Beefier rear sway bar and high performance tires/lighter wheels are the best 'first' mods with respect to bang for the buck, IMHO.

Congrat's on your new MINI!!  The Gen1 2006 Mini Cooper is a great handling 'fun' car to drive.  Unfortunately, upgrades are limited since most performance parts are for the Cooper S models.

The most common upgrades are intake and exhaust.  Each of these upgrades will provide an incremental increase in hp.  The Sprint Booster will make your MINI more responsive and increase the 'fun' factor.

However, if you want to get Cooper S performance from your Cooper, it would be less expensive to trade up to a Cooper S....   

Ken

DB cooper.. think you might be better off posting this on north american motoring.. as MM is mostly a classic mini site.. later bc

I have just bought a 2006 non-s mini and i love it. It's by far the best driving car I have ever owned with that being said I got it not knowing much about them (really anything) I'm already wishing I had purchased an S but hey I got a great deal on what I got. So to my question can anyone give me advice on performance upgrades to start with I'd like to get started asap thanks everyone.