diff --git a/lucene/core/src/test/org/apache/lucene/index/TestIndexWriterExceptions2.java b/lucene/core/src/test/org/apache/lucene/index/TestIndexWriterExceptions2.java
index b0ba3673356..f3320691b48 100644
--- a/lucene/core/src/test/org/apache/lucene/index/TestIndexWriterExceptions2.java
+++ b/lucene/core/src/test/org/apache/lucene/index/TestIndexWriterExceptions2.java
@@ -26,11 +26,13 @@ import org.apache.lucene.analysis.CrankyTokenFilter;
 import org.apache.lucene.analysis.MockTokenizer;
 import org.apache.lucene.analysis.TokenStream;
 import org.apache.lucene.codecs.Codec;
+import org.apache.lucene.codecs.asserting.AssertingCodec;
 import org.apache.lucene.codecs.cranky.CrankyCodec;
 import org.apache.lucene.document.Document;
 import org.apache.lucene.document.Field;
 import org.apache.lucene.document.NumericDocValuesField;
 import org.apache.lucene.store.Directory;
+import org.apache.lucene.store.MockDirectoryWrapper;
 import org.apache.lucene.util.IOUtils;
 import org.apache.lucene.util.LuceneTestCase;
 import org.apache.lucene.util.TestUtil;
@@ -40,15 +42,16 @@ import org.apache.lucene.util.Rethrow;
  * Causes a bunch of non-aborting and aborting exceptions and checks that
  * no index corruption is ever created
  */
-// TODO: not sure which fails are test bugs or real bugs yet...
-// reproduce with: ant test  -Dtestcase=TestIndexWriterExceptions2 -Dtests.method=testSimple -Dtests.seed=9D05AC6DFF3CC9A4 -Dtests.multiplier=10 -Dtests.locale=fi_FI -Dtests.timezone=Canada/Pacific -Dtests.file.encoding=ISO-8859-1
-// also sometimes when it fails, the exception-stream printing doesnt seem to be working yet
-// 
 public class TestIndexWriterExceptions2 extends LuceneTestCase {
   
   // just one thread, serial merge policy, hopefully debuggable
   public void testBasics() throws Exception {
+    // disable slow things: we don't rely upon sleeps here.
     Directory dir = newDirectory();
+    if (dir instanceof MockDirectoryWrapper) {
+      ((MockDirectoryWrapper)dir).setThrottling(MockDirectoryWrapper.Throttling.NEVER);
+      ((MockDirectoryWrapper)dir).setUseSlowOpenClosers(false);
+    }
     
     // log all exceptions we hit, in case we fail (for debugging)
     ByteArrayOutputStream exceptionLog = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
@@ -68,15 +71,16 @@ public class TestIndexWriterExceptions2 extends LuceneTestCase {
     };
     
     // create lots of aborting exceptions with a broken codec
-    Codec codec = new CrankyCodec(Codec.getDefault(), new Random(random().nextLong()));
+    // we don't need a random codec, as we aren't trying to find bugs in the codec here.
+    Codec inner = RANDOM_MULTIPLIER > 1 ? Codec.getDefault() : new AssertingCodec();
+    Codec codec = new CrankyCodec(inner, new Random(random().nextLong()));
     
     IndexWriterConfig conf = newIndexWriterConfig(TEST_VERSION_CURRENT, analyzer);
     // just for now, try to keep this test reproducible
     conf.setMergeScheduler(new SerialMergeScheduler());
     conf.setCodec(codec);
     
-    // TODO: too much?
-    int numDocs = RANDOM_MULTIPLIER * 1000;
+    int numDocs = atLeast(2500);
     
     IndexWriter iw = new IndexWriter(dir, conf);
     try {
diff --git a/lucene/test-framework/src/java/org/apache/lucene/codecs/cranky/CrankyStoredFieldsFormat.java b/lucene/test-framework/src/java/org/apache/lucene/codecs/cranky/CrankyStoredFieldsFormat.java
index e330d30f018..b7e86cae80a 100644
--- a/lucene/test-framework/src/java/org/apache/lucene/codecs/cranky/CrankyStoredFieldsFormat.java
+++ b/lucene/test-framework/src/java/org/apache/lucene/codecs/cranky/CrankyStoredFieldsFormat.java
@@ -66,6 +66,9 @@ class CrankyStoredFieldsFormat extends StoredFieldsFormat {
     @Override
     public void abort() {
       delegate.abort();
+      if (random.nextInt(100) == 0) {
+        throw new RuntimeException(new IOException("Fake IOException from StoredFieldsWriter.abort()"));
+      }
     }
 
     @Override
diff --git a/lucene/test-framework/src/java/org/apache/lucene/codecs/cranky/CrankyTermVectorsFormat.java b/lucene/test-framework/src/java/org/apache/lucene/codecs/cranky/CrankyTermVectorsFormat.java
index e0a792d1965..fff475e12a9 100644
--- a/lucene/test-framework/src/java/org/apache/lucene/codecs/cranky/CrankyTermVectorsFormat.java
+++ b/lucene/test-framework/src/java/org/apache/lucene/codecs/cranky/CrankyTermVectorsFormat.java
@@ -66,6 +66,9 @@ class CrankyTermVectorsFormat extends TermVectorsFormat {
     @Override
     public void abort() {
       delegate.abort();
+      if (random.nextInt(100) == 0) {
+        throw new RuntimeException(new IOException("Fake IOException from TermVectorsWriter.abort()"));
+      }
     }
     
     @Override
diff --git a/lucene/test-framework/src/java/org/apache/lucene/store/MockDirectoryWrapper.java b/lucene/test-framework/src/java/org/apache/lucene/store/MockDirectoryWrapper.java
index 048179eb5e2..9323631ba86 100644
--- a/lucene/test-framework/src/java/org/apache/lucene/store/MockDirectoryWrapper.java
+++ b/lucene/test-framework/src/java/org/apache/lucene/store/MockDirectoryWrapper.java
@@ -74,6 +74,7 @@ public class MockDirectoryWrapper extends BaseDirectoryWrapper {
   boolean preventDoubleWrite = true;
   boolean trackDiskUsage = false;
   boolean wrapLockFactory = true;
+  boolean useSlowOpenClosers = true;
   boolean allowRandomFileNotFoundException = true;
   boolean allowReadingFilesStillOpenForWrite = false;
   private Set<String> unSyncedFiles;
@@ -172,6 +173,15 @@ public class MockDirectoryWrapper extends BaseDirectoryWrapper {
   public void setThrottling(Throttling throttling) {
     this.throttling = throttling;
   }
+  
+  /** 
+   * By default, opening and closing has a rare small sleep to catch race conditions
+   * <p>
+   * You can disable this if you dont need it
+   */
+  public void setUseSlowOpenClosers(boolean v) {
+    useSlowOpenClosers = v;
+  }
 
   /**
    * Returns true if {@link #in} must sync its files.
@@ -524,7 +534,7 @@ public class MockDirectoryWrapper extends BaseDirectoryWrapper {
     
     // throttling REALLY slows down tests, so don't do it very often for SOMETIMES.
     if (throttling == Throttling.ALWAYS || 
-        (throttling == Throttling.SOMETIMES && randomState.nextInt(50) == 0) && !(in instanceof RateLimitedDirectoryWrapper)) {
+        (throttling == Throttling.SOMETIMES && randomState.nextInt(200) == 0) && !(in instanceof RateLimitedDirectoryWrapper)) {
       if (LuceneTestCase.VERBOSE) {
         System.out.println("MockDirectoryWrapper: throttling indexOutput (" + name + ")");
       }
@@ -578,12 +588,12 @@ public class MockDirectoryWrapper extends BaseDirectoryWrapper {
 
     final IndexInput ii;
     int randomInt = randomState.nextInt(500);
-    if (randomInt == 0) {
+    if (useSlowOpenClosers && randomInt == 0) {
       if (LuceneTestCase.VERBOSE) {
         System.out.println("MockDirectoryWrapper: using SlowClosingMockIndexInputWrapper for file " + name);
       }
       ii = new SlowClosingMockIndexInputWrapper(this, name, delegateInput);
-    } else if (randomInt  == 1) { 
+    } else if (useSlowOpenClosers && randomInt  == 1) { 
       if (LuceneTestCase.VERBOSE) {
         System.out.println("MockDirectoryWrapper: using SlowOpeningMockIndexInputWrapper for file " + name);
       }