Actually i did not. With crank half a tooth off as show on the image above she still ran like a Subaru and low vacuum. It was frustrating as i really had my hopes up.

So with "old" alignment as shown above the TDC screwdriver method revealed that the piston one was slightly off the TDC point when crank was slightly off the timing mark as show above.

I took out the belt & started from the beginning again. This time i did not use the plastic insert. Instead, i zip tied t-belt around intake cam first, rotated crank to line up to timing mark, then i rotated intake counter clockwise slightly off 9 o'clock mark so t-belt teeth could engage perfectly with the crank. At first it looked like the cam gear is off (around 8:30) but ignored that and aligned & zip tied exhaust cam and then finished tensioning the t-belt.

To my surprise here is the new alignment:









^ that saved me a ton of time, thank you!



^ Synthetic has been flushed out and refilled with conventional oil. I'll keep it there for next 1000 km

I took her out for a drive and immediately notice more low end torque and more power at WOT. Roughly around 20-30%. She felt much more responsive and vacuum at idle was -19/-20.

Now (900rpm):



Before (1100rpm):





^ that's the key right there and solution to my problem.
Thanks again Jeremy