Jonathan, I just replaced the washer and bolt because the old bolt had a funky wobble to it (the gear itself didn't though). Seems to not wobble now. I really don't know why it was doing that, but I figured I might as well change it for the hell of it. No, most people dont do this lol.
I did have the car towed, and it cost nothing because I am a AAA premium member

I still have 3 more free service calls with 100 mile tows left this year lol.
Ben, thanks for the comments above (you too Bear) and thanks for the advice on the noise. That definitely makes me feel much better. Thats kinda how I felt about it today when I decided to drive the car 250 miles. The noise seems to be quieter (might be even quieter after the drive, but I haven't had a chance to check) and the belts show no signs of wear or anything like that.
I wasn't surprised when I found that the stock crank cog was cracked to all hell. I'll post a pic soon. I'm sure glad I have that nice, shiny hardened steel one from EFI Express now! Thanks Marc.
So on to the good stuffProject big effin intercooler is officially a go. I'm going to start ordering parts soon. The fake core I made for mock up fits really easily. 1200cfm for the WIN! Look out for updates in the coming weeks.
When I was driving the car today I tried turning it out pretty good since I fixed the boost leak earlier (for now). Well it seemed to be doing pretty well except for some stutters in high boost. I think it needs a set of plugs. It also needs a retune in the high boost range because of the different cams. One time on the highway, it stuttered, then shifted to third gear, 15psi and it sounded like rev limiter (but it wasn't) and then the engine turned off. I was a little worried but then cycled the ignition and it came back to life like nothing ever happened.
I have a feeling it hit some kind of safety feature in the VEMS...might have been going lean. Like I said, it needs a retune because of the cams. We tried to tune last night but the damn boost leak held us back from seeing anything more than 10psi and then it started doing that weird power fluctuating thing. That was definitely some kind of boost leak related issue.
On another note, the car sounds different with the cams. When I was just moving the car around in my driveway at home my dad said he thought it sounded better because of the cams. I didn't think much of it (though it did sound quite nice). Then when I got on the highway and into the higher RPMs, I was pleasantly surprised by a sort of sharper sounding engine note. It seems to sound more exotic and radical than it did before. Maybe its just because I haven't driven it in a few weeks...but with the open wastegate you can really hear what the engine is doing haha
In short, it sounds a little closer to S1
:-D :-D :-D :bashtard: