Jumping in late here as we have been absent from the forum for a bit. The tuner and fuel are going to be your most important factors, a good tuner and tune coupled with good fuel will do you well. Running a custom UM Flex Fuel tune, and pump E85. We have been pushing 450WTQ, and 500ISHWHP on our stock motor GTI for about 12K miles now. This includes at least 12 trips to the drag strip with getting close to 100 passes, a full day at Thunderhill road course where the GTI put down a lap 1 sec faster than out shop F80 BMW M3 and did on tires that cost $45 each, it also did a full day at a 1/2 mile event which is prob the hardest on the motor, full load all the way up to the top of 5th or 160MPH. We also have lent the car to 3 customers, and let multiple employees take it home. No one was easy on it. This car has never once let us down, and we plan to take it back to the strip next week. Running a big turbo at high power levels is totally doable for extended periods of time, just use good fuel, and a good tuner!
