Hi, im looking for anyone who has experience in tuning cars beyond full bolt ons because this is pretty much the limit I know.
Im thinking about putting a **** ton of money into an evo x build and those are my criteria

-I build it (I dont mind if it takes 800 hours of my labour alone in my garage, i dont want a shop doing it for me)
-Reliability
-400wheel on conservative
-Possibility for 600wheel later on

I know this means you need new motor/new internals and I dont want to pay a shop to do it for me. I dont have a lot of experience with cars as my bolt-on gti is the most knowledge Ive got yet. Would anyone recommend buying a crate longblock, shortblock from ams, maperformance, magnus, etc or should I buy head/block/etc all separately ? Is it a bad idea for the average joe like myself to go play inside the motor or anyone can with preparation ? Would you go with the 2L or bore it 2.2/2.4 ? With my little knowledge in the "built-motor" scene, litterally anything anyone with proper experience has to say to me will be usefull.
Thank you

 

400whp does not even remotely require a built motor. Literally just a very mild turbo upgrade like the MHI-18k will make 400+ on pump gas with all the other bolt ons (full exhaust, intercooler, intake, boost controller, fuel pump, injectors). Since 400 is the current goal, I would suggest going this route before and enjoying the car for a while before going down the built motor rabbit hole.

 

Yeah, this is probably a better starting point than a motor build. To the rest of your questions, in case this is a project you just want to take on for fun, you can definitely build an engine in your garage with minimal investment and lots of hours! Basic hand tools and a good torque wrench can get you everything except for machine shop work.

If you want to learn as much as you can, HP Academy has some really thorough learning videos available at a cost. There's a lot of free learning resources out there as well but quality and structure varies.

As far as what/how to build, that's going to be variables on your overall goals, streetabiltiy, etc. Bored out motors don't rev as well. Cam choices move HP/Torque curves around. Both are commonly matched to your turbo choice, etc. A built 2.0 that revs great and is matched to a 400hp turbo is going to look different than a 2.4L with a big turbo, big cam reaching past 600hp.
If you can find a local high performance builder/shop willing to talk to you for a while about your goals in exchange for some lunch or beer or something might be really valuable vs. just getting forum opinions