[ZenFone 2 Android Development] Restrected:
I have a question. Beginners questions although i am not a noob.

I have the zenfone 2 Z00A WW version. 4GB ram 64GB flash.

Here is what i have done so far.

I downgraded to firmware v2.20.40.22 in order to unlock bootloader. (everything, boot.img, droid.img, recovery.img firmware.img, all from that version of the firmware stock)

Unlocked bootloader - kept the inverse splash screen since i like it.

Installed TWRP Latest official recovery.

Flashed every room found in XDA for this phone and could not get one that could function as a daily driver properly for the following reasons.

This room, after flashing and running the first time, worked great! then i needed Gapps, so i flash that in recovery, and then i have google play services stopped unexpectedly every second. i made sure i installed the x86 version of gapps. and i could not get LTE with MetroPCS with this room no mater what i did. And preferred network only gives me 2g and 3g as an option.

I installed Euforia rom. Same issues as above but mainly when i run apps that depend on google services. Especially AOSP keyboard crashed every 20 seconds or so. No LTE no mater what i did

I installed Paranoid rom, kept the kernel it came with although here is an update for the kernel only, and i still had random services crashes. I get LTE here working just fine but it tops on speed at 30mbps down, and 30 up. On stock i got 70mbps down and 50 up everywhere in Manhattan, NY. This rom gives me the option for LTE under preferred network.

Before you help me with my problem, please keep in mind the following.

I want a bare bone system where i can install ONLY what i use. Albeit it is over 30 apps, but still.

Gapps i need the system services only, then maps, hangouts, youtube, google app (voice recognition etc), google now.

and a bunch of other stuff i use regularly to pay bills, check my bank account so i do not overdraft. etc.

i do not care about looks. i actually prefer AOSP look. Battery life is important. Tethering is important, but it seems to work with every rom i tried so i will not bother pointing it out.

I DO clean every single partition before flashing any room. Literally. System, data, cache, etc. everything! when i mount all the partitions in recovery i get NOTHING at all on the internal memory when i open it. its empty. Then i either sideload (which only works 1/10 times with this recovery, although i made sure to get the latest ADB and drivers from intel), or i just copy into my external sd and flash zip in recovery. My SD card has NOTHING in it other than the zip files i use to flash.

Please help me. I do not know if i am missing something. I can not think of a cleaner install that i perform. Yet i have crashing in system and google services all the time. once a minute was the best i achieved with the Paranoid rom latest build.

I would love to know what i am doing wrong. And i am sure it is something i am missing, since everyone is so happy with all the hard work you guys put into this. So am I. I hate zenUI more than i can express with words, but after flashing this room, i got 48019 score on AnTuTu. Same with Paranoid rom.

I am in no rush, but if you can think of something let me know. Should i update my bootloader? Should i update my droid.img? will i lose bootloader lock if i do that? is there a better custom recovery for this phone?

Thank you!!! And thank you for the hard work. I am glad someone has the time to do this things. I graduated computer science 3 years ago and i dont even work with tech. As much as i love this stuff though i dont have to time to do antyhing. I am grateful you guys are putting time into this. Thank you all again!