np, I am not a mechanic, just someone who loves the car enough to find out whats right and wrong (and hopefully spread the CORRECT information.. lol).
If you are sending it to a machine shop, make sure you get the measurement for how much they take off if they shave it (the exact measurement). Its critical for the compression because that will tell you the size of head gasket to use. You can get away with just lapping the block and the head (RTCS near me has a machine that does it perfectly), and then going with a OEM headgasket. That is supposed to be able to handle up to 12 psi boost without any issues. Its when you are shooting for highter than 400-450 HP that you want to go with the metal headgasket.
As I said before, knowing your power goals with the car is very critical at the stage you are in. Be patient and get all the information down pat, so you know exactly what your going to do prior to doing anything costly.
You should plan to get a 3" catback exhaust, possibly upgrade your turbo and if your going to shoot for higher HP goals, you will need to upgrade your injectors and depending on how high, also get a lexus AFM upgrade followed by a fuel pump upgrade. You dont really have to worry about the internals too much (pistons/crank/cam) unless your going to really get serious about the power. Getting 800-1000 HP out of the engine is possible but very costly.
For my car, I am going with a Walbro fuel pump, Lexus AFM, 550 cc injectors (stock are 440 cc and you wont get enough fuel at higher HP levels) and a 57 trim CT26 upgrade along with 3" catback exhaust. I may upgrade the intercooler, but that would be more for show than function, I believe the stock intercooler is sufficient for the upgrade I listed. I also have alread put in a larger radiator because I found that the car would overheat at speeds of over 150 KPH for over 3-4 minutes. (probably because the turbo is engaged at those speeds on my car currently.. it would shoot the heat into the red range). Then the other upgrades are just candy, already replaced 80% of the hoses on the car with new and will be hardpiping the rad just for show (not necessary, but pretty).
Then the body will get sideskirts, rear bumper addons and I am considering going with a 90 nose and taillight setup. I may also pop a 90 rear spoiler on it in place of the 88 one.
I plan on doing my car over 2-3 years so that I am not hit with a large $$ impact immediately. just saving up for each stage and then doing it. The body is the most expensive portion because in the end I will have about 10,000 into the body alone. Worth it to me, although if I was practical, I never would have walked this road.. lol.
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