First off, how many miles are on the motor?
Replace the factory oil feed line either with a replacement OEM oil feed line, or I highly recommend getting one of Precisions Oil Filtration kits that does away with the factory line and replaces it with a Braided line that feeds the turbo with filtered oil. Replace the oil drain line with an OEM oil drain line as some braided oil return lines can develop a kink in the line which can cause oil to back up and leak past the oil seals in the turbo. If the car has very high miles, I would remove the factory oil cooler that is in the radiator and either eliminate it, or install a new external oil cooler. I've always just removed the factory oil cooler without any problems on all 3 of my cars both past and present. Either the oil feed line is coked up and starved the turbo with oil, or else FOD from the factory oil cooler leached its way back into the oil system and took out the bearings in your turbo. Very common on all of these cars with the stock oil cooler, which btw can not be completely cleaned out.
TA-49 needs larger than stock injectors to fully realize the power potential, unless you planned on keeping the boost turned way down and your stock injectors were perfect. Which is highly doubtful if the car has high miles. It's best to replace them with a larger set of injectors. But don't limit yourself on future upgrades. This is one of the biggest mistakes people make when they first start upgrading these cars from stock. They hear about the success that Joe blow had with his Blue tops and TA-49 combo and follow it to a tee. Only to later get so used to the power that they want to upgrade and go faster. Next thing you know, they need larger injectors and a new chip with their next round of bolt ons. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, if you know you are going to eventually upgrade the car as money allows, go ahead and get 60# Mototron high impedance injectors and a Turbo Tweak chip. With a stock bottom end motor, you will never have to upgrade the injectors again, and Eric offers one free chip upgrade with his TT chips. Some might think that these injectors are too big for a street driven car, but I say nay nay on that. I currently run these injectors on my own car. The motor is stock with the exception of valve springs, a timing chain and a power plate. This year at Bowling Green, I was able to get 27 mpg highway driving and made 12 passes with a best of 11.72, and drove the car home. Very simple bolt ons combo. You won't regret these injectors and chip combo.
Timing chain, either Roll Master or Cloyes. Most of the supporting vendors on here have what you need, and don't forget the Torrington thrust roller bearing with the new timing chain. Also, do not reinstall the stock timing chain tensioner on a double roller. The DR chain will eat up the plastic/nylon tensioner and FOD up the oil pickup screen. At this point, you really have to ask yourself how fast do you want to go? Figure this out, plan your combo smartly and stick to it. There are so many different combos out there. IMHO, if you want a reliable daily driver, then stick to the low 12s combo. When you start to get into the 11's things tend to start breaking and wearing out fast on a stock car. Trannys start to go, suspension components need addressing, as well as the brakes. Once you get to around 11.30s, to me that's about the limit before you really start stressing and breaking things on a regular basis. But no matter what combo you decide on, I highly recommend you invest in Kirbans body bushings and brace kits for our cars. Those 4 items will make a huge world of difference on a street driven car.
As far as going into the motor, unless the head gaskets are blow, or if the mileage is over 130K, I would not touch the heads. Just do valve springs with the heads installed on the motor and here's why. The seal on the stock head gaskets that comes from 20 years of age is the best seal that they will ever have. Especially on a car with low to medium miles or on a car that has never been abused. Don't break that seal if at all possible. Stock heads with new valve springs have run into the 10s and there are thousands of cars around the country running 11s with never touched heads. Yes you will pickup hp by porting the heads, but unless you are running a large enough turbo that really requires fully ported heads, the gains will be nominal at best with a small turbo.
When my old gray car was running 12.00s - 12.10s with stock stuff, and had 98k miles on a stock motor, I took the advice of a famous Turbo Buick guru back in '95. He told me, "Do a compression check, if all cylinders are within 10%, then slap some bolts ons on, tune it and she will fly. Tuning is the most important aspect with these cars. And you can never over fuel one either." I did my compression check, all six cylinders were within 7% so I purchased the largest turbo that was available at the time, (TE63-1 from Modern Musclecar) a Eastern Perf front mount IC, upgraded the fuel system to a Bosch external pump with 42.5# injectors, (50# and 60# Mototron injectors and Walbro 340 pumps did not exist back in '94-'95) 3" downpipe with external wastegate, 3" dual exhaust, valve springs, hydraulic cam and lifters, 70mm t-body and multiple plenums. Over a period of 1 year, I proceeded to tune this combro from 12.00s to consistent 11.30s, while still driving the car daily. Everything was fine until I spun a bearing with 140k miles on a cold winter day. Word of advice, if you are running synthetic oil and it's 35* outside, do yourself a huge favor and let the car completely warm up before going out and hammering on it. There are a lot of people who are running very fast with simple combos and alky. You will be much safer with one of Razors Alky injection kits on a daily driver.
Anywho, sorry to ramble on and I hope some of this helps.
Patrick
Guess where that 3" dual exhaust is.
