Hello all its been a long winter and its time to get back into the swing of things just one problem, a blown rear end. Its a 99' 2 door with 18" wheels wrapped in 33" Toyo MT's, a fairly heavy set up. I put a 98' 350 in it last winter and made it all summer on the stock axel with 3.42 gears but inevitably it blew. Now i know some guys have swapped in the ZR2 setups but im not sure if they are strong enough to handle the V8. I dont do any crazy crawling or anything just the odd mud pit and burnout. It is my daily driver in the summer and id like to avoid changing the front gears. Any suggestions on what i can do at the same time as keeping costs under $500 or so would be much appreciated.

 

well I dont think theres any difference between a zr2 and a regular blazer rear or front end. I would go to a junk yard and try to find a wrecked blazer with the RPO codes for a G80
and either a GT4 (3.73), a GT5 (4.10), or a HC4 (4.56). and then just switch everything over.

 

ZR2's got the 8.5" rear end as opposed to the 7.5/7.625" rear.

You could always pick one (ZR2 rear) up and throw in a lunchbox locker instead of the weak G80. Not sure if it would keep your costs under $500 though, unless you know people that know people as the lockers alone range from $330-490 at SummitRacing.

 

Guess I learned something new for the night haha

 

find a ford 9 "out of an early bronco and redrill the axles for the right bolt pat

 

Or a 8.8" out of a Explorer and redrill the axles for the right bolt pattern.

Later, Doug

 

The ford option would be ideal but would this not change drive shaft length and such and also what about width are they similar?

 

I'm beefing up a 7.625... didn't want to mess with the whole sawp axle thing.

But for the 8.5 you could do the same thing I'm doing. This is the same size as the F-Body cars.

Limited slip will be a little better for the streets and higher speed. A locker is better at slower speeds - It's actually not even going to work right if you wrap it up too fast.

Thick aluminum cover with bearing girdles. This is good for the romping that the 350 would produce.

Anywho, just thought I would share!

P.S. I planned to do my rebuild this winter... But, what a winter it has been. My rear end could just about sing dixie going down the hi-way!!!

 

I've never done the swap so I don't recall.

I assume you have a 4x4 since you were talking about mudpits and rock crawling. If that's the case, I think the 8.8" is pretty close to your stock rearend.

Perhaps someone can chime in and answer these questions better than I can.

Later, Doug

 

Travis I take it this kit uses the stock axel shafts? I would rather go this route because I as well don't really want to swap to a different set up. Who make this kit and how much are they going for?