I would say so, Group N means fuck all, it is a STANDARD part. Unfortunatly some people like to sell them on Ebay as if they are somthing special.

The very most it will be is shotpeened and maybe super finished. All the problem areas are still there, such as the front diffs weak casing, the rear diffs weak CWP and planets.

On My Escort I have gone for a thickwall front diff, with a 4mm steel strenghening plate ( to stop the casing twisting and cracking), and a 2wd rear diff with the 2wd beam and shafts . You don't loose any top end at all as the ratios are nearly identical, you just gain a lot of strength. It's a good cheap upgrade to swap the rear diff for a 2wd one, and very easy to fit, and you don't have to swap the beam, just shave a bit off the 2wd casing to make it fit the 4x4 beam

Unfortunatly the front diff is an expensive problem to fix, even the thickwall jobbies are not that strong, as doug stirling managed to split his thickwall casing almost i half, I will have a dig through and see if I can find the pictures. It is a good upgrade however, but anything over 350ish on a std front diff is asking for trouble, as is the std gearbox.....