Thinking on a 78 Stang II coupe thoughts?

Go with the Stang!!!

Grab an 8" rear from any Mustang other than the '71-'73's, or a Maverick, or the early Granada. The spring perches are off by about 1/4". With that much engine and drag-racing in its future, I'd be looking for a 9". They came in the early Granada/Monarch/Versailles also.

My understanding is that any early Mustang header will not clear the MII framerails (although I've always wondered about the Hedman shorty 351 swap header for the '65 Mustang). The easy answer is to use the Hooker Super Comp header for the MII.

Any idea how big that carb is? It may be one of the early small 390 CFM models which would be useful to anyone hot-rodding a 2.3L 4-cylinder or 200 cu. in. straight-six.

I think the perch to perch measurement is 43 inches, same as 64-66 Mustangs.

I went back through a bunch of messages on the Yahoo Mustang II Group and found everything from "it drops right in" to "the perches are 1/4" too wide" to "the perches are 1" too wide". It makes me wonder if everyone had a different scale on their tape measure or if there really is that much variance in Ford rears used on MII's, Granada's, and Mavericks in the late '70's. Maybe someone at Currie could answer that...until recently they processed a huge number of housings, but make their own now.

All the messages agreed that the Maverick/Granada rear was usable, but some insisted that the perches had to be moved and some did not. One guy even said that he dropped his factory 8" rear and had to use a jack to get the springs to line up with his perches again. So, your mileage may vary...

It would be good to measure the clearance between the Ranger and MII framerails in the engine compartment. As I have both, I guess that can be my assignment.

I believe that Alcino that posts here bought a set of Tri-Y's and had to modify them heavily to get them to fit his CBII. I don't recall the details though.

I've heard of MII's weighing as much as 3200 lbs for a loaded V8 model down to 2800 lbs for one prepared for racing. I don't think that there is a huge weight difference between the coupe and hatch.

Distance between the insides of the frame rails, measured just in front of the engine, but behind the core support:

1976 Mustang II...24 1/8"

1991 Ranger........25"

Maybe the extra 7/8" is enough to allow the Tri-Y headers to fit the Ranger?

I read some where that one of the reasons the MII front suspension was so popular with rodders was that the MII framerails were the same width as the Model A.