preemoguru

what's going on ppls, been on the fence about fixing my daily up and im tired of the auto and definitely want to turn this into more of a street/daily car that's fun to drive.
I do have a dedicated fun car but definitely want to clean this one up a bit. It's a 1 owner super mint GS300 01'.
I understand this has been covered more than once so I don't intend to over saturate this being another person with the intention of going turbo and manual swap in a gs300.

However I wanted to see what people thought. At most I'd want 500-600 in this car but probably even 400ish would be more than enough fun.
I intend to keep full interior, probably ac as well (drift car has never had it and it used to be my daily so the ac in the gs300 has been nice for change).

I wanted to ask the OG's here on what is the best bang for your buck internals for the NA 2J. I see a TON of options and it honestly is overwhelming i can't make my mind up.
What would be recommended? i see ppl go with used GTE rods/pistons but i don't mind getting new parts. Im thinking rods/pistons/bearings,rings and maybe that's good enough. Refresh the head (are stock cams more than capable?) FFIM, ecu, injectors, FMIC.

Planning to go the CD009 route, is there a trans kit that's better than others? collins kit seems pretty good from the looks of it.

Any info/input would be much appreciated from those that went this route, thanks again.