Difference between 8.8 and 9 inch rear end

I don't know a whole lot about rear ends with the exception of maintainence and such.  I think i may have asked this question before, but i see a whole bunch of people talking back and fourth on the forum here lately that i haven't seen and everybody seams quite knowledgable.  So here goes.

My parts truck, 88 f150 has an 8.8 rear, same as Brutus but with the exception the parts truck has 5.03 gears in it.  This rear is fast as a scaulded dog and believe it or not, that 300 with the 5 speed and that rear blew the doors off a high end vette on airline highway.  This truck is brutally fast, and of course cant pull anything beccause of the rear.

I have a 79 Ranchero with a highly built 351W.  It's a 351L7M Keith Black interceptor.    I think the only thing that is ford is the crank shaft.  The Block is a man o war and is cast, not honed  90 over and displaces 427 cubic in.  it  was the ones used in Germany on the autobon.  The top speed of this thing is 245 miles per hour.  So just in case you are wondering, a 1979 ranchero begins to lift and fly at 160mph and the scary thing is the pedal was only slightly past halfway down

I want to put the rear end from the truck in the ranchero.  it looks like it would fit, but looks can be deceiving. but am wondering if i can  just take the whole rear end out and put it in the ranchero

Doesn't the 79 Ranchero have rear coil springs? If it does then all the attaching points are completely different.

yes it does have coil  springs.  I got a good look, it wont work.  was worth a try though

86 1/2 Brutus wrote

My parts truck, 88 f150 has an 8.8 rear, same as Brutus but with the exception the parts truck has 5.03 gears in it.  

Did somebody put those gears in the 8.8? It wouldn't have come from Ford with those. Is it an off-road truck?

I assumed that was a typo.  But maybe not?

the tag says 5.03. on the rear.  This thing was blindingly fast and couldn't pull anything.  to be honest, i have no clue as to why it would have been put in a truck.  When we were pulling the ranchero on a trailer, it barely made it to the top of the bridge

86 1/2 Brutus wrote

the tag says 5.03. on the rear.  This thing was blindingly fast and couldn't pull anything.  to be honest, i have no clue as to why it would have been put in a truck.  When we were pulling the ranchero on a trailer, it barely made it to the top of the bridge

I'm not saying it's impossible, but by 1988, 99% of these 8.8 rear ends had 3.08 or 3.55's in them. 5+ could possibly have been added at some point, but it wouldn't come from the factory tagged like that, not on an F150. 5.03's would put the inline 300 into it's redline on the highway.

If the rear axles are the same length or close enough to not cause any wheel and tire clearance issues, there isn't any reason you couldn't just get the mounting brackets welded to that axle to mount it in your Ranchero.

I re-read the post as well and I don't want to sound like a know-it-all or come off a a smart-elect, but I would think if it were 5.03's that the little 200 ci six or the 2.3 wouldn't have had much if any trouble towing. As a point of reference, in gear ratios the higher the number the slower your top speed will be but you would have great stump pulling power. And the lower the number, the higher your top speed will be at the expense of pulling power.

The truck has a 300 inline 6. fuel injected  with a mazda 5 speed trans.  the gears were 5.03, this truck was very very very fast all it was good for was speed, but with a gear ratio like that, thats all you are going to get is speed which is why i was wondering about putting it in my ranchero.  I often wondered why, it made no sense to me either.  It smoked a corvette down airline highway, and i mean tore it up bad.  so bad in fact the guy stopped me and ask what was under the hood and he didn't believe me, i had to show him.  When we had the ranchero on a car trailer, it had a bit of a time taking off, once up to speed which took forever it did ok, but climbing the bridge, by the time we got to the top, the truck would only go 35 mph.   Another time we had it loaded down with plywood and some other stuff we picked up from Home Depot and it struggled to do it.  And now with Brutus, 300 , yfa, c6 and 3.08's  this will pull anything.    that was alot of the reason when the transmission went out, i did some research on putting another trans in it, but what good is a truck that cant pull anything.

rembrant  i read what you wrote, and yes it did, you had to be careful with that truck, it would red line very easy.  I know of only 1 other truck that was like that, it was a 96.

I was really just curious about if it could fit.  i dont want to do any mods to the ranchero, its a limited edition of which only 700 were made and less then 350 are still titled.

Back when i was in parts, My boss fired me for like the 50th time, i was blue mad, got in that truck and nailed it and it burned tires across that whole parking lot and filled the store up with smoke.  teehee.  the next morning when he called and begged me to come back to work for the 51st time, John the mechanic ask me " what the hell you have in that thing"

Um, did I respond in this thread.... or somewhere else?

I'm afraid I don't know what I said.
Can you give me some context?

no you didn't jim, sorry, i got a bit confused, it was rembrant

No need to apologize.  
I was just scratching my head trying to understand

No worries Jim, i'm scratchingmy head on how i got you confused with Rembrant, LOL

I didn't realize you could even get 5.03 R&P to fit an 8.8.
A D70 or 10.25, yeah, but the carrier split in my 10.25 is 4.10, like I've got.

If you say it is stamped on the tag it had to come that way from the manufacturer, because I've never seen aftermarket gears that include one.

Jim.  i had to look at that tag twice, i even took it off and cleaned it to look at it, it didn't seam right to me either.   when that truck went off the road, i had as you know new brakes, but i also had the bearings and seals changed.  Brutus needed bearings and seals.  Thats when i was considering doing a rear end swap.  when i crawled under the truck and looked at the tag, i said to myself i have to be seeing this wrong, bur sure enough when i cleaned it off, i looked at nick and said, Now i know why this truck was so fast.  We have to change bearings and seals

I've no doubt that it IS, just that I didn't know there was an 8.8 carrier to hold it.