Never in my life would I have thought it would come to this

Can't beat a 9" Ford. I put one with disc brakes in my Brand-X car. Make sure you get the nodular 3rd member with big bearings. The grey iron one is pretty weak. It is nice to be able to do a custom width to tuck the tires where you want them. I did 31 spline Moser axles which are probably not enough for my current power level.

Any reason why you don't get a Dana 60 out of a truck and narrow it? We ran 8.50's for YEARS before it finally failed and we had to go to a fabricated 9 inch.