Did they ever check over the cam lobes? If the cam lobes seem undamaged then you probably got away with it. Did they find many flakes when they checked the oil filter and sump? They can also wear your HPFP and then lead to fueling issues. I'm pretty sure a lot of these cars have suffered from faulty cam followers and they are still running. As far as I'm aware the more modified your car is the more often you need to check the cam follower, so I do a regular check at about 5k and will replace them much sooner than recommended to avoid any issues for not much cost.
As for the oversized ram air kit, it is loud. I think there's a way to make it a little more quiet, maybe someone can chime in? Although I quite like it, it makes the car sound quite aggressive and sometimes it flutters.
Stage 1 against stock is a huge difference, actually quite shocking when we had it done. Problem with yours is you may not know what it's supposed to feel like if you still have a leak. Definitely try to get to the bottom of it before you get it dyno'd
They did check the lobe, yeah. No major damage and he corrected it as much as he was able. His recommendation was to just check the follower every year. Replacement of the entire camshaft assembly was a waste of money in his view.
The fact that it's now a weak point on my car gives me pause with regards to tuning. Like you said, more power probably doesn't do that weak link any favors.
It may not be a real weak point. Wear in the cam lobe reduces the maximum amount of fuel that the car can supply to the engine, but if the engine does not need more fuel than is being provided, it doesn't matter. Just look for the symptoms of fuel cuts which in the worst case will log a fault. If it does become a problem you can fit an uprated HPFP and just make sure you are checking your follower frequently (annually is probably fine). If it is a K03 car it isn't ever going to demand massive fuel, just need to watch around 3,000 RPM when the cams might not be spinning fast enough for the standard HPFP to keep up. Either way, fitting an uprated HPFP makes much more financial sense than paying a specialist to swap cams.
I don't think you should be limited by previous faults as breeze said, if you don't have any issues you should be fine! If it makes you feel any better I've had stage 1 for over 10k miles now, with tons of previous faults from before that could somewhat damage things. Original clutch at 140k still. These cars are strong if maintained well, it's just the little nibbles to the bank account.
And yes I know the raimair doesn't win any beauty contests and there are better ones out there but for the price and easy installation I couldn't really find a more suitable one. As pudding said make sure you get to the bottom of your issues before you start modifying anything. It's a lovely car and for the price it's difficult to go to any other car now
