I would have to agree with the general consensus (and frank lee) that the most important safety feature of a car is the driver. As far as Frank's question, I would say that no, driving a new car doesn't mean that you don't have to be as careful, it just means that you have lower stakes than when driving an old car. You have people on motorcycles who have never crashed, but you also have people who drive a mercedes and die in a collision. Bottom line: don't be an idiot (but saying that here is preaching to the choir, most of us invest in a car until it dies).
Cool idea for lowering the front of the car! I don't think I would have thought of that.
Something else to consider with the smaller radials is that they will lower the car slightly - only a few cm, but anything is something. I think that changing the overall ratio to get you into 5th gear sooner would offset the (slightly?) higher RR
If you don't want to change the rear end ratio or the transmission's ratios, tires are the way to go. They are also a little cheaper than swapping gears, and are easier to change out if you don't like them.
I have noticed that my turbo really breaks up the sound of the engine at idle, too, even with my behemoth engine and straight pipe. It will still let you hear it once you start pushing it, though.
Once you get some FE figures, you aughtta take it to car shows and put "X MPG" in the window and wait for the barrage of questions
