Thanks for the info guys.

Just a bit of an update. I brought it by my friend's shop. We took it for a test drive. It was hard to replicate. (of course) However, we did a bit of a stress test by holding the brake and trying to build some boost stationary. (yep, I know this is hard on the transmission) From that (also had 2 techs listen for it) it sounds like a boost leak somewhere.


We did notice some soot buildup around the bypass valve, and also some soot where the pipe goes into what looks like throttle (is this normal?)