Question on ride quality change and the potential culprit from your experience:

This weekend, I finally got around to installing my Rough Country Budget Boost to my 94 XJ Sport - extended rear shackles and coil spacers up front. I added their steering stabilizer shock to replace the stock shock and I also installed their 1.5" wheel spacers all the way around to my 10 hole stock Jeep wheels. Subtle change, but Jeep looks like it should.

Along with a number of other items discovered and repaired when I had the Jeep pulled apart that wouldn't affect ride quality, I did break both sway bar links and replaced those with new.

I did NOT replace any of the 4 shocks that all look stock. Pure black, plenty of junk falling out of them when removed. That said, seemed to ride just fine before mods.

Everything has been torqued to spec.

Before these changes, the Jeep performed great other than a less than desireable "roll" when cornering.

Good news: other than it now looking great, it corners much better. I guess the 3" wider stance and stearing stabilizer helped this.

Not as good news: while most of my research suggested ride quality would not change, it rides much stiffer now in my opinion and is quite "clunky" when taking on any bumps in the road. Also, it almost seems like engine performance (acceleration mainly) isn't as great either although I can't understand how that would be affected.

So given that context, from your experience is there something I should change or should be looking for? My first thought is, did the boost bring to light shock issues that I should address that could be creating the clunkiness? Do wheel spacers affect any of this?

 

Spacing the wheels out would out more leverage on the axle, and affecting how the shock can dampen the force. I don't know how much it could affect ride but I guess it could.
I would probably start with a good shock first. If they are original they are probably beat anyway, and now they are riding out of the position they have been in for their entire life.

 

If you've ever driven a small, low to the ground vehicle, it feels like you're going faster than you really are due to your relation to the ground.

The higher up you sit, the slower it feels, because you have a larger field of vision.

I'm thinking that you might just be noticing this effect... and that it's not actually accelerating slower.

 

If you were noticing body roll before then your shocks were probably weak already so when you added the lift it probably made it worse, so you may want to find some good replacement shocks. As far as acceleration you've raised the vehicle so your now dragging more air, that might account for a small decrease in power.