Gear swaps are popular with the S197 crowd. It seems to be agreed that real OEM gears from FRPP are the best. However, as of late it appears that Motive is now making the FRPP gears. This created a lot of confusion for me, because I wanted real OEM FRPP, but didn’t know how to identify them.

I picked up a set of 3.73 gears at the dealer today. I have had four different people tell me these are the real Ford OEM gears and NOT Motive manufactured gears. Two sources of verification were at the dealer, the other two were local tuners\performance shops.

I believe these folks have this right, but if I am mistaken I welcome all other opinions. My goal is to resolve, how to identify real FRPP OEM gears, and make it easier on the next guy seeking them.

I was told that the real OEM gears have several things that distinguish them from Ford replacement part gears manufactured by others, and re-labled Ford. These are the things that apparently are unique to real OEM FRPP gears:

1) The box has a picture of a ring and pinion (others apparently have a picture of a car on the box)
2) The box reads “Made in USA” (I am told that Motive gears are Made in Italy)
3) The end of the pinion is stamped. (others are apparently engraved)

Picture of the box with the ring & pinion rather than the car.



Picture of the label reading “Made in USA”.



Picture of the part # and bar code.



Picture of the included shim kit and other parts.



Picture of the end of the pinion stamped, not engraved. Note that the F is underlined. For Ford maybe?



I should note that the instructions in the shim kit on my gears pictured above are labled Ford as well. I hope this thread helps make it easier for others to identify whether they are purchasing real FRPP OEM gears. If I am mistaken feel free to chime in here guys.

Thanks J

 

I read somewhere that the M in that part number means they were made by Motive. Don't know if that is true or not.

Kevin

 

Good info here.

By the way, I posted about this a couple of months ago. In the old post I put up a picture of the FRPP-made-by-motive gears, for your comparison:

https://mustangforums.com/m_2102223/...tm.htm#2102586

..and yes, the ones made by Motive generally have an "M" at the END of the part number.

 

I had once heard the same thing. I do trust a couple of the guys giving me this info. Suffice to say I trust the dyno\preformance guys more than the sales guys (no offense to you sales guys out there hahaha). One thing is certain, there is a lot of ambiguity about these gears. I'm certainly not an expert and open to suggestions. My feelings won't be hurt if I am dead wrong, cos I have 10 days to return them without a restocking fee

I just thought I'd get the pics posted and my take on what is what, and see if we could get some clarity on the issue.

Thanks J

 

Thanks for your input CrazyAl, I value your opinion. For the sake of discussion I will throw out this Motive link to their Ford gears...

http://www.motivegear.com/pages/ring...ford_gears.htm

I can take pics of both sides of the gear if it will help us decide this. There is no grove on the backside of the gear I have, where there does appear to be a grove on the back of the Motive AX Series. I did notice the box in your other link had the car on it and not the gears, which is consistent with my original assertion. Patrick at PSI Motorsports in Webster was very definitive. He said "if it has the gears on the box, and says Made in USA it is Ford. If it has the car on the box and says made in Italy anywhere on the box or gear it is some other." (I am always uneasy when I quote someone cos I can barely read my own damn notes)! I would be curious if you recall if the box on your gears said "Made in Italy" or "Made in USA". My gears are a darker color (almost black) compared to the gears on the motive website, which are much shinier. But I admit there is scarce conclusive data out there; at least that I can find with my limited google skills.


Jack

 

I still have my box. I looked over it and there is NO statement anywhere about where the gears were made. It doesn't say "made in USA"....or anywhere else, for that matter.

My gearset, the 4.30s, look like the "Ax Series production lightened Ford 8.8" on the link you posted. They do have that lightning groove on the back side. However, the color is not consistent with the website photos. My gears were also a very dark color, nearly black. However, I don't think that means much. I think the photos on the motive site have been lightened in color before posting them on the internet.

This is very common: you take a picture of something with a white background. However, the background never comes out TRULY white, but it's close. So you raise the brightness of the entire image (using a program like Photoshop) in order to make the background actually white. That effectively makes the background disappear, but it also has the side effect of making the objects in the picture a bit brighter than they should be.

 

Yea I suspcted my "that one is shinier" theory might not be sceintifcally sound

Anyone else have any opinions on this?

 

Yup, those are genuine FRPP gears per part #. I think some manufactures polish the gear sets to make them visually appealing. I highly doubt they sell them like that. Personally I'd never put a polished gearset in my rear. I think gearsets are supposed to come with a certain amount of lapping(can someone identify exactly what this is) to help eliminate the whine so I'd think polishing them would ruin this. I do know however gear sets are matched to each other so no mixing a ring from one set and pinion from another.

 

Lapping is using a fine abrasive to fine-tune the fit of mating parts.

When gears are lapped they mount them in special machine that simulates the rear end housing. The gears are spun against each other using an electric motor. They then apply a fine abrasive paste to the gears and let them run like that for a while. The abrasive is then washed off before the gears are packaged and shipped to the customer.

 

Thanks for dropping the science once again CrazyAl!