I have been looking for a mint set of TPI runners for my project car for months. EVERY SINGLE SET I have looked at either locally or on eBay has dents in them. Am I missing something?? Are aluminum TPI runners really magnetic and attract falling objects??

I have owned 3 thirdgen T/A's and a 1990 Corvette all with TPI and have NEVER dented a runner. I have swapped all manner of TPI components, throttle bodys, installed cams, heads, etc....never banged a runner or dropped something on them.

To me, when I see dented runners, it tells me the owners of the car have been careless and that I need to look further at other aspects of the car.

Just my rant for the day......

 

Dont let the dents stop you, its really easy to fix.
So go ahead and buy a pair for your tpi setup and let someone fix them for you. Doesnt cost that much.

 

How can aluminum runners be magnetic? What falling objects? If the hood is closed there shouldn't be any. Keep looking...you should find some without dents. They are just getting harder to find. Sadly, a lot of people do not take care of their cars like they should. I wouldn't buy runners that are dinged or dented. I have more pride than that. I dont want to bother "fixing" them either. I wont but something if I think the owner was careless.

 

LOL, I was being a smart *** about aluminum being magnetic and attracting falling objects.....:-) Just frustrating to see so many TPI setups with big, ugly dings on the tubes, I don't understand how a person can be so careless that they would ding a runner.

 

I have some on my car now that I won't be needing anymore once I swap to the LT1 intake in a few weeks. I believe they are completely and 100% dentless, I'll have to check them over for you if you're interested at all. My plan was to port-match and polish my entire TPI setup and then sell it to try and make back the cost of my LT1 setup. I don't know about the price yet, but I did want to keep them all together since I was going to port-match and polish everything. If you'd be interested at all, let me know. PM me or email me at dean@xibase.com

I've also wondered how people can dent runners. I mean they I'm sure they aren't the strongest thing in the world, but you had to hit them pretty hard to dent them I'm sure. My buddy's old '91 Z28 had dented runners on his L98. I don't remember if his '88 IROC did either. But I've seen it somewhat often nonetheless. It isn't that they don't treat their cars well enough---its that they treat them bad enough for it to happen...

 

Funny that you should mention this subject. I recently had mine off for painting/cleaning, and I noticed dents on what I thought were "perfect" runners. I don't know if I did it, and you can't see them (hardly) while they're bolted to the manifold. Here's the strange part, each individual runner has a dent in the same place, almost as if something was pushed against them all at the same time and pried on.

Each small dent is identical. I couldn't see them until I painted the runners. Hmmmmm. Strange. I am one of those super **** people too, so I hope it wasn't me that did it!

....SLP runners are in my future either way.

 

I've got some AS&M Semi-Siamesed runners ready to go on my car, and you can beleive me! I am taking EXTREME care in installing them. I'm so **** I'm going to put some masking tape on the parts where the sockets are going to rub when tightening down the bolts!

They are SOOO pretty......... Extruded Aluminum......

 

Well I figured that... They are very fragile creatures. They bruise easy. Mine were dented when I bought my car but I have since switched to HSR. I bought the slp's when I still had tpi though.

 

I bought a TPI setup a few years ago because I was gonna do a TBI-TPI swap and the runners were dented...Ended up selling the setup so oh well.

But most I have seen have dents for whatever reason.

 

The dents are caused by the engine hoist chain when you pull the motor out of the car with the TPI still in place. I know this because I have done it.

 

I bought my car with 18K original miles. It had a dented runner. Hah, at that time it was the biggest imperfection on the car!!! :-) It looked like very clean sharp dent. I always wondered what the heck it was. I sort of concluded that they must have come from the factory that way. It sure doens't look like someone was sloppy with a wrench or anything. In all my years of messing with stuff, I don't believe I've created any new ones.

I'm sure there are lots of other potential causes for these dents.

 

They are often dented for the same reasons that most wiring harnesses are hacked, a huge number of air conditioners are either missing or hacked or just don't work, PCV systems don't work because somebody thought they "look" bad so instead they set the motor up to spew oil out of every hole, etc. etc. etc.

They are dented because the people who handled them had accidents, or are careless or sloppy, or just are outright hacks.

 

theirs a dent in one of my runner just a little one happened when I had my motor rebuilt I told them I would have to get a new set so they took $400 off the price

 

I have 2 86 IROCs with TPI. The black one appears to be all original and the runners, plenup, etc. are beautiful. The red one had a rebuilt L89 put in it a few weeks before I bought it and it has dented runners. It bothered me for awhile but the more I read about some of the aftermarket setups the more I think the TPI set up will end up on a shelf soon.

 

is that the indent where the bolt goes? if that is what your seeing it is made like that.

 

Nope, not THAT low!

....you almost wouldn't know unless you were looking for them. I'm pretty sure that someone must have pried something against them, it's the only way they could all line up so well.

 

I just finished my heads/cam/intake/headers upgrade and All I can say is wow.

Looks a whole lot better! Sorry for the light, its a little dark in there.




Before upgrades

After upgrades -

I painted the plenum with some "Aluminum" colored paint I bought at autozone. It was engine paint with ceramic in it, good to 1200* they say.

Well, I'm shocked at just how WELL the paint matches the color of bare aluminum! The AS&M runners are bare aluminum and the plenum is painted. Yet i can BARELY tell the difference between them and the valve covers.

 

Looks good!

...I've used the same paint!