Larry
Bigassgas Explorer
Yeah, I was thinking the bolts coming loose were also directly related to the weld in steering box brace. I don’t remember if your frame was cracked or not, but if not the weld in frame brace was unnecessary not to mention welding a frame when you don’t really need to does more harm than good to these old frames as you heat up and soften areas that were once heat treated. I know you like to weld though even when you don’t have to :sombrero:. If the frame was not broke, the simple bolt in brace from ORD is more than sufficient for the wheeling we’ll ever throw at our rigs. Also did you also reuse the spacers that were originally on the back side of the frame where the bolts passed through? Those spacers are intended to allow for a longer bolt to achieve a higher clamp load when applying torque to the gear box fasteners. Bolts are more than threaded pieces of rod, they are also a mechanical object that works like a spring where they stretch for higher clamping forces. If you removed the spacers, add them back. A lot of people remove those spacers from steering gears and frame crossmembers fasteners for some reason then run into repeat loose fasteners in those areas.
The TPI sounds good in theory. Hopefully it will perform the way you expect. The deal breaker with these projects is the ECM tuning once you get it all bolted together. I ran a 454HO with a L29 7.4L intake running a marine MEFI-4 ECM for a short while. That concoction is basically a similar larger version of the small block TPI set up where the injectors are batch fired but mine was running speed density rather than MAF. I could never get that SOB tuned properly where I was happy the way it performed. It got yanked and replaced with the 8.1L that is in it now. Hopefully the MAF system you have will make tuning a lot easier. Speed density not so much, it was a hassle. I must say, TPI engines always did produce some respectable low end torque in an F-body car. Anxious to see how it propels a large vehicle like loaded up burb.
