Don't worry, I'm more crazy than smart, and I'm pretty crazy
I happend on the vacuum leak thing by accident. Typicaly when I have a vacuum leak with this car, and it's happend a few times in 256K miles, it will surge or ping a bit on accel. This time I forgot to hook up this line, which happens to be a calibrated leak from the factory (you can check out my other thread for details), and I had no drivability issues, just a check engine light telling me it was lean and I was suddenly getting much better mpg. With no driveability issues, and an abundantly cheap supply of these motors, I'm willing to let it go and see what happens. Of course I am not going WOT while doing this
All seems well so far, I'm half way thru the third tank will all three of these mods and the results are still the same. However, this is the first tank of commuting. I'm interested in seeing how much of a difference it makes when it gets really coooold.