my last maverick was pretty darned potent, and had the ol "peg leg" 8 incher. i have a pair of friends who have hot rodded earlier mustangs, and they've run the stock 8 incher for years, with no problems. im hoping to get an 8 inch posi unit from either a mustang II, or get a hold of mavzilla's, if he ever gets a 9 incher under his car. in any event... my intent is to perhaps get my 302 up to about 225-250 horspower. is this too much for an 8 inch to handle? (my friends mustangs are considerably stronger than what im looking for) i just thinking that converting to a 9 inch is probably more trouble to adapt than its worth. any real reason to switch? id like to hear others personal experiences with this issue. thanks rr
8inch rearends and such Have used these set-ups for many years under various cars, the Maverick housings are very much in demand for street rods and roadsters because of there width's. The weakest part in them is the small pinion tail bearing, if you were to compare them to a 9inch you would see that the 9inch pinion shaft is almost twice as big as is the corrosponding bearing. However the 8in will take a lot of abuse if put together right. My 302 powered Fairmont is at around 400hp and the 8in I adapted under it with leaf springs is very reliable. This is using a C4 trans, std trans would be another story especially in drag racing. I have shortned a 9inch to use under a Mav and even used 8in axles in it, this rear is presently behind a 351 aka 393ci with powerglide and 10 1/2 slicks. The 8in Maverick axles are the same size diam as all the way to the splines where others are tapered down at the spline end. Some will argue that the small bearings and 28spline are to weak but so far after 10 yrs on these axles behind several high hp motors they have served very well. I am presently shortening a 9in for tubbed car with coil over and ladder bars to run 31in slicks. Will use Strange axles in that one. If you can get a 9in definately put it under the car but just for the fact you may want to upgrade the hp in the future etc. The 9in is perferred but that 8in is very reliable in most cases. There are several articles on the web and in magazines on 9in set-ups and such. We could get into cases, bearing size and other technical differances between the 8 and 9's but for your application I think the 8 will serve you well, they are limited to the gear ratio's available(4.62 where the 9in you can go well into the high 6's or even deeper). If you find any 8in Maverick rears and the price is right, buy them. They are in demand and I would even like to get a hold of some. The salvage yard crushers are doing a number on most of the old stuff and soon they will all be gone.
8"er For that amount of HP you'll be just fine. Use the best U-joints for you find. U-joints are probably the "weakest link". If you start getting your HP up around 400 then you might want to get a set of Currie or Mark Williams forged steel axles. 8" is lighter overall and will work just fine.
