you say that you don't think he'll have the money to make the bottom end bullet proof enough to run boost, but running an all motor set up would require that more than running boost! Every year they push the envelope of stock internals w/ boost i know several people running over 300hp on stock sleeves and internals, now granted good tuning is necessary to do so. To answer one of your questions type-r pistons run a higher compression than other pistons, i can't remember exact figures but i know it's higher than 10:1 cuz that's what a gsr runs... but anyways the higher compression allows for an increase in horsepower, so i would also look for possibly the head being built up...

but a better way to help you would be to find out what motor is in it? (B18B, B18C1(GSR), B18C5(Type-R) this helps to determine a better strategy for the build)