I see no reason why the cables couldn't be swapped, so long as the length is sufficient.
As for those factory junk cables that came on the early IDIs, with that Positive terminal molded in the middle of the HOT cable, that was a very poor design from the get-go; it was just another example of factory engineering ways of saving money into vehicle design.
Think about it for a minute :
You have TWO big batteries.
You have TWO big GROUND cables.
Properly wired and connected, you should have DOUBLE the available starting amperage of a single battery system.
YET, Ford, in all their money saving wisdom, makes one marginally sized cable do the work that two separate cables should be doing.
Wired as Ford supplied them, all that extra amperage from having two batteries is negated by having that amperage "resisted" (choked down) into that single HOT cable.
It isn't any wonder that they get hot and burn.
Also, that choked down cable is probably the reason everyone is so scared to crank the starter for more than a few seconds, else it will suffer a melt-down.
With a big separate cable for each terminal providing all available amperage from two good healthy batteries, the starter is not going to get nearly so hot and will stand up to minutes of cranking, instead of seconds.
Many years ago, I switched to Group-31
STUD POST batteries and separate cables and advise everyone else to do likewise when finances allow,
