Thanks mate, glad people find this stuff as interesting as I do.
This spring will be awesome for my car. I am definitely getting it tuned, and hopefully will be getting some summer tires. We'll see where the stockers are at, but ideally I will be going to summers on the stock wheels and getting some 17's for winter with snows. I may be doing some suspension stuff too, time will tell. Now that my wife is setup with a new car, I think there is some leniency for some gti mods in the budget!
The reason I am waiting until spring is because with just fwd, my car can't get crap for traction right now up in this frozen tundra at stock power levels. Even Stage 1 would literally be useless for the next 4 months, especially with the stock tires. So I will quietly bide my time until we thaw out up here. I may stick with the stock all seasons and get snows next winter, then summer rubber after that, but again it depends on what conditions my stockers are in until then. I will have more than 35k on them before the spring thaw, so I may be able to justify summer rubber this year... it will just make the car that much better!
I think I will start with just stage 1. I wanted to do a down pipe, but I kinda want to ride out the mods a bit. I will probably have this car for at least the next 2 years, so I have plenty of time to enjoy mods slowly. After this car, I am done with fwd. I am thinking s3 right now, but I will have kids by then, so things may change!