as on many other 4cyl cars Brake pads of some sort Remap Air filter (K&N direct replacement)
Brakes certainly! And as said for me tyres is the key to any performance car!! You need good grip to get the power down whether that be 200bhp or 400.
All they need is pads and sticky tyres. If you can drive it to its full potential then stock power is more than enough IMO
So you can just chop the cat out and weld in a new straight pipe? Any emissions issues? I'd do the remap but the tuners are a long way away from me. These pads? http://www.k-tecracing.com/search_results.asp