yea,the thinking with this engine often is not the same as conventional wisdom from other engines. It doesn't need internal upgrades, or an aftermarket head, etc. No engine swap is needed ever. Hell even the stock turbo can get you in the 12s, or even the 11's.
While some basic principles apply such as cold air, no restrictions, etc work, many of the truisms need to be avoided when working with this engine. Many people who may be great at tuning small block domestics will not be the best place to get your tuning advice for these cars. Old school muscle car tuners mostly hate turbos and love superchargers, and know you need forged internals, huge lumpy cams, aftermarket blocks, heads, cranks, etc.
Not hating at all either, I started out the same way. Hell my first "mod" was to gap my spark plugs out to 60 thou because I know thats too small a gap. I know thats bs now, but it was conventional thinking on my part.
