I didn't read the whole thread, but yes you will potentially make more power with a cam. The thing to keep in mind is the guys who want to do these mods but do not have a tuner across the street or in the same town. You don't just throw a cam in the car in a day and then the next day run 12's. You need more time spent on tuning a cammed car than you do an IC'd car to get the same drivability and reliability. Part of that is the cam's ability to make more power, more things have to be looked at or done to make sure nothing may happen 6 months down the road. An intercooler should be considered a big bandaid or something that all m90's should have came with stock. Some people may argue it's not that bad to daily drive a cammed car, but the majority will get sick of it at some point.
Intercooler will come at a larger price, but it is something that you can put on and all it will do is help you. Very easy to tune and most can drop down to a 3.2" pulley no problem, much further than that and you need larger injectors. You don't reduce drivability or move your powerband much if any and you can get your blower to really scream without touching the bottom end. We had a s2 ic on a friends stock regal, i tuned it for maybe 45 min one day and that was it, ran a 13.6 at the track with full weight including subs/amp. Wanted to tune it some more but we ran out of injector. Another car I tuned had 1.9's and a SSIC, never ran at the track but the butt dyno said 12's and that car also ran out of injector otherwise would have made more power.
If I had to do another car, I would get both at the same time... lol But if I had to choose I would go with the intercooler first, mess around with that and then if i wanted to get serious i would cam it. Much easier to demod and sell a f/s intercooler than it is to do the same and get the same money back with a cam.
