connect contact form 7 (cf7) to an external API

I'm trying to connect my contact 7 form to post also to an external CRM by using wp_remote_post. I found a tutorial and came up with this code:

function on_submit( $form, &$abort, $submission ) {

    if ( $abort === TRUE ) {
    return;
    }

    //tried seeing what my datafile was but nothing is being posted to my errorlog
    $data = $submission->get_posted_data();
    ob_start();
    var_dump($posted_data);
    error_log(ob_get_clean());

    $email = sanitize_text_field($data['your-email']);
    $name = sanitize_text_field($data['your-name']);
    $phone = sanitize_text_field($data['your-phone']);
    $message = sanitize_textarea_field($data['your-message']);

    $apiurl = 'https://coolapi.com';
    
    $apiheaders = array(
       'Authorization' => 'Token token=NotMyRealToken'
    );
    $apibody = array( 'marketing_form' => array (
            'email' => $email,
            'first_name' => $name,
            'phone_number' => $phone,
            'notes' => $message,
            'relationship' => 'self',
            'community_id' => 19019,
            'lead_source_id' => 60725
        ));

    $args_for_push = array (
        'headers' => $apiheaders,
     'body' => json_encode($apibody)
    );

    $response = wp_safe_remote_post( $apiurl, $args_for_push );
    $response_code = wp_remote_retrieve_response_code($response);

    if ( is_wp_error($response) ) {
        $abort = TRUE;

        //$body = wp_remote_retrieve_body($response);
        //$result = json_decode($body);

        $submission->set_response($response->get_error_message() );
        $submission->set_status('api_failed');
    }
    if($response_code != 200) {
        $submission->set_status('api_failed'.$response_code);
        $submission->set_response('Something went wrong: '.$response_code);

    } else {
        $submission->set_status('api_success'.$response_code);
        $submission->set_response('Thank you! we will get back to you shortly. confirm: '.$response_code);

    }
    
    //tried getting my debug info because nothing is reported to my error log. (this did not work)
    $debug="1";
    $mail = $form->prop( 'mail' );
    $new_mail = str_replace( '[your-name]', $debug, $mail );
    $form->set_properties( array( 'mail' => $new_mail ) );
    return $form;
}

add_action('wpcf7_before_send_mail', 'on_submit', 10, 3);

When I run this code without Cf7 the API returns a success code. But here no matter what I do CF7 submits the form and I receive an email but I'm not getting a submission to the CRM nor any errors. the message at the bottom of the form says: Thank you for your message. It has been sent. and no class changes are made to the form.

How can I better dump the log (or response) or have my submissions errors show up on the front so I can see what is wrong? Or better yet, get this thing working!

source https://stackoverflow.com/questions/77091293/connect-contact-form-7-cf7-to-an-external-api