The Dana 80 rear axle is more than capable of carrying the full 11,000 lb rear axle weight rating of every commercial medium duty 15K GVWR truck it has been used in since the late 1980's.

Losing the S-110 axle is nothing big, that axle in the F450 Pickup was way too big for the application and only added unnecessary weight to the truck anyways. On top of that, Ford spec'd the truck with springs that are way too weak to ever begin to use the axle to it's weight carrying potential. Even a Dana 80 with those springs would not be able to be used up it's potential.

I would have spec'd the original F450 Pickup with the lighter weight but still fully capable Dana 80, together with stiffer springs, or maybe a choice of 2 or 3 different spring rates to suit the intended use of the truck. I doubt anyone would have been complaining about the Dana 80 being on the truck. Further there are more differential upgrades for the 80 like ARB's Ect.

I can certainly see using the S-110 axle in the 16,500 GVWR F450 and 19,000 GVWR F550 chassis-cab trucks cause alot of those trucks with big flatbeds, carrier beds, wrecker beds, cranes, etc, actually are used to carry their max rear axle weight ratings on a daily basis. In the F450 Pickup, it is simply unnecessary overkill.


Ford has been de-tuning cab and chassis trucks for 25 years this is nothing new. The turbo and tuning are vastly different than the pickups. My trailers are about 19k to 24k I pulled them all thru Nevada, California and Mexico racing and never had an issue. Of course my loaded weight has never been more than 8.5k.