Time to pick back up on this thread I guess.
Operation "More Whoa" is in full effect. All necessary parts to upgrade the front brakes have been ordered. It snowballed a bit, but everying other than the spindles and struts(which only have around 1500miles on them) will be new up front. Also decided to put in some tubular lower A-Arms instead of rebushing the factory stamped stuff. Ordered the hubs and brackets from bigbrakeupgrade.com, and picked up the other parts where they were priced the best: new calipers, rotors, stainless hoses, pads, bearings, seals, etc.
Also, I finally got some good info on the steering gear, learned how to do the correct adjustments to take the slop out of the box. Most people point you towards the adjustment set screw above the pitman arm, but this just tightens up the return to center portion of the box. In fact you need to losen the "jamb nut" on the front of the box where the steering shaft connects and turn, with a spanner wrench, the adjustment "nut" in front of the bearing. At this point, I think I can adjust the box properly and save a rebuild...this is a cost savings of $400-$450...awesome.
While staring under the car creating a plan of attack, I decided the front half of the exhaust needed rebuilt. It was the first system I ever made from scratch and didn't have a very good mig welder back then. I have all the tubing, just needed to order new ball and socket collector extensions, some 02 bungs, a couple of V-bands, and a new Flowmaster merge. I'm going to add a resonator in the I-pipe and see if that makes the exhaust note sound the way I want. If not the rear half will get an update as well.
Still waivering on the C4 ZR1 wheels, it would make tire selection much better, but I LOVE the factory wheels. So I may just find another set of front offsets for the rear in white and shod them in new rubber and go.
ZR1's with new rubber and the necessary spacers will be around $1500ish all in....seems like money that could go elsewhere and be better spent.