Sean, save your cash on the bottom end. you dont need exotic stuff unless you are going for 1000hp like the SMP charger. He is the only one that makes the custom 4 bolt mains IIRC. 2 bolt (all stock blocks) is plenty for what you want. how many miles are on the engine now? if its high, id do a stock rebuild. at the most, a set of pistons. you can do that for under 1500$.
im also a little leery of the XSpower and the SSautochrome stuff. they really make some garbage parts sometimes or at least they have in the past. a 3 T2 stock core cooler is what larry was using. id check on ebay for thunderbird SC intercooler cores and have them welded up. or get two SRT coolers and put them one on top of the other and change the end tanks slightly. that will be more than enough flow. the SRT stage 3 makes 360whp with one of them.
when you rebuild the trans, you might want to look into the quaife for the neon and use a 3.50 FD ratio transfer shaft and ring gear out of the 523 trans. that would give you a slightly taller ratio which means it loads the turbo harder (heat) and you can stay in each gear longer. i know it works awesome on slightly lighter cars.
Anyone here do that setup in an R/T yet? i would think that it would help.
if you make sure the mounts and suspension bushings are up to snuff and tight and you are making the HP you want, there is no reason why it wont be faster than the bird on nitrous with the R/T without nitrous.
id plan on running 25psi with alky injection. you wont miss the nitrous.
Brian