I want to get more torque out of my 1989 Camaro RS (305 V8).

I have money to spend and i cant think of what to do to make my car faster off the line.

Exhaust?
Headers?
Intake?

post w/e you got

 

I would start with headers and exhaust. I have hooker headers and exhaust on my RS and it helped a bunch

 

The first thing I did to my car was gut the cat (back in 1989). It actually made a small, but just noticeable difference. Next I added an open element 46mm TBI with bigger injectors (to handle future upgrades). Somewhat surprisingly, that really seemed to open up the top end a bit - revs picked up much faster and there was more "room" up there. These things didn't make much difference to the low end though - it was still the same down low. After that came an avalanche of modifications that are still on-going.

Perhaps the biggest immediately noticeable thing you could do is swap rear-end gears. I went from stock open diff 2.73's to posi 3.42 gears on a slightly modified 305 TBI and the difference to seat-of-your-pants feel was undeniable. Not all performance mods lie in the engine. The cars with numerically low rear diff gears (i.e. 2.73:1) NEED numerically higher gears (i.e. 3.42:1 in automatics and 3.73:1 in manuals) to wake them up nicely. The TransGo shift kit for the 700R4 is a nice, fairly cheap, addition too - assuming we're talking about an automatic, it'll put some life in your shifts.

My order of priority bolt-ons would be...
1) rear gear change (posi, then shift kit, if applicable)
2) cat-back exhaust
3) headers
4) intake (open-element, ported TBI, then manifold)
5) camshaft
6) heads (to get the potential of the cam)

...by step 5 you'll be getting into the need for prom tuning.

I've done a ton of things to the L03. I can fill you in to what I've done if you like, but the above bolt-ons are about where you want to go without getting into the internals.

 

1-5 is the way to go. I would wait to do heads and cam all at once. Keep the cat if you have to get emission tests. Not sure if it is still true, but get a headers and exhaust for a TPI car. Before I think you could not get a 3" exhaust for a TBI. Hooker 2055s or similar with y-pipe, performance 3" cat and 3" cat back will make huge difference.

Try to get gears out of a fourth gen 350; auto came with 3.23s and t-56s came with 3.42s. I got the whole drivetrain from 2 4th gens, t-56 from a 93-96 and the rear with 12" brakes from a 97-2002. Rims stick 1" out more than stock, but ok if you plan on upgrading rims later cause you won't need spaces to run 4th gen style wheels.