RE: 3.73 Pumpkin swap tool & procedure checklist
Oh... settle down Sleeper!!! I drove it for about 30 mile when I got it done and then parked it becuase I had to do family stuff!! It was worth the effort overall. I wish it didn't cost as much as it did to get the improvement that it yielded though. This is just wishful thinking!
One gripe I've always had about the DOHCs is that they're so lacking in low end torque. Personally, I think Ford could have done better with this. Anyway, now it seems like the "deadness" below about 3500 is less noticeable now. When taking off from a light and you dip into it a little bit, the deadness is much less noticeable. Actually, when you apply one of those "calibrated from years of drivng the car" dips into the throttle and you're next to another car that's also accelerating at a normal rate, your "rate of leaving the guy" is definitely quicker and more noticeable. e.g. your window frame passes his door as at a quicker pace. This is all with the same partial "calibrated" jab of the throttle.
Also, the factory shift point of about 6000 now seems noticeably short. This is, no doubt, because it's revving up quicker. So, manual shifts are gonna be the norm when I want to get "sprited" shall we say.
I'm also getting a little bit of gear whine under a coast from about 48mph down to about 40mph. I've had 2 other Ford products with factory 3.73s and they both had audible (albeit barely audible) gear whine. I'm hoping that this clears up with a few thousand miles! The original 3.27s were silent all the time.
For the install, I ended up taking both spindles off. It was easier to remove both sides instead of wrestling a heavy pumpkin around and trying to insert one axle at the same time. Fortunately, I have a nice die grinder that made clipping that infamous Torx-50 bolt a pretty easy task.
I had supported the car with jack stands under the rear control arms so the air springs were supporting weight. This made marking the position of the spindles unnecessary too. I just bolted everything back together and the lower bushing were not preloaded in such a way as to affect ride height and, thus, maybe messing up the rear alignment.
If I had to do the job again, I could do it in less than 3 hrs. Of course, there's always learning curves on things like this. If I had a lift, it would have been a piece of cake.
So, for those on the fence about whether or not they'd spend the jingle to do this mod, I'd say it's worth it. It puts more smiles on your face when you're leaving a light. It would really wake up a base VIII with 3.07 gears. That would be a really great mod for those guys.
That's my two cents worth for the day on this. Thanks again to all that helped.