I was wondering if a the 7.5 rear end of a 2.3L can be beefed up and can be used on a 302. No one out at the shop knows allot about fords and I really dont know if it is worth reabuild this 7.5 and then ending up tearing it up for nothing. PLease help.
The 7.5 can and was used behind 302's. It can hold up well if not abused. Start doing some drag launches occasionally and it WILL break. There are some threads around of guys who had a 7.5 hold up to some drag racing for a season but the experience of most people is BREAKAGE quickly.
Mostly it depends on how you are going to use the car. If you just are planning on a daily driver the 7.5 will work just fine. If you want to do some very spiritied driving you really need to go 8.8. Ford switched for a good reason......and so should you.
If just for daily driver, the early fox mustangs with V8 power from '82-'85 had a Traktion-Lok 7.5. Some came from the factory with 3.27 gears. Aerostar's and Rangers had 7.5's with other gear ratio's and sometime Traktion-Lok also if you are looking in the JY for parts.
My '84 Stang still has the original 7.5 with 250,000 miles on it. It never got abused though and there is a 8.8 in the garage to go into it soon.
I wouldn't spend any money on 7.5 parts were I you. It would be like throwing money in the trash. 8.8's are plentiful, cheap, and can be built to handle a lot of power.
I definitely wouldn't put any money into rebuilding a 7.5. If you already have a working one, you could just run it till it breaks. You would be better off spending the money on a used 8.8. All the 8.8's from 5.0's are traction lock too, I believe.
The thing here is that the money spent on a 7.5 to "beef it up" is likely to be exactly the same amount or close to it that it'll take to beef up an 8.8, and in the end you'll have a MUCH stronger rear end with the modified 8.8. Like someone else mentioned, you can get axles, you can get stronger diffs, but you can't do jack about the ring and pinion, and when you make that the weakest link it's only a matter of time before the teeth get sheered off if you're drag racing. Not only that but i'm pretty sure the housing itself is stronger on the 8.8.