Well it’s not because of anything they did wrong.
The manifold I had didn’t require many things. When I went back to stock, I didn’t have a lot of stuff and I didn’t realize stuff was missing (I wasn’t the one who originally took the stock stuff off). Once I realized I’m more into aesthetics than power and sold the 2000 IM, and started to troubleshoot, I saw what was up.
I ran her tonight after undoing the coolant bypass, etc. She runs so much better. Throttle response is much smoother, idles better, seems to be a little quieter although that might just be me. Just waiting for my coil packs to come in so I can remove the one that’s bad and have 5 backups in case. 99’s are famous for coil issues.
But yeah…I learned a lot. I guess that’s what I’ll take away from this experience. No biggie. It’s not like I lost $2k trying to fix it. I think I spent like $600 total. Most of those parts were done as preventive maintenance so I’ll never have to worry about them again.
I did manage to drop the nut for my front strut bar though and never saw it again. I spent like an hour looking on the floor/in my engine bay. I’ll just have to go to Napa tomorrow and pick out the same one so I can attach the strut bar like it’s supposed to be attached.