LOL....I know john will make fun of me for this, but before I met him, I was goofing with a couple things on my SVO to work around the same things you're dealing with. Because I had no way to tune the car with a chip or anything, I had an adjustable fuel pressure regulator and also goofed with the spring in the VAM to get it to open faster or slower. I mean, it was MAYBE a few clicks one way or another, but whatever the case, the car ran pretty good.

I also had a big NPR intercooler on there for a time, and 'felt' the same symptoms you're talking about, so I took it off.

I have a 93 Coupe with a 2.3t swap now, and it's a bit of a guinea pig for john and I. It's got a Mass Air setup on it and I've put on a bigger intercooler with a whole lotta piping. It also had the same turbo/head/cam as my SVO, but with injectors and a tune (by svojohn, btw), this thing runs high 12's - the SVO only ever ran low 14's (though that was with crappy 2.1-2.3 60's).

I guess my point is that the VAM stuff is a bitch to work with, and the sooner you ditch that, the better off you'll be.

John is the man with the 2.3t EECs. Here's our friend Robert's car that he tuned.

86 SVO Mustang Test-n-Tune - Car Videos on StreetFire