Electech,
Sorry to hear of the trouble, good thing you checked out the noise.
I am with you on the coppercoat. I use a piece of wire and hang the gasket and use the spray on type. I seem to make too much of a mess with the can and dauber.
I also had to gear down as mostly single track with a fire road once in a while.
If you want to shift some low end grunt consider a reed spacer. JFab here has them with gaskets or you can make your own relatively cheap. Why it works is somewhat of a guess.
My guess is adding crankcase volume. Hard to believe a 3/8" spacer works, but it does.
There are a few more things to shift powerband down to hillclimb singletrack however you will start to give up top end.
Thanks for tacking on the update, you never know who you might help!
Tuck\o/