Well since everyone was saying I needed lower gears, gonna put 3.73's in my new rear end.
A while back we scrapped out an Explorer Sport. 8.8 out back and on the tag said 3L73 as the first four letters. It was a low mileage Explorer (junk engine and body) so they should be good. My dad will be setting it up for me since I've never done any gear swaps before. Free mods FTW!
Well the thing is, I haven't been able to drive it really good yet :/Once you get that new rear end swapped in, come back and tell us how much it changed your opinion of the car. I bet you are pleased.
I'd like to point out to everyone something I have been preaching for years...
The 289/302 was a revolutionary engine for it's time due to it's oversquare bore/stroke.
It is a very short stroke, matched to a relatively large bore. It is NOT designed to make low end torque.
To try and build it like it is a conventional engine to operate at lower rpms is just a waste of time.
The strength of this specific engine is in it's want/ability/need to rev!
Just because you move the powerband up in the rpm range does not mean you are losing torque.
You can gain torque while moving the power up in the rpm scale!
Don't sell the SBF short by building it like it was a brand-x engine!
Aren't pretty much all mainstream pushrod V8s oversquare?
Food for thought- the 7000 RPM Coyote is actually slightly undersquare.
I agree though, people shouldn't be afraid to build 302s to rev a little!
So today I took the cover off the Explorer rear end and found that the carrier had a luctor wheel built onto it for the wheel speed sensor that's on the rear end. Dad said the gear set MIGHT not work for me since I have a different carrier style.
Has anybody ran into this before and do you know if I can still use these gears?
If I can't use them, I'll just use some 3.55's I have laying around.
Oh and another question, the Explorer had the VSS on the transfer case and I thought "Oh I'll just take the gear off of it and use for my transmission since it's matched for the 3.73's" well it was a different color than the one I bought through LMR for my 3.27's, but they BOTH had 19 teeth. Any thoughts on this?
Explorer one was orange and the LMR one was Pink,IIRC.
Point was that the 289/302 was the poineer of this type of engine, but now (much later) it has become a sort of norm.
That said, the building techniques of the hot rod world that you still hear parrotted today are based on engines that are not as oversquare, if at all. That is what I was getting at. The car magazines and later shows on cable all still tell you the way to build ANY engine for the street is to focus squarely on the low end torque. They don't tell you that the 289/302 is the obvious exception to this rule of theirs.
However, I will say that they give the LSx engines (based heavily on the best of Ford designs) an outright pass on their rule. (You can actually put LSx heads on a Windsor/Cleveland block!)
Btw: I'd have an LSx derivative over the Coyote anyday.
(The Coyote is not a pushrod engine, is it?)
THIS.Duh, I wasn't thinking....
The reluctor gear shouldn't matter if you are not changing carriers.
The gear is not changed for the reluctor, but the thickness of the flange on the diff is thinner by the thickness of the reluctor.
The net result is that the ring gear is the same and mounted to a flange of the same thickness. Make sense?
I might actually do this! Or I may leave the ring on it just in case I need a carrier someday for something that uses the reluctor wheelI robbed a 31 spline carrier from an Explorer for my car earlier this year. If you are referring to the ring that has all the little teeth on it (kinda like a flywheel), it is attached to the carrier. Remove the gears from the carrier, then apply a little heat to the ring. Then use a hammer, rubber or steel, and start tapping the ring from all sides. It will pop right off. It will be a little stuck on there after all these years, but once the ring gear is off, there is nothing holding it on but a little friction. Throw it in the scrap pile and enjoy your gears and 31 spline carrier if you so desire. FYI, I rebuilt mine with the carbon fiber rebuild kit for $107...got the carrier for free.
Joe
What did you do for axles?I robbed a 31 spline carrier from an Explorer for my car earlier this year. If you are referring to the ring that has all the little teeth on it (kinda like a flywheel), it is attached to the carrier. Remove the gears from the carrier, then apply a little heat to the ring. Then use a hammer, rubber or steel, and start tapping the ring from all sides. It will pop right off. It will be a little stuck on there after all these years, but once the ring gear is off, there is nothing holding it on but a little friction. Throw it in the scrap pile and enjoy your gears and 31 spline carrier if you so desire. FYI, I rebuilt mine with the carbon fiber rebuild kit for $107...got the carrier for free.
Joe
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