phongshader wrote:
JustDreamin wrote:
Well, finally found an exploded view of the F150 front diff. It's set up with a High Pinion, with the Ring gear towards the right of the pinion, meaning that standard 8.8 gears won't work in that housing. It's true high pinion, with the offset up, instead of down like conventional gearsets. Confirmed by sales tech at Randy's Ring & Pinion.
JustDreamin
That might be a good solution if you were to run this layout:
cheapracer wrote:
I have mentioned a few times that one solution is to turn the V8 around, run a 4WD box forward and run a driveshaft back to a rear diff and forward to a front diff if you want 4WD, well here is one very successful lo(w)cost example ...
You could run the F150 front diff in the rear and flip it, now a low pinion diff and it would be running in the correct direction...right? Now if you could find a high pinion irs ford 8.8 you could run it in the front flipped...low pinion...right?
I've thought about that configuration (and like the idea of rear engined, maybe something CanAm shaped), and the problem I run in to is the Tcase. I don't want to run a 4wd box (front and rear shafts are mechanically locked at identical speeds or 2wd to the wrong end). I want an AWD box (some form of differential in the tcase, preferably splitting power with a rear bias). For example, the BW 4472 tcase. In it's normal configuration, it splits power 35 % F / 65% R (through a viscous coupling controlled planetary gearset). Obviously that power split is not fixed (depends upon slippage etc) but the bias is to the rear. Turn that box around, and suddenly I have 65% of the power going to the front end (which has alot less weight on it, since it's now in a lightweight rear engined car). Wouldn't be a good thing. And I've looked at how to re-engineer the tcase to get it flipped, and I'm not willing to go to that extreme (new case, extensive internals, etc). I don't know of another AWD tcase that gives me the correct bias front to rear.
For now, I'm going to work on the front engine concept, with probably a BW4472 rotated to put the front driveline on the passengers side (may ultimately need a new case to tuck things in tight). But putting the front driveline, steering, brakes, exhaust system, and my feet all in the same space just won't work. There just isn't enough real estate with out moving the engine 2' to the right (kinda like a reverse Nascar Super Modified). And I'm not going to build it Wrong Hand Drive either.
JustDreamin