Quick Advice Needed for VCT DTC's

[ddd4114]

I have a 2011 GT that is exclusively a track (TT) car, and after 12 years of beating on it, I finally had an engine issue this past weekend. The car was fine for the first 20-30 min of driving, and then I noticed that the exhaust suddenly sounded louder and had a different tone. It sounded like an exhaust leak (on an already fairly loud exhaust), but I couldn't find any. On a subsequent session, the check-engine light turned on, and I found I had the following codes:

• P0023: Camshaft Position B - Actuator Circuit (Bank 2)
• P0025: Camshaft Position B - Timing Over-Retarded (Bank 2)

Since the "B" camshaft is the exhaust camshaft, this made sense. I didn't want to risk nuking the engine, I packed up and went home.

Today, I inspected the wiring for the bank 2 (driver-side, right?) exhaust camshaft actuator, and here's what I found:

• No visible damage, and the wires are still compliant
• The connector was not soft-set, and the pins looked fine
• There is no continuity between the pins or between either pin and ground
• The solenoid resistance is ~8 ohms, which is within the spec I found of 5-15 ohms.

My next step was to try and reproduce the problem. I cleared the DTC's and took the car for a spin around my neighborhood, much to my neighbors' dismay. I drove it around normally, floored it to redline, and did some throttle snaps, and... I never got any trouble codes (even pending ones). While I was driving, I logged some data, and I don't see anything alarming in the bank 2 vs. bank 1 exhaust phasing:

Yeah, there are slight differences, but nothing I would actually call a problem.

To make things worse, I'm in quite a time-crunch because I'm supposed to leave for the NASA national championship event next Wednesday (9 days from now). If I need to fix anything, it needs to be this weekend. If I need to order parts to do that, it needs to be ASAP.

Does anybody have experience with random, unrepeatable issues like this? Is it indicative of a failing actuator or phaser? Maybe just some random debris in the oil? Aliens?

If it repeats, I'm thinking is it's one of these things:

1. A dying actuator
2. Impeded oil flow through the phaser
3. A dying camshaft position sensor
4. A very intermittent wiring problem

To address each possible cause, here's my current thinking:

1. I bought a spare actuator, and I'll bring it to the track. It doesn't look too difficult to swap it there, and I should hopefully know if the issue is still happening after a practice session.
   
2. Replacing cam phasers at the track isn't happening. I don't have the tools, skills, or ambition to do that. Therefore, I really need to order parts ASAP and do it this weekend if this is a likely possibility. However, it looks like a total PITA and will cost hundreds of dollars, so I don't want to do it unless it's very likely to fix the problem. The current oil has <2 hours of track time on it, so it's highly unlikely that dirty oil is causing this.
   
3. Probably the same as (2). I haven't look too far into replacing these, but I doubt it'll be easy at the track. I also think it's the least likely possibility.
   
4. I'll have the tools and skill to troubleshoot wiring at the track, but I'm not sure that I'll have the luck or the patience. However, I'm not sure what else to check at home considering the problem is intermittent.

Any experience or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!