7.5" rear
 

roughly how much much power can a 7.5" rear end handle? has anyone used one and how much power were you running? i'm just curious to know, because i'd like to leave my 7.5" in my car for awhile when i put my 5.0 in.

I think around the 300hp/tq range. I changed mine out for an 8.8" since the engine has 315tq stock and it's modified already....

i have a 8.8" with 3:55's to put in, just want to get the car done soon and it will save time to leave the 7.5" in.

the rear end will hold quite a bit of power, its the repeated launches that will kill it, if your just driving it ont he street then it will be fine, I have a friend running close to 300 RWHP on his 7.5 still. The smaller gears ar the weak link, but as I said its the hard launches that will kill it not street driving.

I actually like the 7.5 better in a lot of ways....now don't go thinking I'm talking crazy here, I'm dead serious. Both my 84 GT Turbo and my 85 5.0 Convertible had 7.5s with no problems and they ALWAYS spun two tires, no one wheel peels. The 85 5.0 was slightly modded, had 3.55 gears in it, intake, carb, etc. and STICKY tires on full time, daily driven. The first day i put them tires on I cracked the dash pad....well I drove that car hard for a long time...nightly beatings, many trips to the track, etc. (I was quite young and hard on my car)...the rear end never once gave me anything to worry about, always got two wheels...I know for a fact that they aren't as strong as the 8.8 but I don't think they're this huge weak link that you have to take care of right away either.....beat her till she breaks and then put in your 8.8 if you don't want to do it now.

ya i'm going to keep it in for a while! i noticed one day while playing around in my driveway that my 7.5" was posi, a couple friends had 4 bangers and never had posi so i was surprised that mine did, that's what made me think of keeping it in, i just want to check out my gear ratio to see what it has :tup

You can figure that out if it still has the tag held on by one of the case bolts or by turning the part that connects to the driveshaft and see how many times it takes to turn the wheels once. (3.55 times turning the small one for the wheels turned = 3.55 gears, etc.)

I worry about my SVO [but I have an 8.8 here waiting..]. A guy on TurboFord has a 2.3T Ranger that runs 13.30s on a 7.5" w 3.73s, and he went to start his 8.8 swap, norticed a hole clean through the diff cover, and when he took it off, the ring gear was missing two teeth and there was some other bust stuff, and no oil... :)