no a rb25 turbo wont work easily. need a custom dump as the vlt manifold mounts the turbo completely different to a 25 manifold.
as said buy a basic vlt kit with manifold, turbo, oil and water lines, dump, injectors and ecu
ignore the surge tank, it should be the intake plenum that the line goes to. dont use the line going to the fuel reg tho, you dont wanna mess with fuel pressure.
stock reg is more reliable than 90% of aftermarket regs and there is absolutely no reason to adjust the fuel pressure away from factory with a factory ecu
peak power may be similar but the 25 will be much quicker on the street.
imo, get yourself a 32 25de head, bolt it to a 30e block and throw on a gt30. can re use all your silvertop loom etc that way and nistune the ecu
put the standard fuel reg back on and check the timing. cas rotated clockwise is retarded from stock, so for it to still be pinging it would have to be real lean or the cas a tooth out.
can detonate the engine at 0psi or 100psi, boost is mostly irrelevant. rb20s run 10psi standard, rb25s are 7psi.
and that boost and power is not going to hurt a rb20
e85 doesnt pass some gay volatility test. all the other states have changed the laws to allow for it but WA hasnt.
also caltex has said that even if the law does change they have no plans at present to sell it here as it'd cost too much for them to transport it here
if your real keen maybe write a letter to your local MP about changing the law and see what they say
if you have a hand controller go setting > boost and its the number in the middle column on whatever boost setting you have selected
http://www.paulr33.com/powerfc-faq/powerfc-faq.htm#50
yes the tune will need tweaking. there seams to be a lot of workshops out there that dont bother setting up boost control and light load maps properly, even reputable ones.
personally i'd take it back and have a talk to the tuner and ask him why its set up to come on boost so lazily, see what he says
needs more gain/duty
its not running out of puff at all, if those boost lines were all flat all 3 runs would be making peak power right where they backed off which is ~ 6800. hardly running out of puff. get it running a nice flat line at 18psi all the way to limiter and you'll notice a huge difference.
the pink line doesnt reach full boost until ~4600 and gets there very lazily. should ramp up hard and hit 16-18psi at around 3600-3800 at a guess