You might have been able to shim it back to spec and saved some bucks what what fun would that be?
I had a clutch that was shimmed wrong but it didn't have any effect on my mileage that I know of. It did have an effect on some of my parts. It's all good now. I'm glad to see you stuck it out in finding the issue. Not too many folks here get their hands dirty that deep into the Spyder.
Not enough clearance