Hmm. Although 4.30's appear to be plentiful for the 8.8, they're not as a widely available in the 9.75 through the popular Ford aftermarket shops. Nitro-Gear and Motive Gear makes a set, and both are available through AmericanTrucks.com. Motive Gear seems to get low reviews however, at least on Amazon, but Nitro-Gear appears to be good stuff from perusing Jeep and Toyota forums.

I'm assuming gears are interchangeable between front and rear axle applications; i.e., gears aren't designed specifically for front or rear axle applications, no?

EDIT: Reading the negative Motive reviews on Amazon revealed they were all about receiving gears that didn't fit their specific application; none about quality issues. On another site, someone stated that there had been a consolidation of gear manufacturers to just a handful (e.g. Richmond, US Standard, Nitro) that get reboxed under different brands such as Motive. With similar quality across the board, the recommendation is to simply purchase the lowest cost set you can find.

 

It was almost 5 years ago I did the '05 re-gear. At that point 4.30 appeared to be unobtainium. I really didn't look too hard though because I already had my heart set on 4.56. My first-drive impression was like two more cylinders had been added to the engine. Acceleration was effortless and the truck just wanted to run. What a difference. A lot of people who've never done it sit in front of their calculators and say 4.XX ratio is too much . They don't factor the increased mass of the big tires. You have to overshoot the ratio increase to get all the performance back. If you gear that truck to 4.3 with 33's, it's going to haul a** !! Your first drive is going to leave you with a permanent grin.
As to front vs. rear axle, yes there is a difference. The front is an 8.8R which means reverse rotation. The pinion comes in tangent to the top of the ring gear, not the bottom. It's technically known as an anoid gear, as opposed to hypoid. Also commonly referred to as a high pinion. A set of Mustang gears won't fit in the front of an F-150.

 

The nice thing about if you re-gear to 4.10's is you can get factory gears from ford and get the front torsen setup from the raptor. That upgrade is on my future wish list.

 

Great to be schooled! Because when I plug in the full specs of my '13 into AmericanTrucks, they don't show any front 4.30's applicable, and trying to narrow a Google search to 8.8R 4.30's gives me just too many false hits (i.e. regular 4.30's) to weed through at the moment.

Will go 4.11's if when the time comes and find that 4.30 8.8R's truly aren't available, since I will eventually add forced induction which will have plenty of low-end torque for the 4.11's driving 33's.

I had 4.56's in my '66 Mustang with 28" wheels shifted by a 4-speed Toploader and yes, it HAULS from stop... but absolutely screams RPM's at freeway speeds. Not practical at all without swapping to an overdrive tranny, which is on my long to-do list along with a Coyote-swap.

 

Yes, excellent point. If you can swing the extra expense, the Torsen up front gives you much more useful traction in 4wd. That and a TrueTrac in the rear. I put one in the '05 and loved it. My eldest (21) has it now. I keep threatening to take it back.
-- I wish you guys would quit putting foolish (expensive) ideas in my head....

 

Sure am glad I like my 3.55 in mine, and with the 2wd it still gets the stock 6.2 Raptor by the end of 2nd gear

 

What ratio came on the Raptor?

 

Yep, the Raptor Torsen is on my list, tho not yet fully committed. I'll cross that bridge when I regear and add Truetrac to the rear...

 

Raptor has 4.10's, beats me off the line every time

 

Oh yes 3.55 vs 4.10 will be quite the difference in Raptors favor off the line.