Axles

[cee21]

One day, when I have such a thing as time, I will be swaping my 7.5 for a 8.8. And out side the fact I am bored out of my head here at work, my mind has time to wonder. Here is my quandry, I can get a ranger 8.8 out of a wrecked 96 ranger from my neighbor for free, just got to put my 7.5 on his to roll it back to his house. I don't really "plan" on doing in sort of really rough off roading or anything, mainly just snow is about all the 4 wheel drive will see. So, with all that being said, should I:

• Leave the dana 28 meaning it will be about 2 inches narrower then the 8.8
• Try to find a ranger with a dana 35 around the same year
• Just get everything from an expy.

As far as 28 versus 31 spline, I really don't care, don't really "plan" on really hard abuse of it day in and day out. Mainly my concern is having different width axles in front and rear.

[cgrey8]

I wouldn't concern yourself with width difference. I replaced my 89 Ranger's 7.5 with an 8.8 out of a 93 Ranger. And yeah it is wider, but not enough that anybody can see. I've NEVER had anybody mention that my rear tires look like they aren't aligned with the front. So if you can get an 8.8 for free, why not?

Although if you have a stock or near-stock V8, the 7.5 will probably be just fine. But I had a number of things urging me to do the swap. My 7.5 was original, had a lot of backlash from wear, and didn't have the gear ratio I wanted. The 8.8 I eventually bought was a factory limited slip, came with a rear anti-sway bar & linkages, and larger 10" brakes. Before I installed it, I rebuilt it and went back together with 3.27 gears (stock was 3.73) to get a more "highway" ratio as well as a Powertrax Autolocker.

The one thing you will need to make sure you do is get as much of the bracketry of the parking brake cabling as you can. There are differences between the 7.5 and 8.8 cables. And as far as I can tell, even the cable going up to the parking brake pedal is different. I didn't know that. So I used cable clamps to clamp my brake cable from my parking brake pedal to the rearend's brackets. It's not pretty, but it's worked great for the past 6 years and continues to.

The only unusual thing about my 8.8" is the wheel bearings in the tubes were not the size AutoZone's computer said a 93 8.8" rear should have. Ford used the 7.5" size bearings. So if you rebuild the rear or ever have to replace the wheel bearings, you may want to yank the bearings out then go to the parts store to make sure what you get are the right size. And be prepared to tear the existing bearings all to pieces getting them out. I was yanking as hard as I could on my slap-hammer to get those things out. They eventually did come out, but it wasn't without one hell of a fight.

As for the locker, if I had to do it again, I would've just bought a stock limited slip rebuild kit and called it done. The locker does exactly what it is supposed to do and works GREAT at maintaining stability during straight WOT spinouts. But because my bed is so light, the inside tire slips frequently locking it up and causing me to chirp the tires around most turns particularly in parking lots and in the rain.

Finally, if you are going to the trouble of swapping rears, take the time to also install a set of traction bars. I use the James Duff traction bars. They require a little drilling, but they aren't too terrible to get installed. But it is certainly easier to get those brackets drilled and installed if the rearend is removed. Back when I bought my kit, they weren't but about $70. Rangers have TERRIBLE wheel hop and this traction bar upgrade is a good idea even if you aren't swapping. But if you are swapping rears, it's a no-brainer.

[Dave]

I wouldn't get all worried about not having the 31 spline either. Even most 390 powered Fords ran them and they had a lot more torque. I wouldn't worry about the slight width difference either, Pontiac GTO's bragged about that fact in having a wider track. I think Crhis might have had problems with his parking brake because of the difference in years/ width. Can't remember what year you are running but if aftr '93', don't think you'll have a problem.
Dave

[cgrey8]

Ahh, maybe that's why I had problems with the cabling...not a difference of 7.5 to 8.8, but changes in cabling between years.

[cee21]

I guess it is just my personality of wanting the same width front and back. I do want wider though. What about the dana 28, anybody have any opinion on it?

[cgrey8]

I can understand your knee-jerk desire for the front and rear to be equal length. But in practice, it isn't likely you'll ever notice the difference unless you just happen to notice your tire tracks in dirt.

As for the Dana28, I have no 4wd experience or useful knowledge to make a compelling argument one way or another. Although if I were put into that situation, I'd be concerned that if you do swap the 7.5 for the 8.8, the 8.8 will likely be either 3.73 (manual) or 3.55 (auto) gears. However my 7.5 had 3.45 gears. If your Dana28 is setup with 3.45s or something other than what the replacement 8.8 has, then you may eliminate your ability to run 4wd after the swap.

[cee21]

Mine are 3.73, probably when the funds allow it (and wife) I will do a 4 inch suspension lift and 4.10's. That .68 OD gear in the t-5 really drops the rpm's, which is good for highway. The ranger station does have tech article on the two dana's. Just iffy on fooling with it. But the first thing is to rebuild that newly acquired explorer motor, which will probably be just a 306. Thinking of making it run on 87, 1.7 roller rockers, E303 cam, GT40 heads ported, explorer intake, and explorer 65mm throttle body. Shootin for 300 hp, is it possible with this setup?

[cgrey8]

Possible? I guess.

I built a moderately high compression 331 with ported GT40p heads, ported Explorer lower, and a Crane Powermax 2020 cam. The cam is an upgrade to the stock Explorer cam, but still a mild "torquer" cam...great for daily driver street use. But my estimates are that it probably isn't 300hp, but near it.

The E303 is a bit more aggressive allowing you to go with a much higher compression. And the E303 is suited for 1.7RRs since it has a stock-like ramp rate. Although unless you are planning on replacing the valve springs & retainers with aftermarket parts, you might want to rethink the 1.7s and stick with 1.6s. The E303 with 1.6s pushes stock equipment to just shy of binding lifts. But make no mistake, you WILL need a tune to make that configuration work. The Explorer MAF is not a close-enough curve to a stock GT MAF to work as-is. But even if you had a stock MAF, the E303 is more than enough to throw the stock tune for a loop.

[cee21]

you WILL need a tune to make that configuration work.

Done planned on it. Want this thing to run smooth as silk. If I can sell that explorer v8 stuff I acquired, I may buy me a tuner, but it looks like it will be a slow sell, but they are hard to come across.

[cgrey8]

If you want the thing to run smooth, DO NOT get the E303. You'll have to run a relatively high RPM to keep any sentiments of a smooth idle.

If you don't want to replace springs, then what I would recommend is the stock 93-95 Cobra cam. There's some company that sells them for really cheap...like $100-150 new. It's better than the stock GT cam, will give good torque production, smooth idle, and is better than the Explorer cam. Are there aftermarket cams that are better? Yeah, but they cost more and WILL require a spring package upgrade which isn't a bad idea anyway. Also the Cobra cam was designed to work with 1.7RRs since SVT equipped stock 93-95 Cobra 5.0Ls with Crane 1.7s.

[cee21]

I did forget to mention that I had planned on upgrading the springs on that explorer motor. Spend, spend, spend, got stimulate the economy, lol.

[cgrey8]

If you are looking to upgrade the springs and retainers (don't just replace the springs), then typical aftermarket cams become an option. And based on my experience with the Crane Powermax 2020, I can suggest some things not to do. The 2020 is a decent cam. But unlike the stock Explorer cam, it does not like to be dropped much below 600 RPMs when letting out the clutch to take off. If it gets down near 500 RPMs, it has a bad tendency to randomly sputter, suddenly loose power, conk out with little or no warning. So I have to set idle on this engine up around 650 RPMs. The Explorer cam could be idled at 575-600 without any stability problems at all. And when I would take off with the idle that low such as sitting at a light at an incline, I could let the clutch out enough to hold the truck still to get my foot over to the throttle, the engine would drop into the 400s and high 300s and stay idling steady until I got my foot onto the throttle. And even if it got below that, I could let off the clutch and very often it would recover quickly. If I can catch this 331 before it conks out, it sputters a bit before it recovers...not exactly fun in traffic. More aggressive cams are just more of the same, but the RPMs they do this at are even higher thus requiring that you run a higher idle RPM to keep them from doing this.

Point is, I never realized how much I appreciated that ability of an engine to run that low of an RPM. I don't know this for sure, but I strongly suspect the cause of this change in behavior from the Explorer to the Crane 2020 is not so much the duration of the cam, but the narrower Lobe Separation Angle (LSA). So make sure whatever cam you go back in with has an LSA of 114 or larger. My 2020 has an LSA of 112 which is as low as you'd ever want to go on a cam that you want solid low RPM torque from. For reference, the E303's LSA is 110.

Comp Cams makes a few different cams with a 114 LSA. Just look through their listings for anything with a suffix of HR14 (HR meaning Hydraulic Roller and the 14 being an LSA of 114). The one that comes to mind is the Comp XE264HR14. It's a very nice torque cam for a truck or daily driver car. It has a fast ramp rate (so you'll need some decent springs to keep up), high lift if you ever replace the heads, and a wide enough duration @.050" that you can get a little more air into the cylinders than you would with a slower ramp rate if you do rev it up into the 4500+ range. But thanks to the ramp rate, it's a also got a relatively small .006" duration (aka advertised or off-the-seat duration) making idle and low RPM driving quite civil. For a truck application that you want a solid idle and decent take-off torque, you won't be disappointed with that cam. And BTW, you would NOT put 1.7RRs on a cam like this...not for daily driver use. 1.7s would increase the lift on an already high-lift cam AND the 1.7s would further amplify the already very steep ramp rate ground into the cam.

And to be honest, I'm not disappointed with my Crane 2020 or the build over all. The low-RPM take off conk is not something I can't live with. It's just a detail about the way I got used to being able to drive the old engine that I have to break myself from with this engine. Keep the RPMs above 600 on 1st gear take-offs, and there are no problems.