4" (ish) lift kits

doc-ketamine

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I've been doing some forum digging and would like some help tipping my decision. I am looking at 4" to 5" lift kits and of course what's on the menu is Rough Country, BDS, and Rubicon Engineering ...

Bear with me!

The overall plan in the coming years is a rock crawler (the 94 YJ is my toy vehicle) but I need to take a season or two to see what breaks, what my tolerances are and the vehicle, etc. In order to eventually get to 37" tires on a big lift I'll need to upgrade both axles - and am not ready to do yet. Will buy body armor and skids, etc.

So which lift might get me through 1-2 seasons, reliably, with 33" or 35" tires? I'd like to cut my teeth on blues and blacks (I take my JTR w/ 2" lift and 35" tires on blues and blacks now). Costs are $850 for the RC X-series, $1215 for the RE, over $1500 for the BDS.

I try to live "buy once cry once" but that won't really work here. Maybe the question I'm asking is ... would the RC X-series be "good enough" until I replace the axles?
 
I’d go RE in that case for best quality. RC X-Series is basically their normal springs with a military wrap and 1.25” shackles. Their springs sit at about 3” of lift. Even their 2.5 and 4” standard kits both sit about the same height although they have different part numbers. The X-Series shackles severely (negatively) affect handling. They knock the caster from 6°ish down to about -1° if I remember right.

I had the BDS 3.5” for a while (the 4.5” is just the same springs with 2” longer shackles for an extra inch of lift). If you go with BDS, do NOT do the heavy duty rear springs that they recommend for a hardtop. The line about “they’ll still ride great without the top” is pure crap, they rode horribly. Basically the heavy duty ‘upgrade’ is just buying 4 front springs rather than the springs they make for the rear that are weaker. The weaker/softer ones are the way to go. That said, I have not tried those. Also, I had a sagging spring so I’m not sure the quality is all there.

I have not seen many bad reviews of RE. Buddy of mine had both their 4.5 and 2.5 kits and liked each of them. They are good quality components.

If you’re going to stick to 33’s for that temporary time frame, then I’d say do the 4” Rough Country and maybe a 1.25” body lift. The 4” springs will still only sit about 3” high but you’ll save a bunch of money. The only downside to the RC stuff (since you would avoid the bad shackles) is that the leaf spring bushings are terrible and the shocks are mediocre. But for temporary, the shocks are no big deal and you can fix the bushings if you push the supplied ones out and put in some poly ones instead.

So it comes down to money vs quality really. RE is nicer, but RC will get the job done, though I’d skip the X series.
 
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As chance would have it, I've already purchased poly leaf spring bushings as I was planning on replacing things to see what smoothes out.

I'd need an SYE, and maybe some shims, regardless of kit - right?

Thanks!
 
As chance would have it, I've already purchased poly leaf spring bushings as I was planning on replacing things to see what smoothes out.

I'd need an SYE, and maybe some shims, regardless of kit - right?

Thanks!
Cool - I think RCs would need a 1.25” bushing at the shackle and 1.5” at the frame, hopefully that’s what you got. REs and BDS are 1.5” each end. Stock is same size as the RCs. The RCs use a rubber bushing packed into a sleeve and then pressed into the spring, so removal is basically lots of patience. Remove the sleeve, cut the rubber, etc. sawzall or similar can cut the sleeve. After that you can just pop in the polys.

Yes, good to get on board with the SYE now. With RC springs and no shackles, they would come with 6° shims. I ran those in my RC 2.5” lift (again, same height as their 4” kit pretty much which also comes with 6° shims) for years and they were perfect for a 4.0 manual. Auto trans is a bit shorter than manual so it has a bit longer rear driveshaft so you maybe would want 4° shims but you can experiment with all that afterwards, no real way to know beforehand.
 
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