I started out with a RE 3.5" Superflex, and then put in jks adjustabe coil spacers, so now I'm at about 5.25" on short arms. It rides like garbage.

I'm wondering how hard it would be to convert it to long arm. The LCA I think would be easy to do....just make the arms longer and make brackets farther back on the unibody stiffeners. My big question is on the UCAs. What would I need to do to these? Drop the mounts and use stock arms? Try to get RE LA UCAs?

If anyone has done this or has advice for me, I'd appreciate it!

 

Easiest, cheapest and most effective thing you could do is install control arm drob brackets. They work great, will fix your ride problems, and even make it more capable off road.

 

its not cheap to get long arms... and your gonna have to get make a bracket to go from side to side of the vehicle to support the lca's if you do something yourself. RE long arms use brackets on the lca to mount the uca.

Like the other guy said drop brackets would work for now, but if your thinking about long arms my guess is you will still want them after you get drop brackets. lots of places make great products with adjustable uppers and lowers for fine tuning. but again, not cheap.

IMO , leave it to the profesionals when it comes to designing arms and stuff that messes with your steering, anything slightly off or wrong will throw all kinds of problems your way.

I thought i might want long arms eventually, so i got them from the start, now no worries about needing them in the future

- Chuck

 

built my own long arms...only have the lowers in and it made a world of difference in the ride.(still waiting on an order from ballistic fab to finish it not happy)

 

Do a radius long arm or "y-arms" as some people call it. Very simple and your ride quality will improve.

 

Thanks for the input. I saw that RE makes a drop bracket kit for about $320. I might do that rather than making my own.

But, like jfiedler said, I might end up wanting to go long arm and then I wasted my money. Do long arm kits drop and lengthen the UCAs? Because the drop kit wouldn't be a total loss if I still would need the UCA drop brackets.

What is this radius arm thing excatly, N20? It sounds like something that attaches one place on the unibody then Y's to two places on the axle? How would that work for articulation? I can't say I've seen that before, on an XJ anyway.

I am a little cautious about messising with this, steering being the big thing. I'm not so worried about strength as I tend to overbuild things, its more the alignment and issues like that.

 

you would be better off saving for a 4.5 or 5.5 suspension. you are never gonna have the performance you would like out of current setup.

seen this done a couple times. not fan sorry.

 

a radius arm is what most of these "long arm upgrade" kits are. its a long LCA that attaches to a new LCA mounting point on the frame. and the UCA is attatched to the LCA so it forms a y shape. it uses all the factory control arm mounts on the axle, and only requires a new crossmember to be fabbed that will mount the LCA's. very basic setup.

the flex is nice, not as much as a 3-link, but still very nice. but the driveability and handling is much better than a 3-link setup.

as for the alignment. you just make one end on uca, and atleast one end adjustable on the lca to dial in caster. which can be measured simply with an angle finder.

 

seen what done? long arms?

 

Its pretty straight foward, engineered to be driveable on road and flex like gumby on a hot day

some pics... not mine, but a good idea of what you will get with this setup and the right lift hieght...

 

those grey arms you see in first pic mount to a crossmember that is beeef..usda certified lol..from re anyways. that is bolted up tp the unibody and whala, long arms

 

http://www.ironrockoffroad.com/Merch...egory_Code=PFX

http://www.ironrockoffroad.com/Merch...egory_Code=PFX

Iron Rock has a nice longarm setup

 

This kit looks simple and sweet. I think I'll call them to see how it would work with the unibody stiffeners and if I can run it without thier crossmember, becasue I have already beefed mine and it is incorperated into my tcase skid plate. And if they knock off the $250 they want for the crossmember, it would be about the same as RE's drop bracket kit.

How is this setup on the road? I'm assuming they don't tie into both axle UCA mounts to increase flex, but to me that would put more stress on the other UCA mout, and maybe hurt steering/handling. Does anybody DD with this setup?

 

Check out ironman4x4fab long arms.

 

yeah to the guy that suggested control arm drop brackets... MOST kits on the market require at least 4.5" lift