How much can I/Should I stretch front end?
 

I've decided to stay at 3" of lift a while ago and massively trim my fenders for larger and larger tires. Call me a mad man, or cheap, but I decided for my setup and budget to build a capable short arm rig rather than throw big bucks at a long arm that I can't use to its full potential at 3" lift. I've got fully adjustable upper and lower control arms with rebuildable joints and what not. How much stretch y'all think I can get away with? 1"? 1/2'? Is it even worth messing with other than correcting my caster angle?

why can't you use the full potential of long arms at 3"? they add droop... not up travel...

I would vote long arm. if your going to do anything. I stretched my front by 5 inches and backed it down to for so i was 100.5 short armed now 104.5 long armed made a big difference on and off the road but I also went to bronco axels.

I see zero advantage to any stretching really with a 31" tire and a 3" lift just center it up and be happy. Buy a good set of shocks for sure they are a good investment anytime.

If your going "Bigger and Bigger Tires" you better plan on a lot of other upgrades before hand like gears, axles, real lockers, replacing the D35 for sure and on and on.

Bigger anything in off roading spells more money you have to invest. That's why I have stopped at 4 1/2" of lift (short arm till next spring) then long arm but even to this point has became quite costly in terms of getting everything else up to par. Now all I need to do is the long arm next spring everything else is done.

I'm on 33's now with 4.56's should have went 4.88's may move to 35's later haven't decided yet will see what I need for several trails I want to run. For now I'm happy with the 33's I've been running for the last 1 1/2 yrs.

Long arms, 3"OME lift, 13" 5150 up front, front axle is about 2.5" forward.

Attachment 251975

without doing something about your track bar, steering, rotating knuckles/coil buckets you're gonna have trouble keeping everything in line. I stretched mine about 3" and it's perfect except I didn't rotate my coil buckets. now my coil springs are bowed. but that's an easy fix. unless you're fabbing/swapping in a new front axle dont bother. just get yourself as close to decent caster angle as you can and call it a day

How's your long arms look at level ground? There was a debate on naxja about low height and long arms and as far as I could see, any long arm under 3.5" is going to invert those arms and risk smashing those arms into your uniframe. Only option I can see is if you have a high clearance mount where the arms connect inside the frame not under it

Bumpstops. I kept it low so I dont have much uptravel.

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if you run straight lowers there really isnt any chance of hitting subframe if your running "hi-clearance" curved lowers on a short lift you might have some issues