PRI 2025: Currie Evolved Ford’s 9-Inch With Its Apex Floater

Further refining its take on the storied 9-inch rearend, Currie Enterprises created the Apex Floater, which the company showed off during the 2025 PRI Show. The updated assembly builds on decades of 9-inch development while addressing the demands of modern, high-grip street and track cars.

“We developed a housing end that welds to a Ford 9-inch that accepts the C7 Corvette floater hub, and then we made a 35-spline or 31-spline, full float axle,” Jake Amatisto, Sales at Currie Enterprises, told us. “What that does is it eliminates a semi-float axle, which, in a road race or an autocross application, causes pad knockback resulting in inaccurate braking on the apexes. So we eliminate that, and it’s a stronger setup because you don’t have a flange with a bearing on it.”

At its core, the Apex Floater replaces the traditional semi-float axle arrangement with a true full-float design. Instead of the axle shaft supporting vehicle weight, that job is handled by C7 Corvette-style unit bearings at each hub. The axle’s only responsibility is transmitting torque, a change that improves durability in high-horsepower applications.

The design also delivers measurable braking benefits. By removing axle load, the Apex Floater minimizes rotor deflection and brake pad knock-back during aggressive cornering. That leads to more consistent pedal feel and predictable braking, particularly in road course environments where lateral loads are sustained.

“You can use any Wilwood brake with a 2.5-inch axle offset, so you’ve got several different brake options from Wilwood that bolt to an adapter that bolts to our housing end,” Amatisto said. “The other cool thing about it is it has a sensor port for ABS or traction control.”

Electronics integration was clearly part of the design brief. The housing ends are compatible with C7 wheel-speed sensors, allowing straightforward control integration of the aforementioned anti-lock brakes or traction control that require wheel-speed data. For modern vehicles or classics with late-model engine swaps under the sway of engine control units, this capability eliminates the compromises typically associated with adapting a traditional 9-inch to integrate these features.

Brake system flexibility is another highlight. The Apex Floater supports a wide range of Wilwood brake kits, from compact street setups to large-diameter performance packages, with provisions for both mechanical and electric parking brakes. The caliper mounting bosses can be clocked 360 degrees, giving builders freedom to work around suspension links, shock mounts, and chassis packaging constraints.

“You can go kind of crazy with the brakes with a 14-inch rotor, but you can also do an 11-inch rotor and fit it in a 15-inch wheel, so you can use it for drag racing too,” Amatisto added.