Welcome to the fold! Your car is beautiful! That is one sexy color.
I used to have an eclipse GSX, I bought for 800 bucks. It was soooo fun to drive but so prone to breaking. First, it was burning a bit of oil, only at start. First thought was leaking seals but then decided to pull off the hose on the turbo. Nice pool of oil in there. The little 14b was dead. It had major oil coking, and was leaking past it's seals with a decent amount of shaft play. Replaced the turbo with a rebuilt eBay 14b. Then, the axles started clicking around corners, so I replaced the axles in the front with some high quality expensive raxles axles. The boots on the old ones were literally gone, torn off.
Weeks later, I replaced a few other things, and all fluids and pulled the turbo to check on the cartridge. My brother was over helping me clamp down all the hoses and stuff after putting everything back together. Turn the key, car starts!! I drive out of the garage to take it for a test drive. About 800 feet down the road, I get a loud POP, freak the eff out, and see the charge pipe off. It didn't get clamped right. No biggie, I fix that and off I go. Drive about 5 miles, and I notice the low water light on the dash. Wtf? I hop out and water is pouring out the bottom of the engine compartment. Unfortunately, those clamps my brother had been working on weren't put back on right or something. The car overheated and warped the head. Car is now blowing a ton of white smoke and there is water in the oil. At that point, I was done with the GSX. Lol.
Long story I know, but it was always something else breaking every time I fixed it. Every friend that had one had the same problem. We always seemed to be Working on it more than driving it. Having said all that, they are AMAZING platforms for performance, and a blast to drive.
Good luck with your tsi project! Sounds like it'll be bad ass