01xjsport

I have a RE 4.5 short arm kit –measures at 5”. I’ve been thinking about a CAD system for awhile. I’m looking at Rough Country and Rocky Road.
http://www.roughcountry.com/jeep_xj_..._arm_drop.html
http://www.rocky-road.com/xjcad.html
Does any one have one of these.

okcjeeper

RC makes a nice CA drop kit, Rocky Road does as well. I know RE makes one as well but it costs a but more. The Rocky Road is a direct bolt on with no drilling and such. I also believe the RC is a direct bolt on. Muddprived has the RC drop kit so you might ask him about it. I know nothing about the RE kit.

jeep210

How much ground clearance do you lose with a CDA?

01xjsport

Thanks, With the Re cad you also need the braces (sold separately) and they are too much $. The Rocky Road is similar to the RE Kit. I can get the Rocky Road's for $185 + shipping. I found the RC's for 190 shipped.

01xjsport

You can assume you lose 4" sense they drop down 4" But allot cheaper than a long arm

jeep210

Do you know how well they hold up to abuse?

muddeprived

They will be fine. RE includes these same drop brackets for their 5.5 extreme duty kit and i'm sure they will hold up I haven't beaten on them yet but i'm confident in their quality. Yeah you lose some clearance but the ride difference is worth it. You also get more flex since your arms aren't at a steep angle, closer to binding. I have RC's drop brackets but I would rather switch the backside support bracket with RE's.

https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f51/rc-drop-bracket-installation-5384/

I was in the same position when i was deciding who to order from. I had previous orders with Rough Country and their CS is great plus their shipping was 3 days both times so i chose them regardless of who was cheaper.

01xjsport

Thats how I feel about the RC Braces.
Thanks..

okcjeeper

I think I would go with the RC ones myself. RC has awesome customer service. I am consdiering adding these to mine. Mud how much lift do you measure at? I sit at 4.5" so I think I should be ok.. I am waiting till I can also get adjustable upper and lower arms and do it all at once..

01xjsport

I'm going to go with RC's. I'm just going to with upper adjustable arms for my pinion angle. The drop kit should bring the lower arms down and move my axle forward to bring my caster back in without using shims.

muddeprived

Do wait. I had a hard time getting correct caster with just the arm drops, even though they have a larger caster adjustment slot than stock. The oem adjustment shoes that are bolted to the frame side of the lower arms can only go so far forward (half way) unless you modify them with longer bolts. I ran at 3.8 degrees of caster (if i remember correctly) until I got RC's new lower arms and then i could adjust it to whatever i wanted. My kit was originally 4.75" but is now hovering around 4" or 4.25". I lost some height but I'll get that back with some spacers. Rough Country said the minimum amount of lift to run these brackets is 4". It will NOT work for anything smaller, trust me. It just barely works with mine. Anything smaller and the axle would be too far forward and steering bind will occur. It's ideal to run the drop kits with all four adjustable arms so you can fine tune the caster and wheelbase. American jeeps, as I was told by the dealer, have 1/4" or 1/2" more wheelbase on the passenger side to keep the vehicle tracking straight and not flowing towards the crown of the road.

anyone have any idea when RC will offer upper flex arms? They do for the tj but not the xj. Aren't they the same?

okcjeeper

Oh I sit at 4.5" and when i do them I am adding 1"..So I plan on doing the drops, new CA's and more lift at the same time. Good thing is I only need to lengthen the rear shocks 1".

muddeprived

How you plannin on doin that? i lengthened my OME shocks with some full traction bpe's. Although they were designed for the rear, i made em work up front too.

01xjsport

My alignment specs are:

Front Left /Specified Range /Front Right /Specified Range
-0.5 /-0.8 to 0.5 /Camber /-0.6 /-0.8 to 0.5

5.8 /5.3 to 8.5 /Caster /5.7 /5.3 to 8.5

.12/ 0 to .23 /Toe /.11 /0 to .23

In order to bring my caster in, I had to fully shim the lower control arms. With the cad I should be in without the shims.
I will let you all know how it turns out.

01xjsport

They are the same.