Rear end

[Kom11416]

Im looking for an upgrade to my stock 10 bolt rear end without spend 2-3000 for one.
Im pushing close to 450 hp.
Any suggestions ?

[MP81]

A girdled cover will help, but ultimately not putting sticky tires on the car, nor having a manual will make it last the longest.

The 7.5" 10-bolt is a real little guy, so it's really easy to break, but generally, if you're spinnin' you're not breaking something.

[farmington]

Such a pity that GM handcuffed the fbody owners with the baby rearend. How much would it have cost to even put an early 10 bolt in them? A hundred bucks?

[MP81]

I'd be curious to see what the width of one of those is, in comparison (without having to go measure mine, myself ).

I suppose you can really make it any width you want, especially since they'd be changing out the suspension details - but it's definitely noticeable how much beefier my 8.5" 10-bolt is compared to the 7.5" my IROC had.

Meanwhile, my brother's '01 Mustang has an 8.8" rear end which likely will handle anything that 4.6 2V could ever hope to throw at it.

[farmington]

Because of the torque arm mount, it?s hard to swap different rears. The aftermarket Dana 60 and 12 bolt rears have cast in torque arm mounts. The 9? rears have an added mount.

[MP81]

Yeah, you have to do a bunch of fabrication - I've seen people do an 8.8 swap in a 4th gen before, but you do have to do some work.

[JoeliusZ28]

This is a very subjective scenario. For road racing, the stock axle will hold that power no problem. Drag racing is another story and auto/manual/stall size also factors in. A TA girdle and especially gussets (requires some fabriaction) can make a pretty good improvement but you are best served setting up your suspension so it doesn't hop. A good aftermarket torque harm helps keep everything solidly in place.

the 10 bolt isn't as bad as people make it out to be. I'm fairly convinced its improper setup and bad driving that is the cause of 90% of 10 bolt explosions. By that I mean doing things like putting drag radials on stock suspension (guaranteed wheel hop), hard negative clutch drops when engine braking, or flat out expecting too much from it. I've witnessed a number of 10 bolts take a LOT of abuse, and that includes the one in my own car that Ive been powershifting for 15 years.

My buddy jon with a 500ish whp stroker was doing standing clutch drops on drag radials trying to break his (had a dana 60 ready to install) and it survived a lot more of that torture than either of us expected it to.