Rough Country takes care of the steering issue in their 4.5" long arm kit. It comes with a drop trackbar and drop pitman arm. This stuff gets the angles better than what they are at 4.5". But anyways....

Old man emu does have excellent road manners. I ran both 2" kits on my TJ and my XJ. No other lift kit that I've had comes close to their ride quality. If you want to get into the 3" range, get the OME kit along with a 1" coil spacer and old man emu AAL from Jeepinoutfitters or dirk at dpgoffroad. I even have a set of OME AA's for sale in the for sale forum. Or you can get coil spacer for up front and a 1" shackle for the rear. That'll give you 3".

http://www.jeepinoutfitters.com/scri...idproduct=1185

http://www.jeepinoutfitters.com/scri...idproduct=1398

http://www.jeepinoutfitters.com/scri...?idCategory=72


Keep in mind, OME rides very nicely because their shocks and springs are designed to work together PLUS they keep their lift kits low, hence the 2" 2.5" maximum height, because a lesser control arm angle equals a better ride. To achieve the best ride is to keep the control arms as parallel with the ground as possible, and that's achieved by a low lift height, drop brackets, or long arms. If you upgrade to 4" with the OME kit, your ride will become a bit rough and stiff from the angles of the control arms. Not to mention the OME 2.5" shocks will be too short so you will have to upgrade them or extend em.

Which brings us back to the long arm kit. For the money, you will have a very nice riding long arm kit for about the same price as the OME+1" or 2" upgrades. Yeah you'll have to ditch out a little more to get a sye but that's just $190 plus a front shaft from a junkyard or fellow jeeper. You won't have to buy all the upgrades needed for an OME 2" + 1" or 2" upgrade kit. Arms, coils, shocks, brake lines, trackbar, sway bar links, etc are all included in the RC kit.

But either way, it's up to you and your $$. OME will give ya a great ride and is upgradable to 3" or 4" and RC's long arm will also give you a great ride for a comparable price plus you are "done" with the suspensions since long arms is usually where most people end up after a few years of upgrading.

What size tires are you aiming for?


Here's a 2" OME HD kit with 1" upgrade (coils and ome AAL) and 31's.

 

Talk about bogus info, you don't NEED to get an SYE for anything over 2.5" there are plenty of people running 3" up to even 5" without SYE and no issues. I personally have been running 3" for about 500 miles now with no issues and no SYE, thats with a pinion angle that isn't exact either. Is a SYE a good idea with any lift? Absolutely, it also is expensive and not absolutely necessary. I have a buddy who successfully ran 5" on a 98 XJ with no SYE and no issues for 6 months, he ended up selling the Jeep to make $$ off of it. There's not reason needing an SYE versus not needing one would differentiate between years, they all use the same transfer cases and the same axels. Regearing can be put off too, I have stock 3.07s with 31s and I can still bark tires in second gear on dry pavement if I really push it, I can get the inside tire spining on a corner with no issues too. For anything below a 33" you can get away without regearing and be ok.

 

Thanks for giving him that proper info, my bad on not mentioning that, it was late and I was tired. I agree that drop brackets will make a HUGE difference in ride quality, however once you get a set of drop brackets and new LCAs you're gonna be about $450 into it, might as well spend the extra $150 to get a Long Arm kit if you ever plan to do wheeling where you'll need that 4.5"+ of lift.

 

not much tech here. Moved to chat

 

I put together my kit with OME parts. I used 93-98 Grand Cherokee V8 front coils that got me approximately 3 inches of lift and some spacers for a total of 5 inches in the front and OME XJ rear leafs for 3 inches with a Rusty's 1 1/2 inch add-a-leaf for 4 1/2 inches lift in the rear.

 

http://www.rocky-road.com/xjtrailblazer.html