Thanks for the responses Robert and Mark. Glad to see the real support, the few posts I could find (most dating back to early 2000's) on multiple forums just resulted in "why would you do that, just put in a v8" responses.
I'm pretty set on doing this, whether it's anything like the factory 152t or not

my brother-in-law owns a diesel performance company and he gave some word to his sponsors (he has a 1000+hp cummins running some wild turbo setup) and has two itching to support my project in exchange for some local presence in events around here, and I normally tag along with him anyway. So the turbo isn't really a hard part in this for me. Picking it is a little more challenging
if 10-15 is safe, I'll definitely squeak a little higher than 4-5, I'll have to chat with the two turbo manufacturers that are interested in my project about what I can get to spool at the lowest rpm possible for a project like mine and possibly run to the 10psi range. I don't need rock crawling spooling potential but the oem from what I read didn't really start to spool until 2000-2500rpm.
I find it interesting about the short chat on leaning for power, when the common issue I saw trying to find any info on something like this was people running Rich in mid rpm before spool up soaking down the cylinders in fuel. Is the factory carb acceptable for this application? I read somewhere than the oem 152t had different jetting but everything else was the same, does anyone know what the jetting change was so I have a baseline?
Considering the timing concern (understandably) is there a recommended ignition changeout in your opinion from the oem distributor be it electronic distributor or other ignition system?
If flat top pistons are the way to go I'll probably just go with ihparts full motor kit with the cam grind. What do you think my realistic risk is to run it on the motor as is?
The project is budget conscious but I'm not afraid to put down a few bucks to do it right. The body is starting to come off this weekend for a frame and axle sandblast and pro 15 job, then the ihparts lift kit with a 1" body lift to help clear the exhaust and manifold setup. Then I'll be kicking on a disc brake conversion and then the motor build begins. I gotta get my motor stand home from it's previous location and start cleaning up and doing a real condition check. It ran the Scout out of the junkyard but other than that I'm not sure on it yet.