Need Help Mimaki 3042HG black ink in yellow prints

Continuation of my black ink in yellow print issue. (Mimaki 3042HG)

Did a couple more test prints today - here is what I found:
Printed a test square of yellow and black only, only notice the black streaking on the left of the left side squares, most notably at the very begining.



Printed some plate frames, noticed that even if I printed a yellow rectangle off-site first (to get rid of initial black overspray), the actual print itself would still streak black.
Furthermore, noticed the 16 pass would have about 4x more black streaks than 32 pass. (does this have to do with how often the printer touches the capping station?)



Things I've changed/tried/tested:
1) new dampers, however damper adapters have not been changed
2) cap top suction has been tested, suction pulls fine
3) YK and ClPr top caps have been swapped to see if it was potential sealing issue, no seeming change in behavior

Other notes:
the black contamination in the yellow on nozzle checks is seemingly random. It will usually always be there, but never on the same nozzles.

Any advice on what it could be, and what I could buy/continue trying would be a great help, thank you!

 

Some more photos to help -

 

its the grey old style. we swapped it with another we had (not new) and still the same issue. I'll buy new ones and try again.