dont listen to them... if you wanna mod it, mod it. everyone told me not to modify my 97 SE about 5 years ago... and i didnt listen... 170,XXX miles she still runs strong and looks alot better...
its old and out of date but you can check my cardomain (see signature) and get some ideas...
didnt mean to thrash on se's, I actually owned a 96 and did quite a bit of work to it. I was trying to get at that first cars are usually are a learning experience. I think we all can recall the stupid things we did when we were that age.