Do you want loud or good sounding and loud.
For good sound on a budget these are the steps I went thru;
Part 1, new HU and front speakers (pioneer 6x8's are good), for the HU you want at least 2 preouts, decide for yourself if you want MP3 playback, colour display etc.
Part 2, Amp and subs - Find what sound good to you, you can spend 200 and get a decent 12" and amp or spend thousands for comp system, how loud is enough
Part 3, 4 channel amp, component speakers - move your current front speakers to the back and install the components up front.
The best advice i have is don't go cheap on any step, if you buy an amp for $200 then realize you wanted the bigger amp the orig $200 may be wasted. And look around here for what brands to avoid (pyramid, legacy, sony), if an you're looking at 2 amps for the same price and one is 400 watts, the other 1000 watts question why - it could be a deal or it could be crap.
In the PM you asked about neons - I use streetglow and started with (1) 9" tube under each front footwell, the power source is from the power jack on the passenger side of the center console.
