130 ft-lbs is about all you will see in a full built GSR motor at the wheels. My car is making 125 ft lbs and that is with 4 hours or dyno tuning to fatten up the mid-range.

As far as VTEC goes, you want to get the second lobes to come on as early as possible. If you fall out of this range (tight turn, etc) forget about it. Down shift, rev the piss out of it and hope for the best. the VTEC motors make great hp for the 1.8 L, but tq is the downside. The LS motor (non-VTEC) usually has more tq than the VTEC counterpart.

You are right VTEC doesn't effect RPM, but with the RPM's and big lobes the car can breath to make HP and not tq.

Scott Seck is quite fast, but he would chime in and say the car is heavy and with small brakes it only makes the car harder to manage at the end of runs. A 100 lbs weight reduction woudl put the GSR much closer to the ITS front pack runners IMO, even with the SIR on the BMW's.