Theoretically, sure. I've rode/drove both setups and can honestly say, the closer to stock, the better the ride/handling on road. Therefor, imo, 4.5" on CAD brackets drive/ride/handle better than 4.5" radius LA. Just my experience. But then again, the ride is mostly controlled by spring rates, shocks and shackle angles. CA's deal more with handling. Unless you're running 10" on stock brackets. Then it's going to ride like a lawn mower.

 

Long arms are super cool. No getting around that.

But you better know what the heck you are doing if you are buying them for a better ride! Because although they may have more potential. Probably 5:1 I see a worse ride our of long arms. Quite a few hardly drivable.

In my opinion its because you are changing so much you have to seriously make an effort to get that nice ride back. In which it still will not match stock.

 

i think a good pair of shocks will go a long way with ride quality

 

I completely agree. not needed in the money vs. usefulness debate for most average wheelers

and here is where you are high as ****. I ran the hell out of my short arms and then upgraded to long arms. night and day difference. the stability on the freeway and cornering was SIGNIFICANTLY improved. I feel much safer now. body roll and poor drivability is directly related to white body shocks, crappy factory steering design, and or bad tires/alignment/caster

long arms are amazing. if you can get your hands on a decent used set or afford a new set, DO IT. they turned tooth rattling back jarring roads into a smooth ride and opened up a whole new world of wheeling for me. and my axle actually stays in the center of my wheel well where it belongs

utilize limit straps and bump stops people

 

also. I hate the idea of drop brackets. skip that idea completely IMO. but hey whatever works for ya I guess..

 

Why do you hate drop brackets good sir? JW

 

I spend a lot of time in the rocks. when backing off of something to choose a different line, I do not want to be hung up by some big bracket hanging off my frame. its personal preference. the drop bracket method may work great for some jeepers, I cant argue it I've never ran them . but while they might do something to fix the lower control arm angle, they still don't do anything for the upper arms. I cant imagine them being comparable to long arms in any way

IMO stick with cheap simple short arms or just go big. people are rarely content with the "in between" option

 

Drop brackets relocate both upper and lower control arm mounts. Also I am running the rc drop brackets(all brands are comparable), and flex lower arms I have only scraped them a few times(and never been hung up on them). I run some pretty nice trails and I love creekbeds with a lot of rocks and staircases. I'm running 35" tires 5.5" lift locked front and rear. Honestly everything that the drop brackets hit, long arms would as well. The clearence at the stock mount is about the same from drop brackets to long arms. I've measured. The ride quality is a great improvement over regular short arms. And I can unseat a coil enough to remove it. So any more flex would require coilovers. So honestly I don't see any point at all in going to long arms

 

Wrong. They drop both upper and lower arms. They are comparable to LA's imo. I would rather run CAD brackets than a radius LA setup. I can understand from your pov though considering you've never ran them. For all the time i've spent on rocks, mine have never hung up, but i can see where they would under the right circumstance.

 

I can unseat coils also, lol. I just think people underestimate these brackets. I don't agree with the '...don't see any point at all in going to long arms.' though. A well built 3 link in the front doesn't compare in terms of flex. Road handling is a different story.

 

I didn't say I don't see any point in long arms, I would love to have a true 3 or 4 link. The point I was making is that as ell as my CAD setup works. I just can't justify spending all the cash. Now if money wasn't an option, I would be running a triangulated 4 link. Or a true 3 link

 

I've run stock, I've run CADs, I've run LAs.

If you're going to run something other than stock just go ahead and save up for the LAs. You'll be buying and swapping to long arms in the future anyway. (I just know.)

I really didn't notice a huge difference in ride quality on the road between the CADs and LAs but noticed a pretty significant difference on the trail.

Also, if you're going to buy LAs... don't get a radius arm set-up. You want a 3 or 4-link. If you're going to buy radius arms anyway then I'd suggest you just buy CADs.

 

Actually he was correct. Long arms need over 3" lift. Some require 5.5" such as Full Traction.

 

Yeah with all that hardcore offroading you do, you need every inche of clearance you can get.


I've heard just the opposite Bheath. The theory and physics dont lie, a longer arm transmits less force into the body and more into the springs.

I installed the CAD on my jeep and they made a big difference. With the stock control locations the arms were around a 30-40 degree angle. This means a portion of the force goes right up the arm and into the body while the rest goes to the spring. The CAD put the arms near parallel to the ground so nearly 100% of the force goes right into the springs and almost nothing up the arm. I noticed pretty substantial difference in ride comfort/quality with the CAD in.

They could cause issues but you would need to be goin up stop STEEP, SHARP rocks for it to interfere. The brackets drop and go back around 2 inches, realistically the chance of having a rock hit that high before the tire hits and starts riding up are pretty slim.

 

no freakin way! I never did notice that but you're right. that's what you get for never actually reading the product description. I was just looking at the RC ones and I have dents in my frame where those brackets would go

well you have me convinced that they probably work fine. but in my mind they'll always be in the same category as the hack n tap SYE and wheel spacers, etc. it's not the product itself, just the idea of it