I couldn't agree more, tuning is everything. In all honesty, anything larger than a vf34 is going to start decreasing the reliability of the factory shortblock and 5-speed. Its all a matter of how long you intend on keeping your car, if you plan on upgrading your gearset /shortblock down the line. The nice thing about the 18g compared to the vf34 is its ability to make some great power in higher boost levels if you ever wanted to run water injection or race gas, both making it safer to run more power on the stock block. If you can put down 300awhp on a safe tune and get some RA gears, i'm quite sure you car will last as long as it would stock, with almost twice the power. Its a nice goal to shoot for. What's 300awhp good for, about a 12.5-6? Sounds like z06 territory