Water Cooled VWs

I want to go faster? Where should I start?

Yourself. Most people only utilizes a small portion of their car's capabilities, and often do not know how the car handles under emergency conditions. Almost EVERYONE can benefit by taking a performance "Driving School" from one of the local clubs (e.g. SCCA, ~1/2 day, inexpensive, fun) or from a performance driving school (e.g. Skip Barber, Bob Bondurant, etc, expensive, fun). It is probably the biggest single improvement you can make and it's a skill you take with you no matter what car you are driving.. In every day driving it may make the difference between an accident and avoiding one!

The next question you need to ask yourself is *why* you want to improve your car's performance. Do you want to impress your friends? Do you want to blow away other cars on the street? Do you want to compete, and if so, what type of competition? There are all kinds of car competitions: Autocross, road racing, rally, concours, drag race, and so on?

Will you be using this car for your daily commute or will it be purely used for competitions? Depending on what you want to do, you may want to follow a very different path to enhance performance.