Hi kid, I don't know if it's available for your car but I like the look of the GReddy SE for the 8, it looks sweet and i've been talking to some mechanics and they said the exhaust note doesn't get too loud until you remove the resonators. But if you are looking for any gains hpwise you have to go full intake, hiflow cat or straight pipe, and exhaust. Start basic until you get to know how to do things and find a rotary mech and talk alot.

 

How long have you had the car anyways???? The reason I ask is because it is a good idea to have the stock for a while so that you know how the car should act and feel performance wise.
Sometimes people throw on a mod that is known to suck and they cant remember how the car felt before, so they keep driving it not knowing any better. Right now you should pay attention to your gas mileage and if you have a datalogger, you should keep track of 0-60 times (in a safe manner) along with the cars vitals. Than when you throw a mod on, you can compare it to your stock measurements.
I dont know if they have a Cobb accessport for your year but I think thats where you should start. It has a datalogger along with a Stage 1 tune. You would also be able to tune it even more custom to your car by Mazdamaniacs.com but I wouldnt custom tune until your done with all your other performance mods.

 

then when you start to add mods, you can after you've done several you can contact mazdamaniac and he'll set you up with a custom tune so you don't have to guess and fry your motor in the process.

 

Geez I didnt meant to start an argument here, sorry about that.

As far as how long I've had my car, about a year, 7400 miles.

 

I don't think it's an arguement. I think all we are saying is when you are doing something to your car make sure you get all the info you can get. It's up to you where you want to start. I deffinately agree that it's a good idea to get used to your car first. I've only had my 8 for three weeks now and even though i've been researching the parts for several months before i bought it, i'm not going to do anything until i store it so I know how the car feels and reacts so I know if it makes a difference when i mod it without pulling dyno runs.