So, the day after we get the last of the fuel work finished, I get the Laser on a long on-ramp, and decide to mash the gas. Run second out to 7500 RPM, keep the gas planted, hit the clutch, hear the NLTS popping, smack it into third, drop the clutch, and get sucked back into the seat as it pulls forward again. Run the gear out to the top of third (pay no attention to how fast that means I was going), keep the gas planted while pushing down the clutch, hear that comforting "pop-pop-pop" of the lowered NLTS rev limiter, pull down to fourth, and pop the clutch out again, to the sound of the poor engine revving itself to the moon.
I caught second gear by mistake. Whoops.
Now technically, I shifted at 7500 RPM. However, thanks to the wonder of NLTS, my mid-shift RPM would have dropped to about 6000 RPM. With a third gear ratio of 1.000 (how convenient!) and a second gear ratio of 1.581, the engine was mechanically forced to spin at about 9486 RPM for a second, before I managed to get the clutch back in. (For more information on DSM gear ratios, see Tom Stangl's excellent VFAQ entry on the subject.)
Could have been worse; a second to first mis-shift would have netted over 10,000 RPM, which almost certainly would have caused a bit of valve float and head damage. However, thanks to the upgraded springs and retainers in the well-built head from Mitch, along with stock cams for a mild ramp profile, there doesn't appear to be any damage at all; timing is dead on, no untoward noise, and the car drove and pulled exactly like it should. However, later that night, we heard a bit of clattering from the bell-housing area, which we initially thought might have been a flywheel bolt backing out (a common problem with mis-shifts and other high-RPM misadventures).
So, after having just gotten the car back on the road, out comes the transmission; checked the flywheel bolts, and all are holding tight, so we have no idea what might have been causing that noise. The upshot is that we had a chance to check the condition of the clutch after a bit over 20,000 very hard miles (Erica taught herself to drive a stick on this clutch, and I've put a ton of drag passes and autocross events on it). The disc, surprisingly, was in amazing shape; the pressure plate and flywheel friction surface were showing a bit of heat-spotting, though. One interesting thing that I never noticed on the 2600 we put in the Eclipse: the hub and center section of the disc had blued from the heat.
Anyway, we just need to lift the transmission back into the, car, slap everything back together, and hope that whatever was rattling was taken care of during the disassembly. Whee.