Well, I didnt realize it had been since February since I had updated, but the car was smoking pretty bad when driving. I probably have 100-ish miles on the car since the head swap and this past weekend a lifter started making noise so I pulled the motor apart last night. I was still pretty sure the seals in the turbo were bad and causing the oil burning/smoke, etc. Which, to be fair, was an illogical assumption since none of these issues were present before the swap.
Anyway, Here's what I noticed:
Notice the bottom of the intake port: oily! I think that the intake wasn't torqued down enough (side note - all the bolts were loose and I never re-torqued them after the initial install, whoops.) so oil was getting sucked in and causing all of my issues.
So on to the lifter making noise - Once the intake and valve cover were off, I noticed the #1 exhaust lifter wasnt pumped up. So, I figured that was my issue. For grins, I primed the motor with a drill and ran the sump dry within a couple of seconds. Mind you, the oil feed line for the turbo was open and draining directly into the drain line since I pulled the turbo off. But still, shouldnt run dry that fast. So, in the 100-ish miles I've driven the car it managed to burn a s--t load of oil. The flat lifter did pump back up, BTW.
So, I'm at the point now where I'm going to drain the oil, add new sauce, RTV the intake and torque it down, then re torque it down, and hope like hell that fixes all the issues, and that I didnt cause any other more serious damage. Never saw the oil pressure gauge move though.
Outside of that, the car drives great. I made a new cat back using 3" flow tubes and 3" mufflers. Still really quiet but man, the loss of all the backpressure woke it up something crazy. SOTP feels like another 100 HP.
This is the only picture I have. And yes, I know 3" exhaust behind a 2.5" Y-pipe isn't very helpful but it's a done deal.
Past that, I'm looking at doing a couple of other things to the car. The PS pump is still leaking and squealing. I plan on replacing the pump and changing the line to all AN fittings. I'd like to re-plumb the AC lines since my buddy just bought a crimping tool. I still have the contour fans to install. So, itll likely be down for a while to fix all this stuff but it should be rock solid and able to go anywhere once done.