Thanks everyone! 5 years away definitely makes me a virgin again, just sitting in the driver's seat makes me overexcited!
The car is at my parents' in Phoenix, but right now I'm going to school in Sacramento. I flew down this weekend to start the resurrection. Naturally I had a blown hg, so we pulled it apart and took the head in to get machined. I'm coming back for a whole week next week for my spring break to do the rest (mill the block, replace hoses, etc.) A very sarcastic thank you to the original owner of my supra, who must have blown the factory hg, then decided to try to sandwich 2 separate paper-thin replacements in between. They weren't even really blown, but never sealed properly. Great idea :/
I haven't quite figured out what i'm going to do with the car. For now I just want to get it running again, see if there's still life in all the stock equipment. The cylinders actually looked great, so did the cams. Turbo was working great before everything pooped out. Aside from the bhg, the main issue I was having before was electrical. Since virtually everything electrical in my supra is GROSS, I'm gonna do a full overhaul and see if that fixes the problem. Before I retired the car it would start and drive fine but all of the sudden would die completely. Everything off all at once. I've done some research on here and I think it's most likely a faulty ground connection or something going into the relay/fusebox under the hood. I also have exposed wires peeking out of different places on the harness. Gonna get a new harness this week as well.
I am finishing up my last semester of law school right now, and the supra is a welcome distraction. Still don't have a job lined up, so I'm not sure how much $ I'll have to pour into the car. But my wife's 94 Grand Cherokee is losing its tranny, and I'd rather spend the available funds I have getting the supra going again than to put it into the crappy Jeep. Despite their recent woes, I'll never stray from Japanese autos. My 99 Pathfinder has 202k miles and is still a beast. I'm pretty confident I'll get the supra running well enough to get us through the Bar Exam this summer and the start of our new jobs (she's a law student too, I picked a winner) and then I'll be able to do the rest of the fun stuff I see people on here doing to theirs. I see 400 hp in the distant, but reachable future.
I'll snap some pics when I come back to phx next week and get them up here.