Stringing in one direction - hours of troubleshooting

I've had a prusa 2020 i3 for several months now and I've been able to get most of the calibration in. Recently I was trying to print the Iris boxes that are on thingiverse but haven't been successful. I thought that stringing may be my issue so I have been running this retraction test over and over again:
[www.thingiverse.com]

I have been able to improve results by increasing my retraction and by decreasing my temperature, however I'm still not happy with it. My temp is currently very cool - probably too cool so it may not be reading correctly. I'm currently printing at 175C with a 3mm retraction and I still get stringing and lines of deposited filament on 1 side of the retraction test object - only one, not the other three. There are some very slight strings on the other sides but nothing I'm worried about - almost can't see them. The heavier bands seem to be small amounts of filament that get deposited as the nozzle travels in that area. I can't get rid of them.

If I go any lower in temperature my printer stops extruding. I've tried more/less retraction, higher/lower retraction speed, faster/slower travel speed, z lift when retracting, wipe while retracting... nothing seems to help.

Using marlin firmware and repetier - sli3er for slicing.

Is it a direct drive extruder or a Bowden extruder? On my Bowden systems with my CoreXY, because of the length of the tube it’s not uncommon for me to have 5-6mm retraction. On the direct drive setups, I usually don’t need more than 1mm. I think the 1.75mm Bowden setup has a lot of spring in the tube and filament which is why the retraction is much higher. Just something to try at least.

It's a direct drive. MK8 - From what I've been reading 2 should be plenty, 3 should be overkill. I also have a distinct line that runs vertically up my prints. It's the start an stop point of the extruder when it's doing the perimeter. I think it's all related, I just can't figure out how to get rid of it. I just tried running a solid print at the low temperature setting and it looked horrible. Very "liney" - I think I need to go up some to get the layers to blend together better. That's just going to make my stringing issue worse though,,,

As this is a Pruisa - When the hot end moves in X it should get cooler as it is moving through the air. In Y the bed moves so the hot end may run hotter as it is stationary in a pocket of warm air. So more stringing in Y direction ?

Looks like a small object and the towers will have smaller layers the further up you go. Small layers are an issue as the layer doesn't have time to cool. In some situations you may be draging the already printed filament from the print so the retraction has no effect.

just for kicks rotate the object 45 degrees and see what you get.....

Ok - busy week but I finally got back to this. A buddy and I were discussing and had an idea that worked. I reduced by extrusion multiplier from 1.04 to 1.0. I think there was enough filament building up around the nozzle that it was traveling with the nozzle and getting deposited on the travel move. Now things look better.