Well I have a Dana 80 at the house, it came on my donor truck, but its a DRW axle and I dont wont my F150 to be a dually lol.

And really, it wasnt that bad. It was some work dont get me wrong, but it actually went pretty smoothly with my truck. And yeah both FordCummins and Destroked make adapters to run Ford trannys, but most will run you about $700. What tranny are you looking to hook up to?

 

You know of course that it's not about the number of lugs, 5 hold on just fine, it's the larger axles and bearings that come with them. In the rear 10.25's are so abundant and cost effective and easy to swap that there's no reason not to if you don't mind changing wheels. The 10.50 was mentioned and is slightly stronger, it is however only available with the metric lug pattern in 99 up SuperDuties. However if your going 4wd getting both front and rear from a 99 up SuperDuty is a great option. Even more so from I think '04 up as they are coil sprung in the front making the swap easier.

Also I think these guys got a point about the frame, I twisted the hell out of a Jeep frame with too much torque, these Ford frames are pretty flexy, it may not always snap right back though.

 

I know its not directly the number of lugs that make the axle stronger (if I have enough mechanical knowledge to perform an engine swap, surely I would know this ), but the general pattern is (at least between 1/2 tons with 5 and 6 lugs, and 3/4 and 1 tons with 8 lugs) that an 8 lug will most generally be stronger than a 5 or 6 lug axle. Im sure this does not apply to all situations, but I think its a good general rule.

I mean come on, what do you think I am some 14 year old kid?

But thanks for the info dude I'll look into it.

 

Yeah yeah yeah, I know, but better safe then sorry, there's some not to bright people in here, and some 14 year old kids to

 

another axle that is good would be a 14 bolt chevy the 10.5" one , there are plenty out there and should be fairly cheap , lots of gear ratios to chose from and the brakes would be 13".2.5" and easy to convert to disks !

the stock sterling 10.25 would be the easiest and is a good axle !

have you considered upgrading the brakes to hydrovac out of a supper duty ?

if you change the front from 5 bolt to 8 bolt you will get the bigger brakes witch would help you to stop , bigger bearings to handle the weight of the cummins !

as with what was said earlier about boxing the frame would be needed as you bump up power you might even want to weld the front frame horns together !

 

Stoppings not an issue right now, its stops likes nobodys business. I just want the bigger bearings in the front basically. In retrospect, instead of all the previous mods, Im going to reduce a few of the power mods and spend the money on other stuff. I may just be doing injection pump work (which will still nab me a good 150 or so HP ), bigger clutch, and get my turbo rebuilt with an HX40 compressor wheel, making it a 35/40 hybrid. Its got some play in the shaft so I definately need a new one or to get this one rebuilt.

With this path, I'll still have a truck that will haul it pretty good, but one with stronger axles and brakes. And itll be easier on the frame until I can do some work to it. Someone explain boxing the frame to me, what exactly you do......


Hey now I used to be one of those mouthy 14 year olds on this forum! lol that was years ago and Ive long since lost the account

Another question for ya. If I use a 10.25 in the rear from a similar year model, will I be able to plug into the axle and have my speedometer still work?

 

Boxing a frame;

You would use some plate steel (1/8") and turn your "C" section frame into a full box or "O" section frame. The plates would be welded top and bottom fully to the original frame, and to each other where they would butt together.

It takes a bit of work where the existing crossmembers meet the rails, to get the plating to clear everything. A good thing to do when you do this is to take everything like brake lines, fuel lines and wiring and move them to the outside of the newly boxed frame. Don't want to be cutting holes in your boxing to get to something later.

This is an old hotrodder's trick to get a frame to be a ton stiffer.

Ray

 

Hey now I used to be one of those mouthy 14 year olds on this forum! lol that was years ago and Ive long since lost the account

Another question for ya. If I use a 10.25 in the rear from a similar year model, will I be able to plug into the axle and have my speedometer still work?[/quote]

your speedometer works off of the tranny and not the rear end so you will have to adapt to the new tranny !

 

For your speedo question, yes it will, the F250's and 350s changed over to the rear diff and the tone ring at the same time as the F150s. And just an FYI if you're Dana 80 is off your dodge 3/4 or 1 ton donor it's a hybrid, not a true Dana 80 find a F-SuperDuty (that's what it will say on the fender) and look under the rear for the real deal, 10 lug, disk breaks, rated for 11,000 on that axle alone and will put up with anything you're 5.9 can throw at it. But the 10.25 is big enough for most street driven trucks.

 

my older trucks 91 , 89 all have speedo cables and did not realize they changed to electronic speed o in 92 or so !

 

Not a problem dude. lol I was thinking well my speedo works right now........

Alright thanks guy. I was thinking it would be something along the lines of this, but I was exactly sure.

 

with boxing in the frame some times the fronts can be hard to do if the steering box fits inside the frame , you can also put a plate on the out side of the frame , could undo the spring buckets up front and put a piece of 1/4" plate down the side as far as you can go then bolt the spring buckets back on and use as many holes in the frame to bolt it down !

 

Depending on your year model, D250 Cummins came with the D70 or D80. Dodge did not start putting a D80 under the 3/4tons until well after the body change in 94.

Yes, a 8.8 to 10.25 is a plug & play swap, and requires absolutely no modification to the axle or your spring packs. The later model (~93-up) 10.25's supposedly have a stronger pinion, but in my experience, there isn't enough difference to justify turning down a deal.

With the RABS/speedo sensor, it makes absolutely NO sense to swap anything other than a 10.25 under your truck, as you will have to retrofit a similiar setup to any other axle you choose to run if you want the factory speedo to work. The differences in real world performance between a 10.25/14bolt/D70/D80 are minimal. Arguing those differences is about as futile as trying to argue the strengths and weaknesses between different brands of green antifreeze.