Shavarsh said:Agreed 8.8 is hard to beat on paper. I put one in my pinto (shortened explorer), ran it for years, and eventually replaced it with miata irs (with 8.8 diff) because of terrible ride quality (lots of extraneous factors could have caused the poor ride though). I remember looking at Ford 7.5 and Toyota small truck axles (like a mini 9") among others. Obviously the 8.8 won at the time though. YMMV
The devil you know (FC parts) sounds like a great way to go from here. Unless part of the fun is a new learning curve.
I think with this project I am going to need to pick my battles and farm out some others. The learning curve I'm aiming on this one is improve on my own fabrication competency and maybe some new toys (tools).
