I put a VX cam and adjustable gear into my 92 245 with M47. Timed at 5 degrees advance, my 0-60 time improved by 1.0 second over stock; 30-50 mph in 2nd was 0.5 sec faster, and 30-55 in 3rd was 0.8 sec faster. Fuel economy remained unchanged. These are not hair-raising differences, but the overall feel of the improved acceleration belies the modest numbers. In daily driving I was able to negotiate hills and curves in western CT typically in 1 gear higher than with the stock cam, and throttle response was vastly improved. These effects would be somewhat diluted with an automatic, but with a higher stall speed torque converter (such as from the turbo cars) the advantage might be fully realized. The real fun came in the wee hours one night as I was driving across the state at significantly extra-legal speeds, and the '93 245 I played tag with simply could not keep up with me when we went up hills.

In short, without a turbo or serious ($$$) performance mods, you can't expect blazing acceleration from your brick. For a limited budget, probably the best things you can do are to lighten the car (find 50 pounds of junk in the trunk you don't really need to carry around), and reduce rotational mass - a 1 pound reduction in rotational mass is worth 100 pounds of weight removed from the car. Alloy wheels of modest size (15 or 16 inch, such as from the 700/900 series) are probably a bit lighter than the stock steel wheels and wheel covers.