I hear ya' on the "budget thang"! Seems like there's a few lower end SUV's that are IRS too, right? Pull some measurements off the VX (rear hub to hub is the BIG one that you'd wanna be close to) and then walk some salvage yards, tape measure in hand. Ideally, you would want to be able to "transplant" the entire RE assembly intact, without having to shorten the half shafts; hopefully the donor rear brakes would be relatively compatible too. That would leave you to weld the donor IRS up to the frame (perhaps using donor "bracketry") and then shorten/lengthen the driveshaft accordingly. Not sure what the electronic "implications" of that would be vis a vis the TOD unit though, given how sensitive that seems to be with respect to brake/torque changes already. It's entirely likely that the VX TOD would end up on the "killing floor", replaced by whatever donor equivalent is up under THERE. Oh, then there's the VX ECU and OBDII situation resulting from changing out the TOD...
How 'bout softer springs all around on that VX...![]()