NA+Turbo - Tuning Strategy

I've been building a turbo setup for a motor that probably shouldn't be turbocharged - a 1.8L 18LE in an 80's N13 Nissan Pulsar.

The motor is completely stock - Factory CR of ~8.8:1. Log manifold, GT17 (Saab 2.0L) turbo, water-air IC, 380cc injectors, real-time tunable ECU.

Stock output ~80KW. Goal - 120KW would be nice. ATW even better!

In an effort to keep the rods straight and the pistons intact, would it be better to run a lower boost with more aggressive timing, or run higher boost with very conservative timing to meet my goal?

My thoughts are higher boost with lower timing would reduce peak cylinder pressures & torque while maintaining a higher average torque over the stroke. This seems like it would be easier on the rods, head gasket and pistons, probably a little harsher on the exhaust valves and turbo. Possibly more knock prone?

Alternately, low boost and timing set for MBT though this seems like it would result in higher peak forces for the same output power but it seems to be recommended for most NA+T builds.

These motors don't have knock sensors so I've got a wideband knock sensor bolted to the block, through an amp into headphones. This will be tuned on a dyno, has a wideband installed and worst case, I have a couple of spare motors on pallets so not a huge problem if the inevitable happens sooner rather than later. This is just for a bit of fun in a spare daily driver.