so curiousity gets the better of me. Who installed the external tie bar and when?

My 311 had a tie bar and the standard cable PS for 15 years without issue ....m

not sure yet, it was sold new this way though..

Stress is induced whenever the drives aren't trimmed exactly parallel.

By "inner tie bar" we're talking the standard piece connecting the starboard steering assembly to the port drive's tiller arm correct? I would expect the one bolt that connects that rod the starboard assembly to be the weak point. But it's possible the steel swivel shaft ends up imparting the most stress/wear on the gimbal ring when you have both int and ext tie bars and then trim the drives out of parallel.

What does it look like inside the cable steering helm? Something in there had to break in order to get a free spinning steering wheel correct?

the inner tie bar connects both tiller arms
the helm has not been dissected yet... in fact, the boat is totally intact, uncleaned, on it's trailer, and undisturbed right now awaiting teardown analysis (this is where the big jerkoff comes in)... the cable broke through the lining and wrapped itself up OUTSIDE the lining at the steering valve juncture... nobody has EVER seen this scenario of events but, clearly, somebody screwed up, definately NOT an owner/operator issue.... if he gets jerked around any more this coming week, it will be displayed for EVERYBODY to see at the Ft Lauderdale and Miami Boat Shows within his own vendor display for public opinion that's for sure, leftover bloody paramedics gloves and all, hopefully it shouldn't come to that, but he's getting REAL pissed off and he WILL do it if pushed... it's too bad to, it was a beautiful boat and he love's Formula's..

I ran my '89 311 with 650 h.p./600 ft.lbs. torque @ 80 m.p.h on Merc mechanical steering with a Latham external tie bar for years without any steering problems at all. It is not a problem and even highly recommended to add a external tie bar with this set-up if running in excess of 70 m.p.h.

The problem with binding mentioned is when two tie bars are both mounted externally, one from rear cap to rear cap (or top cap to top cap) and the other from the aft trim cylinder mounting pin. This combination is when the binding occurs.

It sounds like this problem started with the gimble ring. It was either a defect in the part or SOMEONE drove this boat hard on some rough water at some point in the boats history and broke the gimble ring. It probably snow-balled from there.

I had a friend that broke a gimble ring by running hard on rough water while over-trimmed trying to impress a girl. Fortunately, he caught it before it became a disaster like this case.

This is what happens when a gimble ring snaps. I honestly don't see this as a Formula-specific issue.

I just know that allot of people who had this problem, not ness.Formulas, toke the inner tiebar out and just ran the outer. never had a problem again.
The reason for leaving the outer and not the inner is because thats where most of the stress is when driving at high speeds.

Also everything over 65-70 MPH should have hydraulic steering anyways.

Again ,just my 2c.

I have to dissagree on that, since most of the raceboats run dual tiebars in the back and dont have any problems. ??!!

Maybe on the staggered set-up where the drives are close together ...? I have not seen many set up this way.

I very strongly agree with this statement.