Cheers Tyson.

From what I've seen/heard from other owners, you will easily be able to get +30bhp from a full exhaust, induction kit and a chip, and it shouldn't cost much more than about £1500 all-in. A lot of money, granted, but its a decent gain for it and will take you up to Clio-matching power.

The economy on the ST isn't great though, its one of my few concerns with the car. If you do a lot of miles then you might be better off getting something like the Zetec S TDCi (although personally I'd go elsewhere for a warm diesel hatch). I struggle to get more than 300 miles out of the tank on mine, so it doesn't have the greatest range. What with unleaded costing me 91.9p a litre, I'm normally looking at about £42 to fill it up.

And as for you spammers...