Upgrades and new shocks

On an entry level hardtail, consider the following to be important when planning upgrading your bike. The first would be a good set of tyres; checking details on tyre characteristics for the type of terrain and conditions of riding surface you might encounter. A new handlebar, or at least a shortened stem; new pedals (these will improve your riding) and then the next two; probably the most expensive, a dropper seat post: if can be fitted, and new shock forks.

My Avanti came with Suntour M3030 front shocks, and hidden on the rear was a yellow sticker, that said, "WARNING, use only for leisure cross country. Not not use for Freeride/downhill/dirt jumping or any hard riding. Improper use of this fork can result in fork failure and personal inqury".
Actually, that means if you ride anything off a pathway, the fork may fail.

What forks to purchase? Remembering it would be silly to put some Fox forks on the bike, which would have a value two to three times the bike, I looked at forks in the couple of hundred dollar range, initially looking at Manitou forks and lower end Rockshox's.
Sometimes you get lucky, as I came across Merlin Cycles, in the UK, selling 2017 Rockshox RL30 gold 9mm QR straight 1 1/8" tube fork, for half price, with free postage.

Next, I decided to change out the headset.

Determining that the bike had semi-intregated headset (a budget Cane Creek) what do you replace it with? Could go Hope or a better quality Cane Creek, but decided on Nukeproof, a mid range headset top and bottom cups.
The originals were knocked out, and using a device taken from Youtube, the new ones were pressed back in.
Thisto'press' involved a piece of long thread some mud guard washers and some smaller washers and nuts it fit. I use the card, as it stopped the washers from slipping on the cups. Top then bottom.

Using a Nukeproof headset, I used a Nukeproof crown race, which just press fits onto the forks steerer tube, then the spacers and stem with bars were re-positioned to mark where to cut the steerer tube.
The finally assembly, I decided to have professionally done: to get the steerer tube cut and the star nut installed, as I did not have the tools for this.

I now have some quality air forks with a 100mm travel, instead of the 75mm Suntour. The only other purchase was a shock pump.