you said, in order of most important, down to least important... define important. important to you? important to speed? reliability?
overall, the first things you need to get, is a scan tool, and some aftermarket guages. all the guages on our cars are junk. get the 5 guages you need to see what shes REALLY doin. oil pressure, boost, rpms, water temp, and fuel pressure. after that? a good manual. no, not chiltons or haynes. theyre absolutely worthless. get a good one like the real deal shop manual, or if bentleys makes one, get that.
make sure its lc2 specific, not "81-87 buick regal, somerset, lesabre etc etc" cuz youll get about 2 pages that deal with the parts that are actually on our cars. after that, you need to tighten everything else up. without any mods, just the stock torque alone, is enough to A. start the tires on fire, B. crack your freakin a and b pillars, and C. start your rear end a hoppin soo bad, youll get whiplash.
you could have 550 lb/ft of torque, but if your suspension sucks, youll be going nowhere fast. like a mustang. so youll have to get all 4 frame brace kits, along with the engine tie down strap. if you try to brake boost on the line, for a good launch, im not sure i could guarantee your motor mounts to last more than about 6 minutes or so.
my normally aspirated 3.8 regal broke it mounts quite often. i couldnt imagine what a 360 lb/ft of torque 3.8 would do to them with no engine strap.... now, you got to get a good fuel pump with hotwire kit, or youll lean out too much, and start wearing things out too fast. you dont want that. then youll have to do the adjustable fuel pressure regulator. Now that you got fuel like youre supposed to, youll need a little cool air.
take that stock plastic maf pipe off, cuz they leak alot, and you dont need any unmetered air gettin in there. get a good cold air kit from tin man, with an rjc plenum plate to even the air out in there, and youll be squared away. also, a hot running turbo car, runs like crap.
throw a camaro rad in there, with a cooler thermostat, and that will be squared away as well. top it all off, with a mild street chip from mike licht, or eric marshall, and youll have quite a car that will really suprise you. So to break it all down, I guess the most important thing to get, is knowlege. get a complete manual first. if you dont know how your car works, a pt88 turbo would do not a god darn thing for you....
1.manual 2. scanmaster 3. aftermarket guage kit. 4. suspension kit. which is in the MINIMUM all 4 frame brace kits w/ engine strap. 5, good shocks with control/trailing arm bushings. 6. fuel system, which is a pump, hotwire kit, and fuel pressure regulator from full throttle (hes got the best prices right now) 7. induction. cold air kit from tin man, and rjc plenum plate. 8. cooling. f body rad with 160 t-stat 9. a good chip and 10, youll need some good tires now, cuz anything less will just go up in smoke.... With just these mods, along with the stock turbo, intercooler, injectors, and a good tune, you can take this car down to about porsche 911 times. for about a thousand dollars.... AND fit grocerys in it. No other car is as a complete package, as a turbo regal is. A thousand dollars for any other car, wouldnt get you HALF the horsepower as it would on these cars....Hell, my spark plug wires alone, for my bmw 4 cylinder costs 160 bucks....
