Aww man - no longer Rate 42... but 1/2 that. I repeated (as far as chirality would allow) my original Rate 42 machine with a few modifications on the repeated side due to chirality bonding issues... left hand side is 'clumsier' than the (original) right hand side...

I can see how to get min rate - draw the input every 2 cycles and have a tape length of 16 or 32 to fit in a multiple of 8 for 8 draws on the input for every output... but if this is my submitted solution used, I didn't have time to do that... still, for me, this isn't too bad...!