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Donor truck was an intact, undamaged (not wrecked) '08 F250 SD with ~110k miles (that's how horrible a failure the 6.4s were) on stock wheels and suspension. '08 steering box from donor truck was utilized as well. ATS rear leaf springs, Fox shocks, and Helwig sway bars front and rear. (I had the SD spring package installed six years ago at 110,000 miles.) Zero lift on 20" 2016 Ford SD alloy wheels. Wow, what a difference overall. This Ex was handling pretty flat before but now body roll is negligible. Of course turning radius is clearly better. Haven't had a chance to put many miles on it, we're trying to figure out what's causing brake drag after being driven for a few miles at highway speed.
At this point probably not going to put a rattling, oil leaking 12v in it and just stick with the V10.
We determined that it was the rear calipers which were causing the brake drag issue. We reused the rear calipers from the donor truck and it had been sitting parked for at least two years.
Dunno if anyone else has experienced this but I have noted one slightly annoying tendency of this new setup. This occurs when making an aggressive stop the front suspension loads up like any automobile would normally, then the energy goes to the rear suspension which subsequently loads up and then unloads back to the front suspension which then reloads what's left of this energy and then the very little energy left transfers to the rear suspension which is barely discernible but there nonetheless. It's a rocking motion like a wave.
Otherwise it handles great with a totally improved ride.
I'm really enjoying this vastly improved turning radius. This Ex handles so much better when pulling into a parking space. I recently pulled into a tight 90 degree parking space and was pleasantly surprised. It didn't feel like I was man-handling a behemoth like it did prior to the conversion. It may even turn at a better rate than my 2000 RWD Ex; I'll have to compare.
Could there be a difference in the '08 steering box ratio?
That's good to know. The parking space I pulled into was just the sort of parking space which would have required backing up, straightening out, and then pulling back into to get parked without hitting the car on the right prior to the conversion. Post-conversion I can now simply pull in without having to back up and straighten out.
Frame geometry on the front end. They changed the profile of the frame, and several other parts got changed with that changed geometry...like the track bar bracket, coil buckets, and the radius arm brackets. Also, the springs on the rear are longer/mount different and the sway bar up front uses different end links. To continue, the steering gear has a different input shaft shape...no teeth...uses two "flats" to mesh with the rod from the steering wheel. If you get a very early '08, you can use the steering gear from one of those, as they had not gone to the "flats" yet...still used teeth on the input shaft like the 99-07 did.
If you look at my axle swap thread, it is all covered there. Also, msuser has a great thread on his restoration project...he is using '08 axles from down here in TX, and he details the issues above as he is working around them.
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