I think it's actually forge that limits the number of force-loaded chunks. Beyond that individual mods can also limit the number of chunks their specific chunkloaders can load. Looking in chicken chunks, it looks like default is 5000 chunks per player for tekkit. Immibis dimensional anchors can also have limits set, but default seems to be unlimited.
its also a possibility that some chunkloaders only keep chunks loaded if their owner is online, for servers at least. You could try setting owner to server if that's an option.
Thermal expansion machines do not accept MJs(buildcraft power). They only accept rf. Try using a dynamo instead. They are basically the TE version of BC engines.
Resonants are 10k per face. And redstone conduits arent on a per connection basis. A conduit can have no more than 10k rf in it at a time, so its max throughput is 10k rf/tick, no matter how many connections it has.
My brother had the same problem when I started a lan world. Interested to see what people say here. He could actually craft the stuff, but the recipes didn't register in his NEI or crafting grid, I'd show him the recipe then he would set it up, and click the empty output slot. He could still make the stuff, he just had to do it blind.