I've searched the forum and have not found an answer too my question. I'm in he market for a 3" lift and am looking at the rough country kit. The question I have is one kit has control arms and one doesn't. What is the need for the new control arms n is that the kit I should get or are the control arms not necessary. Thanks for any help

 

Control arms are not necessary at 3" of lift. They are nice to have for extra strength and lil extra tire clearance when turning with wide tires. If you only want 3" lift you can build a better lift by buying parts separately.

 

Agreed. I wouldn't worry about arms with a 3" lift. If you ever plan on going bigger down the road. I'd recommend looking into adjustable arms

 

Well I'm going to go a different direction here and recommend the one with arms. It will ride 1000x better with aftermarket arms and have a tad bit more suspension movement.

 

I had the RC 3" lift with the 1071 control arms and 2.2 shocks. I added a 1" spacer in front and made some shackle relocators so my lift was then at 4". At 4" the Jeep rode, steered and handled better that it did at 3".

I think this was for two reasons:
1. 2.2 shocks did not have much uptravel at 3" and so would bottom on the bump stops. At 4" there was enough uptravel for the suspension to work without bottoming.

2. The 1071 control arms are sized to provide proper caster for 3"-4.5" lift. I think at 3" they are a bit too long, but at 4" the caster is more in line with where it needs to be to yield good directional stability.

 

Not sure if you've already ordered or not...but I agree with odgreen...plus you'll have the added strength over the stamped steel control arms.

 

I have a 2" lift and added a set of metalcloak duroflex upper and lower control arms, the reasoning is the 20 degree flex and self centering capability compared to a stock or typical clevite arms 5 degree of flex. I also added a Currie track bar with the Johnny joint on one end, disconnects, extended brake lines and performs very well.