It’s super easy to make horsepower these days, the problem is the OEM rearend you’re throwing the power at might not be strong enough. There are plenty of aftermarket rearends out there, but they might not be a direct fit for your application. Have no fear, we’re going to cover how to swap a different rearend under your ride.
Since Project Swedish Meatball’s OEM rearend has dainty axles and a small gearset, we knew it wouldn’t live a long life being fed over 600 horsepower. Many people have swapped Ford 8.8 rearends under these Volvo 940s, but we wanted something bulletproof. So, we reached out to our friends at Moser Engineering and got a blank M88 housing for the Meatball. This is an aftermarket version of Ford’s 8.8 rearend housing, so it’s very strong. The blank housing gave the team at Big 3 Racing a clean sheet of paper to work with. This allowed the team to add brackets as needed to make the M88 fit under the Volvo like it was designed to be there.
On the left, the petite OEM Volvo rearend, on the right, the beefy M88 from Moser Engineering…
Getting The Swap Show Started
Just like other custom projects, you need to start a rearend swap by taking some critical measurements. You need to take your time and be very precise, as being a little off will cause some big problems. It doesn’t matter if you’re using a blank housing, or cutting the brackets off a housing you already have to use with your project, accuracy is paramount during this step.
Shane St. Myers from Moser Engineering explains what you’ll need to measure when you’re ordering a new rearend.
“You’ll need to have the wheel-to-wheel dimensions of what you’re working with. By setting the wheels you’ll be using under the car, you can measure between them to get that number. That will let us calculate how much room there will be for brakes. We’re also going to need to figure out the pinion offset. You find that by dropping a plumb bob in the center of the tunnel and measure the distance from the frame rails to the plumb bob.”
The bare M88 showed up partially assembled.
If you still have the OEM rearend from the vehicle you’re working on to swap, there are additional measurements you’ll want to have on hand. The measurement from housing flange to housing flange on the rearend is an important measurement to collect. You’ll also want to measure axle flange to axle flange as well. Moser has all of these measurements visually laid out on an order form…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at DragzineDragzine…