Lead Foot

First. Do you wash your jeep before you work on it? Lol it looked like you ran through a mud hole before you started tearing it apart... You will be much happier working under a clean Jeep. Also, I know the whole point of a jeep is to get it dirty. It sounds like you are the type if person that likes to compete for the muddiest truck on the road award. Just FYI. Wash your jeep after each wheeling trip and all the parts on it will last ALOT longer.

A bastard pack will not net you the amount of lift you need unless you literally stack up the leads to gain 1/4" from the thickness of each leaf. There is nothing wrong with a STEEL 2" lift block as long as it is accompanied by an anti-wrap bar.

If you run a 350. What are your plans for transmission and t case? Maybe I missed that? You will be just as happy with a stroked strait 6, or even happier. Less weight, decent low end torque, better fuel mileage, less modification needed.

I haven't seen anything about an SYE. Please tell me you have already or will be installing one. Yes you will need to push your front axle a few inches forward and your back axle a few inches back. If your front arms aren't long enough to get the adjustment out of them you will need to relocate the long arm frame mounts which will include modifying your trans mount. The back axle can be moved back easily by choosing offset perches and u bolt plates when you do your axle swap. PLEASE don't waist your time and money building the stock axles if you plan on running a 35 or bigger. Do it right the first time with a set of 44s or a 44 and ford 9. Don't worry about narrowing them. As you already mentioned, you will need all the width you can get for stability. As I mentioned in behemoths thread. Take the couple hours it will take you to cut off and rotate the axle C's do you can run the proper pinion and caster angle without spending ridiculous amounts of money on drivelines that don't work and try to band aid the real problem.

Plate the unibody or else you will have cracking and tearing issues with the extra axle weight, engine torque, and bigger tires. And for the love of god, put a cage on that thing before you roll it at that height. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

I don't necessarily agree with your choice of build. That said, I am not going to tear your preference down. Instead I want to help you build the rig right for this lift height. I will say, I wheeled a XJ on 8" of lift and 35s for a few years. I felt it was too tall and I wasn't able to wheel it the way I wanted. I am currently working on building my new rig at 6.5" on 37s. I feel I will be much happier.

Bohemoth. Please don't say you are a cross between crawling and jeep speed. Your rig wouldn't last in jeep speed at that height, not even close. Like you said yourself, it gets squeerly around 40mph already. Your rig might look good on the rocks. You might have a lot of belly pan clearance. But you can't climb the same waterfalls a XJ on 5" of lift and 35s can. You will topple over backwards. You cant take obstacles on the sides of rock crawling courses that lower jeeps can. You will land it on the side. And most importantly. Wheres the cage? That is a mandatory component in any rig wanting to compete in one of those events. You are not nearly set up for one of those competitions.

Another question for you. At what angle are you looking at you steering setup and seeing that it is parallel to your axle? Your steering isn't even close to parallel. And on that note, it's not so important that it parallel to the axle, but that it be parallel to the track bar. From point to point. Yes, the flatter your track bar and steering is, the less side to side movement your axle will have through travel. But because of clearance, this is really hard to accomplish. Another thing to touch on. The higher your track bar is while keeping it flat as possible, the higher your roll center will be. The more stable your rig will be around corners and while in off camber situations. At this lift height you need all the stability you can get.

Heyitisjoe

thanks for the post lead foot. haha yeah i wash it as much as i can but problem is im always tearing through the mud. its like 50 feet from the gate of my base so i just drive it there 25mph on base so i dont gotta worrie about wreckin it at that speed.

as for the basterd pack, im almost where i need to be on lift in the rear so im gonna try that first and if i need to ad 1inch blocks then i will.

if i do the 350 swap, i was going to use the th400 trans with a dana 300 transfercase flipped and with the novac adapter.

as for the sye, i currently have no rear driveshaft in it, im deployed so it made me put a pause on the build. 4 months till i get to be back to workin on my girl. my front axle has more room to move so im gettin on that when i get a chance.

I used a MJ 4 inch lift leaf spring set so it actualy moved my rear axle back about 2 inches and gave me about 8inches of lift.

do you have a build thread on how to cut the axle C's and rotate them, or a link to someone elses thread, i think i understand what your talking about but i wanna make sure i do it right when the time comes.

yeah i wanna plate the whole unibody and replace the whole floor with a thicker grade, and plus theres not to much solid floor left haha.

and my reason to build it this tall is because i only have one parking spot and i need to park my car underneath the jeep. haha jk i know its less practical and has its downfalls but thats how i wanted to build it, its not for compotition im just havin fun. half the funs the build atleast it is for me.

and for a cage i dont know i kinda wanna do a exocage and tie it in to rock sliders, trailer hitch, bumpers and unibody. cause i plan on slideing against trees, and being as tall as it is, if i roll it i wanna be able to drive it again, if i have a cage rather than a exo likely that i will have to get a new xj and transfer everything over.

TONS o FUN

Chime in all you want but SERIOUSLY... dont take anything from a guy running THAT track bar setup! "you are the weakest link, GOODBYE!"
Also Im not sure what the heck your talking about for the shock movement situation perhaps you didnt cut your fenders properly or something I NEVER had an issue with my shocks even coming within 4 inches of sheet metal and I run 8 inches of lift and 18 inches of travel.
this jeep is yet another fool and his money are soon parted situation.... if you DIDNT drop money into that paint job you MIGHT have had enough to do a simple axle swap and not worry about ANY of those issues!


I did a budget d60 axle swap and when I say BUDGET i mean BUUUUUUUDDDDDGGGGGEEEETTTTTT the FULL swap including driveshafts brackets gears the WHOLE axle assemblies tires wheels spacers adapters new shocks front and all other fabrication was done on my jeep for under 2k, granted I was VERY patient when it came to things like gears and wheels and tires I had to wait for a craigslist deal on those items which are the higher dollar items but the rest I bought from either Currie or Ballistic fabrication.
heres mine the day I finished it


and some usability pics



those are 37 inch boggers H2 Wheels about 7.5 to 8 inches of lift, all brackets came from either ballistic fab or currie all joints were from currie and are either johnny joints or heims
My steering was UNDER 100$ and guidance from a good offroader/fabricator and thus far shes held up perfectly

so honestly Im not listening to ANYTHING bohemeth has to say as far as lift and steering... but I WILL take notes on a paint scheme!

Lowrange2

That kids pissed!

"Get this **** out of my swimming area!!!"

N20jeep

I'm sure he is talking about the shock body hitting the xj during articulation, since they are shocks with the body mounted up top.

Lowrange2

Ya know, that's strange. I've run Bilstein 5150's for a couple years now and haven't had a problem with hitting my shock body's. They're in the stock location as far as I know.

N20jeep

Ive seen it on the taller lifts before.

But its mainly a problem that people with coilovers have when they don't do propper measuring before burning in mounts.

Lowrange2

Gotcha. I wouldn't call my 5" a tall lift. Silly tall lifts.

TONS o FUN

I see his shocks are not the typical design but again I STILL dont see how that can happen
here is a picture of the shock area on a stock setup cherokee as far as that area goes so show me WHERE your shock would touch sheet metal on down travel does he mean it touches on the OTHER side where the body of the shock would touch the "frame" that I could see happening possibly!

in all honesty fabrication is ALLLLL trial and error research it drop the green to make it and run it and check it out! youll find out fairly fast if the idea works, in my whole build the only thing I need to modify is to add an anti-wrap bar
OR here after my run next weekend is to convert to coils in the back with a longarm kit custom made for my XJ.
11 inches... SURE if you dont mind scraping your roof line the FIRST thing you need to address if your going that big and still hitting trails with trees is reinforcing the roof rack, mine goes THROUGH the roof and ties into the body of the jeep, the UPPER portion of my rack will be demolished if I roll it over however where I have those roof sliders is the end of the road for damage.

Lowrange2

I bet that'd be the first time anyone has ever linked the back of an XJ! I gotta see pictures!


I'm impressed! Are you impressed?!

Lead Foot

I've gotten REALLY close. Maybe a slight rub here and there. What he is referring to Is the shock body hitting the outside of the uni-frame "rail" under articulation. I can definitely see it happening on his drivers side since his track bar is at such an angle it will pull the whole axle to the passenger side during compression of the passenger side on an obstacle.

N20jeep

During articulation yours axle side shock mounts move inward. With a large top mounted shock body the clearence between the framerails can be small enough to cause contact

TONS o FUN

What?

Lowrange2

Your custom made linked rear super coil conversion. I'd like to see it when you're finished.

TONS o FUN

Soooo I sense a little sarcasm, is it supposed to be unattainable?
this is from your OWN forum.... simple design and functional!
no this is NOT my setup however I have done the research and know HOW to do it! the only difficult part for me is to be patient for paychecks to come in, having 4 kids aint cheap!
at THIS point my only obstacle is leaving the exhaust alone... I prefer to have the exhaust exit the vehicle perimeter
so at THIS point my other option is to run a standard longarm setup like a radius style offers and run a track bar behind the axle.