boxed frame

[davecarney2]

To box the frame or not to box the frame that is the question.

Full Porterbuilt suspension is getting ready to install. I am gonna run a 6.0 LS from an SS Silverado. May be a turbo or supercharger in the future who knows.

How much horsepower can my factory frame handle without being boxed with a full porterbuilt set up.

Dave
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[Daze57]

Box it - just for piece of mind !!!!

[_Ogre]

the frame will handle it, it might twist like spaghetti but it will handle it
if you put sway bars front and rear to help it handle with out boxing the frame, they won't work
box it and make some nice x-members, like daze sez

[sqrlnts]

i agree just box it and forget it. Do you have a build thread going on your truck?

[OrrieG]

If you box it carefully think out all the stuff that will need to go thru it, or attach to it. Original frames were designed to flex and recover since the trucks were work trucks running across fields, ditch banks, logging road water bars, etc. I have kept mine original because I have seen how far it needs to twist off road and wonder what will give it it is boxed. On the street or track is a different deal but suspension has to work better and have the flexibility to compensate for the stiffer frame.

[mknittle]

When I boxed mine I made plates out of 10 gauge with grade 8 nuts welded to the back that fit inside the frame. I made them for the running board hangers and cab mounts. I also drilled some holes and welded 1/4-20 nuts on the inside of my boxing plates for brake and fuel line clamps. Like Orrie said think about where you want anything that bolts to the frame to go.

I haven't got mine together yet but I can see a difference just moving it around the yard.

[mknittle]

Originally Posted by OrrieG

If you box it carefully think out all the stuff that will need to go thru it, or attach to it. Original frames were designed to flex and recover since the trucks were work trucks running across fields, ditch banks, logging road water bars, etc. I have kept mine original because I have seen how far it needs to twist off road and wonder what will give it it is boxed. On the street or track is a different deal but suspension has to work better and have the flexibility to compensate for the stiffer frame.

Orrie were/are you a logger? you make references to logging that only someone that has been around logging would know. Some terms I haven't heard for a while

[davecarney2]

Haven't started a build thread yet. Project should kick off next week if all goes well.
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[FatFenderGarage]

So do you think you should box the WHOLE FRAME or just where the suspension is being attached?

[OrrieG]

Originally Posted by mknittle

Orrie were/are you a logger? you make references to logging that only someone that has been around logging would know. Some terms I haven't heard for a while

So you know what a water bar is?? I grew up in Eugene Oregon. My dad logged for a few years around 1950. Our neighbor growing up was a logger from before WWII and retired around 1965. We had lots of loggers and guys that worked in the woods in our neighborhood, including another friends father and uncle. I had uncles that worked in the woods or sawmills. In the 50's and 60's they were still cutting old and second growth timber in that part of the country so it was a part of the culture. Probably some of the toughest men I knew, all muscle with extraordianry stamina. I still have my dads saw, the engine weighs as much as a lawn mower and he had to carry that plus enough gas to last the day up and down the hills. I grew up in the woods hunting, fishing and scouting. Great time and place to have grown up. After he quit logging (figured out it was dangerous) it was carpenter, then a millwright at Weyerhaeuser. When I was 19 I worked as an apprentice millwright at the mill with him when I wasn't in school.

[mr48chev]

With the original suspension and the terrain that these trucks were expected to transverse the frames needed to flex to make things work but with an independent front end and stiff crossmember it doesn't need to flex nor is it desirable for it to flex in most cases.