I can tig weld nice clean aluminim, and do a decent job, but I think this oily cast aluminum is out of my wheelhouse. I reached out to a guy I know that welds for a living and he says it is doable but wants $100 to do it. Also, the intake runners are substantially smaller, how much of a problem is that on a TC motor? Will those need to be opened up also? That shouldn't be to big of a problem.
I will still need to change a couple more vacuum ports and add a new pcv system with catch can, but sounds like I should probably do that regardless of which manifold I use.
At some point, I have to question is this worth the time, effort, and money just to free up the 180 deg. in the charge piping.