There seems to e a lot of these. Ok I have a 327 in my firebird. Obviously that doesn't come in any 3rd gen firebirds. It has no emmisions except for the converter. I have no power steering. The only pulleys are the crank, water pump and a relocated alt. to the lower driver side (where the power steering once was)I also have a weiand stealt intake, 1 inch spacer, carter 4 barrel carb and that edlebrock triangle filter. Now my question is well will the STB fit, with the increased height of the carb and filter? I had to get a harwood fiberglass hood with the 2.5 inch cowl induction because the carb and filter is higher than the stock hood. If the carb STB wont fit all that good will the TPI version fit better. By looking at it the triangle shape looks wider for more room in the middle. Also how much harder is it to work on the car with it installed? Will you have to keep removing it to work on anything all the time to include spark plugs? How well does it clear the M/C? Also How well does the 2 point STB work, seeing as its less in the way than the triangle version? And last since it looks like you need to take the nuts off the tope of the struts to intall and remove will you need to get an alignment when intalling and after every time you remove it? Sorry for being so long winded but I just like to know everything I'm getting into. I don't want the pluses being offset by the minuses. Mostly in the amount of difficulty in working on my car. I want my car to remain simple to work on. Thanks......Erik.

 

I have the Hotchkis brace with a small 9" filter on the original Q-jet with a Performer intake. There is plenty of clearance between the brace and the filter element. The brace is about halfway up the filter element with about 1/4" of clearance. It sounds like your filter might be above the brace alltogether making clearance a non-issue. If you are worried about alignment you can always leave some room in front of the strut mounts, about an 1/8" should be plenty. I also used the Pro-flow filter for a while and that had plenty of room too.
If I can get a picture up here then I can show you what it would look like with the Pro-flow filter

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'86 TA, T-tops, T-5, 3.73, 4 wheel disks 350, compucam 2040, performer intake,SLP Headers, 3" race magnum muffler, 1.6 Comp rockers, Ripper shifter, perf. friction pads, Hypertech ignition, Earls brake hoses, Hotchkis springs, Tokico Illumina 5 adjustable shocks and struts, Lakewood panhard and trailing arms
14.73 @ 95... traction still a problem

[This message has been edited by slowTA (edited January 21, 2001).]

 

Thanks slowta, you helped me with answering the clearance probs. Does anyone here know anything about my other Questions? How much does the brace get in the way especially with doing simple things like spark plugs? Also since to attatch I think (at least by looking at it) you need to remove the nuts holding the strut tower, do you need to redo the alignment every time you remove it????? How close does it come to the master cylinder? Also I already have SFC, if I put on a wonder bar or those bars that go from the tower straight back to the firewall or even the 2 point STB or a combination of these will It work as well a the 3 point?? Thanks in advance.