Early Style 9" Or Use Pontiac 8.2?

[68FBODY]

Ok, so here is the deal. I found a really good price on a 9" ford rear out of an f100, its complete drum to drum. The rear is from 1959 though, will this rear be better then the 1968 pontiac 8.2?

Pontiac 8.2 has already been powdercoated, new auburn posi, new gears, new bearings, stock axels, 12" rear discs.

The 9" from 59'
Stock drum to drum, I would have the axles cut to correct length, Gm ends, disc brakes...etc etc

WHICH IS A BETTER PLATFORM?

Thanks guys

[Skip Fix]

Depends on the powere yoiu are putting to it. The 8.2 and sticky tires tends to break with much power. The Auburn can wear and need replacing as they are not rebuildable.

[68FBODY]

Ls motor forged bottom end, profiler heads 300cfm+, Howard's 232/236 cam, fast 90, headers of course, and should be around 500 hp motor only. I may want to use nitrous for drag nights once in a while.

[67rstbkt]

I would forget about using that 9" and buy a new housing and axles. I just went through narrowing a Ford 9 and saved a couple of hundred bucks narrowing it over buying a housing. Definitely not worth the hassle when Quick Performance and some other companies offer what they do. If you do the narrowing yourself, you will either need to borrow or buy an alignment jig, plus pay someone to weld the new ends on if you can't weld that yourself.

If you are set on doing the 9", look into brake offset and re-using axles before you do so. I was not able to re-use my axles because the flange was too large to fit inside the rotor, the difference in bolt pattern for the wheel would have required filling in a hole and re-drilling for the GM pattern, and they had to be resplined. If I had to do it again, I would have just purchased a correct length housing and axles and scavenged the 9" I had for parts, that's it.

If you decide on the 9" with disc brakes and have any questions about using the "LS1" style setup, I can probably answer some of those questions - there is not a lot of info out there on it. I'll have to do a write-up when I have some time.

[Zspoiler]

I wouldn`t use either a nine inch ford are expensive to build,and they use up too much horsepower. And 8.2 10 bolts brake to easily. I would find an GM 8.5 inch rear end out of a 1973-8 Nova or one of the sister cars . There are alot of aftermarket parts for them. Rember N-O-V-A, N-Nova ,O -Old Omega, V-Pontiac Ventura, Buick Apollo. They are very strong .This is a replacement for the 12 Bolt Chevy. I have one in my 1979 Z-28 Camaro Pro-touring car .It has a supercharged small block making over 500 HP.And a four speed.

[Nicks67GTO]

Sell the 8.2 on PY and go 9". I had to make the same decision about 2 years ago and after I read everything I could find, it seems like a handful of guys are successful at running the 8.2, but most of them scatter tham all over the road with much more than 400 hp.

[MonzaRacer]

PUH-LEASE, As for an 8.2 I'll bet if you already have it and its got decent parts running it till it actually frags will be cheaper. My machinist ran an 8.2 in a 11.5 lb class STICK drag car. Specifically a 400cid Pontiac 64 Tempest, he was record holder at local track and has pictures of it WHEELS UP, and it was the ring and pinion that fragged (this was back in 60s and 70s. )
Remember this, if your street driving and small amount of road and track courses and such I doubt its worth the extra cash outlay at this time. He was running the stock 4 series posi straight from a RA Firebird/TA and I bought it and the 4.88 gears and installed them in my big block Monte Carlo, traded off the rear axle after swapping it out (side swiped a tree and bent an axle)
Dont let people tell you a 12 bolts better than a well built 8.5 or an 8.2 wont live a decent life.
Proper lubes and service intervals help also.
OH and the 400 Pontiac was a solid lifter Crane Super Flow RA4 headed drag engine, I also got the huge by large cam,,,,biggest flat tappet a Pontiac could use, next step is a roller cam. And this engine was like 12 or 13 to 1, hard chromed nodular crank, and muncie 4 speed!
Oh yeah he ran stock axles NOT aftermarket.
and this class car means a 400 cid HAD to carry 4600lbs and run hard on slicks fitting in un cut fenderwells. As I said he has pics of it and they are WHEELS UP.
But its your car and wallet.

[Nicks67GTO]

You're right. Lets all run 8.2 Pontiac rears then. They sound indestructable. That was the 70's. They were a dime a dozen. If your buddy did break one, there was one in the junkyard waiting for $50 bucks. No way would I bother using a nicely built 8.2 Pontiac that could be sold for good $ and applied tward a new 9" especially on a 500hp LS that is going to be getting hit with nitrous.

While your buddy was doing wheel stands, my dad was replacing the 8.2 in his 67 GTO in the late 60's with a nodular Ram Air 67' rear. Why?? ....because he tore his stocker to hell with a slightly modded 335hp 400 and an M21 with slicks. Like I said above, some guys have gotten them to work behind big power. Most havent.