Obvious solution, and I'm an idiot.
 

Car has been acting funny lately, acting as if something were placing extra load in it. Then I remembered, I haven't checked the oil level in a little while...

Yup, very low. Added in a quart and fired it up. Car is back to normal.


Point of this post is a reminder for those of us that forget to check obvious things such as fluid levels before we start tearing things apart.

good thing u caught it before anything bad happened

how was the oil pressure prior to checking it?
btw felixwankel, fixed yoru car yet? it saids you have 1 hr of runtime for ever!