I recently developed a knock in my 1997 f250 ( old body style) after replacing the heads so Im replacing the short block now. Is there anything I should be doing besides a new water pump, cleaning and inspection and replacing the seals. Does anyone have any experience with the edelbrock 5.8 truck intake or the superchip? Should I replace the injectors and if so with what size?
Also while the motor is out should I replace anything hard to get to such as the rag joint or the steering gear box or do they last a while?

 

no exp with the edlebrock but if you are going to spend the money get the lightnig intake, its the same as the gt-40 off the mustangs but the lower is different for the windosr block width and it has no egr provision. you will be much happier with it then the edlebrock.

as for injectors, the 19lb\hr is more then enough to 350 horse, but if you want to upgrade to 24 lb\hr's dont waste 300 bucks on a set of them. find any old body style truck with a 460 in it and snag them, exact same thing. you can usualy walk away with a set of performance injectors for 20 bucks.

better throw a new oil pump at it but i assume thats in cluded with the short block.
steering box isnt hard to do with the motor in so if its not leaking and you dont have 10 feet of slop in the wheel i wouldnt worry about it.

any chip for a gas motor isnt going to give you much more then 10 or 15 hp at best, its personal prefence if you wanyt to spend a ton of money for that little power,

since its going to be out i would replace the nasty stock manifolds with a set of headers(shorty's at least) you wil lget more power and fuel economy and the short tubes are available as direct bolt on to your existing exhaust. if it were my truck i would put long tubes and a true dual exhaust on it but thats just me.

i could give you a laundry list of things to do for more performance but its up to you as to what you are doing with the truck.