No I didn't. Except, when I did mine, I wen't to larger injectors and slot maf at evactly the same time as the turbo was plumbed in to the intake. With my design, I wasn't able to run the turbo with factory intake and maf.
You are seeing boost quickly (when you didn't have the exhaust leak) which is awesome.
Some things I noted on mine are that boost comes on slowly and shows up around 3000rpm. Then its a smooth ramp up to max boost. I think this is a combination of rear mount turbo, and sizing. Now, even with what appears to be a larger turbo than I need for my application, dpfe hoses pop off due to exhaust back pressure.
From what I have read, 2 to 1 back pressure is not uncommon, and is actually pretty reasonable. so that would mean with 5lbs boost, there's 10 lbs pressure in the exhaust pre-turbo. That would definitely pop dpfe hoses.