I haven't continuity checked everything in the area but when I socketed the 2148s I did check those lines. Will continue to investigate possible trace damage but the board looks good in this area.
I have swapped the following into my working board and they all work fine there. roms 7H&7F, 6116 RAM 7E, Custom @ 8H, and both 2148s 7J & 7K. Vice Versa, those to non-working board usually produce the same RAM06 error.
I was led down a path thinking it was rom in 7F as the behavior changed (random changing characters like it is making further through initial self-test) on swap out but maybe the socket isn't great or something else caused that or it wasn't making it as far...hard to tell.
Also piggy backed some LS157s at 6k and 6j with no change/impact. might try to piggy back some LS367 at 6F and then really try to understand the schematic on what lines are doing what.
I all that fails, I have a working board and busted out my sig2 analyzer. I think if I make a NOOP adapter for the z80, I will be able to measure some good signatures from the good board and compare, trace what is going.
Anyone know if atari published signatures for pole position as I think the KK sig2 and catbox sigs are the same?