While I had the whole exhaust out, I wanted to refresh the whole system and do everything in stainless. My existing down pipe / front pipe/ mid pipe was custom made by an exhaust shop from 2.5" pipe from the header collector to the cat. When I changed to the larger front pipe, I noticed a definite reduction in low end torque. Makes sense that lower exhaust velocity moves the scavenging effects to higher rpm. I wanted to get some of that low end torque back because its much more important to me than high end horsepower.

When shopping for a down pipe replacement this time around, I got into the weeds a bit with the sizing. Did some research on different forums and engineering resources trying to determine the best pipe size for what I wanted. Long story short: the OEM size is best for low end torque, and starts to become a restriction around 2800 rpm.

The OEM downpipe (on my 99, at least) is 2" ID out of the manifold collector and through the first couple bends. It then transitions to 2.25" ID as it crosses under the transmission.

The reason the smaller ID is better for low end torque is because the gasses flow faster which aligns the scavenging effect of reflected pulse waves with a lower RPM. This is a compromise of low end torque vs high end power because if the pipe is too small for the given volume of gas, the power required to push the gas through the pipe begins to have a non-negligible effect on output.

I arrived at the conclusion the OEM pipe is optimal up to approximately 2800 rpm using a rule of thumb proposed by David Vizard which states a lossless exhaust needs to flow 2.2 CFM per horsepower at the flywheel. The calculation is laid out in this forum post: https://forums.justcommodores.com.au.../#post-2487281. Note its just a rough estimation and should not be taken for gospel as this makes a lot of assumptions, rounding, and does not incorporate the losses due to bends.

There is a new front pipe on the market for our rigs from Northern Exhaust. They come straight from overseas, but they are stainless, mandrel bent, and are pretty solid for the price of ~$80. They are the same size at the OEM pipe with a short section of 2" opening up into 2.25". Ideally, I would prefer 2.25" into 2.5" to have the pipe be non-restrictive up beyond 2800 rpm, but it really doesn't matter for how I use my Jeep. Its not a race truck, as much as I might want it to be. Plus, there is no off the shelf product in that size.






So I got the Northern Exhaust front pipe mounted up, and ended up not using it for a different reason. It hangs a good couple inches lower than my existing front pipe. I think the Northern Exhaust part actually follows the OEM path pretty close and my custom pipe is higher clearance. I already had some dents in my down pipe in this area, so I decided higher clearance was more important than anything else. Maybe someday I'll have a custom stainless down pipe made.








I also bought the Northern Exhaust stainless tail pipe. Same story, super nice piece for the price and is a great OEM replacement, but my exhaust routing isn't quite OEM and it would've been a lot of rework to get that tail pipe to work. I ended up reusing my cobbled together tail pipe that I made a year or two ago, and bought a new Walker Quiet Flow muffler. Same model I had on there before. I don't love the Walker Quiet Flow because it feels pretty thin and wimpy, but there are no other good options for a quiet stainless muffler.

Got my exhaust buttoned back up. Hopefully should be a good bit quieter with the flow actually going out of the tail pipe now and not leaking out of everywhere.


Also replaced the bushings in my Brown Dog motor mounts. They weren't totally blown out, but after 10 years they were due for replacement.








With the exhaust and all supporting hangers and mounts refreshed, I moved my attention back to the axle swap. Here are some pictures with everything welded on. New lower control arm brackets, coil buckets/shock mounts, track bar mount, and C gussets.
















Yes, I am kicking myself in the butt for leaving all this steel bare and letting it rust. I'll deal with that at a later time. Don't want to think about it right now.



I got the 44 placed back under the front and have the control arms bolted up. I set my wheelbase / thrust angle by measuring the distance from the front leaf spring bolt to the axle tube, and got the axle centered and set at ride height. My thought for order of operations is to get my steering setup finalized so I can then place the frame-side track bar mount to match the drag link.

I've been pretty financially irresponsible recently and was able to convince myself to spend $400 on the Rancho high steer knuckles to move the tie rod up 1.5", and also bought a Fusion 4x4 tie rod on black Friday. I went with these products because I saw a lot of reports of people bending 1.5"x.250 DOM tie rods on JK axles. The tie rod is mounted quite low on these, and there are not any options for real high steer. The Fusion tie rod is beefy af 7075 aluminum and uses Rare Parts (brand) tie rod ends. I feel good about it.


The Rancho knuckles have cast-in steering stops rather than the bolt setup like OEM. Rancho suggests grinding the stops down to tune them in. I measured the steering throw of the OEM knuckles to be about 38 degrees.







Knowing that I'm using RCV's instead of u-joints, I wanted to maximize my potential steering angle. RCV states their joints are good up to 45 degrees, I set the steering stops at 42. The Rancho knuckles certainly had left a lot on the table.











When I placed my track bar bracket, I had not considered that I may increase the steering angle. At this point, I had some concerns that I might've screwed myself with where I placed my track bar bracket because the drag link joint may contact the bracket when turning to the driver's side. The knuckle gets real close







Checking clearances with the offset 1 ton tie rod end set into the knuckle had me feeling like a hero. There was the slightest sliver of clearance between the joint and the track bar bracket. Looked like the drag link might rub a bit on the head of the bolt, but I was confident I could make this work. It was too perfect.







Then I checked turning the other direction, which I hadn't really considered would be a problem. The knuckle turns farther in this direction though... and everything hit everything.






Note the tie rod hits the track bar bracket, and even if it didn't, the drag link doesn't even have a chance.





So, this is where I'm at currently. I will be searching around to see what I can find for offset tie rod ends, and worst case I'll have to bend the bar. Bending the bar might just be plan A. For the tie rod clearance, I should be able to just notch the bracket.


I'm also expecting the pitman arm end of the drag link will interfere with the tie rod at full compression, so I might need a shorter pitman arm, and also might need an arm with longer throw to get full range of steering.

Once I get these details figured out with steering, I will then be able to make a track bar. The way everything is setup, I should be able to make a track bar that is the exact same length and angle as the drag link. The geometry should work out great. I expect the links to be very flat at ride height. I'm very excited for how good the geometry will be.

I haven't touched the rear end yet, but I have a truss to weld on, and am about to order parts to do the internals. I have a 35 spline ARB and Revolution shafts to go with it. Should be a very stout setup. Stay tuned!

 

Got my track bar bracket notched out for tie rod clearance. Looks good. Got full range of steering from that component now.






Moving onto the drag link: I came to the conclusion bending the link is the only option. I looked for other offset joints, but I need the shank offset directly at the joint the way the RuffStuff offset 1 ton TREs are. The other offset joints I found have the shank inline with the joint with a bend farther up the shank to achieve the offset. Those would hit my track bar bracket at ~30-35 degrees steering angle. So bending it is.

Mocked it up with PVC. Looks like it will be easy enough. I’ll need to get my tube prepped and bring it to a friend’s house with a bender to get it done. Only needs 10 degrees.




While going through this, I was looking close at my pitman arm. It looks like I have enough clearance between the drag link and tie rod at full bump. The truss will hit the oil pan before the tie rod hits the drag link (as I’m typing this, I’m realizing I need to check with the axle flexed up on the driver’s side). The bigger thing with the pitman arm is I need an arm with about 1/2” longer throw to get full steering angle. Not a show stopper right now, but I’ll go through that detail at some point.

 

Do you think it's necessary to weld a tab on the bent part of the tubing to prevent it from going straight again? If you are going for the tubing to be bent then why do you need offset TRE's?

 

You saying weld a gusset on the bend? Nah, I don’t think that will be necessary. Lots of people run bent links, and lots of OEM vehicles (XJ included) have bent steering links. I’m doing the drag link and track bar from 1.5” x .250” wall DOM. They should be plenty stout.

I did look at using a straight TRE at the knuckle instead of the offset joint, but the offset joint fits better. This picture shows the bend that would’ve been required to get a straight joint to work.

 

I put my front driveshaft in and had to adjust my pinion angle a good bit. After doing so, my tie rod was interfering with the TRE at the pitman arm, so I did end up changing my pitman arm. I changed to a WJ Grand Cherokee arm which has 6.25" of throw and 1.75" of drop rather than the XJ's 5.5" of throw and 3" of drop.

The WJ pitman arm is clocked differently on the steering shaft, so I had to cut some splines into the master splines with a hack saw and triangle file to get the arm indexed correctly. Also reamed it for the JK sized taper.








I reamed the knuckle for the 1 ton TRE, and also bought a Synergy single-plane tie rod end for the pitman arm side to stop the drag link from flopping around too much. I did need to clearance the track bar bracket a bit to clear the offset TRE at full driver's side steering cut. I really could've used an extra 1/4" here but I made it work and it should be good to go.








So that got me 42 degrees of steering from the steering wheel to the knuckles. That's pretty sweet.


Next I got my track bar mocked up. I need to put a couple bends in the bar to clear the oil pan and diff at full bump, but that's no problem. The way this is mocked up, the drag link and track bar will be the exact same length and parallel in the front and top planes. Should perform amazing and I'm very excited for it.


These pics are at full bump with the truss just about touching the oil pan. There are a few clearance issues that need to be dealt with, notably my frame-side track bar bracket is hanging out in space and interferes with the tie rod, but its all stuff that I can make small adjustments to.






















I'm pretty elated that the drag link and track bar go above horizontal at full bump. This really couldn't work out much better, maybe short of doing a custom knuckle to do true high steer rather than just the drag link flip.


Other than the frame-side track bar bracket, there are a few other hurdles to overcome, such as:


The pitman arm hits my transmission line






The upper control arm on the driver's side barely hits the OEM track bar mount/motor mount. I did trim this a bit, and will clearance it just slightly more, but didn't want to go too crazy because its all part of the motor mount. Comparing the motor mount structure to the passenger side, all of the extra material looks like its there for the OEM track bar mount, but I'm skeptical to hack it all out, and really don't need to.












The head of the bolt of the UCA is hitting the inside of the unibody rail. This might be from having the axle slightly off center as the passenger side isn't touching, but it is close. This isn't a huge deal regardless as its right at bump.








My driveshaft is hitting my downpipe pretty badly. It clears, but I cannot rotate it. I will either need to pound a flat spot in the downpipe, redo the downpipe (would like to in the future anyway), or add more bump stops.








and, probably most concerning, my control arm plows right into my fuel line just before the fuel line turns up to go into the engine bay. Honestly, this may have already been happening for years, but I will need to move the fuel like away from the arm a bit, because that's scary







So, a few things to deal with, but overall I'm quite pleased about the mock-up is coming together. I'm going to make real steering links to move forward based on this. I really can't do much clearance testing under flex with the PVC track bar as its not stiff enough. I expect I'll have some more issues to deal with under flex conditions.

All this work almost doesn't matter right now because I will likely need much more bump stop to fit tires and shocks, which I have not paid any attention to at all. My ultimate goal is to do high clearance inner fenders and shock/coil over towers. Maybe that will happen next year. For now, I want to get the suspension and steering setup to stuff deep at bump, then I'll deal with making the tires and shocks fit later.

Very excite!

 

Coming along nicely! Make sure you use purple primer and blue glue when you glue up the track bar. A lot of people will tell you you can skip the primer, but you need to use the primer for maximum strength.

I've used PVC for mock up on my control arms, but hadn't considered using fittings to figure out bends in a bar. I'll tuck that idea away for future use, thanks for that tip.

 

Chippin' away!

Bent some tube and burned my steering links in this weekend














Got the links installed. I'm very happy with how they came out. They are both 37-3/8" long and parallel in a front view and top view. They sit at a 5 degree angle when at ride height.


Ride height:






Full bump:





Full droop:






Passenger side stuff:






Driver side stuff:







I was pretty proud of myself to see how well the track bar cleared the oil pan at full bump. At least an inch of clearance everywhere.









I had brainstormed some ideas about how to raise my draglink higher on the knuckle than just this standard flip achieved, but turns out it works out perfect. Results in about 1/2" of clearance between the drag link and uniframe rail at full passenger side stuff and steering cut full passenger.








All in all, the steering looks like it works out great. The way everything is setup, ride height is about 4" of lift over stock with 5.5" of up travel until the truss hits the oil pan, and 9" of down travel where the drag link joints bind when steered to the driver's side. Realistically, this is way more travel than I need. but its nice to know these components are not the limiting factor. I definitely need to work in limit straps.



Not to say that everything is going well, because I also found some egregious interferences. The driveshaft hits everything. When flexed one way, it goes right through the down pipe. When flexed the other way, it hits the upper control arm. Even worse, the pinion flange hits the upper control arm at the same time.











A little dent on the down pipe isn't gonna solve this. So, I have a couple options. One would be to cut the upper control arm mount off the lower arm and move it slightly, and also make a custom downpipe. The other is to swap from a pinion flange to a standard yoke and hope that it gives me the clearance I need. I wanted to stick with the flange rather than the yoke because I feel like its stronger, easier to work with, and my driveshaft length works out great with it. Its looking like at least trying it with a yoke is going to be the easiest path forward here. If that's all it takes to resolve the interference issues and the driveshaft length works out, I'll be feeling lucky.

 

Been poking away at this as I've found time and motivation. I first swapped the pinion flange out for a standard yoke to help with driveshaft problems.

When replacing the yoke, I measured the torque to rotate the entire front diff to be a measly 5 in-lb. That is way below spec and showed my pinion preload was pretty much non-existent. GREAT.

I checked the backlash on the carrier and found it to be a bit out of spec on the high end. GREAT.






I pulled the carrier out to properly set the pinion preload. The carrier basically fell out when I removed the bearing caps. Showed there was hardly any carrier preload. GREAT.





When I had the carrier out I looked inside to see a bunch of metal coming from the inside of the locker. Didn't go any further, but my god this front end isn't looking good. GREEAAAATTTT. That's what I get for buying somebody else's junk on Facebook marketplace. No more buying built axles secondhand.






At this point I don't have the funds for a new locker, nor do I care to do anything about it right now. The bearings all felt good, so I torqued down 15 in-lb of pinion preload, added 5 thou of shim to each side of the carrier, checked backlash wasn't any worse, and am gonna hope for the best. This was my first time ever working on a differential, so it was a good learning experience. Something tells me I'll be back in here again.




The pinion yoke helped with my clearance problems. It solved 1 of my 2 interreferences by keeping the driveshaft out of the downpipe. Its still close, but now the yoke of the driveshaft is closer to the diff and doesn't hit the exhaust. Also, the driveshaft length works out good like this. With the flange, the driveshaft really was a hair too long. With the yoke, its maybe a little shorter than ideal, but its not too short. Looks good.









The bigger issue out of this whole thing was the upper control arm. It was still hitting the yoke, and now was even hitting the diff itself. My only option was to move the mount. This ended up being fairly challenging because there was really only one very specific spot that it worked. I moved it farther than I thought I would have to and had to clearance the truss and UCA itself, but all in all it came out good.

















And with that done, I'm calling the front end "over the hump" of the project. After way more work than I thought it would take, everything has clearance where I want it to. Its now ready for fine tuning and reassembly!







I've really been feeling the suck of radius arms during this project. Radius arms work alright, but their downsides really show when you start to ask a lot of travel out of them. Look at how much caster change there is at full droop Really wanting to do a 3 link conversion right about now. Maybe at some point.






I now finally have my rear end up on the bench. I've been welding a truss on this week, and plan to set the gears up with some friends in a couple weeks. Have a little list of things to knock out before then. Warm weather is coming fast and I'm feeling the squeeze of time. Gotta get crackin and get this thing moving.

 

You're making good progress. I am in about the same place with mine. I put the Ironman front four link on mine, bought just the cross member and built my own links. Cut the shock mounts off to move the lowers down and the uppers up. All of the cutting and fitting is complete with exception of the upper shock mounts. I am going to order the shocks and wait until they come in to finalize the upper shock mounts. I have everything blown back apart for priming and paint. I leave for a work trip Friday, I hope to finish the jeep up in early May when I get back.

I feel your pain with the front axle. I built my front axle myself, it was the first axle I ever built. Cleanliness is really important and hard to maintain. I missed some metal shavings (probably from welding the truss on) and it worked its way into one of the pinion bearings.... five years after I built the axle.

What is your plan for shocks?

 

Thank you. Certainly been feeling buried with this project. After talking about building axles for 10 years, I can't wait to never do it again.

I'm keeping my same Bilstien 5100 shocks for now. They aren't blown out and new shocks are not in the budget at the moment. They're 10/11" travel and have served their purpose well enough over time. I'll have to add a few inches of bump stop in the front to stop from bottoming out the shocks, but it works out fine because I can't stuff my tires any deeper right now without doing high clearance inner fenders. At some point I'd love to hack the fenders out to build high clearance inners and taller shock hoops up into the engine bay, but this will do for now.

 

I'm with you 100%. I don't think I would have went to the effort I am now to install 12" shocks if I had good shocks on hand. The shocks I had on mine were cheapies that were blown out and too short.

 

Headway has been made!

After getting the front end to a point where I was feeling good, I got going on the rear.

Got my truss burned on and leaf perches placed. First time ever welding to cast. It was interesting. I preheated the pumpkin to ~400°F, welded, peened, post-heated, and wrapped in a blanket. Everything seemed to come out pretty good. I mocked the axle up under the weight of the rear end to verify pinion angle before burning the perches in, and it was a good thing I did.








I started to work on a detail that I had overlooked up to this point. The Dana 44's axle tubes are 80mm in diameter (3.150"). Nobody makes 80mm u-bolts. I debated using 3.250" u-bolts, which honestly probably would've been fine, and also looked into getting some custom made. I ended up going with Barnes u-bolt eliminators, because I found the cost was about the same as getting custom u-bolts made. Now I have some regular 5/8" grade 8 bolts instead of u-bolts,

After getting those burned on, I threw my angle finder on the axle tubes to see if it was still straight. Before welding, the tubes were within 0.5° of each other. After welding, they were not. Bummer. I measured almost 3° of difference between the two sides. I figured since I bent it with welding, I could fix it with welding, so I burned some beads across the bottom side of the axle until the tubes measured straight again. Good enough.


After that, the big moment, the gear setup. I had intended of paying somebody to do this, but some buddies of mine who are experienced with this said absolutely not, we're doing it ourselves. This was my first time setting up a diff, and it was an excellent learning experience. Gears aren't as mysterious as the internet makes them seem. Setting them up is just as painful as I feared though.









Drilling the ARB for larger ring gear bolts




Making an oil drain in the housing




WE BROKE THE COPPER LINE OFF THE SEAL HOUSING ($#%^%&*#^%&$*%!!)




Brazed it back on. Tested it for leaks, it held. Fingers crossed...




Got my *** reposted on Luke McMillin's story while watching the San Felipe 250





Nearing the end!






Buttoned up





Huge shoutout to these 2 fine dudes for going on an absolute shop party marathon to make this happen. I am very glad I didn't try to tackle this by myself. I am so excited about this rear end.


Back at my place, I wire wheeled everything and shot some paint. Very happy to not have a red truss on the front axle anymore.






Ran brake lines on the rear end





And got the rear end slung under the rig for good!






Up front, I installed limit straps and got my Canadian bump stops setup






and am getting the front end assembled




Just last night I was getting my brakes pieced together. I am doing this the hard way, because that's the only way I know how to do things. Instead of just buying JL brakes to put on the JK axle, I had to be fancy and piece together parts from different vehicles.

In this picture is a JK HD (BR6 package) rotor, 2012+ RAM 1500 calipers, and a special conversion bracket that allows these parts to play nice together (PN 68034720AA). This uses a 332mm (13.1") rotor and twin 54mm piston calipers. I had to be difficult because the JL calipers are "only" 51mm.

I'm sourcing some hardware to get all this stuff to play nice, but got it mocked up last night and it looks real good. The rotors aren't perfectly centered in the brackets, but everything looks like it should work well. There is only like 0.020" of clearance between the rotor and the tie rod end. Talk about tight. Look at these things though. Oh lawd is she gon stop. I'm so excited to have big brakes.








I do also have the rear completely assembled out to the calipers. I don't have a picture of those right now.


All these brakes are going to be put to good use. I did something I swore up and down I wouldn't do... I bought 37's.





I was so dead set on sticking with 35's, and I really wanted to find some skinny 35's too. I was convinced I was going to buy 35x11.5r17 Nitto Trail Grapplers because they're one of a few narrow options that come in load range C. However, these came up on marketplace for $800 for 5 and they looked too good to not use. They are almost 10 years old, which is unfortunate, but they look good. The 5th tire has never been driven on. I also bought these Mopar Performance wheels and had them mounted last week. These wheels should be awesome. They're 17" x 8.5" with 5.25" of back spacing. I haven't put them on the Jeep yet since having the tires installed, but my god do they look good. I'm happy to have such a high backspaced wheel. Should keep wheel bearings and power steering a bit happier. Fingers crossed they fit.


I'm pretty close to having this out of the garage! List is pretty short. All that is left is:

-install front brakes
-figure out front brake lines
-tighten all jam nuts on steering and control arms
-front and rear diff breathers
-fill diffs
-bleed brakes
-grease everything
-test drive!

If all goes to plan, I hope to have this out of the garage this weekend. I'm not going to finish getting the lockers operational just yet because I intend to road drive it a bit to break everything in then drive it to my wedding in 3 weeks! Holy moly big things are happening! Stay tuned!

 

Congrats on the upcoming marriage!

Thanks for this post. Seeing your progress is motivation for me to get out to the garage and wrap up my latest project on the jeep. I don't think I'll get mine out to any trails until this fall - best case. Do you have plans to take the jeep out soon? If so, where to?

 

Thank you! I’m very excited for the wedding. Should be a hell of a party.

I’m all too familiar with getting bogged down on my projects. Seems like I tend to bite off more than I can chew and end up getting to a point where I ask myself wtf I’m doing. Then, I keep poking away as I find the energy for it, and eventually I reach where I’m at right now where I’m full steam ahead getting it wrapped up and wicked happy with the results. Keep on keeping on, even if that means walking away from it for a while.

I don’t really have any major plans to take it out this year. We decided to skip the overland trip this year because we’re all pretty busy and I’m totally strapped for PTO. We’re honeymooning in September. However, I am doing a pretty cool offroad trip in July. A few of us are flying to Washington to ride the Washington Backcountry Discovery Route (WABDR). Some of these friends did the Idaho BDR last year, and I’ll never forgive myself for not being there. A buddy of mine in Seattle bought me a KLR650 on marketplace. I’m gonna fly out, throw a leg over it, and send it. Should be an absolute time.

Other than that, I’ll just use the Jeep. Keep exploring and mapping the old roads over here. Drive on some rocks, pick up groceries, just have a good time.

 

She lives!

Got my butt in gear and got through the last push to get the rig out of the garage!







First impression: 37's are huge and goofy and these wheels are hideous. BUT THAT DOESN'T MATTER! What matters is that it is out in the daylight and I'm on the tail-end of this project.
















Looking way back in my build thread, I've been talking about building axles since I first put 35's on the Jeep; TEN YEARS AGO. It feels surreal to have it done and driving. I had bought all the parts needed to do a WJ knuckle swap and regear my factory axles, which I should've installed all of that and used them for the last 10 years, but noooo, I had to plan the perfect build. Silly me. I bought RuffStuff steering parts in 2017 that I just recently got around to installing. I bought and tore into a Ford 44 front and 9 inch rear. I was shopping for one tons. I had a spreadsheet going for a 609 front end build. I researched pretty much every swap option that anyone has ever done, and finally, FINALLY, its done. I am elated.

The Jeep drives so friggen good right now. At first, it was quite darty/twitchy, but I added a couple degrees of caster and it settled down. I still would like to get it into a shop for an alignment.

Overdrive is useful again! Its so odd to take off and have it shift out of first gear so quickly. I've basically been driving my Jeep as a 3 speed for the last decade. Having the deep gears is great. I was pretty concerned that the gearing would be too low, but it didn't make nearly as much of a difference to driving experience as I imagined it would. I am running about 2000 rpm at 55 mph, which is fine by me. The Jeep is happy as a clam at 55.

The steering geometry is heavenly. No more bump steer! This thing is comfortable to drive with one hand. The steering is tight and quick. It feels excellent. Also, the turning radius is incredible. Even with the 37's, I can turn all the way to the steering stops at 42 degrees of steering. The wheels I have fit perfect. With 5.25" of back spacing, I have about 1/4" of clearance to the drag link tie rod end at full steering cut. Part of me was hoping I would be able to run stock JK wheels, which I technically still could, but I wouldn't be able to get the same steering angle. The width I got from these wheels is also perfect. Its about 2" more on each side compared to where it was. It matches my rear fender flares very well. I'm really looking at my front garden edging flares with a stink-eye right now. Definitely want to do something different there.

The best thing about the whole setup is the brakes. Holy lord this thing stops. After making my last post about why I chose to go with RAM calipers instead of JL stuff, I forgot to mention that most of the reason was so I can run Black Magic brake pads. I put these on my Dana 30 last year and noticed a good braking improvement. After going through the break-in process on them, I was doing some aggressive stops from 50, one of which literally gave me the feeling of your stomach dropping. And I didn't even give it everything it has because I had some stuff floating around in the back that was already turning into projectiles. It is impressive. The pedal feel leaves a little to be desired. I keep saying I hope I just need to bleed a bit better, but I'm really thinking the master cylinder might be a hair undersized. Recall I swapped a Durango MC in a few years back which has a 1-1/8" bore, same as a JL. I'll bleed more and report back.

This might be the first time since starting this thread that the performance of the vehicle matches the "go anywhere, do anything, anytime" title. Its a vision that has no "end", and this project has transformed the performance of the vehicle to match that vision.

All that said, this thing still is an old lifted Jeep. These tires are LOUD, as is everything else. Exhaust is fairly quiet though. I'm questioning if I'm getting a drone from my front end, but honestly I can't hear anything over the tires and the entire interior rattling/squeaking/resonating. With the big drivetrain upgrade done, I'm hoping to fix up the interior a bit this year to make it more comfortable. I also am going to brainstorm ways to move my rear axle back another inch, and drop the lift more. Also I am taking opinions on what color to paint these wheels.

For now, just gonna drive it. I'm hoping to daily it for the next few weeks to break the gears in. The wedding is a few hours away, so gotta get this thing ready to make the big journey!