I took the head off today to look at it
So you already took the head off and put it all back together, wow Nice work man
How did the valves look? Any discoloring, like were some a lighter tan and then a couple were a darker brown? Just curious because that's an easy way to detect a leaking valve..
What brand headgasket did you use when you threw it back on?
And a half a tank of gas later...(which to you who have been following my thread, is about 20 miles or so 
)
That's funny, but I feel your pain. At least gas near my house has dropper nearly 40 cents in the past two months. We are down to 2.70 a gal now. I haven't seen it this low since last winter.
I don't know enough about turbo's, but why would they provide adequate boost sometimes and not at others?
Could it be possibly the wastegate not fuctioning properly? 
The waste gate just controls where the Turbo is peaking, so if it is dumping all the boost out really soon, then yes, it maybe could limit the peak boost to like 2psi..
As for better peak boost at different times, again, this seems like an ignition problem. On my buddies 22R-TE with an aftermarket Garret Turbo, his truck had developed a rough idle and would not start at times. We found out that his dist. cap was cracked, the rotor was really worn down, and I got zapped while fiddling with his #2 spark plug wire. So he dished out some bucks and replaced those parts, and just like that his peak boost went up from 4psi to 6psi.
I remember that on my Supercharged MR2, with the SC, I would always have the same peak boost, but not always the same peak power. If I layed into it slowly, then it would power well, but if I jumped into the throttle, then it just didn't have the same kick. Later I upgraded my plug wires to some Nologys and and experimented with different plug gaping, and then I was able to get the same power under all conditions.
And according to my MSD knock sensor, it was never detonating, it just wasn't burning the fuel correctly, and this is even more the case with the Turbo, since proper exhaust velocities are needed to spool the Turbo, and if the exhaust is heavier with unburned fuel in it, or its continuously changing from a lean and then to a rich condition, then the Turbo would have different spooling characteristics.
Well, this is all in my head, and I really have no clue what this means in actual reality, but it was what I was thinking about
Cya
BigMike
