Ken and i will have to agree to disagree on the rods. Power holding is only one part of the puzzle when determining whether rods are a good idea or not. if you look at the sums, at 7000rpm, our piston speeds are getting maxed out, piston velocities are insane and side loading stress is incredible.... how much of that side loading stress the stock rods can put up with is anyones guess....as far as i know noone has dropped a rod on an NA build - but then we've never seen a whole stack of people try and chase down numbers north of 160hp at once... i think we're going to learn a few new things about the FS engine in the coming months.
150whp is a hard mark to pass on stock pistons, remember, your pistons are LOWER compression than the australian pistons, which are lower than JDM.... you've increased your compression and if you do everything else right, you should see a decent gain... that plus the bolt ons should see you crack 150whp without batting an eyelid... 175 however, might be a stretch without going to the extreme...only time will tell!
Like i said, it comes down to how much money you are willing to spend, and where you are willing to spend it. I have no doubt you'll topple 150hp, i'm just slightly worried about your rods should you need to increase your redline to something outlandish in order to get those last few horsepower out of the engine.....
Tom03es: yes increasing static compression will increase stresses, but nothing like what boosting will do...