i just read through all 62 pages and my god this is cool. it was like i was reading a story and half the time i was wondering "ok whens the b16 coming into play here?" haha. this is great. About the surging idle, take the throttle body off and open up the FITV, usually a surging idle is caused when it backs itself out a little bit, just screw it back in with your finger and you should be good to go. Also check that your IACV is still good. To check for a vac leak, take a can of brake cleaner and spray it on the area that you think is leaking, if you hear the engine rev up a little bit (rpms will go up like 200-400rpm) then you know theres a leak there because its sucking the brake cleaner in and combusting it.
I had an annoying vac leak on my IACV, turns out i tightened it too much. Also for whatever reason my throttlebody was leaking bad on the bottom of it. might have something to do wtih the ITR intake mani and b16 throttlebody but im not sure. (i have an ls/vtec swap in my 00 ex coupe). i jsut put some high temp silicon gasket maker and sealed the bottom of the throttlebody with that, vac leak fixed, no more surging idle
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Also about the exhaust, is the crush bend worth it? I am currently rolling around on the stock d16y8 piping (like <2" i think?), i rolled around open header with a cat and like 2 feet of pipe bolted on and it pulled like a bitch then compared to when the exhaust was hooked up. Also with it open header my friend driving next to me said when it crossed over into vtec he felt it in his chest lol (ITR cams woot). my setup if your curious is a b18b1 stock block, b16 head with all ITR components (cams and full valvetrain), gsr trans with a quaife lsd. Untuned on a basemap with a hondata s200 chipped p28.
The thing pulls like mad and i love it, plus all stock exterior = sleeper.
Keep us updated on what happens and check what i told you about the surging idle, i know that feeling like "its working but its still broken", bugs the crap out of me with my car.