Shocks:. usually not a good idea to try to upgrade weight capacity by shocks, you end up with a stiff ride when not loaded and have the potential to break shock mounts as they are only intended to dampen the spring rate not hold weight.

Brakes: I recommended the raybestos because one of their selling points was xx% more surface area. There may be other brands that are similar, they seem to be much less prone to heat fade as well.

Although the original poster has a fwd car, for us RWD and 4x4 buy heavy duty U joints and make sure they are greasable and grease them each oil change. Non greasable are fine until they get a biot of dust past the seal and then they go bad fast. greasable ones tend to last longer as long as you grease them.

Transmission temp gauge and heavy duty cooler are my next addition, I have smelled cooking tranny a couple times while off road, the stock inside the radiator just couldn't keep up.

I did the bit larger vehilce with small engine. My S-10 is a bit bigger than most cars, but has a 4cly engine. I get 20mpg combined city/hwy driving to work and back. It also has a factory "hauling package" which consisted of the beefier axle of the 6cly trucks as well as beefier suspension in the rear and bed liner. Additions I have added are full size spare, better tires and brakes, locking rear differnetial and soon a better transmission cooler.