A buddy of mine had (yes had, because it got jacked while parked on the driveway) a B20vtec turbo and it pulled like no other. I believe his best run was in the mid 11's on drag slicks, but the car was built don't get me wrong. The bottom end was built and the head was built, he ran the car on Hondata too.

Now like I said it was a B20 not a LS, but if it ran that good on how thin its cylinder walls are compared to a 1.8 LS without having any problem with the bottom end, then I’m sure as hell confident that a LS bottom end would hold up better.

The fact of the matter still is, even if you go NA you got to build the motor internally sooner or later.